Lord, it's so good to know you, how
we thank you for the joy that you
put into our hearts.
Holy Spirit, we do bless you and praise
you for the infilling of your love, your
peace.
We thank you, Lord, that we are here
today in a relationship with you because we
love you.
And we love you, Lord, because you first
loved us.
God, as we study your word now, quicken
our hearts, open our eyes and open the
eyes of our understanding to the truth that
is here.
There's a man here before us, Lord, that
you made, Stephen, a man of God.
And we pray that the same dynamic that
went into making him what he was in
the early church would go into us, Lord,
in these days, in this church, that you
would raise up men and women like Stephen,
full of the Holy Spirit, full of grace,
full of power, and full of your word.
That, Lord, we might shine as bright witnesses
for you in this dark world, in these
last days, true witnesses of Jesus Christ.
And we ask you, Lord, in Jesus' name,
amen.
Stephen, if you don't know it, was the
first martyr in the Christian church.
He was the first one to die for
preaching the gospel.
It is an amazing thing to contemplate how
death really reveals what kind of people we
are.
If you consider the famous French philosopher Voltaire,
you've probably heard of him.
Many of you probably read some of his
writings along the way.
Voltaire, who used to say concerning Christ, these
words curse the wretch.
He also boasted that in 20 years Christianity
would be gone.
He said, my single hand that he wrote
with shall destroy the edifice that took 12
apostles to rear.
Voltaire was proud, confident, cynical.
And when he died, he died in desperation.
I am abandoned, he said, by God and
man.
And he said, I give you half of
what I am worth.
I would give you half of what I
am worth if you would give me six
more months to live.
He said, but you cannot.
And I will not.
And I will go to hell and you
will go with me, he said to those
with him.
And then he started to scream as he
died.
Oh, Christ.
Oh, Jesus Christ.
And he died and he went straight to
hell.
Men tend to die as they have lived.
It's the exception to have a deathbed repentance.
Thank God such things occur, but they are
the exception.
Stephen lived like Christ.
Stephen died with Christ and others since them
have died in the same kind of beauty
that God gives those that know him well
and live with them throughout their lives.
In contrast to Voltaire, you read of John
Wesley, great man of God.
He died full of counsel and exhortations for
the people that were there with him.
And his final words were, best of all,
God is with us.
I love that.
Best of all, God is with us.
And then he just kept repeating it.
God is with us.
And finally he said farewell and he closed
his eyes and went to heaven.
What a way to go.
Adoniram Jetson, the great American missionary to Burma,
suffered so much in his life, suffered even
at his death.
And he said to those around, he said,
I go with the gladness of a boy
bounding away from school.
I feel so strong in Christ.
And then he closed his eyes and went
to heaven.
You see, the way we die tells so
much about who we really are.
The way we live now with Jesus determines
who we will ultimately be and how we
will ultimately go when our time comes.
Here in front of us, we see how
Stephen went when his time came.
It came, I think, more suddenly than he
thought it would.
Jesus died.
He rose again.
He appeared, disappeared for 40 days, teaching and
teaching and teaching.
And then finally, at the beginning of the
book of Acts, he went back up into
heaven.
They saw him disappear.
And then the angels turned and commissioned the
apostles and the brethren, and they went forth
preaching the word of God.
Stephen was a man in the church who
loved the Lord, studied the word, grew and
was filled with the Holy Spirit.
God took him from the back of the
army, as it were, to the front of
the army, just a deacon, but then a
great man of God and of evangelism.
And he didn't live a very long life,
but he lived a full life.
He lived a powerful life and he lived
a life of courage and boldness.
And he was a blazing light in his
day.
And on this day that we're studying, he
preached a sermon.
And when it was done, he was murdered
for the message that he preached.
It is a shocking thing to contemplate that
it was the religious establishment of the day
that was the most popular in the eyes
of the people that killed him.
And they killed him for preaching Christ.
And he isn't the last one that died
for preaching Christ.
Many have died since throughout the history of
the church.
The blood of the martyrs has been the
seed of the church.
When Jesus said in the passage I referred
to earlier, when he said, I will build
my church and the gates of hell will
not prevail against it.
You remember that when he said the gates
of hell will not prevail against it?
He was talking about death itself.
He wasn't talking about the demonic hordes of
hell he was talking about.
And that's how it's often referred to.
I mean, we know the gates of hell
will not prevail and Satan can't stop this.
That isn't really what he was talking about
so much as he was saying death itself,
the process of death that you will face
for preaching my name will not stop the
advancement of my kingdom down through the history
of the church until I come back.
I will build my church.
I will build it as people preach, as
people die, as they're persecuted, as they're opposed.
I will build it and even death itself
will not stop it from advancing.
Stephen is such an example of that because
he knew he was going to die by
the end of this message.
And yet he did not recant.
He didn't pull back.
He didn't water it down.
He didn't soft pedal it.
On the contrary, when he saw that they
were rejecting what he had to say, he
said, you stiff necked, hard hearted individuals.
You are just like the fathers.
You always resist the Holy Spirit's work in
your lives.
And at that point, they didn't want to
hear any more.
And they manifested their true colors and drug
him away to his doom.
But let's read about it in verse fifty
four.
When they heard these things, they were cut
to the heart and they gnashed at him
with their teeth.
Isn't it amazing how religious leaders can be
so proper?
They dress so nice.
They speak with such wonderful religious tones so
different than hey, can you pass the potatoes
at dinner?
I don't know why it is that when
people get behind a pulpit, they have to
become suddenly different at dinner.
It's hey, can you pass me the salt
and pepper?
Man, this is good coffee.
Is this freeze dry?
You know, and then they get behind a
pulpit and suddenly there's this whole different thing.
That to me is always the first sign
that something's artificial here and it goes way
beyond the tone.
But it's amazing.
They gnashed him with their teeth.
They're dressed so nice.
They look so sharp.
They act so proper until they're cut to
the heart and then they just turn into
a wild, angry mob.
It's not the first time.
Behavior like this is often hand in glove
with just religious society.
But in contrast, he being full of the
Holy Spirit, verse 55, gazed up into heaven
and saw the glory of God and Jesus
standing at the right hand of God.
And he said, look, I see the heavens
open and the son of man standing at
the right hand of God.
And they cried out with a loud voice.
Now they're already gnashing on him with their
teeth and they cried out with a loud
voice, verse 57, and they stopped their ears
and they ran at him with one accord,
quite a picture, fingers in the ear, ears
running at him, you know, and they cast
him out of the city and they stoned
him, verse 58, and witnesses laid down their
clothes at the feet of a young man.
Here's his first appearance in the scripture and
certainly not the last.
Saul.
And they stoned Stephen as he was calling
on God and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my
spirit.
And then he knelt down he knelt down,
rocks pelting him, and he cried with a
loud voice, Lord, do not lay this sin
to their charge.
Do not charge them with this sin.
It's a salvation prayer.
Work in such a way that this sin
is not held against them and they're saved.
And when he had said this, he fell
asleep, he died.
Last time we looked at Stephen's defense, this
time we'll look at his declaration and then
his death.
To begin with, looking at his declaration, as
he tells them, he sees the heavens open
and all we come to, verse 54, when
they heard these things, they were cut to
the heart.
There's a stark contrast here between Stephen and
his murderers, and it weaves its way through
the passage.
They are filled with anger.
He is filled with the spirit.
You see, in verse 54, when they heard
these things, they were cut to the heart
and they gnashed on him with their teeth.
They are filled with anger as they are
cut to the heart, Luke writes.
The Greek word is Diaprio, and it means
to saw in half.
In other words, they have this veneer and
that is all it is.
It's a front.
It's a veneer of spirituality.
And the word of God saws it right
in half.
It bursts open and the blasphemous, hypocritical hearts
that they have are unveiled.
They were cut to the heart, sawed in
half, opened up and they began to gnash
on him with their teeth.
They gnashed on him with their teeth.
That is an amazing thing to read in
Psalm 35, way back in the Old Testament,
Psalm 35, verse 16.
I'm reminded of where it says, like the
ungodly, they maliciously mocked and they gnashed their
teeth at me.
In Psalm 37, verse 12, it says the
wicked plots against the just and gnashes at
him with his teeth.
Certainly that is fulfilled here.
The amazing thing to me is as they
are so full of anger, gnashing with their
teeth.
This is the beyond the third time they
have heard the full message of the gospel
declared to them.
They had been the ones who tried Jesus
in this very same courtroom.
Then, if you recall, in Acts 4, 8,
Peter stood up and he was filled with
the Holy Spirit and he addressed them and
he gave them the full message.
Peter and John had healed the lame man.
Same men, same place.
Then they, in Acts 5, they arrested the
12 apostles.
The angel let them out of prison.
They were found preaching in the temple.
They were arrested again.
They were brought back in.
Same place, same group.
The 12 apostles preached to them.
They had been doing signs and wonders and
miracles.
So the message was extremely powerful and irrefutable.
Then this man who's just waiting on tables
and in charge of ministering to the widows,
he begins to get filled with the spirit
and preaching.
And God does signs and wonders through this
man, Stephen.
They see that.
They can't deny that.
They arrest him.
They interrogate him.
He lays out for them the history of
the Jewish people and the salvation plan of
God, the fathers, Moses, the law, the temple,
God, all of these things in a way
they'd never heard it before.
Never heard it before.
Were unable to discern and divide the Bible
the way he had.
So they'd heard it so clear he ties
it all into Jesus Christ.
And they do not respond because their hearts
are more hardened than they have ever been.
They have come to the place that is
so scary to me.
To where you can become so hard and
hard that no matter how many times you
hear the gospel from that time, that place
in your heart, you become so hard that
it doesn't matter how many more times you
hear the gospel.
There's no reaction.
They have come to that place.
Paul, the apostle, later in Acts, hold your
place and turn to Acts 28, verse 25.
He was to warn such people later on
after he was converted.
No doubt reflecting on how close he came
to being so hard, he would never come
to Christ.
So thankful that he had in Acts 28,
25.
So when they did not agree among themselves,
they departed after Paul had said one word.
The Holy Spirit spoke rightly through Isaiah, the
prophet to our fathers saying, go to this
people and say, hearing you will hear and
you will not understand.
Seeing you will see and will not perceive.
That is exactly where these men were here
on this day with Stephen.
What a scary place to be where you
hear the gospel and you no longer react
to it.
You don't feel convicted for your sins.
You don't feel you should turn to the
Lord.
You just want to do everything you can
to shove it away from you.
And that's where these men were.
And so they are cut to the heart
and they Nash with their teeth.
You know something?
I think they're still gnashing their teeth.
And I have the word of Jesus on
that.
In Matthew 13, 41, I'll read it to
you.
Jesus said in that day, the son of
men will send out his angels.
They were gathered out of his kingdom, all
things that offend and those who practice lawlessness.
And I will cast them into the furnace
of fire.
Speaking of hell.
And there will be wailing and gnashing of
teeth.
These men are, as it were, a picture
of hell.
And Stephen is a picture of heaven.
Don't forget.
All the while, his face is shining like
an angel.
He's glowing.
So they're gnashing on him with their teeth.
They're full of rage and anger.
And he's over there glowing, filled with the
love of God.
But hell is a place where you will
gnash your teeth.
Jesus said they were gnashing their teeth then.
And I venture to say most of them
are still gnashing their teeth in hell.
And the reason there's gnashing of teeth in
hell is because of the intense sense of
the sin that condemned you to go there.
And that will never be relieved.
And this intense anger at God having not
responded to his love.
Any individual that fights his way into hell
will not respond to his judgment either.
You either come because of the love of
Christ or you don't come at all.
And these men here did not come, except
we know there's one in the crowd who
was to come later.
And that was Saul.
So here they are.
They're filled with rage.
On the contrary.
And in contrast, this Stephen is filled with
the Holy Spirit.
Act seven fifty five.
But he contrast.
Being full of the Holy Spirit.
This is an amazing picture to me.
There is this storm of fury that's howling
around him.
And you can see the faces on these
individuals.
And at the same time, we're told his
face was glowing as an angel.
And he is calm.
He's totally yielded to the Holy Spirit's control.
If nothing else, this should tell all of
us.
Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit in the
middle of this.
Should tell all of us the power of
the Holy Spirit to work in our lives,
to enable us to stand separate from our
circumstances and to be able to stand in
the Lord's love and in the Lord's peace.
Here is a man who was just a
man like you and I.
And yet he's full of the Holy Spirit
under the control of the Holy Spirit.
And what is so tremendous is the way
Luke puts it.
Act seven fifty five.
But he being full of the Holy Spirit
being comes from the Greek who Parco and
it properly expresses the continuance of an antecedent
state, an antecedent state.
In other words, he has been in the
past filled with the Holy Spirit and he
is filled with the Holy Spirit.
Now it indicates here in the present tense,
it indicates this man is always living, filled
with the Holy Spirit.
And we know that's true.
That's one of the reasons they chose him
to be one of the deacons.
And so he lives his life full of
the Holy Spirit.
As a result, he doesn't have to make
any adjustments when the crisis hits.
I don't know about you, but that is
powerful insight for me, because too often we
live following our own way, doing our own
thing.
We fail to seek the Lord and we
don't read our Bibles.
And then a crisis hits and we wonder
why we are so unable to handle it.
Stephen here is peaceful, he's calm and he's
about to die.
And he is as calm in the way
he preaches and behaves as if he was
here with us today.
And we were all smiling at him.
And that is because he lives in the
Holy Spirit day by day and he doesn't
have to make any changes when this time
comes.
And you say you might say, well, you
know what?
I can see living, walking in the spirit,
seeking the Lord.
But I don't know if I could handle
an angry mob getting ready to stone me
to death, gnashing on me, running at me
with their fingers in their ears.
I don't know if I can handle all
that.
Well, let me say this.
As Stephen was filled with the spirit, he
was also filled with something very wonderful and
unique to the hour.
And it's called crisis, grace, crisis, grace.
It is that work of the spirit that
God reserves for these times where you have
your everyday situations.
And then as you follow the Lord, you
hit unusual situations.
And this definitely is a crisis of unusual
proportion.
And yet the grace is here.
And, you know, something Jesus had promised that
it would be.
Hold your place here in tune to Luke
12, 11, Luke 12, 11.
I'm so thankful the Christian life has not
lived in my power, aren't you?
And that the Holy Spirit is ever present
to meet our needs as the days go
by.
Luke 12, 11.
Now, when they bring you to the synagogues
and magistrates and authorities, exactly what happened to
Stephen here.
Do not worry about how or what you
should answer or what you should say.
Verse 12, for the Holy Spirit will teach
you, Jesus says, in that very hour what
you should say.
So Jesus had promised that in the time
of the crisis, the Holy Spirit will be
there in that very hour to teach you
what to say and be there to show
you how to act.
The Christian life is never to be lived
without the presence and the power of the
Holy Spirit.
We should never look at any situation and
think I have to face that.
I don't know how I'm going to face
it.
I can't face it.
How many times have you in your life
said words like this?
I can't take it.
You ever said that?
Come on, be honest.
You lie in church.
God won't bless you.
I can't take it.
You can't.
That's why you say it, right?
But Paul said, I have found when I
am weak, I am strong because his grace
is sufficient for me.
I have discovered, I've learned it, that in
my weakness he is made strong.
So the truth is for us as Christians
in a very intense crisis, you know, Lord,
I can't handle this, but you can give
me the grace, strengthen me now.
And then we see him do it.
And we see it here with Stephen.
I'm certain as Stephen was preaching and he
sees their faces, they're nodding.
Yeah, this is good history.
Man, this guy's tight.
He's got it down.
He understands Moses and the law and Abraham
and the fathers.
He's amazing.
Oh, my God.
Oh, he's saying he's telling us we're stiff
necked and hard hearted.
What?
You know, as he sees this, he's realizing,
you know, I'm a dead man and I
can see him saying, Lord, I feel my
face as an angel.
I feel my death is near.
Oh, God, give me the grace that I
need to go through with this.
I can't do this in my own strength.
And then we see the heavens open and
there is Jesus revealing himself to Stephen in
his hour of need.
Peter had learned this so well by the
time he wrote his first epistles, which was
to persecuted, scattered brethren and first Peter 414.
He said, if you are reproached for the
name of Christ, blessed are you for the
spirit of glory and of God rests upon
you, isn't that sweet?
The spirit of glory and of God rests
upon you.
On their part, he is blaspheming, but on
your part, he is glorified.
That's exactly what happened with Stephen.
He was glorified to Stephen as the spirit
of God rested upon him.
And so the spirit of the Lord grants
grace to Stephen as he goes to be
with the Lord and goes through this.
And so that tells me as a Christian,
I don't have to shy away from difficult
situations.
I can go into them and through them
by the power of the Holy Spirit.
They are filled with anger.
Stephen is filled with the Holy Spirit.
Further, Stephen is filled with his heavenly sight.
The verse fifty five, but he gazed into
heaven and he saw the glory of God
and Jesus standing at the right hand of
God.
And he said, look, look, I see the
heavens open and the Son of Man standing
at the right hand of God.
If you think they got mad at him
for saying you stiff necked, hard hearted individuals,
if you think that made them mad when
he stops and he says, look, I see
the heavens open.
Jesus is standing in the right hand of
God.
That was it.
He wasn't a dead man.
Now he is totally finished.
Why?
Because Jesus opened up heaven and revealed himself
to Stephen and he saw him and Stephen
then made these individuals face the words that
Jesus had said to them the night they
tried him.
In Matthew 26, 64, as Jesus was there
in front of the high priest, in front
of the council, Jesus said to him, Matthew
26, 64.
Hereafter, you will see the son of man
sitting on the right hand of power.
Are you the son of God?
He says, you have said it.
Then he added to it.
And he said, Hereafter, you will see the
son of man.
I am God and I am man.
You will see the son of man sitting
on the right hand of power.
And the high priest tore his clothes at
that saying of Jesus.
He turned.
He said he has spoken blasphemy.
We don't need any more witnesses.
Look, you've heard him blaspheme, blaspheme yourself, blaspheme
yourself.
And then they took Jesus and they sent
him to his death.
The high priest tore his clothes when Jesus
said that.
But at this point, they started gnashing their
teeth because here was Stephen.
Jesus has said you will see the son
of man sitting at the right hand of
power.
And here is Stephen, one of his followers.
His face is glowing as an angel as
he looks up into heaven and the very
words they had called blasphemy come out of
his mouth.
And he says, Look, I see the heavens
open and the son of God on the
right hand of power.
That is amazing to me.
He saw it.
He said that he saw it.
They saw only the roof as they looked
up.
Look, I see the heavens open.
All they see is the roof.
They look back at him and he's glowing.
It's obviously he sees something heavenly and he's
glowing with his face like an angel.
They see only the roof and it brought
about an outburst greater than the one that
Jesus had brought about with his words.
And they began to yell and stop their
ears that they might not hear anymore.
And while Stephen is filled with heavenly sight,
they are completely spiritually blind.
And so we read they stopped their ears
and ran at him with one accord.
They chose to silence the truth by killing
Stephen.
Remember when Jesus said to these people, You
are blind guides and you lead the blind.
The blind lead the blind and they both
fall into the ditch.
These are the blind guides right here.
And they go running one after the next,
having rejected and killed the Messiah.
It's not surprising they reject and kill one
of his most faithful herald Stephen right here.
And so they run at him in a
blind fury.
They ran at him.
You see that they ran at him.
And Luke chose a word in the Greek
that vividly portrays their fury and it's used
elsewhere.
You remember when Jesus went to Gadara and
the man we know him as Legion.
He was in the caves cutting himself.
He was possessed and he cast out a
thousand demons out of this man.
And Jesus cast the demons out of the
man.
But he cast them into the pigs.
The swine.
And then you read that the swine, after
the demons went into them, they ran madly
down the hill and drown in the Sea
of Galilee.
That's what happens when you get doubled ham,
you know, demon possessed pigs anyway.
So the mad rush of the herd of
swine down into the lake.
When you read that account in Mark and
Matthew, the same term is using the Greek
to rush madly.
So they're running at him in a mad,
frenzied rush.
Exactly.
Had those swine ran madly demon possessed into
the lake.
It's used the same word is used in
Acts 1929 to describe the frenzied mob that
rushed into the theater at Ephesus to kill,
try to kill Paul and his companions.
So it's this mad, frenzied state and they
rush at him and they ran at him,
casting aside all their dignity, all their propriety.
This high, prestigious court in Israel is reduced
now to an angry, murderous, howling mob.
And it's all because they don't want God
taking their life, saving them from their sins
and turning them into gracious, kind, loving men
like Stephen.
They want power and popularity and money.
That's it.
So his declaration leads to Stephen's death.
These men sought only to see him dead.
He sought only to see them saved.
What a contrast.
They cried with a loud voice, stopped their
ears, ran at him in one accord.
In verse 58, they cast him out of
the city and they stoned him.
So they took him and they drug him
out of the city, most likely to Calvary,
Golgotha, a place of execution.
Most likely, he died right near where Jesus
Christ did.
And this is in keeping with the injunction
in Leviticus 24, 14.
If you have a blasphemer, you take him
outside the city and you stone him.
So they would have tried to give the
appearance that's what they were doing.
However, most likely they drug him outside the
city to the area to look like they
were doing the right things.
But this is a mad, frenzied mob.
And, you know, they didn't do it in
an orderly fashion.
According to Leviticus, if it was true blasphemy,
you were to have the witnesses throw the
first stones, the prime eyewitnesses of the person
and the crime they had committed, perhaps the
false witnesses through the stones.
I'll tell you one thing.
If they were false witnesses and they had
false witnesses, if they had to throw the
first stones, you bet those guys were feeling
bad by the end of the day that
they took some money to tell some lies
and then they have to be the first
ones to throw the stones for this man,
this human being in front of them to
die, to murder all about some money.
I doubt if they did it that orderly,
although they did take Saul and they laid
their coats down at his feet.
So they weren't angry enough that they couldn't
stop and take off their fine robes.
So they rushed at him, evidently got someone
to drag him away.
And then they said, you get him out
of here.
We'll take our robes off.
We don't want to soil them, you know,
in the murder.
So they take him over to Saul and
they, here, hang on to our robes for
us.
Keep a sharp eye on this.
We've got to go kill somebody.
And then these guys are, you know, sin
makes you really warped as a human being.
It really does.
Makes you really warped.
They thought only to see him dead.
Stephen is so Christlike.
He sees only to see them saved.
In verse 60, he kneels down and he
cried out with a loud voice saying, Lord,
do not charge them with this sin.
He's so filled with forgiveness.
Even at this point, he's dying.
You can see the brethren watching.
You know, we tend to forget that there
would be other Christians watching and you can
see them standing there going, oh my gosh,
they're going to murder him.
All he did was tell them about Christ.
They're going to murder.
They're going to do it.
They're going to murder him.
And as they begin to stone him, it's
the effect of like pitching hard balls at
him, only rocks, rocks about the size of
hard balls.
They begin to stone him to death.
It is amazing to me.
We read he knelt down.
It seems to me he fought his way
to his knees, wanted to die on his
knees.
This man loved the Lord so much.
He wanted to die on his knees.
And so he knelt down.
And there he prayed for their salvation, just
like Jesus.
Remember, Jesus prayed, Father, forgive them.
The centurion at the base of the cross
was saved that day.
He heard that prayer.
Father, forgive them.
He says, Father, he says, Lord, do not
charge them with this sin with a loud
voice.
And then the Bible says he fell asleep.
That is a euphemism in the New Testament
for death.
It is a gentle time for death in
the New Testament.
And there are those that try to make
a doctrine out of soul sleep.
That you sleep in the grave.
That is not true.
Lord Jesus, he says in verse fifty nine,
receive my spirit.
He went straight to be with Jesus.
His body went unconscious and died.
His spirit, he went straight to Jesus.
He commended his spirit to Jesus and then
he went to him.
I like that a lot because Stephen is
ready to die.
Someone has well said a Christian ought to
be ready to preach, pray or die in
a minute.
Preach, pray or die in a minute.
Stephen is ready to go.
Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.
You know what is amazing to me is
that he says, Lord, do not lay this
into their charge so much like Jesus.
Father, forgive them.
Only here it's Lord, do not lay this
sin to their charge.
Then it is Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.
Jesus on the cross.
It's just like Jesus on the cross.
Father, into your hands, I commit my spirit.
It's just like it with one major exception
that you have to see.
He committed his spirit into the hands of
Jesus right in front of them, right in
front of them.
I see the heavens open, the son of
man on the right hand of God.
Then they take him out to kill him.
He kneels down.
He prays for them.
And then he says, Lord Jesus, while he's
dying, he doesn't budge one inch.
It only becomes more real.
Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.
I have seen you now.
Lord, take me.
And there he testifies of the deity of
Christ.
Jesus had said, Father, receive my spirit.
Stephen says, Jesus, receive my spirit.
He obviously sees Jesus as equal to the
father.
He is confessing the deity of Jesus Christ
in front of these men with men with
his dying breath.
And he goes to be with him.
You know, something fascinating here is that we
find the appearance of Jesus to Stephen that
puts him right up there with Isaiah, with
Ezekiel, with Daniel, with Moses as men in
the Bible who saw the Lord.
And it puts him in front of Paul
and John, who saw the Lord in his
ascended glory because he's the first one who
has to die for the faith.
He is the first one who gets to
see the risen, ascended, glorified Christ.
God is good.
He's a rewarder of those who diligently seek
him.
And yet I see here that even though
he has all of that, the appearance of
Jesus in the heavens does not stop the
stones.
Now, follow this.
In the Old Testament, you remember when Nebuchadnezzar
put up this huge statue and he got
all the people in the nation out to
look at it.
He got a band out there.
The band was playing.
And he said, I want everybody at the
sound of the band to bow down and
worship this idol I've made.
And so he says, strike up the band.
And they all began to sing.
And then they bowed down to worship the
idol, with the exception, hundreds of thousands of
people.
There they are, level, bowed down before the
idol.
And here are three young men standing like
this.
At attention, they would not bow because of
their conviction before their God.
Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego.
And the king heated up the fire, you
remember, and he threw them in.
It was so hot that the guys that
threw them in got burnt up.
And here they are.
They were tied up, thrown in the fire.
They went into the fire and then they
saw one inside the furnace, like unto the
Son of Man, in there with them.
There weren't three in the fire, there were
four.
There was a fourth and it was Son
of God.
And they went in tied up.
They were in the fire and then they
were moving around in there.
They're having some kind of a chat with
the Lord in the fire.
He's like, here, let me take those bonds
off, you know, and tie those ropes.
It's kind of hot in here.
Don't worry, I won't scorch you.
I'm here.
And so they're in there and they see
them moving around in there.
And the next thing you know, they take
them out.
They don't smell like smoke.
Their clothes aren't charred.
They're not burnt.
They're not blistered.
And the ropes are gone.
They go in bound.
They come out loose.
And it's all because of Jesus inside.
Now, here's the amazing thing.
Jesus, in that case, did not let the
fire touch them.
In this case, you could say the fire
did burn Stephen in the sense that he
did not hinder the stones.
He did die.
And the truth is, that is the way
it is most often.
The appearance of Jesus and the love of
Christ manifested here did not stop the stones.
And Stephen was stoned to death, calling on
the Lord Jesus.
Stones fell.
They beat about his head.
They stopped his eloquent tongue.
They dashed into his heaving lungs, bruised his
tender heart.
And there is the mangled corpse.
Christ did not preserve the flesh, but he
went in his spirit to be with the
Lord.
If the Lord didn't preserve Stephen's flesh from
the stones, ought we to expect it?
That's the thing I want you to see.
So often we're saying, Lord, stop this thing.
Lord, get me out of this thing.
And then God doesn't stop it.
At that point, we need to go back
to Stephen and see him full of faith,
on his knees, confessing Jesus to the very
end.
He sees him alive after his crucifixion.
He's being stoned to death.
You know what he's thinking.
They crucified him and I see him alive.
They're stoning me and I will be alive
with him in a minute or two.
You see, because Jesus lives, we will live
also.
He shut his eyes to earth and he
opened them to heaven.
He shut his eyes to earth and he
opened them to heaven.
And his prayer was effectual for at least
one of them.
In verse 58, they cast him out of
the city and stoned him.
And a witness, the witnesses laid their clothes
down at the feet of a young man
named Saul.
And then chapter eight, verse one, Saul was
consenting to his death.
Saul later became the Apostle Paul.
He stood there and he heard that prayer,
Lord, do not lay this into their charge.
Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.
You know, he had to stand there and
look at it and say, this has to
be true.
This has to be real.
The man does signs and wonders in his
life.
The man preaches before the best in Israel.
No one can withstand his wisdom.
The man shines like a face of an
angel.
He says he sees the risen Christ.
He dies talking to Christ.
Then he says, receive my spirit.
And he dies full of love and forgiveness
for all of us.
Later, Paul was on his way to Damascus,
Saul, to persecute the Christians, to arrest them
and imprison them.
Do you remember what Jesus said when he
appeared to him?
He said, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting
them?
No.
Why are you persecuting me?
Then he said this amazing thing.
He said, it is hard for you to
kick against the goads.
What is that?
It's Stephen in his mind every day, dying
full of the love of Christ, with the
radiance of Christ, praying for him as he
dies.
He probably looks up at him and he's
gone to be with Jesus every day of
his life.
The fact that he persecuted people, he had
to remember that witness of Stephen.
And it never stopped speaking to him.
Kicking against the goads for Saul was the
death of Stephen and the love of Christ.
The witness of Stephen that could not be
denied.
The church owes the conversion of Saul, of
Tarsus, to the death and witness of Stephen
on this day.
Stephen lived like Christ and he died like
Christ.
I want to finish with some similarities in
the two.
Both in life and death, they were so
much alike.
Jesus was filled with the spirit.
So was Stephen.
Jesus was full of grace.
So was Stephen.
Jesus boldly confronted the religious establishment of his
day.
So did Stephen.
Jesus was convicted by lying witnesses.
So was Stephen.
Jesus had a mock trial.
So did Stephen.
Jesus was executed, though innocent of any crime.
So was Stephen.
Both were accused of blasphemy.
Both died outside the city, buried by sympathizers,
and both prayed for the salvation of their
executioners.
Was there ever a man more like Jesus
than Stephen?
The answer is no, because he was just
like him.
Jesus said, greater works than these you will
do, because I go to the Father.
And he said, and I will send you
the Holy Spirit and he will be your
helper.
You will do what I did, because he
will be in you.
I've got to get back.
I got to get out of this body,
go back into heaven so I can come
back down through the Holy Spirit and get
back into yours.
And that's the explanation for Stephen.
What Paul called Christ in you.
The hope, the certain hope of future glory.
That's it.
Do you have Christ in you today?
If you do, then you will live a
life similar to Stephen's.
You will see God take you from anonymity
into a life where you begin to affect
others.
And it will be because of the love
of God in Jesus Christ.
Once you come to know him, you are
never the same again.
Thank God, huh?
Father, thank you that we will never be
the same now that we've come to know
Jesus Christ.
Thank you, Lord Jesus, that you love us
with an everlasting love.
And now, Lord, fill us with the power
of your Holy Spirit.
Lead us and guide us.
Lord, do for us what we could never
do on our own.
Work in us to make those changes we
could never make in our own power.
And give us a love for those that
don't know you, a passion, Lord, and the
courage and concern to tell them about you.
Open up many doors for us to share
Christ and Lord, we will buy your power.
May your joy be our strength and we
will give you all the glory.
We look toward being blessed, Father, for we
ask these things in Jesus name.
Amen.