Stephen’s defense – Acts 7

I try to show my wife a little kindness every once in a while, especially since she’s still recovering from her doctor-induced head wound.

But, of course, when I do that, I make sure that I receive a benefit or two in the process.

So Friday, about 12 hours before she started getting sick again, I took us out to lunch at the Olive Garden to enjoy their all-you-can-eat soup and salad.

We both had a really good time.

Our conversation was fun – we enjoy each other’s company.

And we really like one of their Italian soups, sp we ate far too much.

And I saw one or two people that I recognized, and they brought back memories one of my former lives.

And since I am a people-watcher by nature, and the place was packed with lunch-time dinners, that was kind of fun too.

When we were about half-finished, a couple of men came in and sat down behind me.

They both had booming voices, in contrast to ours.

Believe it or not, I could hardly hear Judy who was sitting right in front of me,

But I could hear both men behind me, even though one was talking in the opposite direction.

They were funny, and the unintentional eavesdropping was well-worth while.

One of them said that his church was going to have a big catered Valentine’s Day Banquet,

But he wasn’t sure if he’d be on time because of his Saturday bowling league.

And they talked about bowling for a couple of minutes and I lost interest.

Then just before time to order, one asked if he was going to have a “brewsky,”

But the other told him, “No,” because it would make him sleepy and his boss really didn’t like him to fall asleep at his desk.

So they decided that they were only going to drink water,

But then after a few seconds thought, one of them said that he wanted some wine.

I thought that was funny, because I seem to recall that wine has more sedative-power than beer.

From there one of them said that if wine was good enough for Noah, then it was okay to have a glass.

He said, “Can you imagine Noah building that ark completely without power tools?”

Then the other one said, “Yes, but he had his two sons to help him;

I mean that he had his two sons-in-law to help him build the ark.”

About this time I leaned over to Judy who was grinning away,

And I said, “These two boys have had just enough Sunday School to make them dangerous.”

Of course, I didn’t get a chance to talk to those two men,

But I just about guarantee that they are both semi-regular in their church attendance.

I have little doubt that neither one considers himself to be a bad man or in danger of eternal damnation,

And it appears that they both consider themselves basically familiar with the Bible.

I hope that you caught some of the Biblical and theological errors that they sputtered.

Yes, Noah tasted a little wine, but it was definitely not a positive situation.

He got drunk and some wicked things transpired as a result.

If Noah teaches us anything about alcohol, it is to avoid it like you would an AIDS infected needle.

And although Noah probably didn’t have power tools with which to build the ark,

Neither did he have two sons-in-law to help.

Noah and his three sons, his own sons built the ark,

And together they had about a hundred years in which to do it.

Last Wednesday, those who were here, went with us through this sermon of Stephen’s before the Sanhedrin.

And I hope that every one us know the basic history which he was repeating.

Not only that I hope that any one of use could have put together the same basic outline.

This evening let’s think briefly about Stephen’s sermon – his defense before the council.

There is nothing technical tonight, and we won’t be re-reading the message.

All that I have for you are a couple of practical thoughts developing from this sermon.

For example, we see that Stephen had a BASIC KNOWLEDGE of the Word of God.

I remind you that he wasn’t an apostle, and he wasn’t called to be a pastor or missionary.

Stephen was one of the common members of the church in Jerusalem,

Who had made himself available to do whatever was needed to be done.

He was a deacon, and he was filled with the Spirit of God and with wisdom.

He wanted to be useful to the Lord,

And he ended up being one of the most important men in the history of Christianity.

We don’t know anything about this man except what is given to us in chapters 6 and 7.

His name is Greek, but he appears to be a Jew, and thus we can conclude that he was a Grecian.

So he was probably born outside of Judea.

I have heard some wild speculation about this man’s past, but the Bible doesn’t reveal anything about that.

He may have been one of the 70 who acted as the Lord’s forerunners after the death of John Baptist.

He might have been one of the 120 who were members of the church prior to the Day of Pentecost.

I read where one man said that he might have been the second person to whom Jesus spoke on the road to Emmaus after Christ’s resurrection.

(And you thought that I have a lot of imagination.)

We can see that Stephen had somehow received a decent Biblical education.

And since his sermon isn’t replete with technical theology, I wouldn’t be surprised if that education wasn’t rooted in something akin to children’s Sunday School.

This message isn’t filled with the language and imagery reminiscent of the Lord Jesus’ sermons.

And it isn’t filled with the theology of the Apostle Paul.

But it does give us a good running commentary on the history of Israel.

It’s the sort of thing which our children should grow up with in six or eight years of Sunday School.

There are good Christian people who somehow think that there isn’t much benefit in bringing their 5-year-old to a Sunday School class.

That is a terrible and perhaps dangerous idea.

I am convinced of the benefits of teaching simple Bible stories to kids a lot younger than 5.

It’s imperative that each class be geared to the age of the students involved, but I am convinced that even 3, 4 and 5 year-olds can and should learn some of the rudimentary things of Bible history.

When the history of Noah is correctly learned at a young age, the spiritual lessons are more easily learned at an older age.

And when a 5-year-old is taught about the glorious throne-room of God, with angels shouting back and forth, “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts, the whole earth is full of his glory.”

Then the Holy Spirit has some power tools that he can use later to instill some really important and eternal lessons which relate to that scene.

It grieves me that our Sunday School isn’t better organized and utilized.

I would like to see several more classes and several more teachers, even if their classes are only one or two children each.

Teaching a rudimentary knowledge of Bible history is extremely important.

And as I said about the two men in the restaurant: they knew just enough of the Bible to dangerous.

And one of the results of that overheard conversation was that I wouldn’t be very excited about attending whatever church it is that they attend.

Right or wrong, the impression left to me was that their church doesn’t know or teach the Bible, because they didn’t know some of the simple historical facts of the Bible.

Stephen knew the Bible well enough to share a reasonably accurate history of the Old Testament with men who claimed to be experts in the Old Testament.

However there was something else about Stephen’s knowledge of Bible which lifted it high above the elemental level.

Stephen’s message was more concerned with the divine lessons than the minor facts of the history.

This may be something which separates the men from the boys, so to speak.

Even though Stephen knew the facts, his message wasn’t merely about those facts – dates and events.

Names and events are the things that children can learn and should learn.

But it’s the understanding and application of those facts which prove that Stephen was filled with wisdom and the Holy Spirit.

Not even the priests and rabbis were much beyond the names and dates of their own history.

Stephen said, “God promised Abraham a land and a son.”

The really important lesson is that the Son was ultimately the Lord Jesus Christ.

And Abraham’s great-grandson Joseph went down into Egypt and became the saviour of the nation,

And he was a beautiful picture of the Messiah Who was come later.

The same might be said of Moses,

And in fact Moses specifically said, “A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me; him shall ye hear.”

That prophet like unto Moses, we know to be Jesus of Nazareth.

Stephen said, “Throughout all the history of our nation, our fathers rebelled against God, and that is precisely what you have done in the condemnation and execution of the Lord Jesus.”

And you accuse Christ of saying that he’d destroy the temple, but don’t you remember that Solomon said that the temple was really not as important as you priests claim.”

All throughout his message Stephen was taking the facts and lifting them to a higher level.

In this he was very, very much like the Saviour in His treatment of the law in the Sermon on the Mount.

This is where we ALL need our spiritual intellects.

This is not the exclusive territory of the preacher and the apostle.

We should be able to hear what the Lord is saying in His providence as well as in his pronouncements.

Something else to consider about this sermon is HOW WE HAPPEN TO HAVE IT.

We believe that the Word of God has been given to us by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

That is that “holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.”

We believe that the Bible is God-breathed.

But that doesn’t mean that every sentence of scripture was dictated by the Lord, just as a boss might ask his stenographer take notes at a meeting.

Sometimes, God used the personalities of his prophets to color the message.

Sometimes, even as we see in this sermon, an author or speaker give us a different perspective on the original Old Testament statement.

That doesn’t mean that they are not both inspired of God, but that God has something more to tell us.

And when it comes to history somehow God got those dates, facts and events to the writer.

So how did the Lord bring Acts 7 into our hands and hearts?

This chapter is an historical account of the historical accounts to which Stephen refers.

So how did Luke have this material to put into his divinely inspired history book?

Was Luke one of the members of the Sanhedrin and therefore present at the council? No, he was not.

Was he one of the suborned men who laid the charges against Stephen? No, he was not.

Was there a stenographer taking notes, or was there a tape recorder there, and did these notes hide in the temple vaults for a few years, but then later came to light?

Was there a bug on the wall who later related to Luke what was said and done?

Or did the Holy Spirit one night, awaken Luke and tell him to light and candle and get his pen because he was to record some dictation? That is possible, but unnecessary and unlikely.

My guess is that the details of this message were indelibly imprinted on the mind of one of the observers or counselors in the meeting, and that Luke later had opportunity to listen to his account of the event.

And who might that witness have been?

Saul of Tarsus, the man who would oversee the execution of the first martyr of the Christian church.

Luke and Paul became friends probably about the time that the Apostle to the Gentiles first went to Europe.

For the next few years they spent a great deal of time together,

And in addition to his becoming Paul’s personal physician, Luke became his God-inspired biographer.

So in addition to witnessing some of the great events of the early church, Luke had access to information which would help him to write not only Acts, but the Gospel of Luke as well.

And here is perhaps my most important point tonight:

Stephen died as a martyr for the truth of God.

And I hope that you remember what the word “martyr” literally means: “witness.”

Stephen gave his life as a witness for the truth.

And I am sure that the way in which he died, spoke to the heart of his murderers.

But in addition to that it was necessary that Saul or Paul hear the gospel-reason that Stephen was so serene at the time of his death.

Stephen died with the countenance of an angel because the Lord and the truth had found a lodging in his heart.

And when he gave that brief history of the providence of God through the nation of Israel, that was a part of the means through which the Lord began to break down the heart of wicked Saul of Tarsus.

Stephen may have been used of the Lord to bring only one man to a saving relationship with Christ Jesus.

But what a man he was: Saul of Tarsus – Paul, the Apostle to the Gentiles.

What does Hebrew 4 mean when it says,

“For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart”?

What is the meaning of Jeremiah 23:29 – “Is not my word like as a fire? saith the LORD; and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces?”

Don’t verses like these teach us that

“The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;)

Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ”?

It is not necessary that we become apostles in order to be used of God to bring the lost to Christ.

We don’t have to have the Bible memorized and one or two of John R. Rice’s books on evangelism.

Sometimes a simple recitation of some Biblical events can be enough for the Holy Spirit to melt or crush the stubborn heart of the most hardened of persecuting sinners.

Why did those Jews throw their hands over their ears and run upon Stephen, dragging him out of the city to stone him?

What made them go crazy with anger?

Part of it was fear, and the other part was the conviction of the Holy Spirit.

The Lord Jesus said, “Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you.

And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment.”

What we are witnessing at the close of Acts 7 is the convicting work of the Holy Spirit.

And eventually it culminated in the salvation of the chiefest of sinners.