We'll be looking at Acts chapter
7, but I want to begin in Acts chapter 6. The title of the message is,
The Gospel According to Stephen. The Gospel According to Stephen. And this man, Stephen, we read
of, was one of those that was anointed to be a deacon of the
church They had the problem with the widows and the dispensing
of the bread. And the apostles said, it's not
meat for us to serve tables, but rather to pray and to study
the Word of God. So they chose out seven men. One of these men was a man named
Stephen. And the Scripture says in verse
8 of chapter 6, And Stephen, full of faith, and power did
great wonders and miracles among the people." And then when he
was at this synagogue in verse 9, that we find him being disputed
with or argued, and I like this, that these men, these Libertines,
these Alexandrians, these of Asia and Sicily, They were disputing
with Stephen. Notice that, that Stephen was
not disputing with them. They were arguing with his gospel.
He had preached and did many wonders, and he did not dispute
or argue with them. Rather, he just declared it,
and they began disputing with Stephen. And notice this, they
were not able with all their arguing to resist the wisdom
and the spirit which he spake. So what did they do? Then they suborned men. I like this because this word
means loaded. They loaded the crowd with them.
They had a crowd, they had a people and what they did is took men
of their own side, their own arguments, and they disperse
them among the people as though this was a grassroots type thing. They wanted to put these people
out. I see this in protests. They grab these buses and they
deliver people from all over the country to these things.
They load the crowd is what they do. Well, this is what happened
here is that they were loading the crowd with these men that
had the same likeness, the same disputing against the gospel.
And they said this, we have heard him speak blasphemous words against
Moses and against God. And they stirred up the people,
and the elders, and the scribes, and came upon him, and called
him, and brought him to the council, and set up false witnesses, and
said, This man ceases not to speak blasphemous words against
this holy place and the law. For we have heard him say that
this Jesus of Nazareth shall destroy this place and shall
change the customs which Moses delivered unto us." Now, this
is what we would call half-truths. Half-truths. Now, the fact that
they said he blasphemed, that was the false accusation, that
he blasphemed against God and against Moses. Because he actually told the
truth when he said, Jesus shall destroy this place and shall
change the customs. Isn't that what Christ came to
do, being the administrator of the second covenant? He came
to establish the second covenant, and in order to do that, He must
do away with the first, which is the law, those ceremonies
and rituals. He said He was going to do away
with those, because He is the fulfillment of those. He is the
fulfillment of all the Old Testament types and shadows and pictures. This thing, I'm going to have
to fix it. It's bothering me. Alright. So he was preaching that Jesus
would do away with these and is the end of the law. The same
message that Paul was preaching. Christ is the end of the law
for righteousness to everyone that believeth. And so they got
him in this council and they began to judge him. And so he
stands up in verse 7 to speak And he says in verse 2, he said,
And men, brethren and fathers, hearken! The God of glory appeared
unto our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before
he dwelt in Charon, and said unto him, get thee out of thy
country and thy kindred and come to the land that I will show
thee. So what Stephen now is going
to do in his message is as though he were flying over history looking
over the history of the children of Israel and giving a broad
view of this history And no one in this council could disagree
with his assessment of the history of the children of Israel. But
I tell you that Stephen was doing more than just giving a history
lesson. Every one of these things that
they knew, Every one of these things of the history of Israel
was common knowledge to these Jewish leaders and rulers. They
knew this. So this is not just a regurgitation
of historical facts, but rather Stephen was preaching the gospel
unto them. By recounting the history of
Israel, what was he doing but preaching Christ? I'll tell you, if you go to the
Old Testament and you look for anything but Jesus Christ, you've
missed the whole point of the Old Testament. The whole Old
Testament is not a system of laws and regulations as to how
men are to conduct their lives, but rather the Old Testament,
all of it, points to Jesus Christ. The Old Testament is God's record
of His Son. Go over to Luke and see this. See what Jesus says about the
Old Testament in Luke. 24 in Luke chapter 24 Jesus after
he had risen from the dead said to his disciples on the road
to Emmaus in verse 25 old fools and slow of heart to believe
all That the prophets have spoken ought not Christ to have suffered
these things and entered into his glory and listen and beginning
at Moses and And all the prophets, He expounded unto them in all
Scriptures the things concerning Himself. And when He was with His disciples,
He appeared before them in the room, and He said this in verse
44, These are the words which I have spake unto you while I
was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled. which were
written in the law of Moses and in the prophets and in the Psalms
concerning me concerning me so in this Old Testament overview
Stephen was preaching to them Christ Christ Listen to this. Listen to this type that's given
to us first of all, the type of Abraham. He said unto Abraham,
the God of glory, said unto Abraham, Get thee out of thy country and
from among thy kindred and come unto a land that I will show
thee. And then he came out of the land of the Chaldeans and
dwelt in Chorin. And from thence, when his father
had died, he removed him from this land, removed him into this
land wherein you now dwell. Is this not the message of the
gospel? Get thee out of thy country and from among thy kin. Is that
not the gospel? Repent and believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ. This is the gospel message. This is the message of the gospel.
Repent from your sins. In Acts chapter 17, verse 30,
it says, God commandeth all men everywhere to what? Repent. Repent from sin. Turn from sin. In Isaiah, it
tells us, let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous
man his thoughts. And let him, what? Return unto
the Lord, and he will abundantly pardon. This is the gospel. Forsake your thoughts as to how
God saves sinners. Forsake your ways of sin, which
are only sin, continually. Sin is not just what we do, friends,
it's who we are. We are by nature sinners and
therefore all we can do is sin. You must turn from your thoughts
and self-righteousness. Turn to what? He said, come into
a land that I will show thee. This is the promised land. To
them, to the Jews, it was just a physical land. But to us, it
is a spiritual land. This world is not my home. These
things are all perishing and waxing old. This world is not
my home. In this world, I have not my
hope. In this world, I believe on Jesus Christ, who is the King
of a kingdom. Come out from among your sin,
your kindred. Stop trusting in your flesh.
Stop trusting in yourself. And believe only on Christ. And I tell you that Abraham,
when he came out of that land, he did it by faith. He did it
by faith. Notice this. In verse 5, he gave
him none inheritance in it. No, not so much as a foot on
it. Yet he promised that he would
give it to him for a possession and to his seed after him, when
as yet he had no child. You see, we who are called to
repent and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and we do, we repent
from ourself, from our sin, from our works, from all hope of this
world, all the things of the world to save us, all flesh,
and we turn to Christ completely, wholly, absolutely, resting on
His grace and mercy. And yet I tell you, with these
eyes, I've not yet seen my inheritance. I've not seen my inheritance.
The only thing in this world I see is suffering and sorrow
and grief. Yes, there are times of joy and
there's times of... But I'll tell you what we remember
most is the suffering, don't we? We remember that. But I tell you, our inheritance
is not in this world. Our inheritance is in a promise.
Isn't it? Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him for
righteousness. Isn't that the gospel? To believe
on the Son of God and to have His righteousness imputed and
imparted to us? And even though we don't see
Him, yet we love Him, we serve Him, we honor Him, How? By a life of faith. The just
shall live by faith. And I tell you, we have no inheritance
in this world as of yet, but I know we have a good hope of
an inheritance. And I don't mean a wish. I mean
a rock-solid confidence of our inheritance, which is coming,
which shall be revealed when He comes. And notice the promise. The promise is summed up in the
seed. He said unto his seed after him. Over in Galatians 3 we can see
by the Apostle Paul that he said that this is Christ. He said
seed. Not seeds as in many, but seed
as in one, which is Christ. In Christ is all the promises
of God. Eternal life, forgiveness of
sins, mercy, grace, heaven. All of these things are in the
seed. Jesus Christ, He is the promised
seed. And notice who this seed is promised
to in verse 6. And God spake on this wise, that
His seed should sojourn in the strange land, and that they should
bring them into bondage and entreat them evil for four hundred years." Now this seed is also the church,
the elect of God, who were purposed to be put into bondage. To even
so, all of the elect of God, the Israel of God, were purposed
of God to be put into bondage of sin, which is pictured by
Egypt, under a cruel taskmaster, Pharaoh, which is a picture of
Satan. But before the bondage, before
the bondage, this was promised. But before the bondage came what?
Joseph. Joseph. And notice this in verse 8, 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 the twelve patriarchs. And the twelve patriarchs moved
with him, and he sold Joseph into Egypt. But God was with
him. This Joseph was none other than
a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ who should go before Israel. Israel was promised to go into
bondage and Joseph was purposed of God to go before them to set
up the grain stores so that Jacob should live. So that his seed
should prosper of which Christ should come. I tell you, Joseph
is an imminent type of the Lord Jesus Christ. He was promised of God to come
and provide all that was necessary for his people to live in Egypt. Is that not what God has purposed
concerning his elect? He purposed his elect. should
be saved by Jesus Christ. And even so did Jesus Christ. Was He sent unto His brethren? And what did they do to Him?
The same that Joseph's brethren did. They envied them. They hated
Him. And they would sell Him out.
Ah, but God was with Him. God was with Him. And look at
this in verse 10, and delivered him out of all his afflictions
and gave him favor and wisdom in the sight of Pharaoh the king
and made him governor over Egypt and all his house. Is that not
what happened when Christ Jesus came into the world and suffered
and died for our sins? Did God not raise him from the
dead and set him over all his house? You bet he did. For what purpose? What purpose? Well, there's a dearth in over
the land. All the land of Egypt and Canaan
were in great affliction. And our fathers found no substance. Believer, haven't you found that
to be true of this world? That there is no substance that
satisfies. I found that to be true. I found
that there's a famine in this land that we live in. Not a famine for food, but a
famine for the Word of God. There's a dearth. There's a dearth,
a famine for the Word of God. Friends, there is no life or
substance in the things of this world, and I tell you there is
no life in false freewill works religion. This is the religion
of Jesus plus something. I tell you, there's a great,
there's an easy way to distinguish true gospel preaching from all
false preaching. You don't have to be a theologian
to understand it. The true gospel is Jesus Christ
plus nothing. That's it. Christ alone. All
false gospels are Jesus Christ plus something. Plus your will,
plus your works, plus your ceremonies, plus baptism, plus the Lord's
Supper. The Galatian church, they had
plus circumcision. We say, you believe in Jesus,
that's good, but all you need now is to be circumcised. And what did the Apostle say
to that? He said, Christ shall profit you nothing. You add one
thing to the blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ, you defile the
sacrifice. You and I are full of sin, and
all we do is sin, so if we touch the sacrifice, we put our hands
to it, we defile it. See how easy that is? Separation
of the gospel, the true and the false. If you're trying to merit
God's favor by your doing, you'll fail. You'll fail. But those who believe on Christ
rest completely on His blood and righteousness and give no
glory to self. This is the gospel. And I tell
you, I was raised under this gospel, but I'll tell you, I
didn't know it. I could tell you all of its doctrines,
but I could not tell you about Christ. Not until He revealed
Himself to me. Not until He came to me and gave
me life and fed me with His flesh and blood. Behold, friends, there is corn
in Egypt. There is bread. And Jesus Christ
is the bread of life that came down from heaven to do his Father's
will. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh
my blood shall never hunger and never thirst. For what? Righteousness. You see, I have no lack of righteousness. because Christ is all my righteousness.
Do you see how he went as Joseph went before to prepare sustenance? And when Jacob heard there was
corn in Egypt, he sent out our fathers first. And the second
time Joseph was made known unto 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, 75 souls. Isn't that what I'm doing now?
Am I not calling you to Jesus? Am I not telling you that He
is the bread of life? And you know who come? Jacob. That's all who's called. All
who was called. And there was a big famine in
all the land, but the only one called was Jacob. The only one
called are God's elect. And you know what? Every one
of them will come. Every one that was in Jacob's
house came. Not one was left. And even so
will all of the sons of God come when they are called by the Spirit
of God. Do you hunger and thirst after
righteousness? then you should hear Stephen's
message. Come out from among your kindred,
forsake your way, forsake your thoughts, and come to Christ.
This is the promise that everyone that believeth on him should
not perish but have everlasting life. Why? Even because God purposed
for them that come to have it. He willed for us to have it. And all who come have it. Behold,
you were in bondage. You were born in bondage. You
were born in sin. There's a dearth in the land
for the Word of God. And yet I'm preaching to you
a message of free grace, free mercy. Well, I'm not hungry. Well, I'm not talking to you.
I'm talking to people hungry. Hungry for righteousness that
they cannot provide for themselves. Well, I'm happy with my righteousness.
Well, go on. Go on. Go on and die in your sins. But I tell you, you'll remember
this. I told you of bread. I told you, and you would not come, that
you might have life. But we who come, we who come
and have tasted, we even tell others. Why? Because we would not have them
starve. Come, even now, and believe on
the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be filled, filled with
righteousness, filled with peace, filled full with the promises
of God. Well, I'm going to have to stop
there, but there's plenty more. I didn't get past page three.
There's plenty more here, but if you go through this, if you
go through this message here, and you look for Christ in every
one of these Old Testament prophecies he pulls out, oh, friends, it's
full of Christ. Full of Christ. May God, by His
grace, feed you with it. May God, by His grace, give you
faith to believe it.