SONS OF REBELLIOUS FATHERS
Posted by Pastor Greg Allen on September 7, 2022 under AM Bible Study |
AM Bible Study Group: September 7, 2022 from Acts 6:8-7:53
Theme: God’s message of redemption is often resisted by those who most need to hear it.
(All Scripture is taken from The New King James Version, unless otherwise indicated).
Long ago, a friend of mine was working hard at understanding the story of the Bible. The history of the Old Testament was a particular struggle for him. He said, “I sure wish someone would write a simple summary of the history of the Old Testament.” I told him at the time that, sadly, I didn’t know of one—but that I’d keep my eyes out and let him know if I ever found one.
I wish I could have called him later and told him that I found one. It’s in Acts 7. That’s where you’ll find the best, brief, one-page summary of the Old Testament story that has ever been written.
And it’s the part of our study of the Book of Acts that we come to today.
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Before we read this summary, though, we need to understand the context in which it was given. It wasn’t a very happy history lesson. It was given in the context of a godly man who was standing trial. The historical summary that he gave was his defense. And he concluded it with a harsh rebuke to his inquisitors that led—shortly thereafter—to him being put to death. The man through whom God gave this summary ended up becoming the church’s first martyr.
To understand the tone in which this summary was given, let’s look at the stinging rebuke that was given at its conclusion. You’ll find it in Acts 7:51-53;
“You stiff-necked and 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 foretold the coming of the Just One, of whom you now have become the betrayers and murderers, who have received the law by the direction of angels and have not kept it” (Acts 7:51-53).
Those aren’t the kind of words you typically hear at the end of a history lesson. But then, this was no ordinary lesson. It was meant to be applied personally to those who heard it. The hearers of this rebuke were the ruling council of the Jewish people—the leaders who should have welcomed the coming of the Messiah; but instead were responsible for handing the Lord Jesus over for crucifixion, and who had been persistently opposing the preaching of the Lord’s apostles. Their “fathers” were the Jewish people whose stories were told in that brief summary of Old Testament history—the ‘fathers’ who, like those that were right then being rebuked, also had resisted God and fought against the preaching of those God had sent them.
And the man who was giving this history to those rebellious leaders—and the harsh rebuke at the end—was Stephen. He was giving this historical summary under the enabling power of the Holy Spirit. And as a result of giving it, he was put to death.
His name was Stephen. And the basic lesson we learn from his history lesson is that God’s message of redemption is often resisted by those who most need to hear it.
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Now; we’ve already been introduced to this man Stephen. He was an outstanding man of God.
In our last study, we were told about the problem that the church sought to solve. Some of the Hellenistic (that is, Greek-speaking) Jewish widows in the church were being overlooked in the church’s daily provision and care. The Greek-speaking Jewish believers brought a complaint about this to the Hebrew-speaking Jewish leadership of the church. And they solved the problem by appointing “seven men of good reputation, full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom” (Acts 6:3) to oversee the matter and to make sure that all the widows—Hellenistic and Hebrew—were properly taken care of. Stephen was one of those seven men.
Luke, the writer of Acts, gave special mention of Stephen. We’re told in 6:5 that he was “a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit”. And in the Spirit’s enabling power, he did much more than feed the widows.
This leads us first to consider …
1. STEPHEN’S MINISTRY (6:8-10).
We’re told in verses 8-10;
And Stephen, full of faith and power, did great wonders and signs among the people. Then there arose some from what is called the Synagogue of the Freedmen (Cyrenians, Alexandrians, and those from Cilicia and Asia), disputing with Stephen. And they were not able to resist the wisdom and the Spirit by which he spoke (6:8-10).
God not only performed miracles through Stephen that gave evidence of the power of Christ, but He also gave Stephen great wisdom in arguing for and defending the faith. He had a two-fold ministry: demonstrating the reality of the faith, and defending that faith from its detractors. The attacks seem to have been coming primarily from a group of non-believing Hellenistic Jewish men who considered themselves to be the ‘Synagogue of the Freedmen’; who, perhaps had been under bondage at one time to foreign rulers, but now were ‘liberated’. We’re told that they attacked the faith that Stephen was giving miraculous proof to; but they couldn’t successfully argue against his wisdom or spiritual power.
When hard-bound unbelieving people can’t resist truth with true arguments, they often resort instead to using lies. And that brings us to the story of …
2. STEPHEN’S TRIAL (6:11-15).
We’re told,
Then they secretly induced men to say, “We have heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses and God.” And they stirred up the people, the elders, and the scribes; and they came upon him, seized him, and brought him to the council. They also set up false witnesses who said, “This man does not cease to speak blasphemous words against this holy place and the law; for we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and change the customs which Moses delivered to us” (6:11-14).
These accusations were, of course, completely untrue. But they sound very much like the charges that were brought against Jesus (Matthew 26:61); and later on, against Paul (Acts 21:28). These charges may—in fact—be part of why Stephen went on to give his great history lesson. It clearly showed that he loved and respected the history of God’s work through his people. He had not been speaking against those things at all.
With this in mind, it’s remarkable to read what then happened. Verse 15 tells us;
And all who sat in the council, looking steadfastly at him, saw his face as the face of an angel (v. 15).
In Matthew 10:19, Jesus said that His followers would be brought before rulers to give testimony of Him; and that they would be given by the Holy Spirit that very hour what to say. Clearly, God’s hand was on Stephen; and what he said in response to this accusation was under the power of the Holy Spirit. It truly was an authoritative history lesson.
In the first verse of Chapter 7, we’re told that the high priest turned to Stephen and asked if these things were so. And that’s when we find the record of …
3. STEPHEN’S RESPONSE (7:2-50).
Let’s just read this great, Spirit-empowered history lesson, and let Stephen speak for himself. There probably isn’t any better way to grasp it than to just read it; and to notice that—throughout—it’s the story of the long battle of faith in God’s promises against the forces of unbelief and resistance. We can divide his history lesson into five parts:
a. God’s call of Abraham from paganism to the promised land and the birth of Abraham’s offspring (vv. 2-8).
And he said, “Brethren and fathers, listen: The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Haran, and said to him, ‘Get out of your country and from your relatives, and come to a land that I will show you.’ Then he came out of the land of the Chaldeans and dwelt in Haran. And from there, when his father was dead, He moved him to this land in which you now dwell. And God gave him no inheritance in it, not even enough to set his foot on. But even when Abraham had no child, He promised to give it to him for a possession, and to his descendants after him. But God spoke in this way: that his descendants would dwell in a foreign land, and that they would bring them into bondage and oppress them four hundred years. ‘And the nation to whom they will be in bondage I will judge,’ said God, ‘and after that they shall come out and serve Me in this place.’ Then He gave him the covenant of circumcision; and so Abraham begot Isaac and circumcised him on the eighth day; and Isaac begot Jacob, and Jacob begot the twelve patriarchs (7:2-8).
b. God’s protection of the sons of Jacob from famine through Joseph in the land of Egypt (vv. 9-16).
“And the patriarchs, becoming envious, sold Joseph into Egypt. But God was with him and delivered him out of all his troubles, and gave him favor and wisdom in the presence of Pharaoh, king of Egypt; and he made him governor over Egypt and all his house. Now a famine and great trouble came over all the land of Egypt and Canaan, and our fathers found no sustenance. But when Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, he sent out our fathers first. And the second time Joseph was made known to his brothers, and Joseph’s family became known to the Pharaoh. Then Joseph sent and called his father Jacob and all his relatives to him, seventy-five people. So Jacob went down to Egypt; and he died, he and our fathers. And they were carried back to Shechem and laid in the tomb that Abraham bought for a sum of money from the sons of Hamor, the father of Shechem” (vv. 9-16).
c. God’s deliverance of His people from bondage through the hand of Moses (vv. 17-36).
“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.
“And when forty years had passed, an Angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire in a bush, in the wilderness of Mount Sinai. When Moses saw it, he marveled at the sight; and as he drew near to observe, the voice of the Lord came to him, saying, ‘I am the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ And Moses trembled and dared not look. ‘Then the Lord said to him, “Take your sandals off your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground. I have surely seen the oppression of My people who are in Egypt; I have heard their groaning and have come down to deliver them. And now come, I will send you to Egypt.”’
“This Moses whom they rejected, saying, ‘Who made you a ruler and a judge?’ is the one God sent to be a ruler and a deliverer by the hand of the Angel who appeared to him in the bush. He brought them out, after he had shown wonders and signs in the land of Egypt, and in the Red Sea, and in the wilderness forty years” (vv. 17-36).
d. God’s punishment of the people of Israel during their time of rebellion in the wilderness (vv. 37-43).
“This is that Moses who said to the children of Israel, ‘The Lord your God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from your brethren. Him you shall hear.’
“This is he who was in the congregation in the wilderness with the Angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai, and with our fathers, the one who received the living oracles to give to us, whom our fathers would not obey, but rejected. And in their hearts they turned back to Egypt, saying to Aaron, ‘Make us gods to go before us; as for this Moses who brought us out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.’ And they made a calf in those days, offered sacrifices to the idol, and rejoiced in the works of their own hands. Then God turned and gave them up to worship the host of heaven, as it is written in the book of the Prophets:
‘Did you offer Me slaughtered animals and sacrifices during forty years in the wilderness,
O house of Israel?
You also took up the tabernacle of Moloch,
And the star of your god Remphan,
Images which you made to worship;
And I will carry you away beyond Babylon’” (vv. 37-43).
e. God’s provision to the people of Israel of the dwelling place He had promised them (vv. 44-50).
“Our fathers had the tabernacle of witness in the wilderness, as He appointed, instructing Moses to make it according to the pattern that he had seen, which our fathers, having received it in turn, also brought with Joshua into the land possessed by the Gentiles, whom God drove out before the face of our fathers until the days of David, who found favor before God and asked to find a dwelling for the God of Jacob. But Solomon built Him a house”
“However, the Most High does not dwell in temples made with hands, as the prophet says:
‘Heaven is My throne,
And earth is My footstool.
What house will you build for Me? says the Lord,
Or what is the place of My rest?
Has My hand not made all these things?’” (vv. 44-50).
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As you can plainly see, there’s a theme that runs through this history. It’s the long story of how those who had faith in God’s promises: a promise of a land (v. 3), an inheritance (vv. 4-5), an offspring (v. 5), a deliverance (vv. 6-7, 34), a covenant (v. 8), a future Prophet (v. 37), and a worship that would be beyond that which was practiced strictly in the temple (vv. 48-50).
But it’s also the story of the resistance of the Jewish nation as God brought those faithful promises to pass: resistance toward righteous people (v. 9), resistance toward their deliverer (vv. 25, 35, 40), resistance toward God’s good law (vv. 38-39), and resistance toward the pure worship of the one true God alone (v. 41-43). It’s also the story of how unbelievers attacked those who believed those promises.
That’s why we find that harsh rebuke that we read earlier—from verses 51-53. God had made promises to His people—chief of them being the promise of the “Just One”—that is, Jesus Christ (v. 52); and yet, these leaders who heard Stephen continued to be rebellious and stubborn against God’s promised Messiah. They were even then resisting the Holy Spirit as their fathers had done—who persecuted the prophets God had sent them. They had even betrayed and murdered the Savior Himself; “who have received the law by the direction of angels and have not kept it” (v. 53).
The justification of this final rebuke seems to be the reason for the long history Stephen recites before his fellow Jews. It would have been impossible for the religious leaders and the rulers of the people to argue against the facts that were brought against them. So what do they do? Instead of repenting, they proved the charge by the fact that they rose up and killed God’s messenger to them.
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We’ll consider the story of Stephen’s faithful martyrdom in our next study. But for now, let’s learn the principle that this ‘history lesson’ has to teach us. It’s applicable even today: God’s message of redemption is often resisted by those who most need to hear it.
But not all resisted. The apostle Peter preached a similarly-themed message in Acts 3—after God had brought healing, through faith in Jesus, to a man born lame. Many gathered to witness this in the temple; and Peter told them,
“The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified His Servant Jesus, whom you delivered up and denied in the presence of Pilate, when he was determined to let Him go. But you denied the Holy One and the Just, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, and killed the Prince of life, whom God raised from the dead, of which we are witnesses. And His name, through faith in His name, has made this man strong, whom you see and know. Yes, the faith which comes through Him has given him this perfect soundness in the presence of you all. Yet now, brethren, I know that you did it in ignorance, as did also your rulers. But those things which God foretold by the mouth of all His prophets, that the Christ would suffer, He has thus fulfilled. Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that He may send Jesus Christ, who was preached to you before …” (Acts 3:13-20).
Many believed on that day. Two thousand believing men were added to the church.
It will always be true that some will resist. But let’s keep proclaiming the gospel; because not all will resist. After all—as we’ll see later—one former ‘resister’ repented and believed. He is now known to us as the apostle Paul.
AE
