Stephen's Defense Before The Sanhedrin (Part 2) Series

STEPHEN’S DEFENSE BEFORE THE SANHEDRIN

(Part II)

Acts 7:35-53

(Antioch Baptist Church: Wednesday, February 11th, 2026)

It is interesting to see the many ways that people respond to the preaching of the Holy Scriptures. Jesus spent over three years preaching in the regions of Galilee. The overwhelming majority of people who heard the greatest sermons delivered by the greatest Preacher who ever lived rejected His message of salvation.

After His ascension, Jesus entrusted the preaching of the Gospel to His Apostles. Those men were faithful to preach the Word in Jerusalem as a result they were put into custody, threatened, and even beaten. However, there were many who heard their message and believed the Gospel, and this led to the rapid growth of Christ’s Church.

Stephen was another faithful servant who paid a great price for boldly preaching the Gospel. Though his ministry was relatively short, the Lord used him to advance His cause. Some men from “the Synagogue of the Freedmen” were highly offended by the content of his preaching in the local Synagogues. In response, they secretly induced certain men to bear false witness against him. They accused him of speaking “blasphemous words against Moses and God” and against “the Temple and the Law”. Their lies “stirred up the people, the elders, and the scribes” and “they came upon him, seized him, and brought him to the council.” (6:12)

Stephen addressed the council and defended his faith; in doing so he presented a wonderful survey of the Old Testament and a history of the Nation of Israel. This far in our study of Stephen’s defense we have seen:

STEPHEN’S REFERENCE CONCERING THE LIFE OF ABRAHAM

STEPHEN’S REFERENCE CONCERNING THE LIVES OF THE PATRIARCHS

STEPHEN’S REFERENCE CONCERNING THE LIFE OF JOSEPH

STEPHEN’S REFERENCE CONCERNING THE LIFE OF MOSES

- I invite you to join me in verses 35-53 as we conclude our study of “Stephen’s Defense Before The Sanhedrin”.

Up to this point, Stephen has simply given a concise and accurate history lesson concerning the Nation of Israel. The men of the Council would not have had a problem with anything Stephen said in the first half of his defense. However, beginning in verse 39 he transitions to a subject that they may not have liked but they could not deny. His subject matter was the apostasy and rebellion of their ancestors.

- Let’s take a moment and examine:

STEPHEN’S REFERENCE CONCERNING THE APOSTASY OF ISRAEL

Apostasy is defined as “the abandonment or renunciation of a religious belief”. Throughout their history, Israel had abandoned God time and time again. In order to understand the rebellion of Israel, it is important to know what (and whom) they were rebelling against. The children of Israel rejected Moses, but ultimately they rejected God. These people who accused Stephen of blaspheming God and speaking against Moses were the children of people who had rebelled against both God and Moses. Furthermore, they were guilty themselves, for they had rejected God’s Promised Messiah, our Lord, Jesus Christ.

- Stephen reminds his audience that:

ISRAEL REBELLED IN THE DAYS BEFORE THE TABERNACLE

The first time they rejected Moses was after he defended one of them against and Egyptian. (v23 Now when Moses was forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brethren, the children of Israel. 24 And seeing one of them suffer wrong, he defended and avenged him who was oppressed, and struck down the Egyptian. 25 For he supposed that his brethren would have understood that God would deliver them by his hand, but they did not understand.)

Moses saw an Israelite being abused by an Egyptian, he intervened and in the process he killed the Egyptian. The following day he encountered two Israelites who were fighting; he intervened in this situation as well and reminded these men that they were brothers. But the aggressor pushed Moses away and said 'Who made you a ruler and a judge over us? Do you want to kill me as you did the Egyptian yesterday?” (v27-28) As a result, Moses fled for fear and dwelt in Midian for 40 years. While there he became the father of two sons.

Stephen goes on to tell of the amazing experience on Mt. Sinai when God appeared to Moses in the burning bush and sent him to back to Egypt to deliver the Israelites. (v35 This Moses whom they rejected, saying, 'Who made you a ruler and a judge?' is the one God sent to be a ruler and a deliverer by the hand of the Angel who appeared to him in the bush. 36 He brought them out, after he had shown wonders and signs in the land of Egypt, and in the Red Sea, and in the wilderness forty years.)

Moses was a “type” of Christ; in a sense he became the “savior” (deliverer) of the nation. Moses prophesied to the people concerning the arrival of the Promised Messiah. (v37 "Moses 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.') In verse 38 Stephen described Moses’ role as lawgiver to the people while in the wilderness. (v38 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).