Todd's Road Grace Church would
like to invite you to listen to a sermon by our pastor, Todd
Nyberg. We are located at 4137 Todd's
Road, two miles outside of Manowar Boulevard. Sunday services are
at 10.30 a.m. and 6 p.m. Bible study is at
9.45 a.m. Wednesday services are at 7 p.m. Nursery is provided for all services.
For more information, visit our website at toddsroadgracechurch.com.
Now here's our pastor, Todd Nybert. I've entitled the message for
this morning, The Man with an Angel's Face. This is the story
of Stephen and his martyrdom. Some people have called him the
first Christian martyr. I believe Abel was the first
Christian martyr. You remember the story of Cain
and Abel, the first story after the fall These two boys both
approached God, both bringing a sacrifice. Cain brought the
work of his own hands, his best. Abel brought the blood of the
one lamb that represented the coming Lamb of God. Abel knew
that he couldn't approach God apart from the blood sacrifice
of the coming one to satisfy God's justice. Cain saw no necessity
in that. He thought that was overkill.
But God rejected Cain. He rejected his offering. The
Scripture said he had no respect for him. But God accepted Abel,
and he had respect for Abel and his offering, and Cain was upset.
He was angry. This is not fair. And he complained
to Abel about it, and Abel said, Cain, you know that God is holy. God is righteous. We're sinful. He cannot be approached apart
from the blood of that coming one that he promised our parents
the seed of woman that shall bruise and crush the serpent's
head. That's the only way we can come
is through his blood." And Cain said, blood, I'll show you blood,
and he killed his brother, the first human bloodshed, and it
was over the gospel. So I would say that Abel is the
first Christian martyr, but Stephen is the first one we read of in
what is known as the New Testament. Now, Stephen was a man who had
been selected as a deacon in Acts 6. And we read beginning
in Acts 6, verse 8, and Stephen, full of faith and power, did
great miracles and wonders among the people. Now, we don't know
what all they were. I know that these men had supernatural
gifts. They could raise the dead. They
could heal the sick. They could speak in other languages.
They could perform these miracles because God's hand was upon them. This is a gift that was had in
the early church. Somebody says, well, do we still
have these gifts? Well, according to the scriptures,
these gifts were only transferred by the laying on of the apostles'
hands. So the only ones who had these
gifts are those ones that the apostles laid their hands on.
And when the apostles died out, these gifts were no longer in
effect. And I know people claim to have
these gifts, these gifts of healing, and they don't. It's phony. I say that without any apology. If they really had the gifts
of healing, they'd go to the hospitals and start healing people.
But they don't have these gifts. But they did then, and he could
perform these miracles. Now, there were some men who
opposed what he was saying, and we read in verse 10, and they
were not able to resist the wisdom and the spirit by which he spake.
Oh, he had wisdom and power. The Scripture says he was full
of the Holy Ghost, full of faith, this remarkable man. So what
did they do? They suborned men. They hired
men which have said, we've heard him speak blasphemous things
against Moses, against 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 to set up false witnesses, which
said, This man ceaseth not to speak blasphemous words against
this holy place and the law. Now you will see this fourfold
accusation they brought against Stephen. They said, He's spoken
blasphemous things against God, against Moses, against the law,
and against the temple. Now, what did he say? Well, I
have no doubt that he said, Jesus Christ is God Almighty. What did he say about Moses?
They accused him of speaking blasphemous things against Moses.
He pointed out that Moses was a type of Christ, and Moses wrote
of Christ. The Lord said, Moses wrote of
me. What about the law? He said,
Christ is the end of the law for righteousness, and all you
all are are lawbreakers. We see that in this message.
And he said regarding the temple, they said he spoke blasphemous
things against this temple. And he said, God dwells not,
he quoted Isaiah 66, where God said he dwells not in temples
made with hands. The Lord is way too big to fit
in a temple and to dwell in a temple. I think it's interesting people
talk about a temple being built in the end times before the at
the time of Christ's return, Christ is the temple of God.
It's not a physical building. Christ is the temple of God. Now, we read in verse 14 of this
chapter, 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 they
that said in the council, where he was on trial, looking steadfastly
on him, saw his face as it had been the face of an angel." Now,
I don't know what the face of an angel looks like, but I know
this represents him being without fear, not worried, not stressful,
a tranquil face, a peaceful face. You see, he knew that these men
were in the Lord's hands. He knew that the Lord has complete
control over everybody and everything. Therefore, he did not fear these
men. And all that sat in the council
looking steadfastly on him saw his face as it had been the face
of an angel. Then said the high priest, chapter
7, verse 1, Are these things so? Is it true that you've spoken
blasphemy against God, against Moses, against the law, against
the temple? Is it true that you said that
Jesus Christ would destroy this place? Well, The Lord did say
early on in His ministry, in John chapter 2, destroy this
temple, and in three days I'll raise it up. Now, He was talking
about His body, the temple of His body, but they took it as
being the temple that they worshiped in. And in Matthew chapter 24,
Somebody came up to the Lord and said, look at these beautiful
buildings. He said, you see these buildings? There's not going
to be one stone left upon another. It's all going to be thrown down.
The Lord did say that. And in fact, it did happen in
70 AD when Rome sacked Jerusalem and leveled it to the ground.
That did in fact take place. So did Stephen say this? Well, he may have. It's true. You see, he understood that the
temple pointed to Christ. There's nothing holy about that
place in and of itself. It's what it represents, the
Lord Jesus Christ. And so in this seventh chapter,
Stephen preaches almost the entire Old Testament. He does it in
a brief fashion, but he mentions three events from Abraham's life. He talked about Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob, and how Joseph, the son of Jacob, was betrayed and
went into Egypt and ended up being the most powerful man in
Egypt, so Jacob and his descendants, the twelve patriarchs, could
be preserved during this famine that was coming. And then he
talked about how 400 years, the Israelites would have to be slaves
to the Egyptians. According to God's Word, He said
this would take place in Genesis 15. They were the ones who built
the pyramids. And then God raised up Moses to deliver the children
of Israel. He gave the entire Old Testament
in a very brief summary. And he particularly pointed out
how Moses said, A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up from
your brethren like unto me, him shall ye hear. He was speaking
of the Lord Jesus Christ at that time. Now, he gives this glorious
message in Acts chapter 17 that would end up costing him his
life. And then he gives the application of this message. After he had
given this summary of the Old Testament, which can be summarized
by this, somebody's coming. Somebody's coming, speaking of
the Lord Jesus Christ. Somebody once said the Old Testament
is somebody's coming, the New Testament is he's come, and the
epistles of the New Testament are he's coming again. Somebody's
coming, the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, let's begin reading in verse
51 of Acts chapter 7. This is his application. He says
to his hearers, you stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and
ears. You do always resist the Holy
Ghost, as your fathers did, so do you. Which of the prophets
have not your fathers persecuted? And they have slain them which
showed before of the coming of the just one. Remember what I
said? The Old Testament says somebody's coming, and he is
the just one, the one who made a way for God to be just and
justify the ungodly. And he says, of whom you have
been now the betrayers and murderers. You are guilty of putting to
death the Lord Jesus Christ, the just one. YOU'RE THE ONES
WHO RECEIVED THE LAW BY THE DISPOSITION OF ANGELS, AND HAVE NOT KEPT
IT. YOU'VE BROKEN GOD'S LAW. THAT'S
ALL YOU'VE DONE. WHEN THEY HEARD THESE THINGS,
THEY WERE CUT TO THE HEART. THEY WERE ANGRY. THIS OFFENDED
THEM DEEPLY, AND THEY GNASHED ON HIM WITH THEIR TEETH. NOW,
WE'RE GOING TO GO ON READING IN A MOMENT, BUT LET'S THINK
ABOUT WHAT HE SAID TO THESE PEOPLE. This is Stephen, the man who
was full of wisdom, full of faith, full of power, and the reason
he was full of these things is because he was full of the Holy
Ghost, inspired by the Spirit of God. And he brought this amazing
message from the Old Testament, and then he applies it by saying
to his hearers, first of all, you stiff-necked, obstinate,
rebellious, hard-hearted. Now, they didn't think of themselves
in this light. They thought they were the believers of that day. They thought they were the representatives
of God for the world in that day. These were the Jews. This
was the Sanhedrin. These were the religious leaders,
and they had never been talked to this way. They were offended
by what he said when he said, you're stiff-necked. And notice
he says, you're uncircumcised. in heart and in ears." Now, these
men took great pride in their circumcision, physically. You remember that God gave circumcision
to Abraham in Genesis chapter 17, and it was the mark of being
His true people. The rest of the world wasn't
circumcised, but the Jews were. And they took great pride in
this. They thought this set them apart from somebody else. They
didn't really understand what circumcision represented. They
just looked at it as a right or a custom that made them God's
children. And so when he said uncircumcised,
you can bet that offended them, because the greatest insult you
could give someone is to call them uncircumcised. Remember
when the giant was coming at David, and David said, who is
this uncircumcised that he should defy the armies of the living
God? And these people were offended at hearing that they were uncircumcised. But notice he says, uncircumcised
in heart, uncircumcised in ears. Now, what is the heart? The heart's
the whole man. It's the mind and the understanding. It's the affection. It's the
will. That's the heart. And he says,
your understanding is perverted and wrong. You have no true understanding
of the scriptures. You have no true understanding
of God. You have no true understanding
of Moses. You have no true understanding of the law, and you have no true
understanding of the temple. Your affections are perverted. They're wrong, uncircumcised. What you hate, you ought to love. And what you love, you ought
to hate. You're uncircumcised in your
will. It's chained to sin. You're a
depraved sinner, is what he's saying. You're unable to... Your heart's bad. And if your
heart's bad, everything else is bad. He said you're uncircumcised
in ears. You cannot hear. Do you know
that you can't hear the gospel unless God gives you hearing
ears? There's got to be hearing ears before there can be hearing.
The Lord said to the Pharisees in John chapter 8, why do you
not understand my speech? Because you cannot. You lack
the ability to hear my word. Now that's what he says to these
men who were putting him on trial over not knowing or speaking
against God and against the law and against Moses and against
the temple. He says, you have no understanding
of what any of these things are. He said, you do always resist
the Holy Ghost. That's all you do. You resist
God the Holy Spirit, as your fathers did, so do ye, you're
no different than any of them. And then he says in verse 52,
which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? And they did, they hated the
ones who came bringing the true gospel, they just didn't understand
it. And they have slain them which showed before of the coming
of the just one. You know, Isaiah spoke of the
coming of the just one. Remember, Lord, who hath believed
our report, and to whom is the armor the Lord revealed? And
he gives that great passage of Scripture on, he hath borne our
griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we did esteem him stricken,
smitten of God, and afflicted. HE TALKED OF THE COMING OF THE
JUST ONE. JEREMIAH TALKED OF THE COMING OF THE JUST ONE. THE
LORD, OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS. ALL THESE MEN, THESE OLD TESTAMENT
PROPHETS, SPOKE OF THE COMING OF THE JUST ONE. NOW THESE MEN
BELIEVED THE GOSPEL. THEY BELIEVED GOD WAS JUST. THEY
BELIEVED THE ONLY WAY A SINNER CAN BE JUSTIFIED IS BY CHRIST
COMING AS THE JUST ONE, BEARING THE SINS OF GOD'S PEOPLE, PUTTING
THEM AWAY AND MAKING A WAY FOR GOD TO BE JUST AND JUSTIFY HIM
WHICH BELIEVETH IN JESUS. THEY UNDERSTOOD THE GOSPEL. They
believed the gospel. Now, for the most part, the Israelites
didn't. They murdered the people who
came with this message. And that's what he says to these
people. And he says, of whom you have now been the betrayers
and murderers. You have killed the just one.
Now, it was all according to God's purpose. Him being delivered
by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, you've
taken the wicked hands of crucified and slain. That doesn't take
away your responsibility, but it was all part of God's purpose
to make a way for Him to be just and justify the ungodly, but
you slain that just one. You know, the only way you can
tell what you're really like and the only way I can tell what
I'm really like is not by looking within. It's not by looking at
the deed you've done, even whether good or bad. It's by seeing the
cross, because there the one time God allowed men to do what
they wanted to do, and He took away his restraints. They nailed
His Son to a cross. And me and you would do the same
thing, and that's exactly what we are guilty of. And it's the
cross that shows the reality of our sin. And then he says
in verse 53, which have received the law by the disposition of
angels and have not kept it. You talk about your law keeping
and you talk about the law and the holy law and how your love
for the law, but the fact of the matter is, is all you have
done is break it. You haven't kept one commandment
one time. And I can say this with regard
to the 10 commandments, Me and you, this is true about me and
you, we've not kept one commandment one time. And if you believe
you have, all you prove is that you're ignorant of God, ignorant
of the holiness of the law, and ignorant of your own sinfulness.
Because if God ever lets me or you see what we really are, we'll
see that we're nothing but lawbreakers, and that's what the law does. It shows us our guilt. Now, when
they heard these things, verse 54, this was their response. When they heard these things,
they were cut to the heart and gnashed on him with their teeth. They were angry. But he, Stephen,
being full of the Holy Ghost, Somebody says, what does that
mean? It means he was full of the Holy Ghost. I don't know
how to give an explanation to that, but I know that he was
given unusual strength and power to preach the gospel in a clear
way. And when they were looking at
him, he still had that face of an angel. He wasn't worried about
what was going to take place. He wasn't afraid of these people.
But he, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up steadfastly
into heaven, and I can see them looking on his face as he did
that. And what did he say? Well, it's not what he said,
it's what he saw. Now, he's going to say what he
saw, but what did he see? When heaven was opened up, he
saw the glory of God. and Jesus standing on the right
hand of God. Now, if I ever have a true view
of God, you know, He opened this message
with, men and brethren and fathers hearken, the God of glory appeared
unto our father Abraham. Now, if I ever see God, And I'm
not talking about a physical sight. Did he have a physical
sight? I don't know. It might have been. A spiritual sight's more powerful
than a physical sight. But what he saw, he saw the glory
of God. Now, what is the glory of God?
Moses, in Exodus chapter 33, verse 18, he'd been praying for
the children of Israel. They had made a golden calf and
worshipped it and said, These be thy gods, O Israel. And he
thought the Lord was going to wipe them out, and he was praying
for Israel at this time. And during the course of this
prayer, he says in verse 18, I beseech thee, show me thy glory. Now, Moses had already seen the
ten plagues. Moses had already seen the parting
of the Red Sea. Moses had seen manna come down
from heaven. Moses had seen water come out
of that rock when it was smitten. Moses was a witness to the giving
of the law when the finger of God wrote it on the tables of
stone. He saw what we would call some
glorious things, but he says, I haven't seen your glory yet.
I beseech you, show me your glory. What a request. And God answered
in verse 19, I'll make all my goodness pass before thee. God's goodness is his capacity
to save someone as evil as those Israelites and me and you. It's
his capacity to save somebody like us. That's his goodness.
He said, I'll proclaim the name of the Lord before thee. That's
the Lord speaking, and He's not just talking about giving His
name, Jehovah, but His attributes. You see, all of God's—His name
is who He is. It's His attributes. And all
of His attributes are manifest in salvation. When He had His
Son nailed to a tree, every one of His attributes were in full
display. His wisdom in making a way to be just and justify
the ungodly. His grace in giving His Son for
sinners. His power in putting away sin.
His justice to punish all sin. All that God is is seen in the
cross of Christ. That's the proclamation of His
name. And then He says, I'll be gracious to whom I will be
gracious. Moses said, save all of them.
He said, I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious. And
I'll show mercy on whom I will show mercy. Now that is the glory
of God. His capacity to save, His attributes,
the sovereignty of His grace. Now, He said, I see the glory
of God, and here's something you always see when you see the
glory of God. I see Jesus standing at the right
hand of God. Now, the right hand of God is
the place of favor. It's the place of power. It's
the place of acceptance. Him at the right hand of God
means He's ruling and reigning. And I can say this right now.
Do you know He's in complete control over you and me right
now? The very thoughts that are going through your mind, He's
in sovereign control of. He's the Lord, standing, ruling,
and reigning as the great intercessor of His people. And then he told
them what he saw, verse 56, and he said, Behold, I see the heavens
opened and the Son of Man standing on the right hand of God, the
place of favor, the place of salvation, the place of acceptance.
Then was their response. Then 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. They murdered
him. And they laid down their clothes
at a young man's feet, whose name was Saul. Now, Saul ended up being the
apostle Paul, but he was the one who gave commandment concerning
the death of Stephen. He consented unto his death. He wanted this man dead, but
the Lord is going to have him. But this was when we were first
introduced to him. They laid down their clothes at a young
man's feet, whose name was Saul, while they stoned him. Now look
what Stephen said. And they stoned Stephen. And what happened while they
were stoning him? He was calling upon God. You see, anyone who
sees him is going to call upon him. Whosoever shall call upon
the name of the Lord shall be saved, saying, Lord Jesus, receive
my spirit. He didn't boast of all his works.
It's the same prayer as the dying thief. Lord, remember me when
you come in your kingdom. Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. If you receive my spirit, everything's
fine. Verse 60, and he kneeled down
and cried with a loud voice while he was dying, Lord, lay not this
sin to their charge. Now this is, yes, asking for
the forgiveness of his enemies, and what a glorious thing that
is. But understand this, in making
this statement, he teaches us something about salvation. The
only way that you or I will be saved is if our sin is not laid
to our charge. You see, if God gives me and
you what we deserve, he'll send us to hell. But the only hope
I have is that the sins that I have committed would not be
laid to my charge. Now, how could that be? If they're
not laid to my charge, it's because they were laid to the charge
of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's why he died on Calvary
Street. Lay not this sin to their charge. That's the only hope I have.
And at this time, Stephen is doing the most godlike thing
a man can ever do. He's forgiving them. He's forgiving
them. Lord, don't let this sin be laid
to their charge. And when he had said this, he
fell asleep. And that's the way the death
of a believer is always described, falling asleep, waking up into
the very presence of Christ himself. This is the story of the man
who some have called the first Christian martyr who had the
face of an angel. Now we have this message on DVD
and CD. If you call the church, write
or email, we'll send you a copy. This is Todd Kniper praying that
God will be pleased to make Himself known to you. This is our prayer. To request a copy of the sermon
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