Good morning once again. I'm
glad to be here. I'm so glad for that lesson we
had today. The study of the books of John, 1st, 2nd John. I'm looking
forward to the 3rd John. It's been a blessing. Join me
if you would this morning in the book of Acts. Again, Acts
chapter 7. Acts chapter 7. Last week we
looked at the Promiser. We found that note there in Acts
chapter 7 and verse 5 where it was Yet he promised that he would
give him for possession. And how important it is to have
someone who promises us something able to keep that promise. And
we read there with regard to our God, our Lord Jesus Christ,
that he could swear by no greater. He swore by himself. He didn't
take, he didn't use the earth. He didn't use the heavens. He
didn't use, he swore by himself. He promised by himself. And we
find out that he has always ever will keep his promise. Faithful
promises of God. Now, we're going to begin with
verse six and I'm just going to sum up verses six through
50. We're not going to cover all
that today. But there is a summation that the Apostle, the Blessed
Deacon, the Servant of God, Stephen gave by inspiration of the Holy
Spirit of all of these verses in one compact place. And that is found in verse 51
of this seventh chapter. This is the summation. This is
the total. As Stephen goes through this
history of Israel, this is the summation of it. And we're gonna
go back and see it. Note, there is a principle of
preaching the gospel that is found in the words, ruined by
the fall. If you've never been a sinner,
you have no need of salvation. but sinners are in desperate
need of salvation. Now, I'm not saying that people
don't need salvation but God acquaints this very truth to
his people He acquaints us with the fact that He saves sinners. And we go through life after
the Lord saves us and find out, you know, it's worse than I thought.
And as we progress through life, it is worse than I thought. The
corruption of God in my own person, in my own being, in my own will
is terrible. And then to find as it goes out
into the world, The fall is terrible when it comes to disease. The
fall is terrible when it comes to mental incapacities. The fall
is terrible when we look around and see what's going on in our
world. But it's the fall. Sin has brought these things.
And we find here that the apostle, I'm going to use the word one
sin, he was sin, Stephen, that great preacher of righteousness,
As we find him here, he sums up the problem. Now, the problem
he's dealing with is Israel. And if you've ever had a view
of Israel that is from the scripture, you find out that Israel was
God's favored nation. He is giving us a wonderful illustration
of what it is for God to deal with a people in such a capacity
as he did with Israel and find the results that left to themselves,
they were no different than those pagans that were outside of Israel,
the Hittites, the Hivites. So here in the book of Acts chapter
seven, verse 51, this is the summation of the history of Israel. Ye stiff net. and uncircumcised
in heart. Now over in the book of Deuteronomy,
a number of times it mentions about circumcision of the heart.
We find in the New Testament that that's just simply translated,
you must be born again. We need a new heart. Don't give
your heart to Jesus, he doesn't want it. He gives us a new heart
in regeneration. So it says, ye stiff-necked and
uncircumcised in heart. Now, some time ago, I brought
a message somewhere, and I can't remember where it was, and I
can't even remember the verse of scripture I used. But in there
was a word that defined by turning the neck. There was somebody's
name who meant turn the neck. And it had to do with spiritual
things or had to do with politics. You know, a politician wants
us to turn our neck in their direction. So here we have you
stiff neck. Now, if we're ever going to get
straightened out, we need someone to turn our neck. And here he's
going to do it. you stiff neck and uncircumcised
in heart and ears. You do always resist the Holy
Ghost as your fathers did, so do you." So he's speaking to
a council here and he said, this has just been going on since
the very beginning that God chose a nation through Abraham and
gave him all these rich promises and then he chose Jacob and he
chose Isaac and the patriarchs and then we come down as it begins
to develop and God blesses them in such a special way physically. They were uncircumcised and they
in heart and in ear and they do always resist the Holy Ghost
as your fathers did so do you. Now these prophets or these people
that he's preaching this to and shares this with are not very
happy with his conclusion. And they're gonna take him out
and kill him. They don't like what they heard because they
believe that they're special just because they're descendants
of Abraham in the flesh. Well, let's back up there and
we'll go down through this a little bit. slower than just jumping
from verse six down to verse 51. If you'll back up with me
to verse six, we find here as the apostle is used to write
here, Luke, as God gives him the words, Inspiration is brought
out. God breathed words to this great
preacher of righteousness. It says in verse six, and God
spake on this wise that his seed, Abraham's seed should sojourn
in a strange land and that they should bring them into a bondage
and then treat them evil for 400 years. Now, God gave that
message to Abraham right after he had appeared unto him. He
promised this is going to take place. Now, the drift of the
whole message of Stephen again and again, Israel had rejected
their God-sent deliverers and prophets. God continuously sends
them people that have the message about God saving spiritual Israel. And if he doesn't work on your
heart, if he doesn't give you a new heart, if he doesn't take
away your old heart, then we'll just, even, it doesn't matter
who we're related to, we'll go down to the pit. The rejection
of the Savior was only a parallel to what we find with regard to
Joseph and to Moses. Both of these guys are gonna
be brought out by Stephen as people who were rejected by family,
Joseph, by nation, Moses. And most of this is based upon
those thoughts that we have Joseph is sold into slavery by his family,
the patriarchs. All right, Israel had always
been a stiff necked and froward and the fall was so complete,
those who God fed personally, bit the hand that fed him. God said, as we heard this morning,
God said, Moses up to the mount, came back down, and we just not
recognize what was going on. He didn't. I remember Brother
Henry Mahan saying, you know, a young man might be just real
honest and straightforward in his community, but once he goes
into the service, and he doesn't have anybody telling him what
to do, things go awry. And he was in the service and
he knew what he was talking about. So here we have that this containment
had been there, but even at that, they bit the hand that fed them.
They did not like his food. You know, we could read over
there, we loathe this light bread, and it's manna. They did not
like his appointed leaders. They did not like Moses. They
did not like Aaron. They were appointed by God. And
as we follow through the Old Testament scriptures, they did
not like the prophets of God either. They did not like the
true priests of God. They didn't like anything that
God had given them. They did not like his appointed
ways. 10 Commandments, boy, I have
had people tell me they've kept the 10 Commandments and you know
what? They're lying. That's just all there is. You
can't, it's impossible. They did not like his appointed
word and they did not like him. Now there, Jesus said, your mouth,
you're honoring me. With your mouth, you're honoring
me, but your heart is far from me. And that's just the normal
state of natural man. The nation, verse seven, the
nation to whom they shall be in bondage. Well, I judge, said
God, and after that shall you come forth and serve me in this
place. You know, as we go down through
here, we think logically, but human beings are not logical. Once in a while, we're given
the grace to be physically logical. If you take your key out to the
car, you can start it better than leaving your key hanging
on the keyboard and wondering, what am I going to do next? Now,
if we just use a little logic, it makes things a little easier.
And I have found that out. I've almost told Nancy I'm going
to have this finger ground to the key so I don't have to go
looking for my key. No, just use this. Well, logic. But when it comes to spiritual
things, we are not logical. We can't get past the problem
that developed in the Garden of Eden when Adam fell and died
spiritually before God and is in the process of dying physically,
even though it's going to take over 900 years to get there.
We are dying physically every day, but we died in Adam spiritually. And if we're ever going to have
spiritual life, we must be quickened. We must be made alive in the
new birth. So here you would think that
after they spend 400 years in bondage, and God through Moses
gives them the liberty to go away from this bondage. He demonstrates
in 10 different ways who's in charge in Egypt. He brings nine
plagues, and then we know the Passover, which was truly a plague
upon Israel. Ten times he speaks that way,
and we find out they get out in the desert, and in about 13
seconds, they're complaining and wish they were back over
there. How it is that we, by nature, would rather have bondage
than freedom. Over there, they could say at
least, well, I think I'll have that piece of spoil fish. And
out here, God's gonna give them manna. that they would never
lose any weight. They would go through fair. They'd
have all the balanced nutrients and vitamins that they needed.
And yet they would look upon that just like we find out people
say, is that all you're gonna preach is Christ? Is that all
you're gonna do is preach Christ? What else do you want? Well,
I want Christian living. Well, if you hear Christ, you'll
know all about Christian living. It's not an issue. All right,
as we go through here, It says, the nation of whom they shall
be in bondage, will I judge, God said. And after that, shall
they come forth and serve me in this place? And he gave him
the covenant of circumcision. And so Abraham begat Isaac and
circumcised him the eighth day, and Isaac begat Jacob, and Jacob
begat 12 patriarchs, and the patriarchs moved with envy. You know, that's an interesting
way. They hated him. This is God's
chosen man and they hated him. They hated his brother, their
brothers. Now some of them, he's their
half brothers. Some of them, he's their real
brother. But they all hated him to the point that when he came
out one day to bring them some food, they said, let's kill him
and we'll get rid of him. Well, God was gracious, we know
that. Their heart's intent was to kill
him, but God moved upon them to sell him. Now, where did he have him sold? Right down to the place where
God said they're gonna be in bondage, right down to Egypt,
sold him to Egypt. Now, I don't know how he thought,
and I'm sure my brothers sometimes or other wish they had a soul
mate. And I would wonder, you know, that wouldn't be a very
comfortable feeling for me. I don't think it was very comfortable
for Joseph either. And we find out as we drop down
through here, it says he delivered him out of all, he moved in verse
nine, moved with envy, sold Joseph into Egypt. What a statement
we have here is Joseph is a wonderful picture of Christ sold into slavery,
sold into Egypt. We find that the Lord Jesus during
his ministry was sold for 30 pieces of silver, as it was moved
upon Judas to do that because it was written in God's purpose,
but it was also written in the Old Testament. Now it says there,
but God. Now Wednesday night we mentioned
that, how wonderful it is to run into that very statement
throughout the scriptures. Things look so bad, but God,
he is not just stepping in. He's not just interjecting. He's
carrying out his purpose. This purpose began before the
foundation of the world, this purpose of God to interject his
person and being and will into the world. He says that they
sold him, but God was with him. Now over in the book of Genesis,
it says that Joseph was in prison and God was with him and he was
a prosperous man. Now his prosperity wasn't this
kind of prosperity, His prosperity was in his soul. This is of God. This is of God. What did Joseph
say later? You meant it for evil. God meant
it for good. So he had some wisdom about and
knowledge about God that those other 11 did not have at that
time. He understood that God was going
to be with him. He had faith because God had
promised. Goes on to say he delivered him
out of all his afflictions. How gracious that is of God for
his people to be delivered out of all their afflictions. Now,
we may have the affliction of getting old, but when it comes
to spiritual things, everything that was against us has been
delivered from us. So he has delivered us from all
our spiritual afflictions. He's raised us from the dead.
He's given us his spirit. He's given us his word. He's
given us his counsel. He's given us his, as we heard
this morning, grace, mercy, and peace. You know, if we don't
have mercy, we'll never have peace. If that sin is still held
against us, we cannot have peace. The only way we can have peace
with God is through our Lord Jesus Christ, is Him taking care
of the sin issue. And when He does, we have peace. It's not that we're not sinners
anymore, but we'll not face the consequences of them. Jesus Christ
has. He delivered him out of all of
his afflictions and gave him favor and wisdom in the sight
of Pharaoh, king of Egypt. And he made him governor over
Egypt and all his house. Now there came a dearth. There
came a dearth. Who brought that dearth? Who brought that dearth? Who
brought that famine? You know, nature gets blamed
for a lot of stuff when it really lies right at
the feet of God Almighty. If we go over to the book of
Genesis, we find out Joseph was allowed to know after he had
been told the dreams of Pharaoh. We're going to have seven years.
God's going to bring seven years of famine. Now we have, well,
God would never do that. It's too late. He already has.
He's already brought famine. for his will and purpose. And
I'm not gonna get into discussion over it or an argument over it.
God has just done that. Now I cannot figure all the times
out why he does it, but I know it's according to his good will
and purpose. and he will use it to bring his
gospel to people that normally wouldn't hear it. One of my favorite
accounts is there in the book of Ruth, when there was a dearth
came, a famine came, and there was a family that moved out.
I've read preachers and commentary say, they did the wrong thing.
They left Israel, they should have stayed there. Well, God
used him to go over to Moab and there was a young lady there
by the name of Ruth that God had chosen in Christ Jesus before
the foundation of the world that needed to hear something she
would never have heard in her religion there. What happened? She told her mother-in-law when
she was headed back to Israel, your God is my God, your people
are my people. And isn't that a wonderful thing
that God would take Moabites and cause them to love the children
of God? So Ruth, there was a great famine. There's a great famine king.
Seven years of plenty before that though. I mean bumper crops,
seven years. Can you imagine what the cherry
farmers around here would say if they had seven years of bumper
crops and the price was good? Or the grain people around here,
that they had seven years of bumper crops and the price was
good? And yet, at the end of that time, God sent a famine
like they had never had before. Who's in charge of all of the
grain in Egypt? Just like who's in charge of
every spiritual blessing? Joseph was in charge, and as
a type of Christ, he's been put into a position there by Almighty
God through that experience of being sold. What did it take
God to send his son to this world? You know, as we think about that,
I know it was in God's purpose But there was such a relationship
between God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit
in old eternity, and yet in the covenant of grace, that Son was
going to give up the position that He had with the Father before
the world was, and come to this incursed earth to be a payment
for His people's sins. What amazing grace it is to read
in the Bible about God's amazing grace, that He would send His
only begotten Son Now, you know who was back in Israel pining
over the loss of his son? The father. He was heartbroken when those
brothers came back and says, well, here's his coat and there's
blood all over it. They didn't tell him it was lamb's
blood. Here's the coat, we're sorry, he's dead. And for all
those years, The father is pining over the death of his son. Well,
as the dearth goes on, it also affects Israel. It affects where
Jacob lives. He said, it's time to go down
to Egypt. There was a certain, verse 11,
there came a dearth over all the land of Egypt and Canaan
and great affliction and our fathers found no sustenance My
goodness, this is worse than we thought. How the food blessing
has been for this time, but now it's worse than we thought. It's
got worse and worse. And as time goes on, it's worse
and worse. And you know, that just speaks about us as time
goes on. Things are worse and worse. Oh my goodness, the fall. The fall. To see it in ourselves,
to see it in our parents and grandparents, and then to see
the same thing is passed on to our children. how it is. There are, as we think about
the ruin by the fall, the Apostle Paul brings us out in the book
of Romans chapter three. Would you join me over there?
As we follow this through, we're just seeing this is being carried
out. In the book of Romans chapter three, we read about this. Romans
chapter three, verse nine, the Apostle Paul picking up so much
from the Old Testament as he's led by the spirit to write this
to the church at Rome. The other day I was reading that
passage of scripture and it was such a blessing, again, that
the Jewish people came to Jesus and said, what do you think about
Rome? Caesar is what they said. And
you know what he said? Hand me a coin. Whose picture's on it? Caesar's. Then it is my instructions, God's
instructions, render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's, and unto
God that which is God's. That's what he said. Now, it's
interesting when we read the book of Romans, that Paul does
not pick out any specific sin about Rome. He's just saying,
this is so general, I can write it to anybody. Rome is not the
place that all sin is contained. Neither is it the Dalles or Portland
or Chicago or any other place in the world. That's not where
sin is contained. It is rampant in every culture,
in every society, and here is the sign about it. Romans chapter
3 verse 9, what then? Are we better than they? No,
in no wise, for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles
that they are all under sin. Jews? Oh my goodness, that's
God's chosen people. They can't be that. That's what
God said about it. He said they are all under sin.
They are in the fall too. Goes on to say, as it is written,
there's none righteous, no, not one. I don't know how many times
I've had people, well, I know somebody. No, you don't. You
don't know anybody that's righteous because God said they're not
righteous. Now, the only righteousness that we've ever had in ourselves
is our self-righteousness, and all we have to do is go to the
Bible and find out what God thinks about our self-righteousness,
and he said our righteousness is our filthy rags. Unacceptable. Don't bring them. Goes on to
say here, there's none righteous. No, not one. There is none that
understand it. There is none that seek it after
God. Well, I've been seeking after God. No, you haven't. You've
been seeking after a little G-God. By nature, that's all we can
seek after. We need the big G-God. And the
only way we'll get the big G-God is he's hunting after us. That's
all. He says, they are all gone out
of the way. The Apostle Paul is taking and
quoting a number of scriptures from the book of the Psalms that
God gave the Psalmist about Israel at that time. And here he is
bringing it up to us, Jews and Gentiles. They're all gone out
of the way. You know, the only time we ever
have any inkling about the understanding of these verses of scripture
is after God gives us the new birth. Before that time, we will
argue We'll argue about what God had to say about the depravity
of natural man. And we always run into people
that are the exception. And the number one exception
in my life was me. That was the exception. Now,
I know I've been around a lot of people and they're worse than
I am, I know it. All they have to do is be, I just have to be
around them for five minutes in my religious days. I'm so
much better than that. I said that very thing about
the man who brought me the gospel. I've been in the ministry 15
years, he's been in the ministry 35 years, I'm smarter than he
is. And you know what? I meant every word of it. They
have all gone out of the way. They are together become unprofitable. That's what we're reading about
over here in the book of Acts chapter seven. That's what we
read about in the book of Genesis when we're dealing with the descendants
of Abraham. They are all gone out of the
way. They are together become unprofitable. There is none that
doeth good, no not one. Their throat is an open sepulcher.
I cannot tell you how many times I've had people say, well, I
know people that have done good. Well, in what way? Well, they
give to the poor. That's not what he's talking
about. Our relationship with God. is no relationship at all
without Christ. Their throat is an open sepulcher. With their tongues, they have
used deceit. The poison of asp is under their lips. Their mouth
is full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed
blood. Destruction and misery are in
their ways, and the way of peace have they not known? There is
no fear of God before their eyes." How did the apostle Paul, was
he given the understanding of these verses of scripture a little
bit later in his life? I am the chiefest of sinners. I'm not arguing with God. I know
all about what he's just revealed to me. I'm the chiefest of sinners.
So if we have never been to that place, we probably never have
seen Christ. He's the one that lets us know
what we are. We take God's side against ourselves. We really repent of our condition
and we take God's side against ourselves. You're right, God.
In fact, you could have wrote a whole lot more about it. Well,
there are two great disputes that are even hated. And we're
gonna see that happen here because Stephen's gonna be stoned over
this issue. There are hated teachings of the Bible that it clearly
declares. And the first thing is, greatly
disputed and greatly hated and is going to be demonstrated here
when Stephen brings up this issue to those that counsel about Israel
and that God is sovereign over all things. He is absolute sovereign
over all creation, old creation and new creation. He's sovereign
from old eternity to eternity. The extent of Adam's fall is
the next thing that just comes under. You know, most of those
people there, they would never have admitted that they'd ever
done much wrong. Read the Pharisee's prayer at
the temple. Can you pick out how much evil
he'd done? No. Why? He felt in himself he
hadn't done any. The guy that went down to his
house justified, though, said, God, be merciful to me, the sinner. Please, may the atonement be
made on my behalf. And he went down to his house
justified, but the guy that couldn't see any problem, he didn't go
down to his house justified. He just went down to count some
more seed to give as a tithe. He had some more prayers. He
fasted a little more. He did all of the things that
he thought was necessary. The question comes up as we follow
this through with the children of Israel here in the book of
Acts chapter seven, how dead is dead? That's the question. And I've mentioned a thousand
times probably from this pulpit and 500 from the other pulpit
when we're in the other building. It's the only place that death
is ever discussed is in religion. Nowhere else. In religion, well, there's a
little life in us when we're dead. I've heard that. I used to create that same scenario. There's a little good in us.
How else would we ever come to Christ? Well, that's the miracle
of it. That's the grace of it. He comes
to dead people and raises them to life. Hallelujah. We just rejoice in that, that
he would take us in our total deadness and raise us to life. Want an illustration of it? Go
to the resurrections that Jesus performed while he was on this
earth, those three of them. One of them is so outstanding.
There, as he came up to Lazarus's tomb, he made sure that Lazarus
had been dead four days before he got there. He lets us know
we're really dead and then he says Lazarus come forth and without
reservation, without any prayer, without any on Lazarus's part,
without any believing, without any all of the stuff that the
religious world has, he didn't have the opportunity to practice
any of that because he's dead and dead and dead and Jesus Christ
raises him from the dead and he came forth and was alive. Now I'm thankful for folks like
those disciples that Jesus appointed, says take care of his grave clothes. You know, sometimes we come out
of our stupor with some grave clothes and we're thankful for
people pointing out in the word of God, what we may have thought
was the truth, which is not. I'm thankful for that. So he
gives us those great assurances of his person Those arguing the
other side have a limited meaning to dead and will remain, remind us of that. A person can
be scared into the kingdom, educated into the kingdom, baptized into
the kingdom, just as I am into the kingdom by natural man's
religion. But by Jesus Christ, it is a
resurrection. We're not having any of that
stuff. So we have this great truth brought out here about
Joseph and him down there in Egypt. There's a verse of scripture
over in the book of Deuteronomy chapter 29 that's going to clear
up a whole bunch of this when we get to reading the rest of
that chapter seven and about what went on with Israel and
then Moses and how he was rejected so terribly by the children of
Israel. In the book of Deuteronomy chapter
29, God gives us these little nuggets along the way to say,
oh, that's the problem. Why in the world? We'd think,
why in the world didn't they get smart? Why didn't they come out of their
stupor? Why didn't they follow God? What was the problem? And here
in the book of Deuteronomy 29, verse four, it says, yet the
Lord hath not given you, did you read the rest? Deuteronomy 29, verse four. Yet the Lord hath not given you
a heart to perceive. and eyes to see and ears to hear
unto this day." Oh, here's the real problem. They're in their
deadness. You can't expect people to do
anything different than be in their deadness. You know, one
of the great mistakes that are made so often, and I didn't realize
that there were people that didn't hold to that theology, and that
is, I used to see preachers, and they had kids that were mean.
I don't know if you've known any of those. I mean, they were
lawbreakers, and they were in jail, and on and on it went.
Only by the grace of God, I didn't have my name on a jail list.
But, and you'd think, you know, those are preacher's kids. They
should do better. They should, the preacher should
take care of that. He should get them saved so they
wouldn't be acting like that. You know, it wasn't until after
I was saved, I found out that there was a group of people that
said, you know, salvation's of the Lord. And we really do harm
to our children by trying to get a profession of faith out
of them when they have no knowledge at all of who even Jesus is. I've had people tell me, well,
my kids are all saved, but they just, they're away from the Lord
right now. And you know, I've got to be
saying, I says, now, where is that? Where is that? Where can you get away from the
Lord? Well, and then, well, they're just away, and God doesn't allow
that for 40 years. You know what happened to David
When he got away from the Lord, God sent him a preacher, a prophet
by the name of Nathan. And Nathan got right up in his
face and said, thou art the man. And you know what that did to
David? It broke him. Because the word of God was brought
to him. And he tells us in Psalm 51,
against thee and thee only, Have I sinned? He was broken. Well, that's what God does for
his people. He takes away that old attitude towards God. I will not have him tell me what
to do in this matter. And then we say, oh Lord, against
thee and thee only have I sinned. Going back here into the book
of Acts again, if you would, Acts chapter 7, verse 11. And now there came a dearth over
all the land of Egypt and Canaan, and great affliction, and our
fathers found no sustenance." That's really a tremendous statement
about the fall, about what the world was like after. You know,
the Bible tells us that even this world, this earth groans
and travails. It felt the fall. There was not
a molecule of the entire universe that was not affected by Adam's
decision there in the Garden of Eden. And when he decided
to eat of that forbidden fruit, he knew exactly what he was doing.
Goes on to tell us here, verse 12, but when Jacob heard that
there was corn in Egypt, he sent out our fathers first. Those
11 that had sold him into slavery are the ones that are sent down
the first time into Egypt because they hear that there's corn down
there, food. And at the second time, Joseph
made known to his brethren. Now, isn't that an interesting
verse? When they came down the first time, they had no idea
who he was. You know what? He spoke different
than they did. He dressed different than they
did. He looked different than they did. They had no idea who
he was. Just like when the first time
we ever hear about Christ, we have no idea who he's talking
about. Who are you talking about preacher? My preacher, my God
is a God of love. He loves everybody. What are
you telling me that there's a God that did not die for everybody? You've got to be kidding on this
matter. Well, what happened to these the second time? It says
the second time Joseph was made known unto his brethren. In the
24th chapter of the book of Luke, we read two or three times there,
they knew not that it was Jesus. Even his disciples. Have you
ever ran onto a verse and said, what is this about? And then
find out, oh, this is about Jesus. They knew not Jesus. And then
he let them see him. He made them know to know him.
I believe it's three times in a very short period of time.
One time they're out there, Peter says, I go fishing. And he and
seven, six other disciples go out fishing. They caught nothing.
And they looked on, saw someone on the shore and they were a
little bit afraid. And John said, it is the Lord. You know what
Peter did? He put a coat around himself,
jumped off into the sea and went to Jesus. Oh, what does it say? The second time Joseph's made
known to his brethren and Joseph's kindred was made known unto Pharaoh. Then sent Joseph and called his
father Jacob to him and all his kindred, three score and 10 souls.
So Jacob went down to Egypt and died and he and our fathers.
What are we learning from this? You know, things are not too
bad here. Things are not too bad. They're being taken care
of. Food is there in abundance. Joseph is over them. And you
know, it's not gonna be very long. They're gonna be put into
400 years of servitude, captivity. And God gives them liberty. and they get out in the desert,
and in just a very short time, that liberty is worthless, because
it was not in the heart. It was only a physical liberty.
Religion can only provide a physical liberty. It cannot provide a
heart liberty. And once we have a heart liberty,
we quit arguing with God about it. And here they're gonna go
out there and argue with God for 40 years in the wilderness.
And Stephen is bringing this up. Our fathers were arguers
with God. Our fathers disdained him. They
had everything against him. They found fault with him, with
his preachers, with his leaders, with everyone he chose. They
had a problem with it. And then he comes down to that
concluding remark and says, you are all, like your father, stiff-necked
and uncircumcised people. And then he brings out Christ. We'll look at that next time.
But there it says there in verse 14, then sent Joseph and called
his father Jacob to him and all his kindred, three score and
15 souls. So Jacob went down into Egypt
and died he and our fathers. And we'll stop right there today
and pick this up Lord willing the next time. Oh, the statement
that he makes, uncircumcised in heart and in ear, You do always
resist God like our fathers.