Simon himself believed and was baptized. And he followed Philip everywhere, astonished by the great signs and miracles he saw –

Acts 8:13.

He was boastful and extremely popular in Samaria, with power and control over the minds of the people by his magic. They said he was “the divine power known as the Great Power” (Acts 8:10). Simon, the Sorcerer, seemed to be a contented person and everybody’s darling, with wealth and influence to back it up, until Philip came to town.

Philip was not boastful. There was no air of arrogance around him. Neither did he claim to be somebody special or great. He just loved the people God had sent him to. He carried a message of God’s love with no financial motivation. He did not seek people’s acclamation and approval. He simply proclaimed the Good News of the kingdom of God – a message of forgiveness of sins and the gift of eternal life in Christ Jesus for all who believed (Acts 8:12). A revival swept across Samaria, as many believed and were baptized. But there is another side of the story that reveals the human suffering and vulnerability.

As God validated His word with great signs and miracles, it attracted Simon, the “Great Power.” He was losing his grip on the people, and the scale had tipped heavily to the Savior Philip proclaimed. Bible says that Simon also believed and was baptized (13). Or so everybody thought until Peter and John arrived as emissaries from the Jerusalem church. When they placed their hands on the believers and prayed for them to receive the Holy Spirit (15), God responded with an outpouring of His gift on them (17). Flabbergasted by the miracle of the Spirit’s outpouring by the laying of hands, Simon drooled with a strong desire for that power. So, he offered money to Peter and John in exchange for that ability (18-19). How pathetic and restless is the human soul without Christ!

What interests me here is not so much Peter’s rebuke and pushback (20-21), but what the Holy Spirit revealed about Simon’s heart. It was “full of bitterness and captive to sin” (23). It is the ugliness of every soul without Christ. Simon had professed Christ and was baptized (13), but the Holy Spirit revealed the deceptiveness of his heart (Jer. 17:9). The man who boasted about his “divine power,” was wretched and captive to his inner desires (Jas. 1:14-15). Sadly, he failed to embrace Christ when allowed to be set free from himself. He rather turned the Gospel into a supermarket and went shopping for power (Acts 8:18-19). When the Holy Spirit opened his heart to him (22-23), he missed the liberating power of repentance and forgiveness (24).

The choice is for all of us every time the word of God is opened to us. We either embrace Christ with all our hearts or just come around Him for our selfish and temporal gain and remain in our misery.