Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript – Acts 6:8-7:60

The sermon text today is found in Acts chapter 6:8 through the end of chapter 7 and records the first martyr of the Christian church, Steven, who is part of that heavenly band that sings God’s praises that we just sung of. Please stand as we read the sermon text for the day, and it is a long text, but try to remain attentive to the scriptures.

Acts chapter 6 beginning at verse 8 and going through chapter 7:

“And Steven, full of faith and power, did great wonders and miracles among the people. Then there arose certain of the synagogue, which is called the synagogue of the libertines and Cyrenians and Alexandrians and them of Cilicia and of Asia, disputing with Steven. And they were not able to resist the wisdom and the spirit by which he spake. Then they suborned men which said, ‘We have heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses and against God.’ And they stirred up the people and the elders and the scribes and came upon him and caught him and brought him to the council.

“And set up false witnesses which said, ‘This man ceaseth not to speak blasphemous words against this holy place and the law. For we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth shall destroy this place and shall change the customs which Moses delivered us.’ And all that sat in the council, looking steadfastly on him, saw his face as it had been the face of an angel. Then said the high priest, ‘Are these things so?’ And he said, ‘Men, brethren, and fathers, hearken: The God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia before he dwelt in Canaan and said unto him, Get thee out of thy country and from thy kindred, and come into the land which I shall show thee.’

“And then came he out of the land of the Chaldeans and dwelt in Canaan, and from thence, when his father was dead, he removed him into the land wherein ye now dwell. And he gave him none inheritance in it, no, not so much as to set his foot on. Yet he promised that he would give to him for a possession, and to his seed after him, when as yet he had no child. And God spake on this wise, that his seed should sojourn in a strange land, and that they should bring them into bondage and entreat them evil 400 years, and the nation to whom they shall be in bondage will I judge, said God.

“And after that shall they come forth and serve me in this place. And he gave him the covenant of circumcision. And so Abraham begat Isaac, and circumcised him the eighth day, and Isaac begat Jacob, and Jacob begat the twelve patriarchs. And the patriarchs, moved with envy, sold Joseph into Egypt. But God was with him, and delivered him out of all his afflictions, and gave him favor and wisdom in the sight of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and he made him governor over Egypt and all his house.

“Now there came a dearth over all the land of Egypt and Canaan, and great affliction, and our fathers found no sustenance. But when Jacob heard that there was corn in Egypt, he sent out our fathers first. And at the second time Joseph was made known to his brethren, and Joseph’s kindred was made known unto Pharaoh. Then sent Joseph and called his father Jacob to him, and all his kindred, threescore and fifteen souls.

“So Jacob went down into Egypt, and died, he and our fathers, and were carried over into Shechem, and laid in the sepulcher that Abraham bought for a sum of money of the sons of Hamor, the father of Shechem. But when the time of the promise drew nigh, when God had sworn to Abraham, the people grew and multiplied in Egypt till another king arose, which knew not Joseph, the same dealt subtly with our kindred and evil entreated our fathers, that they cast out their young children to the end they might not live.

“In which time Moses was born, and was exceeding fair, and nourished up in his father’s house three months. And when he was cast out, Pharaoh’s daughter took him up and nourished him for her own son. And Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was mighty in words and in deeds. And when he was full forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brethren, the children of Israel. And seeing one of them suffer wrong, he defended him and avenged him that was oppressed and smote the Egyptian.

“For he supposed his brethren would have understood how that God by his hand would deliver them, but they understood not. And the next day he showed himself unto them as they strove, and would have set them at one again, saying, ‘Sirs, ye are brethren; why do ye wrong one to another?’ But he that did his neighbor wrong thrust him away, saying, ‘Who made thee a ruler and a judge over us? Wilt thou kill me as thou didest the Egyptian yesterday?’

“Then fled Moses at this, saying, and was estranged in the land of Midian, where he begat two sons. And when forty years were expired, then appeared to him in the wilderness of Mount Sinai an angel of the Lord in a flame of fire in a bush. When Moses saw it, he wondered at the sight. And as he drew near to behold it, the voice of the Lord came unto him, saying, ‘I am the God of thy fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’

“Then Moses trembled and durst not behold. Then said the Lord to him, ‘Put off thy shoes from thy feet, for the place where thou standest is holy ground. I have seen, I have seen the affliction of my people, which is in Egypt, and I have heard their groaning, and am come down to deliver them. And now come, I will send thee into Egypt.’ This Moses whom they refused, saying, ‘Who made thee a ruler and a judge?’ The same did God send to be a ruler and a deliverer by the hand of the angel which appeared to him in the bush.

“He brought them out after that he had showed wonders and signs in the land of Egypt and in the Red Sea and in the wilderness forty years. This is that Moses, which said unto the children of Israel, ‘A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me. Him shall ye hear.’ This is he that was in the church in the wilderness with the angels, which spake to him in the mount Sinai and with our fathers who received the holy lively oracles to give unto us to whom our fathers would not obey, but thrust him from them, and in their hearts turned back again into Egypt, saying unto Aaron, ‘Make us gods to go before us, for as for this Moses which brought us out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him,’ and they made a calf in those days and offered sacrifice unto the idol and rejoiced in the works of their own hands.

“Then God turned and gave him up to worship the host of heaven, as it is written in the book of the prophets: ‘O ye house of Israel, have ye offered to me slain beasts and sacrifices by the space of forty years in the wilderness? Yea, ye took up the tabernacle of Moloch and the star of your god Remphan, figures which ye made to worship them, and I will carry you away beyond Babylon.’ Our fathers had the tabernacle of witness in the wilderness, as he had appointed, speaking unto Moses that he should make it according to the fashion he had seen.

“Which also our fathers that came after brought in with Jesus into the possession of the Gentiles, whom God drove out before the face of our fathers under the days of David, who found favor before God and desired to find a tabernacle for the God of Jacob. But Solomon built him a house. Howbeit, the Most High dwelleth not in temples made with hands, as saith the prophet, ‘Heaven is my throne, and earth is my footstool. What house will ye build me, saith the Lord, and what is the place of my rest? Hath not my hand made all these things?’

“Ye stiff-necked and uncircumcised in hearts and ears. Ye do always resist the Holy Ghost. As your fathers did, so do ye. Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? And they have slain them which showed before of the coming of the Just One, of whom ye have been now the betrayers and murderers, who have received the law by the disposition of angels and have not kept it.

“When they heard these things, they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed on him with their teeth. But he, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up stedfastly into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing on the right hand of God, and said, ‘Behold, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing in the right hand of God.’ And they cried out with a loud voice and stopped their ears and ran upon him with one accord and cast him out of the city and stoned him.

“And the witnesses laid down their clothes at a young man’s feet, whose name was Saul. And they stoned Steven calling upon God and saying, ‘Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.’ And he kneeled down and cried with a loud voice, ‘Lord, lay not this sin to their charge.’ And when he had said this, he fell asleep.”

We thank God for his word and pray that he might illuminate to our understanding. Please be seated.

Big job ahead of us today. A lot of verses. I don’t know. I’m getting kind of erratic, you know. Five weeks we spent in the first seven verses of chapter 6. Now we’re going to do I don’t know sixty, seventy verses in one week, Lord willing. Well, let’s try to get through it. And the idea originally was to try to go through the book quickly and to catch the flow of what’s happening here. We have one story, if you want to look at it that way, here in the life of the church that comprises these number of verses we’ve just read.

There’s one incident recorded for us providentially by Luke. And so we want to deal with it as one incident and try to catch the flow of what’s being said and what’s happening here.

It is in the providence of God a good timing as usual. We approach the celebration of Reformation Day, which is also celebrated by Episcopalian and liturgical churches as All Saints’ Day, November 1st, and then All Saints’ Eve, October 31st. And we have here in the record that we just read the record of the first martyr of the Christian church, Steven. All Saints’ Day is remembered those departed in the faith, also particularly those who have been martyred for the faith. And so our focus this week and even continuing on to next week is the idea of death and resurrection. And we’ll deal today with the martyrdom of Steven.

What I want to do is just hopefully you can get a sense of the flow of this text. The outline I’ve provided: We have first Steven’s works recorded for us and a couple of verses there. And then in response to those works, we have a false charge of blasphemy against Steven, leading into the beginning of chapter 7. And then Steven’s defense against that charge of blasphemy, and then Steven goes on the offensive. The last few verses of his supposed defense is really not simply a defense. It is a ringing indictment of those who would charge him. He really countercharges them, being inspired by the Holy Spirit to do so. And then we have Steven’s murder. It can be called nothing less than murder as will be evident from the text. And then we want to draw some applications from the text—both some warnings to us as well as some comforts for us.

So that’s what we’ll try to do and we’ll try to get through all this material in the time provided, and be timely about it, and yet also try to deal with the major elements of the text in front of us.

## Steven’s Works

The first couple of verses in chapter 6—verses 8-10—record Steven’s works, and I think it’s important here to point out that there are two different kinds of works presented in this text. We have Steven, full of faith and power, who did great wonders and miracles amongst the people in verse 8. In response to these wonders and miracles, we have now the third cycle of persecution. Remember, we’ve had several persecutions up to now. And this is the third cycle of persecution—increasing persecution as an increasing demonstration of the grace of God and the victory of God in the preaching of the gospel of Christ.

And there arose in verse 9 certain of the synagogue, which is called the synagogue of the libertines and Cyrenians and Alexandrians, etc. The synagogue of the libertines—it’s not exactly sure what’s meant there. It’s thought that these were free men who were slaves in Rome, had been captured and enslaved by Rome, who were Jews. And then these men were released. In any event, these seem to be primarily in this verse Hellenistic Jews who are stirring up the people and will eventually turn Steven over to the council to be tried for blasphemy.

It has been said by some that we may have here a reaction on the part of the Hellenistic Jews to the successful preaching of the gospel by a Hellenistic Jew, Steven. Remember, we talked about how we’re in terms of the overall context of this book of Acts. Now we’ve come out of the evangelization of Jerusalem and beginning to move into the evangelization of Judea, to move now into the evangelization of Samaria and the uttermost parts of the earth. And after Steven, we’ll see Philip going into Samaria. And after that we’ll see Paul come along, who’s first mentioned in this text as Saul, who was present at the first martyrdom. We’ll see Paul then take the gospel of course into all the world to the Gentiles. So we have a transition here: we have Hebrew-speaking Jews originally converted, then have Hellenistic Jews converted, and then we finally have the Greeks themselves—non-Jews, that is—converted through the work beginning with Philip but primarily in the work of Saul or Paul. And Steven kind of points to the ministry of Paul.

There are correlations here that one can see in the text. So in any event, that’s the transition that’s going on here, and it’s important to notice that.

But verse 10 tells us that they—that is, these synagogue of the libertines, the Hellenistic Jews, etc., who had resisted Christ—they were not able to resist the wisdom and the spirit by which he, that is Steven, spoke.

Steven’s power is demonstrated both in signs and miracles, wonders in the first verse—offensive works, you can look at it that way. He preaches the gospel. He heals people probably. We don’t know exactly the specific signs, wonders, and miracles that he did, but they were successful in terms of evangelizing the people. But Steven also is empowered and inspired by the Holy Spirit for a second purpose, and that is to have an effective apology for the faith. In verse 10, he successfully resists—rather, they cannot resist—the wisdom and the spirit, that is the Holy Spirit, who is filling Steven, who enables him to do this stuff, by which he speaks.

Steven—remember, we talked the last four or five weeks—the context for the ordination of the seven, of whom Steven is one. The context is warfare. There’s a correlation here to the work of God through Joshua and the group of God through the greater Joshua, Jesus, that will move throughout the whole earth claiming all the earth as his footstool. And so the context is one of warfare, albeit spiritual warfare as opposed to physical warfare in the case of Joshua.

In fact, later in this text we have a reference to Joshua. The word that is King James translates as Jesus refers to Joshua. We’ll get to that in a few minutes. But in any event, it’s important to acknowledge that the work of the gospel is not simply works of wonders and signs and miracles that are beneficial extensions of grace. That’s what Steven was called to do—by feeding the world with the word and with administrations of grace. But there’s also a defensive aspect, so to speak, of Steven’s enablement. He also is able to defend the faith when called upon.

And it is significant that, as we’ve pointed out before, the officers of the church, particularly the elders, are always called upon to defend the faith. And some of the list of qualifications—they have to be able to shut the mouths of unbelievers. They have to be able to engage in warfare as mature men who understand the scriptures and can engage with people in a warfare of words, so to speak, by which they are able to defend the church and the charge of Jesus Christ from naysayers and against all gains.

Now, this requires mature men. And while it is a diversion for me to say this, let me just say that I’ll have next week copies, multiple copies of James B. Jordan’s first lecture from his talks up at Christ the Sovereign Covenant Church. And he talks about worship up there. And he talks about how worship is supposed to be mature worship. As we come before God to worship him, we should do so as mature adults and maturing all the time. And he said that he finds it odd that in so many churches, and an increasing number of reformed churches, worship is becoming almost childish or immature. He talked about romper room sort of choruses that people sing in some of these churches.

And he says he doesn’t understand why grown men would want to come into a worship service and pretend that they’re five or six or seven years old by singing extremely simple children’s songs as opposed to having mature worship. Now, one may, you know, agree or disagree with him, but the point he’s trying to make is a good one. And that is that what we need in the Christian church today desperately are people who will equip themselves as men in terms of Paul’s instructions to the Corinthians, I believe, who will be mature about their faith and have a mature understanding of the Christian faith based upon understanding of the scripture, but more importantly, based upon the gifting of the Holy Spirit. It is the spirit who gives Steven the wisdom to use the word of God and defend God’s word against charges from non-believers.

So that’s the kind of people we’re supposed to train ourselves to be. And worship is part of that training. Remember the Psalms? The Psalmist says, “God train my hands for war.” Steven was trained for war through the understanding of the scriptures, but also through worship. Worship equips us to be mature about how we praise God. And it’s part of that maturation process that Steven is a good example of—a mature man who is able to shut the mouths of unbelievers.

Our culture, you know, this is the time of pluralism. I heard in the news yesterday, the Girl Scouts now, you know, you can you don’t have to believe in God anymore. You can believe in Allah. You can believe in any god. I was going to—I thought it’d be interesting to know if you could as a Girl Scout say that you believe even in Zoroaster or Goethe or something—I don’t know—but we live in a pluralistic society that doesn’t want combat, doesn’t want intellectual warfare to go on. And yet it is an essential element of the Christian church to engage in that warfare. The first martyr, the man here who is the forerunner to Paul, whose work will then take the gospel into the Gentiles, shows us, as Paul will as well, that God’s servants are mature servants.

Well, in any event, the response to this then is that they bring false charges against Steven. They suborned men. They got false testimony from them. And you’ll notice the context of these charges. It’s very interesting to look through how these charges are laid out. In verse 11, we’re told that they heard Steven speak blasphemous words against Moses and against God. And then we get to the specific charges in verse 13. They set up false witnesses, saying, “This man ceaseth not to speak blasphemous words against this holy place and the laws.” And then in verse 14, you look at this, the specification of the charge.

The charge is blasphemy in two ways: both against the holy place—that is the temple—and against the law or the customs. The temple is related by way of parallelism between verse 11 and verse 13 to Moses and the law to God. And that’s important for later on in our application. The law is the law of the Father God. And so Moses gives us specific regulations relative to the holy place. And so both those things are being charged with Steven here—the charges of blasphemy against temple worship and against the law, and probably particularly as it relates to temple worship.

And then the specification is: here’s what we’ve heard him say. That’s just the general charge. This is what he’s done wrong. Now the specification of the charge, he actually said, quote: “This Jesus of Nazareth shall destroy this place and shall change the customs which Moses delivered us.”

So it’s very important to understand the charge. We cannot understand Steven’s defense if we don’t understand the charge. And the charge is that Steven said that the faith of Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ and his followers would destroy the temple and would change the customs. Okay.

Now, this is a similar charge to what our Savior of course was charged with. And indeed, this shows us that as part of Steven’s ministry, he didn’t make this up out of whole cloth. He probably did speak about Jesus destroying the temple of his body and raising it up after three days. He may even—and this is by way of speculation—he may even have spoken about the coming destruction of the temple and the elimination of it that would happen in forty years. His speech, his defense, is peppered with references to forty years, particularly as it relates to Moses. Three different occurrences—and within forty years, the temple at Jerusalem would be destroyed by God and judged.

Well, in any event, this charge then in specification comes against him, and it is against this charge that he will provide his defense.

## A Sympathetic Understanding

Now, before we just treat these guys as a bunch of rebels—they are a bunch of rebels—but, you know, I think—and we’ll get to this later on—but let me just kind of say it now. I plan to talk about this a little later, but another thing Mr. Jordan said in his talk up in Seattle was the book of Revelation. He believes, of course, as we’ve all thought about, a picture, a warning of the judgment to come upon Jerusalem. It primarily has reference to events that would happen in AD 70, although having application throughout history. But Revelation begins with what? It begins with seven letters to seven churches. And what happens in those seven letters? Those churches are warned that unless they repent and unless they do certain things, they’ll be judged and their lampstand will be removed.

And then the book of Revelation goes on by way of amplification of those seven letters to talk about the removal of the lampstand at Jerusalem and at temple worship and of the apostate Jews who are no longer the church of God. Their lampstands removed, and that in a horrific way as pictured for us in Revelation and then in the actual events that happened in AD 70.

The point of that is that when we read Revelation, yes, it’s a comfort to believers who are persecuted by the Jews at that day and age. And it’s a comfort to believers who know that all persecutions ultimately come from the hand of God, and that we will be saved through them, as Steven will be here. But more than that, it’s a reminder to us that these judgments that we see in the earth are not simply comforts to us. They are warnings to us. See, the churches were being warned that the same thing that happens to Jerusalem, recorded in the rest of the book of Revelation, will happen to those churches if they fall away from the faith.

Israel and Egypt are throughout the messages here that Stephen’s going to give in his defense. And it’s real easy to move away from Israel and into Egypt in your mind. And we see that happening in Steven’s defense as well. And so I guess what I’m trying to say is it’s real easy to get sort of snooty about this whole thing and say how terrible people these guys were. They were upset. The Libertines, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, because their worship and the laws by which they regulated their lives were under attack from the Christian church. And in a sense they were—the worship would change now and the customs would change, so to speak, and particularly the traditions of men that were now part of their law would be wiped away.

But you see, at the core of one’s existence, at the core of who you are really, is how you worship God. You may not think about that—we’ve been trained not to think that way in this culture—but that’s who we are. And that’s why we come together as a church on Sunday. That’s why people have such fights about what sort of songs we sing, how should worship be done, what does the Lord’s table mean. We have all these fights in the Christian church. But it’s because man is a religious being and worship is essential to his life. And so that’s a very important thing to remember here. And the laws by which we govern our lives are essential to who we are as well.

What I’m trying to point out here is have a little sympathy for the devil, so to speak, here. And that these people—their whole way of life was being challenged by this new religion. Now, it had to be challenged. It was wrong. It was rebellious. They were murderers. What I’m trying to say here is be very careful. Without reducing you, you must realize the temptations to fall into this sort of mindset that existed then, existed then and exists today. You will become complacent. That will be a temptation to you, and you will not want your world challenged by the word of God, the way the word of God was now challenging life in Jerusalem. That’s why people don’t like to talk to each other sometimes, and that’s why people don’t like to work things out. You don’t want your life challenged. You don’t want your life shaken.

So understand here: their whole lives are being shaken, and that’s why they were doing this. It doesn’t excuse them, but we must understand it to the end that we would avoid the same temptation to do this in ourselves.

Okay. So there we have Steven’s wonders, his works—offensive, defensive—the charges then, blasphemy against God ultimately, and Moses is God’s deliverer of his law and customs and of worship. That’s what is specifically referenced. And now we have a long sermon, so to speak, in the part of Steven as he defends himself against these charges.

I want to read here from J. Alexander as an overview first of this defense:

“This chapter contains Steven’s defense before the council and his execution. His defense is drawn entirely from the Old Testament history and is designed to show that all God’s dealings with the chosen people pointed to the very changes which Steven was accused of having threatened. This he proves by showing that the outward organization and condition of the church had undergone repeated change under Abraham, Joseph, Moses, David—that the actual state of things had no existence before Solomon. The actual state being the temple worship that he was being accused of going against in that culture. That even this was introduced from the beginning to be temporary. And lastly, that the Israelites of every age had been unfaithful to their trust. The remainder of the chapter describes the effect of this discourse upon the council, Steven’s heavenly vision, and his death by stoning.”

So that’s a summary of what we’re now going to talk about in a little bit of detail.

## Steven’s Defense

Verse 2: And he said, “Men, brethren, and fathers, hearken.”

Steven’s defense begins with a statement of respect and honor to those he would address. Now, he will. The tone will change dramatically by the end of the sermon. But his later invectives against them, perfectly proper on his part and truthful, are put in the context of respect for the office that God had given these men. The rulers particularly that he’s addressing here are fathers, and he entreats them as fathers. And by treating them as fathers, he does a couple of things. One, he shows respect. And that’s something that our day and age could learn a lot about—how to make a proper appeal based upon putting any appeal we make in the context of respect relative to the authority we are appealing to. But secondly, when he says fathers here, he brings upon them increased responsibility.

I mean, when you address your parents’ kids, for instance—father, mother—not only do you show respect, but you also remind them that they are fathers and mothers. They have increased responsibility to act as proper fathers and mothers. And so it brings a sense of responsibility upon them as well. And Steven does that. And we should learn to make proper appeals to our fathers in church, state, family, business, etc.

Then he says, “The God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham, and he was in Mesopotamia before he dwelt in Canaan.”

“Our father Abraham,” he identifies with the state of the church as it existed at the time of Jerusalem. He’s in other words, what he’s saying here—this is very important. There is not a radical discontinuity—and he’ll make this point later—between the church in the wilderness and the church in the New Testament. Pentecost is not the birth of the church. Pentecost is the empowering and reordering and reorganization of the church for the job of worldwide evangelization. But he shows continuity: “Our father Abraham.”

He says, “The God of glory”—I’m not blaspheming God. He says, “This is the God of glory.” And in all this stuff, he gives credit to God throughout his throughout his defense. “A God of Abraham appeared unto our father Abraham, and he was in Mesopotamia before he dwelt in Canaan, and said unto him, ‘Get thee out of thy country and from thy kindred, and come into the land which I shall show thee.’”

Right away, they’re talking about Moses and he talks about Abraham. He puts Moses in what he’s going to do here in the proper context by referring first to the call of Abraham, the establishment of God’s people as a chosen group of people to worship him and serve him. The call of Abraham. And where is he called? Not in Jerusalem, not at the temple. But God appears in a land of idolaters to Abraham and calls him from there.

And so he says, “Hey, God can work way away from the temple. He worked over there in Mesopotamia, in the land of the Chaldeans. He works in lots of places here. And when he works, he makes people uncomfortable. He takes Abraham and uproots him from his society, his culture, what he was comfortable in the context of. And frequently he uproots us from our relatives as well. And that’s pointed out in the book of Abraham in the story here of Abram. That he goes through, came out of the land of the Chaldeans, dwelt in Canaan or Karan rather, and from then, when his father was dead, he removed him into the land wherein you now dwell.

By the way, one other thing about Abraham here that is very important that he’s pointing out—Abraham walked by faith. He went to a land that he didn’t know what that land was. In the book of Hebrews, it tells us that Abraham, left, he went to go to a land that he didn’t know where that land was. He followed God into great anticipation. The reorganization of the church, the empowerment of the church, preaching of the gospel, everything was changing. Anxiety level was high. And when God brings advent to our lives personally or to our lives corporately as a church, the anxiety level could be real high. And that anxiety level is a test of our faith. Are you going to follow God, not knowing necessarily where it’s going to end up at? That’s what the beginning of Steven’s defense says: that God appears in places other than the temple in Jerusalem.

He appears, and he usually disrupts our lives and he calls us to exercise faith by going into a state of things that is not normal to us or not understood, necessarily. He shakes things up.

“God spake on this wise. Verse six: you should sojourn in a strange land and you should bring them into bondage.” You see, sojourn to a strange land seems to be brought into bondage. We see this repeated message throughout the defense: bondage, deliverance, bondage, deliverance, bondage, deliverance. “Israel and Egypt” back and forth. “To a nation which they shall be in bondage will I judge, said God. And after that shall they come forth and serve me in this place.”

That’s the beginning in Steven’s defense here that talks about the judgment of God upon those people who would oppress people who are walking in faith and following God in faith. Abraham and his seed are following God in faith, and they will be oppressed in a strange land, and that land will be judged by God. And what’s the implication? It’s the first little ding in Steven’s speech of charge against these men. If you persecute God’s people, if you become Egypt, this land will God judge. And he will judge that land, won’t he, in forty years?

And there was change here pictured as well. Change is a big element. J. Alexander says that all these stories, the biggest point of them is that God changes things all the time. Nothing stays the same. God’s always changing things. And so, if I’m accused now of changing worship and changing customs, let’s realize Steven is saying that God always changes things. This is not a static universe. We never come to completion or full maturation. We’re always going from glory to glory, maturation in faith.

So God changed things here toward them. “Gave the covenant of circumcision. He’s going to tell them later on they’re not circumcised. They may be circumcised physically, but they’re not circumcised in terms of their hearts. Isaac begat Jacob. Jacob begat the twelve patriarchs.” And so we have the story of Abraham. Then we have the story of Jacob and Joseph in verses 8-19, which we’re dealing with now.

Here we had a change in custom of law. Circumcision was added. Remember, it was not the original idea. Not—shouldn’t say original idea. Certainly God knew what he was going to do from time immemorial, but it wasn’t the original law. Circumcision was added to those who are of the household of Abraham. And so things change again. Laws—God’s way—he regulates his people. The law by which he regulates their lives changes over time. And circumcision will also change now to be replaced by baptism.

As circumcision was preceded by simple faith with no outward ritual, outward ritual is circumcision. Now outward ritual baptism—things change.

Verse 9: “The patriarchs moved with envy, sold Joseph into Egypt, but God was with him.” See, the greater Joseph has come on the scene, and the patriarchs, the fathers, the fathers of the nation now in Israel, kill the greater Joseph. As the fathers moved with envy earlier, killed symbolically, delivered Joseph into slavery and bondage into Egypt. But God is with him. “Delivered him out of all his afflictions, gave him favor and wisdom in the sight of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, made him governor over Egypt, all his house. Came a dearth over all the land of Egypt and Canaan in a great affliction, and our fathers found no sustenance.”

The patriarchs—and this is the second ding, as Steven begins to wake up these people to their sin—the second ding is the patriarchs are now acting like these Egyptians who are going to enslave Joseph, so to speak. But God will, remember, Joseph goes into slavery in Egypt, prison. But Joseph converts all of Egypt. And so in the same way the nation of Israel now persecuting the greater Joseph, Jesus, through the church—those people will end up leaving and going to Egypt. As Joseph left his brothers and sisters, they’ll go into Egypt as well. They’ll convert all the world. And if you believe that particular version of Romans 9, then the Jews will be added back in terms of salvation.

So there’s a correlary here to what will happen in the history of the church in terms of going into Egypt and converting all the land and eventually, if you believe this particular interpretation of Romans 9, that it will be the incoming of the blessing of the Gentiles that will then be a witness to those who affirm Judaism as their belief system. They will be made jealous, so to speak, and will finally be brought into the faith through the conversion of all the world.

So we see a picture of that in the story of Joseph and Pharaoh and Egypt, and then the twelve patriarchs, the original brothers to Jesus, so to speak, the Jews becoming hungry for the food that is offered them by the Gentiles. The food is the word of God and coming back and his salvation.

So he tells the story: “But when Jacob heard that there was corn in Egypt, he sent out our fathers first. At the second time, Joseph was made known to his brethren, and Joseph’s kindred was known unto Pharaoh. Okay. Verses 14: He sent Joseph, called his father Jacob to him, and all his kindred, threescore and fifteen souls. Jacob went down into Egypt, died, he and his fathers—our fathers rather—and were carried over into Shechem. But even at the time of the promise now, when God had sworn to Abraham, the people grew and multiplied in Egypt.”

And remember, the context for this is that the reason why the selection of the seven, including Steven, was necessary in the church. The church is growing and multiplying in the context of what has now become Egypt. Jerusalem is no longer Jerusalem. These patriarchs are acting like Egyptians. So the church is growing and multiplying in Egypt. And what happens in the time of Joseph? When the church grows and multiplies with the blessing of God, that’s when the oppression comes upon them.

“There arose a king which knows not Joseph. In response to the blessings of God on Israel and Egypt, we have persecution. So in response to the blessings of God on the true Israel in the context of what now has become Egypt, persecution increases.”

Verse 19: “The same dealt sly with our kindred and evil entreated our fathers. They cast out the young children to the event that they might not live. In which time Moses was born.”

So he finishes up with Jacob and Joseph as a joint picture, and he moves now to the story of Moses. So you see what he’s done. He’s put the proper context for who Moses is so that the charges against him that he blasphemes Moses can be put in the proper context. Moses occurs after Abraham, Jacob and Joseph. Here he tells those stories to show the repeated change in location and also customs, and also to begin to show to them the second strand of his defense, which is actually a charge against them: that just like their fathers, just like the patriarchs who sold Joseph into slavery, and just like the Egyptians who would persecute God’s people as they grew and multiplied. So the people of that were bringing the charge against Steven were acting as murderers, and they would be judged by God. That’s the second strand of his dialogue.

Then he gets into Moses. “In which time Moses was born.”

And then we have the story of Moses played out in verses 20 and following—20 through 38. And it’s interesting. Verse 22: “Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was mighty in words and in deeds.”

See, just like Steven. Steven was mighty in words and in deeds. He could dispute with men well with words who would be gainers, naysayers against the gospel. And in deeds he did miraculous signs and wonders. So he really is carrying on in the tradition of Moses. He doesn’t ever separate himself from Moses. He puts Moses in the proper context and says that he’s the one and the Christian church is the one who is exalting Moses. And these men who had supposedly exalted Moses are the same as the Egyptians who hated Moses. And they’re also the same as he goes on to tell his story of the brethren who rejected Moses.

Verse 25: “He supposeded his brethren would have understood how that God by his hand would deliver them, but they understood not.” You see, he’s telling them Jesus, the greater Moses, came along. And just like your ancestors in the flesh, you guys have said, “Who made Jesus a ruler and a deliverer over us? We’re not going to let this guy deliver us. Who does he think he is?”

So they’re acting just like their fathers who rejected Moses. And they’re actually rejecting the greater Moses.

And it’s interesting in verse 27 and Moses comes up and try these two guys are fighting—these two Israelites. And he says, “I would have you at one.” He’d want to put them at peace, to bring reconciliation. But he that did the neighbor wrong thrust him away, saying, “Who made thee a ruler and judge over us?”

Very significant here for a proper understanding of this passage. That is, the one who’s done his neighbor wrong who rejects Moses. And so when Jesus comes to the nation of Israel, it’s the ones who do wrong, who are in rebellion and ethical disobedience to God, who reject Jesus, the greater Moses, and say, “Who made you a ruler and a judge over us? Wilt thou kill me as thou didest the Egyptian yesterday?”

Well, yes, he will. As a matter of fact, he will. Jesus will kill these men. He will, in AD 70, judge those who remain in this apostate system, in rebellion against him, with death. Yes, he will kill them as he killed the Egyptian. The parallels here are very strong.

Jesus came to affect deliverance. But they knew him not. As John tells us, their sin had blinded them, and they cast out Messiah, just as the charge was against Moses—by what authority will you destroy us?

So now with the followers of Jesus Christ, we see the same in the cycle of three persecutions. We have them saying, “By what authority do you do this stuff?” Just as these rebellious Jews were telling Moses, “By what authority would you be a judge and deliverer to us?” They’ve asked the disciples Peter and John, “By what authority do you do these things?” And now they’re asking Steven, “Will you murder us also? Will you murder us? Will you destroy this temple and murder us?”

See, there are correlations here that are very strong that Steven is making, bringing home to them their own personal sin.

Verse 29: “Then fled Moses at this saying, was a stranger in the land of Midian where he begat two sons.” See, stranger in a strange land. Again, that theme is repeated throughout here to tell them the temple in Jerusalem is not the place of God’s special dealings all the time. He deals across locality. “Forty years were expired. They approached him in the wilderness of Mount Sinai and an angel of the Lord, a flame of fire in a bush. Forty years is mentioned here several times, as I mentioned before.”

Let’s see, skipping down to verse 35: “This Moses whom they refused, saying ‘Who had made thee to be a ruler and a judge.’ The same did God send to be a ruler and a deliverer by the hand of the angel which appeared to him in the bush.”

So he says “this Moses”—because earlier on in their charge against him, they said he said “this Jesus of Nazareth”—a term of contempt or derision. “This Jesus of Nazareth,” the people that persecuted Steven said, “he says will destroy this place.” So he now kind of comes back at him and says, “This Moses that you’re talking about who is rejected—he God did indeed send to be a ruler and a deliverer. And so this Jesus of Nazareth whom you despise will also be a ruler and a deliverer here, and he will curse the Egyptians and he will deliver his people, and he will curse apostate Judaism in AD 70. He will deliver his people.”

Verse 36: “He brought them out after he had showed wonders and signs in the land of Egypt.” See, wonders and signs. That’s what Steven is doing in the line of Moses.

Verse 37: “This is that Moses which said unto the children of Israel, ‘A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto him. Him shall ye hear.’”

Well, now he’s getting very explicit, isn’t he? Yeah. He said, “You’re right. Things are going to change now. And Moses is what he’s going to do here in the proper context by referring first to the call of Abraham, the establishment of God’s people as a chosen group of people to worship him and serve him. The instructions are going to be altered now. But Moses told us this would happen. Moses told us in verse 37 that he would—that there would be a prophet raised up and him shall ye hear.”

This is Jesus that he’s talking about here. God has raised up the prophet. According to the people in Jerusalem, he couldn’t raise up any more prophets. This guy came with all the signs Jesus did attesting to his authenticity from the hand of the Father. And they rejected him. They didn’t want any change in the future. They thought everything would continue as it was in their day and age.

“See, we have arrived. That’s what they thought. And you never arrive. God is always working in your life if you’re a child of his, and if you claim to be a child of his. And he works in the context of our corporate lives in terms of the church as well.”

Moses was not the end. This is a very important verse in Steven’s defense. He has placed Moses in the proper context—being that of the faith of Abraham apart from ceremonial law—moved on, and he’s now moved on in the sermon about redemptive history by way of analogy predicting God’s curses upon those should they persist in being good Egyptians and not true Jews. And he now puts the context for Moses as well as the context of him that would follow Moses and who would speak a new word—one that would need to be heard in terms of change, or better, of fulfilling covenant history.

Jesus doesn’t change covenant history so much as he fulfills covenant history. And Moses foresaw this. Moses foretold this. And so if they’re going to quote Moses, let’s quote him all the way by saying that there would come along one who would indeed change things, or that is, what is better, fulfill things. And this is the greater Moses.

“This is he that was in the church in the wilderness talking about Moses now—with the angel which spake to him on the mount Sinai and with our fathers who received the lively oracles to give to us. They’re not a dead word. They’re lively. They’re recreative. To whom our fathers would not obey, but thrust him from them. And in their hearts turned back into Egypt.”

And here again now the little dings were becoming loud hammers against those who would oppose the movement of the spirit and the person and work of Jesus Christ. “Their hearts they turned back to Egypt. He’s saying, ‘In your hearts, you’ve turned back to Egypt. You’ve rejected Moses because you’ve rejected the greater Moses. You will not obey him. You thrust him from you. And in your hearts, you’ve turned back to Egypt. And you know what happens to Egypt? They don’t convert, they’re judged. Pharaoh and his apostate Egyptians are killed in the Red Sea.’”

“How did they sin specifically? Peter goes on to tell us this is how they sinned specifically, and this is how they turned back in their hearts to Egypt. They said unto Aaron, ‘Make us gods to go before us. For as for this Moses which brought us out of the land of Egypt, we don’t know what’s happened to him.’ And so they have him make these—this golden calf, Aaron—that is a priest. They made a calf in those days, sacrificed under the idol and rejoiced in the work of their own hands.”

See, what’s happening here is he’s saying the way they rejected Moses was through worship first and foremost. And how is the people that he’s addressing rejected Moses? Through their idolatrous worship. I think he is making a clear parallel here between Moses and Jesus and therefore between the fathers who rejected Moses and the fathers now who he’s addressing who’ve rejected Jesus. And the parallel must go on to say that the primary way in which they’ve rejected Jesus and Moses is through apostate idolatrous worship.

Whether or not the images are of a calf or whether the images are of a temple, it can be idolatrous when approached as the work of your own hands instead of the manifestation of God’s spirit calling you to worship him. Now, that’s really important to see.

Stephen doesn’t mention it, but the place we can really see that is the bronze serpent in the wilderness, right? A good thing, a picture of Jesus. As people look to the bronze serpent, they’re healed of the plague. But they who then later idolatrized that and they worshiped that serpent to the end that they finally destroy the thing because it’s idolatrous. Well, that’s a picture of what’s going to happen to the temple. It was a good thing erected for good and noble purposes after the pattern of the temple in heaven as part of redemptive history. It was part of a process of development of the house of God which would culminate in the greater temple of the church—the people gathered together to worship God as a corporate unit, as an army of God and as a worshiping community.

But that temple could be made into an idol. And he’s saying that’s what you’ve done. You’ve become like these guys who wanted Aaron to make a golden calf. You’ve taken this great temple and now you’ve made an idol out of this temple. You’re saying that it’s more important. The house is more important than who dwells in that house. The one who dwells in the temple is God. You see, but they have made the house more important than the person possessing the house and living in the context of it.

Now, those are important words for us to hear because that means that if the temple was the source of their idolatry, the church, the institutional church can be a source of idolatry for us as well if we forget the one who dwells in the context of his people.

Verse 42: “God turned and gave them up to worship the host of heaven.”

Continues on the worship motif in verses 42 and 43. And remember, there’s nothing wrong with stars. There’s nothing really wrong with a calf made out of gold. The thing that’s wrong is that’s not how God wanted to be worshiped. And they…