Acts 7:17-8:3 - Beasts And Fire and Kangaroo Courts

Podcast Transcript (Auto-Transcribed by Apple Podcasts)

Hello, and welcome back to Tabernacle Talk. Yesterday, we began to see one of the first deacons, Stephen, and how he was put on a kangaroo court, and was accused of some false things. And so he was brought before the Sanhedrin.

They asked him, are these things that are being said about you that you have spoken against God's law and Moses and blasphemed against God himself? Is this true?

And he begins to give them a history lesson of, hey, God promised these things to Abraham. He followed through on his promises. He promised these things to Abraham's descendants, and these things became true.

And now he is dealing with Moses. So this was one of the accusations that was brought against him was that he spoke against Moses, against Moses' law. Here he's dealing directly with the charge.

What does he say? Does he say these people are crazy? They have no idea what they're talking about.

What does he say about Moses? Here's what he says in verse number 17 of Acts 7.

As the time was approaching to fulfill the promise that God had made to Abraham, the people flourished and multiplied in Egypt until a different king who did not know Joseph ruled over Egypt.

He dealt deceitfully with our race and oppressed our ancestors by making them abandon their infants outside so that they wouldn't survive. At this time, Moses was born and he was beautiful in God's sight.

He was cared for in his father's home for three months. When he was put outside, Pharaoh's daughter adopted and raised him as her own son. So Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was powerful in his speech and actions.

When he was 40 years old, he decided to visit his own people, the Israelites. When he saw one of them being mistreated, he came to his rescue and avenged the oppressed man by striking down the Egyptian.

He assumed his people would understand that God would give them deliverance through him, but they did not understand. The next day, he showed up while they were fighting and tried to reconcile them peacefully, saying, men, you are brothers.

Why are you mistreating each other? But the one who was mistreating his neighbor pushed Moses aside, saying, who appointed you a ruler and a judge over us? Do you want to kill me the same way you killed the Egyptian yesterday?

There he's quoting from Exodus 2.14. When he heard this, Moses fled and became an exile in the land of Midian, where he became the father of two sons.

After 40 years had passed, an angel appeared to him in the wilderness of Mount Sinai, in the flame of a burning bush. When Moses saw it, he was amazed at the sight.

As he was approaching to look at it, the voice of the Lord came, I am the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob. They're speaking from Exodus 3, verses 6 and 15. Moses began to tremble and did not dare to look.

The Lord said to him, take off the sandals from your feet, because the place where you are standing is holy ground. I have certainly seen the oppression of my people in Egypt.

I've heard their groaning and have come down to set them free, and now come, I will send you to Egypt. This Moses, whom they rejected when they said, who appointed you a ruler and a judge?

This one God sent as a ruler and a deliverer through the angel who appeared to him in the bush. This man led them out and performed wonders and signs in the land of Egypt at the Red Sea and in the wilderness for 40 years.

This is the Moses who said to the Israelites, God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your brothers. So that's Deuteronomy 18.15.

He is the one who was in the assembly in the wilderness with the angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai and with our ancestors. He received living oracles to give to us. Our ancestors were unwilling to obey him.

Instead, they pushed him aside and their hearts turned back to Egypt. They told Aaron, make us gods who will go before us. As for this Moses who brought us out of the land of Egypt, we don't know what's happened to him.

Here speaking of when Moses had gone up on Mount Sinai, out of sight, out of mind, they told Aaron, make us some new gods. That'll take care of us.

They even made a calf in those days, offered sacrifice to the idol and were celebrating what their hands had made. God turned them away and gave them up to worship the stars of heaven.

I think I've already mentioned this before, the stars of heaven, the heavenly host, the angels and demons. He says, he gave them up to worship the stars of heaven as it is written in the Book of the Prophets.

Here quoting from Amos 5, House of Israel, did you bring me offerings and sacrifices for 40 years in the wilderness?

You took up the tent of Moloch, that's a false god, and the star of your god, Orphan, the images that you made to worship, so I will send you into exile and beyond Babylon.

Our ancestors had the tabernacle of the testimony in the wilderness, just as he who spoke to Moses commanded him to make it according to the pattern he had seen.

Our ancestors in turn received it and with Joshua brought it in when they dispossessed the nations that God drove out before them until the days of David.

He found favor in God's sight and asked that he might provide a dwelling place for the God of Jacob. It was Solomon rather who built him a house, but the most high does not dwell in sanctuaries made with hands.

As the prophet says, heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool. What sort of house will you build for me? Says the Lord.

Or what will be my resting place? Did not my hand make all these things? That's Isaiah 66 verses one and two.

He says, you stiff necked people with uncircumcised hearts and ears, you are always resisting the Holy Spirit. As your ancestors did, you do also. Which of the prophets did your ancestors not persecute?

They even killed those who foretold the coming of the righteous one whose betrayers and murderers you have now become. You received the law under the direction of angels and yet have not kept it.

When they heard these things, they were enraged, literally cut to the quick, cut to the heart, and they gnashed their teeth at him.

Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, the same description given to him in the chapter previous when he's helping out widows here on trial, being gnashed on with teeth by men having become animals. Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven.

He saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. He said, look, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.

They yelled at the top of their voices, covered their ears, and together rushed against him. They dragged him out of the city and began to stone him, and the witnesses laid their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul.

While they were stoning Stephen, he called out, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. He knelt down and cried out with a loud voice, Lord, do not hold this sin against them. And after saying this, he fell asleep.

Saul agreed with putting him to death. On that day, a severe persecution broke out against the church in Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout the land of Judea and Samaria.

Evout men buried Stephen and mourned deeply over him. Saul, however, was ravaging the church. He would enter house after house, drag off men and women, and put them in prison.

So here we have the end of the filibuster does not end particularly well for Stephen. I don't think he got the vote.

So I don't know if you noticed, as we were reading through the passage, the specific connection that Stephen is making, he's saying, hey, Moses was a deliverer. He was a judge. And the people rejected him as judge and deliverer.

They turned away from God. They turned away from following Moses and instead worshiped their own gods.

Really, the false angels was who they pursued, who they worshiped, and he tells the Sanhedrin, you received God's good law from the angels and yet you didn't obey it, you didn't listen to it.

And instead, just as Israel rejected the one true God, rejected Moses, the prophet, the lawgiver, the one who was a ruler and a judge, so you now have been just like your ancestors and you have rejected the one, the righteous one, the holy prophet,

Jesus, who came to be your ruler and your judge and you put him to death, just like you did with, just like your ancestors did with all of the prophets. Now, he is saying this both as a Jew himself, that he's saying, this is what our ancestors did,

but he's telling them all the villains of the stories of the Old Testament, all the ones that make you go, how could you do this? God loves you, he provided for you. He says, you are following in their exact footsteps.

So because of this, they were enraged and that is the natural disposition of this world. That there is an anger against Christ.

I think of Psalm two, I believe it was referenced just a couple of chapters ago here in Acts where it says, why did the nations rage? And the Gentiles, the heathen, imagine, meditate, plot on empty, futile things.

There is a natural aggression towards Christianity.

And let me encourage you, that's not a sign that God is not at work because the person that was assenting, agreeing with putting Stephen to death, the person that went house to house stealing men and women and putting them into prison for being

Christians, that man, the man that the Spirit used Stephen to begin kind of cutting him to the quick, cutting him to the heart, making him realize I am fighting against God. And every moment from then on till we will see Saul in just another chapter,

in chapter nine, until that point, the Spirit is working in Saul's heart. And so yes, maybe there might be anger, maybe there might be big consequences, but it doesn't mean God isn't working.

And it doesn't mean that we shouldn't share the gospel and that we shouldn't do it with a grace. Some people want to skip the first 50 verses of how Stephen is talking here, and they want just the verses 51 through 53.

They just want those three, that one really hard paragraph where he's like, hey, you guys are following in the worst footsteps of anyone of all time. They just want to skip all of the stuff that goes, hey, here's what God has said.

God is faithful to his promises. God outlined all of this for us in his word of exactly what he was going to do. He prophesied that the Messiah would come.

He spoke about who Jesus would be, and Jesus is the fulfillment of Moses. Jesus is the fulfillment of Abraham. He is the promised descendant, the promised seed.

He is the one who came out of Egypt, just like Jacob and all of the others eventually did that you can read there in verses nine through 16. He is the one that is David's descendant.

He is the one who is the dwelling place of God there in 49 through 50. He is the holy ground, like Jesus is the point of it all, and you guys are missing it. He's right in front of you, so I'm telling you so that you will realize.

And there was anger, and there was rage as a result of it, and it ended up in Stephen giving his life. But as he was being killed, as all of those moments were happening, we can see in verses 55 and 56 what our hope is as believers.

We can see why Stephen did what he did, that he gazed into heaven, he saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. He said, look, I see the heavens open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.

So what he's referencing there, and I'll read this verse, and I think be done for today is in Daniel 7. It's such a cool portion of scripture.

So Daniel 7, there are four beasts that come out of the ocean and these would be kind of amalgamations of all sorts of different chaotic evil animals that are representative of all of this world's powers, representatives of specific nations and the

military power that they wield and the economic power that they wield and the power they wield socially. And these monsters come out of the ocean, even one comes, and we would read it and understand that it would be even the Antichrist.

So we see all the nations of the world, and they are coming out of the ocean. And so you expect, especially in these times, the great hero would come and defeat these monsters. So the monsters come out of the ocean.

Daniel says, as I kept watching, thrones were set in place, and the Ancient of Days took his seat. His clothing was white like snow and the hair of his head like whitest wool. His throne was flaming fire.

Its wheels were blazing fire. So it's a chariot throne. A river of fire was flowing, coming out from his presence.

This is showing how powerful he is. Thousands upon thousands served him. 10,000 times 10,000 stood before him.

The court was convened. The books were opened. The rules, the law books, all of those were opened before this incredible king.

I watched then because of the sound of the arrogant words, the horn was speaking. So here the Antichrist. As I continued watching, the beast was killed and its body destroyed and given over to the burning fire.

As for the rest of the beast, their dominion was removed, but an extension of life was granted to them for a certain period of time. So the power of this world is demolished and there's no big battle.

There's not, the demons did this, the nations did this, the beast did this, and then the great hero did this, and then the beast did this, and then the hero did this. No, it was just over. They were instantly defeated and thrown into the fire.

I continued watching in the night visions and suddenly one, like a son of man, was coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the ancient of days and was escorted before him.

He was given dominion and glory and a kingdom so that those of every people, nation, and language should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away. And his kingdom is one that will not be destroyed.

So here when Stephen is saying these things, he is confessing Christ as God himself. He says, look, I see the heavens open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God. He's standing beside the Ancient of Days.

What an incredible thought that even now our King is victorious. Yes, there are more victories to come, but here and now today our King is victorious. So why do we preach?

Why do we tell our loved ones about Christ? Why do we do what Stephen does and pray, God, please don't lay this into their charge?

Because we don't want people to suffer the same fate as the beast to fall into the fire that emanates from our incredible, amazing, holy, just God. We want them to fall in worship, as Saul will, before too long.

What an incredible comfort we serve the Son of Man, the victorious one over all of this world, over all of our sin, over Satan and his demons. We serve the victorious God that even in our deaths, even when we pass from this life, we don't lose.

We pass into his eternal kingdom that will never end. What an incredible thought. I could talk about this aspect forever and ever, but we're already past time.

So hope this would be an encouragement to you today. I would encourage you, if you are listening to this on the day it comes out on Saturday, be in church tomorrow.

The God that is worthy of all adulation and praise of all heaven and thousands upon thousands and tens of thousands, he is worthy of your praise. Would encourage you. Meet with his church tomorrow if you're able to.

If you're not able to, watch our services at Tabernacle. Find a good Bible preaching church and listen to their services. It will do your soul good.

Thanks so much for tuning in. Hope to see you tomorrow.