SPEAKER_01: Hello everyone, I'm Dr.
SPEAKER_01: Steve Holt.
SPEAKER_01: I want to welcome you to the Road Church Podcast.
SPEAKER_01: Each week we go into God's Word.
SPEAKER_01: We teach chapter by chapter and verse by verse.
SPEAKER_01: And we are here to build the Kingdom of God revolution through empowering people to change the world.
SPEAKER_01: So we pray this will minister to you at your heart level and change your life.
SPEAKER_01: And now as we open the word, we look at a young, two young men in this chapter from couldn't be couldn't be more worlds apart in what they believe at this point.
SPEAKER_01: A man named Stephen and a man named Saul.
SPEAKER_01: You're going to show us what it is to be a man or a woman of God in the midst of persecution.
SPEAKER_01: We just bless you, Lord, and thank you in your name.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: So we're not only signing up for Refined by Fire, the Whole Heart Advance, but we're going to feed you today.
SPEAKER_01: Pancakes.
SPEAKER_01: So there's a pancake breakfast right after this.
SPEAKER_01: And we would ask that you put money down as much as you can.
SPEAKER_01: That's for scholarships for people who can't afford to go to Whole Heart Advance.
SPEAKER_01: But great opportunity for training and equipping.
SPEAKER_01: And we're looking at the life of Stephen today.
SPEAKER_01: And it's the longest sermon in the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: It's in Acts chapter 7.
SPEAKER_01: So if you have your Bibles, turn to Acts chapter 7.
SPEAKER_01: And last week you had the opportunity to hear Josh lead us up to the persecution that was going to happen to Stephen.
SPEAKER_01: That's Acts chapter 7.
SPEAKER_01: He gets put before Caiaphas and the rulers of that time.
SPEAKER_01: Now, the name Stephan, I'm named Stephen, and I was named after the first Christian martyr.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know what that means about my future.
SPEAKER_01: But Stephan I of Hungary was a famous king in Hungary, and from about 997 to 1038, he ruled as one of the first Christian nations in Europe at that time.
SPEAKER_01: So just to put that in perspective, the Protestant Reformation was in the early 1500s.
SPEAKER_01: The pilgrims came to America in the early 1600s.
SPEAKER_01: So we're talking like 500 years before the Protestant Reformation, a man named Stephen or Stephan I came into power, and he was able, through his leadership and his Christianity, to give 40 years of peace to Hungary.
SPEAKER_01: The longest in the history until the modern era that Hungary had ever had.
SPEAKER_01: And so he was a mighty man of God.
SPEAKER_01: And you could do a lot worse than to study him.
SPEAKER_01: But he was named after Stephen.
SPEAKER_01: So Stephen has become very, very famous throughout church history because of the role that God chose for him, which was to die for his faith.
SPEAKER_01: And so in Acts chapter 6, you look back at Acts chapter 6, look at that real quick, you'll see that because of what's happening in the early church and the incredible growth, there's accusations brought against one of the deacons, Dioconos, one of the leaders there in the church, who then begins to confound this synagogue of the freedmen, this synagogue, not at the temple, but at the synagogue, and causes such an uproar at what he says that he's brought before Caiaphas, the high priest.
SPEAKER_01: We believe it's Caiaphas is not mentioned here, but we believe with the Sanhedrin involved in the council, that's what he's speaking of.
SPEAKER_01: But you'll just look at verse 11 of chapter six.
SPEAKER_01: We've heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses and God.
SPEAKER_01: Look at verse 13.
SPEAKER_01: This man does not cease to speak blasphemous words against the holy place and the law.
SPEAKER_01: So what we're gonna see is this long sermon, the longest sermon in all of the Bible, and by the way, we may not get through all of it.
SPEAKER_01: So I was looking at my time and I'm going, oh no, how am I gonna do this?
SPEAKER_01: But we're gonna do the best we can and we'll just end where we end.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, we'll pick it up next week.
SPEAKER_01: But it's a beautiful story, and what's amazing about our story is that we see a man who can defend his faith.
SPEAKER_01: How many have heard of apologetics?
SPEAKER_01: Comes from the Greek word apologia.
SPEAKER_01: It's not that we're apologizing for our faith, it means defense of the faith.
SPEAKER_01: And you have no better example in all of Scripture than Stephen, who we're gonna look at.
SPEAKER_01: Because here's what's interesting about Stephen, and I think it's the key to all forms of apologia or apologetics in sharing our faith is knowing what you believe, but knowing why you believe it.
SPEAKER_01: So many Christians know what they believe, but they don't know why they believe it.
SPEAKER_01: And so Stephen knows why he believes it, and he knows what he believes.
SPEAKER_01: A beautiful, beautiful sermon on apologetics and apologia, but he's going to quote 15 different passages in the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_01: He's gonna quote from Genesis, he's gonna quote from Deuteronomy, he's gonna quote from quote from Amos, he's gonna quote from Isaiah.
SPEAKER_01: All off the top of his head, all off the top of his heart.
SPEAKER_01: No iPad, you know, no phone.
SPEAKER_01: He's got it memorized, and he's and he's so convincing.
SPEAKER_01: By the way, some of the ways that you know that you're convincing is how angry you make your opposition feel.
SPEAKER_01: And so, and so he is really getting this counsel up in arms, this synagogue of the freedmen, because they have memorized, in some cases, all of the Pentateuch, which is Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and they memorize it.
SPEAKER_01: And then here's this young, upstart young man who comes in and is going to give us now 2,000 years of Israel's history off the top of his head, quoting passages 15 different times.
SPEAKER_01: It's an amazing, amazing story.
SPEAKER_01: So we pick it up in verse one, we'll start there, we'll see how far we get, and I'm gonna just read verse one.
SPEAKER_01: You know, what we got we got 59 more to go.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna read, okay, I'm gonna read verse one.
SPEAKER_01: Then the high priest, that's Caiaphas, said, Are these things so?
SPEAKER_01: So what is he talking about?
SPEAKER_01: He's talking about what we just read in chapter 6, verse 11 and 13, because what Stephen has talked about here is that he's up against blasphemy against God, blasphemy against Moses, blasphemy against Moses' law, and then blasphemy against the temple.
SPEAKER_01: So that's what he's being accused of here.
SPEAKER_01: And what they're gonna do is they're gonna do a what we call an elham attack.
SPEAKER_01: So they're gonna attack his character, who he is, rather than what he says.
SPEAKER_01: And we're gonna see another young man in this chapter named Saul.
SPEAKER_01: So you got you're gonna have Stephen, young man.
SPEAKER_01: Saul, it says is a young man, separated by the cross.
SPEAKER_01: Just like the thieves on the cross, there's a separation between Saul, who doesn't believe in Jesus yet, and Stephen, who does.
SPEAKER_01: But listen, this is important.
SPEAKER_01: To put this in perspective over the next few weeks as we go through Acts, I think something's going to happen to Saul as he hears this sermon.
SPEAKER_01: Because Saul is an Old Testament scholar.
SPEAKER_01: Now he wouldn't say Old Testament at that time, but he would say he's a biblical scholar.
SPEAKER_01: And he's gonna see this upstart, this deacon, this person nobody's heard of, get in there and stand before the council and stand before probably hundreds of people all around him being willing to give 2,000 years of Israel's history to perfection.
SPEAKER_01: And it's powerful, 2,000 years that he gives.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 2, and he said, Brethren and fathers, that's a lesson right there.
SPEAKER_01: That's a lesson right there to us of respect.
SPEAKER_01: So even men and women, whether it's the political rim, the religious rim, or whatever, honoring people and even respecting people and the way we address them is key, even though we may be worlds apart in what we believe.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, Stephen knows what he's gonna say.
SPEAKER_01: And he opens up to these leaders of Israel, brethren and fathers.
SPEAKER_01: Very, very honorific.
SPEAKER_01: And then he says, listen, the God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia before he dwelt in Haran.
SPEAKER_01: So if you if you would like to, just keep your finger in Acts 7.
SPEAKER_01: Look at Psalm 26.
SPEAKER_01: So in Psalm 26, oh, Psalm 29, Psalm 29 is the only place in scripture where God of glory is used is this passage and in Psalm 29.
SPEAKER_01: And I went there because I feel like it's it's interesting that Stephen's gonna open with the God of glory.
SPEAKER_01: He says, give unto the Lord, oh you mighty ones, give unto the Lord glory and strength.
SPEAKER_01: Give unto the Lord the glory due his name.
SPEAKER_01: Worship the Lord in the beauty of his holiness.
SPEAKER_01: Now remember, he speaks, they would have remembered that.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, he's he's quoting from a Psalm of David, verse 3.
SPEAKER_01: The voice of the Lord is over the waters.
SPEAKER_01: There it is, the God of glory.
SPEAKER_01: The God of glory thunders.
SPEAKER_01: The Lord is over many waters.
SPEAKER_01: This is about what, this is what's gonna happen.
SPEAKER_01: The God of glory is going to thunder through Stephen.
SPEAKER_01: The God of glory is gonna thunder through Stephen.
SPEAKER_01: Listen, church, every time we share faith, the God of glory is there.
SPEAKER_01: May not know, may not say it right, may not get all the perfect verses right, but when your heart is right and you're trying to share your faith with someone, the God of glory is there.
SPEAKER_01: He's thundering through you.
SPEAKER_01: You say, well, it doesn't sound like thunder to me.
SPEAKER_01: Mine's like a little tiny sprinkling like we got yesterday in Colorado.
SPEAKER_01: No, God is thundering through you.
SPEAKER_01: Because He's thundering in your heart.
SPEAKER_01: And you may even be here today and you've never, ever given your heart to Christ.
SPEAKER_01: You may know church, you may know churchianity, you may know Christianity, but if you discovered a personal, vital, dynamic relationship with Christ, I'm thundering to you this morning.
SPEAKER_01: I'm thundering the truth of God's word and the love of Jesus and the sovereignty of the Father and the power of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: Thundering through Stephen here, thundering through anytime we share our faith.
SPEAKER_01: It's the God of glory.
SPEAKER_01: But here's what's amazing about this.
SPEAKER_01: So he starts with the God of glory, but then he closes with the glory of God.
SPEAKER_01: He's gonna close with the glory of God.
SPEAKER_01: So church, whenever we're living for the God of glory, our life will always bring glory to God.
SPEAKER_01: When we're living for the for the God of glory, some of you are taking new jobs, some of you are gonna be in positions of leadership like you've never been before.
SPEAKER_01: But if you're living in that perspective for the God of glory, you're gonna experience the glory of God through what you do.
SPEAKER_01: And Stephen is about to experience that in a most powerful way.
SPEAKER_01: And they said to him, Get out of your country and from your relatives, verse 3, and come to a land that I will show you.
SPEAKER_01: Again, he's starting to, he's he's he's he's he's ramping up the history of Israel.
SPEAKER_01: Then he came out of the land of the Chaldeans, dwelt in Haran, and from there, when his father was dead, he moved him to this land in which you now dwell, verse five, and God gave him no inheritance in it, not even enough to set his foot on.
SPEAKER_01: But even when Abraham had no child, he promised to give it to him for possession and to his descendants after him.
SPEAKER_01: But God spoke in this way that his descendants would dwell in a foreign land, and that they would bring them into bondage and oppress them 400 years.
SPEAKER_01: And the nation to whom they will be in bondage, I will judge, said God, and after that they shall come out and serve me in this place.
SPEAKER_01: Then he gave him the covenant of circumcision, and so Abraham begot Isaac and circumcised him on the eighth day, and Isaac begot Jacob, and Jacob begot the twelve patriarchs.
SPEAKER_01: Now, what he's about to say is getting into the meat of the direction of what he's preaching, and that is Israel's always rejecting God's leaders.
SPEAKER_01: Israel always rejects God's leaders.
SPEAKER_01: Look what he says in verse 9.
SPEAKER_01: And the patriarchs, becoming envious, sold Joseph into Egypt.
SPEAKER_01: But God was with him and delivered him out of all his troubles and gave him favor and wisdom in the presence of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and he made him governor over Egypt and all of his house.
SPEAKER_01: And so he's saying, look, you God called Abraham.
SPEAKER_01: He called forth the patriarchs, the twelve tribes, they're going to become twelve tribes of Israel, and yet they rejected God's anointed.
SPEAKER_01: See where he's going with this?
SPEAKER_01: You have this history with prophets and leaders, the very anointed one that I send to you, you reject.
SPEAKER_01: You reject.
SPEAKER_01: And Joseph's his first example, Joseph, who's going to be key to setting the Jews free in a sense in Egypt, as the one who becomes the benefactor of the blessings through his wisdom as a leader, you reject.
SPEAKER_01: The patriarchs reject.
SPEAKER_01: Well, he's going to continue.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 11.
SPEAKER_01: Now a famine and a great trouble came over all the land of Egypt and Canaan, and our fathers found no sustenance.
SPEAKER_01: But when Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, he sent out our fathers first.
SPEAKER_01: Underlined first.
SPEAKER_01: And the second time, underlined second time, Joseph was made known to his brothers, and Joseph's family became known to the Pharaoh.
SPEAKER_01: Then Joseph sent and called his father Jacob and all his relatives to him, 75 people.
SPEAKER_01: So Jacob went down to Egypt.
SPEAKER_01: He died there, he and our fathers, and they were buried, and they were carried back to Shechem and laid in the tomb that Abraham bought for a sum of money from the sons of Hamar, the father of Shechem.
SPEAKER_01: So he's going through the history of Israel, and it's instructive in verse 12 that the first time, the first time that the brothers come, remember the story, they don't recognize Joseph.
SPEAKER_01: But the second time, Joseph reveals himself and they recognize him.
SPEAKER_01: You see what he's doing?
SPEAKER_01: The first time, you're gonna reject your Messiah.
SPEAKER_01: But there's a second time coming.
SPEAKER_01: There's a second time coming where you will recognize Christ.
SPEAKER_01: But the first time you've rejected him.
SPEAKER_01: The first time they came, they did not recognize Joseph.
SPEAKER_01: See what he's doing?
SPEAKER_01: You reject the leaders, you don't recognize those anointed by God that come.
SPEAKER_01: You didn't even do that with Joseph.
SPEAKER_01: You didn't understand what was going on with Joseph, but the second time you will.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 17.
SPEAKER_01: But when the time of the promise drew near, which God had sworn to Abraham, the people grew and multiplied in Egypt.
SPEAKER_01: Till another king arose who did not know Joseph.
SPEAKER_01: This man dealt treacherously with our people and oppressed our forefathers, making them expose their babies so that they might not live.
SPEAKER_01: So you remember the story with the midwives.
SPEAKER_01: Another Pharaoh comes, doesn't recognize Joseph and what he's done, starts looking out, and these Jews are multiplying.
SPEAKER_01: And they're kind of taking over Egypt.
SPEAKER_01: So he puts down the first final solution, not unlike Adolf Hitler.
SPEAKER_01: As Hitler came after the Jewish nation in Germany, starting in Germany, and then all over that part of Europe began the final solution.
SPEAKER_01: This was the first final solution in the Bible, which was to kill the Jews.
SPEAKER_01: So the midwives were to kill the Jewish babies.
SPEAKER_01: And you remember the story that Moses is protected by his mother, put in the bull rushes.
SPEAKER_01: Along comes Pharaoh's daughter.
SPEAKER_01: She discovers Moses and he lives.
SPEAKER_01: And he's raised in the household of Pharaoh.
SPEAKER_01: So under those conditions, he's saying, look, this is what's happened to us before, where man deals treacherously against our people.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 20.
SPEAKER_01: At this time, this is almost a humorous part of our story.
SPEAKER_01: At this time Moses was born and was well pleasing to God, and he was brought up in his father's house for three months.
SPEAKER_01: So Stephen is a Greek-speaking Jew.
SPEAKER_01: So he reads from the Septuagint.
SPEAKER_01: Septuagint is the Greek translation of the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_01: That's what he reads.
SPEAKER_01: And in that Septuagint, it says that Moses was a beautiful baby.
SPEAKER_01: But who wrote it?
SPEAKER_01: Moses wrote it about himself.
SPEAKER_01: Moses said, I am a beautiful baby.
SPEAKER_01: I want everybody to know that.
SPEAKER_01: I was a beautiful baby.
SPEAKER_01: And so he's quoting, and he says here, and he says, well pleasing to God, he's quoting from, he's using his own words, but he's quoting from the Septuagint, the Greek Bible.
SPEAKER_01: And it's true.
SPEAKER_01: Even Josephus, a great Jewish historian, says that Moses' physique was so stunning that people would just stop and watch him walk by.
SPEAKER_01: But Moses wanted us to know that too.
SPEAKER_01: And so he's brought up again.
SPEAKER_01: But when he was out set out, Pharaoh's daughter took him away and brought him up as her own son.
SPEAKER_01: So remember, Pharaoh's daughter finds Moses in the bulrushes, there in the Nile River, and takes him as her son.
SPEAKER_01: But it's interesting, isn't it, that he is then, she then meets the daughter and says, Who can nurse this baby?
SPEAKER_01: And then Moses is actually raised for the first three to five years, according to how you would look at weaning by his Jewish mother.
SPEAKER_01: So those first three to five years, he's hearing about the things of the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: He's hearing about Yahweh's, he's hearing Israel's history as a youngster.
SPEAKER_01: And then he's adopted into Pharaoh's household.
SPEAKER_01: But look at verse 22.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm interested.
SPEAKER_01: Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in word and deed.
SPEAKER_01: So the story of Moses is interesting.
SPEAKER_01: It's really, if you had a rubric that I would put over it, it's going from self-confidence to God confidence.
SPEAKER_01: How does God raise up a leader?
SPEAKER_01: The most by far, whether you're whether someone comes out of Islam, whether one knows a little bit of the Bible who's coming out of Buddhism, which they usually know less than Islam, as well as Christian different versions of Christianity, Moses is one of the greatest leaders of all time.
SPEAKER_01: And yet he has, you could divide him up into three 40s.
SPEAKER_01: So his first 40 years, he's a prince of Egypt.
SPEAKER_01: That's what we're talking about here.
SPEAKER_01: He's a prince of Egypt.
SPEAKER_01: He's like Pharaoh's son.
SPEAKER_01: Then the next 40 years, he's gonna be on the backside of a desert as a shepherd.
SPEAKER_01: And then the last 40 years of his life, he becomes the leader of Israel, the deliverer who comes.
SPEAKER_01: But this first 40 years is really interesting.
SPEAKER_01: He is, what is it, Spielberg, who had the movie, Prince of Egypt, the animated, it's a great, great movie, Prince of Egypt.
SPEAKER_01: He's a Prince of Egypt.
SPEAKER_01: And Josephus, the historian, writes that tradition tells us that he was a great general, also.
SPEAKER_01: So he was a military leader as well as this kind of adopted son of Pharaoh, and actually led one of the great battles against the Ethiopians and defeated them.
SPEAKER_01: So he's, everybody knows Moses.
SPEAKER_01: And some traditions say that Pharaoh never had a natural son.
SPEAKER_01: And that's why Pharaoh's daughter, Pharaoh's wife, was interested in him becoming a son to Pharaoh, because Pharaoh couldn't have a son.
SPEAKER_01: And so here's the deal, it's interesting.
SPEAKER_01: Many believe that Moses was set up to become the next Pharaoh.
SPEAKER_01: Really interesting, right?
SPEAKER_01: So he's in the best schools.
SPEAKER_01: And so he would have been in the finest institution of Egypt at that time, which is called the Temple of the Sun.
SPEAKER_01: And in the Temple of the Sun, he learned hieroglyphic, hieroglyphics.
SPEAKER_01: He learned the dialects and the traditions of Egypt and all of the Egyptian provinces there.
SPEAKER_01: Think about the math in Egypt that it took to build the pyramids.
SPEAKER_01: And so he was steeped in the early forms of mathematics of that time, probably the best of the time.
SPEAKER_01: And listen to this: they had an herb, we don't know what it was, but there was an herb that cured every disease in that area of the Nile River basin.
SPEAKER_01: So it's an early form of ivermectin.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: Now, Fauci wouldn't want me to say that.
SPEAKER_01: But it was.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you know, it Nobel Prize in Medicine won for the invention of ivermectin because it's such a miracle drug.
SPEAKER_01: And same in Egypt.
SPEAKER_01: So so thousands of years ago, there was actually an herb that could cure any disease at that time.
SPEAKER_01: That's how advanced the culture was.
SPEAKER_01: Well, Moses is a part of that.
SPEAKER_01: Moses is, how would I say it?
SPEAKER_01: He has a probably a Lamborghini 60 motorboat.
SPEAKER_01: He's probably got a Ferrari that has a license plate.
SPEAKER_01: It says Pharaoh number two.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, he's the man.
SPEAKER_01: He can have anything he wants, he can do anything he wants to do.
SPEAKER_01: It's all his.
SPEAKER_01: He's the prince of Egypt.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 23.
SPEAKER_01: Now, when he was 40 years old, it came into his heart to visit his brethren, the children of Israel.
SPEAKER_01: Now, my assumption in reading this is that he had not done that before.
SPEAKER_01: So he knew his roots.
SPEAKER_01: Remember those early days.
SPEAKER_01: And by the way, parents with young children, it's amazing what your kids are picking up on at a very early age.
SPEAKER_01: So somewhere in that weaning before he's weaned process, and who knows, I think he probably could visit his mom from time to time.
SPEAKER_01: They were probably in the same city and so forth.
SPEAKER_01: But he had been steeped.
SPEAKER_01: Yahweh.
SPEAKER_01: You're a child of Yahweh.
SPEAKER_01: And he's remembering that.
SPEAKER_01: And something's happening, something's happening in the heart of Moses.
SPEAKER_01: So he goes to visit the children of Israel.
SPEAKER_01: And seeing one of them suffering wrong, he defended and avenged him who was oppressed and struck down the Egyptian.
SPEAKER_01: Now remember, this is a military leader too.
SPEAKER_01: So Moses, who has led the great armies of Pharaoh in battle, his most famous battle being against the Ethiopians.
SPEAKER_01: He's assuming that by getting involved in this injustice, everybody's going to rally behind him.
SPEAKER_01: For he supposed, verse 25, that his brethren would have understood that God would deliver them by his hand, but they did not understand.
SPEAKER_01: And the next day he appeared to two of them as they were fighting and tried to reconcile them, saying, Men, you are brethren.
SPEAKER_01: Why do you wrong one another?
SPEAKER_01: But he who did his neighbor wrong pushed him away, saying, Who made you a ruler and a judge over us?
SPEAKER_01: Do you want to kill me as you did the Egyptian yesterday?
SPEAKER_01: Then at this saying, Moses fled and became dweller in the land of Midian where he had two sons.
SPEAKER_01: Really interesting.
SPEAKER_01: So Moses felt ready.
SPEAKER_01: Have you ever felt ready for something?
SPEAKER_01: Like you're the man, you're the woman of the hour, you're ready for that job, you're ready for that, and then it goes.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you're ready to go.
SPEAKER_01: You've got your BS, you've got your BA, you got your MA, you got your PhD, whatever it is.
SPEAKER_01: God might be saying, you know, I don't care about any of that.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna give you a BD.
SPEAKER_01: Back of the desert degree.
SPEAKER_01: You know, right when you thought, this is your moment, this is this is my time.
SPEAKER_01: I'm ready.
SPEAKER_01: God, I am a blessing to the kingdom.
SPEAKER_01: I am your man, I am your woman.
SPEAKER_01: And he says, you are not ready.
SPEAKER_01: Because sometimes in leadership, it's not how much you know, it's who you know.
SPEAKER_01: And who you know is with a capital W.
SPEAKER_01: It's knowing God.
SPEAKER_01: So Moses doesn't really know the Lord yet.
SPEAKER_01: Moses is not ready for what God has before him.
SPEAKER_01: And he's gonna have to be broken.
SPEAKER_01: So turn in your Bibles if you keep your finger in act, go to Hebrews 11.
SPEAKER_01: So just go to the right.
SPEAKER_01: If you get to Revelation, you've gone too far, go left.
SPEAKER_01: But just keep moving to the right, near the end of your Bible, you're gonna come to Hebrews 11.
SPEAKER_01: And Hebrews 11 is really interesting because we get an insight into Moses and what was happening in his heart.
SPEAKER_01: That the writer of Hebrews explains to us the very thing that made Moses who he was.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 23, Hebrews 11, 23.
SPEAKER_01: By faith, Moses, when he was born, was hidden three months by his parents because they saw he was a beautiful child.
SPEAKER_01: Moses wrote that about himself.
SPEAKER_01: And they were not afraid of the king's command.
SPEAKER_01: By faith, Moses, when he became of age, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than enjoy the passing pleasure of sin, esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt, for he looked to the reward.
SPEAKER_01: By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king, for he endured as seeing him who is invisible.
SPEAKER_01: So Moses is led by God to try to be a deliverer in his own power, in his fleshly power, in his degrees, and how smart he is, and all the things that he's learned, and the fact that he's the son of Pharaoh's daughter, he's the second in charge.
SPEAKER_01: He is ready, he thinks.
SPEAKER_01: But God's got a spiritual work for him to do.
SPEAKER_01: What about you?
SPEAKER_01: What about you in your life?
SPEAKER_01: Are any of us any of you in the room here at that place where you've tried and you've tried and you've tried, and it just seems like it never quite happens.
SPEAKER_01: There's not that breakthrough.
SPEAKER_01: And you feel like a failure.
SPEAKER_01: It might even be that you're older in life.
SPEAKER_01: God may be allowing that in your life to break you.
SPEAKER_01: To break you.
SPEAKER_01: I've always said don't trust a man or a woman who doesn't walk with a lamp.
SPEAKER_01: And that's a reference to Jacob, wrestling with the angel, because Jacob means supplanter.
SPEAKER_01: So Jacob's one of the patriarchs that he's gonna do it his way.
SPEAKER_01: And he's gonna manipulate and lie and cheat to win, whatever it takes.
SPEAKER_01: And he and this angel of the Lord, and I believe it was pre-incarnate Christ, Christ comes down, meets him, wrestles with him, dislocates his head, and Jacob is forever changed.
SPEAKER_01: And he walks with a lamp from that day forward.
SPEAKER_01: Do you walk with a lamp?
SPEAKER_01: Anybody here walk with a lamp?
SPEAKER_01: It's a good thing.
SPEAKER_01: Not a bad thing, it's a good thing.
SPEAKER_01: It's what we talk about at Whole Heart Advance.
SPEAKER_01: We talk about the walk with a lamp, the refined by fire.
SPEAKER_01: Moses is about to be refined by fire.
SPEAKER_01: He thinks he's ready.
SPEAKER_01: But God says, You're so far from ready.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna send you to a new degree program.
SPEAKER_01: Bachelor of Backside of the Desert, BD degree.
SPEAKER_01: And when 40 years had passed, verse 30, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire in a bush in the wilderness of Mount Sinai.
SPEAKER_01: When Moses saw it, he marveled at the sight, and he drew near to observe, and the voice of the Lord came to him, saying, I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.
SPEAKER_01: Moses trembled, dared not look.
SPEAKER_01: Then the Lord took and said to him, Take your sandals off your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground.
SPEAKER_01: I have surely seen the oppression of my people who are in Egypt.
SPEAKER_01: I have heard their groaning and have come down to deliver them.
SPEAKER_01: And now come, I'm gonna send you back to Egypt.
SPEAKER_01: I still remember my brother.
SPEAKER_01: He was uh three years younger than me.
SPEAKER_01: He's a pastor in Athens, Georgia, started a church there.
SPEAKER_01: Um and we go back and forth all the time, just totally teasing each other.
SPEAKER_01: Um I always know someone's come from his church when I come off the stage and somebody comes up and and grabs my arm, grabs my bicep, and I just go, Oh no, here's another one.
SPEAKER_01: And they go, I just want to let I'm I can tell your muscles are not as big as your brother's.
SPEAKER_01: So that's the thing we that's the way we are.
SPEAKER_01: But anyway, when he was a uh, I think he was a senior at University of Georgia, um, he was debating about what to do with the future.
SPEAKER_01: He wanted to be a pastor, and he was grappling with the idea of seminary.
SPEAKER_01: How many have heard of Leonard Ravenhill?
SPEAKER_01: Anybody heard of Leonard Ravenhill?
SPEAKER_01: So Leonard Ravenhill, for those that are older, was a really well-known revivalist in the uh 60s, 70s, and 80s.
SPEAKER_01: And we, my brother and I used to read all his stuff.
SPEAKER_01: It's one of those books that if you didn't feel completely guilty after every page, then you weren't gonna read it.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, we really wanted to feel guilty all the time.
SPEAKER_01: Because it was like, if you're not praying eight hours a day, you don't love Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: You know, that kind of stuff.
SPEAKER_01: So not everybody was into at Lunar Ravenhill.
SPEAKER_01: But my brother and I were, and he thought one day, wouldn't it be cool to drive out to Waco, Texas, because his place was right next to where Keith Green's last days ministries was, and where David Wilkerson's ministries were all in the same area in Waco.
SPEAKER_01: So they drive out there, have no idea where they're going.
SPEAKER_01: They get into Waco and they go to a phone booth.
SPEAKER_01: Remember there used to be things called phone booths?
SPEAKER_01: So it was a phone booth and it had these pages that were yellow.
SPEAKER_01: They were called yellow pages.
SPEAKER_01: All right?
SPEAKER_01: Anyway, he looks up Leonard Ravenhill, this is a true story.
SPEAKER_01: He looks up Leonard Ravenhill, finds his name.
SPEAKER_01: This guy's a world-famous revivalist, finds his name, calls him.
SPEAKER_01: Leonard Ravenhill answers, and with his English accent, this beautiful English accent that he had, he says, Come on over.
SPEAKER_01: So they come over, and Leonard Raven and his wife meet him there with tea.
SPEAKER_01: And they sit down, and they what ensues is a two or three-hour conversation with one of the great revivalists of the time.
SPEAKER_01: And David asks this question, he says, What would you recommend about a seminary?
SPEAKER_01: I want to be a pastor, I want to bring revival, I want to be used mightily by God.
SPEAKER_01: What kind of seminary would you recommend?
SPEAKER_01: And then he Leonard Ravenhood looks at him with his steely blue eyes and he goes, The seminary of the burning bush.
SPEAKER_01: And then David goes, Where's that?
SPEAKER_01: Have you been to the seminary of the burning bush?
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes God has to take us to a place where we encounter Him in a fresh, new way for the work that He's called us to do in the future.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm not talking about full-time Christian work.
SPEAKER_01: I'm talking about alcohol.
SPEAKER_01: I'm talking about addictions.
SPEAKER_01: I'm talking about your marriage.
SPEAKER_01: I'm talking about being the leader that God wants you to be at your company and at your work, or even as one who's retired.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, this guy's 80 years old.
SPEAKER_01: Moses, 80 years old.
SPEAKER_01: He's on the backside of the desert as a shepherd when for 40 years he's a prince of Egypt.
SPEAKER_01: Talk about defeat.
SPEAKER_01: Talk about a feeling of failure.
SPEAKER_01: And then Jesus comes on the mountain of God at Horeb and He meets him and he refines him and he refires him.
SPEAKER_01: That's what wholehearted dance is in a nutshell.
SPEAKER_01: It's meeting God in the burning bush.
SPEAKER_01: Will you allow God to meet you in the burning bush?
SPEAKER_01: Are you ready to re-fire instead of retire?
SPEAKER_01: Are you ready to be used again mightily by God?
SPEAKER_01: Moses thinks his life is over, and God comes and takes him in, and he's had him for 40 years in the seminary of the burning bush.
SPEAKER_01: Look at verse 35.
SPEAKER_01: So Stephen says it again.
SPEAKER_01: Look, you rejected Joseph.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 35.
SPEAKER_01: This Moses, whom they rejected.
SPEAKER_01: You rejected Moses.
SPEAKER_01: Who made you a ruler and judge is the one God sent to be a ruler and deliverer by the hand of the angel appeared to him in the bush.
SPEAKER_01: He brought them out after he had shown wonders and signs in the land of Egypt and in the Red Sea and in the wilderness for 40 years.
SPEAKER_01: This is that Moses.
SPEAKER_01: Now this is this is incredible how he turns this.
SPEAKER_01: Look at verse 37.
SPEAKER_01: This is the Moses who said to you, The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brethren, whom you shall hear.
SPEAKER_01: See what he's saying?
SPEAKER_01: He said, Moses, who you rejected, Joseph, who you rejected.
SPEAKER_01: Joseph, who you rejected the first time, you accepted the second time, there's an anointed one, a Messiah coming, who you will know the second time.
SPEAKER_01: Moses, who you rejected the first time, is the one who said, Like me, I'm a type of prophetic instrument, anointed by God, like the prophet that's going to come.
SPEAKER_01: He's speaking of the Messiah, Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And so what we see here, men and women, is we see Stephen setting them up to understand that the Messiah, the anointed one, has come.
SPEAKER_01: And church, for us this morning, where are you in your journey with Christ?
SPEAKER_01: His fire, the same God who came in a burning bush, wants to fire you up for him.
SPEAKER_01: Who wants to be on fire for the Lord?
SPEAKER_01: No telling what God has for us in the days ahead.
SPEAKER_01: As we've been through brokenness, we've been through failure, we've been through struggles, we've been through shame.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is the one who comes and he resurrects new life.
SPEAKER_01: I love what the worship team, what Desiree designed.
SPEAKER_01: I feel like I was at Easter.
SPEAKER_01: It felt like a resurrection worship.
SPEAKER_01: That's the story of Moses.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening to the Road Church Podcast.
SPEAKER_00: We pray today's message has empowered you to make a difference in your world.
SPEAKER_00: For more information about The Road Church and to find more content like this, go to theroad.org.
SPEAKER_00: That's theroad.org.