The Murder Of Stephen - [Acts 7:54-8:3]

I would invite you to open your Bibles to Acts chapter 7, the very end of the chapter. Some of you are on Instagram and may have seen pictures of an event that took place yesterday near San Diego, California.

I'm referring, of course, to a surfing insta—no, no, no. Luke and Hannah Abendroth were married yesterday, so that was exciting.

I saw none of it because I don't Instagram. But, there it is.

You know what I like? I like college sports. One of the things I like about college sports is when my teams are in the top ten.

So this morning, of course, I have a top ten list for you that you don't want to be on. This is in 2021, so maybe not the most recent polling activity that we have, but according to Christianity Today, these are the countries that are most difficult to be a

Christian in. Some of these will not surprise you, but the details get worse and worse.

Number one, if I were to ask you—and please don't respond—but if I were to ask you, you might not get this one correctly.

The answer is North Korea. Number one, most difficult place to be a

Christian. Number two, Afghanistan.

Three, Somalia. Four, Libya. Five, Pakistan. I mean, you'll notice that there are a lot of Islamic countries here.

Number eight, Iran. Number nine, Nigeria. Now, number ten might surprise you.

India. India, this democracy, this place that we imagine is more like us or maybe more like England than other countries, but India is number ten.

And they note here, I mean, this reads like a top ten thing, you know, you go to Sports Illustrated or ESPN, they write this kind of stuff.

Nigeria entered the top ten for the first time. Its coach was—no, no, no, but—says after maxing out, listen, open doors metric for violence.

In other words, they're just well known for violence. The nation with Africa's largest Christian population.

So strength in numbers doesn't always hold. Ranks number nine overall, but is second behind only

Pakistan in terms of violence. In other words, Pakistan is the most violent nation against Christians.

And Nigeria is number one in the number of Christians killed for reasons related to their faith.

Sudan left the top ten again, you know, just like typical stuff here, writing about top ten lists.

Because, on paper at least, freedom of religion in its new constitution has made people less subject to oppression for religious purposes.

But they say here that Christians from Muslim backgrounds, in other words, if you convert from Islam to Christianity, still face attacks, ostracism—I knew

I was going to stumble on that. Ostracism, being separated, you know, from family and friends and work.

Discrimination from their families and communities. While Christian women, again, talking about the

Sudan, Christian women face sexual violence. India remains in the top ten for the third year in a row because it continues, quote, to see an increase in violence against religious minorities due to government -sanctioned

Hindu extremism. Meanwhile, China joined the top 20 for the first time in a decade.

And this really surprised me because, you know, if I think about the countries in the world, I think

China would make my top ten places that I would never want to go. And you say, well, why is that?

Because you have no freedom of religion. And here's what they say. Due to ongoing and increasing surveillance and censorship of Christians and other religious minorities.

Now, again, when the criteria is just narrowed down to martyrdom, who is forced to die for their faith?

Nigeria is number one. And the numbers are pretty stark. 3 ,530 deaths because of their religious affections in Nigeria.

The second place country is Congo with 460. So they have nine times as many deaths in Nigeria.

Pakistan, number three. And then I thought this was interesting. On this top ten of places, you know, if you want to die as a

Christian, if, you know, martyrdom is your goal, you go to these places.

But they won't even list the names of number seven and number ten. I don't know why. Then they say

Pakistan led the world in forced marriages with 1 ,000

Christians married to non -Christians against their will. Nine in ten

Christians killed for their faith were in Africa, the rest in Asia. So in case you're wondering if persecution, you know, is honest in the

United States, not in the sense that it is in other places in the world.

Persecution is sadly alive and well for our brothers and sisters in Christ in many places around the world, particularly in Africa and in Asia.

So our text, and we're going to see again the martyrdom of Stephen this morning and what that really looks like.

And as I read this, as I studied this, one thing just really struck me, and we'll talk about this more and more, is how much hatred has to be in your heart for someone to actually do what is done to Stephen here.

It's amazing, the anger and the vitriol and the sheer hatred.

Acts chapter 7, verse 54. Now when they heard these things, they were enraged, and they ground their teeth at him.

But he, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.

And he said, Behold, I see the heavens opened and the

Son of Man standing at the right hand of God. But they cried out with a loud voice and stopped their ears and rushed together at him.

Then they cast him out of the city and stoned him. And the witnesses laid their garments at the feet of a young man named

Saul. And as they were stoning Stephen, he called out, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.

And falling to his knees, he cried out with a loud voice, Lord, do not hold this sin against them.

And when he had said this, he fell asleep. And Saul approved of his execution.

And there arose on that day a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem. And they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles.

Devout men buried Stephen and made great lamentation over him. But Saul was ravaging the church and entering house after house.

He dragged off men and women and committed them to prison.

Last week, we studied what is the longest speech in Acts. It both served as Stephen's defense against charges of blasphemy.

Plus, it was a sermon. And if you recall, I said the best defense, a good offense. Why? Because he basically turned the tables on them, which is why they get so enraged at the beginning of our section today.

And in his sermon, he summarized portions of Genesis and Exodus and other parts of the

Old Testament. His themes, if you recall this, the faithfulness of God, the trustworthiness of his word.

If you recall, he was accused of what? Blasphemy against Moses and against the temple, against God and his word.

So he says, you can trust God, you can trust what he says.

And he also talked about the faithfulness of Abraham, Joseph and Moses. And he also laid bare the faithlessness and the idolatry of the history of Israel.

But he was also pointing to the current listeners. He told them, you know, when he said, you stiff -necked people.

They understood exactly what he was saying. Just like your forefathers didn't believe

God, you don't either. Jesus came to you, you rejected him. Now, it should frighten all of us if we think about it.

And I like to think about this. Israel saw all these miracles.

They were delivered out of Egypt. They saw, you know, all the curses, the plagues is the word

I was looking for. The plagues that were prophesied and brought forth by Moses.

They watched the people of Egypt suffer. Then they're escaping and Pharaoh, of course, changes his mind and chases them, pursues them.

And they're trapped up against the Red Sea and they complain against Moses. And then God miraculously separates the sea.

What do they do as soon as they get across? After seeing how God delivered them, what do they do? They immediately start complaining.

When Moses is gone, they make themselves a calf and start worshipping it.

How does that sort of thing happen? It's exactly the same today.

People hear the word of God. They hear the gospel on a constant basis. What do they do? They don't believe.

Why? Because their hearts and their ears are, as we heard, uncircumcised. In other words,

God has not granted them ears to hear, eyes to see, hearts to believe. So they don't.

Again and again, one of the themes of Acts is we see the children of Satan, we could call them, because we are, or we were, all once children of Satan, who've been transferred from his kingdom into the kingdom of God's dear son, the

Lord Jesus Christ. These children of Satan looking to stop, to thwart the growth of Christianity, basically to stop it, to kill it in its infancy.

Initially, if you recall, just think about the escalation. Peter and John are brought before the

Sanhedrin, and they're given a warning. Stop it. Stop preaching in the name of this

Jesus. And that's after they did a miracle of their own. And when that warning doesn't suffice, then what happens?

All 12 of the apostles are brought before the Sanhedrin. And their punishment is 39 lashes, which is close to the death penalty.

Now Stephen, a man known for being full of faith in the Holy Spirit, doing these wonders among the people, is seized by a mob and put on trial for preaching and teaching in such a manner that he couldn't be refuted.

This morning, as we look to really the climax of the so -called trial, really this mob action, we're going to see two moments of...

I wanted to stay away from two points. So we have two moments of criminality, because, you know, that's how the police mind works.

But we have a murder. This is a murder. It's not a state -sanctioned execution.

This is a murder. This isn't a guilty criminal. This is flat -out murder. Two moments of criminality.

One, the murder itself, and two, the aftermath of the murder. And each of these moments has three events, three sub -points, as you will, attached to them.

We're going to see, really, a false conclusion of a trial, and then events that spiral out from that.

Okay, first moment of criminality, the murder itself. And the event, the first event, is the runaway jury.

I like that because it's the title of a book and a movie. Look at verse 54.

Now, when they... Again, the Sanhedrin and this group of men who dragged him in front of the Sanhedrin, these

Hellenists, when they heard these things, they were enraged, and they ground their teeth at him.

Their inability, the inability of these Hellenists, Greek -speaking Jews, to defeat the arguments of Stephen is what caused them to lynch him, to grab him, to drag him before the

Sanhedrin, to put him ultimately on trial. How do they respond to Stephen's statements in verses 51 through 53?

Just listen as I read, just by way of final review. You stiff -necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the

Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you. Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute?

And they killed those who announced beforehand the coming of the Righteous One, whom you now have betrayed and murdered.

You who received the law as delivered by angels, and did not keep it.

Commentator Waters says this, he says, when Stephen defends himself by relating Israel's history and summarizes his speech with the remark that the members of the

Sanhedrin are guilty of breaking the law, he becomes the prosecutor, and his listener, the defendants.

They think he's on trial, and he says, in reality, you are on trial.

Well, how dare he? How dare he say that about them? From their perspective, they were the ones defending

God. He was the one blaspheming. And yet he has the audacity to accuse them of disobedience.

I like what the King James does when it talks about them being cut to the heart, because it says here they were enraged.

Enraged is kind of a summary. In fact, that word from the King James, cut to the heart, the phrase, instead of enraged, they were cut to the heart.

Because the word heart, cardio, a variation of it, is actually in the

Greek. So the ESV just kind of steamrolls over that and just says enraged. I find it interesting also that this idea of grinding the teeth,

I mean, I found it annoying, like really annoying. The other day, one of the grandkids,

I won't name him by name, started grinding and clicking his teeth, and I thought, maybe he's doing this as an example for the message.

It's really obnoxious. But that's an odd thing when we think about it.

But if you go to, I remember when I was in the military, one of the guys, instead of clapping, would do this thing.

I'm not going to do it right now because I haven't done it for a while. It takes some practice where you can actually loosen your index finger and then slap it up against your middle finger.

And they do that in some places instead of clapping. It came from Panama originally.

That's where he learned it. But these cultural things, like grinding of teeth, gnashing of teeth, we wouldn't do that here.

People would be like, what is your problem? He's having a seizure or something. But this is a way of expressing their anger.

When I first read that, when I first read the idea of gnashing of teeth, what do you think? I think of weeping, wailing, gnashing of teeth, where Jesus talks about it with regard to what people do in hell.

But in our passage, it's just another way of expressing the rage, the anger that they feel towards Stephen.

I mean, if they were to go like this, and to threaten him and everything, we'd understand that.

But gnashing of teeth is a little bit unusual. But that's how they are just beside themselves.

If 100 is as angry as you can get, they're at 110. They're just over the top. And then the second event here is the heavenly vision.

The heavenly vision. But he, Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God.

And Jesus standing at the right hand of God. Kistemacher notes that Luke uses exactly the same words to describe gazing into heaven as when the apostles looked up when

Jesus ascended into heaven in Acts 1. In other words, he's just transfixed.

He's totally focused. I mean, imagine, he's got these people gnashing their teeth at him. They're angry.

I mean, I would imagine their faces are red. They're just ready to go at him. And he's just looking.

He's full of the Holy Spirit. And he's enabled to see into heaven as Isaiah had.

But instead of saying to himself, Woe is me, for I am lost, for I'm a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of people of unclean lips, for my eyes have seen the

King, the Lord of hosts. He doesn't say that. If you think about it, he started this trial with what?

Like they said, the face of an angel, kind of an angelic glow. And at the conclusion of this trial, so to speak, the conclusion, because it gets interrupted, he sees what men rarely see.

We have very few recordings in Scripture of people seeing into the throne room of God.

Stephen simply marvels and stares, transfixed by what he sees, oblivious to everything that's going on around him.

To see such a vision is a moment of the work of the Holy Spirit and an amazing blessing.

But then think about what happens next, because he sees this, and he could say, you know, this is just my quiet time, my time with the

Lord, I'm just going to keep it to myself. He tells them. He tells these enraged

Hellenists and Sanhedrin around him. This is like the ultimate kind of throwing the gauntlet down, challenge to them.

So he tells them what? He sees the heavens open. Verse 56.

And he said, Behold, I see the heavens open. And this is, the nature of the verb here is that it's permanently open to him.

And this is a testimony. These religious men knew that almost nobody, as I said, had ever looked into heaven.

It's not normal, because why? Nobody can look at God and live.

The holy presence of God is too much for sinful men. Even Moses, he comes into the presence of God, and what does

God say? I mean, he's just seeing the glow, the burning bush. God says, Take off your sandals for you're on holy ground.

But he sees straight into the throne room of God. And he sees the glorified

Son. Look at verse 56 again, the second part of it. And the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.

Now there are three important little nuggets here. This is the only place in the

New Testament where someone other than Jesus Christ uses this title,

Son of Man, to refer to Jesus. The only place. So he looks, and I have no doubt the

Sanhedrin and others have heard Jesus refer to himself as the Son of Man. And here's Stephen saying,

I see the Son of Man. I see him. Well, they know who he's talking about. It's Jesus.

What does that mean? It means that he's claiming that Jesus is the

Messiah, just as Jesus did. When Jesus used that title of himself, he was referring to this in Daniel 7, verses 13 and 14.

I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a

Son of Man. And he came to the ancient of days and was presented before him. And to him, listen, here's why they would just be, you know, go from 110 up.

And to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him.

His dominion is an everlasting dominion which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed.

So he says, I see the Son of Man at the right hand of God.

He's testifying of Jesus, the God -Man. And just as a side note, if you're testifying to your faith in Christ, if you're giving witness to somebody, what do you have to do?

You have to, in some way, tell them, yes, Jesus is a man.

He was fully human. But you also have to tell them he's divine. And so that's what he's doing,

I mean, in shorthand. But when we say, when we want to talk to people, and we want to give them the gospel, they have to understand who

Jesus is. So whether you're talking just to your friend, or whether you're talking to 300 strangers, they have to understand that the

Jesus you're talking about is the Jesus who comes from Scripture, who is both divine and human.

Fully divine, fully human. But also notice the second nugget here.

Jesus is standing. Now that's interesting. Because when we see

Jesus most often, what do we see at post -resurrection, post -ascension? Seated.

For example, Ephesians 1, verse 20. That he, God the Father, worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places.

Now that's meant to show that he's at the right hand, he's got authority and dominion, all the things we read about Daniel, that he's seated at the place of honor of the

Father. We see that also in Jesus' own words,

Matthew 26, verses 63 and 64. But Jesus remains silent while he's on trial.

And the high priest said to him, I adjure you, I insist, I am more than implore, but I adjure you by the living

God, tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God. Jesus said to him, you have said so.

But I tell you, from now on, you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of power and coming on the clouds of heaven.

So why, in this vision of Stephen, is he standing? And here's the letdown.

We don't know. Some scholars say this is nothing. Maybe. But I agree with those who say that this is an indication of Jesus preparing to welcome

Stephen into his presence. He sees the

Son of Man standing on the third little nugget here at the right hand of God. He sees

Jesus, the Son of Man, at the right hand of God. The men of the

Sanhedrin conspired. They worked overtime. They worked the crowd to make sure that Jesus was arrested.

They worked the Romans to make sure he was arrested. Then every step of the trial process, they made sure that Jesus was convicted and that he was crucified.

And now Stephen, standing there with these men, at 110 on the anger meter, says, I see the

Son of Man standing at the right hand of God. He has the greatest place of honor.

These men knew exactly what Stephen was saying. And it's this. Jesus is

God. He was on trial for blasphemy. So now what does he do?

He doubles down on it. He says, Jesus is divine.

And why is that? Because he's filled with the Holy Spirit. He can see into heaven. There's no reason for him to doubt it.

But to them, to these unbelievers, who are uncircumcised in ears and eyes, may

I imply, and of heart, they hear him talking. And what do they hear? They don't hear anything other than this man saying that there is another

God. There's God the Father, and then there's this Jesus.

He is also divine. To them, that means what? Two gods. They say, we're monotheists.

You're not. So the third event here is the stoning of Stephen.

The mob descends on him in verse 57. But they cried out with a loud voice and stopped their ears and rushed together at him.

Now again, this is a cultural deviation for us.

When you think about stopping your ears and yelling, what do you think about? Immaturity.

You think of a little kid who doesn't hear what he wants to hear. You say, well, you know what? Instead of that toy you wanted for Christmas, we got you a nice apple.

What do kids do? I don't want to hear about that. They scream and essentially put their fingers in their ears.

Now you might think, well, that's really childish. But here's the point.

They don't want to hear any more blasphemy. They don't want to hear any more that Stephen has to say.

And you know, in one sense, I don't want to say I admire sin because I don't.

But I admire their zeal. And why can I say that? Because I think in our own culture, you know, when people take the

Lord's name in vain, which is actually, let's just say it, they just say, they use

Jesus' name as a cuss word. And aren't you just kind of almost immune to being offended by that?

Because it happens so often. Or some other way that people speak ill of God.

I mean, we live in a world where blasphemy is just like lunch. It's just something that proceeds.

It's just natural. We hear untruths about God every day. But I don't think it would do much for my

Christian witness if I were to, every time somebody used the

Lord's name as a curse word or something else, I were to put my fingers in my ear and start, you know, just shouting real super loudly.

When I, you know, I worked in a jail years ago. And when some people found out, it was funny to me.

When people found out I was in seminary, it was like all of a sudden, I don't know. It was like I'd become some kind of,

I think, Catholic priest or something. Because people would start, like, cursing in front of me and then going, sorry, you know, didn't mean to offend you.

I mean, in one sense, I thought, well, good, at least you know you've done something wrong, right? But on the other hand,

I couldn't say, well, okay, give me three Hail Marys and two Our Fathers and we'll call it even. I could say,

I forgive you, right? But I'd think about it and go, well,

I'd just tell them, I'd say, it's not me you need to worry about. Right?

And depending on how that went, sometimes there'd be a gospel presentation. I'd say, let me tell you about the one who you've sinned against and how you can be forgiven.

But in this case, with these people, to say these things was to invite, and he wasn't, but it was to just take these rabid people and just kind of push them even into more, what's the word, rabidity, you know.

They were just super angry and they got madder all the time. And look at verse, so they stick their fingers in the air, they start yelling at him because they don't want to hear it anymore.

They're done with this. They take him, they seize him. Verse 58, the beginning of it says, they cast him out of the city and stoned him.

Now it's kind of interesting to just think about it for a minute. Why did they cast him out of the city? Why bother with that?

Why not just kill him where he is? Because doing that, shedding his blood inside the city, then does what?

It defiles the city. You know what's interesting, because I did spend some time on the internet this week, stoning, of course we know it still takes place in some places.

I mean, we've read about stonings even in Afghanistan where women are stoned even for simple things like wanting an education or something like that.

It's really an awful way to die. But stoning somebody in Israel is super easy.

Why is it easy? Well, because there are lots of rocks. You don't have to look around. They're just right there.

It takes no planning at all. It's not like, you know, I've mentioned this analogy before, but it's not like they could just say, well, let's take them outside and hang them because somebody would have to go get a rope because not everybody had a rope.

Everybody had rocks. That was easy. But as I thought about this whole process, and I didn't want to read, you know, to you guys exactly the death that takes place in a stoning because I thought it would be rather grisly.

But if you could just imagine for a moment, you know, if there was a way to dodge the rocks, people would.

If there was a way to flee being stoned, you would. So there has to be some means of keeping movement restricted other than having people hold them, right?

So they either have to be tied in place or penned in or something like that. And I thought about it, and I go, you know, the first stone would have to inflict some pretty serious damage because you have to, at some point, immobilize the victim.

And then you just sink rock by rock by rock in an awful way. And that's what they're doing to Stephen.

Second part of verse 58, and the witnesses laid down their garments at the feet of a young man named

Saul. Luke does this. He introduced, when he was telling us about these proto -deacons, as I called them, he introduced us to Stephen, and he introduced us to Philip, who's going to be in our next bit of Scripture.

And right now, he's just introducing the character of Saul. He doesn't really give us a whole lot of details. We'll find out more about Saul later.

And, of course, we know Saul becomes Paul. But the witnesses who lay down their garments at the feet of this young man named

Saul are the first ones to cast stones. Remember the verses in John that aren't in the

Bible? Let he who is without sin cast the... And I say it's not because it's not the best manuscripts.

Let he who is without sin cast the first stone. This is the idea. Deuteronomy 17, 7.

The hand of the witnesses... In other words, these men who had grabbed Stephen up shall be the first against him to put him to death.

And afterward, the hand of all the people. So shall you purge the evil from your midst.

That's how stoning was done. The witnesses first. In other words, if you were going to testify against somebody, you had to be prepared to throw the first stones.

So when they do that, they take off the robes, they hand them to, you know, the coat check boy,

Saul. To call these men, though, witnesses is to use the customary term, the term that's used there in Deuteronomy 17.

They're supposed to be testifying or witnesses to his blasphemy. Well, what's the problem here?

What's blasphemy? We know this. Blasphemy is something that is false about God. Had Stephen said anything false?

No. Stephen had told truth that was contrary to the

Jewish faith. Was contrary to the Jewish religion as was practiced then.

Why? Because they didn't understand the nature of the Messiah and they still don't.

This is no small difference. You know, you hear this all the time and I've talked about it before.

The great world religions, some politicians will say. The great faiths of the world.

But as is always true, there are only two religions. There's divine accomplishment and human achievement.

Jesus is to be worshipped. Other religions don't worship him.

Not as God, not as the God. We believe in a triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

In fact, our confession of faith says this. In this divine and infinite being, talking about the triune

God, there are three subsistences. The Father, the Word or Son, and Holy Spirit.

Of one substance, power and eternity, each having the whole divine essence, yet the essence undivided.

This is our God. The Jews refused that God. We don't worship the same

God. They stopped, if they ever did. Actually, they never did. Because those who believed and trusted in God believed that there was a

Messiah who would come and die for their sins. Luke introduced, again,

Saul as this young man helping in the murder of Stephen. And it is murder.

Like I said, he was innocent of blasphemy. And there's not even a recorded verdict. In other words, the

Sanhedrin doesn't say, we've heard enough, we find this man guilty. What happens? They become so enraged that they take him outside the city and they stone him.

Stephen emulates, really follows Jesus in his death.

Look at verses 59 and 60. And as they were stoning Stephen, he called out,

Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. Of course, that sounds exactly like Father, into thy hands

I commend my spirit. And falling to his knees, he cried out with a loud voice,

Lord, do not hold this sin against them. Appealing to Jesus not to charge these men who were murdering him with murder.

And when he had said this, he fell asleep. As you listen to that, do you think to yourself,

I wonder if Stephen was trusting his soul to Jesus Christ. Absolutely. He prays to Jesus.

He addresses him as God. He knows he is about to enter into eternity with Christ.

So he says, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. Stephen's last act on earth was to ask

Jesus not to lay this murder to the account of those murdering him. Loving what?

His enemies. How can that happen? How can a holy

God not hold these men accountable for the murder of his servant

Stephen? What's the answer? How can that be? Only by converting these murders, these men who are gnashing their teeth, screaming, plugging their ears, acting like crazed maniacs.

Only by converting them to faith in Christ. For a moment, turn over to Acts 22.

Acts 22. And this is part of Paul's defense on another occasion when he's in Jerusalem.

And I'm going to begin reading in verse 17. This is Paul speaking. And he says,

When I had returned to Jerusalem and was praying in the temple, I fell into a trance.

And I saw him saying to me, make haste and get out of Jerusalem quickly.

Because they will not accept your testimony about me, about Jesus. And I said,

Lord, they themselves know that in one synagogue he's recounting his guilt here.

And I said, Lord, they themselves know that in one synagogue after another I imprisoned and beat those who believed in you.

And when the blood of Stephen, your witness, was being shed, I myself was standing by and approving and watching over the garments of those who killed him.

And he said to me, Go, leave Jerusalem, for I will send you far away to the

Gentiles. Go back to Acts chapter 8. Stephen was, as we said before, a

Hellenist. A Greek -speaking Jew from outside of Israel who'd come in and then been converted to Christ.

He spoke Greek. He had Greek customs. Did Jesus answer

Stephen's prayer? Stephen says, Don't count it against these people. Well, we know he did, at least in the case of Saul, because he tells us.

Later on, Paul becomes what? The missionary to the Gentiles. To the very people where Stephen had come from.

In other words, if Stephen ever intended to be a missionary to the

Gentiles, the people who lived outside of Israel, the non -Jews, essentially, he passes the torch to Saul.

He doesn't do it, but the Lord does it for him. He's praying for these people who are killing him, and at least one of them becomes probably the greatest missionary of all time.

Does God answer prayer? Yes. Yes. Augustine said this.

He said, If Stephen had not prayed, the church would not have had

Paul. And I thought about that, and I go, You know what? What do we believe?

We believe what Scripture says, which is, The prayer of a righteous man accomplishes much.

And in this case, it did accomplish much. Again, if we think big picture, what were the

Jewish zealots, the leaders, trying to do? They were trying to prevent the spread of Christianity.

But the Lord Jesus said he would build his church. He commissioned the apostles. Christianity was not going to be stopped by an angry, out -of -control mob.

The murder of Stephen was meant for evil, but God used it as a catalyst for the spread of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

He intended it for good, no matter what these men intended. So we've seen the murder itself.

That was my first point. The second point is, just another 40 minutes. Don't worry. You're laughing.

I don't get it. The aftermath of the murder. The second moment of criminality.

The aftermath of the murder. What happens after Stephen is stoned? Event number one is the great persecution begins.

Look at verse 1 of chapter 8. And Saul approved of his execution.

He's holding the garments. He's all in. And there arose on that day a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem.

And they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria except the apostles.

Now where was the gospel to go to beginning in Jerusalem? Then Judea.

And then Samaria. And then to the ends of the earth. So now we can already see it going out to Judea and Samaria.

But a religious fervor in Jerusalem against the Christian church started.

That's what this great persecution is. But who was it who suffered the brunt of it?

It was the non -Jerusalem residents.

The people who were from outside of Jerusalem. The non -Jerusalem

Jews who'd come to faith in Christ. In other words, these Hellenists. And we know that because there are future references to Christians in Jerusalem.

And because this verse tells us that they were spread out all over the place. They were scattered all over the place except the apostles.

Well, why not the apostles? The text doesn't tell us. But it could be that they chose to remain and the

Lord protected them. It could be that the Sanhedrin were unwilling to risk another high -level conflict.

We don't really know. What we do know is that the Hellenists were scattered.

Persecution led to the spread of Christianity. The second event is the burial of Stephen.

Verse 2 tells us, Devout men buried Stephen and made great lamentation over him.

Now you see that term, devout. You go, okay, were they Jews or were they Christians? Well, they had to be

Christians, right? Jews are not going to make a great lamentation over him. It was believers who took care of this devout man.

They mourned over him, but not as those who had no hope. Daryl Bloch says, their act of wailing,

I thought this was good, their act of wailing is both defiant and a statement of their perception that Stephen was righteous.

Well, defiant in what sense? Because the Jews were happy to be rid of Stephen. And they, for somewhere between 20 and 70 days, raised the memory of Stephen ceaselessly by their loud wailing for him.

In event number 3, the merciless Saul. The merciless Saul. But Saul was ravaging, verse 3, ravaging the church and entering into house after house.

He dragged off men and women and committed them to prisons. Now just think about this for a moment.

When Stephen, later on in 1 Timothy, would say that he was the chief of all sinners, certainly had the murder of Stephen in mind because he participated in that.

But I think he also had this in mind. He just sat there and just... He's writing Timothy on how to run a church.

Corinth. And he says, as he looks back on his life, he thinks to himself what?

Timothy, be like me. He might have thought that in some ways. But mostly what he was thinking is,

I can't believe I get to write this letter. I can't believe the Lord is using someone like me, the chief of all sinners, to teach you anything.

And I thought, that's a good example for all of us. As we preach the gospel to ourselves, as we remind ourselves of the grace of God that he shed out on us in Christ, we ought to think, how blessed am

I. After all that I've done, God set his affections on me.

As Paul thought about it, despite being a murder and a ravager of the church, even somebody who would go house to house, and yes, this indicates they probably...

Again, we don't know, but I think as the persecution increased, they probably were going more to house church, that kind of thing, to stay away, to stay under the radar.

So he went from house to house. And I'll bet he had no -knock warrants. But anyway, one of the commentators said something about how zealous was

Saul, so zealous that he's even taking women to prison, which would be seen as really over the top, because women weren't held accountable, just like they were just supposed to follow their husbands.

So taking them to prison would show how far he was willing to go. These men who had murdered

Stephen, and even Saul. This is something we often hear, that people are sincere in their faith.

What does that mean? If you're sincere, but your sincerity is in a false god, a false object, even the right god, but a false portrayal of him, then your sincerity...

It's like my seminary prof used to say, people are sincere, but they're sincerely wrong. There's no value in that.

In conclusion, I would just say this. Paul would write, Romans chapter 1, that the gospel is the power of God for salvation.

What does that mean? I think we see it here in Acts. What does it mean? It means that nothing can stop it.

If God said something in motion, who can stay his hand? Who can ask him, why have you done such a thing?

And since no one can stop it, no one for whom it is intended will ultimately resist it.

And you say, well, how can you say that? Because in our text today, we saw

Saul the ravager, Saul the murderer, Saul who wanted nothing to do with Jesus Christ, Saul who was even willing to execute his minister,

Stephen, ultimately comes to faith. Back to my thinking about 1

Timothy, Paul writes, Jesus came to save sinners.

We just think about that, Jesus came. That suggests right away the eternality of Jesus Christ, that he had no beginning, that he always existed.

And then as the second person of the Trinity, he entered creation, took on limitations of human flesh.

By the way, he did not set aside his deity. That is a heresy that I won't go into for the sake of time.

He was entirely righteous. Tim was talking about how we need that righteousness. We don't get into heaven based on just having our sins paid for.

He was righteous. He did everything rightly. And he never did anything wrongly.

He never sinned. And then in the words of the hymnist, hymnal person, in my place, condemned he stood.

He took the punishment for me, took the wrath of God that I deserved. And then

God raised him from the dead on the third day. And this is the God we worship. This is the God we proclaim.

And this is the God that Stephen saw and praised. Let's pray. Father, thank you for this word this morning.

Thank you for Stephen. Thank you for the work of the

Holy Spirit through him. The boldness, the clarity to know that these men were livid to hear them even gnashing their teeth and yelling and putting their fingers in their ears and doing everything they could not to listen to him.

And yet being so consumed by your spirit, so consumed to declare what was good and right and what he saw, that he did it, that he testified to Jesus Christ, even in front of these men.

And that even as he was dying, he asked for their forgiveness.

Father, you are a great God who works all things together for our good, even things that we can't possibly see as good.

Teach us, even as we work through this book, to trust you more, to lean on you more, to not look at our circumstances, but to instead trust the one who has pledged to redeem our souls.