EXTRACT

What an opening for an evangelist! How much happier to be entirely under the Lord’s hand than marking out one’s own course as a servant. Philip, it says, “beginning from that scripture, announced the glad tidings of Jesus to him”. He went a step further; he completely won the eunuch’s heart for Christ! Is your heart won for Christ? You require two things—first, to know Jesus as the Person, the One in whom is every divine beauty, and then to know Him officially, for God has a system of His own, and He has anointed Jesus to carry out all His will. As attracted to Jesus, you are delighted with every official position He fills. The eunuch says, “Behold water; what hinders my being baptised?” Virtually he is saying, ‘I want to die’. Then it says, “And they went down both to the water”. That may be where the difficulty lies with many, for baptism signifies your death with Christ, your complete severance from this world. Young people complain of want of companionship, and the cry is raised that there is not sufficient provision made for the young. But the Lord is extraordinarily interested in young people, and has omitted nothing for their happiness. He has not overlooked them; but the question is, Is your heart really won for Christ? If so, baptism has a place; you regard it as a necessity. The eunuch says, “Behold water; what hinders my being baptised?” He was thinking of Jesus; His life was taken from the earth, and he virtually says, ‘I want to die, I want to be in correspondence with that Man’. He was like Ruth, who said, “Where thou diest will I die, and there will I be buried”, Ruth 1: 17.

J. Taylor (Vol. 98, pp.44, 45)

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