The sermon, delivered by Peter Allison, examines the narrative of Stephen's execution and the early introduction of Saul (later known as Paul) in the book of Acts. It highlights Saul's role in the persecution of the early church and the subsequent spread of the Gospel. The speaker outlines Saul's background as a Pharisee, a Roman citizen, and a member of the Sanhedrin, emphasizing his zeal and strategic thinking. Saul's initial persecution of the church inadvertently led to the dispersion of believers who spread the Gospel throughout the world. The sermon underscores the sovereignty of God in using even the wrath of men to advance His Kingdom. It concludes by discussing the nature of God's Kingdom, which is characterized by righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit, and encourages believers to respond to trials with joy and faith.

Our scripture reading is Acts chapter 8. We'll be looking at the first four verses, but I'd like to start reading a little before to pick up the context. As we, chapter 7, concluded the stoning of Stephen, and we'll pick up in the middle of a sentence in verse 58. And they cast him out of the city and stoned him, and the Witnesses laid their clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul. And they stoned Stephen as he was calling on God, and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.

Then he knelt down and cried out with a loud voice, Lord do not charge them with this sin." And when he had said this, he fell asleep. Now Saul was consenting to his death. At that time a great persecution arose against the church which was at Jerusalem, and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judah and Samaria except the apostles. And devout men carried Stephen to his burial and made great lamentation over him. As for Saul, he made havoc of the church, entering every house and dragging off men and women, committing them to prison.

Therefore, those who were scattered went everywhere preaching the Word. Jehovah is near and His commandments are truth. Heavenly Father, Your Word is truth. Please sanctify us through it. Please instruct us.

Please transform our thinking that it might be renewed. Transform our lives, our will, our emotions, that they might be more and more conformed to the image of Your Son in knowledge and righteousness and holiness. Lord, Your Word is powerful. May that power be upon us this morning. Your Word is active.

It's living. May it operate on us this morning. And I ask that You would sanctify my sinful lips and preserve me from error to proclaim what is true in Jesus Christ. Amen. Christ, Amen.

Last week, we spent exploring Stephen's coronation. His winning the Victor's crown at the stoning by the Sanhedrin. But interspersed in this account are these sporadic references to this guy named Saul. Luke gives the next event in this narrative of the execution of Stephen, and then he'll say something about Saul. He tells us the Sanhedrin stoned Stephen.

And he says the witnesses laid clothes at Saul's feet. He then tells us about Stephen's last prayers. And then he says Saul is consenting to his death. And then he tells us about devout men that carried Stephen to his death. And then he says Saul is making havoc of the church.

If you're trying to have everything neat and tidy in a box and you're trying to see what is the text, what's the start and end of the text, that becomes very difficult to know when is it talking about Stephen and when are we going to pick up Saul. And I realize that these two things are very deliberately and very intentionally woven together. If you think about that, how does this flow in a narrative? That you talk about Stephen and then you make some comment about Saul and then you go back to Stephen. And then you talk about the persecution and then you come back to them lamenting Stephen's death.

And then you go back to persecution. What's going on here? Well, I think Luke is very obviously connecting Saul to Stephen. You could call it a foreshadowing, or simply introducing. He's introducing here the man who will occupy most of the rest of the book of Acts.

But he's doing it in a very interesting way. He's connecting Saul with Stephen. He's connecting Stephen with Saul, almost as if there's a passing of the baton. I think almost as if to say that Saul was the final work in Stephen's earthly life. The impact that his death and execution had upon Saul.

The effect that it had and how God went on to use Saul. But Saul's beginning. He's beginning to do the work of God begins here with Stephen's execution. And so most of the rest of the book is about Saul. The next chapter, chapter 9, is mostly about his conversion.

He then shows up in Acts 11 as an up-and-coming leader in the church, somebody who's chosen to represent the Antioch church and the surrounding region to the Jerusalem church. And then beginning with the last verse in the 12th chapter, Paul's ministry occupies the entire remainder, the rest of the book of Acts, over half of that book. So this is as good a time as any to introduce Saul. He's going to be the main character. The rest of the book of Acts is primarily about His ministry and His work in God's Kingdom.

So I think this is a moment here to just look at who Saul is. Who is Saul? Who is this man? What do we know about him? This early part of the Bible uses his name Saul, but his Roman name was Paulus or Paul.

And that's what's primarily used in the second half of the book. We know that Saul was set apart from his mother's womb to preach the Gospel to the Gentiles. He told the Galatians in Galatians 1, 15, But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb and called me through His grace to reveal His Son in me, so that I might preach Him among the Gentiles. He says, I didn't confer with flesh or blood or go to Jerusalem. He went to Arabia, where Moses went, where God sent Moses when God finished His preparation, Moses' preparation, for the work that God was calling him to do.

See, Saul did not start out preaching the Gospel like John the Baptist did. They both grew up in Jewish homes. Saul was born in Tarsus of Cilicia. He said in Acts 22, I am indeed a Jew born in Tarsus of Cilicia, a citizen of no-mean city. It's a significant city in the Roman Empire.

He was born into a family of Pharisees. His father was a Pharisee. And Paul is a self-described zealot. That's how he describes himself. And it's clear from reading the book of Acts how much of a zealot he was.

He was sold out for the cause. Whatever cause that might happen to be. He was sold out for it. He told the Philippians in Philippians 3 that as he was defending his birthright, his apostleship, that he was circumcised the eighth day of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews, concerning the law of Pharisee, concerning zeal persecuting the church, concerning the righteousness which is in the law blameless. Paul grew up as a Pharisee.

And so all of the connotations of a Pharisee that we have as somebody who is strict and super sillious about their keeping of every detail and minutiae of the law, that was Saul. That's how he describes himself. A Hebrew of the Hebrews. So some of these Jews, he was obviously a Jew of the diaspora. His family at some point in the past had been scattered abroad.

There were a number of different times that that happened. But in his household, he had not become a highly Hellenized Jew. He says he is of the Hebrews. His family remained true to all the Hebrew practices. He's of the tribe of Benjamin, not a Great tribe, one of the lesser tribes, but he's named for one of the prominent men in that tribe, which was Saul, the king of Israel was, of Benjamin.

Born a Pharisee, circumcised the eighth day, grew up in a home of a Pharisee. So Saul was a good little Pharisee from the day he was born. He had zeal. He was a Jew and a Pharisee, but he was also a Roman citizen. He was born into a significant city in the Roman Empire in what would be modern day Turkey.

And so he carried that citizenship. As a Pharisee, as a Hebrew of Hebrews, somebody who hadn't adopted the Hellenistic, the Greek methods of living, somebody who as a Hebrew, as a Jew, who had stayed true to their Jewish roots and retained all the Hebrew ways of living, he would have come to Jerusalem. He was sent to Jerusalem by his father probably around age 13, 12, somewhere around there. I don't know for sure. Some people might.

But he would have come to Jerusalem where he was taught at the feet of Gamaliel, a man of great prominence. Which means that Saul was a man of some ability to be able to get a seat at Gamaliel's feet. And he was taught, he said, according to the strictness of our Father's law. He got into all these minutiae of the law of God. And he was zealous.

Paul was zealous. He may have returned home where he learned his tent-making trade or else he had learned it prior to going to Jerusalem, even though he was a Jew and a Pharisee. He wasn't a priest. He wasn't a Levite like John the Baptist was. So it was a father's duty to teach their sons a trade and to ensure that they learned one, so they would be profitable.

And Saul learned to trade. He was a tent maker by trade. And he used that trade at various times. He was also a member of the Sanhedrin. In Acts 26, he speaks of casting his vote against the Christians.

So if he had gone back to his hometown after learning at Gamaliel's feet, he had then come back to Jerusalem. Or else He stayed there the whole time. I don't know. I don't know that we know. We can only say what might be typical of that age, of how they did things at that time.

But he would have come back and been in Jerusalem as a member of the Sanhedrin. And that's I think the significance of our text when it says that he was consenting to his death. In Acts 26, he said he was voting. He was voting, casting his vote against the Christians. He was a member of the Sanhedrin.

I think we don't know about his family, but I think it's possible, maybe even probable, that he was married or had been married and was widowed. If he had children, they were grown. And so, just because of that, that's what would have been normally expected for members of the Sanhedrin. And so, the account picks up his life here as he is a young man, a member of the Sanhedrin, voting with the Sanhedrin to execute Saul, consenting to his death as it says. I don't know if they took any kind of formal vote, but he was certainly consenting to it, and had they taken one, he would have voted for it.

We can say these things about Paul. He was smart. He was a smart man. He was gifted academically. Galatians 1.14 says, And I advanced in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries in my own nation.

I advanced in Judaism beyond my contemporary. He's saying he excelled in his studies. He excelled as a Pharisee. And that's one of the ways he probably got a seat at the feet of Gamaliel. He mentions Gamaliel by name as sitting under his feet.

So Gamaliel was somebody that was known, somebody that was respected. It was kind of like saying, you have a Harvard Ph.D. Or you have a degree from Yale. Or you sat under, if you're a musician, that you trained under some great musician. And so that indicates Paul was smart.

He excelled in learning. In his second letter to Timothy, we have this little line that he wanted him to bring his books, especially his parchments. And many believe Second Timothy was written very near the end of his life. And yet, here's Paul, this zealot, this academician, still wanting Timothy to bring him his books, especially the parchment. He's still studying.

He's still a man of letters. He's still zealous, even as he's facing death. He doesn't say, I'm about to die. What's it matter? That's zeal.

Secondly, I think we can say he's very well aware of the situation. He would read the situation and frequently turned it to his advantage. When he addressed the Jews, remember, from the steps of the Roman garrison, he described himself as... Remember, this is a crowd that is pressing on him. They want to tear him apart.

And he introduces himself as someone who was zealous for the law, even as you are. He identified himself with them. He said something that would earn their favor. The next day, remember when he's brought before the Sanhedrin, he perceives that this group in front of him is made up of Sadducees and Pharisees. And being astute, He announced that he was on trial for the resurrection.

Of course, immediately there's now a big debate between the Pharisees and the Sadducees about the resurrection, and they kind of forget about Paul. And he gets rescued out of there. He leveraged the situation with his Roman citizenship several times when the Philippians wanted to release him privately. Remember, he made them do it publicly. He made them come down and let him out themselves.

He didn't let them out the back door. When the commander in Jerusalem was going to examine him by scourging, he pointed out that he was a Roman citizen. So Paul was very astute. He was a brilliant man academically. And he was zealous.

He describes himself, as we've seen, a number of times as someone who was zealous for the law. This is the man who would write much of the New Testament. This is the man whom God would use to take the Gospel throughout the world and to plant churches across the known world. This is the Saul that God uses to initiate and to spearhead this persecution against the church in Jerusalem. Because see, Saul was a strategic thinker.

Saul understood the significance of Stephen's position. And we don't have time to elaborate on Stephen's position, but he does in Acts 7. His answer, his defense. Remember, Stephen's position was how the temple was passing away. And that was by design.

That was what was taught in the Old Testament. Stephen was challenging this idol that the Jews had made of the temple. Something that the prophets speak about as well. And Saul understood that what Stephen was saying, that his position was the death of all, that he as a Pharisee of the Pharisees, as a Hebrew of Hebrews, as a Jew, is the death of all that He held dear. It was the death of His idol.

The temple was their idol. It was the death of their circumcision, the priestly sacrifices, their power in the temple. See, this was Saul's life. And if Stephen's views won out, his life was over. Because what Stephen was saying was directly contrary to what the Pharisees wanted.

And Saul recognized that Christ's victory is total over every area of life. See, the battle against unbelief and disobedience begins in the church. The battle begins in the church against unbelief and disobedience. Saul is part of the church. He's one of the members of the church council.

That's what the Sanhedrin was. And throughout Saul's ministry, he always went to the synagogue first. And only after they kicked him out did he go to the Gentiles and preach the Gospel and establish churches. See, Christ's victory is total. Every single area of life.

And Saul recognized that. I get these surveys, especially now in the election season, And they want to know what's important to me. And they'll list five things or maybe even 15 things. And they'll say, well, what's the most important to you? They just don't get it.

It's all of them. It's everything. It's the whole system. It's the whole principle. You either are for the truth or you're against it.

And if you're for the truth, it impacts every area. I throw those out. They're useless. Saul got it. It wasn't just about one little thing.

This was a total thing. And so he turned all this zeal, all of his connections, all of his academic brilliance, he turned it full force on the church. He consented to Stephen's death. And This wasn't just a mere acquiescence. He was in full agreement.

He was actively helping the witnesses who cast those first stones. Paul wasn't just some bystander, some uncommitted bystander who maybe was in agreement to go along with the crowd. No. The fact that they're casting their clothes at his feet indicates that he was in active agreement. This was somebody who was fully supportive of them.

That's why they picked him to dump their clothes. He's active. He's doing everything he can to help these witnesses who have to throw the first stones. He's taking their clothes. That's the kind of consent that he's given to Stephen's death.

He's zealous, even in support of Stephen's execution. And then of course is his zeal for persecution of the church. Luke says that he wrecked havoc in the churches. That's a very strong word. And it's only used once in the New Testament Greek.

And it means to cause harm to, to injure, to damage, to spoil, to ruin, to destroy. When The gospel can't be stopped by mocking. When it can't be stopped by mere intimidation and threats, then physical violence is used. It always has been. It always has been.

The world has no other power. It doesn't have power over the soul. It doesn't have power over people, souls. It only has power over a body. That's where it always goes.

Paul said in Acts 26, this I also did in Jerusalem, and many of the saints I shut up in prison having received authority from the chief priests. And when they were put to death, I cast my vote against them and punished them often in every synagogue and compelled them to blaspheme and being exceedingly enraged against them, I persecuted them, even to foreign cities." Saul would have been a young man here. He was probably in his early 30s. So Christ would have been crucified in 80s, 30s. Saul's conversion was probably 80, 32, maybe 33, but probably 32.

And we know that from some times that he gives in Galatians, and we'll get to those a little bit later, but he says after 14 years, he went up to Jerusalem, and I believe that was the famine visit in Acts 11. So we know the famine was in AD 46 and 47, so you back up 14 years, it puts it about AD 32. So Stephen's death is probably the same year that Christ was killed. And so Stephen for one to two years is wrecking havoc in the church. Now there are three responses, possible responses to persecution.

Right? They're obvious. Nothing new. You can stop being a Christian and hide your light. Sometimes that works.

Sometimes it doesn't. Most of the time it probably would. But that's not an option for a Christian, is it? Christians, by the grace of God, persevere. The second option is you can stay and face the persecution.

Or the third option is you can flee to escape the persecution. Obviously, everybody said the first option isn't right or it's a good, but fleeing is a legitimate option for Christians that are facing persecution. Jesus said in Matthew 10, Now brother will deliver brother to death, and a father his child, and children will rise against parents, and cause them to be put to death. And you will be hated by all for my name's sake, but he who endures to the end will be saved. And when they persecute you in this city, flee to another.

For surely I say to you, you will not have gone through the cities of Israel before the Son of Man comes. A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above His master. It is enough for a disciple that he be like his teacher and a servant like his master." So Jesus is saying that it's permissible to flee. And we see That happens many times. God has even hidden some of His messengers when they faced persecution.

They fled. David fled. Elijah fled and hid. He was hidden by God. He was fed by God.

And Ahab couldn't find him. So fleeing is certainly an option. The apostles though, the text notes, did not flee. That's also an option, to stay. And to face and to accept the persecution.

And which should you do? Well, we see both examples in the Scripture. I think both are proper as the Holy Spirit gives us leading, as He gives us grace. We do one or the other. What we do, but God uses both.

God uses both. Because the effect of the Apostles staying was that they maintained a witness and a presence in Jerusalem. But the effect of dispersing the church is that the Gospel was preached everywhere, all over the world. The word that's used in the text here where it says they went scattered everywhere preaching, the word is eun-galid zamen-oy. That's the word that's, that's not the word that's used of the ordained heralds bringing the Gospel.

It's the word that's used of everybody as they bring the Gospel, as they share the Gospel, as they preach the Gospel. So all these saints, not the apostles, but all the other saints were scattered and they went everywhere bringing the gospel with them. Jesus said that the Gospel would be preached all over the world before the destruction of the temple. And he said in Matthew 24, in this Gospel, the Kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come. He goes on to talk about the abomination of desolations and when those who are seed-Jerusalem surrounded, they were to flee.

Paul said that the gospel had been preached throughout the world. He said in Colossians 1, 5, because of the hope which is laid up for you in heaven, of which you heard before in the word of truth, in the word of the truth of the gospel which has come to you, as it has also in all the world, and is bringing fruit among you since the day you heard it." And then A little later in that chapter, he says, if you indeed continue in the faith, grounded in steadfast and are not moved away from the hope of the Gospel which you heard, which was preached to every creature under heaven of which I, Paul, became a minister. And there he uses the word for the preaching of a herald. Paul said the Gospel was preached throughout all the world. Saul thought he was stamping out the church.

He thought that he was stamping out this threat to what he loved. And it turned out he was doing just the opposite. Actually, he was spreading it. If you take a log, a hot log, or a log out of a very hot fire that's a lot of embers. And you start smashing it.

What do you do? Those embers fly everywhere, don't they? And that's what Saul was doing. He thought he was trying to crush this by wrecking havoc on the churches. And what he was actually doing was spreading the Gospel all over the world, just like Jesus called them to do.

The saints, you remember, they were to be his witnesses in Jerusalem, in Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. And God used the zeal of an unconverted and unregenerated Saul to persecute the church, to accomplish the spreading of His Gospel and the advancement of His Kingdom. That's what we see here. Even the wrath of men, well praise God. Even persecution is according to God's design and His plan, and He is working His purposes, His good purposes out through it.

Now sandwiched between these two statements about persecution, In verse 1, A great persecution arose against the church which was at Jerusalem, and as for Saul, he made havoc of the church, entering up. Sandwich in there is just one of these statements about Stephen, Where the devout men carried Stephen to his burial and made great lamentation over him. One of the purposes of persecution is to make people afraid, to make them fearful, to intimidate them, to have a chilling effect on their zeal and on their witness. And one of the things that happens when somebody gets accused is that people tend to scatter. They don't want to have anything to do with somebody who is accused of a crime, especially somebody who is convicted of a crime, but somebody who's been executed where you don't want to have anything to do with that, you don't want to show sympathy to that person because that indicates that you disagree with what happened.

You're saying, I think this was a good person, and I'm against you, people that put him to death. That's what lamenting the death of Stephen was saying. Stephen was a good man. And we are making great lamentation over it. It's just saying two things.

That the effect of the persecution, far from intimidating the church, was making it bolder. That these men, these devout men, would come and take his body and make great lamentation over it. That's a public proclamation of their disagreement, of their siding with Stephen. And people have been executed themselves for siding with the person being executed. That's often happened.

So in making this great lamentation, these people were risking their lives, but they were also saying, We're not being intimidated. We're not intimidated. They're like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego saying to the king Nebuchadnezzar, we're not afraid of you. We're just not. Our God is greater.

And that's the exact same message that these devout men were bringing to the Sanhedrin. We're not afraid of you. We're not afraid of your intimidation. Our God is great God. God used Saul then as His servant.

Just like He used Nebuchadnezzar, who was a wicked king for most of his life. He was a scourge. But the Bible says that he was God's servant. He was God's whip. And God used him to bring his judgment on the nations that God was judging.

And one of those nations was Israel. And in the same way, God is using Saul, even as an unregenerate man, to accomplish his purposes. And so what do we learn? We learn that God works out His plan in the events of our own lives, in the events of our nation, in the events of this church. They're entirely, everything is entirely in God's hands.

And He is using these events to accomplish His design purpose, His grand design. And we know that His purpose is to demonstrate in the church His manifold wisdom to the host of heaven. We don't always understand exactly what He is doing. But with this we can always be sure that He is advancing His Kingdom. And so we can ask ourself when things happen, we can ask ourselves, what does God want me to learn in this thing?

And how might he be advancing his kingdom in this event? Whether it's a tragedy or a victory. But I think we also need to remember what the Kingdom is. He's advancing His Kingdom. He's using in this case an unregenerate man to do it, to accomplish His purpose and to spread the Gospel throughout the world.

But what is this Kingdom that He's advancing? Remember what Paul told the Romans? That the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking. Sometimes we think of the kingdom, We think of it as this grand thing that somehow when God's kingdom is advanced, then all the nations will obey and there will be no crime. We kind of paint this utopia where there's peace and perfect righteousness and the law is perfectly obeyed in every way.

And there's this outward form and substance to the kingdom. But Jesus said the kingdom is not external. It's not out there. It's inside. The kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but what?

Righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. For he who serves Christ in these things is acceptable to God and approved by men. The kingdom is righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. You see, we can abound in joy easily in times of great peace and prosperity. But it's when we abound in peace and joy in persecution that His kingdom is advancing in great strides.

Because that's what His kingdom is. Righteousness, peace, and joy. We can abound in peace and joy certainly in times of prosperity, But so often we don't. The pursuit of wealth and the earning of a living become more important than abounding in peace and joy. But James says, count it all joy when you fall into various trials knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience.

That's the fruit of the Spirit. But let patience have its perfect work that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. The Kingdom of God is advanced when we, by the power of the Holy Spirit, are able to have joy, are able to live at peace even in the midst of great conflict, in the midst of great persecution, in the face of death. And so don't forget, yes, there is an outward aspect to the Kingdom, and we don't ignore that, but the Kingdom is not primarily outward, it's inward. It has an outward effect, but that outward effect comes from the inward peace and joy that we have.

That's the kingdom. That's where it starts. It doesn't end there, but that's where it starts. And so may the Lord cause us to abound this week in peace and in joy by the power of the Holy Spirit. Heavenly Father, we thank You that You are sovereign and that You are able to use all of these circumstances, even the wrath of wicked men, the evil purposes to wreak havoc in your church you used to advance your kingdom.

Father, may we have eyes of faith to see what You are doing in our midst, in our lives, to recognize Your sovereign hand governing all the affairs that come to us. And Lord, may we, by Your grace, be able to respond with joy, to count it a joy when we fall into various trials. Trials of various kinds. To recognize, Lord, Your blessing to us, Your spiritual blessings in the fruits of the Spirit. And Lord, may our purpose in working be to work as unto You, to please You, and not merely to please men.

May we seek first Your kingdom and its righteousness, and not the things that you add to it. We ask this in Jesus' name, Amen.