Faith Church Norwalk
Study the Bible with us
Faith Church Norwalk
Stephen's Speech | Group Bible Study
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Stephen's Speech | Group Bible Study
Series: Acts: The Story Continues...
We are in Acts chapter 7 now. So we're plugging along, making progress through the book of Acts. Finished six last week, obviously. And in chapter six, we know that Stephen had moved from being appointed as one of the seven deacons in the early church to his own ministry of signs and wonders and preaching the gospel, that the synagogue of the freedmen and other Jews were opposing him and arguing with him and debating him, and that they began to make accusations about him, that he had never ceased to preach against Moses and God and against the temple and the law. Okay, and so now what's happened is these men have seized him and brought him before the Jewish leadership, the Sanhedrin. And so he's really standing in the same place where Jesus stood. He's standing in the same place before some of the same people and receiving some of the same accusations as Jesus did. He's standing where the apostles had just recently stood, even as they were arrested and brought before the Sanhedrin. And so he's in a place of stress and pressure, and probably, you know, most of us would be very anxious to be put in that situation. These are the men who betrayed and killed Jesus. And so that's the context that we're moving into in this section. The religious leaders have basically accused him of speaking against Moses and God and the law and the temple. And in chapter 7, what Stephen's going to do in his speech, which is what we're going to try to cover today, is he's going to show them that really they're the ones that have misunderstood their own history. That Stephen's not the one speaking against the law. He's not the one speaking against and rejecting Moses, and he's not the one rejecting the temple or God. And so as he walks through Israel's story, he reveals four important truths. And it's easy to get lost in this section because it just kind of seems like this big, you know, Stephen's just all of a sudden rehearsing Israel's whole history randomly. And it's like, what's the point of this? You know, is he just telling a story? Is he just talking to buy himself time? What's he doing? But in this um sermon that he preaches, which is the longest one in the book of Acts, he is revealing four things. One, God has always been with his people. Two, God's people have repeatedly resisted him. The law, the temple, and the prophets were all pointing to Christ, and the religious leaders are continuing the same rebellion as their fathers always had. So I just put a little note here not to get lost in the details. He's not just retelling Israel's history, he's building an argument. So we're gonna walk through that argument. In the first section, now I don't have every verse of this section here, so don't worry, I've just taken little sections out of it, and we're gonna read through those to give us context. In chapter 7, verse 2, it says, And Stephen said, Brothers and fathers, hear me. The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran, and said to him, Go out from your land and from your kindred and go into the land that I will show you. Then he went out from the land of the Chaldeans and lived in Haran. And after his father died, God removed him from there into this land in which you are now living. Yet he gave him no inheritance in it, not even a foot's length, but promised to give it to him as an as a possession, and to his offspring after him, though he had no child. And God spoke to this effect that his offspring would be sojourners in a land belonging to others, who would enslave them and afflict them four hundred years. But I will judge the nation that they serve, said God, and after that they shall come out and worship me in this place. And he gave him the covenant of circumcision, and so Abraham became the father of Isaac, circumcised him on the eighth day, Isaac became the father of Jacob, and Jacob, the twelve patriarchs. Jacob became the father of the twelve tribes of Israel. Jacob's name was changed to Israel, and so the twelve tribes come from the twelve sons of Israel. So the question I asked first is what was where was Abraham when God first appeared to him? Remember, one of the things they accused him of is he doesn't cease to speak against the temple, this holy place they called it. Where was Abraham when God first appeared to him? Hmm? Where was he? Mesopotamia. He was in a pagan land that worshipped pagan gods, and God appeared to him there. Why do you think Stephen begins Israel's story in Mesopotamia rather than in Jerusalem? Or Abraham, right. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01That's okay, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Right. And what's what's the point that the Sanhedrin or the accusers of Stephen were making in regards to you know, how does that relate to, you know, so that they're basically saying he's speaking against this holy but God's dwelling place, you know, the temple, he keeps speaking against it.
SPEAKER_01They considered themselves privileged because they were sons of Abraham. They could trace their identity from Abraham.
unknownThat's why we call him Father Abraham.
SPEAKER_00Right, right. So they're the biological descendants of Abraham. But when God appeared to him, Abraham was not in the promised land, was he?
SPEAKER_01And at this time that's probably why Stephen started there.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, he started, yeah, from Abraham. He started from Abraham, but he could have started from Abraham in the promised land already. You know, he's in the promised land, he didn't get any inheritance in it, but he was there. And it was there, the promised land, that God appeared to him. But God didn't appear to him first there. He appeared to him in Ur the Chaldeans. And then Abraham moved to Haran until his father died. And then God appeared to him in Haran and said, Go out from here. And he went to the land of Canaan, and then God appeared to him in Canaan, right? So Stephen intentionally begins with Abraham in Mesopotamia. God didn't wait until Abraham entered the promised land before revealing himself. The God of glory appeared to Abraham while he was still living in a foreign land. Let's go to verse 9. And remember, Stephen's building a case, so we're following that line of thought. And the patriarchs, jealous of Joseph, sold him into Egypt, but God was with him and rescued him out of all of his afflictions, and gave him favor and wisdom before Pharaoh, king of Egypt, who made him ruler over Egypt and over all his household. Now there came a famine throughout all Egypt and Canaan, and great affliction, and our fathers could find no food. But when Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, he sent out our fathers on their first visit. And on the second visit, Joseph made himself known to his brothers, and Joseph's family became known to Pharaoh, and Joseph sent and summoned Jacob his father, and all of his kindred, seventy-five persons in all. And Jacob went out down into Egypt and he died. He and our fathers, and they were carried back to Shechem and laid in the tomb that Abraham had bought for a sum of silver from the sons of Hamor in Shechem. Where does it say Joseph was when God was with him? He was in Egypt. And so Joseph was not in the promised land. Hello, thank you for joining us. He was not in the promised land either, was he? He had left Canaan because his brothers, he had a dream about his brothers and his father and mother bowing down to him. And his brothers were jealous of him because his father favored him. And so they betrayed him and rejected his dream that God gave him. And they sold him into slavery and betrayed him. And he was down in Potiphar's house. And where else was he in Egypt? What places did he visit while he was there?
unknownPrison.
SPEAKER_00Prison! Prison! Yeah. So he's in a prison cell, wasting away, not knowing if he's ever gonna get out, thinking this just might be his fate. But God was with him at Potiphar's house, with the slave traders, in the prison cell, in Pharaoh's court. Okay? Stephen says God was with Joseph in Egypt, far from Jerusalem, far from the promised land. God was still with him. Verse 30. Now, when forty years had passed, an angel appeared to him in the wilderness of Mount Sinai. Talking about Moses, in a flame of fire in a bush. When Moses saw it, he was amazed at the sight, and as he drew near to look, there came a voice, the voice of the Lord, I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob. And Moses trembled and did not dare to look. Then the Lord said to him, Take off the sandals from your feet, for the place where you're standing is holy ground. I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and have heard their groaning, and I have come down to deliver them. And now Hi.
unknownI'm sorry, I'm late because I saw out of the house this morning.
SPEAKER_00That's okay. We should get her a copy over there. He says, I have seen the affliction of my people and have heard their groaning, and I have come down to deliver them, and now come and I will send you to Egypt. Okay. So where did he appear to Moses? It didn't say the actual land he was in in this particular part of the passage, but where Moses was, he was in Midian. Yeah, he was in Midian. He had run away after striking down the Egyptian that was abusing a couple of the Hebrew slaves. He had run away when he thought he'd been discovered and they rejected him. And so he went to Midian and he married and had two sons in Midian. And it was while he was in Midian that God appeared to him. And then while he was herding sheep in Midian, God appeared to him in the fire in the burning bush. And then what did God say to him? Take off the sandals from your feet, for the place where you were standing is what?
SPEAKER_01Holy ground.
SPEAKER_00Holy ground. What made the ground holy? God's presence was there. So the ground became, the ground wasn't holy in and of itself. The place wasn't holy. It became holy because why? God's presence made the ground holy. And so Stephen is building a point. He's building an argument here. God appeared to Abraham in Mesopotamia. He was with Joseph while he was in Egypt. He appeared to Moses in Midian. And then God met Israel in the wilderness. He was on Mount Sinai. So remember when he was on Mount Sinai, he told Moses to tell the people don't come near the mountain. Don't let anyone come near it or touch it lest they die. Don't even let the animals come near it to touch it lest they die. Because Mount Sinai was holy because the glory of God had descended down upon the mountain. Now, if Mount Sinai still exists, if we go and hike up the top of Mount Sinai right now, is Mount Sinai holy? Why?
SPEAKER_01God's presence is holy all over the world.
SPEAKER_00Not just in one day. God's presence. But that's always been true, right? That's always been true. And if it was just this fact that God is omnipresent, then everything would always be holy all the time. But God specifically manifests his presence in circumstances, like the burning bush that wasn't holy. But then when God manifests his presence in the fire of the bush, all of a sudden the ground around the bush becomes holy. When he descends upon the mountain, the Shekinah glory descends upon the mountain, the cloud covers the mountain, and they hear the voice of God like thunder coming from the cloud. Sinai was holy. But then God's presence departs, and the ground ceases to be holy because God's no longer there. Verse 23 says, When he was 40 years old, Moses came into his heart to visit his brothers. So this is backtracking a little bit on Moses' story. The children of Israel, and seeing one of them being wronged, he defended the oppressed man and avenged him for striking down the Egyptian. He supposed that his brothers would understand that God was giving them salvation by his hand, but they didn't understand. And on the following day he appeared to them as they were quarreling and tried to reconcile them, saying, Men, you are brothers. Why do you wrong each other? But the man who was wronging his neighbors thrust him aside, saying, Who made you a ruler and a judge over us? Do you want to kill me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday? At this retort, Moses fled and became an exile in the land of Midian. So in Moses' first encounter, morning or good evening to you, Lan, you're in Germany. Thanks for joining. In Moses's first encounter with the children of Israel, how did they initially respond to him? They rejected him. God did. God did. And he's showing them. God never dwelt in temples. God never dwelt in a little tiny room, you know, that you accuse me of rejecting Moses, and yet it is our fathers who have rejected Moses from the very beginning. Verse 35, this Moses, whom they rejected, saying, Who made you a ruler and a judge? This man God sent as both ruler and redeemer by the hand of the angel who appeared to him in the bush. This man led them out performing wonders and signs in Egypt and at the Red Sea and in the wilderness for forty years. What did God do after Moses had been rejected? What did he do when he appeared to Moses in the bush? What did he say to him? What did he tell him to do? Remember that story? Go back. Yeah, before Pharaoh, though, he told him to go back and talk to his people, right? And the first thing he did was send them back to his people. It says he sent him as a ruler and a redeemer. And then he led them out, performing wonders and signs in Egypt and at the Red Sea. So he gave him, remember when he would put his hand in his cloak and he'd pull it out and it'd be leprous, and then he'd put it back in and he'd pull it out and it would be clean. He would throw down his rod and it would become a serpent, and he'd take it up again, and it would become a staff again. So he gave them these signs and wonders, and these were the first ones, and then not to mention the rest of them that happened against Pharaoh, and then the crossing of the Red Sea, and the water from the rock, and the bitter waters of Mara becoming sweet, you know, and the manna from heaven and the doves coming, and just on and on and on, that God was performing signs and wonders through Moses, publicly confirming Moses as his chosen deliverer. So why, and you should know this one already, why does Stephen repeatedly remind them that Moses was rejected before God vindicated him? You can look at the discussion thought right below because that kind of gives you some answers there. Right? To recognize the way that God does things. That He sends, you know, a messenger, He sends a deliverer, He sends a judge, He sends a prophet, He sends a Messiah. And He confirms their bears witness to their ministry and the fact that they are from Him by miraculous signs and wonders. And so He's preparing them, like you said, to see that same thing that in Jesus Himself. So in verse 37, this is the Moses who said to the Israelites, God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your brothers. This is the one who was in the congregation in the wilderness with the angel who spoke to him at Mount Sinai and with our fathers. He received living oracles to give us. Our fathers refused to obey him, but thrust him aside in their hearts. They turned to Egypt, saying to Aaron, Make for us gods who will go before us. As for this Moses who led us out from the land of Egypt, we don't know what has become of him. And they made a calf in those days and offered a sacrifice to the idol, and were rejoicing in the worship of their hand, or the works of their hands. But God turned away and gave them over to worship the host of heaven, as it is written in the prophets. Did you bring to me slain beasts and sacrifices during the forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel? You took up the tent of Moloch and the star of your God Rephan, the images that you made to worship, and I will send you into exile beyond Babylon. So in this paragraph, Stephen's encapsulating all the idolatry of Israel. You remember that scene, and we talked about that, you know, maybe a month or two ago, when Moses is up on the mountain in the cloud of glory, receiving the tablets of stone, inscribed by the finger of God with the Ten Commandments, and he's there for 40 days and 40 nights. And they go, you know, go to Aaron and they say, We don't know what happened to Moses, this guy that led us out of Egypt. You make us a God who will go before us. And they gave him all their earrings, and he formed a golden calf, and they're dancing around it and sacrificing to it and saying, This is our gods, O Israel, these are our gods. And so while Moses is still receiving the law, they're already going after idols, already rejecting the law, already rejecting the lawgiver. And so this is the people who had seen what? The plagues on Egypt, the partying, they'd walked through the Red Sea on dry ground. They had followed a pillar of cloud by day that protected them from the scorching sun, and a pillar of fire by night that protected them and kept them warm. They had heard the voice of God coming from the mountain, and then begged Moses not to let God talk to them anymore lest they die. And immediately turned to an idol. So Stephen's showing them the pattern of God's people, of Israel. It was very, very, very rare moments in Israel's history that they were ever faithful to God. The pattern was that God sends deliverers, he sends prophets, God calls his people back to himself, he shows mercy by doing that. He should have just let them, you know, he should just let us. When we turn to idolatry, he's just let us go. Let us go into it, let us receive the consequences of it. And yet he's merciful and he sends people to warn us, he sends people to turn us back, he sent prophets to his people. So why do you think Stephen? So about two-thirds of this speech is about Moses. Why do you think Stephen spent so much time on Moses? Yeah. Right. Right. If you think about the situation Stephen's in in this moment when he's giving this speech as a courtroom, as a case against him, Stephen's directly answering the accusations. They're bringing him, this guy is contradicting Moses, he's contradicting the law, he's contradicting the temple, he's contradicting God himself. Verse 37, this is the Moses who said to the Israelites, God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers. Who was Moses talking about? Who's the prophet like Moses that God was going to raise up from among the Israelites? Yeah. It was Jesus. He's talking about Jesus. This is a particular thing, I won't get too much into it, but I made a video about a verse, you know, in John that talks about this when John the Baptist is baptizing and the religious leaders go to him, like, are you the Messiah? No. Are you, you know, are you Elijah? No. Are you the prophet? And he says, No. And so the question was, who's the prophet? Who's he talking about? Well, Muslims say it's Muhammad. But what makes this prophet, there were other prophets that came out, you know, raised up from the Israelites after Moses. What makes none of them the one he was talking about? Like, what's the difference with Moses and this prophet that he's describing? And it's that through Moses, God wasn't just operating in Moses like a normal prophet. God also, through Moses, arbitrated a covenant. So he established a covenant through Moses with his people. And when he brought Jesus, the prophet like Moses from among his brothers, Jesus also was the arbiter of a new covenant. The new covenant that is by grace and not by works. Well, it's by works, it's by Jesus' works. But for us, it's grace. Through grace by faith. And so Moses himself was a type and a foreshadowing that pointed to who? Yeah. Yeah. And so Moses and the law and the temple were never the final destination, right? There was always the promise. They always knew they're still waiting for their Messiah that already came in the first century, right now. What the law and the and in even Paul talks about this, the law was a schoolmaster to lead us to Christ. It was supposed to be a caretaker until we received the fulfillment of the promise, right? Until God finally dealt with our sin once and for all. In verse 44, our fathers had the tent of witness in the wilderness, just as he spoke to Moses, directed him to make according to the pattern that Moses had seen. Our fathers in turn brought it in with Joshua when they dispossessed the nations that God drove out before our fathers. And so it was until the days of David who found favor in the sight of God and asked to find a dwelling place for the God of Jacob. But it was Solomon who built a house for him. Yet the Most High does not dwell in houses made by hands. As the prophet, and this is Isaiah, says, Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. What kind of house will you build for me, says the Lord? What is the place of my rest? Did not my hand make all of these things? What was the purpose of the tabernacle in the wilderness? So yeah, to show God's presence, okay? Yeah. Anything any other ways of looking at it as well? What did God do to the bush in order to make the ground holy around the bush? What was it that made the bush holy? The presence. The manifest presence of God, right? And so the desire of God hasn't changed since the garden. Adam walked with God in the garden in the cool of the day. God's heart and desire has always been to dwell with his people. And so the tabernacle was a place where the presence of God could specially manifest amongst his people, where God could dwell with his people. And the tabernacle was a portable version of the temple. But the tabernacle was always pointing towards something beyond itself. Okay? So Stephen's not attacking the temple. He's correcting a misunderstanding about the temple. The temple pointed beyond itself to God's presence. Where does God's presence, what did the temple point to? You tell me. What did the temple point to? Okay. What happened in the temple? What issues did God deal with in the temple? What problems did God solve temporarily through the temple? Like what were the activities that happened there? Sacrifice, what did that accomplish? Yes. And so in the temple, at the altar, the sins of the people were atoned for. Why? What a ten what is what do our sins separate us from? God. And so how can the people of God approach God unless our sin is first dealt with? So that the temple was the place where the blood of the sacrifice was shed and sprinkled upon the altar. The incense, the table of incense represented the prayers of the people, and as the incense, the smoke from the incense rose up, it was like the picture of the prayers of the people rising up and ascending before the throne of God. In the temple, there was the priests who would intercede for the people with God. So there's these things that are happening in the temple, and it all has to do with reconciliation, relationship with God, the ability to approach God, okay, as sinful people being reconciled to Him. And what that was made to point toward was Jesus. Because where do we go now if we want to be reconciled to God?
unknownThrough Jesus.
SPEAKER_00Through Jesus. If we want our prayers to ascend before the throne of God, whose name do we pray in? Jesus. Who's the one who is our advocate? Whoever lives to make intercession for us? Jesus. And so the temple was never a means in itself. It was never an end in itself. The temple always pointed forward to something else. Verse 51. Now Stephen takes the conversation from talking about other people and turns a mirror onto these people who are standing in front of them. Okay? He says, You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart 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 announced beforehand the coming of the righteous one, whom you have now betrayed and murdered, you who received the law as delivered by angels and did not keep it. What change did you notice in Stephen's tone? Righteous anger, huh? Of all the people that God sent to his people to warn them, which group, which office does he most resemble when he's speaking right here? There were priests, there were judges, there were prophets. Who does he sound like right here? A prophet. This is an indictment. This is God's indictment of them. You stiff-necked people. Now that's straight out of the prophets. Moses himself said this. God himself said this to Moses. I have looked and I have seen that this is a stiff-necked people. What does stiff-necked mean?
SPEAKER_01Strong words, strong. Stubborn? Stubborn.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, stubborn is another, it's like, you know, it's a synonym, right? So stiff-necked is supposed to picture like an ox that won't let you put the yoke on it. It's like hold this neck up, it's resisting you, and it's not letting you put the yoke on it. It's a people whose neck is stiff and it won't bow, it won't acquiesce, it won't submit. Uncircumcised in heart and ears. These were the Sanhedrin, these were the religious elite. So they were circumcised in their flesh, which means that they were part of the covenant people of God. And so outwardly they were submitted to God's law. Outwardly they were part of the visible people of God. But his indictment against them is in your hearts and in your ears you were uncircumcised. You might as well be Gentiles. Your heart's hard. It won't soften up. You won't listen. You won't accept. You won't hear. You won't turn. You won't change. You're obstinate. Your ears are deaf. They won't receive anything. You don't you listen, but you don't hear. You can't hear anything. It's like it goes in one ear and right out the other. Why does Stephen say you always resist the Holy Spirit simply rather than simply just saying you rejected Jesus? Yeah. And the whole time he's been speaking, no one has objected, right? He's gone through this whole gigantic long speech, you know? And they're probably like, oh, we know this already. We're the Sanhedrin. We know this. Why are you repeating this stuff? And they didn't object to the fact that their fathers had rejected Moses. They didn't object to the fact that their fathers had rejected the law, that they had turned to idols. They agreed with all of that, but then he turns it on them and he says, You always, he's talking, lumping them in with their fathers. You always resist the Holy Spirit. And he's identifying the pattern that stretches all throughout Israel's history. And so he isn't only saying they rejected Jesus, he's saying that they and their fathers have been resisting God from the very, very beginning. So the same spirit that called Abraham and rescued Joseph from the prison and commissioned Moses to ministry and appeared to him in the burning bush and sent the prophets and sent his own son is the same spirit that they continue resisting now. Matthew 21, there's a parable Jesus tells. And it's about this vineyard, and it's talking talking about Israel. He's saying God planted a vineyard and he put tenants over it. Okay, and those are the religious leaders. He's saying he left them and he sent some of his servants to get some fruit, but they beat them and they cast them out. He sent more and they killed them. He sent more and they beat them too. And finally he sent him his own son. And he thought, surely they'll respect my son. But what'd they do? They killed him too. And it was Jesus before they had even killed him. He's giving them this indictment that you're just like your fathers, and you're going to do the same thing your fathers have always done from the beginning. And that's what Stephen's saying. That the fact that you killed Jesus is not an isolated act, it's your pattern. He says, the fathers have rejected Moses and Joseph and the prophets, and now you've rejected the righteous one, the Messiah, the one to whom Moses and the law and the temples and the prophets all pointed. And so the conclusion is this Stephen's listeners believed they were defending God, but in reality, they were actually the ones that were resisting him. And the thought is sometimes the greatest danger is not open rebellion. Sometimes it is becoming so attached to our traditions and our assumptions and our preferences and our expectations that we fail to recognize what God is doing right in front of us. These questions for reflection, you can go through these later yourself. But it's good to just stop and ask ourselves questions once in a while. And um Jordan Peterson is somebody that I've heard speak a couple times, and one thing he said something that was, one time he said something that was I thought was really good advice. He said, it's a good idea once in a while to stop and ask ourselves, am I actually right? Is what I believe actually true? Final thought. Stephen's speech is not ultimately about Abraham, Joseph, Moses, or even the temple. It's about Jesus. Everything in Israel's history was moving toward him. The tragedy of Stephen's accusers was not that they loved the law, the temple, or the traditions of the fathers, the tragedy is that when the one to whom all those things pointed finally arrived, they rejected and killed him. Let's pray. Lord, we love you and we thank you for your word. We thank you that it goes deep in our hearts, that it doesn't return void and it accomplishes the purpose for which you've sent it. And so we receive it today. We thank you. I pray that you would change me and shape me and help us all to become more like Jesus. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen. Thanks for joining us online, guys. We love you guys. We'll see you on Sunday.