Stephen's Sermon

Part 2
Acts 7:1-53

By Dr. Derek W. H. Thomas

Turn with me now, if you would, to Acts 7 once again. We were looking at this chapter a week ago. It's a long chapter.

We saw last week how Stephen, this godly man, this man who is described for us by Luke as "full of the Holy Spirit", one of the seven chosen to help relieve the apostles in the dispute that has arisen between the Hellenistic widows and the Hebrew widows...and Stephen...as we're all aware, next week we will be looking at Stephen's martyrdom. It's one of the holy grounds of Scripture. I've been in fear and trepidation about it ever since I told you I was going to preach on Acts. It's one of those passages that you can never do justice to. It's immensely significant, I think, for the apostolic ministry of Paul.

Paul (Saul of Tarsus) was there. He's here listening to this sermon, and he will be there at the feet of Stephen when he dies. It was something he never forgot. He got forgiveness for it, but he never forgot the sin in which he was a part; and his whole doctrine, I think, the focus of his ministry on union with Christ is something, I think, that emerges out of his own witness of Stephen's death and the voice that he hears from Jesus.

Well, Stephen has been charged with two things. He's been charged in chapter 6 (and you'll see the charges in verse 11 and again in verse 14 at the end of chapter 6)...he's been charged first of all with saying that this Jesus the Nazarene, this Jesus of Nazareth, is going to destroy the temple. He's been charged with desecrating the most holy place in Judaism. The zip code of Mount Zion where the temple stood was the most holy ground in all of the world for the Jews, and Stephen is being charged with desecrating it.

And we saw last week how Stephen responds to that particular aspect of the charge: the sermon, all 53 verses of it. It's a long sermon. It's been criticized by so-called "scholars" because he meanders from Dan to Beersheba. It's been criticized because Stephen is selling coals to Newcastle—I don't suppose that means much to you, but there's enough coal in Newcastle that you don't sell coals to Newcastle. In other words, he's telling the Sanhedrin Old Testament history with which they are very familiar.

You remember how he takes them to four particular points in Jewish history, in redemptive history: Abraham, and Joseph, and then Moses, and then David and Solomon; and at every point, whether it's Abraham in Mesopotamia and later in Haran, and later down in Egypt, or whether it's Moses in the Sinai Peninsula and at the foothills of Mount Sinai, or whether it's Joseph in a prison falsely accused of rape, God was with all of these men, and not one of them was at Mount Zion. So at every point in the history of the Old Testament, God had been present and with His people, and He's not limited to the zip code of Mount Zion.

But there's a second charge that is made against Stephen, and it's the charge that he has blasphemed against Moses and against God. He had spoken against the Law of Moses, and therefore against God. And it's to that second half of the charge we now return to this sermon.

I want to pick it up...we'll bypass the life of Abraham, and we'll pick it up tonight at verse 20, where he begins in the life of Moses. Before we read the passage, let's pray together.

Father, we thank You now for the Scriptures, and we pray, Lord, familiar as we are with Your word oftentimes, breathe life into our minds, and wills, and affections, and hearts, that we might love Your word because it's full of You and Your Son and the gospel. And hear us, Lord, we pray, for Jesus' sake. Amen.

Verse 20 of Acts 7:

And it at this time that Moses was born; and he was lovely in the sight of God; and he was nurtured three months in his father's home. And after he had been exposed, Pharaoh's daughter took him away, and nurtured him as her own son. And Moses was educated in all the learning of the Egyptians, and he was a man of power in word and deeds. But when he was approaching the age of forty, it entered his mind to visit his brethren, the sons of Israel. And when he saw one of them being treated unjustly, he defended him and took vengeance for the oppressed by striking down the Egyptian. And he supposed that his brethren understood that God was granting them deliverance through him; but they did not understand. And on the following day he appeared to them as they were fighting together, and he tried to reconcile them in peace, saying, "Men, you are brethren, why do you injure one another?" But the one who was injuring his neighbor pushed him away, saying, "Who made you a ruler and judge over us? You do not mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday, do you?" And at this remark Moses fled, and became an alien in the land of Midian, where he became the father of two sons. And after forty years had passed, an angel appeared to him in the wilderness of Mount Sinai, in the flame of a burning thorn bush. And when Moses saw it, he began to marvel at the sight; and as he approached to look more closely, there came the voice of the Lord: "I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob." And Moses shook with fear and would not venture to look. But the Lord said to him, "Take off the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground. I have certainly seen the oppression of My people in Egypt, and have heard their groans, and I have come down to deliver them; come now, and I will send you to Egypt."

This Moses whom they disowned, saying, "Who made you a ruler and a judge?" is the one whom God sent to be both a ruler and a deliverer with the help of the angel who appeared to him in the thorn bush. This man led them out, performing wonders and signs in the land of Egypt and in the Red Sea and in the wilderness for forty years. This is the Moses who said to the sons of Israel, "God shall raise up for you a prophet like me from your brethren." This is the one who was in the congregation in the wilderness together with the angel who was speaking to him on Mount Sinai, and who was with our fathers; and he received living oracles to pass on to you. And our fathers were unwilling to be obedient to him, but repudiated him and in their hearts turned back to Egypt, saying to Aaron, "Make for us gods who will go before us; for this Moses who led us out of the land of Egypt—we do not know what happened to him." And at that time they made a calf and brought a sacrifice to the idol, and were rejoicing in the works of their hands. But God turned away and delivered them up to serve the host of heaven; as it is written in the book of the prophets, "It was not to Me that you offered victims and sacrifices forty years in the wilderness, was it, O house of Israel? You also took along the tabernacle of Moloch and the star of the god Rompha, the images which you made to worship them. I also will remove you beyond Babylon."

Our fathers had the tabernacle of testimony in the wilderness, just as He who spoke to Moses directed him to make it according to the pattern which he had seen. And having received it in their turn, our fathers brought it in with Joshua upon dispossessing the nations whom God drove out before our fathers, until the time of David.

[And then let's drop down to verse 51, after the quotation from Solomon at the dedication of the temple...verse 51 is Stephen speaking now to the Sanhedrin.]

You men who are stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears are always resisting the Holy Spirit; you are doing just as your fathers did. Which one of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who had previously announced the coming of the Righteous One, whose betrayers and murderers you have now become; you who received the law as ordained by angels, and yet did not keep it.

Well, this far God's holy and inerrant word.

Stephen is responding to the second charge, the charge that he has blasphemed against Moses and against God.

What exactly had Stephen been saying against the Law of Moses? We can only of course conjecture. No doubt Stephen had pointed out that perhaps an aspect of the Law, the ceremonial law, the sacrificial law, had come to an end. With the death of Jesus that there was no more need for sacrifices in the temple. But the stakes were certainly high because blasphemy, as Leviticus 24 had pointed out, was a crime worthy of being stoned to death in Jewish law. [Now, that law of course had been set aside by the Roman Empire, and we read an allusion to that in John 18. Stephen may not have been expecting what was about to take place at the hands of the Jews, because technically they weren't supposed to do that, and they hadn't done that.] And how does Stephen then answer this charge that he had blasphemed Moses and blasphemed God?

Well, first of all he does something audacious. He says to them 'You don't understand the history of Moses.' You know, it was like saying last week 'You don't understand the history of Abraham'—to the Sanhedrin, of all people! If there was one thing that they knew, and if there was one thing they loved to talk about and sit around at night with their long beards and long hair, and their garments, and talk and talk and talk about the fathers...about Abraham and Moses, and Joseph and Joshua, and all the rest of them. And here is Stephen saying 'You don't understand the history of Moses.'

Well, if you're going to say something like that, you'd better start nicely. Sometimes I have to say to my dog when I'm walking him at night, I have to say to him, "Now be nice," because he's seen some dog coming, and you can see the hairs on the back of his head beginning to sort of rise, and I'll say to him "Be nice." (He doesn't always listen to me.)

Well, he begins, Stephen begins, and he's nice. And he refers to Moses, quoting of course from Exodus 2:2, quoting from the Greek translation of that passage, I think; and he says that he was beautiful, or in the version that we read tonight, he was lovely; or, the NIV says that he was no ordinary child, speaking of his character and demeanor. In the sight of God, there was something special about Moses, and Moses receives four times the amount of treatment in this passage than Abraham has received, and it's divided into three blocks of 40 years as he tells now the story of Moses.

And he begins in the first section, in verse 20-22, describing the growth of Moses through childhood and adolescence, and into manhood, and how he was an Egyptian. We sometimes forget that. I have to confess I went through seminary and never realized that. I came out on the other side and never fully realized how fully Egyptian Moses really was. I never read the Pentateuch; I never read the Book of Genesis, or Exodus or Deuteronomy, or Numbers or Leviticus, realizing that an Egyptian is telling this story at a time when Egyptians were their overlords and masters, and the one telling this story was himself an Egyptian (of sorts). He understood the ways of the Egyptians, he understood their religion, he spoke their language, he listened to their music, he read their books...God was preparing him, you see.

And then in the second part of the trilogy, the period of time that he spent in Midian, where he has two sons (Luke doesn't record the fact that he married and had two sons)...this extraordinary period where God appears to him at the burning bush, that extraordinary sight where God speaks to him and says "I Am that I Am is sending you back now to Egypt"—and there's a price on his head, and even his own brothers don't trust him—revealing to Moses the great unmentionable name that...for centuries the Jews have not mentioned this name. They had concocted another way of sounding this name, because it was such a holy name...the name that we used to say, Jehovah, and now we are told we've got to say Yahweh...the name of God, the holy name of God revealed to Moses.

And then in the third part of the story, from verse 30-43: his leadership. In the 40 years in the wilderness, God was with Moses. But do you see the point? The point that Stephen wants us to understand is what did they do with Moses? They rejected him. This great Moses that you're charging me with blaspheming against, 'Your own people—our own people,' Stephen is saying—'they rejected him, just as you are doing. You are the ones rejecting Moses and committing blasphemy. You don't understand the history of Moses.'

It's an age-old problem. We make history to fit our own ideas and our own principles, and we're always rewriting history. And Stephen is going back to the history and he's saying 'You've misunderstood your own history.'

And the second thing he does is to say to them 'You don't understand the gospel.' I want to put it like that, because I think that's what Stephen was attempting to say to them: that in the history of Moses, and in the revelation of God in the period of Moses, God was actually revealing the gospel, the gospel way. You know, there's a gospel way, and then there's our way.

I need no argument,
I need no other plea;
It is enough that Jesus died,
And that He died for me.

That's what we sang. And we were going go sing another hymn of equal import tonight, Not What These Hands Have Done can save this soul of mine. Not what these hands have done… You don't understand the gospel way.

The name that God had revealed to Moses, what was that name? "I Am that I Am." A strange statement, isn't it, "I Am that I Am"? And then it's shortened a little further on to just "I Am" and it sounds like the name Yahweh or Jehovah. That's the name of God. Am. What did Jesus say over and over? The great I am? "Before Abraham was, I am." And there's no doubt in my mind that Jesus was alluding to this great passage and this great name; and there's self-revelation of God, and it was a claim to being equal with God, and the Jews understood that because they were incensed when He said that.

Moses had spoken with God face to face, and to reject Moses was to reject God. Moses was their savior; Moses was their mediator; Moses was their deliverer. That's why Stephen quotes that great deuteronomic passage in Deuteronomy 18, that God would send a prophet just like Moses; somebody who would proclaim the word of God and deliver God's people and save God's people, like Moses. And do you see what Stephen is getting at? He's getting at what Paul would crystallize in Romans 10:4, the title of the sermon: that Christ is the end of the Law for righteousness' sake, to everyone who believes. Christ is the end of the Law.

What was the function and purpose of the Law? The Law that Moses gave was along several different lines. In the sixteenth century, for example, it became customary to think of the Law along three different lines: the ceremonial law - the law of sacrifice, the law about goats and bulls and calves and lambs and turtledoves whose life was taken away and blood was shed and sprinkled in the holy place...the ritual that took place day after day after day; and judicial laws, the laws for the governing of the nation of Israel; and the moral law, the Ten Commandments, the ten words from Sinai...and what's the function of that Law?

Well, more than one function. Part of that law was to drive us as fallen sons of Adam to an end of ourselves, because "by the deeds of the law shall no man be saved."

Because, as Paul will say, 'I had not known covetousness, I had not known sin except that the Law said 'Thou shall not covet.' It was the Law that did that. It convicted me of my sin; it convicted me of my fallenness; it convicted me of my wretchedness. The Law said this and I did another.' And Stephen is reminding the people of God here, these so-called people of God, these sons of Abraham, 'You don't understand the gospel way.'

What had been the point of the ceremonial law? All those animals slain on Jewish altars? It was to show and demonstrate that apart from the shedding of blood and apart from the interposition of another, a substitution of another, we are all of us condemned. But could those animals, the blood of those animals atone? No, of course not. That's why they were offered day after day after day after day, until the one great sacrifice was offered at Calvary, once for all.

Listen to the Book of Hebrews:

For since the Law has but a shadow of the good things to come, instead of the true form of these realities, it can never by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year make perfect those who draw near. Otherwise, they would not have ceased to be offered, since the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have any consciousness of sin. But in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sin every year. For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sin.

What does Isaac Watts say?

"Not all the blood on Jewish altars slain?Could give the guilty conscience peace?And wash away our stain."

All that blood…Josephus, Jewish historian, describes the rivers of blood that flowed from the temple mount down through a trough, down into the valley below, on the Day of Atonement. Just rivers of blood flowed from hundreds of thousands of beasts that were slain in the temple in the Day of Atonement...and none of it - none of it - could cleanse the conscience.

What is the point of the Law? It is to drive us to Jesus Christ, to drive us to Jesus Christ, to the One who would say:

"This is the blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins."

What does Paul say in Galatians 3? "Before faith came we were held captive under the Law." So what is the function of the Law? Paul says in Galatians 3, it was a schoolmaster; it was a guardian to hedge us in.

Have you ever tried to…probably not…have you ever tried to make sheep pass through water? I have. Sheep don't like water! Have you ever tried to get them to pass through a trough of water in order to de-louse them? What do you have to do? You have to get gates, and you have to get them as wide as this room, and then make those gates get narrower and narrower and narrower, until in the end there's only one way to go, and it's into that trough. And that's what the Law does. It drives us to the point where there's only one way to go, and it's to say:

"Nothing in my hands I bring; Simply to Thy cross I cling."

Do you see how he ends this sermon? It's very important to understand how he ends this sermon. The very final words of Stephen's sermon should be ringing in their ears: "You did not keep it." They were so proud of the Law of Moses. They were in possession of the covenants. Theirs were the fathers, the prophets; but they had not kept the Law of God.

Not the labor of my hands
Can fulfill Thy Law's demands.
Could my zeal no respite know;
Could my tears forever flow;
All for sin could not atone.
Thou must save
And Thou alone.

Do you see? Stephen is saying to his accusers, 'You don't understand the history of Moses, you don't understand the gospel way, because the gospel way is to drive us to an end of ourselves and to cry out for mercy.'

And he's saying to them, 'You don't understand yourselves, because let me tell you what you are: you are a stiff-necked people.'

Now do you understand the stakes when he says that? Do you know where that phrase comes from? It comes from exactly the same passage when Stephen quotes about the temple...you remember "a temple made by hands"? That expression "the temple made by hands" comes from the making of the golden calf, that unholy worship to an unholy cow. And that's what it was...in Exodus 32, 33 and 34. And five, six, seven times God accuses the people at the foot of Mount Sinai of being stiff-necked, because man's mind is a perpetual factory of idols.

And if that wasn't enough, he says to them, "You are uncircumcised in heart and ears." Now where was Stephen getting that language from? From the prophets...from the prophets...from Jeremiah in chapter nine, and chapter sixteen, and Ezekiel 44...the great prophets of Israel. "You are uncircumcised"—for all their boasting about being circumcised and not being Gentiles, unclean and untouchable, they are uncircumcised in their hearts, which is what matters; and in their ears, because they are not listening; and they're "resisting the Holy Spirit."

Do you see what Stephen is saying to his accusers? 'You are spiritually dead. For all of your boasting of the Law of Moses, you don't understand the Law of Moses.'

I love it when Jesus talks to Nicodemus, and He says to Nicodemus 'You know what the characteristic of the man who isn't born again is? That he doesn't understand the things of the Spirit of God.' And do you know what Nicodemus says? 'I don't understand what You're talking about.' And Stephen is saying to his accusers here 'You are spiritually dead; you are stiff-necked and uncircumcised, and you are resisting the Holy Spirit.' (Would you want to call a preacher like that? Well, you've got a preacher like that.)
They had killed the prophets. They had stoned Jeremiah, and they took Isaiah and they put him in a log and they sawed him in half.

What is Stephen saying? Well, let me tell you what he's saying. Let me put it in the language of Paul:

I count everything loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For His sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish in order that I might gain Christ, and be found in Him; not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the Law, but that which comes through faith in Jesus Christ.

The righteousness of God that depends on faith...that's what he's saying, and that's what these accusers didn't understand.

God is saying to us tonight...He's saying to us tonight, 'I have assigned the role of establishing what is necessary to satisfy divine justice. I have assigned that to My Son. I've assigned that to Jesus Christ.' And the basis of our acceptance in His presence is not on anything that we do. It's not on our works, it's not on our heritage, it's not on our lineage, it's not on our membership of a church, it's not on our DNA. It's by faith alone in Jesus Christ alone. That's what God is saying to us.

And do you know what these accusers said to Stephen? No. No way, they said. And they chose the way of death. They put Stephen to death, but Stephen will go to heaven; and they will remain alive, but they are on a pathway that leads to eternal death.

What a sermon Stephen preaches — the gospel sermon that Christ is the end of the Law for righteousness to everyone who believes.

Father, we thank You for all of Your mercy to us in the gospel, because we would be wholly lost without it. Receive our thanks as we look with holy reverence toward your servant, Stephen, at the hour of his martyrdom and death for this very gospel. Teach us to love it, and be ready to sacrifice for it, for Jesus' sake. Amen.