Stephen The Martyr Series

STEPHEN THE MARTYR

Text: Acts 7:51-60

Introduction

1. Illustration: The author, Antonio Socci, claims the untold story of the 20th century is the murder of 45 million Christians, mostly at the hands of communist and Islamic regimes, and that massacres continue to this day. Drawing heavily from the World Christian Encyclopedia, published last year by the Oxford University Press, Mr Socci traces the persecution of Christians through the centuries, from the crucifixion of Jesus to the lions at Circus Maximus, the assassination of Thomas Becket and the execution of Thomas More, the Boxer rebellion in China, Mexico's revolution and the Turkish massacres in Armenia. He calculates that in the past 2,000 years some 70 million Christians have been killed, two-thirds in the past 100 years alone, a bloodbath blamed mostly on the Soviet Union as well as communist China and Nazi Germany. (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/jun/04/religion.booksnews).

2. The first martyr of the Christian faith was Stephen. We have been studying about his defense against the accusations brought against him by the Jewish high council. In the end, of course, it leads to his death.

3. But there is something very important that we learn from Stephen’s death.

4. Read Acts 7:51-60.

Proposition: We need to be led by the Spirit and not resist his leading.

Transition: The thing we must not do is…

I. Resist the Spirit (51-53).

A. Must You Forever Resist the Spirit?

1. Stephen now moves to the culmination of his sermon. He has brilliantly refuted the charges against him. Now, he turns the tables and brings accusations against them. In v. 51 he says, "You stubborn people! You are heathen at heart and deaf to the truth. Must you forever resist the Holy Spirit? That’s what your ancestors did, and so do you!”.

a. He tells them that they are stubborn people. The idea here is that they were unwilling to bow before the Lord and obey his commands. Because they prided themselves on their physical circumcision and their keeping of rituals.

b. However, Stephen points out, even though they were circumcised in body, their hearts were not circumcised.

c. God had criticized their ancestors for this, and Jesus has criticized them for this too. God doesn’t care what you are on the outside; he cares about what is on the inside.

d. Furthermore, he tells them that they resisted the Holy Spirit just as their ancestors did. When Tina and I were in bible college, we had a wonderful professor, Dr. Robert Kurka, and he used to say, “The Holy Spirit is like an 8,000 lbs gorilla; he does whatever he wants!”

e. The most foolish thing that a person can do is to resist the Holy Spirit. To resist him is to bring yourself spiritual death.

f. When we ignore Scripture, and the warnings of the Holy Spirit, we are in danger of dying spiritually.

g. This is what the Israelites had been doing for years, and that’s what is happening in the modern church in America today.

2. In v. 52 he says, “Name one prophet your ancestors didn’t persecute! They even killed the ones who predicted the coming of the Righteous One—the Messiah whom you betrayed and murdered.”

a. Again, Jesus had criticized them for killing the prophets, and now Stephen also criticizes them for doing the same thing.

b. Not only had they persecuted the prophets, but also killed the ones who prophesied the coming of the righteous one - Jesus - who they had crucified.

c. Not only had they resisted the Holy Spirit and refused to listen to him, but they also even rejected those whom the Holy Spirit had sent to warn them.

3. Stephen continues his criticism of them in v. 53 where he says, “You deliberately disobeyed God’s law, even though you received it from the hands of angels.”

a. Not only had they resisted the Holy Spirit, and murdered the prophets, but they also deliberately disobeyed God’s law.

b. Time and time again they rejected God and his law, and as a result they were oppressed by the nations around them.

c. But God would always send a deliverer to save them.

d. Even though God had delivered his law to them through heavenly beings, the angels, they still disobeyed.

B. Do Not Take Your Holy Spirit from Me

1. Illustration: On our automobiles we have these little lights on our dashboards. They there for a reason, to tell us when something bad is happening to our vehicle that needs our attention. If we ignore these warning lights, eventually something really bad is going to happen…like your engine could blow up. Well, the same is true with our spiritual lives. When we are doing something that is harmful to us spiritually, the Holy Spirit comes and warns us to stop doing what we are doing. If we choose to ignore Him, it’s going to lead us to a bad place.