Godbey's Commentary - Acts - Romans - Enter His Rest

ALL SAINTS ARE PREACHERS.
4. “Therefore indeed being dispersed abroad, they went everywhere preaching the word.” The
martyrdom of Stephen lifted the flood-gate of a general and sweeping persecution against the
Nazarenes, the Roman power acquiescent in the diabolical malignity, thus purchasing Jewish favor
with the blood of the saints. Consequently they fled in all directions, like Samson’s foxes, scattering
the fire throughout all Palestine and everywhere rolling out the revival wave into the Gentile world.
Thus the devil overshot himself; thinking to exterminate Christianity from the globe, he sent out fiery
platoons of missionaries to the ends of the earth. The Holy Ghost certifies that they all preached the
gospel, here using that identical word, evangelidzoo, which means “preach the gospel,” and not
simply to proclaim as an herald; thus evolving the fact that all the saints in the Apostolic age were
divinely authorized preachers of the gospel, Satan having waited to a later date to invent license, thus
obstructing the free and universal evangelization of earth’s dying millions under the leadership of
the Holy Ghost. Unobstructed by ecclesiastical tyranny, neither the apostles nor their saintly
contemporaries ever received any license to preach. If the church wants to give you license, accept
it with gratitude; if not, go ahead and preach in the regular Apostolical succession.
EVANGELIZATION OF SAMARIA.
5-25. Philip, a bright, uncultured layman, sanctified in the Pentecostal revival, “filled with the
Spirit and wisdom,” rendering him eligible to the office of deacon, was too enthusiastic to content
himself “serving tables.” Led by the Spirit, a fugitive from the persecutions, he had the courage to
enter the hardest field of labor on the globe. The Samaritans were not only heathens, but
irreconcilable haters of the Jews. Here we see how the grace of God is more than a match for every
conceivable human difficulty and Satanic antagonism. This illiterate young evangelist invades old
heathen Samaria with the heroism of Alexander the Great. His conversions were not the modern stillborn
species.
7. “Many of those having unclean spirits, roaring with a great voice went out of them.” “Crying”
in E.V. is the Greek boaoo, by whose pronunciation you see that it means to roar like the lowing of
an ox. Hence we see that those great, stalwart heathen men, under the mighty conviction of the Holy
Ghost, through the preaching of this red-hot young Israelite, threw their mouths open and roared like
oxen. I have seen much of this kind. Lord, help us to get back to the “roaring,” knock-down
convictions (1 Corinthians 14:25) of the Apostolic age. Philip in Samaria met the obstruction so
common in all ages, i.e., the devil’s preacher, Simon Magus, cultured, influential, wealthy and
wielding an apparently omnipotent influence among the people. Nothing is too hard for the grace of
God. Consequently, Satan’s preacher comes down at the mourners’ bench along with his members
and gets religion. Some doubt this, but verse 13 is conclusive: “And Simon himself also believed,
and having been baptized, was accompanying Philip.” If uninspired man had said that “Simon
believed,” I would doubt his conversion; but since the infallible Holy Ghost, the Author of all true
and saving faith, here certifies that “Simon believed,” we dare not gainsay. However, it is perfectly
clear that he failed to get sanctified under the preaching of Peter and John, and consequently lapsed
into condemnation like millions of others who, having been truly converted and refusing to obey the
call of the Holy Ghost and go on into holiness, forfeit their justification and, with Simon Magus,
plunge into a backslider’s hell. The love of money which would have ruined Jacob had he not