The Trial Of Stephen, Part 3

The Trial of Stephen, Part 3

Acts 7:17–29 NKJV

“But when the time of the promise drew near which God had sworn to Abraham, the people grew and multiplied in Egypt till another king arose who did not know Joseph. This man dealt treacherously with our people, and oppressed our forefathers, making them expose their babies, so that they might not live. At this time Moses was born and was well pleasing to God; and he was brought up in his father’s house for three months. But when he was set out, Pharaoh’s daughter took him away and brought him up as her own son. And Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was mighty in words and deeds.

“Now when he was 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 and avenged him who was oppressed and struck down the Egyptian. For he supposed that his brethren would have understood that God would deliver them by his hand, but they did not understand. And the next day he appeared to two of them as they were fighting, and tried to reconcile them, saying, ‘Men, you are brethren; why do you wrong one another?’ But he who did his neighbor wrong pushed him away, saying, ‘Who made you a ruler and a judge over us? Do you want to kill me as you did the Egyptian yesterday?’ Then, at this saying, Moses fled and became a dweller in the land of Midian, where he had two sons.

We continue this morning with our study of the defense which Stephen brings at his trial before the Sanhedrin, We have already seen how he uses Abraham and Joseph. today, we will look at Moses, a great leader whom the LORD raised up to deliver His people, Israel, from Egyptian captivity.

We need to be reminded that Stephen is on trial for his life. This is no mere history lecture on the life of Israel. He did indeed have the attention of all the hearers, something which rarely happens at a lecture, As such, Stephen is not saying anything new. He is recounting Scripture, something which the Jewish hearers were quite familiar. What we need to zero in on is how Stephen uses Scripture in his defense of the gospel. What seems novel is how the life of Moses in Scripture looks in the light of the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ. We should also remember that Stephen does not defend himself in the way most people in danger of condemnation do. There is no apology for his stirring up trouble against the Temple or the Jewish establishment. In fact, Stephen's presentation here will lead directly to His death by stoning.

We have already learned from Stephen’s account of Abraham that God had made a promise to Abraham. He also reminds us that the promise He had made that Abraham’s descendants would inherit the land of Israel. But there was also some difficult aspects of the promise. Abraham was told that his descendants would end up in slavery in a foreign land. He was also told that this promise would be delayed for four hundred years. We have also seen how God had used Joseph to prepare the way for Israel to survive the famine by coming into the land. We are reminded that this same Joseph was himself sold into slavery by his brothers. The very same Joseph whom the brothers of Joseph had rejected would be the one God had chosen to deliver them.

So, we come to the words in verse 17 of the text we read this morning. “When the time of the promise drew near.” We have to remember that this was 400 years later. To us mortal beings, this seems like an eternity. We remember that it was 400 years ago that the Pilgrims came to America to be soon followed by Puritans coming to what they considered to be the New Canaan after 1630. Many generations have come and gone since them. They came looking for a land of promise. But today, we have to seriously reconsider whether their dreams for America still have any meaning, The institutions than men make, even those based upon “Christian” values have a time stamp upon them. But this is not so with God. God’s promises are sure and steadfast. What God says will happen will certainly happen. I can only wonder in the hard bondage of Israel for several generations whether the promise given to Abraham had lost its meaning. Was the promise swallowed up by times of intense despair. We all want God to work in out time and in our lives. We have troubles with promises which are distant. So, we can only assume that many of the enslaved Israelites had lost hope. But, there were certainly some who looked hopefully to the fulfillment of the promise. Those familiar with the promise given to Abraham and believed it could count that it had been four hundred years. This seems to have been the case with Moses’ family. Regardless of how much these Israelites knew, the important thing is that God can count. The time had come.