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Text Reading: Acts 8:1-4.
Title: Havoc in the Church
Review & Summary
Stephen preached; he gave the high priest and the religious leaders a history lesson that they could not forget!
However, their hearts were hardened.
They could not hear; they could not receive the truth.
So, when conviction set in, they responded in the only way they could!
Acts 7:58–59 (KJV 1900)
And cast [Stephen] out of the city, and stoned him: and the witnesses laid down their clothes at a young man’s feet, whose name was Saul.
And they stoned Stephen...
One writer stated:
Religion without the Holy Spirit is the cruelest force in the world.
And certainly history has born that out to be true!
These religious leaders were simply following the example of their father - and it wasn’t Abraham!
Stephen, in his death, continued to declare the deity of Jesus Christ!
When Jesus died He said:
When Stephen died he said:
In that way, Stephen confessed the truth that Jesus was coequal with God the Father because He was God!
Not only that, but Stephen’s last recorded words were a final declaration of the deity of Jesus Christ when he said:
Acts 7:60 (KJV 1900)
...Lord, lay not this sin to their charge...
Who can forgive sins but God?
No one!
(That lesson we learned in Mark chapter 2!)
Acts 7:60 (KJV 1900)
...And when he had said this, he fell asleep.
May I ask you, “Are you prepared to die?”
It’s been said in different ways by different people but...
You are not truly prepared to live until you are prepared to die.
Saul made havock of the church.
What I would like to spend most of my time on though, is a phrase that we find in vs. 3:
Acts 8:3 (KJV 1900)
As for Saul, he made havock of the church, entering into every house, and haling men and women committed them to prison.
Acts 8:1 says that, after Stephen’s death, “…there was a great persecution against the church which was at Jerusalem...” And that persecution was spearheaded by Saul!
Vs. 3 tells us that Saul began to go house to house, dragging Christian men and women out and handing them over to be placed in prison!
Havock: great destruction or devastation; ruinous damage
Acts chapter 9 gives us a little better description of this great persecution:
After Saul’s glorious salvation, Ananias gave this testimony of Saul:
Throughout his ministry, the Apostle Paul never shied away from telling others of his past.
To the local church in Galatia Paul wrote:
We have only the barest hints in the New Testament of the fierce anti-Christian activities of the unregenerate, fanatical Saul of Tarsus.
Exploring Galatians: An Expository Commentary ((1) Paul as a Religious Man (1:13–14))
His [persecution was] like that of a wild boar uprooting tender saplings.
He was merciless.
Some people he had forced to blaspheme; others had been martyred while he cheered on those who hurled the stones.
The results of this merciless persecution and slaughter?
John Phillips stated:
All Satan accomplished by this violence was to scatter the glowing embers of the church’s fire far and wide, so that wherever they settled new fires might spring up.
Joseph’s testimony of his treatment at the hands of his brothers has application here:
We rejoice in this!
And yet, I remind you of Peter’s words:
The local church in Jerusalem was suffering because of the persecution brought by Paul; the church in Jerusalem was not suffering because of any sin or evil doing on its part.
But 1 Peter 3:17 ends with “…than for evil doing.”
In other words, it is possible for a Christian to suffer because they have done wrong; it is possible for a Church to suffer because it has done wrong.
_______________ made havock of the church!
Should your name be placed in the blank?
I pray to God that my name will never need to be put in that blank!
I pray to God that your name never needs to be put in that blank!
Last week, I challenged you with this question: How’s your heart?
and then I went on to challenge all of with Biblical steps that we could take to protect our hearts and keep them soft and tender.
This week I want to challenge each of us to make sure that our name never needs to be put in that blank!
How?
Cultivate Love
Jesus spoke these words:
And yet, He also warned:
We live in a world and a society where iniquity is abounding.
We are surrounded by wickedness and filth every day.
Because of that, has our love for one another begun to cool?
Turn to and read Romans 12:9-21; 13:8-10.
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