I am just a few hours away from starting my 7-day break from Social Media. It is Sunday evening and I was going to miss my first Tuesdays With Tony post for the first time since it started. Well, I am in the midst of studying the martyrdom of Stephen in Acts and I thought I’d share one more post to stand in for next Tuesday’s post.
As I study Stephen’s sermon, or his defense, I am learning that it is much more than a recital of Jewish history. It is a well-crafted answer to the charges laid before him designed not to acquit him but to prosecute the crime against the Jews for rejecting the Messiah, Yeshua, or Jesus.
The Charge:
“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.” (Acts 6:13-14 ESV).
“And the high priest said, “Are these things so?” (Acts 7:1 ESV).
What proceeds is the longest sermon that Dr. Luke records in the book of Acts. And a thorough study of his defense shows how each word and example was brilliantly chosen to accomplish its purpose. I wish we had time to look at each item he included his sermon, but we will confine this post to a few big points that the Holy Spirit makes to convict the Jews.
From a broad defense, Stephen recounts the history of the Jews to show that it isn’t him who speaks against the law or Moses. In doing so, he highlights 3 main characters.
Abraham (Acts 7:2-8)
Joseph (Acts 7:8-18)
Moses (Acts 7:19-44)
Abraham was the one to whom God gave the promises and the covenant. Once his seed is established, Stephen talks about Joseph. He makes the point that God sent Joseph to be a savior of His people, but Joseph's brothers were jealous of him and sold him into slavery:
“And the patriarchs, jealous of Joseph, sold him into Egypt; but God was with him” (Acts 7:9 ESV).
This savior was sent to Egypt where God was with him. And when the time came, Joseph saved his people rather than to bring judgment upon his brothers for the crime they committed against him:
“And Joseph sent and summoned Jacob his father and all his kindred, seventy-five persons in all.” (Acts 7:14 ESV).
Stephen goes on to say that the Lord was with His people and they multiplied. Over 400 years passed:
“until there arose over Egypt another king who did not know Joseph.” (Acts 7:18 ESV).
It was out of Egyptian bondage that God raised up for His people a servant, Moses, who would be their savior. But as they had initially rejected Joseph when they sold him into bondage, they also at first rejected Moses.
Stephen reminds them that Moses had killed an Egyptian who was mistreating one of his brothers:
“He supposed that his brothers would understand that God was giving them salvation by his hand, but they did not understand.” (Acts 7:25 ESV).
When Moses tried to break up a quarrel among his brethren, he too was rejected by his people:
“But the man who was wronging his neighbor thrust him aside, saying, ‘Who made you a ruler and a judge over us? Do you want to kill me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday?’” (Acts 7:27-28 ESV).
So, Moses fled, only to return later and become the savior for the people who had initially rejected him. There is so much we don’t have time to look at in his sermons, but the thrust of his defense when accused of speaking against the Law and against Moses is this:
It was you, the Jews, who always rejected the saviors God sent to them. And even when rejected, these saviors still came back to save them. And it was no different with Jesus, the Messiah. He too was sent to them and they rejected Him. It wasn’t Stephen who was going against the Law and Moses; it was them. And it culminates in this charge:
“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.” (Acts 7:51-53 ESV).
Stephen didn’t make a defense of himself. He made a defense for Jesus. And in doing so, he acquitted himself of crimes against God and convicted the people who forced this mock trial upon him.
I wish there was time to draw out all the words and phrases that Stephen uses because his sermon truly leaves no doubt that these people had rejected their Savior just like their fathers before them had done.
The lesson for us: There is overwhelming evidence of what Jesus has done for us. Our option is simple; do we accept the Savior or do we reject Him? If we reject Him, we will be in the company of many, many people. But only by accepting Him as our Lord and King will we have the blessings that this Savior brings.
Forgive me, but I am briefly interrupting my break from social media this week for this one post. Rarely will we have the opportunity to glorify God in this manner and I will not let it pass.
Major war has broken out between Russia and Ukraine. There is a lot of uncertainty among people. But not among the people of God. We may not know how things will turn out, but we know our King is in control.
He will choose in His sovereignty how things will be allowed to unfold. He is still, and forever more, will be in control. My allegiance is to King Jesus, the only leader who will forever be victorious.
“The sentence is by the decree of the watchers, the decision by the word of the holy ones, to the end that the living may know that the Most High rules the kingdom of men and gives it to whom he will and sets over it the lowliest of men.'“ (Daniel 4:17 ESV).
Amen.
Good morning. My break with Social Media is over, and guess what? Life still went on. Unplugging and taking breaks from time to time is something that I recommend everyone consider doing. Whether you are a preacher, teacher or social media group leader, I promise that life will continue in your absence and everything will be waiting for you when you return.
With that, I am ready to share some thoughts I had when reading the Word of God. Specifically, I’m in 2 Timothy 3. Paul writes about how bad it will be in “the last days.”
“But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty.” (2 Timothy 3:1 ESV).
To me, it seems that the last days are talking about the last dispensation- the Christian age. I am not sure that this is talking about the days just prior to the return of Christ. So, I do believe that we are living in the last days now. However, if we focus on when the last days are and miss all the terrible things that describe people in those days, then we are missing Paul’s main point. This is where our focus should lie.
Listen to this and see if it describes our times today:
“For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy,
heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good,
treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God,
having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people.” (2 Timothy 3:2-5 ESV).
Scary, isn’t it? Not that there are some pretty bad people in this list (I’m thinking of the treacherous, abusive, unholy, brutal, etc.…), but it's scary that a part of each of us may be on that list as well.
Consider just these three: lovers of money; disobedient to parents; ungrateful.
How many of us have struggled with any of these things in our lives? Yet, these are listed right along with the “really bad” characteristics that people will display in the last days.
Lovers of Money: Our whole society worships the dollar. Jesus says that it’s harder for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven. The love of money will cause us to sacrifice what we should sanctify and tempt us to pursue it to the neglect of spiritual things we should pursue.
Disobedient to Parents: This is one that hits right at the core of our respect for authority. It shows our willfulness to do what we want to do rather than having a spirit of submission. It feeds our “right” to do what we want to do with little thought of giving the respect and submission that our King requires of us all. If we are disobedient to our parents, there is little hope that we will learn to respect other authority that God will place over us. Being disobedience to parents demonstrates a reckless and defiant willfulness against authority in general.
Ungrateful: Ouch. Yeah, this one is in the list too. The ungrateful are not content with what they have, but they take the first opportunity to complain about what they do not have. The ungrateful are so focused on themselves that they do not have the capacity to keep perspective…
Rather than complain about the job we do not like, should we not be grateful for our job that millions of others are praying to have themselves?
Rather than complaining about the house we do not like, shouldn’t we be grateful for the one we have while millions of others around the world are freezing at night under the stars?
Rather than complaining about how we don’t get to do what we want to do, shouldn’t we be grateful that we are not hiding in a subway with our children while an invading army is trying to kill us?
Perhaps being lovers of money leads to rebellion while causing us to live with an ungrateful spirit.
Yes, we are living in the last days and all the things that Paul writes about are things we need to guard against. Today, let us all go through this list and make sure that we are not getting drawn away from the Lord and being characterized as these godless people living in the last days.