This passage contains Stephen's landmark sermon.
As a title for the message, that's what
I've put, Stephen's Landmark Sermon.
You could also call it a marvel of
Christ's grace, because here Stephen is arrested.
He has debated with the religious leaders openly,
and they have been unable to withstand his
wisdom.
When he begins to speak of the Scriptures
and opens his mouth and talks of what
God was doing in the Old Testament, these
men who have rejected a real relationship with
God and traded it in for a religion
based on their interpretations of God's Word and
their traditions.
When he talks to these men who love
tradition rather than God, he does it in
such a way, opening the Scriptures, that he
has a wisdom they can't resist.
They know God is speaking through him.
The problem with these men is that they
don't want to know God.
They are perfectly content to be religious, perfectly
content to talk about God, but they have
no desire to know God.
You have to understand that.
And religion is often used for that purpose.
People will go to church to log in
their time, quote, with God, and leave church
and go live as they please.
And do that year in and year out,
and have no relationship with the Lord whatsoever,
and all the while assume they're going to
heaven because they're religious.
That's where these men are at right here.
So, as they did with the Twelve, and
as they did with Jesus, the members of
the Sanhedrin, the 71 men that belong to
the ruling body of Israel, arrest Stephen, he
does not resist, and they pull him into
this time of questioning him, and their real
goal is to eliminate him.
They can't stop him, his effectiveness, he's doing
signs and wonders which they can't explain away,
and so they want to eliminate him.
What they really want to do is find
him guilty of blasphemy of the things they
accused him falsely, which were that he was
blaspheming God, blaspheming Moses, blaspheming the law, and
blaspheming the temple.
They accused him of that.
However, it's not true.
So, what we have here in his sermon
then is his defense.
And after he's done with his defense, he
makes his declaration that he looks up, and
he sees the Son of Man on the
right hand of God, and his face is
glowing like an angel.
And when he is all done trying to
communicate, get this, trying to communicate to them
how to get to heaven, they murder him.
Think of that.
Here is a man before these religious leaders
who has one goal, to show them the
way to heaven.
When he's done, they murder him, because they
don't want anything to do with God or
heaven.
What they want is money, power, position, and
popularity, and a big following.
That's it.
So they murder him to get rid of
him.
They can't deny him, they can't resist him,
so they murder him.
But let's look at his defense along the
way.
To begin with Stephen's defense, he's not primarily
reciting history for the sake of history, though
he does give a lot of history.
He's establishing that he's not guilty of blaspheming
God, Moses, the law, and the temple.
To begin with, then, God, he starts where
they have accused him of the most serious
crime, which would be to blaspheme God.
In verse 1, we read here, then the
high priest, which would be probably Caiaphas, said,
Are these things so?
The same man who was there when they
tried Jesus and sent him to the cross,
is here.
He says, Are these things so?
Are you guilty of these charges?
That's what he's saying.
Stephen doesn't really say yes or no.
He starts to preach to them to show
that he's not guilty of the charges, but
ultimately, he's not a blasphemer.
Get this, they are.
They are.
And it is an amazing thing to watch
how it opens with Caiaphas, the high priest,
Are you guilty or not?
You're on trial.
It's amazing to watch the work of the
Holy Spirit and the power of the Word
of God as it slowly turns and before
they know it, they are on trial before
God.
So, he says in verse 2, Brethren and
fathers, listen, the God of glory appeared to
our father.
He uses the phrase, our father, as he
refers to Abraham.
As he gets on into this, he says
over and over, our fathers.
Look, I'm one of you.
What he's doing, ultimately, is he's saying, listen,
if you would just open your hearts to
God, if you would open your hearts to
His Word, ultimately, you would become like me.
A converted Jew who has found his Messiah.
And thus he, watch how he uses our
fathers, our fathers, our fathers, our fathers.
He's not blaspheming anything.
He's a fulfillment of everything God ever called
the Jews to be.
And so he says in verse 2, Brethren
and fathers, listen, the God of glory appeared
to our father Abraham when he was in
Mesopotamia before he dwelt in Haran.
So he addresses God as the God of
glory, which is a tremendous comprehensive statement concerning
God and shows the depth that Stephen has
in understanding Him.
Why?
Because the glory of God is the sum
total of His attributes.
The glory of God is the sum total
of His attributes.
He calls Him the God of glory.
Reaching back to Psalm 29, verse 3, he
plucks that title.
Only used in Psalm 29, verse 3 in
the Bible.
And then here by Stephen.
And right away he begins to display that
he has an understanding of the Scriptures that
is far beyond theirs.
It is in fact an understanding of the
Scriptures market that only comes from long hours
reading and studying and then ultimately praying over
the Word of God.
He has insight, you could put it this
way, that only can come to you when
you're on your knees.
Insight that comes to those that spend a
lot of time on their knees with the
Word of God.
So he affirms his belief in the God
of glory, our father Abraham.
And then he outlines the sovereign control of
God with Abraham in verse 3.
He said to them, Abraham, God says to
Abraham, get out of your country from your
relatives who are idolaters.
Come to the land I will show you.
Then he came out.
I like that.
God says to Abraham, get out.
He came out.
When God speaks to you, you do well
to listen and obey.
Even if you have to step out in
faith into territory you've never been before.
So he came out.
Verse 4, of the land of the Chaldeans
and dwelt in Haran.
And from there, when his father was dead,
God moved him to this land in which
you now dwell.
So, God sovereignly calls Abraham.
His whole family was idolaters.
That gives us an indication he probably was.
God simply comes to him and says, I
want you to follow me.
I have a plan for you.
So he sovereignly calls him.
Abraham obeys him and thus accomplishes God's purpose
for his life.
That's the way it happens.
God talks to you.
You obey.
He works sovereignly in your life, but you
have to obey him.
Both work together.
Your responsibility and God's sovereignty.
Verse 5, And God gave him no inheritance
in the land, not even enough to set
his foot on.
But even when Abraham had no child, he
promised to give it to him for possession
and to his descendants after him.
But God spoke, verse 6, God spoke in
this way that his descendants would dwell in
a foreign land and that he would bring
them into bondage and oppress them 400 years.
And a nation to whom they will be
in bondage I will judge, speaking of Egypt,
said God, and after that they shall come
out and serve me in this place.
Prophecy of what he would do when he
raised up Moses as their deliverer.
So we see that he doesn't blaspheme their
God.
He believes in the God of Abraham.
And further, he is saying all of that
to say, you see, I'm not guilty.
But he goes further.
And he follows the flow of salvation history
because he wants to unfold to them while
he answers their accusations, he wants to unfold
to them that Jesus Christ is the Messiah
as foretold in the typology of Moses' life
and ministry.
In the typology of Joseph, his life and
ministry.
And he wants to be very clear that
these men were just forecasts of the ultimate
deliverer who would come.
Jesus Christ.
So he's answering their accusations and revealing Christ
at the same time in the Old Testament
Scriptures.
So he goes now into the time of
the patriarch period.
In verse 8.
Then he gave him the covenant, that is
Abraham, the covenant of circumcision.
And so Abraham begot Isaac and circumcised him
on the eighth day.
Here's the covenant God gives to their father
of circumcision.
When he finishes his sermon, he says, you
are uncircumcised people in your hearts and in
your ears.
You have nothing to do with what God
originally intended for you.
That's where he's heading.
This is a forecast of that.
He gave him the covenant of circumcision.
And so Abraham begot Isaac, circumcised him on
the eighth day.
Isaac begot Jacob.
Jacob begot, here we go, the twelve patriarchs.
They practically venerated these guys.
These are our fathers, the twelve patriarchs, the
head of the twelve tribes of Israel.
They practically venerate these guys.
But now what he does is he takes
the patriarchs and he lays the groundwork for
the indictment he's going to give them of
how they reject the ultimate deliverer, Christ, just
as these men rejected Joseph, who was to
be God's deliverer for them.
Verse 9.
The patriarchs, becoming envious, sold Joseph into Egypt,
but God was with him.
I like that.
The patriarchs were ungodly.
They were jealous.
They sold Joseph into Egypt in slavery.
But even though they rejected him, God was
still with him.
And that is the way it is with
Jesus Christ.
Verse 10.
God delivered him out of all of his
troubles, gave him favor and wisdom in the
presence of Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, and
made him governor over Egypt and all his
house.
They first threw him in a pit, threw
Joseph in a pit, his brothers, to have
him killed, hopefully by a lion that would
come by.
Then they had a little mercy on him,
one of the brothers said, oh, let's take
him out.
They sold him then into slavery.
But basically, they sought to destroy him.
God overruled their efforts, raised Joseph up to
become the governor of Egypt, and then used
him when famine hit the land of Palestine
and they would have starved to death.
And there would be no Israel.
If Jacob and all of his sons starved
to death, there would be no Israel.
Thus, God used Joseph to save them to
protect his plan of salvation because Christ was
to come through their offspring.
Verse 10.
God delivered him out of all of his
troubles, gave him favor and made him governor
over Egypt.
So, they reject Joseph.
They get rid of Joseph.
God rescues Joseph.
And through Joseph, God rescues them.
Verse 11.
Now a famine and great trouble came over
all the land of Egypt and Canaan and
our fathers found no sustenance.
No food.
But when Jacob heard there was grain in
Egypt, he sent out our fathers first.
And the second time, Joseph was made known
to his brothers and Joseph's family became known
to the Pharaoh.
Then Joseph sent and called his father Jacob
and all his relatives to him, 75 people.
So, Jacob finally went down to Egypt and
there, well taken care of.
He ultimately died, he and our fathers.
And they were carried back to Shechem and
laid in the tomb that Abraham bought for
a sum of money from the sons of
Hamor, the father of Shechem.
So, far from blaspheming God, he understands God
better than they do.
He understands the plan of God better than
they do.
And he understands the treatment of their fathers
against the deliverer, Joseph, better than they do.
See, he understands that Joseph was a type
of Christ.
Do you know that?
It's a wonderful thing to contemplate.
See, both men were from the nation of
Israel, Joseph and Jesus.
Jesus, like Joseph, was delivered up for envy.
Jesus was condemned to death by the testimony
of false witnesses.
Joseph was imprisoned because of false accusations by
Potiphar's wife.
Just as God freed Jesus from the prison
of death and exalted Him, so He freed
Joseph from prison and exalted him to high
office.
Joseph was able, ultimately, to deliver his sinful
brothers from physical death.
Jesus rose from the dead and delivers us
from spiritual death.
You see, the parallels are very clear and
they are there on purpose set forth by
God.
So, he is not guilty of blaspheming God.
Let's go to the next thing.
He is not guilty of blaspheming Moses.
And He is very clear to show them
that with a masterful defense.
What amazes me, if I could just tuck
in a footnote here.
This sermon, when you're all done with it,
stands as one of the greatest sermons ever
preached.
Without question.
It's so tightly woven.
It is so deep.
It is so clear.
It is so succinct.
And you must bear in mind it's delivered
by a man who pretty much knows he's
going to die at the end of it.
Can you imagine that?
This is the power of the Holy Spirit.
To make us so completely independent from our
circumstances around us by controlling our hearts and
our minds and guarding us with His peace
so that we can accomplish what He wants
us to do.
God wants a crystal clear witness to these
men.
That is what they get.
If you read it, it's so clear you
would assume he's preaching to a loving congregation.
He's going to come up and shake His
hand afterwards for a great sermon.
That's the power of the Holy Spirit.
Only God could do that.
If He could do it for Stephen, He
can do it for you.
Watch for that power in your life.
Verse 17 When the time of the promise
drew near, which God had sworn to Abraham
that He would raise up, deliver, and bring
them out of bondage from Egypt, the people
grew and multiplied in Egypt till another king
arose who did not know Joseph.
Then this man dealt treacherously with our people
and oppressed our forefathers, making them expose their
babies so that they might not live.
Verse 20 At this time Moses was born
and was well-pleasing to God.
And he was brought up in his father's
house for three months.
But when he was set out, Pharaoh's daughter
took him away and brought him up as
her own son.
Now verse 22 is a fascinating verse to
me.
One thing I love about the Bible is
the more you read it, the more light
you get.
The more you understand one section of the
Bible, the more you'll understand another.
Verse 22 Moses was learned in all the
wisdom of the Egyptians and was mighty in...
What does it say?
Words and deeds.
Whoa!
You know what that means?
This blows the lid off Moses' cover of
the burning bush.
Do you remember when God came to Moses
in the burning bush?
He says, Moses, I want you to be
the deliverer for my people.
So you go on up and you do
what I tell you to do and you
say what I tell you to say.
And Moses says...
He doesn't want to do it.
Moses says, Lord, I can't do it because...
Well, what can't?
Why?
I can't do it because I have a
problem speaking.
I'm really not a good communicator.
Since when?
Right now?
He made it up right there.
Stephen blows the lid off of it.
Moses was raised by Pharaoh's daughter in Egypt
as a prince.
He was mighty in words.
Whoo!
That tells me Moses was putting on a
show for God.
Lord, I can't deliver your people.
I'm no good with words.
And God says, Who made your mouth?
Don't show me what your mouth is all
about.
I know all about you.
I know all about your skills.
And that man who was great and mighty
in words in Egypt, when you read Deuteronomy,
the last sermon Moses preached before he died,
that man is an awesome orator.
Just a side note to tell you how
quickly our human nature will come up with
an excuse to God as to why we
can't do what He's asking us to do,
even if it's a flimsy excuse.
And that was a flimsy one.
And the great thing is, is he ended
up going and doing it anyway.
And God mightily blessed him.
I thank God he's patient with us.
Aren't you?
So, verse 23.
When he was 40 years old, when he
was back in Egypt, it came into his
heart to visit his brethren, the children of
Israel.
And seeing one of them suffer wrong, he
defended and avenged him who was oppressed and
struck down the Egyptian.
For he supposed that his brethren would have
understood that God would deliver them by his
hand, but...
This is kind of a summary of their
whole history.
They did not understand.
The next day he appeared to two of
them as they were fighting and tried to
reconcile them, saying, Men, you're brethren.
Why do you wrong one another?
But he who did his neighbor wrong pushed
him away, saying, Who made you a ruler
and a judge over us?
See, here he is saying, I'm here to
deliver you.
They're saying, We don't want your deliverance.
Who are you?
Who made you a ruler and a judge
over us?
Which was pretty much their attitude all the
way through.
With all the deliverance God sent to them.
Verse 28.
Do you want to kill me as you
did the Egyptian yesterday?
They totally have an attitude with him.
Mr. Murderer.
Then at this saying, Verse 29.
Moses fled and became a dweller in the
land of Midian where he had two sons.
Verse 30.
When 40 years had passed, an angel of
the Lord appeared to him in a flame
of fire in a bush in the wilderness
of Mount Sinai.
Moses goes to the children of Israel, seeks
to reveal himself to them as deliverer because
God had put it in his heart to
be the deliverer.
Watch this.
40 years go by when he flees and
he goes into Midian and he lives in
the wilderness.
40 years go by before he actually becomes
the deliverer.
Why did God put it into his heart
then wait 40 years?
Because that's the way God does it.
He doesn't always wait 40 years, but we're
not all Moses.
He will put something in your heart that
he wants to do in the future.
We tend to sense that he's placing a
vision there or a desire, a calling, and
we want it now.
Without all the training and preparation God intends
to give us.
See, the training and preparation can't start until
you identify that he's calling you to do
something.
Does that make sense?
Hello.
So, with Moses, he says, alright, this is
where it begins.
Moses wants to start right now.
God wants to train him for 40 years.
So he sends him to the back desert
of Midian where he is a shepherd for
40 years.
And during those 40 years he learned every
trail at Sinai, every waterhole, every place would
be sufficient to take care of the people
of God.
And he learned how to take care of
sheep, which was preparation to learn how to
take care of the people of God.
So, 40 years goes by.
And then God calls him to be the
deliverer.
Now, verse 30.
The angel of the Lord appeared to him
at that time in the flame of fire
in the bush in the wilderness of Mount
Sinai.
Verse 31.
When Moses saw it, he marveled at the
sight, and he drew near to observe it.
And the voice of the Lord came to
him, saying, I am the God of your
fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of
Isaac, the God of Jacob.
And Moses trembled and dared not to look.
Now, at this point, you have to imagine
these men.
They're spellbound.
They cannot believe that this guy who was
just a deacon waiting on tables, effectively, stands
before them all.
He is courageous.
He's not intimidated.
And he is unfolding the scriptures.
And he's talking about their history, which, by
the way, was their very favorite subject.
They loved, of course, to talk about themselves.
It was their favorite subject.
And so, by this time, you've got to
realize they're looking at each other going, wow,
this guy is incredible.
And he's talking about Moses.
That's right.
And Abraham.
That's right.
And our fathers.
That's right.
And so now they're looking at each other
going, he's really good.
Where's he going with this?
Wait till they find out.
And so, verse 33, the Lord said to
him, to Moses, take off your sandals, off
your feet, for the place whereon you stand
is holy ground.
I have surely seen the oppression of my
people who are in Egypt.
I have heard their groaning and have come
down to deliver them.
And now come, I will send you to
Egypt.
So, God sees the time has come to
fulfill His promise to deliver them from bondage.
And God raises up the deliverer who's now
been prepared.
And here is the reaction of the people
to their deliverer sent from God.
Verse 35, this Moses whom they, the fathers,
whom they rejected.
Saying, who made you a ruler and a
judge is in fact the one God sent
to be the ruler and the deliverer.
Do you see it?
The very one God sent to be their
ruler, the very one God sent to be
their judge is the very one they rejected.
He is setting the stage for their rejection,
the men in front of them, as it
parallels the rejection of the fathers with the
deliverer that God sent them.
They are repeating history.
Only their rejection is far more serious than
all the others combined.
Verse 36, they rejected Moses, but Moses in
the end became their deliverer anyway, and so
he brought them out after he had shown
wonders and signs in the land of Egypt
and in the Red Sea and in the
wilderness for 40 years.
They finally went into the promised land.
Verse 37, this is that Moses who said
to the children of Israel, the man who
was undeniably sent from God as testified by
the plagues, the signs, the wonders, the Red
Sea, everything.
The man who was undeniably sent from God
is the same man who spoke of the
Messiah in verse 37.
And he told all the people, the Lord
your God will raise up for you a
prophet like me from your brethren.
Him you shall hear.
That was Moses' prophecy of Jesus Christ, their
Messiah.
And so Stephen is very clear with this.
You say you believe in Moses.
Our fathers rejected Moses as their deliverer.
He delivered them anyway.
Moses spoke of our Messiah, Jesus Christ.
You've rejected Him just as the fathers rejected
Moses.
You see, if these men in the Sanhedrin
had been willing to consider the facts that
day about Christ, they could not have missed
the parallels in their nation's history with their
own behavior toward Jesus Christ.
The parallel between Jesus and Moses.
Just as there is a parallel between Joseph
and Jesus by design in the masterful plan
of God, there's a parallel with Moses and
Jesus.
Did you know that?
Moses humbled himself by leaving Pharaoh's palace.
Jesus Christ humbled himself by leaving the palace
of heaven and coming down here.
Moses was rejected at first.
So was Jesus Christ.
Moses was a shepherd.
Jesus is the good shepherd.
Moses redeemed his people from bondage in Egypt.
Jesus redeems men from bondage in sin.
The history of Moses foreshadows the history of
Jesus Christ very clearly.
So far from blaspheming Moses, he believes in
Moses and what he was all about far
more than their forefathers, far more than them.
Then they said he blasphemed the law.
He gives his response to that in verse
38.
This is he, Moses.
This is amazing to me what follows.
This is he who was in the congregation
in the wilderness.
That's when they were all together, about 3
million people, parked at the base of Sinai,
which was effectively a huge granite pulpit with
God on top.
So here they are.
That's the congregation in the wilderness.
It's facing this pulpit with God on top.
Thunder and lightning and smoke.
And Moses goes up there to hear God
speak.
Then he comes back down, you remember, with
the Ten Commandments.
Now follow this.
This is he, Moses, who was in the
congregation in the wilderness with the angel who
spoke to him on Mount Sinai.
There were angels up there as well as
God.
And with our fathers, the one who received
the living oracles or the law of Moses,
the Word of God given to us.
So he affirms his belief in the law
as God gave it.
And that is crystal clear.
He was not a blasphemer of the law.
It's clear now to the Sanhedrin.
So he's defended himself.
But now he goes beyond that.
And he goes from defense to offense.
Now he goes on the offensive.
In verse 39 he says, Whom our fathers
would not obey but rejected.
God gave Moses the law, but our fathers
rejected Moses.
And in their hearts turned back to Egypt.
Saying to Aaron, Make us gods to go
before us, for as for this Moses, verse
40, who brought us out of the land
of Egypt.
Look at this.
We do not know what has become of
him.
I'm so sure.
They're all gathered around.
It's like a dead end street.
They come into this carved out valley type
area and at the end of it is
this Mount Sinai which is a huge pulpit.
They're facing the mountain in a cul-de
-sac.
If that helps.
And Moses goes up to the top of
the mountain and stays there.
They know exactly where he is.
He's up on the mountain hearing from God.
No sooner does he leave than the children
of Israel turn to Aaron and they say,
this is amazing, verse 40, Make us gods.
Make us gods.
Wait a minute.
You saw God manifest Himself in the plagues
in Egypt.
You saw God miraculously preserve you through those
plagues, open the Red Sea, take you across
on dry land.
That's your God.
The God who's with Moses.
The God that's talking to Moses on the
mountaintop.
How quickly they forget.
How quickly their hearts just go back to
Egypt, to the things of Egypt.
And mark this.
Calf worship was an integral part of Egyptian
religion.
These people do not believe in the God
who has miraculously delivered them.
How about that?
They're stuck on worshiping the gods of Egypt.
Moses, we don't know where he is.
So Aaron, can you make us some gods
real quick?
What is this?
Drive-thru God?
You know, can you make us a God
real quick?
We'd like a couple of calves, if you
can knock them out.
And we'd like to worship them.
That is so tragic.
Their penchant for idolatry was insatiable.
Always wanting to replace God with something else.
So here they are.
Aaron goes along with it.
And they make these golden calves.
And Moses is on the mountaintop with God.
When he comes down, can you imagine?
Moses comes off the mountaintop.
He has two tablets.
Stone tablets.
Mark it.
They're still warm.
God cut them from the mountaintop with His
own power.
And He wrote on them with His own
finger.
And they're still hot from the finger of
God with the Word of God.
Here he comes.
With the Word of God hot from God.
About to give it to the people.
And as he comes down from the mountain,
here they are.
They're in a total idolatrous form of worship
and sin and everything else.
And they're worshiping these calves.
They've rejected God already.
So what is the point of Stephen?
It's incredible.
What he's telling the Sanhedrin is that you
think your fathers are so great they love
the law of Moses?
You think I'm a blasphemer of the law
of Moses?
I am not.
The fathers were.
Because when Moses comes down with the law,
they're already worshiping a golden calf.
Get this.
They rejected the law before they even received
it.
They rejected the law before they even received
it.
Don't tell me Israel is this great people
of the law of God.
Don't tell me the fathers loved the law
and so do you.
Don't tell me the fathers rejected it before
they even received it.
That is so radical.
It was so true of them.
They studied the law, but they rejected it
in their hearts.
Verse 42, then God gave them up.
God gave them up.
Judicial hardness.
When God comes to you by His Holy
Spirit and He speaks to you and reveals
Himself and draws you unto Himself, you have
to make a decision.
Am I going to respond to God or
continue to obey sin and the devil?
If you reject God and obey yourself, your
own heart, and sin and the devil, God
will continue to come to you and call
you unto Himself.
If you continue to reject Him, there can
come a time where He will give you
up and over to what you want.
And if it isn't God, He'll give you
over to whatever it is you want.
Your master passion.
The Bible says of Pharaoh, Pharaoh hardened his
heart.
God approached him again through Moses.
He hardened his heart.
God approached him again in grace through Moses.
About nine times you read, Pharaoh hardened his
heart.
Then around number 10, you read, and God
hardened Pharaoh's heart.
But not until Pharaoh had repeatedly resisted the
Holy Spirit.
Now these people have been delivered by God.
They've seen the Red Sea parted.
They've seen miracles from God.
They've seen God reveal Himself.
God's Word.
And they reject it all.
So, they've made their decision and God gives
them up.
It's what I call judicial hardness.
There comes a time for some people, before
they die, when God shuts off the lights
and there's no way back.
You're past the point of no return.
God gives you up.
I don't want you, God.
I love you.
I don't want you, God.
I died for you.
I don't want you, God.
I rose from the dead again after paying
for your sins to save you.
I don't want you, God.
Come unto Me and I will give you
rest.
I don't want you, God.
And finally, God says, you don't want Me?
I don't want you.
You don't want Me?
I don't want you.
You don't want Me?
I don't want you.
Alright, you can have what you want.
A life without Me.
You see, if you feel God speaking to
your heart today, if you feel the Lord
Jesus Christ speaking to your heart, drawing you
to salvation, if you feel God speaking to
your heart, respond to Him while you feel
Him because there may come a time when
you don't.
Respond to the Lord while you feel Him
because there may come a time when you
don't feel Him anymore.
If He gives you up, then you're done.
When He gave them up, verse 42, notice,
they went on to worship the host of
heaven.
Idolatry.
As it is written in the book of
the prophets, did you offer Me slaughtered animals
and sacrifices during the forty years in the
wilderness of the house of Israel?
He's quoting Amos here from chapter 5.
You also took up the tabernacle of Molech
and the star of your God, notice your
God, Rephraim, images that you made to worship
and I will carry you away to Babylon.
It is a prophecy from Amos of God
taking them into captivity for rejecting Him and
worshipping idols.
Molech is the God they worship by offering
their babies.
There are some sins that are not new.
They rejected worship of God and they made
these idols, little idols about 2 feet, 3
feet high, out of metal.
They would then heat them in the fire.
These little idols, Molech, little Molech idols had
these arms that stuck out.
They would heat them up in the fire
until they were red hot.
And then to appease the God Molech, they
would take their babies and offer them to
Molech, put them on the red hot arms
of Molech and the babies would die as
an offering to Molech.
Very much a forecast simply of abortion that
is done because you want to keep on
sinning and you don't want any kids.
Molech is not new.
When He gave them up, you see their
life is just full of idolatry.
They rejected the law before they even got
it.
They went on to continue to.
So, God, Moses, the law, He's not blaspheming
these things.
He sees them as they are.
And He goes finally to the temple.
They said that He was blaspheming the temple.
In verse 44, He shows He has a
greater understanding of the temple and God's work
there than they do.
He says, Our fathers had the tabernacle of
witness in the wilderness as He appointed, instructing
Moses to make it according to pattern they
had seen.
That's where you had the Ark of the
Covenant and the burnt offering, the altar of
the burnt offering, the laver and so on.
And our fathers, which our fathers having received
and in turn also brought with Joshua into
the land possessed by the Gentiles, the promised
land whom God drove out before the face
of our fathers until the days of David.
So, this portable tabernacle that they would carry
around with them when they moved.
And they took it into the promised land,
verse 46, who found favor before God and
asked to find a dwelling.
David asked God if He could build him
a house.
Asked to find a dwelling for the God
of Jacob.
But David didn't build the house.
Solomon, verse 47, built him a house.
So, this man understands their history, their God,
their prophets, their deliverers, their temple, their tabernacle
in a very succinct way.
And he understands something that they don't.
He understands what Solomon understood.
Verse 48, However, the Most High does not
dwell in temples made with hands, as the
prophet says.
See, if we could stop right there.
As they're seated around Stephen in a semi
-circle, they think they know it all.
We are the men of God, the law,
the temple, Moses.
He's already nailed them on the first three.
Now, just down to the temple.
The first temple, which was Solomon's, had been
destroyed by the Babylonians.
Ezra 5.12 The second temple was rebuilt
by Zerubbabel.
It was destroyed.
The current temple, which they were in front
of, had been built, get this, by a
non-Jew by the name of Herod.
And that temple would be destroyed within the
lifetime of many of the people that were
listening because it was destroyed in 70 A
.D. All of that is to say that
the temple was always a transient thing with
God and temporary and even destroyed a couple
of times and the one that was there
in front of them would be destroyed as
well.
The bottom line being this, what Solomon said
to God when he dedicated his temple in
1 Kings 8.27, Solomon understood that it
isn't about the building, it's the God the
building represents.
He said, when he dedicated his temple, but
will God indeed dwell on the earth?
Behold, heaven and the heavens of heavens cannot
contain you.
How much less this temple, God, that I've
built.
I built you this temple, but Lord, I
know that you don't live in that little
ten by ten room in there with the
gold covering on the walls.
I know that you are everywhere at once
and you, even the heavens cannot contain you.
That's the God Solomon worshipped, that's the God
Stephen worshipped, that is not the God the
Sadducees who made up the most part of
the Sanhedrin worshipped because they did not even
believe in life after death.
You see how far above and beyond them
this man is?
You see, if they believed the way he
did, they would be like him, but they
don't.
They are godless, religious individuals with a Bible
in front of them, is what it amounts
to.
And a religious outfit, religious vocabulary, religious tones,
and a terrible jealousy and envy that manifests
itself in violence.
Let me point something out to you.
One thing about religious people who do not
care about a relationship personally with God is
they get very violent when you talk to
them about sin.
They get violent when you talk to them
about sin.
They don't want to talk about that.
Whereas a born-again Christian, if you talk
to them about sin, they're going to say,
you're talking to me, yeah.
That's me.
I'm a sinner saved by grace.
I don't have a problem with that.
I know I'm a sinner.
That's how I got saved.
But you talk to somebody who's just religion
only, and they're going to get really upset
at you.
And if you tell them, you need to
repent of your sins and follow Christ, if
you get a violent response from someone who
says they know God, when you're talking about
Jesus and repentance and sin, you're talking to
somebody who doesn't know God.
Because, blessed are the poor in spirit, Jesus
said, theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
When you realize you're poor in spirit, bankrupt,
destitute, unable before God to save yourself, He
comes in.
He rushes in.
Salvation is a rescue job.
And He offers you the free gift of
salvation and forgiveness.
He forgives you.
He cleanses you.
And He puts His Spirit inside of you
to live in you for all of eternity.
And you are a different person.
And all the while, you know you're a
sinner saved by the grace of God.
And that's why you love Him so much.
Religion reacts violently to the Gospel of Jesus
Christ.
That's what happens here.
So, Stephen refers to Solomon and he quotes
Isaiah 49.
Heaven is my throne and earth is my
footstool.
What house will you build for me?
Says the Lord.
What is the place of my rest?
Has my hand not made all these things?
Stephen wasn't guilty of blasphemy in the temple.
Get this.
They were.
Because they confined God to it.
He wasn't guilty of blasphemy in the temple.
They were because they confined God down to
live literally in a box.
The Holy of Holies.
They confined God down to the temple.
They narrowed Him down to be this little
thing that lived in the temple.
They totally missed it.
The temple was a symbol of God's presence.
Not ever to be the prison of God's
essence.
The temple was a symbol of God's presence.
Never meant to be the prison of His
essence.
Even the heavens can't contain Him.
Now, He just brings it all home and
He nails them.
And this is where we're going to stop.
He says in verse 51, He's had them
mesmerized until now.
They're spelled down.
And now He turns and He shows them
their guilt in resisting the Holy Spirit.
He says, You stiff-necked...
Literally, that has to do...
It pictures a person who defiantly refuses to
bow before God.
You stiff-necked.
Uncircumcised.
Whoa!
That is their biggest thing.
Uncircumcised.
In heart and ears.
Word counts.
You always resist the Holy Spirit.
You are no different than your fathers.
Their pattern of resisting the Deliverers clearly sent
by God is the pattern you have followed
and you have resisted the ultimate Deliverer, the
Messiah.
You always resist the Holy Spirit as your
fathers did.
So do you.
Verse 52, Which of the prophets did your
fathers not persecute?
They killed those who foretold the coming of
the Just One of whom you now have
become the betrayers and the murderers.
The prophets foretold Christ and they killed the
prophets, your fathers.
Christ came and now you killed Him.
You murdered Him.
Yeah, and they're about to murder Stephen too.
You have received the law by the direction
of angels and you have not kept it.
You keepers of the law, you don't even
keep it yourselves.
You have no respect for Moses.
You have no respect for the law.
You never did venerate God and worship Him
completely.
You never looked to the One Moses promised.
You are God rejecters.
And you are unforgiven and you are no
different than Gentiles is what he's basically saying.
When they heard these things, verse 54, they
were cut to the heart.
Literally, the Greek is cut in half.
They were cut to the heart and they
gnashed on Him with their teeth.
That is so radical!
Everything he has said has been designed to
lead them to heaven.
When they get to the end, they gnash
on Him with their teeth.
They run on Him and they will go
on to kill Him.
And Stephen would shortly become another in the
long line of God's messengers killed by God's
chosen nation and the first to be killed
for preaching the name of Christ.
The excellence of his sermon is not to
be overlooked by the fact that he's executed
rather than being acquitted.
This will forever remain as one of the
greatest sermons ever preached.
Had these men been willing to simply listen
to it, their hearts would have been open
and they would have repented.
Tragically, they didn't.
They just continued to harden their hearts to
the Holy Spirit.
I hope that you don't.
There's a very clear message that runs all
the way through here.
God is God.
He lives, He saves, and He wants to
save you.
And you have a choice.
You let Him.
You receive Him.
You don't resist Him.
Or, your choice is to reject Him.
And God is a gentleman.
He will never kick down the door of
your heart to come and live inside of
you and save you.
You must hear Him standing at the door
knocking at the door of your heart.
And you must, of your own choice, open
the door and let Him in.
If you've never done that, do it today.
You only have today.
Not tomorrow.
Tomorrow will be today again.
And all we can be really sure about
is that right now we have an opportunity
to give our lives to the Lord.
If you've never done it, do it right
now.
Believe on Christ.
Ask Him to forgive you for your sins.
Ask Him to come and live within you.
And surrender your life to the Lord.
Make sure you are not one from this
day forward who resists the Holy Spirit, but
one who receives Christ, the Giver of the
Holy Spirit.
Receive His free gift of love.
And love Him in return.
And know when you leave today, you belong
to God from here on out.
And when you die, you go into Heaven
forever.
Let's pray.
Father, we thank You that You are loving
and rescuing God.
We thank You for Your deliverance in Jesus
Christ.
And Lord, we receive You today, Jesus, as
our Lord and Savior.
Forgive my sins, Lord Jesus.
Live within me, Lord Jesus.
And work Your saving work in every heart
here today.
May we be a people led by Your
Spirit, born by Your Spirit, led by Your
Spirit, and empowered by Your Spirit.
Fill us, O God.
Send us forth to be the light of
the world in a real relationship with You.
And we ask it in Jesus' precious name,
Amen.