We're going to finish out the
sixth chapter of Acts this morning, verses 8 through the end of the
chapter, which is 15, verses 8 through 15. We're going to
look at a man named Stephen, that gracious spirit of Stephen,
and we're going to peer into the life and lessons of Stephen. One of seven men chosen, you
remember, from last week. He was one of the seven men that
was chosen to be a deacon in the early church, the first time
that that office was created by inspiration of God. And also,
we're going to see that Stephen is the first post-Pentecostal
martyr for our Lord Jesus Christ and standing for his gospel.
Because you remember in verse 5, the saying that is that the
apostles said, let's choose out seven men of honest report, full
of the Holy Ghost and wisdom, that we may appoint over this
business to serve tables, that we might give ourselves continually
to prayer and the ministry of the word. And then in verse 5,
And the same pleased the whole multitude, and they chose Stephen,
a man full of faith and of the Holy Ghost, and Philip, and Prochorus,
and Canor, Timion, Paraminus, Nicholas, a proselyte of Antioch,
whom they set before the apostles. And when they had prayed, they
laid their hands on them. And the word of God increased,
and the number of the disciples multiplied in Jerusalem greatly.
and a great company of priests were obedient to the faith."
Now we start our lesson, our message for this morning. And
Stephen, full of faith, that is just another way of saying
faithfulness, faithfulness. 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, Cyrenians, and Alexandrians, and of them of Sicily and Asia,
disputing with Stephen. And they were not able to resist
the wisdom and the spirit by which he spake." So he's a deacon,
but then the Lord uses him here in this section to preach, to
preach the gospel. Every person, whether they're
a deacon, an elder, a member, it's our responsibility to tell
what we know. Tell what we know. So here, this
deacon, the Lord enables him and gives him the grace and the
gift to speak, to preach the gospel. And we won't go through
it today, but at your leisure, Look at, read the entire seventh
chapter of Acts to see exactly what Stephen said. This is exactly
what he preached. So they didn't like it. It made
him upset. But 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. So they bring up false witnesses
again, just like they did Christ. And fourfold accusation. We've
heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses, blasphemous words
against God. And they stirred up the people
and the elders and the scribes and came upon Stephen and caught
him and brought him to the council. And they set up false witnesses
which said, thirdly, this man ceases not to speak blasphemous
words against this holy place, and fourthly, blasphemous words
against the law. For we have heard him say that
this Jesus of Nazareth, so there we know what the contents of
what his message was. Just like Paul, I was determined
not to know anything among you save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. We've heard him say that this
Jesus of Nazareth shall destroy this place and shall change the
customs, aha, which Moses delivered us. And all that sat in the council,
both friend and foe, looking steadfastly on Stephen, saw his
face as it had been the face of an angel. Kind of like Moses
when he came down from the mount, remember? And all the people
beheld his face. He had to put a veil over it.
Well, let's look at just a few lessons as we peer, as I said,
into the life and lessons of this one Stephen. First thing
we observe. which I desire of myself greatly,
and I desire of each and every one of you as well, His faithfulness,
His faithfulness." He says twice, it says when it speaks of Him, In verse 5, they chose Stephen,
a man full of faith, full of faith, faithfulness. And then
again in verse 8, and Stephen, full of faith and power, did
great wonders and miracles among the people, full of faith. Indeed, he must be full of faith
to be a believer and to be a deacon. No one, as we, I don't know if
I'm, you know, it's the obvious point that I didn't bring out
last week, but all who are appointed to an office in the church must
first be regenerated. And you say, well, yeah, that
makes sense. Perhaps the main problem in churches
in our day, as well as back in this time, is that you have men
behind the pulpit who are not regenerated. They don't have
a clue as to who Christ is, His Gospel. Historically, they've
heard about Jesus of Nazareth. Very few people in this country
have not. This country is full of religion and religious men.
all appointed to an office, whether it's deacon, an elder, a bishop,
or whatever, to be a member of the Church of Christ must be
regenerated. So he's one who is full of faith
and power and did great wonders and miracles among the people.
They could not speak... If a person who's behind this
pulpit or tries to teach others is not regenerate and not faithful
to the Word, He cannot comfort anybody. He cannot tell of his experience
of the grace of God. He must first, as this book says,
have tasted that the Lord is gracious. You cannot help someone if you've
not been there yourself. And people, all you have to do
is, like Karen Scott are doing, they're
applying for different colleges for his Master's. If you want
to be a preacher, you want to go to seminary, you just find
an adjunct, you just apply. You apply to go to get your degree
in seminary, your degree in theology or whatever it might be. That's
all you have to do. Most places, if you have the money, I know
there's background checks and there's different things that
they do look for, You can pretty well get your
certificate, I can do that online, you know, ordination papers or
whatever it might be. Had to do that or had to look
into that to marry Matt and Tara. But that has nothing to do with
regeneration. Absolutely nothing. Absolutely
nothing. May you and I, may it be said
of us that we are counted as Stephen to be given a task and
simply be ever faithful to it." Stephen, we want you to wait on tables.
We want you to serve the church in the capacity of a deacon.
We want you to serve as a capacity as a member. We would desire
that you join yourself By the belief of the truth by the belief
of Christ By his enabling power upon him and upon you and upon
me to join as it were not a scroll Not a written, you know, nothing
formal not a formal letter, but to believe what is preached from
this book from this pulpit Identify yourself with that confess him
and believers baptism and simply be faithful I can't play the piano. That's all right. Can you come
and sit and hear the gospel? I can do that. Be faithful. I
can't really preach, says one. That's okay. Can you worship
with us? I can do that. Be faithful in
that. You see, it's such a first and obvious point in this lesson,
but it's of great, great importance that if I am called to be your
pastor, first and foremost, what you require of me is to be faithful
to the Word. Faithful to God in His Gospel. Faithful to you in preparation
and study and deliverance. And you know, I know there's
that quote, to thine own self be true. You don't want somebody
else. You don't want me here and then
see me something else. Well, that's a different person.
He acts different in different settings. So there is that faithfulness
there. But I got to looking at this
and really thinking about this. Faithfulness is expected in marriage. I mean, right? We're just talking
common denominators. Faithfulness is expected till
death do us part. You don't get an award for that.
You don't get a reward for that. It's just simply that's your
calling. When you enter into that relationship, Faithfulness. Faithfulness. The root of marriage,
quicker than anything, is unfaithfulness. And others say money, that's
true, but you can be unfaithful in that as well. Faithfulness
is expected in a marriage. Faithfulness is expected at work.
If you signed a contract, which most of us did when you signed
on to work at a place, or if it's an old-fashioned gentleman's
handshake, what do they expect? They expect you to come in and
work so many hours to get so much paid that was agreed upon
faithfully. You know, with Nathan, we're
talking, with Joe and I were talking, And we were all three
talking the same thing. He says, basically, just show
up for work. In some places, the work ethic
is so bad. If you are faithful, which is
expected, it should be. You know, who thought that was the
high watermark on some of these places of employment? You show
up and do your job. They're going to love you and
they're going to promote you. Why? It's expected. As a parent, One reason why I have such a
difficult time with my father is because of unfaithfulness.
To my mom, yes and no, I don't know about all those different
things, but I do know, to me, he was not faithful. He abandoned
me. So, that's a basic responsibility
of a parent. You be faithful to that child. Nurture that child. Rear that
child up. Bring them where the gospel is
preached as far as tying into the spiritual aspect of it. But
as a parent, be faithful to give them the basic necessities. Bring
them food, shelter, protection. Educate them. It's expected faithfulness,
you know how much more so than as we serve our Redeemer May
we be like Stephen full of faith faithful to him faithful to his
gospel and his doctrine Faithful to our calling faithful to each
other as we sojourn in this life You get you get the preacher
upset quit coming and and then expect me to do your funeral,
and I haven't seen you for years?" You know, I'm of a big question
mark. I know Henry made a comment one time that, you know, these
deathbeds, you know, these people, they wouldn't be there, and all
of a sudden, you get a phone call. He said he'd get a phone
call, and then he'd be... Matter of fact, we listened to
that CD the other day. The wife of the husband said,
you know, we're members. And Henry just said, what do
you want me to say to him? He hadn't darkened the doors
in four or five years. Of course, it made the woman,
the wife, upset. But Henry was just telling the
story. Why? What comfort? The comfort that I've been given?
Comfort? Preaching peace to God's people
every Sunday and every Wednesday and he's not there. And now when
he's dying, he's scared to death and he wants peace. I don't have,
he says, I don't have a word for that man. Why? Faithfulness faithfulness
turn to 1st Corinthians chapter 4 1st Corinthians chapter 4 Verse 2 Our verse wanted to let
a man so count of us as of the ministers of Christ and stewards
of of the mysteries of God. Moreover, it is required in stewards
that a man be found faithful." You know, if you're dating somebody
and they're not faithful, why would they expect you to take
the next step? If, in the situation where I,
my job, where we had a person that had been there over eight
years and was found to be stealing from the company, why, when they
let him go, then he called back several months and wanted to
know if there was a position open, if they would take him back, why would
they do such a thing as that? It happens. Because it's required
that a worker, that a parent, that a husband, that a wife,
a believer, be found faithful. be found faithful." And in this,
you don't have to turn there, but in Timothy, we talked about
this last week, the office of a deacon is summed up in this
way. And of the things that thou hast
heard of me, Paul is telling young Timothy, among many witnesses,
the same commit thou to faithful men who shall be able to teach
others also. That's why you don't lay your
hands, don't lay your hands suddenly on no man and you don't, you
know, you don't appoint people to things as we saw last week
because they might be good at this or they might be likable.
Faithfulness, faithfulness. So I always thought it was interesting
when the gentleman that used to be here and is no longer here,
he would kind of hit and miss and the next thing you know he's
wanting to fill the pulpit. Yeah, I can preach. It would
be nice to see him more than once a month, you know. Faithfulness. Faithfulness. Turn to Proverbs chapter 14.
It could be said of us, it should be said of us, and certainly
said of Stephen here, because he's getting ready to die for
the cause of Christ and his gospel. But look at Proverbs chapter
14 and verse 5. Proverbs 14, 5. A faithful witness
will not lie. Will not lie. But mom doesn't
believe this way. I wasn't raised to believe that
way. My friends and families and co-workers
don't believe this way. Are you a witness? Are you a
faithful witness? You won't lie. Stephen stood
up and told the truth. And he's going to get killed
for it. He's going to get martyred for it. So the first thing I
see is we observe Stephen's faithfulness. God honors faithfulness in His
people. And that's found in, I believe,
1 Samuel chapter 2. And I didn't write that down,
but He honors those that honor Him. Second point is, grace always
stumps, frustrates, and angers works and its supporters. Verses 9 and 10. Grace always
stumps, angers, and frustrates those who believe and preach
works. Look at verses 9 and 10. Then, after Stephen was preaching
and doing wonders and great things among the people, then there
arose certain in the synagogue, not those just common people
on the street, of the synagogue, religious folk, which is called
the synagogue of the Libertines, the Cyrenians, Alexandrians,
and of them of Sicily and Asia, disputing with Stephen, disputing
with Stephen. And they were not able to resist
the wisdom and the spirit by which he spake. Why could they
not do so? Why could they not? It just aggravated
them. He was preaching the truth, and
they just... He had an answer for everything.
Just like Christ, He tried to tangle them up so they can't
do that, so they're going to bring in false witnesses. But grace, and
the gospel of God's grace, and the preachers of God's gospel,
and the believers in God's gospel of grace always stumps and frustrates
and angers those who support and preach and believe works.
Turn to Luke 21. Luke chapter 21. Our Lord Himself
says this is the way it is going to be. Luke 21 and verse 12. Remember, He spoke among them
and they couldn't stand it, but they were not able to resist
the wisdom and the Spirit by which Stephen spake. Verse 12,
Christ says, but before all of these things, the earthquakes
and the divers, famines and pestilence, before these things, they, who's
they? Well, we'll see here in a minute,
shall lay their hands on you and persecute you, delivering
you up to the synagogues and into prisons, being brought before
kings and rulers for my namesake. And it shall turn to you for
a testimony. And look at what he says to his
people. Settle it therefore in your hearts not to meditate before
what you shall answer. For I will give you a mouth and
wisdom which all your adversaries shall not be able to gain say
nor resist. And ye shall be betrayed by both
parents, and brethren, and kinsfolk, and friends, and some of you
shall they cause to be put to death. And ye shall be hated
of all men for my name's sake. But there shall not a hair of
your head perish." You see that? They shall not be able to gainsay
or resist. Well, that's why he was able
to speak, and they were not able to resist the wisdom and the
Spirit by which he spake. And you must remember that, I'll
turn here and read it to you, that we've looked at this before,
but in Corinthians, the natural man receives not the things of
the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him, neither
can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. You
stand up there and you preach, or you talk to your friends and
your neighbors about grace, grace, and grace, and if they're believing
works, works, and worse, it's foolishness. And it aggravates,
and it frustrates, and it stumps them. I had somebody tell me
one time that they said, well that's something new. And the
thing is, is it's not. It's so old, it's so the truth,
it's so agelessly, beautifully the truth, that when you present
it in 2008, that somebody says, I never heard that before. I've
never heard that before. You don't have a Bible? Oh yeah,
we got a Bible in every room. This is America. Do you read
it? John 3.16. I know that one. It's called the old paths. It's
called the everlasting gospel. And blessed be God and blessed
is the man and the woman whom God chooses and causes to approach
unto Him and make us faithful to simply tell the truth. It's not up to you to convince.
It's not up to me to convince. Just stand and tell the gospel. Speak the gospel. The beautiful
thing is that it says about Stephen, notice the contrast, he spake
and preached. They, those who believe in works,
disputed and accused. And this is ever the case as
false brethren cannot handle the truth and cannot receive
the truth. Works religion, stirs up the
people as it does here. It promotes suspicion as it did
here. It breeds discontent and ill
will as it did here. Now, verses 11 and 13, and if
you want to read chapter 7 to see his whole message, you could
see these things more clearly. I don't know if we'll look at
them next week or not, but we have four charges laid against
Stephen in verse 11 and 13 Blasphemy, they said he blasphemed against
Moses Which I didn't I was reading Hawker The other day and I think
it and Hawker. I agree with Hawker. I didn't
know you could blaspheme against the person I thought blasphemy
in its very definition in nature is against deity, God. But they said, it tells you what
they thought about Moses. Talking about worshipping man,
oh, we don't have that today. We don't? No. Mary? Muhammad? Buddha? Joseph Smith? Even the Reformers, they'll talk
highly about Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, and they don't want anything
to do with them. Spurgeon. Oh, we think Spurgeon's
great. Well, this is what he preached.
Well, we don't agree. We've got more intellection.
We have more light in our generation. Now, light's been turned to darkness.
But they blaspheme against Moses. I don't understand that. Blaspheme
against God. He said they blaspheme this holy
place, Jerusalem or the temple. It's just a building. Fourthly,
they blaspheme, they say he blasphemed the law. Here's the situation.
What they fumed over was one, positively, the Godhead of Christ. God incarnate in the flesh, and
Christ fulfilling the law, Christ doing away with the things of
Moses, so yeah, That's exactly what Christ came to do. That's
what He said He was going to come to do. Positively, that's what they
fumed over. They did not like the fact that Christ being a
man made Himself to be God, and He was, and He is. Negatively,
what they fumed over is the elimination of their customs and rights.
It's exactly what we talked about this morning in Bible class.
People don't like it when you get in next to their tradition. Well, this is the way we've always
done it. You don't talk negatively about that little ash that we're
sticking on our forehead. Don't you talk about it. Don't you
do that. Don't you talk bad about our Blessed Virgin Mary. Don't
you talk bad about Lenten services. Don't you talk bad about Easter
services when everybody's, you know, hunting those Easter eggs
and having a good time. Don't you do it. Why do you all
have to talk like that? Why can't you just leave everything
alone And as it is, because given what people are preaching and
what people are believing, leads to damnation. And if we
say we love somebody, we're going to tell them the truth. So they
were upset of what Stephen was saying about Christ, because
he said, this Jesus fellow, we have heard him say that this
Jesus of Nazareth shall destroy this place and change the customs
which Moses delivered to us. It gives us something to do.
It makes us feel, you know, I mean, you all were there. I was there. It made me feel good when I went
out and did what I wanted to Saturday night. And then Sunday
I get dressed up and go to church with mom. and not hear anything,
but I felt good. So God must be there. God must
be a part of that. No gospel preached, but it's
a good thing to do. You mean That my feelings might
come and go, but that I completely can have peace based on what
Christ did for me, and I don't have to feel good or feel bad,
or it's just all that He's done? Yeah. But I want to have that feeling. That's not of God. You mean when
I go in and that guy is in a robes and he looks like he's important,
he's standing up on an altar or something and he's doing the
sign of the cross and he's throwing wafers at us and telling this
little boy to change this to wine and all these different
things and then we come forward and we do all those things? You
mean I don't have to do that? I'm saying you trust in Christ,
God's Own righteousness and trust Christ for your righteousness,
and that is all you need. You don't need all these outwardly
things to exercise the body. Just trust Christ. The people,
like Bruce made a comment this morning, they can't handle it. Stop working. Stop working. But I feel good when I light
candles. The more candles I light, the better I feel. Or when I do something to that
little baby, I know it doesn't really, but somehow it makes me feel like
it's going to do something dangerous. That's dangerous. It's damning. You know as well as I do, because
by human nature we're born with the desire to work and to try
to please God. Like one old man said, our greatest
sin is not what we think they are, our greatest problem is
our self-righteousness. We want to try to do something,
and Stephen said, Christ is it. Well, that will affect our attendance,
that will affect this, that will affect the number of people coming.
So what? So what? Better to have a little where
quietness is. So they couldn't handle or believe
that Christ was God incarnate in the flesh, holy and blessed
forever, that He is the only Redeemer of men's souls. He alone
could deliver from the law and fulfill the law, and He alone
holds all men and things in His sovereign hands. It is His right
and prerogative to do with us as He wills. They couldn't handle
that. and negatively they couldn't
handle or accept the fact that Christ is the end of the law
for righteousness, that Christ came to fulfill the law and make
it honorable, and that Christ is our sole rule of life, liberty
and forgiveness, and that Christ is the believer's motivation
for everything Christian. You mean no rewards? No whips?
As Tim James says, no whips or biscuits? Or promises of reward? No. No streets of gold? It's
not why we serve Christ. The love of Christ constrains
us. Again, the love of Christ constrains
you, you'll be faithful. The love of your spouse constrains
you, you'll be faithful. We're not going to struggle,
not going to have arguments, not going to have difficulties? Sure we
do. But then we keep going to Him. We ever come to Him. We
never stop coming to Christ. We always come to Him for forgiveness
and for Him to give us more faithfulness, for Him to give us desire. The
brethren said, Lord, increase our faith. They saw how important
it was to be faithful to Him and Him alone. As I said, take
time to read Stephen's sermon in chapter 7. They, religious imposters, must
have ritual rites and customs because it makes them feel holy. What did you do today? I've been
on my knees praying all day. Whoa, you must be spiritual.
I still never forget working with that one guy. What are you
doing? You look awful bad today. You look awful bad today, Ben.
I'm fasting. Now I know." And every time he would fast,
what does the Scripture say? Don't show people that you're
doing it. But every time he did it, he'd
grunt and he'd say how hungry he was and all that stuff. I
just thought, you have your reward. You told me. I see you. That's
good. You need to lose weight anyway,
Ben. You better quit eating a little bit. We want to be seen of men, but
Christianity is a matter of the heart. It's a matter of the heart. That's why they couldn't take
it. That's why they got upset. So they set up false witnesses,
and they said, this man ceases not to speak blasphemous words
against his holy place and the law. We've heard him talk about
this Jesus, and that he's going to change the customs, and that
word customs in the margin is rights, which Moses delivered
to us. That's right. But lastly, verse
15, And all that stood in the council, looking steadfastly
on Stephen, saw his face as it had been the face of an angel. And in verse 1 of chapter 7,
the high priest said, Are these things so? And he said, Men and
brethren, fathers hearken. And he starts telling them the
truth of Christ and Him crucified, mainly the sovereignty of God
and the Godhead of Christ. And they knew if that was true,
that all their religious games, and as old Thomas Hooker said,
painted pageantry, religious painted pageantry, all was going
to come to an end. You know, a lot of things that
other religions do for people and stuff, you don't hear me,
that's great. The safe houses for women and
all these different, I don't care what, it doesn't matter
what denomination is responsible for that. These are good things.
I'm not saying anything bad about that. The good, as old Maurice
said, Maurice Montgomery, the good that these churches do to
the community, that's fine. But when it's tied in to your
soul and making you think you've got a leg up on God, that is
damning. That's damning. It would be like
the Red Cross coming into an area, helping us out, but they're
going to take a little bit with them. Now, if you want some bread,
I need bread. Well, here you are. But here's
this track. You know, we're going to get you around the backside.
We're going to make sure we get God in there, slipping in there
somehow. No, Stephen faithfully stood
up unashamedly, boldly, lovingly. He said, My brethren, the God
of glory appeared unto our father Abraham, and he starts in. But
my last point is that God's will be done on earth as it is in
heaven. Even as difficult as this is,
even as hard, and the sure death of Stephen is going to come to
pass, all works out for the glory and the will of God, and we bow
to that. Why is this so beautiful? We're
not going to read the whole thing, but look at the last three verses
of chapter 7. that our brother is about ready
to die and they, verse 58, and they cast Stephen out of the
city and stoned him. And the witnesses laid down their
clothes at a young man's feet whose name was Saul. We do not know God's reasons
for many things He does, only that He will be glorified and
His purpose accomplished in the daily lives of His people. Because
there's one here that heard this message and partook in the killing
of this believer whose name was Saul. He witnessed it all and
one day our Lord is going to use this and call him out to
be a great preacher and defender of the faith as it is in Christ,
not his traditions, which we saw this morning in Philippians.
He said, all those things that I had, I count them done. Why
did he do that? Because he witnessed and saw
another man, a believer, who stood up and would be put to
death for what he believed. So as difficult as this is to
assimilate and to swallow, you and I as brethren, as believers,
know God's going to be glorified, and we don't know what He's going
to do with the things that we say to somebody down the road. Turn to Deuteronomy 33, 25, and
we'll close here. I don't know if I could have
done this. I read this, it's easy to read
this and preach about somebody else's life. However, if you're His, He says to you and to I in Deuteronomy
33, verse 25, thy shoes shall be iron and brass, and here's
what we need to see, and as thy days, so shall thy strength be. He'll give you strength until
the end of your days. Oh, may our Lord cause us to
remain ever faithful to Him, His cause, His gospel, and to
one another.