This being so, Jerusalem could no longer receive the sanction of God, for it had fully declared its sin, and for a season must be cast out of His sight. The disciples are therefore now scattered from Jerusalem, and the Jewish order is disturbed: this chapter giving us the acts of one who had not been sent forth, either as from Jerusalem, or by the Apostles at all. Philip goes forth—and at first preaches Christ in Samaria, and is then sent down by the Spirit “to Gaza, which is desert,” to bring into the fold a lost sheep that was still straying there, but known to God before the foundation of the world. But immediately afterward, he is borne by the Spirit to Azotus (the place next to the desert where men and women could be found), that he might proclaim there, and in all other places, the grace which says, “Whosoever will, let him take of the water of life.” Thus by his mission to Gaza, and then by his rapture to Azotus, Philip's ministry is made to signify the sovereignty and the universality of that grace which the Lord was to publish.