I think this text wants us to be open to, aware of, and receptive to, is that there's another piece to the puzzle, namely here and there, now and then, according to his good pleasure, God extraordinarily leads his church. In breakthroughs,

in evangelism and world missions that we'd never have achieved had we only done what we planned

to do. Of course, John Piper is talking about the conversion of the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8,

which is really an extraordinary story as we're going to see.

I'm Dan Kroover.

In this episode of Light and Truth, John Piper looks at the account of a very unlikely candidate

for conversion, an account that should daily encourage

us in our own efforts to evangelize.

This message was originally delivered at Bethlehem Baptist Church on May 26, 1991.

What stands out to me in this text, I hope it stands out to you, is that a very unlikely

candidate for conversion, indeed for evangelization at all, is reached and is saved by a means that went totally against all human planning and would never have happened

had Philip relied only on planning that he could do by his own mind based on scripture and prayer.

The Ethiopian eunuch would not have been touched by God and brought into the kingdom, had not the angel of the Lord stood forth, spoken to Philip in a most unusual and remarkable way, and told him, in verse 26, rise, go toward the south to a road that goes down from jerusalem to gaza and philip obedient

just like abraham not knowing what he was going for goes down and stands there by the road evidently

now what lord and along comes a chariot and the lord says verse 29 it says the spirit says first it was the angel now it's a, verse 29, it says the spirit says, first it was the angel, now it's the spirit.

Verse 29, go up and join this chariot.

That's all.

Not what for, not who's there, not why, not what to say.

There's a great lesson here in our guidance.

How many times have you been in a situation where you have felt the word or the nudge or the push of the Lord into a situation and you've said, but what am I going to say? And there's no answer. Well, why am I going? Well, I don't know. Philip doesn't know what's going on here. He just knows first, go to the road. All right, I'm at the road. Now what? Go to the chariot. All right. I'm at the

chariot. Now what? And that's it. The Lord doesn't need to say anymore because when he gets within

earshot of the chariot, things begin to fall into place for Philip because he hears being read out loud. The timing of the Lord is absolutely incredible.

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