Philip went down to Caesarea, and, as I said, he drops out of the story
for twenty years. I wonder why it was that when Jesus Christ desired
that Cornelius, who lived in Caesarea, should hear the gospel, He did
not direct him to Philip, who also was in Caesarea, but bid him send
all the way to Joppa to bring Peter thence? I wonder why it was that
when Barnabas at Antioch turned his face northwards to seek for young
Saul at Tarsus, he never dreamed of turning southwards to call out
Philip from Caesarea? I wonder how it came to pass that this man, who
at one time looked as if he was going to be the leader in the extension
of the Church to the Gentiles, and who, as a matter of fact, was the
first, not only in Samaria but on the desert road, to press beyond the
narrow bounds of Judaism, was passed over in the further stages by
Jesus, and why his brethren passed him over, and left him there all
these years in Caesarea, whilst there was so much going on that was the
continuation and development of the very movement that he had begun. We
do not know why, and it is useless to try to speculate, but we may
learn lessons from the fact.
Here is a beautiful instance of the contented acceptance of a lot very
much less conspicuous, very much less brilliant, than the early
beginnings had seemed to promise. I suppose that there are very few of
us but have had, back in the far-away past, moments when we seemed to
have opening out before us great prospects of service which have never
been realised; and the remembrance of the brief moments of dawning
splendour is very apt to make the rest of the life look grey and dull,
and common things flat, and to make us sour. We look back and we think,
'Ah, the gates were opened for me then, but how they have slammed to
since! It is hard for me to go on in this lowly condition, and this
eclipsed state into which I have been brought, without feeling how
different it might have been if those early days had only continued.'
Well, for Philip it was enough that Jesus Christ sent him to the eunuch
and did not send him to Cornelius. He took the position that his Master
put him in and worked away therein.
And there is a further lesson for us, who, for the most part, have to
lead obscure lives. For there was in Philip not only a contented
acceptance of an obscure life, but there was a diligent doing of
obscure work. Did you notice that one significant little word in the
clause that I have taken for my text: 'We entered into the house of
Philip _the evangelist_, which was one of the seven'? Luke does not
forget Philip's former office, but he dwells rather on what his other
office was, twenty years afterwards. He was 'an evangelist' now,
although the evangelistic work was being done in a very quiet corner,
and nobody was paying much attention to it. Time was when he had a
great statesman to listen to his words. Time was when a whole city was
moved by his teaching. Time was when it looked as if he was going to do
the work that Paul did. But all these visions were shattered, and he
was left to toil for twenty long years in that obscure corner, and not
a soul knew anything about his work except the people to whom it was
directed and the four unmarried girls at home whom his example had
helped to bring to Jesus Christ, and who were 'prophetesses.' At the
end of the twenty years he is 'Philip the evangelist.'
_There_ is patient perseverance at unrecompensed, unrecorded, and
unnoticed work. 'Great' and 'small' have nothing to do with the work of
Christian people. It does not matter who knows our work or who does not
know it, the thing is that _He_ knows it. Now the most of us have to do
absolutely unnoticed Christian service. Those of us who are in
positions like mine have a little more notoriety--and it is no
blessing--and a year or two after a man's voice ceases to sound from a
pulpit he is forgotten. What does it matter? 'Surely I will never
forget any of their works.' And in these advertising days, when
publicity seems to be the great good that people in so many cases seek
after, and no one is contented to do his little bit of work unless he
gets reported in the columns of the newspapers, we may all take example
from the behaviour of Philip, and remember the man who began so
brilliantly, and for twenty years was hidden, and was 'the evangelist'
all the time.
III. Now, there is one last lesson that I would draw, and that is the
ultimate recognition of the work and the joyful meeting of the workers.
I think it is very beautiful to see that when Paul entered Philip's
house he came into a congenial atmosphere; and although he had been
hurrying, out of breath as it were, all the way from Corinth to get to
Jerusalem in time for the Feast, he slowed off at once; partly, no
doubt, because he found that he was in time, and partly, no doubt, that
he felt the congeniality of the society that he met.
So there was no envy in Philip's heart of the younger brother that had
so outrun him. He was quite content to share the fate of pioneers, and
rejoiced in the junior who had entered into his labour. 'One soweth and
another reapeth'; he was prepared for that, and rejoiced to hear about
what the Lord had done by his brother, though once he had thought it
might have been done by him. How they would talk! How much there would
be to tell! How glad the old man would be at the younger man's success!
And there was one sitting by who did not say very much, but had his
ears wide open, and his name was Luke. In Philip's long, confidential
conversations he no doubt got some of the materials, which have been
preserved for us in this book, for his account of the early days of the
Church in Jerusalem.
So Philip, after all, was not working in so obscure a corner as he
thought. The whole world knows about him. He had been working behind a
curtain all the while, and he never knew that 'the beloved physician,'
who was listening so eagerly to all he had to tell about the early
days, was going to twitch down the curtain and let the whole world see
the work that he thought he was doing, all unknown and soon to be
forgotten.
And that is what will happen to us all. The curtain will be twitched
down, and when it is, it will be good for us if we have the same record
to show that this man had--namely, toil for the Master, indifferent to
whether men see or do not see; patient labour for Him, coming out of a
heart purged of all envy and jealousy of those who have been called to
larger and more conspicuous service.
May we not take these many days of quiet converse in Philip's house,
when the pioneer and the perfecter of the work talked together, as
being a kind of prophetic symbol of the time when all who had a share
in the one great and then completed work will have a share in its joy?
No matter whether they have dug the foundations or laid the early
courses or set the top stone and the shining battlements that crown the
structure, they have all their share in the building and their portion
in the gladness of the completed edifice, 'that he that soweth and he
that reapeth may rejoice together.'