In the age when Stephen lived and died there were similarities and differences with our funerals today. In every civilized society, caring for the remains of the deceased is an honorable profession. But customs vary between cultures and special situations.
Notice that Acts 8:2 has the words “to his burial” in italics. This means that there isn’t a Greek word in the original which produced these words, however the Greek word “carried” contains much of the rest of the thought in this verse. It’s not a word which only means that they carted his body away; no, they cared for it with a great deal of respect and buried it in some sacred place. But here is something of which you probably are not aware: It was the custom of the Jews not to honorably bury those who were condemned by the Sanhedrin. Because they were condemned as guilty of terrible crimes, they were not buried with the innocent. There were special places for those wicked people. And according to some Jewish literature – the stones wherewith a criminal was stoned to death, the post on which he was hanged, the sword by which he was beheaded, or the cord by which he was strangled, were buried in the same place with the bodies of the executed persons. Since these people died under the curse of the law, the instruments by which they were put to death were considered as unclean and accursed, and therefore buried with their bodies.
When Stephen was dragged out of the council chamber and out of the city, it was not to any old spot with enough stones big enough to crush his skull. He was taken to a public execution site, and I would guess that it was to the Potter’s Field or close to Gehenna, and the stones used to kill him became the material which buried him. You can be sure that there was no cross put over that spot, and there wasn’t a tombstone. In fact, the devout men of verse 2 may have been in violation of the law to carry away Stephen’s remains. They probably interred his body at some spot disclosed only to some of his closest friends and possibly to the leadership of the church. (Wouldn’t it have been wonderful, if he was buried in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathaea?)
I spent a few minutes Thursday reading a number of epitaphs out of an old book that I have. I read a lot of wise and pointed statements, but unfortunately there some were useless and untrue. Essayist Charles Lamb was absolutely correct when he said, “I conceive disgust at these impertinent and mis-becoming familiarities inscribed upon the ordinary tombstone.”
I’m quite sure that there was no tombstone placed before the grave of Deacon Stephen, that just wasn’t one of the customs that they had in those days. But I’d like to conclude our study of this man of God, with some additional lessons from his life and death. I don’t know if Charles Lamb would approve, but you might use one or two of these for Stephen’s epitaph.
Remember the purpose of this study: we are looking for Bible doctrines which lie behind this history.
One of the lessons from Stephen’s death is that TRUTH IS NOT ALWAYS RECOGNIZED AS TRUTH.
It is common at funerals to briefly recount some of the highlights from the life of the deceased. Of Stephen it might be said that he was elected to be a Deacon because he wanted to serve the Lord. Not only did he wait on tables, caring for the needs of some of the widows and orphans of the church, but he was a faithful witness of the salvation which the Lord had given him, and to the Saviour. But in addition to that, the Holy Spirit also began to work “wonders and miracles among the people through him.” Acts 6:9 says, “Then there arose certain of the synagogue, which is called the synagogue of the Libertines, and Cyrenians, and Alexandrians, and of them of Cilicia and of Asia, disputing with Stephen. And they were not able to resist the wisdom and the spirit by which he spake.” What Stephen was doing was opposed by several men from that synagogue, including Saul of Cilicia. It was apparently Saul who charged Stephen with blasphemy, and it was he who oversaw his execution. But the scripture says that the Jews were unable to resist or withstand Stephen’s wisdom and spirit. And the reason for that was due to the fact that he was telling them the truth.
I’m sure he was taking scriptures which the Pharisees claimed and proving that Jesus was the Christ. He was proving that before the coming of the Kingdom, would have to come the perfect atonement. He was proving that before the Kingdom would come the Tribulation, and the destruction of the Temple. But Saul and the others, had no ears to hear these truths, so they dragged him before the council. And then when Stephen stood to defend himself, again he told the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. But the highest rabbis, priests and judges of the nation, threw their hands over their ears, started screaming and violently dragged him away to be stoned to death.
The Lord Jesus had already clearly explained this evil reaction – in John 8 – which we read earlier. “I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.” In essence the Saviour was saying that He is “the way, the truth, and the life.” But the world says, “We will not have this man to reign over us. Crucify him, crucify him.” He said, “If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed. And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. But now ye seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth. If God were your Rather, ye would love me; for I proceeded froth and came from God; Why do ye not understand my speech? Even because you cannot hear my word.”
In other words, why don’t you receive the truth? Because it is impossible; you are spiritually deaf. “Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it. And because I tell you the truth, ye believe me not. Which of you convinceth me of sin? [None] And if I say the truth, why do ye not believe me? He that is of God heareth God’s words: ye therefore hear them not, because ye are not of God.”
This is the crux of the problem in religion and life today: the natural man has no ears for the truth. If I tell the average man, as Stephen did that day, that he is headed to Hell, even though it is true, he refuses to hear it.
And I say to YOU, “Except ye be born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God.” You would think that honest men and women would love the truth and readily accept it with open ears. But the truth is that the truth is hated and their open arms are rising only to cover their closed ears.
So to reiterate one final time: one of the lessons coming from this story about Stephen is that – religious and spiritual truth is hated and rejected by the natural man. A second lesson in the death of Stephen is:
The MAJORITY is not always right.
Many Americans have an almost cultic affection for democracy. And by democracy I mean “majority rule.” Even though our government is not purely democratic, we practice this principle in many ways. We elect representatives to government, and they usually decide matters based on a majority vote. If President Bush or anyone else declared himself King of America, he would probably be lynched. Similarly, this church, like many others, practices a modified democratic form of government. If I declared myself king of this congregation, then perhaps I should be lynched. This kind of government works well, so long as the constituents are satisfied with decisions of the majority.
But off we go into the Middle East, or South America, and we overthrow an old regime – which we usually call a “dictatorship,” but which in other circumstances might be called a “monarchy.” And then WE arrange things so that the people of that country can have democratic elections. But then when they elect a new government that looks very much like the one we just helped to overthrow, we sit around scratching our heads. The problem is that so many people in this world, don’t think the way that Americans do about politics, justice and what a society should look like.
And the same is true in churches: Why have so many Baptist churches, split, re-split and split again? Because a minority, which professes to love democracy, doesn’t like what the majority decided about something, so they secede from the union. The sad thing is, that sometimes the minority opinion is right and the majority is wrong. And that is just the point.
As you make a survey through the Bible, from the days of Enoch to those of the Antichrist, the righteous and the true servants of God have always been in the minority. How many people died in Noah’s flood and how many were spared? The living and dying in that case were essentially the difference between the righteous and the wicked. During Israel’s exodus from Egypt, how many yearned to serve the Lord in the Promised land and how many wanted to return to slavery in Egypt? How many loved the prophets of God and how many hated them? The Lord Jesus saturated Judea with the truth, but how many disciples did He have? Out of all the members of the Jewish Sanhedrin, how many were disciples of Christ & lovers of truth? Wasn’t this part of the basic theme of Stephen in his sermon?
In Matthew 10 the Lord Jesus told His disciples – and through them He told us: “Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.But beware of men: for they will deliver you up to the councils, and they will scourge you in their synagogues; And ye shall be brought before governors and kings for my sake, for a testimony against them and the Gentiles. And ye shall be hated of all men for my name’s sake.”
Why was Stephen stoned to death? Because he was telling the Jews the truth, but the majority of that Jewish council hated it. Just as the majority of the people of the United States hate the truth today. Christians need to thank God that an absolute democracy doesn’t rule this land, or our great-grandparents would have all been killed or driven from these shores. If true democracy controlled this land, you and I would not be in this auditorium today. Thank God that there exists in this world a sovereign Theocracy. The Lord is king and oversees all things according to his righteous good pleasure. Even when democracy does it’s most wicked work, the Lord is there to make sure it “works together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.”
A third lesson here is that LIFE is NOT LIMITED to what we can SEE AND TOUCH.
What did those men think, when Stephen said, “Look, I see the heavens opened, and the Lord Jesus standing at the right hand of the Father’s throne”? Some of them might have thought that the man was insane. Some might have thought that he was hallucinating, because they couldn’t see it. And others might have thought that he was lying. Were there any who actually believed him? Some of that council didn’t believe that there is anything beyond the grave, so they discounted what Stephen was saying on theological and religious grounds. And there were others who DID BELIEVE in Heaven and life after death, but they couldn’t bring themselves to agree that Christ Jesus was there beside the Father. Were there any who whole heartedly agreed?
Two Saturday’s ago, I stood before a crowd of people very different from you. There were Baptists there and Roman Catholics. There were people whose religion is politics, some liberal and some very conservative. There may have been people there whose lives revolved around hunting, fishing and other sports. But to them all, I said, “God says, ‘Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord.’” And I tried to say, “Cursed are the dead with die outside the Lord,” because there is a world which is not seen with the naked eye. And there is a world which is not experienced on this side of the grave. I wonder how many of that mixed multitude heard the things that I was saying and could see the things that I saw? The Gospel of Luke chapter 16 says, “And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham’s bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried; And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments.” Oh, that the MAJORITY could SEE these things – these TRUTHS.
On several occasions people in the Bible had the privilege of seeing beyond their sight. In II Kings 6:17 – “Elisha prayed, and said, LORD, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see. And the LORD opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw: and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha.” In the year that King Uzziah died, Isaiah “saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple.” Paul says, “I knew a man in Christ above fourteen years ago, (whether in the body, I cannot tell; or whether out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth;) such an one caught up to the third heaven. And I knew such a man, (whether in the body, or out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth;) How that he was caught up into paradise, and heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter.”
Just as a microscope allows us to see things that we couldn’t see before – things that were there, but things which our finite eyes couldn’t focus upon, so the Word of God allows us to see things which are just as real, and infinitely more important, but which our eyes don’t recognize without the help of God.
We can’t afford to ignore the unseen world and that world which lies beyond the grave. “If in this life only we have we are of all men most miserable.” Stephen was well-prepared for death and could see the things of the Spirit, because he had been given a new heart and new eyes by the grace of the Almighty. Some time before his execution, he had been born again; he had been regenerated; he had been saved. I fear that some of you are not yet prepared as was Stephen.
One more lesson from Stephen before I close the book on this man:
GOOD CHARACTER doesn’t save.
There are a few men in the Bible, like perhaps Daniel, of whom there are no sins described. Stephen was such a man. It’s not to say that he was sinless, because he wasn’t. “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.” Stephen was without a doubt a sinner like the rest of us, but as to the history that we are given in the Book of Acts, the only things which were actually said about him, were good and positive. again.
But the point is: for all his goodness, he died an early death. Not only didn’t his wonderful character and personality save him from death, they may have actually contributed to it. The fact that he was full of wisdom, didn’t keep him from telling the truth. (Or was telling the truth a part of his wisdom?) The fact that he was full of the Holy Ghost, didn’t make him invincible. The presence of the Spirit agitated the Devil in the others. That he was used of God to work wonders and miracles among the people didn’t give him enough credits before the council that he could trade for his life.
Am I saying that it is therefore unwise to be the best person that you can possibly be? On the contrary. If I could, I’d tell the best man in all the world to try to be better; more godly, more prayerful, more helpful, more kind. But I’d also try to remind him that he shouldn’t think that his goodness will necessarily save him from the wrath of his neighbors. Nor will his goodness buy him the grace of God.
And I close with this: Just as the honesty and virtue of Stephen didn’t save his physical life, neither did his good character and righteous deeds save his soul from hell. Oh, his soul was saved from hell all right, but it wasn’t due to his character or anything good within him.
If I had been commissioned to inscribe an epitaph on the tombstone of Stephen, I think that I might have chosen to paraphrase what the Apostle Paul said in Ephesians. And again, this is ironic since Paul was one of the key elements in the death of this good man. Paraphrasing Paul, I would inscribe Stephens tombstone with these words: “God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved him, Even when he was dead in sins, hath quickened him together with Christ, (by grace was he saved;) And hath raised him, and made him sit down in heavenly places in Christ Jesus: That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward Stephen through Christ Jesus. For by grace was he saved through faith; and that not of himself; it was the gift of God: Not of his works, lest Stephen should boast. For he was God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God had before ordained that he should walk therein.”
How can any of us be delivered from the death due to our sins? There is but one answer: by the grace of God. “Repent ye therefore and be converted that your sins may be blotted out.”