Acts 7

Introduction

Why was Stephen before the Sanhedrin? He was before the Sanhedrin becasue of false witnesses.

Blasphemous words against the Temple - Jesus will destroy this place

Blasphemous words against the Law - Change the customs of Moses

Stephen had the face of an angel - He radiated the glory of God

Stephen showed respect for the Sanhedrin - He would rather offend them with truth than disrespecting their positions.

Stephen was prepared to give an answer -

Rightly divide the word of truth - 2 Timothy 2:15 “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.”

He was influenced by the Holy Spirit - Luke 12:11-12 “And when they bring you unto the synagogues, and unto magistrates, and powers, take ye no thought how or what thing ye shall answer, or what ye shall say: For the Holy Ghost shall teach you in the same hour what ye ought to say.”

Stephen's name mean "victor's crown" and what follows is his "victory speech!"

Stephen’s sermon was a panoramic view of the History of Israel - starting with Abraham and closing with the Prophets.

He knows that if they are going to hear what he says, they are going to have to want to hear it. They are going to have to have a desire to listen. And so he talks about their favorite subject. He builds his whole sermon on their own history, and that was their favorite subject.

We see, then, that the outrage against Stephen is, in a fourfold way, a pivotal event in the Acts. It marks (1) the final trial of the nation at the capital, (2) the official Jewish rejection of the renewed offer of the kingdom, (3) the first outward movement of evangelism, (4) the emerging of a new strategic centre.

God’s presence

God was with Abraham before the Temple - Acts 7:2 “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 Charran,”

God was with Joseph in Egypt - Acts 7:9 “And the patriarchs, moved with envy, sold Joseph into Egypt: but God was with him,”

God was with Moses in the wilderness of Sinai - Acts 7:30-33 “And when forty years were expired, there appeared to him in the wilderness of mount Sina 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, and 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.”

The point is God’s presence was not exclusive to the Temple - Acts 7:48-49 “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: or what is the place of my rest?”

Howbeit - Term of contrast. Stephen is challenging the Sanhedrin idea that God dwelt in the Temple in Jerusalem and no where else. This reminds me of the title of a well-known Christian book entitled "Your God is Too Small." Stephen could justifiably have said that to the Sanhedrin who wanted to confine God to their beloved Temple in Jerusalem.

1 Kings 8:27 “But will God indeed dwell on the earth? behold, the heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain thee; how much less this house that I have builded?”

Transference took place in Acts 2 from the Temple to the church - Matthew 18:20 “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.”

1 Corinthians 3:16-17 “Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.”

God’s Promises

God promises Abraham -

Acts 7:5-7 “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 it 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 four hundred 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.”

Acts 7:17 “But when the time of the promise drew nigh, which God had sworn to Abraham, the people grew and multiplied in Egypt,”

Acts 7:34 “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.”

Promise about Moses

Acts 7:25 “For he supposed his brethren would have understood how that God by his hand would deliver them: but they understood not.”

Acts 7:27 “But he that did his neighbour wrong thrust him away, saying, Who made thee a ruler and a judge over us?”

Acts 7:35 “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.”

A promise concerning the coming of Jesus

Acts 7:37 “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 me; him shall ye hear.”

Acts 7:52 “Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? and they have slain them which shewed before of the coming of the Just One; of whom ye have been now the betrayers and murderers:”

What makes the promises of God to Isreal special was not about Abraham, the Promised Land or Moses but Jesus. He is the central figure of many promises of God to Israel.

People’s Rejection

There is a contrast

Abraham followed

Joseph followed

Moses followed

Solomon followed

Prophets followed

But the patriarchs and fathers rejected.

Acts 7:9 “And the patriarchs, moved with envy, sold Joseph into Egypt: but God was with him,” - They rejected out of envy

Acts 7:27 “But he that did his neighbour wrong thrust him away, saying, Who made thee a ruler and a judge over us?”

Acts 7:35 “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.”

They rejected God’s chosen person to lead them out of Egypt

Acts 7:37-39 “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 angel which spake to him in the mount Sina, and with our fathers: who received the 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,”

The coming Messiah v.37

The Lively oracles of God v.38

Disobeyed by dismissing God’s plan and word

Acts 7:40 “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.” - Rejected God!

Their history is littered with an independent spirit. Independent from God. But being independent from God, they became enslaved by their neighbors.

Piercing of truth

This verse is not connected with the preceding verses. It appears their was an exchange between the sanhedrin and Stephen that led Stephen to say verse. 51

Warren Wiersbe summarizes Stephen's "accusations" against his accusers in Acts 7

(Acts 7:1-8) They misunderstood their own spiritual roots (Acts 7:9-36) They rejected their God-sent deliverers (Acts 7:37-43) They disobeyed their law (Acts 7:44-50) They despised their temple (Acts 7:51-53) They stubbornly resisted their God and His truth

Acts 7:51 “Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye.”

Stiff-necked - Will not bow before God - unwilling to change behavior.

Uncircumcised in the heart - not converted to God - God’s word has no influence over their life.

Resist (Opposed) the Holy Spirit

John Piper -  What was the root evil in all this resistance to God's will? Why did they resist the Holy Spirit (Acts 7:51)? I found the key in a parallel phrase in Acts 7:41 and Acts 7:48. In Acts 7:41 Stephen says that they offered sacrifices to the idol and "rejoiced in the works of their hands." And in Acts 7:48 he says, "The Most High does not dwell in houses made with hands." The root evil in many in Israel was that they derived their joy—their fulfillment, their meaning, their sense of significance—from what they could achieve with their own hands. Acts 7:41: "They rejoiced in the works of their hands." They wanted a kind of god and a kind of worship in which they could demonstrate their own power and their own wisdom and their own righteousness and their own morality and their own religious zeal. They got their joy from what they could achieve and not from God. Especially not from a God so free and so great and so sovereign and so self-sufficient that he gets all the credit for everything good, and won't let himself be limited or controlled by anybody's man-made temple. The temple in Jerusalem had become for many in Israel a symbol of what they could achieve— the work of their hands. And therefore the worship there had become a subtle form of self-worship—all very religious, using all the right language, but coming from uncircumcised hearts and stiff, unsubmissive, self-exalting necks. (The Story of a Stiff-Necked People) (Bold Added)

No different than their fathers

Acts 7:52 “Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? and they have slain them which shewed before of the coming of the Just One; of whom ye have been now the betrayers and murderers:”

Did not keep the law of God - Acts 7:53 “Who have received the law by the disposition of angels, and have not kept it.”

Keep - to watch, value

Their response - Acts 7:54 “When they heard these things, they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed on him with their teeth.”

Instead of repenting, they gnashed

Conclusion

Stephen still filled with the Holy Ghost - Acts 7:55 “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,”

Being filled with the Holy Ghost was to point people to Jesus

The stoning of Stephen

Even in this dire situation, he still viewed Jesus as Lord

And was broken for His people.

G Campbell Morgan has an interesting comment that "“The fires…in the olden days never made martyrs; they revealed them. No hurricane of persecution ever creates martyrs; it reveals them. Stephen was a martyr before they stoned him. He was the first martyr to seal his testimony with his blood.”