I want to remind you, Brother
Eric Floyd will be here, Lord willing, to preach the gospel
to you this Sunday. I remember last time he wasn't
able to make it. Maybe it was time before. Last year, David
Edmondson was heading to rescue, and his flight got canceled,
and he scheduled another one, and that got canceled. He tried
every city he could, and he just couldn't make it. He reminded
me of that yesterday. He said, I hope I can see you in New Jersey
Thursday. We're supposed to land at the
same time. I said, you better not be late. I plan on being
there on time, which I'm just as prone as anybody else. But
he says hello. Brother Eric does. Brother David
does. Greg Elmquist and the saints down in Florida send their love
to you. And I got to speak with Brother Joseph Murphy. He's down
in Florida right now and tuning in online to the church there
in the Yucatan and healing. He's been able to make it about
three or four days without his nitroglycerin pills. And he's
old, he's probably two years older than me. He's real old. But since his incident with his
heart, he's starting to finally get a little, gain a little ground
in the heel sub, and I'm thankful for that. But he sends his love
to you all, too, and appreciates your prayers for him and his
family and what the Lord would have for him in this world to
serve him. Acts chapter six, we'll pick
up in verse eight. Verse 7, and the word of God
increased. All those things we read last
time, what the apostles told the saints and how they was going
to do it and everybody rejoiced. And because of that, the word
of God increased and the number of disciples multiplied in Jerusalem
greatly and a great company of the priests were obedient to
the faith. Don't you want that? Acts 6 verse 7. Don't you want
that? You want that here for your community,
for my community, for our community? Do we? How about we do what God says?
It'd be good, wouldn't it? And Stephen, full of faith and
power, did great wonders and miracles among the people. Stephen
was ordained here, appointed as a deacon. And we're given
that. We're not given a timeline as
to how long these events took place. But swiftly after him
being a deacon, he began preaching. And he began performing miracles,
and those apostles laid hands on him, and he was able to go
out and heal the sick and raise the dead and help the deaf. Full of faith, full of power,
and he did great wonders and miracles among the people. What
miracles and wonders did he do? Well, a miracle, if he was performing
miracles, that's wondrous, isn't it? Those disciples of John came
to the Lord and said, are you him? And he said, you go tell
them. I've told you this a lot, haven't
I? You go tell them the things you've seen and heard. The blind
receive their sight. The lame walk. The lepers are
cleansed. The deaf hear. The dead are raised
up. And what did God list as the
last miracle? You know it. The poor have the gospel. Preach to them. What wonder,
what miracle did Stephen perform? He may have fixed somebody's
broke ankle. He may have helped somebody that needed hearing
aids that didn't have hearing aids back then and he gave them some
hearing. He preached the gospel to them. Now this servitude,
we want a long ministry, we want a successful ministry. Stephen's
ministry may have lasted about 14 hours. And it's recorded over
two and a half chapters here in the scriptures. The Lord gave
a lot of groundwork, a lot of real estate in his word concerning
Stephen, didn't he? He preached the gospel to the
poor. And the Lord said, blessed is he whosoever shall not be
offended in me. He sent out those 70 in Luke
10. He said, if you go into a house
and they say, you ain't got to do nothing. You just study and
preach to us. We're going to feed you and take care of you.
He said, eat whatever they give you. And you say, you heal their sick. That's what he says. How's that? Well, they physically healed
the sick because the people didn't have the scriptures and those
things. How we do that now? Preach of the great physician
to them. And they said, you look them in the eye and you say,
the kingdom of God's come now. Tonight, the kingdom of God has
come nigh unto you, has come nigh unto me. And he said, and
if they won't receive you, and they don't, they despise you,
he said, you dust off your jacket, say, I won't even take the dust
of this city with us. And he said, you look them dead
nigh and say, the kingdom of God's come nigh unto you. Oh,
same message, two edges of the sword. And he said, he that heareth
you, heareth me. And he that despiseth you, despises
me. And he that despises me, despises
the father that sent me. And I've looked that word up
today and despises, you know what despises mean. If you despise
something, I despise snakes. You know what I mean by that.
I know what I mean by that. Well, what did God mean? What's
that word he used? It means, as you and I mean it,
that's true. You go in and preach the gospel and they say, we hate
you. Get out of here. We won't hear that. I don't believe
that gospel. That's so. But that word literally
means, the literal translation is set aside. Well, we'll deal
with this. That's nice. That's so sweet.
We'll deal with this tomorrow. It means disesteem. Not to hold
in high esteem. Not to say, boy, I have to have
that. This is God's charge. There's one side of the fence
to the other, and he's laying out the rules of engagement in
this holy war. You see? It means to frustrate. to frustrate. The Lord said,
if they frustrate with you, they're frustrated with me, and they're
frustrated that God sent me. Don't be spies. That means reject.
There were many that esteemed Brother Stephen. There were many
that held him in high regard. They did not reject him. They
did not frustrate him. They didn't, well, we'll just
set that to the side and deal with it tomorrow. We'll meet
you next week. They loved him. They said, you come on and preach
to us right now. You've healed our sick. You preach the gospel.
You preach the great physician to us. You come to us. There
are many that were thankful to the Lord for him. And we don't
know how long this took between Stephen being called and Him
preaching and them killing him. We don't know much of him other
than what it says in verse five, that they chose Stephen, a man
full of faith and of the Holy Ghost. But I wondered this week,
I thought a lot about, do you reckon Stephen was young? I think
he was. That's my thoughts on it. We
have no scripture that tells us that. I just had a feeling
that Stephen was young. And that might have been why
Paul was so affectionate towards Timothy. Remember what he told
Timothy? He said, let no man despise thy youth. You stand
on your hind two legs, you're going to get a lot of opposition.
They're going to despise and disesteem and all those things.
And they're going to set you aside and say, well, that's great.
Have you thought of this, Timothy? He said, don't let anybody despise
your youth. You're a young man and you go do what God gave you
to do. And I thought while he was there holding the coats of
all those that stoned Timothy as Saul, Tarsus, maybe he rejected,
despised, disesteemed, set aside Stephen at that time. He remembered
that, and the Lord let him sin that way, that way he would warn
others. There's some things I've lived
through in this world. God's kept me, and what I went through
hurt, and I don't want to see believers hurt. And so I said,
hey, don't do that. Don't do what I did. And I just
had a feeling Paul disrespected, disregarded Stephen, and that's
why he's so affectionate towards Timothy. It says in Acts 7, they cast
him out of the city, and there stood Saul holding her jacket. But here in verse 8, Stephen,
full of faith and power, did great wonders and miracles among
the people. Then there arose certain of the synagogue, which
is called the synagogue of Libertines, of the Cyrenians, the Alexandrians,
and of them, of Cilicia and of Asia, disputing with Stephen.
Stephen went down and did wonders, He did miracles among the people
and all the religious folks, the people in the synagogue,
they came disputing with Stephen. They came arguing with him. Brother
Gill had a good point on this. He said, being filled with indignation
at the doctrine of Stephen and with envy at the miracles. Jealousies, I want what you have.
Envies I want what you have and I don't want you to have what
you have They wanted him to stop doing those miracles because
they couldn't do miracles That's full of envy and they rose up
great in wrath towards him. They disputed Stephen. They took
offense to the means He used this preaching of the gospel
They took offense to the message the cross to the cross that they
had just persecuted and put on there. Nothing's changed has
it? blood, they took offense to the
means, they took offense to the message, and they took offense
to the motive of Stephen. He didn't want anything from
them. He just wanted them to see Christ high and lifted up,
for them to be warned that all flesh is grass, and he wanted
them to behold their God. We'll rejoice as soon as the
Lord saves you. That's all he wanted. That's it. He didn't want nothing from them.
He wanted no fame. He wanted no glory. He was probably
in a leadership position already before he ever showed up. I've
lived that life, he said. I don't need that stuff. I want
you to see Christ. That's my goal. And they said,
why in the world would he? That ain't, fuck us. He's going
to put us out of business. No, we've been doing this for
57 years. We got a good thing going. They're getting mad about
it. Unfortunately for them, here's
several men, several men of different nationalities and countries,
they gathered together to argue and they tried to persuade one
man. They encircled him. They got
in a horseshoe around him and said, but, but, but, but, but,
but, but, but. Unfortunately for them. That didn't work out
good for these religious folks, these self-righteous folks. Stephen
was strong in the faith and the Holy Ghost was upon him and the
Holy Ghost was in him. Now there's a clay pot in front
of him, a sinful earthen vessel that's filled with God, the Holy
Ghost. It says in verse 10, and they
were not able to resist the wisdom and the spirit by which he spake.
They, they, what about the, and he kept saying, here's what the
word says. Here's what the word says. Here's what the word says.
Here's what the word says. Here's what God says about that.
And they couldn't, they couldn't stand him. They said, this man's
intolerable. He's unapproachable. He's unbending.
They didn't hate Stephen. They hated God. If he'll show us, if he'll show
his enemies that, they'll quit being enemies and we'll love
them. They'll be our brethren. He was speaking to them. If you
or anybody, this is a Wednesday night. I know midweek services
going out of style around this nation and out of necessity in
a lot of places. If you or anyone ever on a Sunday,
whenever, if they hear someone preach, if it's on the radio
or if it's in person and some person is hearing another man
preach, he's either preaching the truth or he's not. That's it. Well, he preaches
some nice things. He's either preaching the truth
or he's not. Well, now they just say some,
I like hearing what they have to say about this, but I just
don't pay attention to the rest of it. They're either a minister
of Christ, a preacher of sin of God, or they're not. They're
sin of the devil. It's one or the other. And if
he's preaching the truth, Tonight, you sitting here, let's make
this as personal as we can get it. I'm either preaching the
gospel to you or I ain't. And if I am, God sent me to reject
it, to be drowsy towards it, to set it aside. Well, that gave
me a lot to really consider and think about, is to reject God
the Holy Ghost. Stephen told us that through
the Holy Ghost. And over in chapter seven, we'll
see this here in the next week or two. He says, this is harsh.
You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and in ears. You do
always resist the Holy Ghost, as your fathers did, so do you.
You ain't no different than your daddy. You're stiff-necked, you're
hard-hearted, and you're rejecting the Holy Ghost. I killed him
shortly after that. Don't you dare tell me those
things! Get them stones, get in. And he prayed for him right
as he died. God, they don't know what they're
doing. Just as Christ did. Forgive them. They know not what
they do. And right there stood Paul. The Lord blessed that prayer. He blessed the service of that
man with a losing ministry. He blessed it mightily. But he
was dead. He didn't see it, but he saw his Lord. That's what
he saw. He said, the heavens opened up and I saw the face of him. You'll see it this weekend on
the bulletin. Grab one in the back, I'll email it to you. If
you're doing all your work to satisfy somebody else, you're
going to be disappointed. If you're doing all your work
for somebody else to be satisfied of you, sooner or later, you're
going to let down. But if we're working under the Lord, we'll
never be disappointed. whenever we'll be, no matter the circumstances,
because servants are to serve. Servants aren't set around basements
to play video games and eat ice cream all day. We're to serve
what makes us profitable, just like we're reading Philemon.
How did this spirit come to Stephen? How did he get there? Look here
at Matthew 10, Matthew chapter 10. Verse 16. The Lord's getting ready to send
the 12 out. He says, Behold, Matthew 10, 16, Behold, I send
you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves. Be ye therefore wise
as serpents and harmless as doves. But beware of men, for they will
deliver you up to the councils and they will scourge you in
their synagogues. and they shall be brought before
the governors and kings for my sake, for a testimony against
them and the Gentiles. He told those that reject him
in Luke 10, he said, those that reject me, reject you, reject
the father, he said, it'll be better for them, or it'll be
better for Sodom and Gomorrah in that day than it will be for
them. He said, if these works were done in Sodom and Gomorrah,
they'd have repented a long time ago. The Lord's telling us things. He said, this is a charge against
them. You're going to give that message, and it's going to be
a message of condemnation to them. They're going to hear it
and reject it. And that's why I'm sending you. He's warning
them ahead of time. What happened? They ended up getting scourged
in Synagogue. Peter and John just got a cat
of nine tails. 40 lashes save one, didn't they? Verse 19, but
when they deliver you up, take no thought how or what you shall
speak, for it shall be given you in that same hour of what
you shall speak. I want to stop there for a second.
I've experienced this. It sounds cool. Well, the Lord
will give me something to say when I get up there. And there's
a lot of lackadaisical, lazy preachers out there that spend
all week golfing instead of studying as they're commanded to by God. And they think, well, the Lord
will give me something or he won't. The Lord will provide in that
day. He'll bless faith is what he'll bless. But to stand up
and to speak on behalf of God, is one of the most terrifying
things on the face of the earth. And whenever he does give that
word in a season, in a spontaneous open air preaching if you have
to do some of that, you thank him. There's no boasting, there's
no look at what I just did. When this comes, you're gonna
be terrified and you'll thank him. Verse 24, for it is not ye that
speak but the spirit of your father which speaketh in you.
And the brother shall deliver up the brother to death, and
the father the child, and the children shall rise up against
their parents, and cause them to be put to death, and ye shall
be hated of all men for my name's sake. But he that endureth to
the end shall be saved. And I cry out, God, keep me to
the end. Keep me to the end. Make me faithful
to the end. I'm prone to wonder. That ain't
just a song we sing. If Lord take his hand off me,
I'm gonna hit the road as fast as I can. I'll be off by myself. How can one stay warm alone by
themselves? That's an Ecclesiastes 4, huh?
How you gonna warm yourself? You gotta be in the fold, don't
we? What do we do when they hate
us that bad, Lord? Verse 23. But when they persecute you in
a city, flee to another city. For verily I say unto you, you
should not have gone over all the cities of Israel till the
Son of Man become. You ain't gonna run out of cities,
you just keep preaching. You just keep preaching. Back in
our text there in Acts 6, that's how Stephen, the Lord promised
it. How does Stephen have his Holy Spirit? How did he have
his courage and plainness to get up and preach these things
and do his miracles and wonders and preach to the poor? The Lord
said he's gonna do it. God said he's gonna do it, and
then he did it. And I'm certain Stephen's as shocked as I am,
and you would be too. Acts 6, verse 10. And they were
not able to resist the wisdom and the spirit by which he spake.
Christ, his wisdom, is what he preached, and the spirit of God
that dwelled in him as he promised. And they couldn't deal with him.
They couldn't buy this man, they couldn't persuade this man, they
couldn't coerce him, they couldn't influence him. He's a man on
a mission, a mission from God, he's sent of God. So what are
they gonna do? They sat down and tried to have
a one-on-one with Stephen Woodward. They ganged up on him at Woodward.
What are they gonna do now? Just the same thing they did
to Peter and John. Nothing's changed back then, nothing's
changed in this day. They conferred with each other behind the scenes,
behind closed doors. I've seen it happen in parking
lots and everything else. They got a plan to get a whisper.
Look at verse 11. And they suborned men which said
we have heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses and against
God. That suborn, suborning men, that's still a chargeable offense
in a court of law in this nation. Did you know that? Suborning
perjury. That means to induce someone
to commit an unlawful act such as perjury. Lying. That's the
whisper of somebody's ear, now you say this. You say, and we'll
get him. We'll get him out the way and
then we can go back to having things the way we had it, back
in the good old days. That's what we'll get. Servant's not above his master.
Before they crucified Christ there in Matthew 26, it said
the chief priests and the elders, I wouldn't want to be elder in
that place, would you? And all the council sought false
witness against Jesus to put him to death, but they found
none. Yea, though many false witnesses came, yet they found
none. You know what, Brother Stoniker
preached on this not too long ago. They had a whole bunch of
people showing up to say things that Christ did wrong, but they
couldn't get two to agree. You ever seen somebody do that?
What was the problem? And they'll go around to people,
and every person they talk to is a different reason as to what the problem
is, because it's just a Rolodex of excuses up there in their
head. They don't know what they're saying. And finally, they found
two. At the last came two false witnesses.
There were two of them that whispered together and got a game plan.
And they said, that's the two we'll use. Now we have two or
three witnesses. Took them a long time to find it. That was before
the crucifixion. After the resurrection, Matthew
28, they assembled with the elders and had taken counsel and they
gave them large money to the soldiers saying, say ye, his
disciples came and got him out of that tomb at night. They knew
he had risen. And they suborned them men, and
they said, we're gonna pay you a large sum of money. They said,
this is a known fact in Israel in this day. Everybody knows
that. Matthew said, this is common
knowledge. They paid him, and they lied and did it. But they
had some charges against Stephen. I wanna look at these. There's
three charges they have against him. And it's the exact same
charges brought up against God's preachers back in the 1800s.
in the 1700s and in the 1950s and in this day, 2024, it's the
same thing. This just shocked me. It comforted
me. It gave me a lot of comfort,
but it's the same charges brought up against God's preachers in
our day. There's nothing new under the sun. Man, it's hatred
of the gospel and of Christ being preached, it's consistent. As consistent as God is to be
merciful and faithful and long-suffering and kind and loving towards his
people, it's the same. It says in verse 11, Then they
suborned men which said, We have heard him speak blasphemous words
against Moses and against God. And they stirred up the people
and the elders and the scribes and called and came upon him
and caught him and brought him to the council and set up false
witnesses. There's line. That's what I told
a man one time. You know, there's a great benefit
and a great terror in me. Somebody said, I said something
that wasn't what I said. And I was like, you know, there's
an electronic record. You can go on Sermon Audio and you have to look a
lot to find it. But you can go listen exactly what I said. You
can. They set up false witnesses against
him and said, this man seethes not to speak blasphemous words
against this holy place and the law. For we have heard him say
that this Jesus of Nazareth shall destroy this place and shall
change the customs which Moses delivered us. They're going to
change all our customs. We had a way of doing things
and we like it just fine. If we didn't like it, we'd do
something different. And this man came saying, Christ is going
to change all this. They won't have anything to do
with it. Here's the three charges. Verse 11, they suborn men which
said, we have heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses.
At the end of verse 13, it says same thing, the law. If I lost, you stay with me,
okay? I want these three points to get heard. Let's get to it,
okay? They preached against Moses.
At the end of verse 11, it says against God. Not blaspheming
God, just against him. and they saved the best for last,
the thing that was most precious to them, for the last thing it
came up and mentioned, this holy place, in verse 13. Verse 13
says, and they set up false witnesses which said, this man ceases not
to speak blasphemous words against this holy place and the law. They already said that, they
said Moses did. For we have heard him say that Jesus of Nazareth
shall destroy this place and shall change the customs which
Moses delivered us. What are the three charges? Stephen's
a heretic. And he's saying blasphemous things
against Moses, against the law. And he's saying things against
God, saying Jesus of Nazareth, that this man is God. He's saying God came down in
human flesh is what he's saying. And their favorite thing, this
holy place, this wonderful building, the ceremonies that we have,
against Moses. What do they mean Stephen's preaching
against Moses, against the law? I don't have Stephen's outlines,
and I feel fully comfortable in taking some liberty. I can
tell you what Stephen preached. Christ fulfilled the law. Y'all's
going about to establish your own righteousness, you're ignorant
of righteousness. He gave that law, the lawgiver
came and fulfilled the law. He was born under the law, and
he filled it every jot and tittle, and it's done. Everything the
father's required, the moral law, the Levitical law, the Mosaic
law, whatever you can cut and slice, Christ fulfilled that. Stop trying to satisfy God with
what you're doing, and you bow to the one who's finished the
work. Stop trying to indebt God to you because of something you
did, and thinking he owes you something, and see the one that
gave his son for you. You know what they said? He's
against Moses. You know a modern day big $5
word for that? You're an antinomian. You're
against the law, you're lawless. Well, we got these rules, I gotta
follow the rules, but if you tell a man that the law is fulfilled,
they'll go out and do anything they want to. It's not funny. It's self-contradicting and it's
self-exposing. But I've heard the same people
speak of God's preachers in this day, ones that I know. They'll
say they're antinomian. They're just lawless. They're
against Moses. They don't even care about God's
law. And then they'll take three breaths and they'll say, they're
legalists. They're telling us we got... You condemned yourself. It's so. They were against Moses. They said he's against Moses.
They said he's against God. He's against God. Those Gnostics,
they had the wrong idea coming from a wrong heart. That's all
we're protecting, God's holiness. We're looking out for God because
he can't look out for himself, apparently. And it wasn't that
Christ came in the flesh, this Messiah came. It's as if he came.
Like, it's just pretend now. It's as if, and they have a lot
of banking and accounting terms they throw in there, and John
was playing about it. He said, beloved, believe not
every spirit. Just because somebody gets up, puts a tile on, has
a Bible, and says they're a preacher, you go be like the Bereans, keep
your mouth shut, go home, look it up in Scripture, see if they're
telling you the truth or not. Try the spirits whether they be of
God because many false prophets are going out in the world. Hereby
know ye the Spirit of God. Every spirit that confesseth
that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God. If they
say he really came here and he really bore our sin, we really
don't understand what that means. But we know something we see
through a glass dimly and it's so. And every spirit that confesses
not that Jesus Christ come in the flesh is not a God. They
hem-haw around and it takes them 75 minutes to try to get through
to really say nothing about what they believe. God didn't send
them. There's not plainness in them. And they ain't got the
courage to just say what they mean and stand up and mean it.
And if it means you lose everything, so be it. God's true and every
man's a liar. All that other stuff's the spirit
of Antichrist, who you've heard it should come and now is already
in the world. That was back then. What do you think about now?
They're on every corner. Third thing, they said Stephen's
against Moses. He's an antinomian. The Gnostics
were after him. They said, you're calling Christ
a sinner. Fools. Fools. Rebuke them sharply. And third, against this holy
place. What holy place? Well, probably their fancy church
building, that piece of real estate. I've seen people who
profess to be bought by the blood of Christ fight over a building.
That is another state, it's a shame, over real estate. They get their
hands on it and they will not give it up and they'll do anything
to keep that. They took people to court, they sued them in a
court of law. Over real estate, the Lord said,
don't make a permanent sale of land. Eye on the land. That's
what he says in his word, isn't it? Leviticus. We ought to know
the scriptures. God said it. Shouldn't be. Shouldn't be real to those people.
The Lord's going to burn it off. What's it matter? Turn over to
Acts 17. Act 17. I thought of Abraham
and Lot too. The lamb wasn't able to bear
them, that they might dwell together because their substance was so
great they couldn't dwell together. And so them servants started
fighting between them, the herdsmen. And Abraham looked a lot, and
he said, I don't want there to be strife. He said, if you go left, I'll
go right. If you go right, I'll go left. You pick the best land.
And boy, did he. It's before God burned Sodom
and Gomorrah. And he lifted up his eyes onto
the plain of Jordan, and it was well watered everywhere. And
he said, I'll take that. And left his family. He left
the foal. He left the only man preaching
the gospel in that whole place for some sheep, physical sheep,
not spiritual sheep. We got plenty, we got more sheep
than we could ever eat. You got 318 servants, we're loaded. Let's cut it in half, we'll still
be the richest people out here and we'll still live together.
Worship God. Never was a thought, was it?
We can't give up what we got. Get all you can, can all you
get and then bury the can. Acts 17 verse 22. Then Paul stood
in the midst of Mars Hill and said, you men of Athens, I perceive
that in all things, you're too superstitious. That means too
religious. Let's look at it. Verse 23, read with me. For as
I pass by and you behold your devotions, I came by, you just
having church services. I found an altar with an inscription
to the unknown God, whom therefore you ignorantly worship. You know
a whole bunch of gods and you can tell me about Mormonism and
Buddhism and all these other isms." He goes, and you're betting
on something you don't know just in case we're gonna have one
for the unknown God. He goes, that's the only one you don't
know and I'm about to tell you of him. Verse 24, God that made
the world and all things therein seeing that he's Lord of heaven
and earth dwelleth not in temples made with hands. Neither is worship
with men's hands as though he needed anything, seeing he give
it life to all, and breath to all, and all things. The Lord
ain't in the building. Now, he's provided this building
for us, and I'm thankful for it. I like air conditioning,
don't you? It's a hot day. I don't like to have rain laying
on my head. Chicken's got a head this big, got no sense to get
out of the rain. I'm thankful for this place that the Lord
provided for us, but this is just wood, hay, and stubble.
It's just stone. What if it's taken from us? What if it's taken from us this
month? What are we going to do? Well, we're going to cry and
burn it down or something. Well, meet out in the parking
lot. Get a tent. I preached in driveways before under pergolas.
We'll be all right. The Lord dwells in you. He dwells in his people. We like
to stay out of the rain. We like to have a box in the
back with a hole board in top of it. Buildings don't matter, does
it? This holy place and these ceremonies and this is how we,
we can't do that. They did the Lord's table different
down in Australia. The principles are the same.
The performance is different, how they did it. This is different.
I thought it was wonderful. It honored God. It's fine. It's
fine. Back in our text. They said,
you're against Moses, you're an antinomian. You're against
God, you're calling God a sinner, just like the Gnostics, excuse
John, and you're rogue. You're without godly respect
against this holy building. Now, this is God's house. There's
been some things happen I wished I wouldn't have, and I didn't
rebuke, and I should have. And it's a shame. We're here
to honor God. We're not here for a personal
blessing, what's in it for me. We're not here to have a good
time. We're not here to go to church. We're here for Christ
to be honored. And with that, we have a God of order. We do. And we'll be respectful about
those things. But this is just building. We pray he's in our
presence. And with that, we'll be respectful.
As he told Moses, take your shoes off, you're on holy ground. So
there's something to do with our appearance and our attitude
and our acts and those. But they're telling Stephen,
he doesn't respect this physical building. And you don't respect
our systematic theology and our ceremonies and all those things.
And what they're saying is, Stephen, you're a sinner. I knew a man
one time, a professed Christ, and he told another fella, he
said, until you straighten your life up, I don't think I can
allow you in my home anymore. And that one's a little fiery. And he said, well, as soon as
I'm righteous enough to be in your presence again, I will be.
They got mad. He got real mad. That's foolish,
isn't it? That's what these men are doing.
Verse 13, Acts 6, 13. And they set up false witnesses
which said, this man seetheth not to speak blasphemous words
against this holy place and the law, for we've heard him say
that Jesus of Nazareth shall destroy this place, this building,
and shall change the customs which Moses delivered us. We
have customs we like. They're about to kill him. This is the trial. Kangaroo court,
but it's a trial. Verse 15, this is precious. This
is precious. And all that sat in the council
looking steadfastly on him. This was in person, you know
that? Do you know Stephen preached in person? That's a point that
needs made in our generation. God sent me to make it, I'm making
it. We worship in person. We're thankful for the internet
and those things. That's the net cast out. Fish don't sit there and
chew on a net all day, do they? They're drawn in. Stephen was
there in person. But they looked steadfastly on
him, just like Peter and John said, you look me in the eye.
You wake up, you pay attention, you look at me. I'm in the people
business. I'm here to preach to people.
It's my job. They look steadfastly on him,
saw his face as it had been the face of an angel. Oh, it's just,
I hope it blesses you like it blessed me. This is fabulous.
This is, you want to talk about instruction, godly instruction?
Here's some godly instruction for me and you can listen in.
Stephen preached to it. He's about to just cut loose
on I can't wait to get next check They're gonna kill him right
at the end of it but They're saying these horrible things
about him and I might somebody says something wrong about me.
I'll get fired up I feel my ears turn red and I don't have a dial.
I got a switch. I'll say something cutting that
my culture Fighting words and we go out the parking lot sell
us right now. You might win. I might win but Let's get it
on Stephen had all those accusations. They said you're calling God
a sinner. You don't care nothing about the law. You're an antinomian.
You don't care nothing about customs and religion and you're
saying this building ain't worth nothing. That's me. They looked on and they looked
at me and they said his face just like an angel. You reckon they
know what an angel look like? No more than you do. No more
than I do. But I thought what does that mean? What does that
mean? Stephen's on trial, heard these
accusations, hard accusations, and he's not complaining, and
he's not explaining. He's there on a mission, but
his face looks like an angel's. What are angels' faces? I'm not
real sure, but they must be content. Wouldn't they be content? Not
sad. The Lord said, when you fast, don't you go, hmm, hmm,
hmm, and draw out your face. He said, I'm fasting, everybody.
He said, go wash your face off, get your clothes on, get on with
yourself, and get down to the church house, worship God. A
lot of people know you're doing that. They're content. They're
not angry. They're not embarrassed. Would an angel be embarrassed?
They're not sad, but they're content. And that face looks
to the Lord. They looked at his face, and
he was sitting there like somebody that believed God. I want to be a
man that believes God. I was telling her the other day.
I want to be a husband. I want to act like a husband
that believes God. As this book says we ought to.
I want to love her as Christ loved the church. I want to be
a father that chastens my children out of love, and I correct them,
and I make them, I lead them. I say, we're going to worship
God. Get in the car, we're going down there. When they get old
enough, they don't like it, they can move out. But until they
live with me, they're gonna come down here and worship God. That's so. I
want to be a good friend. That tells people. I told my
friend today, he gave me some encouragement. Made me real happy, but he said
he's getting old. And I said, well, the older you
get, the more ferocious I'm gonna get at telling you about the
gospel. I said, if you get mad and tell me to stop, I'll still
be your friend. I didn't say I would stop. I
said I'll stop. The Lord told us in Matthew 18,
He said, take heed that you despise not one of these little ones,
for I say unto you that in heaven their angels do always behold
the face of my Father which is in heaven. The angels, the scriptures
say they're sitting there looking at Him, so whenever you say the
word, Lord, we'll go down. They're just sitting there looking at
the Father. Just as that moon, remember going through Genesis,
when the Lord created this earth, going through the creation? I
loved that, I enjoyed that, I hope you did. What's the moon? Well, it just
reflects the light of the sun. We have moonlight at night because
the sun's on the other side of the earth, and it bounces off
the sun, and you can just about drive sometimes a full moon,
can't you? Those angels, their faces, they're looking to the
Lord. Their face just reflects Him. You may not know, I did
this to a friend of mine one time, he got real mad at me.
But if I'm standing like this talking, more than likely you're
going to cross your arms. And I'll put my hands in my pockets.
And then you'll put your hands in your pockets. And unknowingly,
subconsciously, we mimic those we respect and we're around.
We do. What do you reckon them angels
would do? When's he going to quit talking so we can go gambling
or whatever? I don't know. It's just adoring him, wasn't it?
Adoring him. They wanted to mimic that one.
It's a rejoicing face, a rejoicing face that the Lord's working.
Our God's not out of business. Well, it looks like everything's
going to shambles. It looks like everything's going to shambles.
Do you know what they called our Lord? Scriptures say gracious
words come out of his lips, don't they? They said, you're an austere
man. They said he has hard sayings.
Oh, I'm like James and John. Let's burn this place to the
ground. Not the Lord. He said, I come to save, come
to heal. Those angels, it says they rejoice.
There's joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner
that repented. What if Stephen's great miracle
was he preached to one person that got saved? God saved one
person and then he killed him. Thank you, Lord. What a privilege.
Thank you. You let me serve. I thank you
for that. We won't marry in glory. The
Lord said they won't be married and given marriage in glory like
the angels, like the angels. And we won't die like the angels. It says neither can they die
anymore for they're equal unto the angels. and are the children
of God being the children of the resurrection." He says, you're
all just like angels. You can get married, you ain't gonna
die. What's that mean? There's no fear of death. Stephen
wasn't afraid to die. There's no attachment. Just as
if he was unmarried. He may have been married, I don't
know, but unmarried. I love my wife. I love my children. The
Lord put me, gave them to me first. I'm to protect them and
provide for them best I can. I want to. But if it comes to
denying the Lord, and the Lord's with me, and with them. I won't
deny them, and they'll say, good daddy, good honey, just take
it to death. Don't quit, don't. God keep you
faithful to the end. I pray in the face of opposition,
in your homes, in your families, in your places of work, for the gospel's sake, that the
gospel be not blasphemed. that we have the mind of Christ
and our faces are set like a flint looking to him. Just content,
happy, knowing our God's on the throne, rejoicing that he's saving
sinners, calling his people to himself. Turn to Isaiah 50 and
we'll close. This is our Lord speaking, this
is the master speaking, but I won't be like him. Those that are his are going
to be conformed to his image one day. And they're going to
be with the Lord's people. I want to be with the Lord's
people and I won't be like him. I do. You do too. But this is
our Lord speaking. Isaiah 50 verse 5. The Lord God
hath opened mine ear and I was not rebellious. neither turned
her way back. I gave my back to the smiters,
and my cheek to them that plucked off the hair. I hid not my face
from shame and spitting, for the Lord God will help me. Therefore
shall I not be confounded. Therefore have I set my face
like a flint, and I know that I shall not be ashamed. He is
near that justifieth me. Who will contend with me? Let
us stand together. Who is my adversary? Let him
come near to me. Behold, the Lord God will help
me. Who is he that shall condemn me? Lo, they shall all wax old
as a garment. The moth shall eat them up. Who
is among you that feareth the Lord, that obeyeth the voice
of his servant, that walketh in darkness and hath no light?
Let him trust in the name of the Lord and stay upon his God. Behold, all you that kindle a
fire that compass yourself about with sparks, walk in the light
of your fire and in the sparks that ye have kindled. This shall
ye have of my hand, and ye shall lie down in sorrow. Let's pray
together. Father, make us see Christ high
and lifted up. the one that set his face like
a flint, the one that saved his people, the one that is light,
the one we look to. We'll reveal him in the hearts
of your people, as you promised you will. We know you will, Lord,
but we inquire of you. Save your people, bless your
people, keep them to the end as you promised. Oh, keep us,
keep me. We beg these things. We see our
weakness. We see our frailty. We have no confidence in this
flesh. But we rejoice in Christ. Lord, make us worship in the
spirit. Make us give the sacrifices of praise of our lips. Thank
you for this day. Thank you for our brother Stephen.
Thank you for making him courageous and preaching your gospel. And
forgive us. Be with our brethren, Lord, that
suffer. And there's so many around, so many churches that looking
for pastors and people desperate to hear this word. Comfort them,
Lord. Look after them and be with them.
It's because of Christ, because of who he is, because of his
faithfulness, because of his love and his wondrous grace,
we ask these things. Amen.