Acts chapter 7. We're going to be dealing with
maybe a larger portion of Scripture today. In May of 1971, Nancy and I were
on our way home from Dallas, Texas, where I did my Bible school. And I was asked to leave, and
I didn't have a problem with that because I wasn't going to
go back. I didn't know the gospel. I didn't know anything about
it. I thought I did. But we stopped in Colorado, Paonia,
Colorado, to visit with her grandparents. I had met them earlier, and I
loved them dearly, and we went back to spend some time there.
Now, Grandpa was a farmer, and he also loved to garden. And
he asked me if I'd help him with his garden. And I said, I would
be glad to help you with your garden. So we went out to a place
that had been, where stock had been kept, and it was the richest
soil I think I'd ever seen in my life. And he began to plant. And we planted at least 25 hills
of cucumbers. And I thought, you know, my parents
planted cucumbers, but four or five, six hills. But there must
have been 25. And I thought, you know, when
these come off, some of them are not going to make it in.
I just thought of that. Well, this morning, in preface
to what we're going to be looking at, there's going to be some
cucumbers left in Acts chapter 7. We're just not going to be
able to pick them all. There is so much here. And as we look at this, we find
out in this seventh chapter of the book of Acts that Stephen
brings up some people. He brings up Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob. He wants to make sure that these
people he's talking to understand that their ancestors are the
ones that are down here in these people that are on the council.
and that those ancestors are not going to change their destiny
one bit by being related to them. He also brings up Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob, but he brings up Joseph. Now, Joseph is one of the main
characters in this chapter of Scripture. If we look, we find
out he's verses 9 through 18 in the seventh chapter of the
book of Acts. He brings up a lot about Joseph. But the thing that he brings
up about Joseph is Joseph, chosen by the father, given the right
to wear a coat of many colors, which often at that time was
an established fact that this is going to be one that's going
to inherit a great deal. Joseph is sold by his brothers. He is the choice of the father,
and he's sold by his brothers. And we'll look at that a little
bit more. The third person that we find, or the third group that
we find, is Moses. And most of this chapter is dedicated
to Moses and who he was. Now, Moses is a very special
person in the sight of God. God took care of him in such
a special way, even at his birth and through his life. And we
find out he's a very special, he is such a special person that
God is going to lead the children of Israel out of Egypt with this
person. Guess what? The people refused
and rejected him. Now, he's going to come down
to the point we find Joshua is mentioned in one verse, David
is mentioned in the same verse, and then the last person mentioned
is Solomon in this chapter that Stephen is bringing up. And he's
just going to bring up a quote from the book of 1 Kings 8 that
Solomon mentioned about the dedication of the temple, and that was,
God does not dwell in this house. There is no way in this world
that the God of heaven can dwell in this house. And that's one
of the things that Stephen is accused of, is against the temple. And he's just going to bring
up some scripture. Well, as we look at this, we find that everything
that Stephen was telling the members of the council was common
knowledge. It had been common knowledge
from a strictly historical perspective, but it was common knowledge.
Joseph was someone they spoke of in their synagogues. Stephen
is not bringing up something new to them. They have heard
about Joseph. They have heard about Abraham
Isaac. They have heard the accounts.
They read about them. They're taught about them. It
is common knowledge. Without any respect for the patriarchs,
Jacob, Israel, their father, and his 11 sons are moved with
envy against one son and is sold into captivity, sold into Egypt. Join me, if you would, over in
the book of Genesis for just a reading. in the book of genesis
chapter thirty seven in the book of genesis chapter thirty seven
we have this week record about uh... joseph the book of genesis
chapter thirty seven and there's chapters over here that deal
with joseph and what happened to him he is a chosen vessel
of his father's he is a chosen vessel of god and that chosen
vessel is rejected and refused, and Stephen is going to bring
this as a type of Christ, and what that counsel had done with
the Savior that had come into this world, the Lord Jesus Christ.
In the book of Genesis chapter 37, beginning with verse 1, it
says this, Then Jacob dwelt in the land wherein his father was
a stranger in the land of Canaan. These are the generations of
Jacob Joseph being 17 years old was feeding the flock with his
brethren and the lads was with the sons of Bill Billaha and
of the sons of Vilpha his father's wives and Joseph brought unto
his father their evil report and Now, Israel loved Joseph
more than all his children because he was the son of his old age
and made him a coat of many colors. Now, I could step back many years
in my life and go to a Bible school, summer vacation Bible
school, and tell you what my teacher told me about this event.
Number one, fathers and mothers shouldn't have favorites, and
number two, don't be tailbears. don't be tattletales. Now, that's
the lesson they brought out of this. Well, here we find out
that Joseph is the son of Jacob, and Jacob has said something
about this son. He loves him more than the rest.
Now, it counts with a great deal of weight, because he's not the
oldest, but he's going to be the inheritor. He had the right
to do that. But he also tells us here that
Joseph came back with an evil report. This is not the first
time that these 11 sons of Jacob have been talking ill of Jacob
and ill of his plans. You know, he's not coming back
with a tailbearer. He's just reporting the truth.
Just as you and I report about ourselves and about what mankind
is like, we're not angry. We're not upset. We're just simple
reporters of what God has to say about us. We're telling people
simply what God has to say. And here we have Joseph coming
back from visiting with his brothers, and he brings back a report.
Dad, those guys hate you. Dad, they don't like what you're
doing. Dad, you can't believe what I
heard. And he's not bringing it back
to be a tailbearer. He's simply bringing back the
truth. Now it's going to pan out. These
11 sons are going to be very detrimental to the life of Joseph.
He does not know what's going to happen to him, but their plans
have already been made. And Stephen is going to use this
as an example of Jesus Christ the Lord coming down to this
sin-cursed earth, and he was in the very world that he created. He was among the people that
he created, and they knew him not. And besides that, they rejected
him and crucified him. He s going to bring this up.
All right? We find here that in Genesis
chapter 37, verse 14, as we think about Joseph again, verse 14,
He said to him, Go, I pray thee, see whether it be well with thy
brethren, and well with the flocks, and bring me word again, again,
he sent out an investigatory casserole. What are they doing? What are they saying? Jacob understood that his children
were also children of Adam. They were fallen children of
Adam. And their reports in that condition
were not very good about believers or about God. Find out about
this. And we find out as we follow
this through, that they had saw their brother coming, and they
decided way ahead of time, can you just see Joseph is walking
towards his brothers, and they see him a long ways off, and
they begin to plot, and say, let's kill him. Now what would
that do? Get rid of the heir, and get
rid of our problem. What did they do with Jesus Christ? We'll get rid of Him, we'll get
rid of the error, and we'll get rid of our problem. That's exactly
what they thought when they crucified the Lord of Glory. You know,
just as we find with regard to the Lord, Joseph was sold into
slavery, and Joseph was taken down to Egypt. But you know what? This one that they disallowed,
this one that they didn't want to be around, became the head
of the food supply. They are shocked to death to
find out that Joseph is now almost in charge of Egypt. He is in
charge of all the food supply. They don't know him to begin
with, just like you and I don't know the Savior that we find
out is in charge of our food supply. our spiritual well-being. He's the one in charge of every
spiritual blessing. He has all of God's active work
in Himself. And here we overlook Him, just
like we read in the book of, with regard to Homer, or Gomer,
there in, as Hosea. She didn't realize that it was
Hosea that was providing all of her needs. And in the same
way, Hosea was hedging her up. And that's what we find with
regard to Joseph down in Egypt. Now the second time that those
guys came down there, he revealed himself. unto those 11 brothers,
and let them know that he was still alive. And he let them
know that, you know, you meant this for evil. And Jesus Christ
could have said, and these preachers still say that, you meant this
for evil. You meant the crucifixion for
evil. You meant all that you did to him for evil. Every stripe
on him was for evil. The crown of thorns was for evil.
Everything, the slapping, the beatings, the spitting was for
evil. God meant it for good. And this is how God is going
to redeem his people from their sins. Well, Joseph reveals himself
unto his brethren. And after his dad dies, you know
what they have the audacity of doing? Lying about their dad
again. They said to Joseph, you know,
dad told us that, and please be kind to us. He said, be kind
to us, Joseph, be kind. You know, they just lied about
their dad again. Joseph was kind to them. Joseph
did everything that was necessary. He fed them, he took care of
them. And here we find that the rejected one becomes the head
of the food supply. the rejected one, the one that
was sold, the one they considered to murder, and then to make a
profit on, this one has been moved by God. He's chosen of
God. He's chosen by his daddy. He's
chosen of God. And we find out our Savior was
chosen by the Father. Come to this sin-cursed earth,
he was belittled and mocked and made fun of, and yet he is elevated
to the position, as we heard read there in the 11th chapter
of the book of Hebrews, or excuse me, the 6th chapter, elevated
to the throne, brought to that position. Well, much is said
about Joseph, much could be said about Joseph, but let us move
on. Let's go over here to the book
of Acts, chapter 7 again. and we want to read a little
bit about Moses. Moses is the next main character in this.
And it is so interesting to find out what is said here in the
book of Acts chapter 7 about Moses. We can go to the Old Testament
and read some of it, but Stephen is summating the spiritual part
of what we have over there in the book of Genesis. In the book, or excuse me, Exodus.
In Acts chapter 7, Acts chapter 7, and we're going
to look at starting with verse 18. Acts chapter 7 and verse
18. It was a miracle how Moses was
taken care of. We cannot know how many babies
died as a result of the edict of the Pharaoh. We have no idea. It was a sad time when moms and
dads had their children taken from them and disposed of, killed. But there was one son that we
read about. Here it says in verse 20 of this chapter, verse
20, it says, in which time Moses
was born. Now, there is a king that knew
not Joseph, verse 18, till another king arose which knew not Joseph. The same dealt subtly with our
kindred, and evil entreated our fathers, so that they cast out
their young children to the end they might not live. What a sad
state of affairs. This is population controlled
at its worst. The king of Egypt, Pharaoh, thought
that there would be too many people and eventually they would
overthrow Egypt. And then it tells us in verse
20, in which time Moses was born and was exceeding fair. Now,
if you look that up, it means he was some child. He's looks
and everything about him and nourished up in his father's
house three months. And when he was cast out, Pharaoh's
daughter took him up and nourished him for her own son and Moses. Now notice verse 22. And Moses
was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty
in words and deeds. Now, I can't get to the depth
of that verse of scripture, how much Moses knew. what he had
been taught about math, what he had been taught about science,
what he had been taught about all of the things that the Egyptians
were very far advanced over our peoples here in North America
at the time. Here he is being taught by the best teachers in
the world down there in Egypt, and he was mighty in words and
in deeds. He looked like an Egyptian. He
talked like an Egyptian. He dressed like an Egyptian.
But did you know there were people that were Israelis that knew
he was Moses? He's not hidden himself from
them. They know about a boy that was delivered by Pharaoh's daughter. This is not something that's
been hid in a corner. They know that Moses has been
very special, someone that God had looked upon with great favor,
and he is raised in Pharaoh's household, and he has all of
the things that Pharaoh has, and yet he is His blood is Jewish,
His blood is Hebrew, and they know about this. You know, it
just makes it worse when we find out how they refused Him. Who
made you to rule over us? You know, we hear the same thing.
We will not have this man rule over us. That's the natural instinct
of natural man about God Almighty. You cannot tell me what to do. Now, once the Lord saves us,
we say, thank you for telling me. All right, goes on. Moses was
learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians. I don't have the
end to that. He was raised. in all the ways
of the Egyptians." And you know, as we think about this, all these extraordinary circumstances
about his education as relating to the birth, very special birth,
very specially taken care of, his preservation, his education,
his genius, and the character of Moses really aggravates the
crime of Israel in rejecting him. You know, as I follow the
life of the Lord Jesus, not once did he ever swear at anybody. Not once did he ever kick up
sand at anybody. Not once did he ever do what
we normally do when people treat us wrongly. You know, he was
the perfect son of God walking upon this earth, and in being
that perfect son of God, he was without sin. And yet, people
got so mad at him all the time for what he was doing. He would
heal somebody. He would raise the dead, and
it happened to be on their Sabbath, so they're going to crucify Him
over this issue. He said, What evil thing have
I done that you're doing this? Oh, not for an evil thing, but
you made yourself as God. He didn't have to make Himself
as God. He is God. So as this went on, when He offered
Himself to them as a deliverer, and they rejected Him, we find
that there's such a type here, and as Stephen brings this up,
such a type of the Lord Jesus Christ, when He came to this
incursed earth, and He says He came unto His own, and His own
received Him not. He came into the world, the world
knew Him not. Came unto His own, and His own received Him not.
but to them that received him. But we follow that out just a
little bit. The new birth is a birth not
of man, not of the will of man, but of God. That's how we have
a change of view towards God. Verse 25, as we drop down there
in that chapter. For he supposed his brethren
would have understood how that God by his hand would deliver
them. But they understood not. He thought." Now, we get over
there to the book of Genesis, some of this is not shared with
us as much as it is here, but Stephen, as looking at the prophets,
as we hear the Lord Jesus teaching his disciples there, twice he
mentions in Luke chapter 24 that he went to the Old Testament
prophets, all the things concerning himself. Stephen gives us some
insight into what some of the prophets had to say. And here
we have Moses bringing out the fact that he knew who he was,
he knew what he was going to do, and he supposed that the
people that were around him also understood that. Well, we find
there, but they understood not. The next day he showed himself,
verse 26, unto them as they strove, and would have set them one again,
saying, Sirs, ye are brethren. Why do you wrong one another? How did he know they were brethren?
He's one of them. He may have had a little different
clothing on. He is able to understand their language and he was able
to speak to them in their language. He may have looked like an Egyptian,
he may have carried himself as an Egyptian, but when it came
right down to it, he was just like they. Why do you wrong one
another? But he that did this, did his
neighbor wrong, thrust him away, saying, Who made thee ruler and
a judge over us? Can you just see in your mind's
eye if that guy got a hold of him and give him a big shove?
Now, from a strictly political standpoint, anybody that touched
Moses could have been executed. He was so high in the family
of Pharaoh that anybody that touched him like that could have
been executed. And we don't find Moses going
to Pharaoh and saying, I want this guy taken care of. We find
that they pushed him away. And then he says, wilt thou kill
me as thou didst the Egyptian yesterday? Then fled Moses at
this seed, and was a stranger in the land of Midian, where
he begat two sons. And when forty years were expired,
how patient God was. Forty years later. Now he's forty
years old when he leaves. He's gone for 40 years. Stephen
catches up on Jewish history quite quickly. And he said, there
appeared to him in the wilderness of Mount Sinai an angel of the
Lord in the flame of fire in a bush. We?re going to have Moses?
official call. God is going to give him a long-distance
call from a burning bush and say, ?You?re going to be used
to deliver my people.? Well, you know he?s already been rejected
and refused, and it?s not going to change anything when we follow
him down through him leading out the children of Israel. He
is going to have a constant battle with this group of people. Generation
later, this group of people is going to have a constant battle
with Him over who He is serving. He's serving the Most High God.
Verse 31, Moses saw it. He wondered at the sight. And
he drew near to behold it, and the voice of the Lord came unto
him." This is common knowledge. That counsel knew all of this.
He is quoting Old Testament for them. This is not something that
is strange to them. This is something that they taught
in their schools. They believed that Moses was
a very special person. But you know what? We find out
that Jesus brought up this point to them. He says, you know, you
say you like the prophets, and you wouldn't have done that
to them, what happened in the Old Testament. But Jesus brought
it up to them and said, you'd have done exactly the very same
thing to them. You whitewashed the prophets.
You keep their graves all in fine form and say, we'd have
never done that. And yet Jesus said, you would
have done that. Exactly. Because they're going to take
the prophet that Moses spoke of. We're going to get to that
in just a moment. The prophet that Moses spoke of, and do that
in their day. And this is the group of people
that Stephen is visiting with at this moment. Goes on to tell
us, I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of
Isaac, the God of Jacob. Then Moses trembled and durst
not behold. Said the Lord to him put off
thy shoes from thy feet for the place where thou stand is his
holy ground. I Have seen I have seen the affliction
of my people which is in Egypt and I've heard their groaning
and come down to deliver them and now come I will send thee
into Egypt this Moses whom they refused saying Did you notice
that? this Moses whom they refused, saying, Who made thee a ruler
and a judge? The same did God send to be a
ruler and a deliverer by the hand of the angel which appeared
to him in the bush. this one you have refused. Hath God chosen? Now, He was
chosen before He was born. He was chosen in the council
halls of eternity. He was chosen before time. He
was chosen in old eternity. And we find that carried out
here because God is immutable. He changes not. Him whom He chose
in the eternal past This Moses was chosen to lead the children
of Israel out at the appropriate time. They had refused him. Forty years later, the message
comes here as Stephen brings out, this Moses whom they refused,
this same did God send to be ruler and deliver by the hand
of the angel which appeared to him in a bush. And he brought
them out. After that, he had showed wonders and signs in the
land of Egypt and in the Red Sea and in the wilderness forty
years. This is that Moses which said unto the children of Israel,
A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your
brethren like unto me. Him shall ye hear. You know,
that whole group of council members could have said, Oh, that's over
there in the book of Deuteronomy. They knew where that was. This
is not a foreign quote to them. This is Old Testament to them.
This is the only Bible they had. Even Stephen didn't have the
New Testament. He's quoting from the old because
that's all they had. And here he's bringing up common
knowledge to them. You knew who Joseph was. You
knew who Joseph's father was. You knew Joseph's 11 brothers.
You knew what they did to him. You know what God did for him.
You know that he raised him up and caused him to understand
those dreams of the Pharaoh. And he's promoted to the highest
position except for Pharaoh. in the land of Egypt, and he
is over all the food supply. And if it hadn't been for him,
you'd have starved to death. Now, we move along many years,
and we find there is another person that God has ordained
to be a leader of Israel, and they refused him. He has taken
off for 40 years, and now he's brought back to the scene to
lead the children of Israel, and guess what they're going
to do to him again? Refuse him. He goes up on a mount to visit
with God, and they said, well, let's just read here. This is
he that was in the church in the wilderness with the angel
which spake to him on Mount Sinai, and with our fathers who received
lively oracles to give unto us, to whom our fathers would not
obey. Guess where Stephen put himself.
right in the midst, our fathers. He didn't say your fathers. He
said our fathers would not obey but thrust him from them and
in their hearts turned back again into Egypt. Do you remember what they had
in Egypt? Long days, hard work, and poor food. Out here in the wilderness, they
had a chosen leader, Moses. They had manna to eat and quail
to eat. And here they are, it says, in
their hearts. We have a saying here, if you
can leave, go. There's a whole bunch of these
folks here said, I want to go back. Saying unto Aaron, make unto
us, did you notice that? Gods, to go before us. For as for this Moses which brought
us out of the land of Egypt, we want not what is become of
him. He's disappeared from our sight
and we don't know what's happened to him, so you make us gods.
Where did these gods that they wanted created come from? Egypt. They're a copy of the Egyptian
gods that they had seen down there in Egypt. They had seen
with their eyes. Most of them had their hearts
attached to those gods in Egypt. It takes the grace of God for
anybody to trust an invisible God. He is an invisible God. We don't have a picture of Him,
even though the artists try to declare that. We don't have anything
that relates to how God looks like. We have what the Bible
has to say, and we have it in picture form, and that's for
our heart. But there's nothing for our eyes
in this. Build us some gods that we, there
it says, and they made a calf in those days and offered sacrifice
unto the idol and rejoiced in the works of their own hands. Has that stopped? Natural man
still rejoices in the works of their own hands. That's where
we are. It's works not grace. Now, grace comes from God. Over
there, we've been hearing in the book of 2 John, grace, mercy,
and peace, and that's the order of it. If we don't have grace,
God does not show us grace, does not show us sovereign grace,
does not show us grace from Almighty God. We will never, ever have
mercy. And once he grants to us grace
and mercy, there's no way that peace can't follow. If we've
ever been forgiven of our sins, peace will follow. And we have
that security. So grace, mercy, peace be unto
you. And that's all of God. They made
a calf. And then it says in verse 42,
then God turned and gave them up to the worship of the hosts
of heaven. He's bringing out the children
of Israel. You know, these guys knew this.
This whole council understood every word he has to say from
a historical standpoint. They could go to the Old Testament
and read exactly the same thing that he's bringing out. And yet
they did not want to believe their parents were that bad.
They didn't want to believe their grandparents were that bad. They
didn't want to believe that their great, great grandparents were
that bad. The descendants of Abraham are
that bad? that they're sinners before God
and they would rather choose an idol, a calf, a golden calf
over the God of heaven, and they would rather choose a golden
calf over Moses, who was the appointed leader? That's exactly
what they did. and left to ourself, we would
do exactly the same thing. If God does not intervene in
our lives, we will give ourselves over to the same thing, the works
of our hands. It goes on to tell us here, all
you house of Israel, have you offered to be slain beasts and
sacrifices by the space of 40 years in the wilderness? Yea,
you took up the tabernacle of Moloch. and the star of your
God, Rimfan, fears which ye made to worship them. And then he
said, and I will carry you away beyond Babylon. This council
knew what happened to two tribes when God sent them to Babylon. It's not something new he's bringing
up. It's not history that wasn't written for them. They knew every
bit of this from a physical, historical standpoint. But none
of them could understand the implications of what they were
doing. The implications is, we will
not have God reign over us. We will not have His heir, the
Son of God, reigning over us. Our fathers had a tabernacle
in the wilderness, verse 44, of witness in the wilderness,
as he had appointed, speaking unto Moses that he should make
it according to the fashion that he had seen. This was not Moses?
creation. This is a picture, a type, and
a shadow of everything God is. They were not to worship this
tabernacle, and they were not to worship the articles of the
tabernacle. They were not to worship the
brazen serpent. They were not to worship any
of this. but left to themselves, they would soon be worshiping
the altar, they'd soon be worshiping the labor, they'd soon be worshiping
the tent, and they'd soon be worshiping the brazen serpent
that God had given them as a remedy. He said, if you've been bitten
by a snake and you look, you shall live. Those who looked,
lived. Those who were not given faith,
they died. But the children of Israel, the
descendants of those who looked and lived, their descendants
kept that thing. They wrapped it up and carried
it with them the rest of the way through the wilderness. They
carried it with them into the land of Canaan, the land of promise.
They carried it and held it and kept it for 400 years. And now they're worshiping it,
just like they'd always worshiped it. This is what took away our
This is what took away our sin. So, God brought them to Babylon. It's also, it says there in,
our fathers had a tabernacle, verse 45, which also our fathers
that came after brought in with, now that word Jesus should have
been translated Joshua. Joshua is Hebrew, Jesus is Greek. And our friends in 1611 translated
that incorrectly. It should be Joshua. Which also
our fathers that came after brought in with Joshua into the possession
of the Gentiles, whom God drove out before the face of our fathers
unto the days of David, who found favor before God and desired
to find a tabernacle for the God of Jacob. Solomon built him
a house. We can go back to 1 Kings 8 and
read about this dedication. There's a lot of verses in that
chapter. Several hundred thousand animals
were sacrificed that day and did not take away one sin. And
then Solomon confessed. Join me, if you would, over in
the book of 1 Kings 8. I hope that's correct. 1 Kings 8. And verse 22. And Solomon stood before the
altar of the Lord in the presence of all the congregation of Israel
and spread forth his hands toward heaven. And he said, Lord God
of Israel, there is no God like thee in heaven above or in earth
beneath, who keepeth covenant and mercy with thy servants that
walk before thee with all their heart. who has kept with thy
servant David, my father, that thou promised him, thou speakest
also with thy mouth, and hast fulfilled it with thine hand,
as it is this day. Therefore know, Lord God of Israel,
keep with thy servant David, my father, that thou promised
him, saying, There shall not fail thee a man in my sight to
sit on the throne of Israel, so that any So that children
take heed to their way that they walk before me as thou hast walked
before me And I'm looking for that verse he said you will not
27 thank you verse 27 But will God indeed dwell on
the earth? Behold, the heaven and the heavens
of the heavens cannot contain thee, how much less this house
that I have built." Now what is that building? That was the
temple. Now it was destroyed. by the
Babylonians. It was rebuilt during Ezra and
Nehemiah?s time. It was renovated prior to Christ
coming to this earth. But this is the temple, that
temple is the temple they had in their day, and they found
fault with Stephen for saying, ?Our God does not dwell in buildings
made with hands.? and they charged him with that. All right, go
with me back to the book of Acts, and we'll bring this to a close.
Acts chapter 7, one more time. Acts chapter 7, verse 51. I want to start verse 47, excuse
me, but Solomon built him a house. Now Stephen sums up the problem
that he's been facing here all the time. He faced it with his
own family. He faced it with himself. before God saved him. He says,
ye stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always
resist the Holy Ghost as your fathers did, so do you. The same problem our fathers
had is the problem you have. The same problem our fathers
had, I had. By God's grace, He has taken
away that problem. And it goes down here, which
the prophets, have you not your fathers persecuted? And they
have slain them, which showed before the coming of the just
one, of whom ye have been now the betrayers and murderers,
who have received the law by the dispensation of angels, and
have not kept it. And when they heard these things,
They were cut to the heart, and they gnashed on him with their
teeth." We'll stop there, and we'll pick this up at the next
appointed time, Brother Mike, if you'll come.