Here We Go Again!
Notes
Transcript
Handout
Many Old Testament themes are repeated in the New Testament.
Stephen is accused of blaspheming the Temple and the Mosaic Law - Stephen then summarizes OT history in order to expose their hypocrisy and wickedness.
The New American Commentary: Acts 3. Stephen’s Speech before the Sanhedrin (7:2–53)
Two recurring themes stand out. The first is that God can never be tied down to one land or place and correspondingly that his people are closest to him when they are a “pilgrim people,” a people on the move.36 The second major theme is that of Israel’s pattern of constantly resisting and rejecting its God-appointed leaders.
Abraham - 7:1-8
1 And the high priest said, “Are these things so?” 2 And Stephen said: “Brothers and fathers, hear me. The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran, 3 and said to him, ‘Go out from your land and from your kindred and go into the land that I will show you.’
God called Abraham out of his land, family, and inheritance
*The initial Genesis narrative says that God spoke to Abram after his father died but later indicates in chapter 15 that God was actually the one who initiated Abram’s departure from Ur before he was ever in Haran.
7 And he said to him, “I am the Lord who brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess.”
This is important to know: In Biblical narratives, God gives us the information he wants us to have when he wants us to have it. Sometimes, his purposes for what he gives us don’t require us to have ever aspect or detail of what happened. This is an example.
We don’t have every aspect or detail of...
Jesus’ life
Moses’ life
Abram’s Life
Paul’s Life.. Etc.
But that’s not the main point of what God is trying to reveal through Stephen here...
This is: Everything God commanded Abraham to do here was costly.
Box up everything you own. Get a U-Haul, load it up, and then say goodbye to everyone you love and know.
All that Abraham left behind: livelihood, family and social support, and family and regional idols.
Sometimes, when God gives commands, it will be very costly.
But Abraham still obeyed:
4 Then he went out from the land of the Chaldeans and lived in Haran. And after his father died, God removed him from there into this land in which you are now living.
But, instead of receiving an inheritance from God as a reward for his obedience, Abraham is instead given a Promise… Well, in reality, it was a promise with other promises...
5 Yet he gave him no inheritance in it, not even a foot’s length, but promised to give it to him as a possession and to his offspring after him, though he had no child.
This is the initial promise: you will have offspring even though it is impossible. That is the Jewish People. The people whom Stephen is addressing. But there are more promises with this promise...
6 And God spoke to this effect—that his offspring would be sojourners in a land belonging to others, who would enslave them and afflict them four hundred years.
First promise within the promise: Your promised offspring will be slaves in a foreign land...
7 ‘But I will judge the nation that they serve,’ said God, ‘and after that they shall come out and worship me in this place.’
Second promise within the promise: I will judge the nation that enslaves your promised offspring.
7 ‘But I will judge the nation that they serve,’ said God, ‘and after that they shall come out and worship me in this place.’
Third promise within the promise: I will bring your promised offspring out of that nation and they will worship me here.
As a sign to both Abraham and God, and in order to show that God is good for His promises, He initiated the covenant of Circumcision.
8 And he gave him the covenant of circumcision. And so Abraham became the father of Isaac, and circumcised him on the eighth day, and Isaac became the father of Jacob, and Jacob of the twelve patriarchs.
Now, even though the next part of verse 8 only takes up half of a verse, it is still a very big deal. Because it was the beginning of God fulfilling His promise to Abraham...
8 And he gave him the covenant of circumcision. And so Abraham became the father of Isaac, and circumcised him on the eighth day, and Isaac became the father of Jacob, and Jacob of the twelve patriarchs.
God indeed gave Abraham a son, a grandson, and great grand-children… God is fulfilling the promise he made to Abraham.
Main Takeaway from Abraham’s Life:
God calls out pagans to worship Him - Remember where we came from!
He’s saying, “Israel, don’t forget where you came from! Your father was an idolator before God called him out of his idolatry.”
If you’re a Christian, you also were called out of your idolatry! Don’t forget where you came from
God is a promise maker and a promise keeper! - Remember who called us out!
He’s saying, “Israel, remember everything you have is a gift from God!”
Some of God’s promises to Abraham were possitive!
But, Not all of God’s promises to Abraham were rainbows and butterflies.
Slavery, Exile, and Waiting
Joseph - 7:9-16
This is where Stephen begins to identify the disobedient tendencies that Israel had. God has kept his end of the deal up until this point. And even though we see disobedient tendencies, God is going to continue to work things out according to the promises he made to Abraham.
9 “And the patriarchs, jealous of Joseph, sold him into Egypt; but God was with him
See how this is going…
The patriarchs… The ones whom we revere… Our ancestors…
Heres how they started this journey with as God’s people… they were jealous of their brother and sought to murder him…
That’s their legacy!!!
But God is still at work...
9 “And the patriarchs, jealous of Joseph, sold him into Egypt; but God was with him 10 and rescued him out of all his afflictions and gave him favor and wisdom before Pharaoh, king of Egypt, who made him ruler over Egypt and over all his household.
But God...
Was with Joseph
Rescued Joseph
Gave Joseph favor with those around him
Gave Joseph wisdom
All so that Pharaoh would make Joseph ruler over Egypt… so that multitudes of people wouldn’t die, including the Israelites… Those murders!
11 Now there came a famine throughout all Egypt and Canaan, and great affliction, and our fathers could find no food. 12 But when Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, he sent out our fathers on their first visit.
Do you see how God is remaining faithful to His people regardless of what they have done up to this point!?
13 And on the second visit Joseph made himself known to his brothers, and Joseph’s family became known to Pharaoh. 14 And Joseph sent and summoned Jacob his father and all his kindred, seventy-five persons in all.
15 And Jacob went down into Egypt, and he died, he and our fathers, 16 and they were carried back to Shechem and laid in the tomb that Abraham had bought for a sum of silver from the sons of Hamor in Shechem.
17 “But as the time of the promise drew near, which God had granted to Abraham, the people increased and multiplied in Egypt
Main Takeaway from Joseph’s Life
God’s called out people still act like Pagans sometimes!
Joseph’s brothers sought to murder Joseph out of jealousy...
This is one of the same motives that led the Jewish leaders to kill Jesus.
Nothings changed!
God uses His people’s sin to keep His promise.
God still had a special purpose for this messy group of people he called out as His own!
Moses - 7:17-44
17 “But as the time of the promise drew near, which God had granted to Abraham, the people increased and multiplied in Egypt 18 until there arose over Egypt another king who did not know Joseph. 19 He dealt shrewdly with our race and forced our fathers to expose their infants, so that they would not be kept alive.
It’s happening as God said it would...
But there appears to be something threatening God’s plan… Pharaoh sought to kill the male children because Israel was becoming a threat…
So now, God, yet again, is going to step in...
20 At this time Moses was born; and he was beautiful in God’s sight. And he was brought up for three months in his father’s house, 21 and when he was exposed, Pharaoh’s daughter adopted him and brought him up as her own son. 22 And Moses was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and he was mighty in his words and deeds.
God worked it out so that the family that sought to eliminate the threat of Israel adopts, raises, and equips the one who will be used by God to save Israel and shame the Egyptians.
23 “When he was forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brothers, the children of Israel. 24 And seeing one of them being wronged, he defended the oppressed man and avenged him by striking down the Egyptian. 25 He supposed that his brothers would understand that God was giving them salvation by his hand, but they did not understand. 26 And on the following day he appeared to them as they were quarreling and tried to reconcile them, saying, ‘Men, you are brothers. Why do you wrong each other?’ 27 But the man who was wronging his neighbor thrust him aside, saying, ‘Who made you a ruler and a judge over us? 28 Do you want to kill me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday?’ 29 At this retort Moses fled and became an exile in the land of Midian, where he became the father of two sons.
Now, I may not approve of Moses’ method for rescuing his fellow Israelites, but Stephen seems to suggest that this was actually a means of deliverance for them.
Moses murdering an Egyptian was even something God was able to use to deliver some Israelites.
But, even then, the Israelites refused to acknowledge God using Moses to deliver them… This is actually a foreshadowing event
30 “Now when forty years had passed, an angel appeared to him in the wilderness of Mount Sinai, in a flame of fire in a bush. 31 When Moses saw it, he was amazed at the sight, and as he drew near to look, there came the voice of the Lord: 32 ‘I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob.’ And Moses trembled and did not dare to look. 33 Then the Lord said to him, ‘Take off the sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy ground. 34 I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and have heard their groaning, and I have come down to deliver them. And now come, I will send you to Egypt.’
God appeared to Moses to tell him that He was aware of Israel’s oppression.
Stephen specifically says it like this, God said, “I have come down to deliver them...”
Though Moses was a chosen instrument, it was God who delivered the Israelites.
God was aware of all that had happened and will happen.
35 “This Moses, whom they rejected, saying, ‘Who made you a ruler and a judge?’—this man God sent as both ruler and redeemer by the hand of the angel who appeared to him in the bush. 36 This man led them out, performing wonders and signs in Egypt and at the Red Sea and in the wilderness for forty years. 37 This is the Moses who said to the Israelites, ‘God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers.’ 38 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.
God sent Moses as a ruler and redeemer… But he was rejected...
The MacArthur Study Bible Chapter 7
Thus began Israel’s long history of rejecting her God-sent deliverers
Sound familiar?
This sounds just like what the Apostles are saying about Jesus!
39 Our fathers refused to obey him, but thrust him aside, and in their hearts they turned to Egypt,
The hearts of the Israelites were corrupted. They never believed God’s promises in the first place. If they had, they would have remembered that this was all told to Abraham before they even God to Egypt.
40 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.’ 41 And they made a calf in those days, and offered a sacrifice to the idol and were rejoicing in the works of their hands. 42 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? 43 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.’ 44 “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.
“God turned away and gave them over...”
The MacArthur Study Bible Chapter 7
Judicially abandoning the people to their sin and idolatry
Main Takeaway from Moses’ Life
Sometimes God’s people don’t want to be called out of slavery!
God still keeps his promises despite his people’s rebellion!
Joshua, David, and Solomon - 7:45-50
45 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,
God used Joshua to drive out the nations who owned the promised land
45 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, 46 who found favor in the sight of God and asked to find a dwelling place for the God of Jacob.
God provided Israel with their favorite king, David. David wanted the Israelites to live in the presence of God. He deeply desired to build a temple for God.
The MacArthur Study Bible Chapter 7
To counter the false charge that he blasphemed the temple (6:13, 14), Stephen recounted its history to show his respect for it.
47 But it was Solomon who built a house for him.
Eventually, God used Solomon to make this a reality for the Israelites. But even Solomon knew that the Temple wasn’t something that could hold God.
48 Yet the Most High does not dwell in houses made by hands, as the prophet says, 49 “ ‘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?
6 But who is able to build him a house, since heaven, even highest heaven, cannot contain him? Who am I to build a house for him, except as a place to make offerings before him?
Main Takeaway
Some of God’s called out people care more about formalities and traditions than they care about God
Unlike Joshua, David, and Solomon - These accusers care more about their rituals and temple more than they care about God and his holiness!!
“we have to have this type of music genre, this type of building, this color carpet…”
May we never get to the point where we are more obsessed over our traditions and formalities than we are the holiness and mission of God!
Even if God is blunt, some people just don’t pay attention!
Wait till we read v 52
The New American Commentary: Acts 3. Stephen’s Speech before the Sanhedrin (7:2–53)
The fulfillment of Israel’s true worship is in the Messiah, and in rejecting him they were rejecting what ultimately the temple was all about
Stephen’s Conclusion - 7:51-53
You guys stink!
51 “You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you. 52 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, 53 you who received the law as delivered by angels and did not keep it.”
You guys appear soooo passionate about the Law, but in reality, you are taking it and using it as toilet paper!
They accused Stephen of blaspheming the Law (meaning the Torah and all their sacred Jewish texts) yet they never paid attention to how it was pointing to Jesus!!
Stephen is saying, “I’m not the blasphemer, you all are!!!”
We can’t just pick and choose what we like out of the Bible...
Modern Day:
We’ve always done it this way, we can’t change how we’ve always done it
music, carpet, announcements, dress, Etc.
People love tradition more than they love God
Double sided coin - “God is love, how dare you talk about hell! That’s not loving!” or “God hates you filthy sinners!”
People want to pick and choose the parts of the Bible they love
God would never kill his Son to take care of sin… That’s not the kind of God I want to worship.