That's a pretty coat, you know. Good evening. Let's all stand
together. We'll sing hymn number 228. 228. My faith has found a resting
place, not in device nor pre. I trust the Ever-Living One. His wounds for me shall flee. I need no other argument. I need no other plea. It is enough that Jesus died,
And that He died for me. Enough for me that Jesus saves,
This sins my fear and doubt. A sinful soul, I come to Him,
He'll never cast me out. I need no other argument, I need
no other plea. It is enough that Jesus died
and that He died for me. My heart is leaning on the Word,
the written Word of God. Salvation by my Savior's name,
salvation through His blood. I need no other argument, I need
no other plea. It is enough that Jesus died
and that He died for me. My great Physician heals the
sick, The lost He came to save. For me His precious blood He
shed, For me His life He gave. I need no other argument. I need no other plea. It is enough that Jesus died
and that he died for me. Be seated. We'll sing hymn number
112. Up Calvary's mountain, one dreadful
morn. Walk, Christ my Savior, weary
and worn. Facing for sinners death on the
cross That He might save them from endless loss Blessed Redeemer
The precious Redeemer Seems now I see Him On Calvary's tree Wounded
and bleeding, lives in us be Kind and unheeding, dying for
me. Father forgive him, thus did
he pray. Meanwhile his life was flowed
fast away. Praying for sinners while in
such foe No one but Jesus ever loved so Blessed Redeemer Precious Redeemer
Seems now I see Him On Calvary's tree Wounded and bleeding For
sinners pleading Blind and unheeding Dying for me Savior and friend. How can my praises ever find
end? Through years I've hovered on
heaven's shore. My tongue shall praise Him forevermore. Blessed Precious Redeemer Seems now I
see Him On Calvary's tree Wounded and bleeding for sinners pleading,
blinded and heeding, dying for me. Acts chapter 6. Start at verse seven and go to
the end of the chapter. And the word of God increased,
and the number of the disciples multiplied in Jerusalem greatly. And the great company of the
priests were obedient to the faith. And Stephen, full of faith
and power, did great wonders and miracles among the people.
Then there arose certain of the synagogue, which is called the
synagogue of the Libertines, and Cyrenians, and Alexandrians,
and of them of Cilicia and of Asia, disputing with Stephen. And they were not able to resist
the wisdom and the spirit by which he spake. Then they suborned
men, which said, we have heard him speak blasphemous words against
Moses and God. And they stirred up the people,
and the elders and the scribes came upon him, and caught him,
and brought him to the council. Instead of false witnesses, we
said, this man seetheth 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. And all that
sat in the council, looking steadfastly on him, saw his face that had
been the face of an angel." Our Lord, our Master, our blessed
Redeemer. We sang about our precious Redeemer. Up Calvary's mountain He went,
paying our sin debt. Paying our obligations, being
our surety, taking our responsibilities, paying everything that we owed,
met every condition so we have no conditions to meet. Lord,
we bless you and praise you that you did that for us. You did
that for your people. You did that for an elect people,
a chosen people, a people that you've always loved. And oh Lord,
we praise you and thank you for it. And we've gathered out this
evening to open your word and look at it. By your blessed grace
and mercy, make some comments on it. We pray that it'll honor
you, be honest with the scriptures. And Lord, we thank you for those
who's come out and pray your blessings upon them, your mercies
upon them. And Lord, for those who are not
here but would be here if they were able, we pray for them. And our blessed Savior, please
remember Fran and Bill and Rick and Helen. Oh, Lord, please remember
them. Their bodies are weak and they're in a great fight
of afflictions. And oh, Lord, their bodies are
so weak. Pray for our loved ones. Oh,
Lord Jesus, you're the only one who can do something for them.
And our master, we have folks that's going to be traveling
this weekend. And Lord, they're going to be leaving. And we ask
you to go before them and stay behind them. Do what you did
for Job. Shield them. Put a hedge around
them. See them safely there. See them
safely back. Give them traveling mercies.
Let goodness and mercy follow them where they go. Please protect
them and keep them. And Lord, we bless you and help
pray for your mercies tonight in Christ's name. Amen. Page 29 in our course books. On a hill far away Died the Christ
of the cross He yielded to suffering and shame And there in His grace He died
in my place So I'll cherish the Christ of
the cross And before His throne I'll bow down For He is the King I must crown. O the Christ of the cross, So
despised by the world, Has a wondrous attraction to me. He, the dear Lamb of God, left
His glory above To bear all my sin on the tree So I'll cherish
the Christ of the cross And before His throne I'll bow
down I will cling to the Christ of the Cross For He is the King
I must crown In the Christ of the Cross, and
His blood so divine, a marvelous beauty I see. my eyes that long have been blind
to behold Him now on His throne. So I'll cherish the Christ of
the cross ? And before His throne I'll bow down ? I will cling
to the Christ of the cross ? For He is the King of us crossed To the Christ of the cross I
must ever be true His shame and reproach gladly bear for in love he constrains till
all shall be gained and his glory forever I share so I'll cherish
the Christ earth And before His throne I'll bow
down I will cling to the Christ of the cross For He is the King
by God's cross You remember last week there
was a little dissension between the
Jews and the Greeks because the widows of the Greeks,
the Grecians, weren't being taken care of, wasn't being ministered
to, wasn't being taken care of. And the 12 called all of everybody
together and said, listen, we're not going to leave God's word.
We're just not going to do that. Not to take care of widows, we're
not going to do that. Not to serve the tables. So he
left it up to the people. He said, you go out and you choose
your seven men, seven men. And you remember the qualifications
that they had to have there in verse 3? Had to have an honest
report. An honest report. Secondly, they
had to be full of the Holy Ghost. The power of God on them. And
wisdom. Have the wisdom of God. The wisdom
that comes from the Scriptures. The wisdom that comes from Christ.
The wisdom that unlocks the Scriptures. the wisdom to know how to use
knowledge right. And we'll appoint them over this
business. And I'll tell you, you know,
you know where the social gospel started at? Well, it didn't start
here because it said in verse four, we'll give ourselves continually
to prayer and the ministry of the word. And that's how things
start, you know, because they wanted to go and help the poor.
So people started making a work out of that. Next thing you know,
you got a social gospel. All you got to do is tell folks
if they'll help the poor and help missionaries and take care
of everything else but the gospel, take care of everybody but the
gospel, take care, be true to everybody but the gospel, and
Lord will save you. Lord will save you. Well, they
set these seven men apart. And they called them and set
them apart. And let me, you know, it says there in the saying,
saying, please the Lord. And then in verse seven, they're
saying, please the whole multitude. They set before the apostles
and they prayed and they laid hands on them. Now I want you
to see another place where they laid hands on some people over
here in Acts 13. Look at Acts 13 and I'll get
into my message for this evening. Get into the study for this evening. Now there were in the church
that was at Antioch certain prophets and teachers as Barnabas, Simeon
that was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Menachem which had
been brought up with Herod the Tetrarch, and Saul. And as they
ministered to the Lord and fasted, the Holy Ghost said, Separate
me Barnabas and Saul for the work one to have called them.
And listen to this, And when they had fasted and prayed, laid
hands on them, and sent them away. He said, We're going to
approve of you. We approve of what you're doing. We want to be part of this. So they laid hands on them. Now
back over in Acts 6, And the word of God increased greatly,
multiplied greatly. And it says there that a great
company of the priests were obedient to the faith. Now they were obedient
to the faith. Now what is the faith that they
were obedient to? The same faith, you know when
they ask somebody, they ask you what's your faith? People ask
me all the time, are you all a Baptist church? Are you a Baptist
church? And I say, well, we believe in
the grace of God, but yes, only in the sense that baptism is
only for believers. That's how people make professions.
I always tell them that's how people, not coming to the front,
not coming to an altar, but we believe that a person makes their
confession of faith by baptism, confessing their identity with
Christ by baptism. Well, so when they ask you the
faith, They're talking about the faith. He's talking about
the gospel that was preached, the faith that God set before
them. And it says that they came to
the faith, obedient to the faith. And there's only one faith, only
one faith, one Lord, one baptism, one body, always one, always
one. And the Word of God is what the
Holy Ghost blesses us to use us to save and bring to the faith. Now look what happens down here.
And verse eight, and now we have a testimony here, the first testimony,
and we'll get next week to the first martyr, the first martyr
under the Lord Jesus Christ's ministry. And Stephen, verse
eight, full of faith and power, did great wonders and miracles
among the people. Oh, he was a man greatly used
of God. I mean, he was full of faith,
I mean, he was mighty in faith. He had faith in Christ, faith
in God's promises, faith in the covenant, faith in the blood
of Christ, faith in the death of Christ, faith in everything
that God set before him. He believed and was mighty in
faith, strong in faith. It's like that Ethiopian That
centurion said, the Lord said, I've not seen so great faith
in Israel. And he said, Lord, don't even
come under my house. All you got to do is send your
word and he'll be healed. He said, I've never seen such
faith in all of Israel. And it wasn't a Jew, it was a
Gentile that believed. And oh, he was full of faith
and he did great wonders. And you know, when it talks about
doing great wonders, That means that God created him in Christ
under good works. And here was a man that he did
such acts that people stood and wondered at him, wondered at
the things he said, wondered at the message he preached, wondered
at the acts that he did. And there's no telling how many
people were healed, how many people were blessed, how many
people were added to the church. God only knows that. But it said
he was full of faith and power. Now faith and power go together.
Where you find faith, you find power. We're just saying it. I need no other argument. I need
no other plea. You know, my faith has found
a resting place, not in divisive creed, but in the ever-loving
one and ever-living one who died for me. And so listen, faith
and power go together. You know, if you didn't have
faith, you wouldn't have any power. And if God didn't give
you power, you wouldn't have any faith. They go together. And these gifts, these are gifts
that God gives, and they're not natural to people. They're not
natural to people. They're not, they wasn't natural
to Stephen. They wasn't natural to Stephen. And so they, here
he comes along and he's a deacon now. He's supposed to be out
here to help take care of widows and orphans. But God so blessed
him. And then look what happens, he
begins to start suffering. Verse nine, then there arose
a certain of the synagogue. Now a synagogue would be what
we'd call a church, except it's a Jewish synagogue. Jewish synagogue. And they're all over the place
in the United States, and they have a synagogue, which is called
the synagogue, and here's the kind of people that went to this
place, libertines. Libertines, that means folks
that just did not care how they lived, is about what it amounts
to. And then there were some Cyrenians there, and there's
some Alexandrians there, that was from Egypt, and of Cilicia,
that's in Italy, and of Asia, and look what, there's five different
groups of people going to this synagogue, and all five different
types of people that got there, they started arguing with Stephen. Stephen was no doubt preaching
in this synagogue, went to this synagogue, and they heard him
preach, and they all said, listen, I don't like what you're saying.
I don't like it at all. And so they started arguing with
him, disputing with him. They wanted to find out what
in the world do you think, who do you think you are? If what
you're saying is so, then there's no hope for us. If you're talking
about a Jesus Christ that was living and died and rose again,
that leaves us without any hope. We're trusting in the law. We're
trusting in Moses. We're trusting in everything
but Christ. And they started disputing with
him, arguing with him. And oh my, he just kept arguing
and arguing and arguing with him. You know, There's something
that men cannot refuse unless they just say, I'm just not gonna
believe it. And you'll find out in Acts chapter
seven, you talk about a man that knew the scriptures. Stephen
was a man who knew the Bible. They say people that know the
Bible, this man knew the scriptures from Genesis all the way to Christ
coming and every scriptures that was interpreted along the way.
But here he comes, and look what it says there in verse 10. They
disputed with him, argued with him, and look what happens. And
they were not able to resist the wisdom and the spirit by which he spake. The wisdom, unable to resist
the wisdom and spirit by which he spake. They said, oh my, We
can't deal with this fellow. We can't answer this fellow.
We can't dispute with this fellow. He's too blessed of God for us. He's got such wisdom. He's got
spirit and he's got the power of God on him. And how in the
world can, and they couldn't resist it. We couldn't argue
with it. They couldn't dispute it. They
couldn't resist it. They couldn't resist it. And
oh my. I've met a few men over the years,
and they always want to try to straighten somebody out, and
they use opinions and ideas, and they don't use scripture.
But here was a man that was using the Word of God, using the gospel,
using the truth, and they weren't able to resist the wisdom and
power of God. Well, then you know what they
did? Look what happens next in verse 12. And they stirred up
the people. Well, if we, no, said in verse
11, then they suborned men. That means they paid men. Said,
I want you fellas to lie. I want you fellas to do what
we tell you to say, what we tell you to say. They suborned some
men. We said, we've heard him speak
blasphemous words against Moses and against God. Oh my, they
raised up false witnesses against him. And they accused him of
speaking blasphemous words. They couldn't argue with him.
They couldn't dispute with him. They couldn't resist the wisdom
that God gave him. And our Lord said, I'll give
you the spirit of wisdom and you speak, don't say a word until
I put words in your mouth. And this is what's happening
here. And they said, you're speaking blasphemous words against Moses.
And listen to this, and God, They charged him of speaking
against God Almighty, and against Moses. Well, what if he said
something about Moses? What's wrong with saying something
about Moses? Moses represents the law. Listen, God used Moses, but Moses
didn't die for me. Moses is not my Savior. The law
didn't have nothing to do with me. Christ fulfilled it. And
look what happens now. And they stirred up the people
and the elders. They went out and stirred people
up. Said, those talking about Stephen. Oh, this fellow's a
blasphemous man. This fellow, he don't know what
in the world. He's speaking against Moses.
He's speaking against God. And they stirred up the people
and the elders and the scribes. And listen to this. They got
them all stirred up and come upon him and caught him. They
had to catch him. They walked up to him and they
snuck up on him and caught him like they're catching a criminal.
Like they're catching somebody that's done something really
bad. Gotta go catch this fella. We caught him, we got him, we
got this criminal. We got this lowlife, this fella
speaking blasphemy against God and Moses. And caught him, and
listen to this, and brought him to the council. You know what
the council is? That's 70 people of the Sanhedrin. Great big council. All these
big shots. Scribes and Pharisees and the
priest and all the elders and all them. And look what happens
now. Oh my. And they set up false
witnesses. They set up false witnesses.
We said, this man seeketh not, ceases not to speak blasphemy
and words against this holy place and the law. You know, look what
they said about our master. Look over, keep this and look
with me in Matthew 26. Look in Matthew 26. What they said about our master
over here. And look at verse 59. They said they spoke against
Moses, spoke against this temple, this holy place. And now the chief priests and
elders and all the council sought false witnesses against Jesus. That's what these fellas done
over here, hired people, sought false witnesses. Sought false
witnesses. Huh? And look what they went
on to say. Against Jesus to put him to death.
But look what happens now. But they didn't find any. They
did not find a one. Yea, though many false witnesses
came, and yet they found none. At last, at the last, came two
false witnesses. Two. They tried their best to
get people to tell lies on Christ. And they came to the last two
witnesses, and they said this. This fellow said, Not Christ,
not the Lord, not the Savior. This fellow said, I'm able to
destroy the temple of God and to build it in three days. And
the high priest arose and said unto him, answerest thou nothing? What is that witness against
thee? But our Lord held his peace,
and the high priest answered and said, I adjure thee by the
living God. Command you by the living God,
thou tell us where thou be the Christ, the Son of God. Listen
to what he said now. Jesus saith unto them, thou hast
said, nevertheless, I say unto you, hereafter shall you see
the Son of Man sitting in the right hand of power and coming
in the clouds of heaven. Then the high priest, wearing
his clothes, say, he hath spoken blasphemy. We don't need any
more witnesses, we heard him ourself. hurt him ourselves. So they sought false witness
and they're doing the same thing over here to one of his elect,
one of his blessed children. And he said, look what they said.
There again in verse 13, over here in Acts 6. And said, I have
false witnesses. Set them up. Which said, this
man seethest not to speak blasphemous words. What, against what? Against this holy place, against
the temple. Against the temple where they
was at. They met in the temple and they was in the temple. Solomon's
temple, Herod's temple, I don't know where, but anyway, this
man seeketh to speak against this holy place, and listen to
this, and against the law. Against the law. Oh my. Now look what else they said.
For we've heard him say, that this Jesus of Nazareth, oh, listen,
they got to go to this imposter, that this Jesus of Nazareth shall
destroy this place. You know, when our Lord, when
he is talking about the temple, he's talking about the temple
of his body. You remember that? He said, destroy this temple,
and in three days, I'll raise it back up. They thought he was
talking about that building. He was talking about his own
body. He was talking about destroy this temple, not that building. Destroy this temple, and I'll
raise it up again at the last day. I'll raise it up again in
three days. And so they used that against
him. Use what he's talking about,
the temple of his body. Go ahead and destroy it. Nail
it to a cross. Beat it to a bloody pulp. Put
a crown of thorns on me. Stick a spear in my side. Just
go ahead and destroy this temple. And in three days, I'm gonna
raise it right back up. He's talking about his own body.
And that's what these fellas are using against him. The same
thing they used against Christ. And they said that Jesus of Nazareth
shall destroy this place, destroy this holy place. This was holy
ground to them. And the only holy ground that
you can ever find in the scriptures, you know where it was? When Moses
stood before the burning bush and God said, take off your shoes,
this is holy ground on which you stand. And that's the only
place you'll find holy ground mentioned in the scriptures.
The only place where holy ground is. You know, you hear people
talk about, well, I'm gonna go to the holy land. There's no
such thing. Tell me where a spot of ground
on the face of this earth is holy ground. Even where Christ was crucified,
if they could find it, they would bring a shrine to it, and they'd
say, this is holy ground. Why do people wanna always have
something and set it apart as holy? It's cause that makes them,
if they go there, that makes them better Christians and make
them more dedicated and more devoted and shows that we really
into this business of religion. I'm going to the holy land. And not only that, I'm gonna
get baptized in Jordan. Oh, I tell you what, we heard
him say, we've heard him say. Now where'd they hear him say
this at? Now he had been preaching for
a while before they all got stirred up, that Jesus of Nazareth shall
destroy this place. And not only gonna destroy it,
but he's gonna change the rituals that Moses gave to us. He gonna
change dietary laws. He gonna change the law. He gonna
change Moses. He gonna change what Moses stood
for, what Moses accomplished, what Moses did, what Moses didn't
do. And our Lord said, if you believe
Moses, you'd believe me for Moses wrote about me. Now look what
happens now. He was sitting in the Sanhedrin
now. He had 70 people surrounding him or more. I mean, there was
a whole bunch. And they was charging him with
all kinds of things. Oh my. And they looked steadfastly
at him. And they charged him with blasphemy
against God, against Moses, against God's word, against the temple,
against the customs. That's one thing you don't do.
You don't mess with a fellow's custom. And all that's said in
the council, all them people that's watching him, had their
eye fixed on him, what's he gonna say? How's he gonna defend himself?
How's he gonna defend himself? And all that's said in the council, look steadfastly at him. What
in the world do you think they's gonna see? looked steadfastly
on him and saw his face as it had been the face of an angel. Oh my, they thought they'd see
a fellow scared, big eyed, shaking, trembling, worried. What did
they see? Face of an angel, shining, calm,
serene, peaceful. Shining, shining. Oh, they'd
never seen anything like this before. You're talking about
a new witness to the council. Here is a, you know, they beat
those other fellows and they went off rejoicing. But here's
a man who changed into his face, changed into the face of an angel
right in the presence of him. You're talking about a new kind
of a witness before this council. I've never, they'd never seen
anything like it. And our Lord Jesus Christ glorified
himself in this man. He manifest himself in this man. He manifest himself in his glory
in this man, right here, this day. Now you remember, we started
out with all the difficulties and dissension because of the
widows and that being taken care of. And I tell you, difficulties
and dissensions, they're gonna come. They're gonna come. Because
we have different natures. And human nature isn't perfect. Man at his best states altogether
vanity. And that's why we must stay under
the sound of the gospel. Then look what else he went on
to say then. Then said the high priest, are these things so?
Have you said blasphemous words against God? Against Moses? Have you spoken against this
holy place? Have you said that you're gonna
destroy it? Oh, lookin'. You'd think that
this fella woulda, well, I don't know what in the world I'm gonna
say, folks. I don't know how I'm gonna defend myself, but here's the
first thing he said, and we'll get into this next week. He said,
men and brethren and fathers, He was so gracious, so kind,
so respectful. They didn't respect him, didn't
show any respect to him, lied on him, accused him of all kinds
of things. And they had men and brothers
and fathers. Listen, listen. And here's the first thing he
mentioned. The God of glory. God, you said that I'm speaking
words again. The God of glory appeared unto
our father Abraham. And I'll tell you something,
the God of glory not only appeared to Abraham, but he's appeared
to every single soul since that day. And he said he appeared
unto Abraham, our father, when he was in Mesopotamia. God ain't
interested in geographical locations. He was a heathen idolater in
a heathen country. And God appeared unto him, said,
get out of here. Get out of here. So he started
off automatically talking about God and the God of glory. But
oh my. So they had these dissensions
over the widows. Figured out how to deal with
it. Seven men. And how do we overcome difficulties,
dissensions? And they're gonna come. They're
gonna come. We all have different natures and different ways of
looking at things. But how do we overcome it? How
do we overcome these dissensions like these fellas had? So Satan
couldn't divide us. Well, by trust, by faith. The
apostles called them, they trusted the people. He called them together
and he called them all together and trusted them to choose the
seven men. And how else do we overcome?
By love, by love. Set aside all differences. Seek
the good for everybody, everybody, like these fellas did. There
was a need. They loved the people and they
wanted to see that need met. And different men with different
gifts were used. And they bore one another's burdens.
And they fulfilled the law of Christ, which is love. And you
know, It's so easy, it's so easy to find something wrong with
anything. But oh my, that's why we need
the gospel. Lord, I don't wanna find, I certainly
wouldn't wanna find anything wrong with a brother or sister,
would you? You know, I'm gonna tell you
something about trust one time. Tell you about Sutton Trust one
time. We was talking about raising some money to buy some ground
and build a new building. And this has been over 30 years. We've been in here 30 years.
This has been over 30 years ago. And a fella come to me and talked
to me. And he said, you know, he said,
He said, I feel uneasy about that. I feel so uneasy about
that. And I don't know if I want to support anything like that
or not. He's honest enough to come to me and talk to me himself.
And he said, I don't know if we ought to do that or not. That's
a lot of money. And I said to him, I said, well, I said, do
you trust me when I'm up preaching to you? Do you trust me with
your soul? Do you trust me with what I'm telling you is the truth
and is the gospel? He said, well, of course I do.
I said, if you trust me with your soul and you trust me to
tell you the truth and trust me for you to face God with what
I'm preaching, why in the world wouldn't you trust me to make
decisions concerning what we're going to do with this congregation? He is the first one. I said,
boy, we better get started. But that's all. If you trust
a man enough to preach the gospel to him, believe him, you ought
to trust him with