Behold the Ethiopian: in Exposition of the Doctrines of Grace

By RA Marshall

The book is based on the biblical account of the salvation of an Ethiopian eunuch (Acts 8:2640). The key statements are in Acts 8:3435: So the eunuch answered Philip and said, I ask you, of whom does the prophet say this, of himself or of some other man? Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning at this Scripture, preached Jesus to him.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Nov 16, 2015
• ISBN: 9781512714999

RA Marshall

Robert was born in Tulsa Oklahoma in 1945, to Preston and Margaret Marshall. Shortly after his birth the family moved to Big Springs Texas to share crop. His paternal grandmother Cynthia Pearl Marshall arranged to have him brought back to Tulsa where she would raise him. He was later Joined by a first cousin NaRene and his brother Preston where they brought up as siblings. At 17 Robert joined the United States Army and after Basic and Advanced Infantry courses Robert went to Fort Benning Georgia for Paratrooper training. His first permanent duty station was with the famed 82nd Airborne Division in Fayetteville North Carolina. On May 1st 1965 his unit was deployed in support of "Operation Power Pack" to Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic. It was there that Robert received orders to report to the173rd Airborne Brigade in South Viet Nam. February 26 1966 just 21 days after his 21st birthday he was wounded by both hostile and friendly fire. February 1st 1973, Robert married Marie Sanders and settled down in Tulsa where American Airlines employed him as an Aircraft Cleaner. After 28 years he retired from the position of Quality Assurance Supervisor over Americans warehouse system. He and Marie then founded Isaxl-31 Inc. an aviation consulting and Aircraft Material Management Corporation. Marie passed, January 19th 2009 and Robert closed down the company. God saved Robert in the summer of 1975, and it was not long after the call to salvation that another call was realized, the call to preach the truths of God. After some training most of which accrued under the tutelage of Dr. George Calvin McCutchen, at that time Sr. Pastor of the Historical Mt. Zion Baptist Church in Tulsa Oklahoma. Robert was called to Pastor The Berean Missionary Church in 1882, where he is today. He now lives 20 minutes north of the church, in the community of Owasso with his wife Doris. Besides the church he is an active volunteer with the Service Corps of Retired Executives (SCORE) and the organizer of the selective group called “MOG” (Men Of God), dedicated to being visible examples of 1Tim: 6:11-16 which says “But you, O man of God, flee these things and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, gentleness. Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, to which you were also called and have confessed the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. I urge you in the sight of God who gives life to all things, and before Christ Jesus who witnessed the good confession before Pontius Pilate, that you keep this commandment without spot, blameless until our Lord Jesus Christ’s appearing, which He will manifest in His own time, He who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, dwelling in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see, to whom be honor and everlasting power. Amen.”

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Copyright © 2015 Robert Arcillious Marshall.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Scripture quotations taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, Copyright © 1996, 2004. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

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ISBN: 978-1-5127-1500-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-1501-9 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-1499-9 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015918897

WestBow Press rev. date: 11/13/2015

CONTENTS

Preface

Introduction

Chapter 1   A Spirit-Filled Life

Chapter 2   A Call To Arms

Chapter 3   Obedient to the Heavenly Vision

Chapter 4   The Preacher Is Called

Chapter 5   Religious but Lost

Chapter 6   The Preacher and the Bible

Chapter 7   True Evangelism

Chapter 8   The Response to Irresistible Grace

Chapter 9   The Joy of Salvation

Chapter 10 The Work Goes On

Epilogue

Appendix

Endnotes

This labor of love is dedicated to my wife, Doris, who is my best friend, most gentle critic, and beloved Shulamite. I am thankful for her faith in God’s use of me and this work. We both pray that His will has been done and that He, and only He, will be glorified.

PREFACE

This book has been in my heart for a long time, and now, after years of procrastination, I am finally putting my hand to the task of writing it. You will quickly realize that I am not a professional writer; I am a preacher, called by the will of a merciful God. What you are about to read is nothing more than ten sermons edited and formatted into one package. Let me explain: as I prepare each sermon, I start with a one- or two-page set of notes, which includes the primary text and supporting scripture references. To this I add the actual text for each scripture or group of scriptures used. I then review what I have and add notes, quotes, and any true illustrations that fit the sermon’s aim. This produces a three- to five-page package. After another prayerful edit, I have what I call a study draft. My next step is to add several subheadings, which I call a homiletic¹ package, which often grows to five or seven pages long. I edit, rehearse, and meditate over what I have. I then remove everything but the scriptures and the headings; this will condense the whole thing to one or two full sheets, which I take to the pulpit.

I am using ten homilies to make one book. This particular method of book writing is not original; one of my favorite preachers, Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones, wrote very few books while he was preaching and lecturing all over England. After he retired from his ministry at Westminster Chapel in 1968, following a major operation, he spent the rest of his life concentrating on editing his sermons to be published, counseling other ministers, answering letters, and attending conferences. Perhaps his most famous publication is a fourteen-volume series of commentaries on the Epistle to the Romans, the first volume of which was published in 1970. Shortly after his death, a charitable trust was established to continue Lloyd-Jones’s ministry by making recordings of his sermons available. The organization currently has sixteen hundred sermons available and also produces a weekly radio program using Dr. Jones’s material. On the British website, you will find over one hundred and fifty books listed.

I don’t compare myself with Dr. Jones, and before God calls me home, I doubt seriously that I will try and put more than this particular effort into book form. However, I am eternally thankful to God for supplying me with the prophetic word in the scripture, giving me all the material needed to read, study, write, and preach the truths of His sovereign grace toward mankind.

INTRODUCTION

At first my target audience was to be African American Christians who have not been formally introduced to The Doctrines of Grace. However, during the third editing of this work, it dawned on me that there are many young men and women of color who have leaned toward the teachings of Islam and other anti-Christian religions² as a way of rebelling against a system that is still struggling with recognizing all people as equal. As the scripture says, For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich to all who call upon Him (Romans 10:12). I now offer this manuscript as a simple treatise to show that the Christian God is not partial to any race or gender, for it is written: In truth I perceive that God shows no partiality. But in every nation whoever fears Him and works righteousness is accepted by Him (Acts 10:34–35). And in another place, God says, There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus (Galatians 3:8).

One of the joys of my thirty-three-plus years as pastor of the Berean Missionary Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma, is the fact that we have been preaching and teaching Reformed theology for almost as many years as we have existed. One of my greatest disappointments, however, is that we may be the only predominantly African-American Reformed congregation in the city. I pray that God will change that by blessing distribution of this book.

Finally, I will thank Dr. R. C. Sproul, president of Reformation Bible College and copastor of Saint Andrew’s Chapel in Sanford, Florida, with the permission of Reformation Bible College. He has granted me permission to quote from his many works found on the Internet.

What exactly is Reformed theology?

James Montgomery Boice writer, Bible teacher and pastor of Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia from 1968 until his death in 2000, wrote:

Reformed theology gets its name from the sixteenth century Protestant Reformation, with its distinct theological emphases, but it is theology solidly based on the Bible itself. Believers in the reformed tradition regard highly the specific contributions of such people as Martin Luther, John Knox, and particularly John Calvin, but they also find their strong distinctive in the giants of the faith before them, such as Anselm and Augustine, and ultimately in the letters of Paul and the teachings of Jesus Christ. Reformed Christians hold to the doctrines characteristic of all Christians, including the Trinity, the true deity and true humanity of Jesus Christ, the necessity of Jesus’ atonement for sin, the church as a divinely ordained institution, the inspiration of the Bible, the requirement that Christians live moral lives, and the resurrection of the body. They hold other doctrines in common with evangelical Christians, such as justification by faith alone, the need for the new birth, the personal and visible return of Jesus Christ, and the Great Commission.³

In his book: What Is Reformed Theology? Dr. R. C. Sproul offers a comprehensive introduction to Reformed theology. Simply put, it is the theology of the Protestant Reformers and the heart of historical evangelicalism. As C. H. Spurgeon once said, Reformed theology is nothing other than biblical Christianity."

But how do I define Reformed theology? Reformed Theology is the most biblically consistent approach to the teaching and studying of the scripture that any child of God can ever be involved in. Reformed theology speaks to the heart of mankind from the mouth of God, depending only on God’s word for confirmation and clarity.

In the much-read schooling of Job, beginning in chapter 38 and running through chapter 41 God establishes His divine dominion in the first few words of Chapter 38:

Then the

LORD

answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said, Who is this who darkens counsel By words without knowledge? Now prepare yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer Me.⁴ Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell Me, if you have understanding. (Job 38:1–4)

Job was ready to graduate at the head of the class when he stated, I know that You can do everything, And that no purpose of Yours can be withheld from You’ (Job 42:1–2).

No purpose can be withheld from He who alone is wise, full of glory, majesty, dominion, and power, both now and forever.

Furthermore, Reformed theology affirms that God is sovereign—not sovereign if or sovereign but or even sovereign when. He truly "is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, dwelling in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see, to whom be honor and everlasting power. Amen." (1 Timothy 6:15)

THE TEXT

Now an angel of the Lord spoke to Philip, saying, Arise and go toward the south along the road which goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza. This is desert. So he arose and went. And behold, a man of Ethiopia, a eunuch of great authority under Candace the queen of the Ethiopians, who had charge of all her treasury, and had come to Jerusalem to worship, was returning. And sitting in his chariot, he was reading Isaiah the prophet. Then the Spirit said to Philip, Go near and overtake this chariot. So Philip ran to him, and heard him reading the prophet Isaiah, and said, You understand what you are reading? And he said, How can I, unless someone guides me? And he asked Philip to come up and sit with him. The place in the scripture which he read was this: He was led as a sheep to the slaughter; And as a lamb before its shearer is silent, So He opened not His mouth. In His humiliation His justice was taken away, And who will declare His generation? For His life is taken from the earth. So the eunuch answered Philip and said, I ask you, of whom does the prophet say this, of himself or of some other man? Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning at this scripture, preached Jesus to him. Now as they went down the road, they came to some water. And the eunuch said, See, here is water. What hinders me from being baptized? Then Philip said, If you believe with all your heart, you may. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. So he commanded the chariot to stand still. And both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water, and he baptized him. Now when they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord caught Philip away, so that the eunuch saw him no more; and he went on his way rejoicing. But Philip was found at Azotus. And passing through, he preached in all the cities till he came to Caesarea. (Acts 8:26–40)

CHAPTER 1

A Spirit-Filled Life

Therefore, brethren, seek out from among you seven men of good reputation, full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom.

Now in those days, when the number of the disciples was multiplying, there arose a complaint against the Hebrews by the Hellenists because their widows were neglected in the daily distribution. Then the twelve summoned the multitude of the disciples and said, "It is not desirable that we