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And Saul approved of his execution.

And there arose on that day a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem, and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles. ² Devout men buried Stephen and made great lamentation over him. ³ But Saul was ravaging the church, and entering house after house, he dragged off men and women and committed them to prison.

Yesterday we were introduced to the young man Saul, who guarded the clothes of those who were murdering Stephen. At the opening of chapter 8 it is definitely stated that he ”approved of his execution” – something we had already concluded. But it is now spelled out. He then went on the rampage, arresting and incarcerating believers. He really had the bit between his teeth. ‘  During those terrible days scenes were enacted which were destined to fill the heart of the future Apostle with most poignant sorrow.’ F.B. Meyer. Who would have thought that this man was the divinely chosen candidate to become the early church’s foremost theologian, evangelist and church planter? But he was, and his story will dominate the rest of ‘Acts’ from chapter 9 onwards. He too will find himself at the sharp end of persecution: beaten, imprisoned, suffering much.

Some years ago, a speaker at our church House Party kept saying, ‘Things can change!’ Indeed they can…and, by the grace of God, so can people!

⁵⁴ Now when they heard these things they were enraged, and they ground their teeth at him. ⁵⁵ But he, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. ⁵⁶ And he said, “Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.” ⁵⁷ But they cried out with a loud voice and stopped their ears and rushed together at him. ⁵⁸ Then they cast him out of the city and stoned him. And the witnesses laid down their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul. ⁵⁹ And as they were stoning Stephen, he called out, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” ⁶⁰ And falling to his knees he cried out with a loud voice, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” And when he had said this, he fell asleep.

Bishop Thomas Ken wrote: ‘Teach me to live that I may dread, the grave as little as my bed.’ Amidst the savagery, venom, barbarity and murderous cruelty of this scene, there is something beautiful about how it ends: peacefully, for this radiant man of God. In fact, it seems he was given very special grace as he faced the end of his earthly life. He saw heaven just fractionally before stepping into it. What a glorious gift. Also, how lovely it is to witness the Christ-like way Stephen both lived and died.

As we have noted previously, ‘There are none so blind as those who will not see.’ Stephen’s opponents were furious, and unwilling to hear (57), like little children physically putting their hands over their ears because they don’t want to do as they are being told.

The mention of Saul (58) prepares us for a dramatic turn to come in the progression of the story, just one chapter later. This young man also was violently opposed to the gospel, but, thanks be to God, people can change!

³⁵ “This Moses, whom they rejected, saying, ‘Who made you a ruler and a judge?’—this man God sent as both ruler and redeemer by the hand of the angel who appeared to him in the bush. ³⁶ This man led them out, performing wonders and signs in Egypt and at the Red Sea and in the wilderness for forty years. ³⁷ This is the Moses who said to the Israelites, ‘God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers.’ ³⁸ This is the one who was in the congregation in the wilderness with the angel who spoke to him at Mount Sinai, and with our fathers. He received living oracles to give to us. ³⁹ Our fathers refused to obey him, but thrust him aside, and in their hearts they turned to Egypt, ⁴⁰ saying to Aaron, ‘Make for us gods who will go before us. As for this Moses who led us out from the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.’ ⁴¹ And they made a calf in those days, and offered a sacrifice to the idol and were rejoicing in the works of their hands. ⁴² But God turned away and gave them over to worship the host of heaven, as it is written in the book of the prophets:

“‘Did you bring to me slain beasts and sacrifices,
    during the forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel?
⁴³ You took up the tent of Moloch
    and the star of your god Rephan,
    the images that you made to worship;
and I will send you into exile beyond Babylon.’

⁴⁴ “Our fathers had the tent of witness in the wilderness, just as he who spoke to Moses directed him to make it, according to the pattern that he had seen. ⁴⁵ Our fathers in turn brought it in with Joshua when they dispossessed the nations that God drove out before our fathers. So it was until the days of David, ⁴⁶ who found favor in the sight of God and asked to find a dwelling place for the God of Jacob. ⁴⁷ But it was Solomon who built a house for him. ⁴⁸ Yet the Most High does not dwell in houses made by hands, as the prophet says,

⁴⁹ “‘Heaven is my throne,
    and the earth is my footstool.
What kind of house will you build for me, says the Lord,
    or what is the place of my rest?
⁵⁰ Did not my hand make all these things?’

⁵¹ “You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you. ⁵² 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, ⁵³ you who received the law as delivered by angels and did not keep it.” (ESV)

Look at the repetition of ”This Moses…This man…” He was only a man, but God worked mightily through him – and when he was elderly. This must encourage those of us who are older. We should not write ourselves off. Neither should churches minimise the potential in their aged members.

That is a telling comment in verse 39 that ”in their hearts they turned to Egypt”, for where our hearts go the rest of us will follow.

When we come to verses 51-53 we get to the thrust of the whole sermon, which is to show that in the rejection of Jesus there is a repetition of a pattern evident throughout their long history. (Jesus makes a similar point in Matthew 23 – see especially verses 29-31)

²³ “When he was forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brothers, the children of Israel. ²⁴ And seeing one of them being wronged, he defended the oppressed man and avenged him by striking down the Egyptian. ²⁵ He supposed that his brothers would understand that God was giving them salvation by his hand, but they did not understand. ²⁶ And on the following day he appeared to them as they were quarreling and tried to reconcile them, saying, ‘Men, you are brothers. Why do you wrong each other?’ ²⁷ But the man who was wronging his neighbour thrust him aside, saying, ‘Who made you a ruler and a judge over us? ²⁸ Do you want to kill me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday?’ ²⁹ At this retort Moses fled and became an exile in the land of Midian, where he became the father of two sons.

³⁰ “Now when forty years had passed, an angel appeared to him in the wilderness of Mount Sinai, in a flame of fire in a bush. ³¹ When Moses saw it, he was amazed at the sight, and as he drew near to look, there came the voice of the Lord: ³² ‘I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob.’ And Moses trembled and did not dare to look. ³³ Then the Lord said to him, ‘Take off the sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy ground. ³⁴ I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and have heard their groaning, and I have come down to deliver them. And now come, I will send you to Egypt.’ (ESV)

How does God come down to deliver His people? By sending Moses! As E.M. Bounds observed, ‘God’s methods are men.’ He uses people in forwarding His purposes. But He takes His time to prepare His servants. He is by no means in a hurry (as we so often are) At the age of 80, Moses’ greatest mission was to begin. At 40 he tried to do it his own way, by 80 he was ready for God’s way. ‘ It is when we come to the end of ourselves that we arrive at the beginning of God. The world has ever to learn what God can do by those who are wholly emptied of self-confidence but yielded to His hand.’ F.B. Meyer.

Here are a couple of other things I note in this account of Moses:

• Supposition can cause us all manner of problems! (25);
• Example is so important to gaining a hearing (28).

And the high priest said, “Are these things so?” ² And Stephen said:

“Brothers and fathers, hear me. The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran, ³ and said to him, ‘Go out from your land and from your kindred and go into the land that I will show you.’ ⁴ Then he went out from the land of the Chaldeans and lived in Haran. And after his father died,  into this land in which you are now living. ⁵ Yet he gave him no inheritance in it, not even a foot’s length, but promised to give it to him as a possession and to his offspring after him, though he had no child. ⁶ And God spoke to this effect—that his offspring would be sojourners in a land belonging to others, who would enslave them and afflict them four hundred years. ⁷ ‘But I will judge the nation that they serve,’ said God, ‘and after that they shall come out and worship me in this place.’ ⁸ And he gave him the covenant of circumcision. And so Abraham became the father of Isaac, and circumcised him on the eighth day, and Isaac became the father of Jacob, and Jacob of the twelve patriarchs.

⁹ “And the patriarchs, jealous of Joseph, sold him into Egypt; but God was with him ¹⁰ and rescued him out of all his afflictions and gave him favor and wisdom before Pharaoh, king of Egypt, who made him ruler over Egypt and over all his household. ¹¹ Now there came a famine throughout all Egypt and Canaan, and great affliction, and our fathers could find no food. ¹² But when Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, he sent out our fathers on their first visit. ¹³ And on the second visit Joseph made himself known to his brothers, and Joseph’s family became known to Pharaoh. ¹⁴ And Joseph sent and summoned Jacob his father and all his kindred, seventy-five persons in all. ¹⁵ And Jacob went down into Egypt, and he died, he and our fathers, ¹⁶ and they were carried back to Shechem and laid in the tomb that Abraham had bought for a sum of silver from the sons of Hamor in Shechem.

¹⁷ “But as the time of the promise drew near, which God had granted to Abraham, the people increased and multiplied in Egypt ¹⁸ until there arose over Egypt another king who did not know Joseph. ¹⁹ He dealt shrewdly with our race and forced our fathers to expose their infants, so that they would not be kept alive. ²⁰ At this time Moses was born; and he was beautiful in God’s sight. And he was brought up for three months in his father’s house, ²¹ and when he was exposed, Pharaoh’s daughter adopted him and brought him up as her own son. ²² And Moses was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and he was mighty in his words and deeds. (ESV)

I noticed, first of all, that Stephen was tender and respectful in his address (2), even though he was also forthright and direct, as we will see later.

We are going to read through this sermon in three sections, because there is so much material to cover, but just a general comment here on the sermon as a whole: he takes them on a journey; gives them a potted history of their nation, and its halting, limping, often straying relationship with God. He takes them through facts which would be well known to them. The depth and breadth of his understanding, and his ability to communicate these details to his contemporary situation is breath-taking. The whole sweep of it shows that ‘History is His (God’s) Story.’

‘The drift of the whole speech, which must be borne in mind as we read it, is that again and again the Chosen People had rejected their God-sent deliverers and prophets, and had taken their own evil courses. The rejection of the Saviour was only a parallel to that of Joseph by his brethren, and that of Moses by the nation. Israel had always been stiff-necked and froward, and ought not history to warn Stephen’s hearers against taking a similar attitude towards Jesus of Nazareth?’ F.B.Meyer

Just one little thing to leap out at me in the section about Abraham is the comment that ”God removed him from there” (4). May the Lord direct our paths and choose our homes.

PRAYER: ‘Yea, choose the path for me, although I may not see, the reason thou dost will to lead me so…’ – from the hymn ‘Thy blessed will divine’)

8And Stephen, full of grace and power, was doing great wonders and signs among the people. 9Then some of those who belonged to the synagogue of the Freedmen (as it was called), and of the Cyrenians, and of the Alexandrians, and of those from Cilicia and Asia, rose up and disputed with Stephen. 10But they could not withstand the wisdom and the Spirit with which he was speaking. 11Then they secretly instigated men who said, “We have heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses and God.” 12And they stirred up the people and the elders and the scribes, and they came upon him and seized him and brought him before the council, 13and they set up false witnesses who said, “This man never ceases to speak words against this holy place and the law, 14for we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and will change the customs that Moses delivered to us.” 15And gazing at him, all who sat in the council saw that his face was like the face of an angel. (ESV)

Stephen’s ”wisdom”, ”grace”, ”power” (and ”faith” v.5) came from ”the Spirit”. He was, we might say, an anointed man, and the sense of God’s presence about him gave him a supernatural glow. It inevitably makes one think of Moses, and how he shone on his return from the mountain where he had met with God, but he didn’t realise it. (Interestingly, Moses is mentioned in verses 11 and 14, and there will be several more references to him in the next chapter).

However, being a man of the Spirit – one who walks with God – will put you out of step with the world. Like Jesus Himself, Stephen was treated falsely and unjustly. His enemies deliberately lied about him. Instead of graciously bowing to the obvious truth of Stephen’s words, they set out to eradicate that truth. They really did not want to hear. They set themselves against it.

PRAYER: Lord, I do not ask for popularity, but I do ask that my light will shine for you in this dark world.

1Now in these days when the disciples were increasing in number, a complaint by the Hellenists arose against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution. 2And the twelve summoned the full number of the disciples and said, “It is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables. 3Therefore, brothers, pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we will appoint to this duty. 4But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.” 5And what they said pleased the whole gathering, and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, and Philip, and Prochorus, and Nicanor, and Timon, and Parmenas, and Nicolaus, a proselyte of Antioch. 6These they set before the apostles, and they prayed and laid their hands on them.

7And the word of God continued to increase, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith. (ESV)

In a time of great blessing upon the church, problems can suddenly arise from (seemingly) left field. A violent storm is whipped up, and bears down on our little boat, and we feel under threat. How comforting to know that Jesus is with us.

This is a section which commences with growth and concludes with (it would seem) even greater growth (1,7). But in between there lay a wise leadership decision by the apostles: one which embraced the whole church, though it was initiated by ”the twelve”. There could have been a huge rift. The ”Hellenists’ were Greek-speaking Jews, and they had a grievance, feeling that their widows were not getting their fair share. Decisive leadership action nipped it in the bud.

But note the priorities of the apostles (2,4). No church should stray from them. Especially in a time of explosive numerical growth (but not exclusively so) it is easy for leaders to get sucked into constant firefighting, and lose their focus.

Some people see here the formation of the first diaconate, and you can see why. But note that leaders in practical matters had to be godly men of known good character. At least two of them (Stephen and Philip) had, or went on to have, powerful speaking ministries.

With the focus on ”the word of God” (2,4), it’s fascinating that the growth of the church is described in terms of the growth of the Word (7). They saw significant growth – a growth which made deep inroads into the ranks of the leadership of Judaism. This is one of several growth summaries that we will find as we work through ‘Acts’.

PRAYER: Lord, bless the leaders of your church with all the wisdom they need, and bless our churches with deep unity in you.

17But the high priest rose up, and all who were with him (that is, the party of the Sadducees), and filled with jealousy 18they arrested the apostles and put them in the public prison. 19But during the night an angel of the Lord opened the prison doors and brought them out, and said, 20“Go and stand in the temple and speak to the people all the words of this Life.” 21And when they heard this, they entered the temple at daybreak and began to teach.

Now when the high priest came, and those who were with him, they called together the council, all the senate of the people of Israel, and sent to the prison to have them brought. 22But when the officers came, they did not find them in the prison, so they returned and reported, 23“We found the prison securely locked and the guards standing at the doors, but when we opened them we found no one inside.” 24Now when the captain of the temple and the chief priests heard these words, they were greatly perplexed about them, wondering what this would come to. 25And someone came and told them, “Look! The men whom you put in prison are standing in the temple and teaching the people.” 26Then the captain with the officers went and brought them, but not by force, for they were afraid of being stoned by the people.

27And when they had brought them, they set them before the council. And the high priest questioned them, 28saying, “We strictly charged you not to teach in this name, yet here you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching, and you intend to bring this man’s blood upon us.” 29But Peter and the apostles answered, “We must obey God rather than men. 30The God of our fathers raised Jesus, whom you killed by hanging him on a tree. 31God exalted him at his right hand as Leader and Saviour, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. 32And we are witnesses to these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him.”

33When they heard this, they were enraged and wanted to kill them. 34But a Pharisee in the council named Gamaliel, a teacher of the law held in honor by all the people, stood up and gave orders to put the men outside for a little while. 35And he said to them, “Men of Israel, take care what you are about to do with these men. 36For before these days Theudas rose up, claiming to be somebody, and a number of men, about four hundred, joined him. He was killed, and all who followed him were dispersed and came to nothing. 37After him Judas the Galilean rose up in the days of the census and drew away some of the people after him. He too perished, and all who followed him were scattered. 38So in the present case I tell you, keep away from these men and let them alone, for if this plan or this undertaking is of man, it will fail; 39but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them. You might even be found opposing God!” So they took his advice, 40and when they had called in the apostles, they beat them and charged them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go. 41Then they left the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonour for the name. 42And every day, in the temple and from house to house, they did not cease teaching and preaching that the Christ is Jesus. (ESV)

You have to say that there is something quite funny about this ‘great escape’ (see v.25). Whether they believed the resurrection message or not (and the Sadducees certainly didn’t) they were going to hear it again (30). It made them raging mad, but they were not in control (which must have made them even madder!). Jesus had told His apostles that the Holy Spirit would give them power to be His witnesses (Acts 1:8;5:31), and this is exactly what happened. In fact, there is a remarkable ending to this passage (42): surely the evidence of God’s grace.

Gamaliel, by the way, was wrong on his first point, but right on the second (38,39). There are human plans and undertakings which succeed in the short term (or, at least appear to); but if something is of God it is ultimately unstoppable. A little over two thousand years of the persecution of the church has surely demonstrated this.