Seeking for the help of the Lord,
I direct your careful attention to Acts chapter 7, the portion
that we read, reading from our text, verse 38. Verse 38, and it is specifically
the first three words, but we will praise from the whole verse.
This is He, that was in the church in the wilderness, with the angel
which spake to him in the Mount Sinai, and with our fathers,
who received the lively oracles to give unto us." Acts chapter
7, verse 38. This is He. We have read the dying, we may
say, testimony of Stephen before the Jewish Council. From the
very beginning of time in the Garden of Eden, when the first
promise of the Saviour was given, there have been a succession
of the Lord's dear people who have seen, by faith, the coming
Messiah, the Christ, the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord has been
pleased to reveal Himself to them right through time. And we find here with Stephen,
able to rehearse right back to Abraham and to give a history
over those who have seen and known and believed in the Lord
Jesus Christ. And he's able to come to a testimony
as he views this himself. This is him. this whom I've described
to you, this who has been revealed through time, this who Moses
have spoken of, that a prophet shall the Lord thy God raise
up unto you, like unto me, him shall you hear. This is he, this
is the promise, Jesus of Nazareth, this is he. And how sacred when
we come to the end of this portion. As Stephen is dying, he looks
up into heaven and he sees the Lord Jesus. He sees Him and he's
able to testify of what he has seen. What a blessed sight! You know, when our Lord ascended,
He sat on the right hand of the throne of God on high, but Stephen
sees Him standing, standing to receive His dear child. The Lord says, I will come again
and receive you unto myself that where I am there ye may be also. And here in this account we have
a beautiful account of the Lord doing just what he said, standing
to receive one of his dear people and what is more, he was able
to see it and testify it this side of the grave in the midst
of the hail of stones in We have known this with our own
mother, those who have been able to testify before they passed
away of what they saw and what they had trusted in and were
expecting as they could see as they crossed that Jordan. May
we never forget the Ark of God as typical of the Lord Jesus
Christ. He had stood in the midst of
Jordan until all of the children of Israel went over. In the midst
of death they would have seen that ark close at hand, dying
grace in the dying hour, seeing the Lord as never before one
has seen Him in the hour of great need. Well, Stephen here, he
makes this testimony, and you know, dear friends, each one
of us, we need to desire and long and pray for this, not just
to know a bounce, the Lord Jesus Christ. You can study about him
and know about him and study books, but that is very different
than having Christ formed in the heart, the hope of glory. You know, not stones, not Jewish,
no nun could wrench this from his heart, and that's where you
and I need it, in the heart, and the Lord's have put it there,
and then no man can take it out. to say, be able to view and to
testify, this is He. This is whom I so desire. This is in whom I have believed. This is He. So I want to look
this afternoon at three main headings. Firstly, I want to
look at the contrast between Stephen and the multitude here. There's many contrasts in the
Word of God and there certainly is in this account. I want to
just look at that firstly. And then secondly, the words,
this is he. What this means. to a sinner
when he sees the Lord Jesus Christ and it says, this is he. What
does that mean? What does that mean to that poor
sinner that can say that? And what is he seeing in here?
And then thirdly, how St. Stephen saw and testified of
him in the text. And there's three things that
he sees and testifies of him in that text. This is he, that
was in the church, to Him, that is to Moses in Mount
Sinai and with our fathers, who received the lively oracles to
give unto us. And we have Him, Him in the church,
Him speaking to His people and Him giving us His holy words. And that is what Stephen saw
and that is what he testifies here. I want to look then firstly
at this contrast, and it couldn't be a real more stark contrast. Here are the elders of the Jews,
here are the religious people of the day, those that were held
in esteem by men. and supposedly knew the scriptures
and they stood for Moses, this is what they thought that Stephen
was bringing forth Jesus as a challenge against Moses. He was destroying
their form of religion and destroying their hope as they thought. They were, as their Lord said
while he was on earth, the blind leaders of the blind. But what
I want to really highlight here is the need of saving faith given
by God to be able to see the Lord Jesus Christ as the true
Messiah of the Christ, to be able to say this is He. And this
is so stark here. Remember when our Lord spoke
of the rich man and Lazarus. And the rich man in this life,
he lived with all his wealth and riches. The beggar Lazarus
was laid at his door full of sores. When they both died, and
it's not because of their station here, but because of Lazarus'
faith in Christ, he was brought to be Abraham's bosom in the
covenant. Whereas a rich man died and opened
his eyes in hell, and he asked that there might be that Lazarus
could come and give him water to quench his tongue in that
flame. And God said, no, there's a gulf
between, you cannot come between. So then he had another request.
You send Lazarus to my brethren, that they don't come into this
place. You know what the Lord said? The Lord said to him, they
have Moses, and they have the prophets. Let them hear them
if they hear not them. Neither will they believe, though
one rose from the dead. And of course one did rise from
the dead. The Lord Jesus Christ did. And they put it down to just
a scheming amongst the disciples. But you think what otherwise?
The Lord rose from the dead, Lazarus. and the widow of Nain's
son, Jairus's daughter. He raised those from the dead. They even had sought to put Lazarus
to death. Because of him, many went and
believed on the Lord Jesus Christ. This is his same council and
his same rulers. And the Lord had worked so many
miracles. He worked the miracles of the
louse and the fishes, and they went the other side of the sea
to get to him. And you know what the Lord said
to him? He followed me not because he saw the miracles, but because
he did eat of the loaves and were filled. For no doubt many
were hungry, many were poor, and they were pleased with those
loaves. But the miracles testified of who he was, that he was the
Christ, the Son of the Living God, is what he said, I am my
Father. and they completely bypassed
that, didn't see that, all they saw is what they were getting.
Following for loaves and fishes, how many do that in religion
today? I don't care whether they're
Christians and will follow the Lord only in that way. But what
I'm coming to is this, they were seeing these miracles, they were
seeing these things that the Lord was doing, and they were
not believing on him. They were not seeing who he was. And yet the Lord says, the works
that I do, I do in my Father's name. They are they which testify
of me, and I witness not of men, but of my Father which is in
heaven. And yet with all of these things
that were done, there were countless numbers like this assembly here
that could hear all of Stephen's testimony and still not believe,
and still cast stones at him, still destroy him, and remember
one of them was called Saul, or the Apostle, one of them that
was to be shown mercy, one that would later believe but now couldn't
and wouldn't, but yet he did later on. Now dear friends, there
may be those of you here that pass by the blessing of being
brought to believe in and see the Lord Jesus Christ as for
who He is and to rejoice in that belief. And you pass it by as
something that is not a unique blessing. It is. You look at
the contrast here. And while we're thinking of contrasts,
the Lord always used it. We mentioned this about Lazarus
and the rich man. That's not the only one. What
about in prayer? The publican and the Pharisee. Why did the Lord use two parables? Why not just one in that parable? No, so that there'd be a contrast. You can compare the two. Right
the way through life we have it, right from the beginning.
Cain and Abel, why two brothers? Why the difference? Jacob and
Esau, why two? All the time there's these comparisons. And the Lord's dear people will
have those times, yes, they may think, I can't see myself amongst
the people of God. Well, can you see amongst the
ungodly and those that hate the Lord and those that go away from
Him? Maybe if you can't see your image there, you can see there. And the Lord uses these two,
and is not there two places, heaven and hell? Are there not
the Lord's people and those that are not? All the time there are
the contrasts, and it is for the good of the church, for the
health of the people of God, so that they see, they see who
are the Lord's. They see them, and do they see
a perfect people? Do they see Jacob as one of God's
people, and he's perfect? know the supplanter, Jacob in
all his ways, naturally no better than Esau, only by grace. And so we have this contrast
that is here. One man amidst all of this religious
multitude standing and testifying what he knows and believes and
trusts in and sees in the Lord Jesus Christ. Dear friends, what
an encouragement today. those of you young people at
school or university, how many times you might be like this?
One man, one young man perhaps, and you've got your professors
and you've got all of those around you, all deriding, all speaking
against what you believe. Think of Stephen, think of those
who've gone before, and think what a precious thing it is. Why do I see what I see? Why
do I believe what I do believe? Who maketh thee to differ? Who
has made that difference? May it be a precious thing to
us. No, we shall have to give an account, a reason of the hope
that is within us, with meekness and with fear to all that asketh
us. Same as what Stephen did later
on, Paul had to do, and he did do the same, how the Lord met
with him. So may we be in Stephen's place,
and not in the multitude round about him, but in the place of
those who have seen in the Lord Jesus Christ, their God, their
Redeemer, their Saviour, be able to describe him and set him forth
and say, this is he, this is he upon whom my hopes of heaven
depend. And may it then, that it continues
from this fulfilled, that off this precious Jesus is lifted
up, this is He, and many that hear, they echo Him, and they
say with thee, to and away to Emmaus did not our heart burn
within us, while He talked with us by the way, and while He opened
to us the Scriptures. So we have then this distinction,
this difference, God if the Lord has made that difference in their
lives, and if He has not yet done so, may you think of this
young man's soul who the Lord yet did, and He did stop him,
and He did work in his heart, and made him such a blessing.
But on to look then secondly at this is he, what this means
to a sinner. When sin entered into the world,
and death by sin, and I believe this is a really a root cause
you might say of every error that may come into the Church
of God, is to minimize what happened before. In the day that thou
eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die. The thought that there is
still some life, something good, something responsive, something
appealing to God, something that can, of its own free will, save
itself or see in the things of God, anything. is the root of
so much error in the Church of God. Man is fallen, he is dead,
he is lost, in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely
die, in dying thou shalt die. We must go to the grave, and
after the grave there is the judgment and eternal death. But spiritually we died, we are
still in a sense the image of God, in that we are over the
creation, we have a reasonable mind, a reasonable soul, we are
able to do many, many things. The difference between man and
the animal kingdom is immense, and men minimize it, but it is
astounding. And what the Lord has done, and
Paul opens this out to the Corinthians, He says that in the wisdom of
God, God by wisdom, that he hid these things from man, hid spiritual
things from them. It pleased God not to, by the
wisdom of man, know the things of God, but through the foolishness
of preaching. And we spoke of the contrast
in the first part here. what contrast we have, that man
can send people to the moon, he can do medical marvels, he
can do electronics, he can do mechanical marvels, he can do
so much, he has so much wisdom. But when it comes to spiritual
things, when it comes to the things of God, when it even comes
to the things of our own bodies, male and female, maybe them,
Man is utterly ignorant and he fails miserably and we see how
he has fallen from God. We have in Romans 1 that even
those that have not the scriptures they shall be without excuse
because we are God's creation, his own creation, testifies that
God has made us and he's made us in his image, he's put us
over the works of his hands and we ourselves are that wonder.
that men cannot see it. We've sat in front of scans with
medical professionals and they have marveled and they've said
that we do these things because we marvel at the brain and we
marvel at how we're made and we say to them, yes, and the
Creator made us like we are. And a blank goes over their face
and they don't want to speak any more about it. And yet they've
chosen that career because of the marvel that they've seen.
And yet they cannot see. That is a judgmental hardness. That is the sentence of death
in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. The very
fact that these things are hidden, hidden from the wise and prudent,
revealed unto babes, and that makes it a true token when the
Lord does bless a soul that they are blessed. Manoah and his wives
If the Lord were pleased to kill us, why would He have told us
such things as these? Why would He have shown us such
things as these? And I say to that to every poor
sinner who has seen in the Lord Jesus Christ just what a sinner
who is dead in trespasses and sins needs. He needs a living
Saviour. He needs one who can come, and
who has come, and fulfilled the law in His place, who has suffered
the wrath of God in His place, a propitiation offering, a wrath-ending
sacrifice, as John in his epistles sets it forth. He hath endured
that which we should have endured. Let thy hand be upon the man
at thy right hand, the Son of Man, whom thou madest strong
for thyself." That is the Lord Jesus Christ. This is He that
those dear saints say, look for Him that should come, that should
be that sacrifice, the one that Abraham saw as he took Isaac off the altar, put the
ram in his stead, a substitution offering, Abraham saw my day
and rejoiced at it. It is the same one that was expected
that should be bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh, the seed
of the woman, not made like unto the angels, which are just spirit,
or just like the beast, which are just flesh, but the seed
of Abraham, which are body and soul." You know, the saints down
through the ages They struggle with how the Lord would bring
this about. Job, he says, though he's able
to testify, I know that my Redeemer liveth and that he shall stand
at the latter day upon the earth. He said, but how can a clean
thing come out of an unclean? How can it be the seed of the
woman, the natural generation from Adam? How will this happen?
We know how it happens with the virgin birth. And then Solomon,
he said, will God in very deed dwell on earth? He had the right
view of what was going to happen, hadn't he? The heaven of heavens
cannot contain thee, how much less this house that I built
thee. But we know again how that happened. Our God contracted
to a standing, comprehensibly made man. And so what is bound
up? In Him is our surety, our substitute,
our Redeemer, our Saviour, our near kinsman, our only hope,
God's provision. Abraham says, My son, God will
provide Himself, Himself, a Lamb for a burnt offering. He shall
be the Lamb. He shall offer Himself by one offering forever. And this is He, when He is set
forth here, this is He. This is the Redeemer, the Saviour,
that doesn't do parts salvation. He doesn't fulfil the law and
pay the debt His people owed. and then leave them without any
righteousness to stand before the throne. His whole life is
a perfect righteousness to give to his people. He that hath two
coats, let him give to him that hath none. That provision the
Lord provides. And does the Lord then leave
it there and say, well, now I send forth my servants, and they shall
preach, and now it's up to you? The Spirit went forth everywhere. the Lord working with them and
confirming the word with signs following. And what do we read
happened? When they preached, some believed
the word spoken and some believed not. Well, what made the difference? As many as were ordained unto
eternal life believed. That's what made the difference.
Him writer rightly puts it, his Christ makes a believer and gives
him his crown. It is the Lord's Word to do this,
and we must be persuaded of this. If it were only a half salvation,
it would be no salvation. If there was any part required
of fallen man in his dead state, it would be no salvation. So
many of them make the mistake of applying exhortations or warnings
or words that are written to very clearly awakened believers,
those who have eternal life, those who are already saved,
those who are already believers, and they use those expressions
to unbelievers, to those who are dead in trespasses and sins,
as if they could respond to it. And they can't. the dead, they
know not anything. My ear has thou opened. He which hath an ear, let him
hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches. That is the difference. My sheep, I have known of mine,
and I know my sheep. They hear my voice, and they
follow me. When He put forth His sheep,
not His sheep put themselves forth, when He puts forth His
sheep, He goes before them. That is the order of it. And
we see in every step the Lord is magnified. The crown is on
His head alone. And when we use the language
of dear Stephen here and say this is He, He may say, this
is He who is all my salvation and all my desire, coming with
me to David, although my house be not so with God. Yet hath
He made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things
insure, and this is all my salvation and all my desire, though He
make it not to grow. There is our hope, is in Christ,
and Christ alone. This is He. Now we may ask ourselves
here, especially those here who have made profession in the name
of the Lord, what is Christ to you? Can we say this is He? This is
He upon whom my hopes depend, my hopes of heaven. This is He
that hath begun a good work in me. and I believe he shall perform
it unto the day of Jesus Christ. This is he of whom shall receive
my soul at last. This is he who went through death
for me. This is he who fulfilled the
law in every jot and tittle for me. This is he in whom my soul
delighteth. Peter says, unto you which believe,
he is precious. He is precious. Now I know there'll
be those of you here who say, there have been some times in
my life he's been exceeding precious. But there'll be times you'll
be in the dark valleys, times you'll wonder really where the
scene will end. But this is the precious thing,
our hope is not based upon our strength, our might. Hear the
Lord with Peter, Satan hath desire to have you, all of the Church
of God, but I pray for thee, Peter, now at this specific time,
because Satan hath desire to have you, to sift you as wheat.
I pray for thee that thy faith fail not. the faith that Christ
gave him. In Galatians we read that it
is the faith of Jesus Christ by which we are saved. Yes, in
one sense it is the faith in Christ, but those like with the
ESV who quote that verse and change it to make in, they make
it so that it leaves room for some supposed faith of our own
maybe to be saving, but no, it must be He that is the author
and finisher of our faith. This is He. This is He who begins
and who gives faith. And so though our frames change
and though sometimes our love seems cold and dark and far off
and maybe even left by dear Peter to deny the Lord, The Lord will
never forsake the work of His own hands. This is He that changeth
not, Jesus Christ, the same yesterday and today and forever. On to look then thirdly at how
Stephen saw and testified of Him in the text. This is he that was in the church
in the wilderness with the angel which spake to him in the Mount
Sinai and with our fathers who received the lifely oracles to
give unto us. I want to suggest here there
are three real headings that are in this text, three things
that Stephen saw. He said this is he that was in
the church, it was in the wilderness. Some will translate it and say
congregation. Yes, it was a congregation, but
it was the church. The Lord has only one church,
has only ever had one church. And right down through the ages,
and we have part of the church on earth, part in heaven, part
of yet to be born, but it is one church. And right through
the world there has been, that church. In one sense you might
say the church is a gathering of people, like we have in the
Revelation, the letters to the churches. Another sense, of course,
a church is not bricks and mortar, it is individuals that make up
that church. And it is, then when it is spoken
of here, that this is the Not that was with the church, and
yes, we know Moses said, except by presence, go not with me,
carry us not up hence, yet he was in the church, in it. And what a difference that makes.
You know, you go back to Noah, and when the ark was made, and
when the flood was to come, what did God say? Did he say, go into
the ark? He said, come. He was in the
ark. He was with His people. Come
unto Me, all ye that are laboured, heavenly laboured. Father, I
will that they who thou hast given Me be with Me where I am. All the time is the idea of that
He is in the church, where two or three are gathered together
in My Name, there am I in the midst of them. Unto Him shall
the gathering of the people be. And there is always that idea,
wherever his church is, there is his people. And he speaks
about the end of the world. And I said, well, how will we
know with Christ's coming? We are warned, if people say
he's in the wilderness or in the desert, go not out. But what
is it said? He uses a simple illustration. He said, wheresoever the carcass
is, there will the eagles be gathered together. And really
what it means is, wherever God's people are, there will the Lord
be. And wherever the Lord will be,
there will His people be. You cannot separate them. You
cannot. They must be together. That is
the will of the Lord, that His people be with Him, that they
see His glory. And that is the will of the Lord
performed here below, and in the church, in the wilderness,
the Jews, The Lord was with them, he was in that church. I trust
he is with each local church represented here. He comes and
dwells in that church and the individual members of that church. Christ in you, the hope of glory. Formed in you, the hope of glory. And Stephen, he sees this. And when we think of the church,
in the wilderness. We think of the tabernacle, the
tribes all the way around there. Wasn't that tabernacle representative
of Christ? Wasn't it in the midst of that
congregation, in the midst of that church? And then in the
midst of that church, the types and shadows, the sacrifices instituted,
the brazen altar, later on the brazen serpent, or he says they drank of that
spiritual rock that followed them and that rock was Christ.
They had the fiery cloudy pillar to go before them and that was
in the midst of their assemblies all the time. Here is the church
and here is he, this is he. This should be the design of
each church, each member of it and each gathering. Where is
Christ? May his presence be with us. May he be known in our midst,
and dear Stephen, he sees this, he says, it was so in the past,
ye who are holding me to account, ye who think I'm destroying Moses,
I'll take you back to Moses, I'll take you back to him that
spoke of him, he that was in the wilderness, in the midst, Christ was in the
midst, Jesus of Nazareth whom you despise, who cannot see that
is the Christ, He is the one that was in the midst. The Church
of God. You know it should make the Church
of God to be very precious to us. Don't ever despise the assembling
together of ourselves with the Lord, with His people. needs
to be reminded, doesn't it, after COVID and lockdown and everything
like that, I hope has made it even more precious to me, what
it is to gather together. And to him shall the gathering
of the people be. Yes, it's a beautiful provision
for those that cannot come, remain at home or haven't got those,
to meet with in the local area. but to actually gather and see
the people of God. Barnabas, when he came to Antioch,
he saw the grace of God and was glad. Hard to see that over electronic
means, isn't it? But when you see a change in
people, you see their lives, you hear them, you see their
expressions, you see how they walk, they worship. And then
in the Church of God there's the ordinances. You think of
that in the Church, in the reading of the Word, in the preaching,
the lifting up of the Gospel, the Lord Jesus Christ. You think of baptism, buried
with Him by baptism into death and risen again in newness of
life. In the ordinances of the Lord's
Supper, you do show forth the Lord's death till He comes. Do
this in remembrance of me in the Church of God. And Stephen
saw this. May we have, especially as we
come on an anniversary occasion like this, the fresh views of
what it is to gather with the Lord and with His dear people
and with the ordinances that He has instituted and with the
means of grace that He has appointed. Stephen, he was able to say,
this is he that was in the church in the wilderness. And you might
say, he's in the church now and will ever be in the church. You
might say as well, well, isn't the church in the wilderness
now? Oftentimes we feel it like, don't
we? Hostile ground, barren, and like
in that wilderness journey. But what an encouragement. if
the Lord is with us as much as He was with them in the wilderness. The second thing that he saw,
he says, that he spake. He spake to Moses, he spake to
our fathers. We spake to him in the Mount
Siloam with our fathers. You know, Moses, he never forgot
that time. where the Lord appeared to him
in the burning bush. And we note how we are told very
clearly who it was in this very account. We read in verse 30,
when 40 years were expired there appeared to him in the wilderness
of Mount Sinai an angel of the Lord in the flame of fire in
a bush. And then we have in verse 32
what was said I am the God. This wasn't just a created angel. This is the Lord Jesus Christ,
the I am, that I am, the one who speaks in John 10, right
through that chapter, I am the Good Shepherd. This is He. I
am the God of thy fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac,
and the God of Jacob. And Moses trembled and durst
not behold. God spake. and he spoke to Moses
and the fathers and he speaks to us. You know, we think of
dear Jacob, there wrestled a man with him to the breaking of the
day. Let me go for the day breaketh. I will not let thee go except
thou bless me. And he blessed him there. Thou
hast wrestled with God and with man and hast prevailed. His name has changed from And again a beautiful pre-incarnation
appearance of the Lord Jesus Christ. He did so with Abraham. They were two angels. They went
on towards Sodom and here is Abraham with the Lord and he's
pleading for light and for Sodom if there be 10. Well he was destroyed
but then we read that when the Lord destroyed Sodom he remembered
Abraham. and brought Lot out of the overflow. In a way, Abraham, a beautiful
type in himself of Christ, in making intercession before God
for him, effectual intercession. But he saw Christ there, he saw
Christ as fate with him. And this is a blessed thing,
the Lord is not silent to his people. Be not silent to me,
lest if thou be silent unto me, I become like them that go down
in the pit." You know, when it comes to Deuteronomy, when Moses,
and here he is, journey's end, he remembers back to that time
when he gives the blessing on Joseph to him that was separate
from his brethren, the goodwill of him that dwelt in the bush. And he goes back to that time.
And of course, this was Stephen. He's at the end of his life.
He's just about to depart his life. and to get then a fresh
view of the Lord and to really remember all that the Lord has
spoken and all that the Lord has done. It is a blessed thing
that we might hear the voice of the Lord. My sheep, they hear
my voice and they hear it through the Word of God, they hear it
through the preaching of the Word. Those two on the way to
Emmaus, they heard that voice through all the scriptures, the
things concerning himself, before they ever knew who it was that
was walking by them, and their heart burned within them. What
tokens there are of receiving. And you know, I mentioned about
that there wrestled a man with him. Those are precious times
and that was made a real blessing to me. The early times when the
Lord first was blessing my soul to read across that portion and
to be stock sure that is Christ. And ever since that time, and
you think, well, surely preacher, you know, I've read through the
Bible so many times, you must know all the Bible. But there's
still those times I read through a passage, there is Christ, I
didn't see him there before. Oh, how precious. How lovely
that is! I've never seen it opened up
like that before. And those are the ties of meat
and joy for the soul. Then were the disciples glad
when they saw the Lord. Was that only applying to those
in the upper room when the Lord first arose from the dead? Or
will it not be many times in the assemblies of the saints
when they see the Lord and they're glad and they rejoice? I see
Him whom their soul loves. I hear of Him. I embrace Him. I touch His hearts. I hear His
voice. Well, Stephen, he saw this. Moses
knew it. The fathers knew it. And he knew
it. And then there's the third point. He says he gave them who received
the lively oracles to give unto us. Both Paul in his epistles,
in Romans and Hebrews, and Peter in his general epistle, he refers
to the oracles of God. He's the word of the scripture,
not just of the moral law, but of the whole word of God. The
oracles of God. All scripture is given by inspiration
of God. The written and the incarnate
word And may we always hold that Word
to a very high, very high, because in it is the Lord Jesus Christ
revealed. You can look at all creation,
but we need the Word of God to reveal to us the Lord Jesus Christ,
His beloved Son, and to be able to say, this is He. You know,
we mentioned that the two that went on the way to Emmaus, But
when we think of the eunuch, and we think of the portion that
he was reading, that begins with, there is no form nor comeliness
that we should desire him. We have like the picture of this
multitude here, no desire for the Lord Jesus at all. And we
have the eunuch reading through that portion. There could be
only one of you, couldn't there? Reading through Isaiah 53, and
a preacher is sent, Philip is sent, understandest thou what
thou readest? How would you answer? Do you
understand all you read? And especially that chapter,
do you understand it in your heart? When it speaks of all
the sufferings of the Lord Jesus Christ, do you understand that?
Any experience? You might be told about someone
having an operation in a hospital. You say, I don't understand that.
Then you might have the same operation. You say, now I understand
it very differently. Now I understand the pain they
went through and what they went through. How do we understand
the Scriptures? Is it by experience? Do we have
some fellowship with the Lord in His sufferings and in His
death? Do we know something of that?
Well, Philip comes, and the unit says, Whom speaketh the prophet
this? Of himself or some other man? And Philip, he begins at
the same scripture, that where he was led as a sheep before
her shearers is done. And so he opened up his mouth
and led as a lamb to the slaughter. And he began at the same scripture
and preached unto him Jesus. That dear man's testimony at
the end, see here is water, what doth hinder me to be baptised? If thou believest with all thine
heart thou mayest, I believe that Jesus is the Son of God. In effect you say with dear Stephen
here, this is He. This is He whom you have set
forth before me through the preaching of Isaiah 53. This is He. This is the Son of God. Now this
is the, with John in the gospel, right the way through, you will
find some 85 times testimony of Jesus as the Son of God, more
than any other gospel. I think the nearest it comes
to it is Luke, about 15 times that John, he says. There are
many other things. Jesus did that are not written
in this book, but these are written that he might believe that Jesus
is the Christ and that in believing he might have life through his
name. And this is a vital then testimony,
this is a testimony that by God's grace may each one of us be brought
to reign. And those of us who have, may
we praise it and bless God and to point to him and say,
Behold, the might of God. By the Lord at his blessing.