A Study of the Book of Acts
Sermon # 14
“Standing Tall When It Counts”
Acts 6:8-7:60
“Death reveals who we really are. Consider the famous French philosopher Voltaire, who … boasted, “In twenty years Christianity will be no more. My single hand shall destroy the edifice it took twelve apostles to rear.’ Voltaire was proud, confident and cynical. But when he died, he cried in desperation, ‘I am abandoned by God and man! I give you half of what I am worth if you will give me six months life. Then I shall go to hell and you will go with me. O Christ! O Jesus Christ!’
In contrast, the moment of death also sometimes reveals spiritual beauty, John Wesley, (founder of the Methodist movement) died full of counsel, exhortations, and praise for God. His final words were, ‘ The best of all is, God is with us. The best of all is, God is with us. The best of all is, God is with us. Farewell!’ Adoniram Judson, the great American missionary to Burma, suffering immensely at death, said to those around, ‘I go with the gladness of a boy bounding away from school, I feel strong in Christ.’ Jonathon Edwards, dying from smallpox, gave some final directions, bid his daughter good-by, and expired saying, ‘Where is Jesus, my never-failing friend?’” (R Kent Hughes. Acts: The Church Afire. [Wheaton, ILL: Crossway Books, 1996] p.102)
Acts 6:8- 7:60 shows us the final day in the life of a man named Stephen – how he lived, what he said and how he died,
how he stood tall when it counted. This morning I want to share with you “The Principles of Standing Tall!”
I. Standing Tall May Require You To Stand Alone
6:8-10
“And Stephen, full of faith and power, did great wonders and signs among the people. 9Then there arose some from what is called the Synagogue of the Freedmen (Cyrenians, Alexandrians, and those from Cilicia and Asia), disputing with Stephen. 10And they were not able to resist the wisdom and the Spirit by which he spoke. 11Then they secretly induced men to say, "We have heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses and God."
In verse eight of this chapter we are again introduced to Stephen one of the seven men chosen by the church to serve in the ministry of the local church in Jerusalem, one of the first deacons. The church has obviously chosen well, for he is a man of unusual personal spiritual strength. Luke describes him as a man “full of faith and power.” Although he is not one of the apostles, he also manifested the ability to perform “great wonders and signs among the people”(v. 8). Such a man would be a magnet to those in need and a target for those who opposed the church. The resistance arose from the a special synagogue made up of Hellenistic Jews like Stephen himself. Luke tells us that even the most intellectual and gifted of the Jews leaders found themselves “not able to resist the wisdom and the Spirit by which he spoke” (v. 10). Since they could not resist his argument they arranged to have false witnesses bring charges of blasphemy against him.
II. Standing Tall May Require You To Stand Against Error
6:12-7:1
12And they stirred up the people, the elders, and the scribes; and they came upon him, seized him, and brought him to the council. 13They also set up false witnesses who said, "This man does not cease to speak blasphemous words against this holy place and the law; 14for we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and change the customs which Moses delivered to us." 15And all who sat in the council, looking steadfastly at him, saw his face as the face of an angel.”1 Then the high priest said, "Are these things so?"
Stephen stood tall before the Council and he disabused the religious leaders of the fallacies under which they existed. He came down hard on the three pillars of their religion; the land, the law and the temple – three false bases for confidence before God.
Stephen perhaps understood the more clearly than any of the apostle the implications of the death, resurrection and ascension of the Jewish religious system. He knew that Judaism had to give way to Christianity because Jesus was the fulfillment of al that Judaism stood for.
A. The Land (vv. 2-36) (vv. 2-3,9-10, 29-33)
2And he said, "Brethren and fathers, listen: The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Haran, 3and said to him, "Get out of your country and from your relatives, and come to a land that I will show you.’ 4Then he came out of the land of the Chaldeans and dwelt in Haran. …… 9 "And the patriarchs, becoming envious, sold Joseph into Egypt. But God was with him 10and delivered him out of all his troubles, and gave him favor and wisdom in the presence of Pharaoh, king of Egypt; and he made him governor over Egypt and all his house…… Moses fled and became a dweller in the land of Midian, where he had two sons. 30"And when forty years had passed, an Angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire in a bush, in the wilderness of Mount Sinai. 31When Moses saw it, he marveled at the sight; and as he drew near to observe, the voice of the Lord came to him, 32saying, "I am the God of your fathers--the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ And Moses trembled and dared not look. 33"Then the LORD said to him, "Take your sandals off your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground.”
God is not a God of a limited geographical place only, such as the land of Israel, but of the whole world. He pointed out that the true God of glory cannot be limited to Jerusalem, nor even to Israel for he is the God of the whole world. The great fathers Abraham, Joseph and Moses had all meet and worshipped God outside of the geographical boundaries of Israel.
Stephen concludes that “everything necessary for pure worship was available to the people in the wilderness, before they ever entered the Holy Land.”
B. The Law and the veneration of Moses (vv. 37-40)
“37 "This is that Moses who said to the children of Israel, "The LORD your God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from your brethren. Him you shall hear.’ 38"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, the one who received the living oracles to give to us, 39whom our fathers would not obey, but rejected. And in their hearts they turned back to Egypt, 40saying to Aaron, "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”
The purpose of the law was to pinpoint the need for salvation and point out that Jesus was the Messiah. The law was never intended to be an end unto itself.
By now we must suspect that the Council is getting Stephens point. Stephen is saying, “This neat little hold you think that you have on God, that you are Jewish and God is the God of the Jews and not of the Gentiles is false. If you were faithful to your own scriptures you would know that God is the God of all people and that your special privileges as a Jew also entail an enormous responsibility as a His witness.”
They had told Stephen the he was blaspheming the law of Moses and it was this for which they are condemning him. Stephen’s response was: “You have been breaking the law of Moses all your lives and because you have rejected Moses you have rejected the truth about Jesus.” The ancestors of the present religious leaders, had rejected all of God’s prophets, including Moses, they had reject the keeping of the law and so doing had rejected the true worship of God. Having a temple in their midst did not make them right in the sight of God. In fact it was because of their rejection of God that they had been sent into captivity first in Assyria and then in Babylon.
C. The Temple (vv. 48-50)
"However, the Most High does not dwell in temples made with hands, as the prophet says: 49"Heaven is My throne, And earth is My footstool. What house will you build for Me? says the LORD, Or what is the place of My rest? 50Has My hand not made all these things?’”
Stephen is saying that the day of the Temple is passed. Built by Solomon, it had been a blessing. But of this was now passing away because the LORD Jesus Christ had come. He was the real temple. And all those who believed in him themselves became temples of the Holy Spirit as they were indwelt by the living God. Having the temple in their midst did not guarantee their faithfulness to God. It is impossible that the temple, nor any other place made with hands, can contain God the creator of the Universe. While Christians today don not claim that true worship can only be done at the Jewish temple we can have our own set of “sacred cows.”
“We can decry the Israelites blindness – why didn’t they see God’s purpose for them? How could they have missed it? Well, look around. What do you see today? Do you see a church that is mobilized to carry the gospel to every creature? There are some who are totally committed to this great task. But all to often we see a contented group of worshipers, giving God an hour or two each week and a dollar or two on Sunday’s and that’s that.” (Leroy Eims. Disciples In Action: A Study of the Apostles Ministry From Acts. [Colorado Springs: Navipress, 1981.] p. 97.
We can be just as overconfident and smug in our relationship with God. We may think that because we are a member of such and such a church that secures our salvation. We may think that our baptism secures our safety. We may think that because we attend the worship services that somehow punches our “worship card.” I may be that we think the number of years we have invested in church attendance guarantees us a place in heaven. Whatever it is, anything that make us complacent about our relationship with God is akin to the attitude that Jews had about the temple, law and the land.
We need to recognize that we do not have God in a box either. We establish our own little set of rules and guidelines for worship and conducting our lives and we expect God to endorse it and be constrained by it. Our God cannot be constrained by either what we can conceive with our imaginations or by what we can grasp with our limited intellects. We must conform ourselves to his will rather than trying to bend Him to our wishes.
III. Standing Tall May Require Telling the Truth Even
When It Unpopular 7: 51-53
51 "You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears! You always resist the Holy Spirit; as your fathers did, so do you. 52Which 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, 53who have received the law by the direction of angels and have not kept it."
In verses 51-53 Stephen’s makes it personal. He shifts tenses from past tense to present tense and changes pronouns from “they” and “them” to “you”. He says, “You stiff-necked people you resist the Holy Spirit just as your fathers did.” In the Greek, it is the second person plural, meaning, “all of you are stiff-necked.” He says that they resisted the Holy Spirit. Scriptures says that we are to resist the devil and submit to God, yet these people in resisting the Holy Spirit were submitting to the devil. There are only two ways to deal with a stiff neck. It can be bent to the will of God or it can be broken!!! You can either yield to God now or you most assuredly will one day stand before God, on that day there will be no argument, on that day all mouths shall be shut before the righteous God.
IV. Standing Tall May Require You To Suffer 7:54-60
54 When they heard these things they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed at him with their teeth. 55But he, being full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God, 56and said, "Look! I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!" 57Then they cried out with a loud voice, stopped their ears, and ran at him with one accord; 58and they cast him out of the city and stoned him. And the witnesses laid down their clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul. 59And they stoned Stephen as he was calling on God and saying, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." 60Then 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.”
He reaction of the Sanhedrin was, “when they heard this
they were cut to the heart.” The Greek word for “cut to the heart” conveys that they were furious it means “to saw asunder, cut in two.” The logic of Stephen’s argument cut them in two, that is that it caused them great pain and anguish. They were filled with pain but it was not the pain of conviction. They were not crying out, “What must we do to be saved?” They were in pain because they hated what Stephen was saying and they hated him for saying it. They were in such pain that they began to “gnashed at him with their teeth.” A preacher knows that he is in trouble when the congregation begins to frown, but he really knows he is in trouble when the listeners begin to run at him grinding their teeth. Sadly, “gnashing of teeth” is the description that the Bible uses to describe what people will be doing in hell. These religious leaders were so agitated that they acted like wild animals in their animosity toward Stephen. In verse 57 we are told “at this they covered their ears and yelled at the top of their voices, they rushed at him.” The force of the Greek is that the members of the highest court in the land, “wailed in erratic, wild, jeering shouts of anger and hostility.” The phrase “rushed at him” is the same term used to describe the legions of demons who went into the pigs and caused their to run into the lake and drown (Luke 8:33).
When logic fails then stones will do! F.F. Bruce in his commentary tells us, “Four Cubits from the stoning place the criminal is stripped….The drop from the stoning place was twice the height of a man. One of the witnesses pushes the criminal from behind, so that he falls face downward. He is then turned over on his back. If he dies from the fall, that is sufficient. If not, the second witness takes the stone and drops it on his heart. If this cause death that is sufficient; if not, he is stoned by all the congregation of Israel.” Until he is dead.” (F.F. Bruce. Commentary on the Book of Acts. [Grand Rapids: Eerdman’s Publishing, 1979] pp.170-171.
V. Standing Tall Will Always Leave A Lasting Impression
7:58-60
; 58and they cast him out of the city and stoned him. And the witnesses laid down their clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul. 59And they stoned Stephen as he was calling on God and saying, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." 60Then 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.
Though it may seem that Stephen ended his life in defeat, because he did not live to see the fruit of his ministry, God revealed later that he his life had borne great fruit. A man who was present at the stoning of Stephen, a man named Saul, never forgot the witness of Stephen’s life and his death. Saul, who was later renamed Paul, near the end of his life clearly stated that he added his vote to the Sanhedrin’s death sentence (Acts 26:10).
I believe that Stephen’s death was a cause of gnawing questions in the heart of Saul of Tarsus that would prepare him for his confrontation with the risen Lord on the road to Damascus. I believe that when Jesus told Saul on the road to Damascus “it is hard for you to kick against the goads,” (Acts 26:14) that one of the goads was the testimony of Stephen’s life.
Conclusion
“Death will ultimately reveal what each of us truly is. Stephen lived his last hours as Christ would and did. He died a martyr’s death as Christ did. He stood tall through the matchless grace of God! If today were our final day, what would others write about us?” (Hughes. p.108) Will they say “they stood tall when it counted?”
