In his sermon, Scott Brown explores Stephen's speech from Acts chapter 7, where Stephen addresses the Sanhedrin and outlines the history of Israel's rebellion against God. Stephen's message highlights the issues of an 'uncircumcised heart and ears,' which symbolize resistance to the Holy Spirit and a preference for idolatry. By referencing the Old Testament, Stephen illustrates the consistent theme of rebellion among God's people and their rejection of prophets, including Jesus, the Messiah. He defends himself against accusations of blasphemy by showing that Christ fulfills the law, the temple, and the promises to the patriarchs. Stephen's sermon serves as both a history lesson and an indictment of the religious leaders' current rejection of God. Scott Brown emphasizes the importance of understanding God's sovereignty, recognizing the church's tendency towards idolatry, and the role of trials in spreading the gospel. Ultimately, Stephen's example encourages believers to remain faithful and gospel-centered, even amidst persecution.

Acts chapter 7. And the high priest said, are these things so? And he said, hear me, brethren and fathers. The glory of God appeared to the father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia before he lived in Haran and said to him, depart from your country and your relatives, and come into the land that I will show you. Then he departed from the land of the Chaldeans and settled in Haran.

And from there, after his father died, God removed him into this country in which you are now living. And he gave him no inheritance in it, not even a foot of ground. And yet, even when he had no child, he promised that he would give it to him as a possession and to his offspring after him. But God spoke to this effect, that his offspring would be aliens in a foreign land and that they would be enslaved and mistreated for four hundred years. And whatever nation to which they shall be in bondage, I myself will judge, said God.

And after that they will come out and serve me in this place. 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. And the patriarchs became jealous of Joseph and sold him into Egypt. And yet God was with him and rescued him from all his afflictions and granted him favor and wisdom in the sight of Pharaoh, king of Egypt.

And he made him governor over Egypt and all his household. Now a famine came over all Egypt and Canaan and great affliction with it. Our fathers could find no food. But when Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, he sent our fathers there the first time. And on the second visit, Joseph made himself known to his brothers, and Joseph's family was disclosed to Pharaoh.

And Joseph sent word, and invited Jacob, his father, and all his relatives to come to him, seventy-five persons in all. And Jacob went down to Egypt, and there passed away he and our fathers. And from there they were removed to Shechem and laid in the tomb of which Abraham had purchased for a sum of money from the sons of Hamor in Shechem. But as the time of the promise was approaching which God had assured to Abraham, the people increased and multiplied in Egypt, until there arose another king over Egypt who knew nothing about Joseph. It was he who took shrewd advantage of our race and mistreated our fathers so that they would expose their infants and they would not survive.

And it was 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 words 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 40 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 a 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 have come down to deliver them. Come now, 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 in 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 in their hearts and 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 them. And at that time they made a calf and brought their sacrifices 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 heavens as it is written in the book of the prophets, it was not to me that you offered victims and sacrifices 40 years in the wilderness, was it, O house of Israel?

You also took along the tabernacle of Moloch and the star of the god Ramphah, 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 dispossession to nations whom God drove out before our fathers, until the time of David. And David found favor in God's sight, and asked that he might find a dwelling place for the God of Jacob. But it was Solomon who built a house for him.

However, the most high does not dwell in houses made by human hands, as the prophet says, Heaven is my throne, the earth is the footstool of my feet. What kind of house will you build for me?" says the Lord. Or what place is there for my repose? Was it not my hand which made all these things? 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." Now when they heard this, they were cut to the quick and began gnashing their teeth at him. But being full of the Holy Spirit, he gazed intently into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.

And he said, Behold, I see the heavens opened up and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God. But they cried out with a loud voice and covered their ears. And they rushed upon him with one impulse. And when they had driven him out of the city, they began stoning him. And the witnesses laid aside their robes at the feet of a young man named Saul.

And they went on stoning Stephen as he called upon the Lord, saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. And falling on his knees, he cried out with a loud voice, Lord, do not hold this sin against them. And having said this, he fell asleep. Well, This sermon, which is the longest sermon in the Book of Acts, comes after a vigorous debate between Stephen and the Sanhedrin. And because they were unable to overcome their arguments, the arguments of Stephen, they resorted to false accusation and politicking and putting words in other men's mouths and they generated a movement against the believers in the early church and particularly against Stephen.

And this led to just an absolutely vicious outbreak of persecution on the day that Stephen was stoned and many others died. He wasn't the only one. The persecution was so fierce that it caused the scattering of the church outside the borders of Jerusalem. Their comfortable life of breaking bread from house to house and taking their meals with gladness and sincerity of heart was interrupted, And they were separated by deportation to other cities in the region and throughout the ancient world. And so this uncomfortable development was actually the beginning of the spread of the gospel throughout all the earth.

And again we see this truth which we see over and over in Scripture and in life, that even our greatest trials and our greatest reversals are the means of God's grace in our lives and in the lives of others. Our reversals take us to different places that cause us to meet new people and do different things. And there are many blessings associated with the reversals of our lives. And Last week we read this passage and we were learning about Stephen's manner of life as an example of how a godly man responds to trials and particularly his persecutors. And what we saw there is that Stephen demonstrates for us a way that a man or a woman can carry the gospel in the midst of sharing it.

And so we learned from Stephen that when you carry the gospel message, The gospel also can carry you in the midst of your communicating it and that as we increasingly become a Christ-like people that the gospel would be the center of all of our interactions with people and that the gospel has implications for all of our relationships from top to bottom. Our relationship with God, our relationship with our husbands and our wives and our children and even ourselves. But when the gospel is the center of a person's life, it has implications in every area of life. And so we see Peter, we see Stephen, who in his manner of life, he is under the fire of hot resistance of those who hated him and who would eventually stone him. But he has the face of an angel from beginning to end.

And he's filled with the Holy Spirit. He gazes into heaven. He sees the glory of God. He directs his accusers to Christ and thrown, he says, look, I see the heavens open and the Son of Man ascending, standing at the right hand of God, and he puts himself under God's care and then he forgives and blesses his enemies in the same way that the Lord Jesus Christ did when he said, Father, forgive them for they know not what they do. And so Stephen is a living illustration of the boldness and the love of Christ.

He's just like Christ. He's full of grace in his manner of life and he's full of truth in the message of his life. Now we'll go back again and look at the whole story from a different perspective. Instead of looking at Stephen from the perspective of his manner of life, we're going to look at the message that he was speaking. And so we come to Stephen's message before the Sanhedrin.

And this message documents what caused all the trouble. And the basis for his argument was to use Old Testament scripture to explain how the message of the early church was really consistent with the message of the gospel from the beginning of Holy Scripture until that time. And Stephen takes two important aspects of the history of redemption and he highlights them and compares them with their present situation. And there are three major themes that are covered here, and the first is the history of God's people is a history of rebellion. The majority of the people of Israel have always been in rebellion against God.

That's one thing he says. And Stephen exposes the fallenness of the people of God, or at least those who are named the people of God. And he exposes the difference between the true church, the visible church, and the apostate church. And you see he traces it and really explains the fact by going back 2, 000 years how the people of God are a sinful people. Have you ever wondered why the visible church almost seems invisible?

Why is it that when you study even the church in our day that it seems so worldly. Statistically, the church in the world is the same. When almost anybody does statistical analysis on the lifestyle of believers, people in the church, the beliefs of people in the church, their divorce rates, the way they allocate their time, the entertainments that they engage in, their child raising practices, and their very beliefs are statistically the same as the unbelieving population. Have you ever wondered why that's true? Stephen is going to answer that question.

He's going to say it's always been that way. And he identifies this sad reality that idolatry was maintained by the majority of the people of Israel in every generation. And he tells the story of a stiff-necked, worldly people who want a God who is different than the way that God really is. They want a God made in their own image. That's the problem with God's people, quote unquote God's people, those who claim to be God's people from time immemorial.

And so the history of God's people argues that we want to make a God in our own image who is pleasant and agreeable to us in the things that we've always thought and loved, something that makes sense to us and is consistent with our own thinking. But unfortunately this is nothing less than creating gods in our own image and making him to be something that he's not. It's idolizing our own thoughts about life, about God, about thinking, and rejecting the true God. So here what we see is an exposition of the history of God's people and then speaking the truth about it and that it is a history of rebellion. Secondly, the theme is covered of the accusation of blasphemy.

Stephen is being accused of blasphemy by the Sanhedrin. And they're saying that he is blaspheming the temple, he's blaspheming Moses and the law, and he's blaspheming the tabernacle. And now this is a very serious charge because to blaspheme the temple or the law was a capital offense at this time. But Stephen stands up and he says, I'm not blaspheming the law, I'm not blaspheming the temple. In fact, Christ is the fulfillment of all of these.

They're not wiped away, they're fulfilled. That's his message. And he's defending the unity of redemptive history. He's looking back, and he shows us the unity of the Bible and the message that's consistent from Genesis to Revelation and how that message reveals Christ. And then he gives the whole council of God, spanning the centuries of biblical history, going back 2, 000 years.

The third thing that he does is he issues an indictment toward the Sanhedrin for rejecting Christ. And he shows them that they are hard of heart and that they're deceived and that they've been missing Christ. And so the high priest stands up and he says, are these things so? And then Stephen answers the question, are these things so? And he begins, which is really a four section speech, he begins with verses 2 through 16 where he makes connection with Abraham and the patriarchs.

And he's really making the case that you cannot think about Christ without first thinking about Abraham and the patriarchs. You can't think about what's happening today without thinking about what happened with Abraham and the patriarchs. Verse 2, he says, and he said, brethren and fathers, listen, the God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia. Stephen is addressing this first accusation that he's blaspheming against God. And he says, no, I believe in the God of the Old Testament scripture.

I don't believe that it's nullified. I believe that it's fulfilled. He says it was the God of glory. He He is exalting God and making connection here. He's not rejecting the God of Abraham in any way at all He's saying brethren know The God of Abraham is the God of glory.

He is my God and He is your God. And so He's making this connection and He's summarizing the nature of God and His beauty and the foolishness of rejecting Him. And then he says, it was this God who said to Abraham, in verse three, get out of your country and from your relatives and come to the land that I will show you. And it demonstrates that Abraham was separated from his family and his kindred. He was alone in his desire to serve God.

He cast off his father's idols, he broke rank, and he followed the living God. Like Gideon, he tore down his father's idols and he followed the Lord. And God revealed himself to him in Mesopotamia. And he's revealing, God is revealing himself here as not a God just of a land, but he is a God that reveals himself in Mesopotamia, in the land, in the temple, everywhere else. God is not bound by geography.

And he's essentially saying that even though God gave Abraham no inheritance in the land, that he was, It was the God of the Lord Jesus Christ who called Abraham. And it's interesting here that when he talks about this, being given the land, which he couldn't even really set, there wasn't even a foot of land that was his own. In one way he's saying, you know, there's really not much earthly benefit in following this God. He didn't get one square foot of land. It's a heavenly reward.

It's a heavenly land that we seek, And it's a city that we're looking for whose builder and maker is God's, is God. And, you know, in man's eyes, this promise is nothing, but in God's eyes, it's great, because it's the kingdom he has desired to give us, a kingdom which is eternal in the heavens. And then he says in verse 9, And the patriarchs, becoming envious, sold Joseph into Egypt, but God was with him. Now he's talking about the apostasy that has always characterized Israel. And the very men whom God had blessed became jealous and they became disobedient and they hated Joseph they hated they really were hating God they were stiff-necked and rebellious not against their brother he was just there But their rebellion was against God himself.

And so the patriarchs were persecuting Joseph, but God was faithful to him. And again, we see that the people of God are persecuting those who are called by God. That is the history of Christianity. That's the history of Israel. We just sang a number of songs here in our service that the martyrs sang because the people who purported to be the church were persecuting the true church.

This is exactly what was happening with the patriarchs. And it's interesting that God does the same thing to the patriarchs that he did with Stephen. God uses Joseph to bless those evil patriarchs and they are fed by Joseph and they are forgiven by him and he blesses those who persecute him. And then God gives Joseph wisdom to govern, and the Abrahamic covenant is fulfilled as God preserves his line of faithfulness through his promises to his people. And the Abrahamic covenant is fulfilled.

And he speaks here, Stephen does, of being delivered out of all of his troubles, given favor and wisdom, and being made governor over the house of Egypt, and then God continuing his promise toward his people. God's promise to Abraham is the promise of a child, it's the promise of the covenant of circumcision, which is fulfilled in Christ and he's saying Christ is connected to the patriarchs and the rebellion there the same rebellion That's here is the rebellion that we saw among the patriarchs it's hardness of heart worldliness and stiff-neckedness before God and Steven is reminding them that this is the true God. And he's saying, you're doing the same thing that the patriarchs did by rejecting the prophets and the one who had fulfilled their prophecies. So then we come to Moses, the deliverer. So he starts with Abraham, 2000 years previous, then he moves on to Moses.

And now that he's commented on the accusation that he's blaspheming God, he now turns to explain his understanding of Moses, since he was also accused of blaspheming Moses. So he's gonna now answer this, not really in a defensive way, but just to sort of give the history and to give his understanding of things. And in verse 17 he says, but when the time of the promise drew near, which God had sworn to Abraham, and the people grew and multiplied in Egypt, another king arose who did not know Joseph, and this man dealt treacherously with our people. And then he shows that he honors Moses and sees him playing a key role in history of redemption and he calls Moses pleasing to God or lovely in the sight of God in verse 20. And then he recounts the situation of the burning bush, that God was there at the time of the burning bush, that God is not bound by geographical constraints.

Even out in the desert in the middle of nowhere in a pagan land God reveals himself to his people and then he's not bound he's not bound to temples he's not bound to geographies but he is he reveals himself to his people And so there's the example of the call of Moses in the burning bush and he's not he's making these the case that he's not blaspheming the temple that God is not God was never meant to be put in the box of a tabernacle or a temple. These were just representations. And then Stephen is arguing that they're rejecting God, that God sent a deliverer just as he had Moses. And then he comments on the period from Moses to the Babylonian captivity. And he makes the case that Moses was rejected by the people, that the world persecutes God's own people, and that they were really rejecting that they the Sanhedrin were rejecting the God of Moses and in answer to the question you have been breaking the law of Moses since the law was given and Stephen's saying no I'm not breaking the law of Moses.

I am speaking of the fulfillment of the law of Moses. And then he moves directly from Moses to the law of Moses, and He affirms that God gave the law and that he embraces it. And then he identifies the real problem is the rejection of the law of Moses. I believe he's saying to these men that they are rejecting the law instead of embracing it. And he speaks of the wilderness wanderings, he speaks of the golden calf that was erected, and he says that he's making it clear that this raising up of the golden calf was a rejection of God.

And even though there was thunder and lightning, the people preferred the golden calf. They preferred a worldly understanding of God. And they desired it so much that they rejected the true God. And this was the majority of the people of Israel. The majority were idolaters is what he is saying.

You know, this really should temper our democratic sensibilities in the church because there are times in which the idolatries of the people in a democratic setting will rule and reign and cause the further idolatry movement in the church. It says in verse 41, they made a calf in those days and they offered sacrifices to the idol and rejoiced in the work of their own hands. They wanted affirmation of the work of their own hands. They wanted a God of their liking. They wanted a comfortable God, not the God of Moses.

And they worshiped the host of heaven in verse 42 and Then in verse 43 they took up the tabernacle of Moloch and the star of your God remf remfan Images you made to worship now. This is I just think we have to think clearly about what idolatry really is. Idolatry is not setting up a wooden idol of any kind. Idolatry is something of the heart that expresses itself in an outward attitude or an outward lifestyle. And God says, you shall have no other gods before me.

And it's the tendency of God's people to prefer a God of their own making. That's what idolatry is. It is having affections of your own that are not informed or changed by God. It's making up your own religion. It's making up your own kind of God.

And they preferred the Molech kind of God, the Ramfan kind of God. We could put different kinds of words. How about the success kind of God? How about the multicultural kind of God? There are just a number of idolatries that rule and reign that we just put different names on them.

And but Moses was rejected and the God and the comfortable gods were accepted. And here, Moses is giving an understanding of idolatry in history. And then he gives the consequences of it. He says, you know, well, I'll carry you to Babylon. And he prophesies, or he looks back and he says, this got you to the Babylonian captivity.

And Stephen's understanding of Babylonian captivity is that the larger people of God were in rebellion against them, and God judged them and sent them into captivity. And then of course Stephen uses the text of Amos chapter 5 to demonstrate the tendency of God's people to always fall into idolatry. And then in the fourth section, he speaks of the tabernacle in the temple. And this is in response to the accusation that he was blaspheming the temple, which is the place of worship. And then he recounts the history of the temple and he shows His respect for it in order to refute the charge of blasphemy He says he you know He was not blaspheming the temple or the tabernacle and its meaning, instead he was explaining its true meaning and he answers the question, where is God's house?

And the answer is, God's house is portable and God is not bound to a tabernacle in the wilderness, he's not bound to a temple, He's not bound to a land. This was very threatening to the scribes and Pharisees because they had bound God. They had bound him up and put him in a box. And this was the essence of their rejection of Stephen. They wanted a different God.

They wanted a God in a box, one of their own conception. And so he clarifies the meaning of the temple and the tabernacle and then Stephen comes with an indictment at the end of this speech and there are six accusations that he makes of of them and he says this is the way it's always been. This is the history of God's people. You are a microcosm of it. Be delivered from it.

Repent, return. That's really his message. And he says that they are stiff-necked. You know, that is such a vivid image. You think of being stiff-necked.

This is one of the most important principles to understand in your own heart. You know, it's also one of the most important principles to understand as a parent. When your children are stiff-necked, or whether their hearts are soft, and it gives them a flexible neck, okay? But he says that you're always stiff-necked, And then he says you're uncircumcised in heart and ears. Now what does that mean?

Uncircumcised in heart and in ears. And I believe he's talking about heart and ears who operate just like the Gentiles, who are their worldly heart and ears. They are not set apart for God. Heart and ears not set apart for God, but absorbing the world as it is desired. An uncircumcised heart and ears is an openness to the worldliness, filling the heart maybe even through the years and not set apart but defiled by the world.

And then he says always resisting the Holy Spirit in the pattern of their fathers. Resisting the Holy Spirit is just nothing more than trusting in your own inner resources, your own knowledge, exalting it above the knowledge of God, you know, having it, you know, being quick with an opinion, yet without considering it before God, and carefully speaking according to His will, in His name. We often, we operate, we speak in our own name, we protect ourselves, we do everything for our own glory. But here, He's accusing them of that. This is all of our sin.

When He speaks of all these things here, this is not them, this is all of us. We are the ones who are stiff-necked, we are the ones of uncircumcised heart and ears, we're the ones that resist the Holy Spirit. It would be a huge mistake for us to read this and just think of the other guys. This is us, we are the stiff-necked people, We are the ones of uncircumcised hearts and ears. And then the fourth accusation is that they persecuted and killed the prophets in the pattern of their fathers.

And then fifthly, they betrayed and murdered the Messiah, and sixthly, they broke the law of Moses. So in summary, he's saying that they were rejecting God as he was, while preferring their own image of God and their own perspective on God. They wanted a comfortable God that made sense and was fitting with what they already believed and that allowed them to fit in with those who were surrounding them. That was the problem and that is that was the problem then and that's the problem today. That's the problem with me and that's the problem with you.

We prefer our own gods." And this was so, this was so hated by his hearers that they rose up immediately and they stoned him. It says they were pierced to the heart. And you know being pierced to the heart, it is possible that they could have repented at that time. In the same way that when Peter preached and they were pierced to the heart and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, brethren, what shall we do? And Peter said to them, repent.

Well, they were pierced to the heart here, and they did not repent. It was a completely different response. God was sovereign. The message was just as wonderful, it was just as good, it was just as biblical, it was just as carefully given, but you know, the response was different because God is sovereign. And he chose here that when they were pierced to the heart, that it would cause anger to rise up.

And it says they rushed upon him immediately and they stoned him. Now this is really interesting that they did it immediately. In Jewish law, under the Mishnah, you had to wait a day. You could not execute on the same day of accusation. Same way with Roman law.

You had to wait a day, but they did not wait. They executed him immediately, and they broke both heathen, pagan, Roman law and their own law that their religious leaders had conceived of. And then we read of Stephen's last moments, which are so wonderful to read about. It's just amazing to see how he responded. He is like all of the godly martyrs.

He is like the Lord Jesus Christ, who blesses his persecutors, whose heart is full of love. You cannot destroy the love of Jesus in Stephen. And they could not, and they did not. And then he is martyred. And his last words are so like the words of Christ who said, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.

Stephen says basically the same thing with a different arrangement of words. Okay, let's get to some application here. First of all, let's be reminded of the importance of the courageous, prophetic, and faithful voice in the church. The church will always need to be reminded that much of what they are doing is from a stiff stiff necked worldliness. I believe that what Stephen says here should tell us all that we need to know in any generation.

And that the history of God's people is the history of majorities in rebellion against God and minorities set apart to call the church to repentance and to be faithful themselves. And pray that God would help us to renounce the world and foolish occupations of our minds and our deeds and to be wholly separated for the service of God. To have our minds washed by the water of the Word. That we would all our lives be washing our minds of wrong views of God, wrong views of life. You know, we will always be idolaters at heart.

And our sanctification process is all about working away the idolatry. You know, when God gives a husband to a wife, God says that He gives a husband to a wife to work out her spots and her wrinkles. This is a husband, it ought to be a husband's ministry to his wife as he lovingly helps her. Secondly though, it is Christ's work in the church to work out the spots and the wrinkles, none of us will ever have our spots and wrinkles removed. And so we should be very careful in our judgments toward one another.

But what we must, I just think that this passage should remind us of the importance of a prophetic and faithful voice that we would constantly call ourselves out of where we are today. Next year in five years, If we're the same, then we would have missed the importance of this message. Secondly, don't forget the importance of the Old Testament and the foreshadowings of Christ, the tabernacle, the temple, the law, to remind God's people of heaven. Stephen embraced the Old Testament as having much to say in explaining Christ. And there are many who do not embrace the unity of the Bible the way that Stephen demonstrates here.

But that there are two different Bibles. There's the Old Testament, it's irrelevant, and that there's the New Testament, that it's supreme. And then there are even some that just look at the red letters in the New Testament. This is absolutely unbiblical. Nobody in scripture demonstrates this at all.

And here in Stephen's sermon, it's so clear. When the apostle Paul said to Timothy, all scripture is given by inspiration of God. He meant the Old Testament. He was speaking of the Old Testament as well as the inspired writings that would come. And it is profitable for doctrine and for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.

Don't forget the importance of the Old Testament. Here, God uses a sermon, which is almost exclusively Old Testament scripture, to preach the gospel to people. And we just need to be faithful to uphold a biblical understanding of the Old Testament. Number three, be aware of our great tendency to make God in our own image. Now this is something that should be so tender to us, because this is our nemesis, this is our problem in life.

And The danger of thinking of what I think about God is true. And this is our weakness. We want a God in our own image. This takes many different kinds of forms. I'm going to read to you a quote from the son of a famous preacher.

This is the son of Tony Campolo. His name is Bart. I'm going to read you a statement that is an example of a tendency toward idolatry, to think about the God of your dreams, and to be embarrassed about the true God. Let me read here. For better or for worse, I am simply not interested in any God but a completely good, entirely loving and perfectly forgiving one who is powerful enough to utterly triumph over evil.

Such a God may not exist, but I will die seeking such a God, and I will pledge my allegiance to no other possibility, because quite frankly, anything less is not worthy of my worship." Please don't get me wrong. I am well aware that I don't get to decide who God is, but I do get to decide, however, what I do get to decide, however, is to whom I pledge my allegiance. I am a free agent after all, and I have standards for my God, the first of which is this. I will not worship any God who is not at least as compassionate as I am. Now, this is the tendency of the heart.

It's rare to see in print something stated so clearly that one would exalt his own vision of God above even the vision of the Bible. What is our tendency in the church is to be embarrassed at who the true God is. And if you read the Bible from cover to cover, You cannot help but be embarrassed. You cannot help but being amazed at how you would never do this, you would never say this, you would never be this kind of God. And it is our great danger to create God in our own image, in the church and in our hearts, and to be embarrassed of the true God.

Now, throughout history, the people of God have rejected the true God and have tried to tame him into someone who is more comfortable to their tastes. But the truth of God must be revealed by the church. The church is the pillar in support of the truth and it is to us to deliver the words of God as they are and not tamper with them and don't try to explain them away or be embarrassed by them, but to boldly proclaim them. In our Bible study on Thursday, Jason brought out Acts 20 where Paul says that he was innocent of the blood of his hearers because he delivered to them the whole counsel of God. He said it all, he was not embarrassed and that gave him freedom from responsibility for their souls because he had delivered the whole counsel of God.

I take that to mean that he was not embarrassed at what God had said, the way that God had represented himself or his laws, or anything he'd ever done, but he was going to reveal it in as clear terms as he knew how without tampering with it. Not a man-pleasing message at all, but a faithful messenger giving the faithful message. And then, fourthly, the theme, God is sovereign in salvation. Many are called, but few are chosen. Abraham, Moses, the desert.

We learned that there were few who were faithful. There were many who were present but few who were faithful. The majority were unfaithful. This is the pattern. We should not be surprised or discouraged if the people of God are in a majority.

When we read the statistics it does take our breath away, but we should recognize that this is the way it's always been. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't continue to work for the purification of the church and the instruction of it. But it is a reality. The tears and the wheat grow together. That's the way it will always be.

And then fifthly, God is merciful and slow to anger. You know the history of the people of Israel is a story of the patience and the long suffering of God towards sinners, worldly sinners in the church from the very beginning. They're always persecuting the prophets because of their stiff necks and their uncircumcised hearts. They're in need of instruction. They're in need of an understanding of the true God.

They are part of the people of God, but they are not the people of God. But God is merciful in the midst of it. It's amazing to see His mercy. But there are times when he runs to the end of his mercy, and we see a number of expressions of it, where he might even wipe out large numbers of people who are rebellious. He doesn't do it all the time, But we should fear lest God would do the same in our day.

And so this chapter is an encouragement that our lives would reflect the Lord Jesus Christ in the same way that Stephen did. First of all, in his courage and his ability to communicate the whole gospel to his fellow readers and to do it with a manner of life that was like the Lord Jesus. And then secondly, to reflect the Lord Jesus Christ in the midst of the most threatening situations. But He being full of the Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God and said, look, I see the heavens open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God. This is the kind of vision that it would be a blessing if God would give to us in the midst of all of our endeavors.

This would form us into the kind of disciples who are aware of the grace of God, the message of the whole Word of God, and those who have God-centered lives in the midst of even a church that is not. And this is perhaps one of the great lessons of this chapter, that God would raise up a remnant to speak the words of the true God with all of their hearts without any fear of death. Would you pray with me? Oh Lord, This sermon is so deep, it's so far deeper than anything that we were able to get to it today. And I know that you have much more for us in it.

Lord, I pray that you would help us to be like Stephen in every way. I pray that you would help us to be people who are gospel-centered people and who trust it completely in the midst of a wicked and perverse generation. In Jesus' name, Amen.