Acts, 6:1-15
Vern Peterman · Mar 6, 2005
Acts (2005), No. 10
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/48262321464321

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

I'd like us to take a side detour that's related to Acts. When we went through Acts chapter 2, we had a list, remember, of about a dozen different places where people came from, and they recognized their particular dialect there on the day of Pentecost. Remember that?

And so those dozen places, I mean, they were all over. Cyrene, you know, they were over even Babylon. And so those different places were mentioned. One of the mentioned there is Cappadocia. And I bring that up because it's got some interesting local characteristics that kind of make it unique. So I thought it'd be good to take a look at it.

It's also, as you might be able to tell, an area just north of where Paul was, you know, he's from Tarsus. So it's just north of there. it's also right next to Galatia. Galatia is just kind of slightly to the west there. So it's an area that has a lot of biblical contact even though the name Cappadocia only shows up in Acts 2.9 and in 1 Peter 1.1. Anyway, real interesting stuff. Let me show you why. This looks like an entrance to a biblical era tomb, right? Ah, it's just a tomb. Who's interested in tombs?

They had underground cities that could hold as many as 20,000 people up to 18 stories deep. They would dig down and go down the next layer with stairs. Isn't that amazing? Skyscrapers in the ground! I mean, this is phenomenal. Can you imagine 18 stories? I mean, we've got buildings here that are like that and they're pretty tall. This goes down that far. This is phenomenal. 20,000 people. Let's see, where's a place with 20,000 people? Denver's obviously much bigger than that, but still that's quite a number of people to have and that's in one cave structure, one cave complex. They had others. Amazing stuff. Were they trolls? Pardon? Were they trolls? Well, you would think so.

Here's why. Cappadocia, let me back up a bit. See this here? Cappadocia was in an area where it was not only kind of geographically and topographically on the way to other places, but it was also kind of in a mountain valley type area, and that was kind of the road through the middle. And so if you were an army that was invading, that was like you're going to go through Cappadocia. So the people in Cappadocia said, hey, I'm tired of this stuff.

These guys are always coming through here, and they're just making our life misery. So what do they do? They say, well, we'll make it real hard for them to find us and get to us. So that's what they did. Anyway, that's why this thing is here. The people, the army going through, they look down, they say, here's this stupid tomb. I don't want to go in there. I got other things to do, better places to go. And so they just pass it by.

And meanwhile, the Cappadocians have a whole city underground equipped with all the food and water supply and everything else they need. They also had an interesting topography. Isn't that wild looking? A whole bunch of cone looking stuff. A lot of areas that had kind of a light lava type rock structure. And they would, you see in there the lava houses? They would dig into these cones and make houses. Now these are at ground level. Look at the next ones. They put them also up in the side of these cones. and go up. Now, imagine you're an invading army.

Which ones of them are dead ends? Which ones of them are a trap? How am I going to get to that one that's way up there? Especially when I don't see anybody up there because they're back in some tunnel somewhere. So an invading army, if people weren't underground, had a horrible time trying to figure out what do I do? You can imagine if you were a Cappadocian, you could set up traps in the entrances. False entrances. You could make it a horrible time for them. They're in and all of a sudden they have a cave-in that was set up. It was awful. So they just said, hey, you're going to come through here again and again and again. We're going to make you wish you hadn't. Or at least pass through and think you've got everybody and you've not.

So anyway, you can imagine here, let me give you some more pictures. Here they'd have whole cliff sides, and at first you may not see it all, but you see some of them were poked way high, way high on the side of the cliff. So anyway, they had them all over the place. And they would carve out these lava houses, it was kind of a light lava, they'd just chip away and build tunnels and houses and rooms, however they pleased.

Here's some more. Ready to move in? And you can imagine some of those are pretty high up. How are you going to get to those? So they could put in windows where they want, but they could also put in traps. They could put in cave-in areas where they could have a bunch of boulders set up ready to fall on the guys that came through. A little tiny opening where they could shoot down. Frequently, the guys who were coming in to capture them weren't equipped with torches, because they weren't expecting to deal with these. So you can imagine their defensive posture, considering that the armies were coming back and forth and going through all the time.

And by the way, that was also true into the Middle Ages, like the Crusades. Same thing, they'd come through there. So it was a thousands of year kind of scenario where these cave houses, these lava houses, and these underground tunnels were a retreat for them in a way that people survived. Some Christians continued to survive in there into about the 1920s. Because it was a place they could live with all the Islamic Invaders coming through. Okay.

Anyway, I thought that would be fun interesting stuff All right, let's turn to our Axe passage here All right And we finished off this last time We have some questions. This is in Acts 6, 1-15. By the way, does everybody have that or does anybody need a copy in order to stay with us here? We have a package of Acts 4, 1-37 through Acts 6, 1-15.

Okay, you got it? You're covered? Look over somebody's shoulder? Good. Let's take a look at that. We have some questions. And remember those questions related in Acts 6-115, a couple of different things. One is we find the first appointment of deacons. And secondly, we see the introduction out of that to Stephen and how Stephen starts getting into some trouble here. So the questions that we had start with number one there. The apostles acting in the role of local church elders could have chosen to continue managing the feeding of the widows as they had been. Am I out of phase here? No? It's okay? Okay. All right.

Continue to handle the managing of the widows as they had been. What would be the likely consequences of their continuing to manage the feeding of the widows and not seeing the appointment of the deacons to the task? We talked about this some last week. Think about this.

They appointed seven deacons to take over because there was a conflict between the widows who were of Hellenic background, that is a Greek cultural background, and those who are of Jewish background. We kind of made the joking, you know, the Greek widows said, hey, I'm used to my matzahs having an alpha on them. And the Jewish widows saying, no, I want mine with alephs on them, you know, and all sorts of different cultural and custom differences would keep them in conflict. And there was a question, hey, we got some kind of bias happening here. All right, now, what would happen Let's kind of walk and talk our way through this. What would happen to these apostles had they not made the appointment of deacons? How do you see that playing out? What would the church look like? What would the apostles look like?

That's right. Increasingly absorbed with that. Let's assume that their numbers continue to increase. What's going to happen? That's right. Now, as you look at it, they're spending time teaching and praying for the flock and all the other things that are involved with caring for what was then really kind of a local church in great part. And they would have been completely absorbed in that. All right.

Now, eventually, they may have opportunity for evangelism, but the teaching would take lots of time and effort, and that might be one of the things that gets pinched. And lo and behold, what do you find? That's one of the things that gets pinched these days quite commonly.

So the deacons were not only exceedingly helpful, but they allowed the apostles to maintain the role that God had given them. And the pattern that we see there, we continue to see throughout the churches, in that elders are appointed first, and then deacons are appointed when the need is recognized. It's not a priority of importance, it's a priority of time. When the time comes, you really need the deacons. And the need will become apparent.

That's one of the things we pointed out when Paul sent Titus to appoint elders in Crete. He didn't give the qualifications of deacons at that time. When Paul sent Timothy, into Ephesus and told him, here's what you do in appointing elders, and by the way, you're going to need some deacons, so here's their qualifications too. So time had gone on farther with the church at Ephesus to the point where there was a recognition of the need for deacons. Timothy, it doesn't appear, had questions, what do you need deacons for?

It was known. It was evident why they would need them. Okay. It is essential that the apostles continue in their teaching, right? Just as now in the church we're beyond the apostolic era, but the elders desperately need the deacons in order not to get distracted, in order not to have their time pulled away from what they're supposed to be doing. Really important. Okay.

Next question. The deacons seem to be gifted in other ways in addition to serving. Is that possible? Can you have that? Yeah. Maybe this deacon is also a teacher. You may have a deacon who has, along with that, a gift of administration, of mercy. Different kinds of functions can be added to that by additional giftedness. It may make one deacon particularly prone to this kind of service versus another because he's got a combination of giftedness.

We'll see later Philip seems to have the gift of evangelism, right? Okay. Stephen does signs and wonders previously only attributed to the apostles. Remember, this is the first time, aside from the apostles, that we see signs and wonders. He also seems to be able to speak the truth clearly before the Sanhedrin, as we will see in chapter 7. Philip, as we'll see in chapter 8, is an evangelist. Can the Holy Spirit actually gift a person in more than one way? How many gifts Can the Holy Spirit give one person? As many as He wants? That much latitude?

Yeah, that's right. We will mention, because spiritual gifts is also the subject of the main service, so I'll give you a head start. If you were in the church history class previously, you probably already have this chart, but out on the cabinet to the right, as you exit, There's a legal-sized sheet that has a kind of a grid there on spiritual gifts. A lot of information on one sheet. Feel free to go ahead and take one. If we run out, I guess we'll print some more. But anyway, avail yourself of that.

There's a lot to it. There are spiritual gifts that were present during the apostolic era that are no longer present. We no longer have apostles, for example. And there are gifts that have continued and remain to this day. Anyway, feel free to take advantage of that. The Holy Spirit can indeed gift people in more than one way. We see specific examples of that here.

Here's Stephen. Is he a deacon? Is he gifted with a gift of service? Yes. Most certainly. And maybe in his deacon role, he also exercised a gift of administration. But he also did signs and wonders. And then we also see Philip. Did the Lord gift him in the gift of service as a deacon? Yes, he did. He may also have had other gifts, but what we see exampled in chapter 8 when we get there is that Philip had the gift of evangelism.

It's amazing. The guy goes into places like, how on earth did he get there? Why did he go there? Phenomenal stuff. We'll see multiple examples of that. Let's turn to the next page, page 4, question number 3. The last verse of this passage says that when Stephen appeared before the council, his face was like that of an angel. Given that our culture is likely to impose an idea as to what that means, what is Dr. Luke trying to convey to us about Stephen's appearance? Did Stephen look like a young baby, a woman? What did you come up with? What does it mean, look at the face of an angel? He had this baby face, real round and chubby, He looked like a gorgeous woman. What's that? Ah, radiance. Now, think about this. Let's look at the other accounts.

Okay, here are the shepherds. The shepherds out in the field in Bethlehem at the birth of Christ. They're out in the field and an angel shows up. And one of the shepherds looks up and says, Look! A baby! Flying! Is that what they said? What was his shepherd's response? What's that? Fear, yeah. Often you will find if angels show up and they're recognized as angels, one of the things that the angels say first off, more than once you'll see this in scripture, don't be afraid. King James, fear not. Why? The first thing that hits them is, People are gasping, it's like they stop breathing because of what they see.

Twice in the book of Revelation, John, although he'd seen phenomenal things, twice he saw angels and started to worship and the angel said, whoop, not me. Why? The appearance of the angel wasn't like some baby with little wings, okay? It wasn't some gorgeous, you know, gorgeous woman. It was phenomenally overpowering. to the point where the first response of the angel has to be, don't be afraid. Why? Because they're afraid. They're shaken. So when he says the face of an angel, it's not, he has this cherub face.

It's not, he looks like, Stephen looks like a gorgeous woman. Instead, no, it is a face that grabs you with its radiance. And that if you take a moment to look at it, This is a face of great strength. So anyway, not a baby, not a gorgeous woman, brilliance, and no doubt a masculinity along with it, but a brilliance that was stunning. Okay.

And we gave some clues there in Revelation 10.1. It's the only word that uses angel and face together. You don't see a baby or a gorgeous woman like our mythology tends to have.

Judges 13.6 uses a different word for face or countenance, but with a similar meaning. The idea is this is a stunning, amazing brilliance. Okay, that's Acts chapter 6.

Let's step into the next one here, and could I ask you to distribute some of these. I have made a change I need to announce to you. Initially when we started I gave you a schedule, I just changed it. What I decided to do is combine both passages that include chapter 7, so verse 1 through 60 is all in one section here. The reason for doing that is I was going through it, there were patterns in the passage that I end up kind of have a break between two passages and it kind of interrupted the continuity of what Stephen was saying. So I wanted to just put it all in one, even though it's a lot of verses. So, with that, we'll go ahead and take a look at it. At this point, Stephen has already gotten in trouble.

The synagogue of the freedmen, and we pointed out last time, that there were something on the order of, a few decades later, said there were 390 synagogues in Jerusalem. So this is just one of them, probably hundreds during this time in Acts. And it was a synagogue of the freedmen, that is, it was a synagogue of those who were former slaves.

Think about this too. If you have a synagogue, since there's hundreds of them to choose, what they would tend to do is group according to some common characteristic. And we tend to do that today with the nominations, don't we? We group according to some characteristic.

So what they would do is say, everybody who's a former slave, we've got a synagogue for you. That was the synagogue of the freedmen. It was that group that got Stephen in trouble. And it was the first time we see false charges bringing the believers into trouble. Okay, that being the case, here's Stephen.

And the chief priest starts off with this initial question, well, what do you have to say for yourself? Are these things so? One of the patterns that we point out here in the first paragraph under background is that it was common, the standard practice for the Sanhedrin, in spite of the fact that they were going to be doing something pretty intense with people, to give them an opportunity for their defense. What did Christ do with that opportunity for his defense? Here comes the chief priest and says, okay defend yourself, what are you going to say? So Christ was given the opportunity but basically refused it.

The examples we see before of first Peter and John and secondly the whole group of the apostles was also instance of that. They were given an opportunity to speak for themselves. So that was standard. The same thing now, after Christ, after Peter and John, after all the Apostles, we see that with Stephen here.

By the way, we also make the point here, this is all Caiaphas as the chief priest for all these. Why do we know that? Caiaphas, until about 36 AD, was the chief priest. That also, by the way, is the year that Pilate got booted out of office. It's funny, he just kind of disappears from the Roman political system. A failed politician, if you will. But anyway, that year 36 is when Caiaphas is still there, so that would very likely still be Caiaphas asking this question.

And by the way, Caiaphas' ossuary, bone box, has been found. We've pointed that out before. What may well be his house has been located, and you can tour that. steps up to it, and the house has been fairly well located and restored. So you can actually take a look at it. Nonetheless, this is very likely the same kind given the time frame and time scale.

Now, one of the things that we point out here is Stephen says, and we quote here from Acts 7, 48 through 50, Stephen says that God doesn't dwell just in this temple. God's bigger than that. Now let me ask you a question. Why would that be an important thing for Stephen to say? Why should he bother making that point? God doesn't just dwell in this temple here that you're so concerned with. Did he deny that God was in the temple? No. But he says God dwells beyond that. Why would that be an important thing to underscore?

Yeah. It's the same thing that the Lord said. Yes, exactly. By the way, it's also said several times in the Old Testament. So all he's doing is repeating a truth that's in the Old Testament, but it's in the part of the Old Testament that the Sadducees don't believe in. Okay? It's in the historical books. First and Second Kings, First and Second Chronicles, okay? Sadducees don't believe in that stuff, as inspired.

But, it's true nonetheless, and it's said several times in the Old Testament, even the builders of the temple were told, God does not just dwell here. He doesn't deny that he dwells here, but he doesn't just dwell here. So, Stephen is bringing out a truth that every one of the Pharisees would say, yeah, I know, we know that, we believe that. The Sadducees would have gone, you know, out of anger and frustration because they didn't want to hear that. Their whole lives were poured into this temple. Wouldn't be welcome news.

Okay. The other thing, you look at this, here's this temple. If God only dwells in this temple, what does that say about God's character and who God is? Yes, good point. God is limited if he only dwells here. Yes, exactly. That was often thought to be true of the pagan temples around the Roman Empire. You know, we've got this temple over here, and this is where the goddess really dwells. We've got this little idol over here, and it's right in that piece of stone. Stephen's saying, hey, this is no pagan temple.

This is a God who created the universe and is sovereign over all of it. And he's not just in this building that you made. Real important point. So he makes that point. Is he against the temple? Because remember, that's part of the charge against him. Is he against it? No. He's just saying, I never said that this temple wasn't important. What I did say was God doesn't just dwell in this temple. and his point is well taken.

He's reiterating a truth stated multiple times in the Old Testament. Next, we see another thing, a pattern that he keeps harping on as he responds. He doesn't just touch it once or twice. He keeps coming back to this theme. He weaves it throughout his message. And that's this. The Jews have a centuries-long... millennia long pattern of rejecting God's message, of rejecting God's messengers. And you're a part of the pattern. Because he ends up with you.

Look at this here, Acts 7, 9. The patriarchs became jealous of Joseph and sold him into Egypt. This was someone that God was going to work with and speak with. What did the patriarchs do with him? rejected it, sold him, the rest of his brothers, got rid of him.

Let's look at the next page, Acts 7.25-27. And he supposed that his brethren understood that God was granting them deliverance through him, but they did not understand. This is, by the way, speaking of Moses, who is also a central point of what Stephen has to say. Deliverance through him, that is Moses, but they did not understand.

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 one who was injuring his neighbor pushed him away, saying, Who made you a ruler and judge over us?

Rejecting Moses, the one through whom God would give the law. A few verses later, verse 35, This Moses whom they disowned. You see the rejection. He's underscoring you have a centuries-long pattern of rejecting God's messenger, of rejecting the one that God sent to speak through to you.

Verse 39, Our fathers were unwilling to be obedient to him, but repudiated him, and in their hearts turned back to Egypt. You see how he's laying it on thick? Verse 41, At that time they made a calf, and bought a sacrifice to the idol, and were rejoicing in the works of their hands. Not what God has, what I've got.

Another refusing and rejecting by the Jews. 51-53, you men, oh boy, now he gets pointed. He says you multiple times. He's shown this pattern of rejecting God's messengers. Now he's pointing the finger and he doesn't do it lightly. Listen to this. You men who are stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart, By the way, what was the word that they used for the Gentiles? Uncircumcised. We're the Sanhedrin! We're the head of the Jews! We're the Jewish of Jewish! How dare you give us this despicable term that is used for the Gentiles. Can you imagine that?

That must have just rocked them, and not in a good way. Uncircumcised in heart. Oh, man, your hearts are Gentile hearts. You guys are a bunch of wild mangy dogs. That's what Paul's terminology was there. Your heart and ears are always resisting the Holy Spirit. You are doing just as your fathers did.

See, that's why he's laid down this foundation of, hey, the Jews reject and reject and reject and reject. You claim Moses as the big kahuna Theme of things, but you're doing just like the rest of them did. God sends a messenger, and you refuse him. God sends a message, and you reject it. So, they're just loving this, you can tell.

Alright. Which one of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? They killed those who had previously announced the coming of the Righteous One. Who's the Righteous One? Jesus. Right? That's why it's capitalized. whose betrayers and murderers you have now become." Remember who was high priest who was asking Stephen the questions? Caiaphas, same guy as asked Jesus and Jesus didn't even respond. It's that one that you condemned. You remember that one? It's only a few years ago, you remember it. Yeah, that's the one you killed. You are responsible.

You, specifically, we're not talking generalities here, you guys that are standing here today, right now, you are the ones who refused the message from the messenger the Messiah promised centuries back. Every message along the centuries was pointing to him and you killed him.

They're just loving this. I mean, they just fall in love with Stephen, left and right, right? "...whose betrayers and murderers you have now become. You who receive the law as ordained by angels, yet did not keep it." Okay. Now, Stephen's gotten real popular with these guys.

They're patting him on the back, right? As he spoke to them, he quoted about 22 verses, as I recall. Genesis, Exodus, and Deuteronomy. So far, so good. The Sanhedrin would like that, sort of. Isaiah and Amos or the Sanhedrin like that? No, because they only believe in the first five books, right? So the Sanhedrin are going to reject the last part of his quotes. Ben?

The Sadducees were a minority of the Sanhedrin. The Pharisees were the majority. The Sanhedrin were of the prime leadership in that Caiaphas and his family descended from Annas throughout the first century up to the time of the destruction of the temple. They were the majority of the time, of that time span. Sadducees, either Annas or his descendants, the chief priests or the high priests. By the way, you'll see in the New Testament the term high priests And officially there was only one, but when you've got a whole family and they're in charge and it's just trading off who's in charge, that's why the term the high priests would be used. So the Pharisees had the majority? They had the majority in numbers, yes.

The high priesthood either present or formerly or soon to be. And Caiaphas was simply, it was a lot of nepotism because it was kind of a family deal. Hey, I'm descended from Annas, so I'm going to be one of the high priests eventually, you know, that kind of a thing. And so it was an interesting balance, if you will.

Here's the minority in number, but holding the position of leadership, and then the majority in number, the Pharisees, and also that was true of the population as well. Sadducees were smaller in number in the general population, the Pharisees larger in number in the general population. Yes? That's correct. That's correct. Yeah, thank you.

Now, Stephen's last points in Acts 51 through 53 above there would have been fiercely rejected by both the Sadducees. Some of it was specifically pointed at the Sadducees and that they would have rejected it. For example, the reference, the law was ordained by angels. You know, Paul even reinforces that idea. Paul talks about the law being ordained by angels, and so he uses that phrase. We make reference to that below.

So the key thing here is not only was what Stephen was bringing divisive, in that the Sadducees and Pharisees would disagree on some points, but he didn't let that distinction get the Pharisees off the hook. He just said, you, all of you. You were the ones who specifically and personally, there may have been some slight change, you know, a few different, but by and large, you're talking personally THE specific men who voted to condemn Christ. So he pointed the finger at them and they were delighted. They were overjoyed at his accusations.

So, what we see, now here's the interesting part. Now things move quickly, and I think that's something to remember. Remember previously, Gamaliel talked them out of doing anything to the apostles? He says, you know, hey you guys, let's kind of be a little mellow here, let's not get carried away, and the intent of the Sanhedrin was to do the apostles in, and Gamaliel talked them out of it. Here you see no apparent stopping. It's like things move swiftly, things move very rapidly. All of a sudden they're hauling them to the nearest place they can get out of town.

And that meant if you have chapter, I think it's chapter two or three with you that has kind of the map of the temple. Which one was that? It's chapter three. Okay, if you happen to have chapter three with you, you have a map of the temple. And let me just kind of map out where this likely is. The second page Chapter 3. 3.1-36 At the lower portion of the inner temple, you see the dark lines there? On the west side or the inner temple side of the south wall was where the Sadducees typically met. It would be the room of Hewn Stone. In that room they would meet.

In order to get Stephen out to some place where they could stone him is simply a matter of going out the middle gates. There's pretty much a straight line outside the city and going out to the gates there. That's where you find nice fresh ground and they'd start stoning him right there. They may have gone, there's also some secondary exits just to the south side and they could have gone there, but either way it was fairly quick out. And so they just haul him out. You can imagine if you were there worshiping Here goes the Sanhedrin, here goes all these people by, and whoosh, they're hauling him off. He goes outside the city gates and the stoning begins. As that happens, real interesting, some key and pivotal things take place.

One of them, what's the attitude of the Sanhedrin here at this point? What are they thinking? What's central in their minds? What's that? Kill them. Kill them. They're not thinking anything else. They're so enraged. He has said, you, right here, we have waited for centuries for the Messiah, and you, the one standing right here, you voted to kill them. They're ticked. They are really, really ticked. If anything would boil their blood, this is it.

You mean to tell us that here we're the leaders? Go and call us uncircumcised? Like Gentiles? And at heart? Ugh! How disgusting. We're the big kahunas here. We're the big mucky mucks. And you come at us and call us uncircumcised. That's just the most horrible thing you could say. They were really mad.

So just start throwing the rocks. As soon as you get outside the city, let the stones begin. So they start throwing rocks. That's their posture. It's kill them and they want to get the rocks at them as quick as they can, as many as they can. Pile them up. Job done.

Now, that's the perspective of those guys. We don't have comment on it here. What do you think the people in the temple who are standing around were thinking? People rushing by, all of a sudden, these guys have this intense look on their face. They're thinking, oh, something's coming down here. This is heavy.

Now, what's happening to Stephen? What's Stephen's posture in the middle of all this? He's saying, whoopee, I'm going home. Interesting, but his response is not one of, oh, no, I guess this is the end of it for me. Boy, am I going to have a headache. No. What does he see?

He sees Christ. Now here's something that we point out in the printed background here you can catch up with. Christ is ordinarily in the New Testament and in the Old Testament even in the prophecies pictured as seated at the right hand of the Father. Here he is in the one place we have it Stephen's coming home.

He says, I'll stand for that. Stand for it. Yeah. Neat. It would be, in Stephen's perception of time, if you can call it that, moments, he would be seated with Christ. But for that moment, Christ will stand. Isn't it interesting? The Lord will provide a dying grace. And this is an example where we see that. Stephen here is the first martyr. Sorry, it's a little intense for me.

My dad's sister died of colon cancer. As she got near the end of her life, people at the church had volunteered to be around the clock with her and just help her because she was not able to help herself. The various treatments that they had weren't cutting it. The lady who was with her her last moments, said all of a sudden her face brightened and she said, look! I don't know what she saw.

I somehow think it's probably a little similar. And what's neat here, this is just an example of the Lord providing a dying grace. And it's interesting as you look at different people, you know, and the things that they go through, there's a lot of people that dread dying.

I remember talking to a college coach that I had. It was a class in jogging, so we went around and jogged. I got through with my jog a little early and I went down and talked to him. I talked to him about, hey, have you thought about what's going to happen when you die?

His face just turned ashen gray. He says, oh man, I don't want to die. I said, well, it's something you better think about. He was ash and gray. My aunt was glowing. My aunt was glowing. Real different perspective. Same death. Same body going, you know. Incredibly different perspective. And Stephen exhibits that here. That's a neat and wonderful thing.

In our remaining minutes, let's take a look at the questions. You've got some questions there at the end. We asked the question here. We addressed it in some degree. Give it some thought. Why is it important for Stephen to state that God does not exclusively live in the temple, even though the Jews were instructed to build it? So we talked to that in some degree. Take a look at that.

The next one. Stephen obviously said a number of things that would have irritated the members of the Sanhedrin to varying high degrees and divided them doctrinally. By finishing his presentation with pointed accusations, and they're true by the way, not false accusations, of the Sanhedrin's own guilt and opposition to God, wasn't Stephen crossing a line?

I mean, after all, isn't it the Christian thing to do to tone down the verbiage to avoid causing such irritation and anger? Think about that. Wouldn't it be the Christian thing to do to say, hey, you know, these guys are going to get really irritated at this, so I'm just going to kind of soften it a little bit and cut the corners, and I don't want them to get all riled up. you know, and mad. So, being a nice Christian, I'm going to soften the words. Is that the Christian thing to do? Think about that. All right, any other questions? Thoughts? Yes, Ben. I just wanted to point out that Stephen's reaction was exactly the same as the Lord's in terms of his response to what was happening. Yeah, isn't that something?

Yeah, good point, and we didn't bring it up in the text or presentation. Yeah, he didn't say, man, Lord, I sure hope you get back at these guys. I'm not going to have a chance to, but you can. Yeah, forgive him. Isn't that interesting? Contrast. He didn't dull the corners on his words. His words were as pointed as they come. Obviously, the response indicated that. And yet he would turn around and say, forgive them. His words were not intended as words of vengeance and retribution and injury, as sharp as they were. You could tell from his last words that didn't come from that motivation and attitude. But Lord, forgive them. Very reminiscent of our Lord's own words, right? Yeah, thank you. That's a good point.

Any others? Yeah, Marion? Well, when you saw when they were concerning about one tribe, and the other part of it, they said, what do we do with that? You know, what do we do with it all? Ah, yeah, in Chapter 2, you're saying. Yes, in Chapter 2. Oh my gosh, they were such a harm, you know. Well, what do we do now?

And then these statements got us. Isn't it interesting that Peter said, you know, hey, you took part in Christ's death, and the response, they were cut to the heart too, exact same phrase, and the response, however, was, Peter says, you know, believe, that's what you need to do, and he couched it in terms of repentance. And the response was to believe. Three thousand were added that day. Here we see similar words of, hey, you were the ones. and they were also cut to the heart, and the response instead was, instead of, hey, what do we do to resolve this and make it right, the response was, kill this guy.

Yeah, good point. Because although there are similarities in what was said, and how the hearts were described, the response of heart was profoundly different. Let's put it this way, eternally different. Eternally different, yeah. Any other thoughts? Pardon? The groups were different. The groups, different groups. Both Jews, Both Jews, but the leaders were the ones who did the absolute refusal to accept. Yeah? I was wondering, why were they so upset? At that point, did they believe he was a messiah? Did that bug them, that they didn't know how to deal with it? Or did they still think he wasn't a messiah?

Isn't it interesting that you have people that are either personally aware, because we have various accounts through the Gospels, they're either personally aware that Jesus did, in fact, perform miracles. Miracles were performed right in the temple. Remember the encounter of Peter and John? So, yes, miracles are taking place. When they would have these gatherings, the apostles would say Jesus was resurrected.

Hey, these guys are the ones that paid off the Roman guards. They don't say anything about this stuff. So, a weird thing of weird things. miracles would happen, the things that the Apostles would testify as true, they knew, personally. They had a bunch of Roman soldiers stand in front of them and say, this is what happened. And what did they do, rather than accepting it and saying, you know, every bit of evidence says this is the Messiah. They did the unthinkable and they said, no, we don't want to give up our place of power and position here.

Kill the guy. Interesting. They had seen plenty of people who were rebelling. They had not seen anybody who had risen from the dead. The testimony by the soldiers, testimony by the apostles, and the others who, hundreds, 500 as Paul said, who saw was clear. It was irrefutable. And they could take him to the place, they could say, here's the spot where he died. We saw, here's the empty tomb.

We were the ones that wrapped it up, you know, etc. All the testimony, absolute rejection still. Absolute rejection. The rejection of heart, you bring up a good point, the rejection of heart that people have is not because they haven't seen facts that are irrefutable. The rejection of heart is a spiritual issue and a spiritual decision that's made. And oftentimes the fog of skepticism that we get out of people is really It is indeed that. It's a ruse or a guise for, I just don't want to believe because of what it means.

Yeah? I was thinking, was it Elijah that talked to Ahab, King Ahab, because he was a king in the Old Testament? Was that Ahab? Said the prophet to Baal? Yes. And Elijah was, you know, doing all this stuff. Yeah. And, you know, calling down fire from heaven. Right. First Kings 18.

But in the end, wasn't he still rejected? Yep. Yeah, 450 prophets of Baal and he says, hey, look, you see, these guys went and cut themselves and screamed for hours. And Elijah was saying, he can't hear you scream louder, cut some more. And he was teasing them. Okay. And finally, in the end, he says, Okay, Lord, go do it. And the whole thing's, you know, a done deal. And yet, what do people do?

We're really ticked because we don't like your irrefutable evidence. It's irrefutable, but they're just still really mad. It's a spiritual decision, not a decision of fact. Yeah, Marian? Yeah, here are the guys in the Sanhedrin. They said, okay, we got rid of Jesus. How come we got this temple curtain, which is about three or four inches thick? because it was a massive textile curtain.

We've got to fix this thing. How come? Instead of saying, you know, we've got some kind of spiritual issue here, because nobody could do that, no human being is going to do that, and it was ripped from top to bottom. Instead of recognizing the massive spiritual issue, fix this thing. We can't have it this way.

Amazing refusal to recognize the facts. Amazing. Yeah. Phenomenal. We've got to stop. Lord, thank you. As we look at this passage, there are certainly dramatic and marvelous things that have taken place. In one sense, we could call it tragic, and yet it was Stephen's homecoming. He was going home. And we thank you, Lord, as we recognize how you honored Stephen standing in the heavenlies and giving Stephen a dying grace as he saw you doing that. We thank you in Jesus' name, Amen.