They turned their hearts to Egypt.

They turned their hearts to Egypt…

-53

“ This is the Moses who said to the Israelites, ‘God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers.’

“This is the one who was in the congregation in the wilderness with the angel who spoke to him at Mount Sinai, and with our fathers. He received living oracles to give to us. Our fathers refused to obey him, but thrust him aside, and in their hearts they turned to Egypt, saying to Aaron, ‘Make for us gods who will go before us. As for this Moses who led us out from the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.’ And they made a calf in those days, and offered a sacrifice to the idol and were rejoicing in the works of their hands. But God turned away and gave them over to worship the host of heaven, as it is written in the book of the prophets; “‘Did you bring to me slain beasts and sacrifices,

during the forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel?

You took up the tent of Moloch

and the star of your god Rephan,

the images that you made to worship;

and I will send you into exile beyond Babylon.’

“Our fathers had the tent of witness in the wilderness, just as he who spoke to Moses directed him to make it, according to the pattern that he had seen. Our fathers in turn brought it in with Joshua when they dispossessed the nations that God drove out before our fathers. So it was until the days of David, who found favor in the sight of God and asked to find a dwelling place for the God of Jacob. But it was Solomon who built a house for him.

Yet the Most High does not dwell in houses made by hands, as the prophet says, “‘Heaven is my throne,

and the earth is my footstool.

What kind of house will you build for me, says the Lord,

or what is the place of my rest?

Did not my hand make all these things?’

“You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you. Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who announced beforehand the coming of the Righteous One, whom you have now betrayed and murdered, you who received the law as delivered by angels and did not keep it.”

Let us pray…

During these series about the stoning of Stephen we have seen, Stephen defended himself against scurrilous and false charges. First concerning his blasphemy against God which he shown them he was not guilty but they were. Then concerning his rejection and blasphemy against the prophet Moses, which again he proved to them that they were the ones whom really rejected Moses. Now Stephen defends himself once again against the charge of speaking against the Law and the temple.

They turned their hearts to Egypt… when they rejected the Law.

As you can see, it is an easy transition from Moses to the Law, since the two of them are so closely associated.

The text tells us that Stephen’s opponents had accused him of speaking against and breaking the sacred Law of Moses, but the history of Israel really revealed that they were the ones who had repeatedly broken the Law of Moses. While Moses was with the congregation of Israel in the wilderness God gave the Law to them. God gave them His living Word through the very mediation of angels.

, “Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions, until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made, and it was put in place through angels by an intermediary. Now an intermediary implies more than one, but God is one.”

This passage in Galatians is intended to move us from slavery to sonship; from the slavery of Egypt, the sonship of the Eternal God. The Law was never intended to be in force forever, and now because the promised Messiah had come, those who believe in Him are sons of God and now under His grace.

Yet, in the passage the question is asked,  “Why then the law?”

The question then arises: If the law has no impact on God’s plan rooted in his promise, why was the law ever given?

The text gives us an answer it was because of the transgressions and sin, this is why the Law was given. There are at least four reasons that the whole of Scripture gives us cause that we can anchor our thoughts upon here.

(1) “to provide a sacrificial system to deal temporarily with sin,” (2) “to teach people more clearly what God requires and thereby to restrain sin,” (3) “to show that sin violated an explicit written law,” and (4) “to reveal people’s sinfulness and need for a savior”

, “Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.”

All four reasons for the Law are theologically true, but the last one is probably uppermost in Paul’s mind in Galatians. 

Our text here in Acts tells us that this Law was put in place through angels by an intermediary.

, He said,“ The LORD came from Sinai and dawned from Seir upon us; he shone forth from Mount Paran; he came from the ten thousands of holy ones, with flaming fire at his right hand.”

This passage talks about God coming from Sinai, where he gave the law, “from the ten thousands of holy ones,” these are angels who were present with God on that occasion ( ). Moses was God’s “intermediary” in the gifting of the law to Israel (; ). Though the angels also were involved in the giving of the Law; yet, the nature of their involvement is not made clear in Scripture. Look at…

, “These are the statutes and rules and laws that the LORD made between himself and the people of Israel through Moses on Mount Sinai.”

The Mosaic Law was part of a temporary covenant never intended to last forever. Now that Jesus has come as the true offspring of Abraham, the Mosaic Law was no longer in force.

 So yes, there was more than one party involved in the presentation of the law to Israel, which involved an intermediary, Moses. Yet, because God is one, his ultimate revelation comes not through an intermediary but from Him alone (this assumes that whatever comes from Christ comes from the one true God, for Christ is fully God).

Stephen then tells us that Moses and their forefathers both received “living oracles.” These living oracles spoken of here, are the very Words of God and refer to the Old Testament Scriptures here.

, “For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.”

The Word of God is a divine, authoritative revelation. Stephen affirms his belief in the law and in the Scripture, again making yet another “not guilty” plea. He declares that God was the author of the law, and that Moses was the mediator and recipient.

Look at verse 39, “Our fathers refused to obey him, but thrust him aside, and in their hearts they turned to Egypt.” Now having defended himself sufficiently again, Stephen now goes on the offensive. He reminds the Jewish leadership they were the one who were unwilling to be obedient to God, and that they rejected Him in their hearts and turned back to Egypt.

It’s not Stephen that rejected the Law it was the Jewish leadership that rejected the Law. Though God had delivered them from the great cruelly and oppression of the Pharaoh, they looked back with great longing at their time in Egypt.

, “We remember the fish we ate in Egypt that cost nothing, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic. But now our strength is dried up, and there is nothing at all but this manna to look at.”

First of all, regardless of the obvious ingratitude shown here by these people who have been deliver by God, Himself!

Which is really hard to ignore and get over. Yet, what are we to do with this statement, “We remember the fish we ate in Egypt that cost nothing…” That cost you nothing, you were all in bondage before God recused you, and you all paid for that fish through your labor, because you were slaves to Pharaoh. God delivered you and now you are to become slaves to God and He has provided you this manna.

This example gives us great insight into the mindset of these people; sometimes it is easier to get the people out of Egypt than it is to get Egypt of the people. For these people had turned the hearts back to Egypt.

Stephen gives us yet another example to show that their hearts were far from God. While Moses was on Mount Sinai receiving the Law from God, the people turned their hearts to Egyptian idolatry. Look at vv. 40-41, “They said to Aaron, “Make for us gods who will go before us. As for this Moses who led us out from the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him. And they made a calf in those days, and offered a sacrifice to the idol and were rejoicing in the works of their hands.”

But no sooner had the people received the Law than they disobeyed and rejected the Law by asking Aaron to make them an idol (), and thereby broke the first two of the Ten Commandments. ().

When God gave His laws to the Israelites, He began by addressing this religious pluralism.

, “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me”

Why did they do such an awful thing before the Lord?

While Moses was up on the mountain receiving God’s laws, the people were getting anxious down at the camp. Moses spent forty days () up on the mountain with God, and by the end of that time, the people were beginning to think Moses had died or left them. The people urged Aaron, their temporary leader, to make gods for them to follow. Since they were accustomed to having visual representations of gods, this was the natural (but sinful request) which resulted in blasphemy and idolatry.

Aaron took their gold earrings, which they had brought from Egypt, and melted them down to make a golden idol.

Calf worship was an integral part of Egyptian religion. Israel had a tendency towards idolatry, which began at Sinai, this contradicts the proud claims of the Sanhedrin that Israel were a people of the law. Yet, before the law was even delivered to them, they had rejected it. The idol Aaron crafted for them was a calf, but he maintained the name of the Lord in connection with it. He was merging the pagan practices they were familiar with and the worship of the God they were just beginning to become acquainted with. Aaron called the people together and told them that the golden calf was the god who delivered them from Egypt. The people offered sacrifices and then engaged in pagan rituals, including orgies () to worship this new god. Why did Aaron do this? Scripture doesn’t give us the full answer, but we can put certain clues together and get a fairly good picture. First, the people’s long familiarity with idol worship would incline them to follow that method in the absence of clear direction and clearer leadership.

It is likely that the people had not yet received the commands against idol worship, since Moses was yet to come down with the tablets of the law. Second, they were already in the habit of merging their beliefs with those of the people around them, a practice that would continue to plague them throughout the kingdom years. Third, Aaron was faced with an unruly crowd that placed a demand on him. The solution of making an idol and calling it by God's name seemed fairly reasonable.  But, why did he choose a calf/bull? Aaron’s lame excuse to Moses—“It just came out of the fire like this!” )—was just a feeble attempt to dodge blame. He fashioned it with a graving tool () and took great care to form it that way. The bull was a symbol of strength and fertility, and the people were already familiar with bull gods from Egypt. Bulls were also typical animals of sacrifice, so to use their image as a symbol of the god being worshiped was a natural connection.

Aaron’s bull was a mixture of the powerful God who delivered the people through mighty works and the pagan methods of worship that were borrowed from the people around them. Even though there are reasonable explanations for why Aaron and the people began to worship the golden calf, those explanations do not excuse the sin.

For we know that God certainly held the people accountable for their corruption () and was ready to destroy them for their sin. Moses’ personal intercession on behalf of his people saved them. Moses indicates that Aaron at least should have known that his actions were sinful () and didn’t let him off the hook. As with any other sins, the punishment is death, and the only proper response is repentance. Moses called for those who were on the Lord’s side to come stand with him (). The Levites stood with him and were commanded to go through the camp and kill anyone who persisted in the idolatry. Three thousand men were killed that day.

The next day, Moses went up and confessed the people’s sins before God, asking for His forgiveness. God declared that the guilty ones would yet pay with their own deaths and be blotted out of His book. These were the same ones who, on the verge of entering the Promised Land, were denied God’s promises and were loss in the wilderness for forty years to die for their sins. Their children would be the ones to receive God’s promised blessings. Their experiences are a lesson to us today. Even though we might justify our actions through reason or logic, if we are violating God’s clear commands, we are sinning against Him, and He will hold us accountable for those sins. For our God is a consuming fire.

The whole idea and creating any graven image of God was sinful as the Law teaches us! Our God is not to be worshiped through images, because any image we make will draw more attention to the work of our hands than the work of God‘s hands who made all things. Also, there is no way we can ever fully represent the holiness and awesomeness of God through an image.

To attempt to do so will always fall short. On top of this, God is a spirit (), and we cannot form an image of a spirit.

We worship God by believing His Word, obeying it, and declaring His greatness to others.

Although God had every right to destroy the nation, He remained faithful to His covenant.

But not so fast, look at vv. 42-43,

“But God turned away and gave them over to worship the host of heaven, as it is written in the book of the prophets: “Did you bring to me slain beasts and sacrifices, during the forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel? You took up the tent of Moloch and the star of your god Rephan, the images that you made to worship; and I will send you into exile beyond Babylon.”

My brothers and sister these couple of verses which are quoted here from can only be compared to a passage in Romans.

, “Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error. And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.”

Why the comparison pastor? Because, both of these passages describes the judgment of God when He “takes His hands off” and permits sinners to have their own way.

This is why Stephen quotes , “Did you bring to me sacrifices and offerings during the forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel? You shall take up Sikkuth your king, and Kiyyun your star-god—your images that you made for yourselves, and I will send you into exile beyond Damascus,” says the LORD, whose name is the God of hosts.”

The Israelites had in fact given such offerings in the desert, but since their hearts were not right (Now the mention of Sikkuth and Kiyyun, refer to Mesopotamian deities), God nevertheless judged them. The religiosity of the people of Israel in Amos’s day did not fool God, either. So they were exiled beyond Damascus and this is just what happened in . This is a startling and significant prediction, because Assyria was comparatively weak in Amos’s time.

It is believed that idols of Moloch were giant metal statues of a man with a bull’s head. Each image had a hole in the abdomen and possibly outstretched forearms that made a kind of ramp towards the hole. A fire was lit in or around the statue. Babies were placed in the statue’s arms or in the hole. When a couple sacrificed their firstborn, they believed that Moloch would ensure financial prosperity for the family and future children. The worship of idols like, Moloch wasn’t abolished until the Israelites’ captivity in Babylon. Somehow, the dispersion of the Israelites into a large pagan civilization succeeded in finally purging them of their false gods. When the Jews returned to their land, they rededicated themselves to God, and the Valley of Hinnom was turned into a place for burning garbage and the bodies of executed criminals. Jesus used the imagery of this place—an eternally burning fire, consuming countless human victims—to describe hell, and calls it Gehenna where those who reject God will burn for eternity ().

Stephen’s use of the prophecy succinctly to summarizes the sad, idolatrous history of Israel’s turning their hearts by to Egypt by rejected of the Law.

They turned their hearts to Egypt… when they repressed the Temple. ().

Remember, what the accusation against Stephen is! He was accused of speaking against the temple. Now he traces the history of the temple to show his respect for it because it was ordained by God.

Stephen respected the temple and he did not repress its great value. He did not seek to destroy the temple, but that was exactly what the Jewish nation did!

He begins with an illusion to the temple here speaking of the tabernacle of testimony in the wilderness. The Lord God spoke to Moses and directed him to make it according to the pattern, which he had seen. The wilderness generation could not plead ignorance of God’s glory, since the tabernacle was in their midst.

Nor could the later fathers who, in verse (45) who brought it in with Joshua when they dispossessed the nations that God drove out before our fathers. So it was until the days of David.”

Stephen turned to the charge made against him regarding the temple. , “Then they secretly instigated men who said, “We have heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses and God.” And they stirred up the people and the elders and the scribes, and they came upon him and seized him and brought him before the council, and they set up false witnesses who said, “This man never ceases to speak words against this holy place and the law, for we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and will change the customs that Moses delivered to us.”

Stephen contrasts the tabernacle (or tent) with the temple.

He wanted to show that the temple is not necessary for God’s purposes. For God is God all by Himself.

For in the wilderness God directed the construction of the tabernacle. Now this tabernacle was distinct from the temple, it was movable, and it contained the witness, the stone tablets inscribed with God’s law. This tent continued as Israel’s place of worship through the period of the conquest on down to the time of David, who was the first to request the building of a temple ().

However, Stephen is not saying that the building of the temple was wrong, show not an hint of disapproval. He just gives us the facts. After God gave David victory over all this enemies, he asked that he might find a dwelling place for the God of Jacob.

David’s request was denied, however, and it was Solomon who built a house for Him. Stephen makes only a brief reference to Solomon’s temple. For the current temple had been destroyed by the Babylonians (). That temple was replaced by one build by Zerubbabel (Erza 5:2), and it too had been destroyed. The current temple was built by the non-Jew Herod. And within the lifetime of many of Stephen’s hearers, in A.D. 70, that temple too would be destroyed.

The transitory nature of the temple really make Stephen’s point, namely that the Most High does not dwell in houses made by human hands. Solomon understood that truth. In his prayer at the dedication of the temple he asked rhetorically.

, “But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you; how much less this house that I have built!”

So,  merely affirms that God cannot be contained in or confined to any earthly temple; God is much larger than that, He cannot be repress even my His the temple.

Look at vv. 49-50, ‘“Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. What kind of house will you build for me, says the Lord, or what is the place of my rest? Did not my hand make all these things?’

Stephen uses a quote from here to charge the Jewish leadership with no only truly disrespecting God’s temple but for trying to repress its true meaning. The word represses means to keep under control, to check, to suppress, and to reduce.

Our Creator, God almighty cannot be walled in not even by his own temple in Jerusalem. The OT is constantly at pains to remind God’s people that God is greater than the institutions he has authorized, God is greater than the very creation He has created and God is greater than the creature that He has created and he will not be manipulated by that creature for their use.

Don’t you see, they were trying to confine God to just the temple, yet Solomon and Isaiah, argued that God is greater than any temple! We do the same thing, when we only show reverence to God when we are at church, and as soon as we leave the building it becomes business as usual. Don’t we realized that the same God who is in here is the same God who is out there. The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness there of and all whom dwell in it!

The temple was only a symbol of God’s presence, not the prison of His essence. They were turning their hearts to Egypt… when they repressed the temple.

They turned their hearts to Egypt… when they resisted God and His truth.

Here in this small passage we find the climax of Stephen’s sermon, here is the person application that cut his hearers to their very heart. Throughout the centuries Israel had refused and resisted to submit to God’s will and to obeyHis truths.

Their ears did not hear the truth, their hearts did not receive the truth, their minds could not conceive the truth and their stiff- necks did not bow to the truth.

This is how Stephen addressed them, (51), “You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit. As your father did, so do you”

Here he pictures them as people who are defiantly, disrespectful, disobedient, and are determined not to bow to the commands of the Holy Spirit. Because these Jews prided themselves in their physical circumcision which identified them as been connected and having a covenant with God. Stephen here gives the opposite judgment about them, and says, you might be circumcised in some areas. But your real problem is that you are “ uncircumcised in your hearts and ears.”

, “For circumcision indeed is of value if you obey the law, but if you break the law, your circumcision becomes uncircumcision. So, if a man who is uncircumcised keeps the precepts of the law, will not his uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision? Then he who is physically uncircumcised but keeps the law will condemn you who have the written code and circumcision but break the law. For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical. But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man but from God.”

Stephen is saying to them you people are unclean before a Holy God as unclean as uncircumcised Gentiles, you are unconnected to God and His Covenant. This was the ultimate condemnation. Their stubborn resisting of the Holy Spirit made them guilty of doing just what their fathers did. That’s why Stephen says, “Which one of the prophets did your fathers not persecute?

, “Woe to you! For you build the tombs of the prophets whom your fathers killed. So you are witnesses and you consent to the deeds of your fathers, for they killed them, and you build their tombs. Therefore also the Wisdom of God said, ‘I will send them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill and persecute,’ so that the blood of all the prophets, shed from the foundation of the world, may be charged against this generation, from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who perished between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell you, it will be required of this generation.”

Stephen now draws the parallel to it bloody conclusion, (52b-53)

“And they killed those who announced beforehand the coming of the Righteous One, whom you have now betrayed and murdered, you who received the law as delivered by angels and did not keep it.”

The nation resisted and did not accept the new truth that God was revealing from age to age. Instead of seeing God’s truth as seed that produces fruit and more seed, the religious leaders “embalmed” the truth and refused to accept anything new. They turned their hearts to the Egypt when they resisted God and His truths.