He Slept In His Truth

BIBLE STUDY #768: CHURCH IN THE HOUSES TUESDAY, MAY 7 @ 13, 2013

Topic: “He Slept In His Truth” Acts 7:53-60 Stephen’s objective while speaking to his Jewish compatriots was to show them how far they were from underestimating the history of God’s old dispensation with the Jewish people (the former pact), he reverenced it profoundly and was intimately versed in all of it. That is why he spoke to them with abundant references of past events and God’s treatment with the people of Israel (Acts 7:2-50). What now, that the Christ had been manifested to them; they strongly resisted the rise of the new kingdom of Evangelism (the new pact). Stephen made them aware that what they did was to follow the wrongdoing of their ancestors. Furthermore, he let them know that all the history of their nation was a continuous failure to God with respect to His high plans. Stephen had all the familiarity and all the love for the history of his people. He told those Jews that Abraham worshiped the Lord in an acceptable and pleasing way to God. In those times, although the laws of worship, sacrifices, tithe, etc., was not yet established, with all that Abraham knew how to do things well and without any flaw. They listened to him with bad intentions and accused him of talking bad of the temple. It so happens that they want the one who has the truth to appear to be the one who is wrong, when the ones who were stiff-necked and with an uncircumcised heart and ears were them. For that reason, Stephen reprimanded them; he doesn’t treat them as the Israel of God but rather as stubborn gentiles and of uncircumcised hearts and ears. There wasn’t anything else he could say to them; he had told them what was proper. They tried to make him defend himself, but what resulted was that instead, he winched the place of attorney of God and now they were the accused, they were the guilty ones. That message, those words were the last words of God for the Jewish nation. It was just before the Gospel began to be directed to the gentiles. The law given by God to his people was something great establishing them as God’s absolute nation. That law arrived for them, it was ordered, established by the ministry of angels and even so they did not preserve it. Now Stephen with this final message has intentions of silencing those venerators of the law and convict them of their high disobedience to that same Word, disobedience that is aggravated because of the solemn manner in which they received it. If they had only responded positively to Stephen with the intention of recognizing their faults and wanting to obey the Word, how different would his frame of mind would have been. They would have turned to God and chosen not to murder that righteous man. When Stephen gave public testimony of seeing the heavens open, the crowd refused to listen to him, they started to yell ferociously, they attacked him, dragged him out of the walls of the city and began to throw stones at him. The forces of Hell were making horrible mockery using as an instrument those men to finish up God’s martyr, while at the same time they were being condemned by their own weak prisoner. This was happening while the heavens were shining and completely opened before Stephen’s eyes. Stephen saw Jesus at the right hand of the Father. Surely the Lord Jesus was observing the scene taking place in that chamber of the Jewish council. The full flow of his Spirit was poured within the heart of his heroic witness until it irradiated in that faithful messenger the shine of His own face. Stephen saw the Son of Man, our Lord glorified. It was at that hour when Stephen was filled with the Holy Spirit speaking not by his own merits, but rather completely through the Spirit. He was guided to repeat the same words which Jesus spoke before that same council predicting His glorification. (Mathew 26:64 “Yes, it is as you say,” Jesus replied. “But I say to all of you: In the future you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven.”) Jesus, by saying those words, was assuring them that the glorification of the Son of Man had already begun and would endure. The hatred and the diabolical spirit that those men were breathing could be seen: “…they covered their ears and, yelling at the top of their voices, they all rushed at him.” (Vs. 57) For men with a temper like that, Stephen’s last words provoked them to act with diabolical hearts. They stoned him to death and placed his garments at the feet of a young man named Saul (Vs. 58). How exciting is this narrative from the Book of Acts! It is the first presentation to us of a martyr in Christianity just as it developed in the New Testament. Stephen was probably 30 years old and probably held an important seat in the Sanhedrin (the Council or Assembly of Jerusalem). This is Stephen’s sublime moment raising cult to the Lord, especially since the Spirit of Christ was in him speaking the same last words Jesus spoke in his death: “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” (Vs. 60) Stephen “slept”, the first martyr giving such a great example of forgiveness. Martyrs are those whom God has chosen. But, we learn from Stephen to defend the TRUTH with all our heart and life. Let us fight with all the passion and honor for the purity and obedience of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.