The sermon 'Baby Steps' by Peter Allison draws parallels between the historical Hatfield-McCoy feud and the longstanding animosity between Jews and Samaritans. It examines Acts 8, where the early church begins reconciling these ancient divisions through the scattering of believers. The sermon highlights the difference between destructive and constructive scattering, using agricultural metaphors to describe how this scattering was intended to spread the Gospel and bear fruit. Philip's mission to Samaria is emphasized as a pivotal step in breaking down racial and historical barriers, illustrating how the Gospel can heal deep-seated animosities. The sermon differentiates between general evangelism and the role of commissioned heralds, explaining that while all Christians are called to share the Gospel, specific individuals like Philip are sent as official representatives. The presence of miracles and joy in Samaria is cited as evidence of true revival, emphasizing that genuine change involves liberation from spiritual bondage. The sermon calls for believers to be salt and light, spreading the Word wherever they are scattered.

Our scripture reading this morning is Acts chapter 8, beginning at verse 4. Verse 4. Stephen has been martyred and carried to his burial where a great lamentation was made and As a result is this scattering, persecution. And we pick up then the account at verse 4. Therefore those who were scattered went everywhere preaching the word.

Then Philip went down to the city of Samaria and preached Christ to them. And the multitudes with one accord heeded the things spoken by Philip, hearing and seeing the miracles which He did. For unclean spirits, crying with a loud voice, came out of many who were possessed, and many who were paralyzed and lame were healed. And there was great joy in that city." May the Lord consider our affliction and deliver us as we remember His law. Heavenly Father, help us to remember Your Word, to lay it up in our hearts.

Help us, Lord, this morning to hear your Word as it is brought to us. And enable us, Lord, to not sin against You because we have Your Word hid in our hearts. And I ask that You would sanctify my sinful lips this morning, that they might proclaim the riches of Your grace. And may You be exalted in our midst and lifted up. And May Your Holy Spirit accompany the preaching of Your Word.

In Jesus' name, Amen. Well, during the Civil War, two families, one from Kentucky and one from West Virginia, developed a very bitter, bitter animosity toward each other. Bitter hatred and a desire for revenge for everything that was done, for every added insult, fueled a bloody warfare between these two families that went on for nearly 30 years. Dozens of family members were killed, often brutally, being riddled with bullets. And considering how many were killed, it's amazing that only nine were imprisoned of these family members, and only one was actually ever executed.

You probably know these families as the Hatfield-McCoy family feud. It's become legendary. Even the flood wall along the Tug Fork River in West Virginia that was constructed by the Army Corps of Engineers is decorated with depictions of this family feud, this war. And in case you think this is all just ancient history from the previous two centuries ago, it wasn't until June 14, 2003, in Pikeville, Kentucky, that the descendants of the Hatfield and McCoy families declared an official truce between the families. Rio Hatfield said he wanted to show that if the two families could reach an accord, others could also.

And it was signed by more than 60 descendants during one of their gatherings. And it said, in part, we ask by God's grace and love that we be forever remembered as those that bound together the hearts of two families to form a family of freedom in America." And the governor of Kentucky, Paul Patton, and the governor of West Virginia, Bob Wise, signed proclamations proclaiming June 14, the Hatfield-McCoy Reconciliation Day. That's in most of your lifetime. But you know, family feuds and wars like this and racial hatred is not unique to the United States. Not at all.

In fact, by historical standards, the Hatfield-McCoy feud is rather short-lived and mild. The Jews had a racial feud, a family feud that went back for nearly a thousand years. And it was between people of the same family. This chapter marks the baby steps that the early church took to bring reconciliation to this bad blood between the Jews and the Samaritans. And this story begins with the great scattering, something we looked at last week, Sometimes called the diaspora.

And that's just a transliteration of the Greek word that's used here for Scattering. This is the first diaspora in the New Testament age. There were scatterings in the Old Testament, but this is the first in the New Testament. This word Scatter is worth looking at a minute in the context of this chapter in this passage. Because the word scatter, the word itself scatter, it's not an uncommon word in the New Testament.

It's used many times actually. For example, in Mark 14, Jesus said all of you, speaking of His passion night and His betrayal, all of you will be made to stumble this night, for it is written, I will strike the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered. Or in Luke 1-51, quoting a passage that says He had scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. But that's not the word that's used for scatter in this instance. The word that's used here is not the word that's used in all those other instances.

The word that's normally used means to squander. In other words, it's a destructive scattering. Like Moses grinding up that golden calf into powder and scattering it on the water and making the Israelites drink it. Or in Acts 5, Gamaliel referred to Thutis' disciples being scattered and coming to nothing. A number of men followed him.

Then he was slain and everybody that obeyed him was scattered and it came to nothing. It was a destructive scattering. The verb that Luke uses here is different, and it's different in a very interesting way and instructive way. The word that's used here is formed from two words. The first word is the word to sow, as in sowing seed.

And you've seen the old ways of sowing seed. You scatter the seed. The Word of God is said to be sown in Mark 4, 14. The sower sows the word. It's the same word.

It's a scattering, but it's a constructive scattering. Seeds are scattered so that they can sprout and grow and bring forth more fruit. And they can't do that if they're just dumped in a pile. They might be able to sprout, but they could never grow strong and produce healthy fruit. Any casual gardener knows that.

They have to be scattered. The seeds have to be scattered to new ground where they can have space and access to clear soil and sunlight and nutrients and so forth. So this sowing is a scattering, but it's a constructive scattering, not a destructive one. The second word here that's used in this compound word that Luke uses here to talk about this scattering, the second word is a preposition that means through or throughout. The word is a marker of extension through an area, like a region, or through an object, whether that object is abstract or concrete.

So it's a marker of extension through a region. It's also the marker of an extension through time, so throughout, through the duration. It also can be used as a marker of instrumentality or personal agency. For example, you may send a message through Bob. Or you may send a package through the postal service.

That's an agency. And so these two words, when they are put together, is this word for scattering that Luke uses here. And it's speaking of people that are scattered throughout the surrounding region like seeds that are being sown. Seeds that are being planted in order to bring forth the fruit where they are planted. It's also interesting to note that the New Testament only uses this verb in Acts, And it only uses it of these disciples that were scattered as a result of the persecution led by Saul that followed Stephen's death.

The three places are in verse 1. At that time they were scattered throughout the region. And in verse 4 that we just read, and in Acts 11, 19 which says, Now those who were scattered after the persecution that arose over Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch, preaching the word to no one but the Jews only." It's the only place that verb is used. Peter and James use it, the noun form, to talk about the disciples that were dispersed. So this scattering is a scattering that is constructive, where these people are being planted and the Word of God is going forth through the agency of all these people that have been scattered around as if being sown around the world.

And how did they bear fruit? That's the purpose of being sown. To be planted, to have free soil in which to grow, have nutrients, all so that you can bring forth fruit. How did these people bring forth fruit? Well, they went everywhere, it says, speaking the Word.

They took the Word of God with them. And they used it wherever they went. Now depending on what translation you have, it might say that they went everywhere preaching the Word. And then in verse 5 it talks about Philip preaching Christ. If you have a King James or a new King James, it uses the word preaching.

But these are different words in the Greek. And for some reason, these early translators used the same word preach for several different Greek words, and as a result, some of the nuances between these words is lost. And I think Acts, the King James was translated by a very large committee of about sixty very godly men, very learned men. But Acts seems to be one of the worst books in that translation. Some of these men were Puritans and others were Church of England men.

Some were Reformed. Some were Arminian. And it shows in places. For example, in Acts 12, the translator translated Passover as Easter. The new King James fixed it.

But I digress. The modern translations at least use different words. But I think Young's literal translation gets this right. And he translates it, Acts 4, as, "...they then indeed, having been scattered, went abroad proclaiming good news the word. And Philip, having gone down to the city of Samaria, was preaching to them the Christ." See, the word for preach, if you have a new King James, in verse 4 is used in the ordinary sense of proclaiming good news.

These people weren't setting themselves up as ordained heralds that were commissioned by God to be His heralds. Their mouths were just filled with the praise and glory of the Lord wherever they went, despite this persecution. They testified to why they had to leave Jerusalem. They testified to the work of the Lord in their lives. They just spoke the Word wherever they went.

And that's the key to their bearing fruit. If they hadn't been Christians who were speaking the Word, proclaiming this good news, then it wouldn't have been a diaspora. It would have been a destructive scattering. Acts 11-19 says that those who were scattered after the persecution that arose over Stephen traveled as far as Venetia, Cyprus, and Antioch, speaking the word to no one but the Jews only." And in that passage, which uses this word scattering, but says that the Jews were speaking the word to no one but the Jews only, Luke uses the common ordinary word for speaking. If you have the King James, I think it may use preaching.

But the word Luke used there is the ordinary word, the word for just ordinary speaking when you have a conversation with someone. And that's the key to the church being salt and the light in the world. We have to speak the Word to our neighbors, to our co-workers, to our rulers in Austin and Conroe, the county seat of Montgomery County, or to your county seat if you live in a different county. See, It's so easy to get busy and forget. I think of this all the time for myself.

It's easy to get busy and forget to speak the Word. And when we forget to speak the Word, we're not being very fruitful. We're being scattered to destruction. And to the extent that we forget to speak the Word where we've been planted, wherever that might be, Whatever work, whatever job, whatever, whatever. When we forget to speak the Word, we then become a salt that has lost its savor.

And you know what Jesus said about that kind of salt. But along with the people who spoke the word wherever they landed, Commissioned heralds were also sent out. Then Philip went down to the city of Samaria and preached Christ to them. And here in verse 5, Luke uses the word that's used of heralds. People who were formally commissioned by the king to carry his message.

The New Testament distinguishes these different words, the words used here in verse 5 and the one that's used in verse 4. Everyone is said to preach in the first sense of the word, to evangelize, to share the Gospel, to speak the Word. But only heralds commissioned and sent by God are said to preach in the second sense of that Word. And the difference is simply the commissioning as a herald versus going out on our own initiative. See, if you travel to France or Mexico or Africa, and you represent America to the French or to the Africans or wherever you go.

And you would speak about America there. But you're speaking about America. Only an official ambassador, somebody who is lawfully commissioned, can go to France and speak for the United States. See, in a herald proclaims the message of a king as an emissary that is commissioned and sent by the king to speak for him. And so that is what Philip does.

In verse 5. He preaches Christ. He proclaims Christ as Christ's representative. He proclaims the Gospel. Now sometimes preaching Christ can be interpreted to mean preaching the bare bones of the Gospel.

The bare bones of the truths of the Gospel, Christ's substitutionary death and resurrection, and His deliverance of us by faith in Him. But that's not really everything that preaching Christ means. Because all the Scriptures, all of the Word speaks of Christ, from Genesis to Revelation. All wisdom and knowledge is hidden in Christ, isn't it? And so to preach Christ is to preach His Word from cover to cover.

And everything that that Word speaks about from cover to cover. Everything in this world was made by Christ. We read that in our Confession. Everything in this world, things visible and things invisible, that was all made by Christ and without Him was not anything made that was made. He's the light of the world.

Apart from Him, there is no light. That means every subject that we study, we are studying some aspect of the government of this world. From gravity to the resurrection. It's in Him. It's in Christ that we live and that we move, and that we have our being, our existence.

In Him we live, that's biology, physiology, medicine. In Him we move, that's physics, chemistry, energy. We have our being, that's existence, which is by the word of His power. Ethics, morality. You see, There isn't any subject that doesn't relate to Christ.

And so, to preach Christ, as He has revealed in the Scriptures, has to include all of these things, has to include the application of His Word into everything that we do. We live, the Bible says, by every word that proceeds out of His mouth. And that's not just Sunday morning and family devotions each night. That's every moment. Wherever we're going, whatever we're doing, whatever we're studying, we live and we move and we have our being in Him.

So Philip goes to Samaria to preach Christ to them. Who was Philip here? He's introduced here. And what is significant about his going to Samaria? Well, I've hinted at that in our opening.

That there was a great, great animosity between the Jews and Samaritans. That goes back a thousand years. It started even before the divided kingdom. Remember, David was pitted against the northern kingdom and there was war. And the house of Saul diminished and David grew stronger.

That was a family feud there. But then it broke open again after Solomon in the days of Rehoboam when all Israel saw that the king didn't listen to them. Remember, they asked for relief from the taxes. And the king said, no. Not only no, but never.

And the people responded by saying that the northern tribes, what share have we in David? We have no inheritance in Jesse. To your tents, O Israel! Now see to your own house, O David! And Israel went their way.

And there was actual war between this family, the descendants of Jacob's children, fought with each other. David was instrumental in healing that division. Rehoboam reopened it again. Then after the northern tribes were conquered by the king of Assyria, he settled the land. He carted off the Israelites in Samaria in the north, and he brought in and scattered them, and that's a destructive scattering.

They've been lost to history. But He brought in people from other nations. He brought in people from Babylon and Cuthah and Ava and Hamath and the Sepharvim. And He settled them in the cities of Samaria instead of the children of Israel. And they took possession of the cities that were there, and they dwelt in them.

But they didn't know the Lord. They didn't fear the Lord. And so God sent lions among them, which killed some of them. And the people cried out, and so the king sent priests. He sent some of the Israelite priests back to teach them to fear the Lord.

And this is what 2 Kings says in Kings 17. However, every nation continued to make gods of its own and put them in the shrines of the high places which the Samaritans had made. Every nation in the cities where they dwelt. The men of Babylon made Saketh-Banoth, the men of Cuth made Nergal, the men of Hamoth made Ashima, and the Avites made Nibhaz and Tartak, and the Sephirvites burned their children in fire to Adramalak and Amalak. That's demon worship, Satanic sacrifices.

Something that is apparently going on today in our country. And they did this according to the rituals. Well, so they feared the Lord, the Bible says, verse 32. And from every class they appointed for themselves priests who sacrificed in the shrines of the high places. They feared the Lord, yet served their own gods according to the rituals of the nations where they'd been carried from.

And to this day, verse 34, they continue practicing the former rituals. They do not fear the Lord, nor do they follow their statutes or ordinances or the law or the commandment which the Lord commanded the children of Jacob whom He named Israel." And it says, verse 41, "'These nations feared the Lord, yet they served their carved images, also their children, and their children's children have continued doing as their fathers did, even to this day. The Jews rightfully regarded the Samaritans as heretics, syncretists, who corrupted the worship of God with the worship of idols and demons. And so when they came to Ezra after the Jews had been restored to the land of Israel after the Babylonian captivity, They heard that they were building the temple. They sent representatives down to Zerubbabel to ask to be able to help.

They said, let us build with you, for we seek your God as you do, and we have sacrificed to Him since the days of Ezra Haddon, king of Assyria, who brought us here in Ezra 4. And what did Zerubbabel do? Zerubbabel and Jeshua and the rest of the heads, the leaders said you may have nothing to do with building our house. Why? They considered them heretics, demon worshipers.

They didn't want them anywhere near the building of the temple. Well, of course, the Samaritans were deeply offended by that. And they did everything they could to stop the building of the temple. And they were successful. They wrote a letter to the king and said these are rebellious people.

They're building the city. You need to stop them. And the king said, okay, stop them. And then under Nehemiah, they were able to restart the building project. And the Samaritans mocked them.

They said, oh, if you build it, a fox goes up on the wall, it will fall down. That's an insult to their building ability. And when that didn't discourage them, they planned an attack. And that's when you remember Nehemiah says, okay, we've got to build with a trowel in one hand and a sword in the other. And they didn't even change their clothes.

They were working to finish the wall because of the attacks of the Samaritans. The threat of the attack, the conspiracy. They were angry. The Samaritans were angry with the Jews. Nehemiah says, nevertheless, we made our prayer to God, and because of them, we set a watch against them day and night.

The Samaritans then built a temple on Mount Gerizim according to the Mosaic instructions. And like the Sadducees, they only acknowledged the Pentateuch as the Word of God in addition to all their other pagan and demonic worship. They even attributed many of the Bible names to their temple mount at Gerizim. Some correctly, some not. But they regarded it as a holy place.

And that's why the woman at the well in John 4 said, Our Father, to Jesus, our Father is worshipped at this mountain. And she kind of asked him, which mountain is the right mountain? Gerizim, where our temple is, or Jerusalem, where your temple is? Remember Jesus' answer. Salvation is of the Jews.

But then he went on to instruct her that neither one would continue. Under the Maccabean reign, they're the ones that had revolted, the temple in Mount Gerizim was destroyed by John Hercanus in about 130 BC. And so you can see that the adversary relationship went both ways. When the Jews wanted to insult Christ, they said, did we not rightly say that you are a Samaritan and have a demon. They put those two together.

The Samaritans were known for demon worship. The Jews didn't travel throughout Samaria. They would go around it. That's how deep their animosity was. And even Jesus' disciples were influenced by this racial animosity.

When Jesus passed through Samaria and was rejected by the city in Luke 9. And James and John, his disciples, saw it. They said, Lord, do You want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them just as Elijah did? That was arising out of their hatred for the Samaritans. And Jesus turned and rebuked them, and He said, you don't know what manner of spirit you are.

And that's what makes this account of Jesus going to the Samaritan woman at the well, meeting her at the well. Remember, the disciples are surprised that He's talking to this woman and a Samaritan. But Philip, under the leading of the Holy Spirit, goes to Samaria to give them the gospel, because he loved them. And the gospel was the means of healing these divisions. Philip is called an evangelist later in Acts.

And his work is here described in Acts 8 with his ministry in Samaria. And then we find him later in Acts 21, where Paul's companions stayed in the house of Philip the Evangelist, who was one of the seven. Philip is one of the seven from Acts chapter 6, where these men were set apart to serve as deacons. He's one of the seven. Some would consider him being an evangelist, they would consider the evangelist as a special office that passed away.

Others might consider it an office that continues today. I don't think it's an office per se. I think it's a gifting. It's a gifting like preaching and teaching and ruling and so on. And it can be exercised by people in different offices.

But it's a gift. That's why there are no qualifications for it. You have a gift. You don't have qualifications for a gift. There are qualifications for office.

The New Testament offices were apostle, elder, and deacon. And there are qualifications to hold office. The office of apostle being passed away because one of the qualifications was an eyewitness of the resurrection and of Christ's ministry. But Stephen is saying that he's an evangelist. It's describing the gift that he had that he was called to exercise.

Gifts have to be developed. Gifts have to be utilized, or we lose them. And there may be confirmation or qualification, ensuring that those gifts are true gifts, in other words, the gift of teaching requires qualification or verification by a presbytery. But gifts don't have qualifications. That's why there are no qualifications for an evangelist.

It's a gift that Philip had. And God used him, because remember, he was not a Jew apparently. Remember when that division arose between the Hellenists and the Jews, the Hebrews, over their widows, there were these seven men that were chosen to take up this ministry of mercy. And these are Romans that are chosen. Stephen, Philip, Procurus, Canor, Timon, Parmenius, Nicholas.

These are not Hebrew names. So these are probably not Hebrews. So the Lord uses somebody who is not a Jew to make the first step toward reconciliation with the Samaritans. To going down to the Samaritans to minister to them. Can you Imagine the difficulty of a Jew trying to go into Samaria to bring the Gospel.

God started this reconciliation using somebody who wasn't a Jew. See, there is wisdom. We need to have wisdom in missions and evangelism. And not to bring people that would be offensive naturally to them. And Notice the fruit that is born.

Just to look ahead quickly in Acts 14. When the apostles who were at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the Word of God, they sent Peter and John to them. There's fruit. And it's only after there was a favorable reception and fruit that the Jewish apostles came down. But then also in verse 25, so when they had testified and preached the Word of God, they returned to Jerusalem preaching the Gospel in many villages of the Samaritans.

This door was opened up by Philip going down there and preaching. But let's look at the fruits briefly here. Let's look at the fruits of his preaching. What did God do through the preaching of the Word in Samaria? When Philip took the baby step of going down there.

Well, the first thing is that God brings a revival, but He does it through the Word. Philip preached the Word. He didn't go down with some other means of trying to negotiate a peace treaty. In order to bring reconciliation between these dueling factions, there needed to be the Holy Spirit. They needed the Word.

Secondly, there's a focus on Christ. We can do nothing without Him. He preached Christ to them. Christ is the Word that was made flesh. So, He brings the Word.

There were no gimmicks, There were no circuses. There was preaching the Word. What was the result? Well, the result was repentance. There was genuine repentance.

They heeded. The people listened to the things spoken by Paul. That means the Holy Spirit was there falling upon them and working in them. Otherwise, they wouldn't have heard this Gospel. Simon Magnus, who we'll look at next week, Lord Welling, had a fake repentance.

But the multitudes at large are grieving over their sin. And many men and women believed and were baptized, it says a little bit later on. They gave heed to His message. And there is liberty. We know that this is a true repentance because there is liberty from bondage.

For unclean spirits, crying with a loud voice came out of many who were possessed, and many who were paralyzed and lame were healed. They were delivered from their bondage. They heeded the things that were spoken by Philip. They listened to what he said. There was a change.

They were brought under the lordship of Jesus Christ. It's utterly inconsistent to claim to have some kind of revival and yet still have a people that are in bondage to sin and to Satan. If there isn't this deliverance from bondage to sin and to Satan, then anything that's there is simply an emotional outpouring. Nothing wrong with emotions. And very often they are present when the Holy Spirit is working.

But if there's no fruit, if there's no deliverance from bondage to sin and to Satan, then it's just pure emotionalism. That's not the work of the Holy Spirit. We see the presence of these miracles in verses 6 and 7. They saw the miracles. These were miracles done by Philip, by the power of the Holy Spirit.

But we also see the fruit of the Spirit in verse 8. These people were filled with joy. Not just happiness because they'd gotten a gift or because something nice happened to them. But they were filled with joy because of the Holy Spirit dwelling in them. True revival, you see, changes people from the inside out.

And it brings Joy to them, even in the midst of difficult circumstances. Joy can be present even in times of affliction. In fact, that's the message of James, is that we should count it a joy when we fall into trials because of the fruit that it brings. We can have joy in trials. When you're happy when things go well, you really don't know, am I happy because things go well or am I happy because of the fruit of the Spirit?

But when you're able to have joy, when you see joy in the midst of trials, that's the work of the Spirit. So the Spirit was at work through Philip's preaching, and he brought revival to the Samaritans. And he opened their hearts to be able to receive these people that they had for so long hated and with whom there was such bitter, bitter animosity and rivalry. And so the apostles, once they heard this, then they went down there, the Jewish ones went down there as well and continued to preach the Gospel. May the Lord bless us with the fruits of His Holy Spirit and His grace to speak the Word wherever we are scattered this week.

Let's pray. Father heaven, I thank you for this example which stands to us Lord as a reminder to be faithful in speaking of Your Word and in rebuke to us where we have not been faithful in that. Lord, we ask that we might be salt and light around us, for we also are in the midst of a divided nation where in is great animosity between one side and another. Lord, we need Your Word. We need Your Word to transform us and to renew our thinking.

And we need, Lord, Your Word, to bring that change in our cities and in our state. Lord, Your Word is powerful. It is able to accomplish the purpose for which you have sent it forth. We ask, Lord, that having gathered here this morning, that we might be fruitfully scattered as seeds being planted in wherever you take us this week. In Jesus' name, Amen.