Stephen's Sermon and the Scattering Of The Church

Join Pastor Steve as he dives into Stephen's speech and the scattering of the early church in Acts 7-8. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hello everyone, I'm Dr. Steve Holt. I want to welcome you to the Road Church Podcast. Each week we go into God's Word. We teach chapter by chapter and verse by verse. We are here to build the Kingdom of God revolution through empowering people to change the world. So we pray this will minister to you at your heart level and change your life. We're in the book of Acts, and I thought we were gonna get through Acts 7 last week, but you guys were way too faithful and fired up, and there was so much faith coming. I just camped on Moses a lot. So we're gonna get back to Acts 7. So if you look at Acts 7, it's it's the infamous sermon, the longest sermon in the Bible by Stephen. And Stephen means crowned one. I was named after Stephen. And I grew up hearing stories about Stephen, even though I wasn't in a personal relationship with Christ until I was a freshman at Georgia. But I heard about him, and I and I remember mom saying, Hey, your name means leadership. Your name means ring of fire, it means wreath. It's the same word for wreath in the Olympics. It's the idea of being the crowned one, and it came from Stephen, and Stephen was the crowned one, and he was crowned by Jesus by giving his life as a young man. He's probably a young man in his 20s or 30s. Really, Acts chapter 7 is about two young men. It begins with Stephen and it ends with a man named Saul. And this is the beginning. This is the beginning of something God's doing in Saul. I truly believe that until this moment where he experiences this fantastic, powerful sermon where Stephen covers 2,000 years of Jewish history, I think he is completely committed to destroying this sect called the Way or the Christian church at that time. But I believe this sermon was not even meant for the council, the Sanhedrin. That this sermon was not for the synagogue of the freedmen, which is where it begins in Acts chapter 6. It's really a sermon pointed toward one man. One man who will become the greatest missionary of all time, the apostle Paul. Paul's gonna hear it. And he is a scholar of Jewish history. He is a Pharisee of Pharisees, he says. And so, and so only Stephen, and the type of sermon he's going to, not Peter, mind you, as great as Acts chapter 2 was, Peter, his sermon is so different than what Stephen chooses. What Stephen chooses to do is start from the very beginning with the patriarchs, and he takes us through this sweeping history, longest sermon in the Bible. So we we start in Acts chapter 7, and I just want to make note of a few things. The first thing was in verse 2, I mentioned the God of glory. So he begins with the God of glory, and the God of glory is only mentioned in Psalm 29. Psalm 29, 3. And he's gonna end at the end of his sermon with the glory of God. And as I said last week, I want to emphasize again that when you live for the God of glory in your life, you bring glory to God with your life. And so that's what Stephen does. He begins with the God of glory, and then he's gonna end with the glory of God. Then he begins to talk about this pattern. Because what Stephen is accused of, he's accused by first the synagogue of the freedmen, and then marched, probably bound to the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem for four counts of blasphemy. The first count is blasphemy against God. The second count is blasphemy against Moses. The third is a blasphemy against the law of Moses, and the fourth is a blasphemy against the temple. So this sermon is him taking apart the argument that the Sanhedrin and the and the synagogue have brought to him. So we pick it up, you know, what uh one through around 14, he talks about Joseph. And what he does is he shows there's this pattern, this pattern in Israel, that every time God sends a deliverer, you guys reject him. Every time God sends a deliverer, you reject him. So Joseph was called out in the 12 tribes of Israel as this special son, and from that special son that came forth, he was rejected by his brothers. Remember, he was sold into slavery. So it's interesting because what he says about Joseph is fascinating because he says, the first time he came, you rejected him. So that was as a son, as a part of the family. You rejected him. But the second time, you accepted him. You see what he's doing? He's bridging a gap with the first coming of the Messiah, Jesus, you rejected him, but in his second coming you won't. Then he moves to Moses. So he begins to talk about Moses. And the story of Moses is really, and I think it's a great title that was given in the movie, I don't know, 25 years ago, Prince of Egypt. In the movie, the animated version, Prince of Egypt, it shows Moses as a Prince of Egypt. But we could say that you could sum up the life of Moses as Prince of Egypt to Prince of God. Prince of Egypt to Prince of God. And we talked about how here was a man that grew up in Pharaoh's household, has everything, has everything that money could buy, that fame and prestige could purchase at that time, to such a degree that even historians believe there's a lot of historians that have written that Pharaoh may have not had a biological son, and that Moses was being groomed to be the next Pharaoh. That's how high up he was. I mean, he he had a Ferrari chariot. And he had a license plate, you know, Pharaoh number two. You know, he had a Lamborghini 60 motorboat. I mean, he had it all, right? And in and in the midst of that, something, here's my thesis. My thesis is that when he was found by Pharaoh's daughter and was going to be a part of the household, she said, find a Hebrew, find a Hebrew that can nurse him. Because she was not nursing, she didn't have a child. So, so Pharaoh's daughter, I think, knew that the Hebrews would know who the mother of this child is, and that she was gonna, that the child Moses, the beautiful one that he wrote about himself, he's a beautiful child. Moses wrote that about himself. He was a beautiful child. Okay. I was studying that this morning early in the morning, like Genesis 2, and I was going, I mean Exodus 2, and I was like, yep, here we go again. But anyway, a little ego there. Maybe you've ever written, if you've got a baby book saying, I was a beautiful child. But anyway, he was known as a beautiful child. So he he is nursed by his mother. And it and it and we believe that it was up to that weaning age that he was nursed. And and if you know anything about weaning, some of you do, that you can go from three to five years old with weaning. So that first, those first three to five years, Moses hears about Yahweh. Tradition tells us that mothers in Israel would whisper to their babies as they're nursing, Yahweh. Yahweh, Yahweh. He's hearing, he's hearing about the people of Israel. He's hearing about the promises of God, having no idea, her, the mother, or him, that he would be a deliverer. And so he is rejected because at 40 years old, all those memories, all of that training, I think came back. He intervenes in a situation where two Egyptians are fighting, he kills one of them. It becomes known. He's full of fear, and yet he says the scriptures say in Hebrews 11 that he thought that Israel would want him to be their leader. He was ready, he felt. Look, I've been trained in the temple of the sun. I'm Pharaoh number two. I know hieroglyphics, I know the mathematics of Egypt. I have the best training that the world has to offer. I'm your leader, and he gets rejected. And so he escapes to Midian. And in Midian, he he marries and has a family for 40 years. So you see, he got his PhD, he got his PhD in Egypt, he got his BD in Midian, back of the desert degree. The school of hard knocks. And there's a difference between leadership in the secular sense and leadership in the spiritual sense, because leadership in the secular sense is what you know, your degrees, what you've done, but leadership in the spiritual sense is who you know. And Moses probably didn't really know God yet. So during that time of brokenness, and God always breaks those men and those women that he wants to use mightily, he's broken. And so we pick it up. So let's pick it up then, at starting at verse 35. Verse 35. So Matthew 7, I mean Acts 7, 35. This Moses, whom they rejected. So remember, Joseph rejected. This is the pattern of Israel. You reject the anointed that God sends your way. You rejected Joseph. Now he says, secondly, you reject Moses. This Moses, whom they rejected, saying, Who made you a ruler and a judge is the one God sent to be a ruler and a deliverer by the hand of the angel who appeared to him in the bush. So now he's conjuring up the image of the burning bush. And you notice that Luke, who wrote Acts, capitalizes angel. And when you go and you look back at the passage in Exodus, it's capitalized. So here's what we believe. And this is one of those mysteries of the kingdom. But we believe that this angel was probably the pre-incarnate Christ. Because angels are not deities. Angels are divine beings, but they're not deities. But it's capitalized, and so the writers, the scribes believed that this was actually an encounter with the preincarnate Jesus that Moses had through a consuming fire. That's why it's so perfect. Such a perfect song at the end that Asia chose. Consuming fire. Isn't it interesting? It's a burning fire, but it does not consume the bush. That's the kind of fire you want. That's the kind of fire I desire. That's the kind of fire that moves us from day to day throughout our lives to not settle in to mediocrity. To not settle into mediocrity of a fire that does not consume. A fire that burns but does not consume. How many of you have known men and women in ministry or not necessarily full-time vocational ministry, but they were Christians and they had a consuming fire. It consumed them. It's called burning out. I don't want to burn out. I want to burn on. And the only way that can happen is through the filling of the Holy Spirit and the power of the word. So if you're not regularly filled with the Holy Spirit and in God's word, you could burn out. So Moses has this presence of God come down, and now he's commissioned by God. You see, before he was commissioned by Moses. Now, 40 years later, he's commissioned by God. Some of you in this room are close to 80, or you're over 80. And in American society, you're done, man. You're done. You're just supposed to be retired and play golf for the rest of your life. Or pickleb, I guess pickleball is now maybe the thing that you do. Whoa, applause for pickleball. What if that's not God's plan for you? What if instead of retire, he's saying refire? What if that he's doing what he's done all through church history, taking men and women who are mature enough to handle what God has for them to do as leaders, and a lot of times it's later in life? That's why in Acts it's called elders. They're called elders. So elders, because God esteems age. He does. He's poured so much into you. Will you not let him use you in your later years greater than you've ever been used before? Because you're not as stupid as you were. Maybe leadership's about being less stupid than the other guy. And so Moses, I think, is given up. He figured, okay, this is where I'm going to hang out now. I'm going to be a shepherd in Midian. And then there's this fire. God's presence comes down and he says, Look, I've heard the prayers of Israel, and I'm calling you to lead them and deliver them. Verse 36. 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 40 years. So you could break up Moses' life, 40 years, Egyptian prince. 40 years working on his bachelor of back behind the desert degree, and then 40 years as a leader. Verse 37. This is that Moses. And this is really a turning point in the sermon. This is, you should bracket this, highlight it, whatever you do, underline it. This is that Moses. What in the world is he talking about? This is that Moses who said to the children of Israel, the Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet, capital P, a prophet like me from your brethren, him you shall hear. He's talking about Messiah Jesus. He's turning this thing now. He's saying that Jesus is the prophet that Moses was talking about. This is going to, this is already starting to cut them to the heart because he's making such an incredibly good case for the rejection that Israel has had toward Joseph and Moses. And now Moses, the one you rejected the first time, you accepted the second time, said of himself, there's another one coming greater than I. He'll be a prophet, like me. The pattern now is changing. So Moses is a type of Christ. And look at, I see five similarities. If you're taking notes, write these down. These are really important. Five similarities: Moses and Jesus. They tried to kill Moses as a baby, they tried to kill Jesus as a baby. Number two, Moses left the royal court of Egypt to be a deliverer of the people, and Jesus left the royal court of heaven to be a deliverer of the people. Number three, Moses was rejected the first time, but received the second time, and Jesus was rejected the first time, and he will have to be accepted the second time. He came in a manger, completely humble. He's coming on a white steed carrying a sword, and he comes with victory. Number four, Moses became a shepherd, and Jesus is called the good shepherd. And fifthly, Moses was the mediator of the old covenant, and Jesus is the mediator of a new covenant. So Stephen is now closing in on his argument, and now it gets really. If you thought it was negative up to now, let's read the second half of the sermon because you can you can feel something. Stephen is not fearing man in any way. He is really setting himself up to die. He has no fear, power of God working through him. Here's what he says. This, and listen, as I read this, I want you to think of the United States of America. Because what he says here about Israel is true of America today. This is he who was in the congregation in the wilderness with the angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai and with our fathers. With our fathers, the one who received the living oracles given to us. Verse 39, whom our fathers would not obey but rejected. And in their hearts they turned their back to Egypt. They wanted to go back to Egypt after everything that God had done. After all the signs and the wonders and the miracles. I mean, they were right there. They had front row seats as Moses, you know, turned frogs all over Egypt and turned the Nile into blood and all the signs and wonders that he did. Saw the signs and wonders of the magicians of Egypt consumed by the signs and wonders of Yahweh, God. They saw that. They saw the Red Sea parted, even after that. Think about America, all the miracles with the First Great Awakening and the Second Great Awakening and the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, the Continental Congress, the days of fasting and prayer in our country, the moves of God. We want to go back to Egypt. Saying to Aaron, make us gods. So they they switch and they they want to actually make up a God. Make us gods to go before us. As for this Moses who brought us out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him. So remember this? When Moses goes up to Mount Sinai, he's gone for a while, and they they just turn on Moses just like that. Man, if anything I've learned in leadership all these years, people will betray you. And if you haven't been betrayed yet, you need to get out more often. Because people will betray you. They betray Moses right here. They betray God. Verse 41. They made a calf in those days and offered sacrifices to the idol and rejoiced in the work of their own hands. Sounds like America. Then God turned And gave them up to worship the host of heaven, these demonic spirits in the heavenly realm, these Elohim. As it is written in the book of the prophets, did you offer me slaughtered animals and sacrifices during 40 years in the wilderness, O house of Israel? You also took up the tabernacle of Moloch. He's talking about human sacrifice and specifically the sacrifice of children, abortion, and the star of your God Remphan. That's the worship of the God of Saturn. Images which you made to worship. I was so surprised when I began the dialogue with Laurie Thompson and others related to this Colorado Life Initiative and the petition, that it would fall. This may be the reason why I didn't finish last week, that this to me is the perfect time to share with you what it is. So, you know, in 2024 there was Amendment 79, which the voters voted to put, this is not about the legality or illegality of abortion in general. That's set right now in our state. Every state can decide that. This is about putting abortion in the Constitution and constitutionalizing it with $5 million a year going, your taxpayer money going to abortions. So this is an amendment. This is a not an amendment. It's a petition for an amendment to take it out of the Constitution, like it was always before. And like it is in 90% of all the states, if not all the states except for Colorado in the Union. We need 125,000 signatures. So I want to encourage you to go out and sign that and wait in line if you need to and sign it because we want to get that where we have 125,000 so that it can go on the ballot in the coming election. So that passage, that's about Moloch or Molech, child sacrifice. Israel was a part of that. That time, that's what he's bringing out. Then Laurie and I start talking about the petition because I was up to do the prayer at the Freedom Festival in Castle Rock and saw a table where they were talking about this, and I said I'd see what we could do, and that's why we're doing it. But then, 10 days ago, I get an email. And I'm gonna read you the email and take names out because I think it fits with the Colorado Life Initiative. It starts off with thank you 49 years later. Thank you 49 years later. Hi, Steve. You won't remember me, but I want to share with you the significant impact you had on my life at a time when I was in a valley and looking for answers. In November 1977, my first quarter at the University of Georgia, I was invited to a campus Crusade for Christ meeting by a friend living in Russell Hall. At the meeting that night, we had broken into groups of four to five guys, and you were leading the discussion in my group. The topic was the forgiveness of God. I had just found out that my high school girlfriend was pregnant. I was so overcome with guilt that I blurted out, will he forgive you if you got your girlfriend pregnant? I was looking not only for forgiveness, but also guidance on what to do. And you said, Gerald, no one can tell you what to do. But you keep praying and the answer will come. I took that advice to heart and prayed every day for the next six months. God did indeed give me the answer I so desperately needed and wanted, and I got married. There was no doubt in my mind that it was God leading me because it was going against almost all societal evidence that pointed to the difficulty of getting married at 19 years old with a child and staying married until death does us part. By God's grace, my wife and I celebrated our 48th wedding anniversary on May 19th. The fact that she did not abort our son is a testament to God's sovereignty and incredible mercy, a story for another day. Those early years of marriage were very difficult, but God. We also have a daughter and five grandchildren, and have attached a couple of pictures. So I saw a picture of them. Really a cute family. Isn't that a great story? Isn't that awesome? You never know. You never know what God will do when you trust him. When you choose to go against culture and you choose to go against society, and you say, I'm gonna, I'm gonna believe God. I'm gonna trust him. And and and the way it always is, it's always this way. The easy path and the hard path, the road less traveled, is always harder. But it's so hard. Welcome to life, men and women. Life is easy when you're a part of the world, it just goes. It's so convenient. But following God is not convenient because he wants you to walk by faith. And the walk of faith is tough. But but it's Jesus who said, this is what Jesus said. The enemy comes to steal, kill, and destroy. I came that you might have life and might have it abundantly. The abundant life is always the harder way. And when you follow the harder way, you break in to a new valley and the abundance and grace of God. Our fathers had the tabernacle, verse 44, in the wilderness as he appointed, instructing Moses to make it according to the pattern that he had seen, which our fathers, having received it in turn, also brought with Joshua into the land possessed by the Gentiles, whom God drove out before the face of our fathers until the days of David. So now what he's doing, he's gonna start moving toward this over-veneration of the temple that Israel is fascinated with. Verse 46, who found favor before God and asked to find a dwelling for the God of Jacob. But Solomon built him a house. However, the Most High does not dwell in temples made with hands, as the prophet says, heaven is my throne, earth is my footstool. What house shall you build for me, says the Lord? Or what is the place of my rest? Has my hand not made all these things? God never commanded Israel to build a temple. It was David's idea. He tried to get it passed through God. God said, I'm not gonna do it through you, but he but he allowed Solomon to build the temple, but none of the temples were commanded by God. God commanded the building of the tabernacle. And it's the tabernacle of David that will be restored, not the temple. Now you would think it's a good time to stop. You've probably said enough. Thank you very much. God bless you guys. I'm for Jesus. You're not. I need to get home for supper. No. Now Stephen ramps it up even more. You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart? Who said that? Moses said that. Moses said stiff-necked. Moses said uncircumcised of heart. He's quoting Moses and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit as your fathers did. So do you. Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who foretold the coming of the just one, of whom you now have become the betrayers and murderers. He's calling the 70 elders of the Sanhedrin, the most powerful religious counsel in Israel, in Jerusalem, in the capital, murderers, stiff neck, uncircumcised of heart. This is not very popular to say. You received the law by the directions of angels and have not kept it. Oh man. So he's saying, you rejected Joseph, you rejected Moses, you rejected the law. You think that the temple is where God dwells? He doesn't dwell in a temple made with human hands. When they heard these things, they were cut to the heart and they gnashed at him with their teeth. Where do we hear about the gnashing of teeth? It's hell. But he, being full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing. Standing at the right hand of God. So the throne of God is mentioned 16 times in the New Testament, 13 times, he's seated next to the right hand of the Father. Here he's standing, welcoming the first martyr, Stephen, into heaven. And he sees the glory of God and said, Look, I see the heavens open, and the Son of Man standing, standing at the right hand of God. Jesus stands to honor Stephen. Wow, man. Might it be said that he stands to greet us because of the life we've lived on fire for him. And they cried out with a loud voice, and they stopped their ears and they ran at him with one accord. This is an angry group of folks, very angry. Reminds me of some of the riots a few years ago with BLM and all that stuff that was happening. These are angry people. And they cast him out of the city and they stoned him. So Josephus, the great Jewish historian, says that the way stonings were done in Israel at that time is they they would take, there was a 50-foot wall right outside the gate, and this is Sheep's Gate. They're coming out the sheep's gate. It's called Stephen's, St. Stephen's Gate today by Christians. It's called Sheep's Gate by the Jews. But right there, they would cast them off, and as they went down into all the stones down below, if they didn't die, which Stephen didn't, he hit the rocks, but he stayed alive. Then from the top they would stone him from there. And so it had accumulated a lot of rocks, and he's there dying. They cast him out of this city. They stoned him, and the witnesses laid down their clothes at the feet of the young man named Saul. First introduction of Saul. And they stoned Stephen as he was calling on God and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. Wow. And then he knelt down and cried out with a loud voice, Lord, do not charge them with this sin. And when he had said this, he fell asleep. And here's what's interesting to me about this. That sounds like Jesus. That sounds like how Jesus died. Lord, receive my spirit. It is finished, is what Jesus said. Lord, forgive them, for they know not what they do. Stephen says, Lord, do not charge this with them with this sin. I think Saul had seen the crucifixion of Jesus, and now he's seeing the stoning of Stephen, and he's getting pricked big time. He's just heard the sweeping sermon on the history of 2,000 years of Israel. And he's a Pharisee of Pharisees. He knows this stuff. He's like, whoa, I never saw it that way. And so he's now in a race. It's interesting here. So listen, it says here, now, that Stephen falls asleep. Then he knelt down and he cried out with a loud voice, Lord, do not charge them with this sin. And when he had said this, he fell asleep. And in the New Testament, believers always fall asleep. Doesn't mean there's there's some kind of sleep rest. It means it's like sleep as we're ushered into heaven. So listen, so you have you have Stephen going down, and now we're gonna see Saul arise. And look how he arises. Now Saul was consenting to his death. At that time a great persecution arose against the church, which was at Jerusalem, and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria except the apostles. And devout men carried Stephen to his burial and made great lamentation over him. As for Saul, though, he made havoc of the church, entering every house and dragging off men and women, committing them to prison. Next week we're gonna start. This chapter eight is fascinating as we look at what God's gonna do through signs and wonders. So let's stand. And may I encourage you, you need to be on fire for God. These are dark days. These are really humbling days right now in our culture, in our state, in our city. We need churches on fire for God.

SPEAKER_00 36:43

Thank you for listening to the Road Church Podcast. We pray today's message has empowered you to make a difference in your world. For more information about the Road Church and to find more content like this, go to theroad.org. That's theroad.org.