Stephen is one of my favourite
characters in the Word of God. Turn with me please to Acts chapter
7. Acts chapter 7. If you remember last week, we
spoke a little bit about Stephen and we spoke about the fact that
he had been chosen as a deacon. And yet it seems that of all
of these deacons, we really don't know very much about any of them
except for Stephen. And we are given this insight
into Stephen's witness, his preaching, his courtroom appearance before
the council, probably the Sanhedrin, and his ultimate death. And it really is a tremendous
sermon and testimony that Stephen makes. So while we know relatively
little about him, what we do know of him is really a blessing
to us to read and to meditate upon. We saw that Stephen was
taken because of false witnesses at the end of chapter six. He
was brought before the council and accusations and allegations
were made against him which were false. But as the council looked
at him, we are told that his face was like the face of an
angel. The high priest at the beginning
of chapter 7 said, then said the high priest, are these things
so? These things that you have been
accused of, these things that we read about in verse 13 and
14 where it says that the false witnesses were set up And they
said that this man ceaseth 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 us. And then the high
priest stood up and he said, What? What? And we can almost
imagine the mock attitude that he took in that courtroom, pretending
that he was terribly offended at these allegations, knowing
full well that these were false allegations that had been concocted
by the people that had dragged Stephen in and that they were
lies from the beginning. And he stands up and in his mock
abhorrence he says, what? Can these things really be true? Oh, how God hates hypocrisy. These men thought that they had
control over Stephen's life. God was holding their lives in
his hand, and God will hold men accountable for the things that
they say and they do. And so we find that Stephen stands
up and he says, men, brethren, and fathers, hearken! The God
of glory appeared unto our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia. before he dwelt in Charan or
Haran as it is called elsewhere in the word of God. Now, I'm
not going to take the time this morning because we really want
to just make a few points to the young people to read the
whole of this chapter. It's a long chapter and it's
a history chapter. It's a chapter which tells us
the story of the workings of God amongst the people of Israel. It covers about a thousand years,
from the calling of Abraham to the establishment of the temple,
the building of the temple by Solomon. and it's very interesting
and it's good for us to read this story but I don't want to
take the time because it's quite a lot of verses right now and
rather I want just to make a couple of points about this man Stephen
for your interest. The first thing I want to point
out about him is this, that he was a brave man. Stephen seems to have been a
lone voice here in the council. and he was in the company of
a room full of fierce opponents. These were false witnesses and
these were people who were judging him on the allegations that these
false witnesses were making. And everybody knew that it was
a jumped up allegation and It was likely that there were more
than a hundred people shouting and waving their arms and against
Stephen as he stood there in the middle of this semicircle
of the great and the good and the judges of Israel. There were
perhaps many, many more if this was a public gathering of the
council, the Sanhedrin. And yet Stephen spoke clearly
and boldly and passionately about the Lord Jesus Christ. And if you said to me, you know
what, I've read this passage through. And I'm not so very
sure where I can find in the history of Abraham to the construction
of the temple by Solomon where Stephen speaks about the Lord
Jesus Christ at all. Well, let me show you. In verse
two, he says, the God of glory who appeared to our father Abraham. That was the Lord Jesus Christ
that appeared to Abraham. Look at verse 32. There we are
told about Moses' experience in the burning bush. And there
again we hear the words, I am the God of thy fathers, the God
of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob. And that was
the Lord Jesus Christ that was speaking to Moses. Look at verse
37, because here again, Moses' words are taken into Stephen's
testimony. This is that Moses, says Stephen,
as he's speaking to the Sanhedrin, to the council, which said unto
the children of Israel, a prophet shall the Lord your God raise
up unto you of your brethren, like unto me, him shall ye hear. They would hear the voice of
this prophet that God would raise up from amongst them. That was the Lord Jesus Christ. In verse 38, we discover that
there was an angel, a messenger, spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai. If we go back and look at that
incident, that episode in the life of the children of Israel,
where the commandments were given to Moses on the top of the mountain,
we will discover that that was the Lord Jesus Christ that spoke
to Moses there on the top of the mountain. And look at verse
52 towards the end of the chapter. Here Stephen is coming towards
the end of those things which he was going to say perhaps,
although I do feel as if the way in which there is such a
big break between verses 50 and 51 that Stephen probably was
being drowned out by the shouts of these people. And he says
in verse 52, Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? And they have slain them which
showed before of the coming of the Just One. of whom ye have
been now the betrayers and the murderers. And so the Lord Jesus
Christ is being talked about throughout these verses, although
history is being presented to these men. So here we find that
Stephen was a brave man. The second thing I want to draw
to your attention is that he was an able man. and he gave
a full and accurate account of this period of Jewish history. And he did it with no notes and
no preparation. He didn't know that he was going
to be dragged in before the council that day. He was just there in
the street. He was talking to these Pharisees. He was speaking to the scribes
and suddenly they jumped on him and they dragged him into the
council and they put him before this court and they said, now
give a reason. And he stood up. And in these
verses he gave an exquisite defence of God's workings with the people
of Israel over a thousand years. He was an able and educated man
in the things of the Scriptures and in the things of God. You
know what that tells me? That tells me that the Lord was
with him when he was defending himself and speaking these words
of truth. And the Lord told his disciples
that they would be taken into the synagogues and into trouble. You know, sometime you may be
asked to give a reason for the faith that is within you. Sometime
you may have to stand up and speak about the Lord. Someday
you may have to say, you know what, I don't do that because
I'm a Christian. You're a what? Well, I'm a follower
of Jesus. Well, what's that all about?
Will you be able to speak to the defence of your Lord? Will
you be able to give a reason for the faith that is within
you? Here's what the Lord said to his disciples in Luke chapter
12. When they bring you unto the synagogues and unto magistrates
and powers, take ye no thought how or what thing ye shall answer,
or what ye shall say. For the Holy Ghost shall teach
you in the same hour what ye ought to say. Some of us get
quite anxious about whether or not we will be able to speak
about the Lord at that moment when we are confronted. But if
we have been with the Lord, if we have been under the gospel,
if we have the Lord living in our lives, we are not to become
anxious about these things, but rather we are simply to testify
the truth that we find in Jesus, and he will give us the words
to speak for the moment and for the circumstances. We could have
read a little bit from Matthew chapter 16 and verse 20 here,
but we won't take the time to do that. All I want to note in
this portion is that God will not leave himself without a witness. And the third thing about Stephen
is this, that he was an honest man and he was a faithful man. He was brave, he was able, he
was honest and faithful. Stephen seems to have had two
key messages that he wanted to preach to these people when he
stood up. He wanted to show that this temple
that they were all so proud of, this temple that he was being
accused of speaking against. Indeed, Jerusalem as a city and
Israel as a people was not that important to God. Or rather, that God was pleased
to meet with his people, speak to his people, live with his
people wherever his people were. You see, these Jews have become
so preoccupied with the bricks and the mortar, with the streets
and the roads, with this idea, this notion that this was the
holy city, this was the holy temple. that they didn't realise
that spiritual life was a personal thing. It wasn't anything to
do with the surroundings. It had to do with the condition
of a man and a woman's heart. He didn't need, God didn't need
a temple made with hands because he dwelled in the lives of his
people. He dwells in his church. And even in verse 38, we discover
that the church in the wilderness was where the Lord dwelt with
his people. So nowadays we don't have to
go to Israel to worship God. We don't have to go to Jerusalem. We don't have to go to some temple
in order to worship God. We worship God in our hearts. We worship God in spirit and
in truth. We worship God when we come together
with his church in order to hear the gospel. The second thing
that Stephen seems to have wanted to point out to these men is
this, that for all God's goodness to the children of Israel, to
Abraham and Moses, to Joshua and David and Solomon and all
of the key individuals in the history of Israel, The people
were always a disobedient people. They always resisted God's words. They always resisted God's prophets. And furthermore, says Stephen,
nothing has changed to this day. These men today, before whom
he stood, before whom he gave his defence, were just as stubborn
and just as resistant to the Holy Spirit because they had
killed the Lord Jesus Christ as their forefathers had killed
the prophets. Stephen understood the hardness
of men's hearts. He understood the wickedness
of the natural man. And so in verse 51, he declares,
ye stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears. Men's hearts
are still the same. until and unless the Holy Spirit
softens our hearts, comes with words of life and grace and mercy,
and takes the gospel and applies it to our souls. When we preach
the gospel, whether it's at the rescue mission, whether it's
here at church, whether it's in our conversations to friends
and people that we know, when we preach the gospel, we know
that people can't understand, they won't understand until God
the Holy Spirit opens their hearts, opens their ears, and brings
that gospel of truth to bear upon their life. I mentioned
that Stephen was one of my favourite characters in the Bible. Well,
next week, with the Lord Tarry, we will discover how this brave
man how this able man, how this honest and faithful follower
of the Lord Jesus Christ died at the hands of these wicked,
stiff-necked and hard-hearted people, and how he became the
first martyr of the Christian Church. May the Lord bless these
thoughts to us. Amen.