See the little colored children, all lined up for a picture? They have been at school, for you can see that most of them carry a slate. The colored man I am going to tell you about today came from Ethiopia, and he could read very well.
Away out on the sandy desert this colored man was traveling, on his way home to Africa, from Jerusalem. As he rode along in his chariot, he held a scroll before hirer from which he read these words:
The Ethiopian man was puzzled. He was a man of great authority, treasurer of the Ethiopian queen, but he could not understand these strange words. “Who was this Man?” he wanted to know.
Well, that was a good beginning. When we really want to know what God’s Word means, He is sure to explain it to us somehow. God sent Philip to that desert place, add at that very moment Philip was running by the chariot, and listening to the reader’s words.
“Do you understand what you are reading?” asked Philip.
“How can I?” answered the man, and then he asked Philip to come up and sit in the chariot with him.
They bent their heads together, the colored man and the white man, over the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah. Then Philip preached unto him Jesus. This man of whom the Ethiopian was reading is Jesus. Why was He led as a sheep to the slaughter? In order that you and I might go free. Why did He not open His mouth? Because He had come to do God His Father’s will, and He was obedient even unto death. Yes, Jesus, that blessed Lamb of God, was silent. He bore all that evil treatment from men, and then He suffered at the hand of God for sin in those dark hours for the joy of having His own with Him in glory forever.
My reader, do you believe this? The Ethiopian believed it that day in his chariot, and he was saved. He was baptized too, and went on his way rejoicing. Who would not rejoice in the knowledge of a Saviour such as ours?
ML 02/18/1951