In the book of Acts chapter 6
and verse 7, we read these words. The word of God increased and
the number of the disciples multiplied in Jerusalem greatly, and a 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. And 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 against God. And they stirred up the people
and the elders and the scribes and came upon him and caught
him and brought him to the council. and set up false witnesses which
said, this man ceaseth not to speak blasphemous words against
this holy place and the law. And we have heard him say that
this Jesus of Nazareth shall destroy this place and shall
change the customs which Moses delivered us. And all that sat
in the council, looking steadfastly on him, saw his face as it had
been the face of an angel. Amen. May God bless to us the
reading from his word. Had we not been familiar with
this passage, had we not read it before, We might have been
surprised at the way in which this passage ends. They looked
upon him steadfastly. They saw his face as it had been
the face of an angel. And for Norm's purposes, that's
the title of our sermon this evening, The Face of an Angel. In Revelation chapter 17 and
verse 6, we read of the great toll of suffering and death which
John the Apostle saw wrecked upon the Church of Christ by
anti-Christ religion. He said, and I saw the woman
drunken with the blood of the saints and with the blood of
the martyrs of Jesus. And when I saw her, I wondered
with great admiration. I don't think he wondered with
admiration at the whore. I don't think he wondered with
admiration at this drunk woman. It's a despicable thing to see
a woman drunk. But here he is wondering with
admiration at those whose lives had been taken, those whose blood
had been spilled. She was drunk with the blood
of the saints. and with the blood of the martyrs
of Jesus, drunken with the blood of saints. Can you pause with
me for a moment just to think about what that means? There
has been much blood spilled in this world. There's been much
blood spilled in the history of our countries. Yours and mine,
we have seen terrible things enacted as men have taken their
sinful passions and put them into actions and have robbed
and maimed and killed with great brutality down through the ages. But there is something definite
and particular made reference to here. The blood that is spoken
of here is the blood of saints. The blood that's spoken of is
the blood of a people who are the sanctified people of God. A people who themselves are particularly
distinguished by God and yet for that calling out, for that
identification, for that blessedness that has been placed upon them,
they are nevertheless yet a people who gave their all. who sacrificed everything, even
to the point of the shedding of their blood. Here are a people,
a people whom God the Father, the creator of this world, the
sovereign God whom we have come to worship, a people whom He
had purposefully chosen from the beginning of time. that he
had set his hand upon from all eternity, that he prized above
and beyond all things in this world, a people to whom the very
heart of God goes out in love and passion. And these are the
people whom this wicked woman, false religion, had satiated
her appetite upon for the blood of innocent men and women. A people who were chosen by God
to be holy in this world, to be gentle, to be meek, to be
a people in whom the very beauty of God himself was reflected
in their lives. A people who were called to be
made like unto the Lord Jesus Christ. And these are the people
whom this wicked woman had slain. a people whom Christ had sanctified
by his blood, a people whose sins were cleansed by the sacrifice
of the blessed Son of God, who came into this world with that
people as his object, who came into the world with this purpose,
given to him and bestowed upon him of his father, that he should
redeem them from their sins and he should make them holy by bestowing
upon them that righteousness which he alone could give. Sanctified by his blood, he was
made to them sanctification. Paul tells us in Corinthians
that He was made to them sanctification, that they were set apart in Him,
that they were identified from amongst the whole of humanity
and they were brought into being in Him. And in Him they are set
apart from all eternity. A people who have the principles
of grace and holiness, brought to life in them by the converting
power of the Holy Spirit, a people whose lives are themselves holy
and sanctified and who by their example in this world are examples
of uprightness in their conversation and in their lifestyle and in
their actions. a people whom God himself had
blessed, a people whom he calls his saints. And here this woman
was drunk upon their blood. What a preposterous thing What
a terrible thing that this false religion should so exact such
brutality upon these people, numbered amongst the Lord's most
blessed and given all the gifts of His goodness and grace. They are called the martyrs of
Jesus. What a name to be given. Imagine
having that name. What a name to possess, a dignified
name, a solemn name, a martyr of Jesus. There are in this world
and in the history of this world, a people who are called the martyrs
of Jesus. and they are not a small number. There has been over the years
of the experience of the church times of great persecution which
have come on the Lord's people and they have paid dearly in
this world for the witness and the testimony that they have
borne. They are an illustrious multitude. of by God who are named. by God and by Holy Spirit revelation
and inspiration. They are a people who are not
forgotten, a people who there are in heaven and they are heard
in heaven and they are identified in heaven and they have a place
in heaven beneath the throne of God. In Revelation chapter
6 and verse 9 we read of these people, them that were slain
for the word of God and for the testimony which they held. them that were slain for the
word of God and for the testimony which they held." That testimony
that the martyrs of Jesus held and maintained was the testimony
of Jesus Christ. It was the testimony of His salvation. The testimony that was born to
of salvation by grace through the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus
Christ alone. That was what they testified.
That was what they bore witness to. These people were slain for
the word of God and for the testimony which they held. the testimony
of salvation by grace, the work of God, the gift of God, nor
of works, lest any man should boast. And Stephen was one of
them. Stephen is sometimes called the
first martyr and we read about his testimony here in Acts chapter
6 and Acts chapter 7, a little bit in the beginning of Acts
chapter 8. He comes before us, he enters
onto the stage as it were. In this period between the death
of the Lord Jesus Christ and the coming of the Apostle Paul. Here is this man, obviously raised
up, evidently raised up for a service and a purpose, and his star burns
brightly on this scene. Stephen is brought to our attention
as one who was early in this great number of people who died
as the martyrs of Jesus. And his death had great impact
upon the church there in Jerusalem and upon those who witnessed
his death indeed. We might well imagine, and we're
going to touch upon this a little bit later, that the man who is
called Saul of Tarsus may well have been largely instrumental
in the taking of the life of this man, Stephen, of whom we
are reading. Towards the end of chapter 7, Stephen gives an extended, I
was going to take the time to read chapter 7 tonight and then
I thought I won't do that, but had we taken time to read it
we would have had an account there of an overview of the gracious
history of the people of Israel as God had revealed himself to
them. And then we would have come to
verse 51, and we would have seen the way in which Stephen brought
his sermon, the history of God's working amongst the Jews, to
this climax. And he turned and he applied
all that he had been saying to the people that were gathered
round him there at the time, the people that we read of at
the end of chapter 6 when it says, all they that sat in the
council looked steadfastly upon him. And he says to them in verse
51, chapter 7, Ye stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and
ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost as your fathers did,
so do ye. 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 murderers, who have received the law by
the disposition of angels and have not kept it. When they heard
these things, they were cut to the heart and they gnashed on
him with their teeth. But he, being full of the Holy
Ghost, looked up steadfastly into heaven and saw the glory
of God and Jesus standing on the right hand of God. and said,
Behold, I see the heavens opened and the son of man standing on
the right hand of God. And they cried out with a loud
voice and stopped their ears and ran upon him with one accord
and cast him out of the city and stoned him. And the witnesses
laid down their clothes at a young man's feet, whose name was Saul. Saul, it appears, was instrumental
in the death of Stephen. He seems to have had some organizing
responsibility. He seems, to some extent, to
have been the brains behind this atrocity. He did not dirty his
hands to lift the stones himself. but they laid their coats at
his feet and that acknowledged his responsibility in this process. But the death of Stephen as one
of the martyrs of Jesus has not gone unnoticed. It is remarked
upon in the book of Revelation to the extent that he is numbered
amongst the martyrs of Jesus, those who shed their blood for
the cause of Christ. He is remarked upon by Luke in
the book of Acts as we have the account of his death presented
to us. He has been remarked upon in
the history of the church as the Lord's people have looked
back and seen how this man who loved the Lord gave his all there
on the sand and on the dirt of that Jerusalem field. And he made his mark upon Paul,
because we are told in Acts chapter 22 and verse 20 that Paul, the
apostle, recognised the impact of the death of Stephen in his
own conversion. When Paul gave an account of
the way in which he had been brought to a knowledge of the
truth, he recognised Stephen's testimony in that profession
of faith. He was spoken of by Paul in the
20th verse of Acts 22 as the blood of thy martyr Stephen. He was a martyr of Jesus Christ. This evening, as the Lord will
enable, I want to think about seven qualities that we see in
the life of this man Stephen that testify to him being owned
by the Lord Jesus Christ. We're going to quickly go through
these. I'm not going to keep you too late this evening. But
the first one I want to point your attention to is this, that
he was a man full of faith. We began reading in Acts chapter
6, but if we had looked at verse 5, we would have seen there that
this man was chosen because he was full of faith to be one of
the first deacons in the church. A man full of faith. All believers have faith in the
Lord Jesus Christ. It is not our faith that saves
us, but we are saved by the grace of God. We are saved by the blood
and the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. Yet faith
bestowed is the means by which we lay hold on the benefits and
the blessings of the death of Christ towards us. The faith
is the opening of our eyes and understanding to see what Jesus
Christ has done for us. Faith is in itself God's gift
to us. It apprehends in the death of
the Lord Jesus Christ that He is our Saviour and our Deliverer. He has redeemed us from our sins
and we are enabled by this gift of faith to trust in that completed
work of Christ. Nevertheless, we know from Scripture
that there are degrees of faith, and faith is given to one and
another in accordance to the tasks that fall to us in this
life. There are degrees of faith, greater
and lesser. Faith grows. Faith is to be stirred
up. Faith is to be exercised. Faith will be tried. And at one
time it can be little, and at another time it can be stronger. And the Holy Spirit gives the
gift of faith to his people for specific tasks and he equips
them and he provides for them in accordance with the needs
that they have and the jobs that must be done. So we see here
that Stephen, it would appear, had an uncommon share of faith. He is spoken of as a man who
was full of faith, and it was a faith that was granted to him,
sufficient for the task and for the service and for the suffering
that he was called to. It was recognisable in him even
before his calling. The Lord was pleased to give
him this faith by which he would be able to serve the church. He was a man full of faith in
the Lord Jesus Christ and a man whose faith had been provided
to him that he might be found a servant and of usefulness in
the church of Jesus Christ. Another aspect of this man Stephen
is that we find also in that fifth verse, and if you turn
with me to the 55th verse of the next chapter, chapter 7,
you will see that he was a man who was full of the Holy Ghost. He was regenerate. He was born
again. The Holy Spirit indwelt this
man Stephen. The Holy Spirit was his comforter. And as with faith, which is a
gift from God, so the Holy Spirit is a gift from God. The Holy
Spirit comes and all believers in Christ are possessors of the
Holy Spirit. Here, in this passage, it speaks
of the abundance of the gifts and the graces which this man
Stephen possessed. Here was a man whom the Spirit
was pleased to bless and equip for the tasks which fell to him. These gifts and graces, again,
characterize believers in Christ. though they may not always be
to the full extent at all times. Stephen was equipped by the Holy
Spirit to preach the gospel. You cannot preach the gospel
if you do not know the gospel. You cannot know the gospel if
you have not faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and if you have
not the Holy Spirit within you. There are many, many people who
profess to preach the gospel, who make their living, who spend
their lives preaching the gospel, so-called. Here was a man who
was prepared of God to preach the gospel and he was equipped
to do so by the Holy Spirit, filled with the Holy Spirit to
the end that he had the authority of God to bring the message of
God and the message of Jesus Christ to the ears of these people. He stood up and he boldly proclaimed
and declared that which had been revealed to him that which the
Holy Spirit had given him to understand. He preached with
authority, he defended the Gospel, he opposed the adversaries of
the Gospel and of the Lord Jesus Christ, and he bore the reproach
and he bore the indignity of those who came against the Lord
Jesus Christ and came against the Lord's people, even to the
point of bearing death itself. And he was enabled to do miraculous
things by God's grace and by the power of the Holy Spirit
as he was called to confirm and defend it. He was a man who was
full of faith and a man who was full of the Holy Spirit. And
thirdly, he was busy in a great work. Verses 7 and 8 of the sixth chapter, we read that
the word of God increased and the number of disciples multiplied
in Jerusalem greatly. The reason why Stephen had been
called to this task of deacon, this role as one of the seven
who were set apart by the church to fulfill some of the practical
responsibilities was that there was much work to be done. And yet not only did they do
that work, but as the church grew and developed, and undoubtedly
the problems of the organisation and the administration grew and
developed equally, Stephen was up to the task. He was a man
who was engaged, a man who was committed. He undertook these
administrative duties with all conscience. He threw himself
into the work. It was a specific task that he
was called to do, and yet we see him also engaged in debate
and in apologetics in the defence of the Gospel. And he grew in
his abilities and in his labours as the scale of the task of the
job grew also. He exercised a ministry of preaching
and encouraging the saints. He was able to perform miracles
and wonders, and yet he was not an apostle. That does not mean
his work was any less important. Our roles differ too. We are not all the same and we
are not all equipped for the same task. We are called to be
faithful in the task which the Lord has given us to do. God does not need me. to preach the gospel. He just
doesn't. If he is pleased to use me to
that end, then it is an honour and a privilege for me. But the
very stones of the ground, that's an interesting comparison to
make, isn't it? The very stones of the ground
would cry forth to the honour of God. The Lord does not need
any one of us. but he chooses to use us in a
great work and he is pleased to provide and equip us for that
work and he helps and sustains and he encourages in that work. So if we are called to preach
or to pray, or to serve, or to engage, or to defend in one way
or another, the purposes of God will be accomplished in this
earth. through the weak earthen vessels
that he is pleased to employ. He accomplishes all his purpose
through his people and he calls us to his service. The church of the Lord Jesus
Christ is no place for laziness. It is no place for the indolent. It is no place to get an easy
ride. We are to engage in the glory
of God and in the service of his Son. And we are the people
that he has been pleased to call to this great work. full of faith,
full of the Holy Spirit, busy in a great work. And then the
fourth attribute or characteristic of this man that we have presented
to us here is the wisdom that he possessed in his speech. In verse 10, we are told, they
were not able to resist the wisdom and the spirit by which he speak. Stephen was a man of great wisdom
of speech. The men that he was debating
with, the men that he was talking to, were men of the synagogues. Verse 9 tells us, 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. Now it seems as
if here in Jerusalem there were different synagogues and these
synagogues catered for believers, Jewish believers of certain racial
or nationalistic identity and they all gathered together. Now
this is interesting I think because it may well be that these were
to some extent foreign nationals. who had yet been brought into
an experience of the Jewish faith, had been brought into it, and
they were dedicated to its defence. More, it would appear, than the
national-born Jews. Here were people from all over
the known world at that time contending with Stephen. And sometimes we will find that.
Sometimes it's the people who are converts who are more radical,
more insistent, more determined to have some justification of
the changes of view that they have had imposed upon others. And it seems that, in a sense,
these were the stormtroopers for the Jews. These are the ones
that came out in order to contend with the Lord's people and seek
to undermine the church. Stephen was used by the Lord
in order to speak against these people. It is even possible that
this is the moment when Saul of Tarsus first realizes that
he's got a problem with Stephen. The fact that Saul was from Tarsus. Tarsus is the chief city of Cilicia. Here were men from the synagogue
of the Cilicians. If Saul of Tarsus was worshiping
in Jerusalem, he would worship with the Cilicians. And as he
was here contending, very probably with Stephen, he realized that
the wisdom of Stephen was more than he could handle. For all
of Saul of Tarsus' education, for all of his understanding,
He could not, as with these men of the synagogue, he could not
contradict or oppose the wisdom of Stephen. They were not able
to resist the wisdom by which he spake. They tried to beat
Stephen with arguments and with religious disputes, but they
could not resist the Spirit that dwelt within him. As he, in spiritual
understanding, as he, with that divine wisdom, reasoned of the
Lord Jesus Christ, they could not stand against his arguments. You see, what was happening here
was very interesting. Suddenly, the Old Testament scriptures,
in which undoubtedly these men were well-versed, were no longer
the fact books were no longer the minute detailed of law and
practice and ritual and regulation books that they had become to
the Jews. but they had become living testimony
to the church of the risen Jesus Christ. When they looked back
into the scriptures, they did not see simply the rules and
regulations that the Pharisees discerned, that the scribes and
the priests would have taught, that the leaders of the synagogue
would have maintained, but they found a vibrant, potent testimony
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And as Stephen brought that testimony
to the attention of these men, they could not contradict him,
they could not countermand him, they could not argue against
him. The wisdom, the insight, the understanding that he had
of the scriptures meant that they were out of their depths. Now you put a man in that situation,
you make it clear that the expert doesn't know what he's talking
about, that the man with the power, that the man with the
position, that the man with the authority is out of his depth. You can well imagine the way
in which the anger built up in these Pharisees, these converts
to Judaism, these men who had been taught all their lives that
this was the only way and it was to be defended to the end. The Lord Jesus Christ was in
Stephen, and Stephen knew that this one who was spoken of in
the Old Testament, this one whom he had heard of, this one that
he had been converted to, was the living reality of all these
Old Testament scriptures. He possessed that reality in
his own soul. He knew Jesus Christ personally. to the things that he had seen
and heard. He was debating on a different
level. He was speaking from personal
experience. He had in his own soul the living
power of the Lord Jesus Christ, the very wisdom of God. Christ himself was speaking in
and through this man Stephen. There was wisdom in his speech. Paul says later in his letter
to the Corinthians, but of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of
God is made unto us wisdom. and righteousness and sanctification
and redemption. Made unto us redemption. Yes, I understand that because
we are redeemed by the blood of Christ. Righteousness because
we have that righteousness which He has secured and obtained and
imputed to us. Sanctification because we are
set apart in Him and we have become holy in Christ and we
are bestowed with all the blessings of conformity to the image of
the Lord Jesus Christ that God looks upon His Son and He sees
us in His Son. But Jesus Christ has made to
us wisdom also, spiritual insight and understanding, the ability
to testify of the things that we have experienced of his grace. And this was what Stephen had
that these men could not contradict. My speech and my preaching says
Paul in 1 Corinthians chapter 2 verse 4. My speech and my preaching
was not with enticing words of man's wisdom. It might have been
there was none more ably equipped to bring forward that enticing
wisdom, or enticing language of man's wisdom. But rather,
says Paul, my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of
man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, in
whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. That personal experience that
Stephen had of Jesus Christ brought forth the wisdom and the knowledge
of truth by which he was able to testify of the things of Jesus
Christ. He was a man who had wisdom of
speech in the things of his saviour. Fifthly, he was bold and brave. when it came to preaching the
gospel. We've already said chapter seven
is largely his sermon, it's his testimony. It's his testament. It was to be his last will and
testament. It was his swan song. That signed his death warrant. But he was brave, and he was
bold, and he took the message right into the teeth of these
men. And though they gnashed upon
him, yet he was faithful to the calling. What an application
he gave in that 51st and 52nd verse. Ye stiff-necked and uncircumcised
in heart and ears. All these men were circumcised
all right. They were circumcised. That mark
in their body was their badge of honour. But in their hearts
they were hardened towards God. They'd never been cut. Not really. Not where it mattered anyway.
These men had no knowledge of God. Ye do always resist the
Holy Ghost as your fathers did. So do ye. Then in verse 52, which
of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? They have
slain them which showed before of the coming of the just one.
Then he says this, this is the punchline. This is what did it for Stephen,
of whom ye have been now the betrayers and the murderers. You're looking for the Messiah
to come. You've just killed the Messiah. You have just betrayed
the Messiah into the hands of Pontius Pilate. You have just
murdered the one whom the prophets spoke of and whom ostensibly
you've been waiting for all these years. the just one, just for
his holiness, just for the holiness of life that he lived, just for
the source of true righteousness for men, just because the elect
of God are justified in him by the sacrifice of their righteous
substitute. And as they looked upon Stephen,
as he declared these things, as he spoke these things, as
they looked upon him, he had the face of an angel. He had the face of one in whom
there was no guile. He had the face of one who was
transparent in his honesty before men. He was unperturbed. He was calm in his demeanour. He was without fear before these
men who had it within their whim to take away his life at a moment. He was a messenger of Christ. a messenger of Christ as truly
as any divinely created angel who flew before the face of God
in heaven was a messenger of Christ. Stephen was that man. And as a preacher of the gospel,
as a witness of the Lord Jesus Christ, he had the face of an
angel. We don't often remark of one
another that we have angelic faces, do we? Some of us, I guess,
have more angelic faces than others. But those who witness
of Christ are his messengers to a dying world. Those who labour
for Christ, those who engage in the service of Christ are
his messengers to this world. The face of an angel. In Matthew
chapter 10, verse 17, the Lord Jesus Christ is speaking to his
disciples, and this is what he says to them. Beware of men,
beware of men, for they will deliver you up to the councils,
and they will scourge you in their synagogues. And ye shall
be brought before governors and kings for my sake, for a testimony
against them and the Gentiles. But when they deliver you up,
take no thought how or what ye shall speak, for it shall be
given you in that same hour what ye shall speak, for it is not
ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh
in you. the messenger of Christ, Stephen,
had a brave and a bold witness to the things of God. In Hebrews
13, verse six, we read, so that we may boldly say, the Lord is
my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me. What a testimony Stephen had. Sixthly, He was a man who was
forgiving. Look at the 60th verse of chapter
7. Look at verse 59. And they stoned Stephen, calling
upon God and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. And he kneeled
down and cried with a loud voice, Lord, lay not this sin to their
charge. And when he had said this, he
fell asleep. It's such a lovely pattern of
the way in which the Lord Jesus Christ himself gave his life
on the cross. Indeed, we might say that Stephen
was patterned after the Saviour on this matter. Perhaps Stephen
had himself much to be forgiven. Perhaps that's why forgiveness
came so easily to his lips as they lifted these stones and
they began to rain down upon him. It's not an easy way to
be stoned. Here we see that there is a testimony
of the Lord Jesus Christ in the very way that Stephen died. He asked, lay not this sin to
their charge. Do not punish them for this sin
that they are committing. We often carry grudges, don't
we? Sometimes we can go through our
whole life looking back on one incident, one thing that was
said, one thing that was done that has just changed our whole
life. And we have this view of things
that we carry with us. We are very often loathe to forgive
wrong done to us. We should be ready to forgive. There is much that this world
is going to be judged for. It is going to be judged for
all of the wickedness that it has committed. It is going to
be judged for its rebelliousness against God. And it is going
to be judged for the way in which it treated the church and how
it treated the Lord's people. But Stephen asked for forgiveness
for them. And there's something wonderful
in the fact that Saul of Tarsus was the man at whose feet the
coats of these murderers were laid. And Saul of Tarsus, in
just a little while, was going to receive exactly the forgiveness
that Stephen asked for him. Isn't that beautiful? In his
very dying breath, there on his knees on the dirt of a Jerusalem
street, he asked for forgiveness for his murderer. And Saul of
Tarsus became Saul the Apostle. He was faithful. Finally, the
seventh point, faithful unto death. We've just read the 60th
verse. This death that he endured is
spoken of as him falling asleep. He kneeled down and cried with
a loud voice, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge. And when
he had said this, he fell asleep. It's a beautiful representation
of dying in the Lord to fall asleep. Those who die in the
Lord fall asleep. That's all they do. It's not
hard to fall asleep, is it? It's not a difficult thing to
fall asleep. It doesn't take a lot of energy,
a lot of work to fall asleep. It's a peaceful thing to fall
asleep. And the passing of the Lord's
people will be a peaceful passing, even although it is with such
brutality as this. Don't fear the day of your death. Don't fear the hour of the laying
down of this body. Don't fear what is going to happen
at that time if you are one of the Lord's people. It's going
to sleep. That's all it is. And you will
waken from that sleep. If you fall asleep, you waken
again. And that's what the Lord's people
do. There is a lovely lightness here
between sleep and death. There's no labouring in it and
there's no trouble in it for the Lord's people. The Apostle
Paul had in his own lifetime to deal with a number of occasions
when he was shipwrecked, when he was stoned, when he was persecuted,
when he was hurt, he was beaten and there must have been many
times when he thought that this could be it. I wonder if he remembered
Stephen on those occasions when he was suffering for the cause
of his saviour. when he was being persecuted
before the witness of the Lord Jesus Christ. In Philippians
chapter 2 verse 14, and with this I'm finished, he writes
to the Philippians, do all things without murmurings and disputings. that ye may be blameless and
harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked
and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world,
holding forth the word of life. Do all those things, and do it
that I may rejoice in the day of Christ, that I have not run
in vain, neither laboured in vain. Yea, he says, and if I
be offered upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I
joy and rejoice with you all. For the sake of the demonstration
that these people were truly the Lords, He was pleased to
lay down his own life and to joy and rejoice in doing so,
for the hope that his labour in preaching the gospel to them
had not been in vain. It was his calling. He was called
to take the word of God to the nations, to the Gentiles. but
it is our calling too, perhaps not individually in the same
way as Paul was met in the Damascus road. And yet, and yet, this
scripture is our scripture. This responsibility is ours as
a church to witness for him in the midst of a crooked and perverse
nation, to do things without murmuring and disputing. to be blameless and harmless,
to be without rebuke. to be as lights that shine in
this world, holding forth the word of life. That's what Stephen
did. That's what Paul was called to
do. That's our privilege as the Lord's
people. May we be found, like the Philippians,
to be those who hold forth the word of life in the midst of
a crooked and perverse generation. Amen.