Sunday, March 19, 2023 AM

Sunnyside Baptist Church

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Let's go to the Lord together in prayer. Heavenly Father, we confess our needs today.

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We are here. For you, for your word, for your truth, you've been made in your image.

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How we need your word and you alone, do we have hope?

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By your light alone, do we know truth? In your life alone, do we know joy?

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You have given us this day and this moment. This opportunity to hear from you,

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Lord, help us give us ears to hear. Give us eyes to see.

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Give us hearts that are warm. To the truth of your word. By your grace, may there be a resounding amen in our lives of your will.

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Declared from heaven, give us courage today. Courage for the day and for the morrow that you would fix our eyes upon you.

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Our confidence secure in Jesus Christ, emboldened and equipped by your

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Holy Spirit. May we look upon the morrow in absolute peace.

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We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. I invite you to open your

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Bibles and turn with me to Acts chapter 7. Acts chapter 7, and we'll begin reading in verse 1 this morning.

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Acts chapter 7, and we'll begin reading in verse 1. We're looking at Stephen.

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We were introduced to Stephen in chapter 6 as a man who was full of wisdom, a man who was full of faith.

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He was a man who was full of the Holy Spirit. He was full of power when a need arose in the life of the early church, and men were needed to meet that need.

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Stephen was at the top of everybody's list. Oh, definitely, let's have

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Stephen help out with that. He was extraordinarily gifted and blessed by God.

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And we saw in chapter 6 how his love for the Lord and his service for Christ went beyond waiting on tables and serving the widows who were in need.

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For he was doing signs and wonders like unto the apostles, and he was proclaiming the good news of the kingdom.

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And he was contending for the faith against those who were angry at his words, refusing to hear the good news of Jesus Christ.

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Stephen was a mighty man, and the Holy Spirit was upon him.

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And he, like Peter before him, and in the same fashion as his

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Lord Jesus Christ, he was preaching from the Old Testament. He was preaching from the

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Hebrew scriptures, contending with his fellow Jews about the nature of the Messiah.

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And he would grab this prophetic passage over here and that prophetic passage over there and grab them like one might grab the tails of foxes.

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And he would bind them together with the unity of the scriptures, showing by God's covenants how all of these prophecies were meant to come together.

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And then he would set them ablaze in the light of Jesus Christ. And then he set them loose through the fields of the straw men of his opponents, and he set their world on fire.

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They didn't like that very much. So what do you do when you cannot win the argument?

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What did they do when they could not contest the wisdom and the truth of his words? They accused him of blasphemy.

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They thought of the worst thing that you could possibly say about somebody in their culture, and they said it about him.

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As soon as they knew they couldn't win the argument, as soon as the facts were against them, as soon as the truth was made clear and they couldn't win the argument, they shut it all down and called him a blasphemer.

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They used false witnesses to do this, and they stirred up the people like an earthquake, and they fell upon Stephen like an avalanche.

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And they arrested him and took him to the Sanhedrin, accusing him of blasphemy against God, blasphemy against Moses, and he stands here on trial as an enemy of the people of God.

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He's surrounded. The elders are angry with him. The scribes are angry with him.

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The people are angry with him. The Sanhedrin is angry with him. He is surrounded by enemies.

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I invite you to stand with me as we begin reading in verse one of Acts.

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This is the word of the Lord by his spirit through his servant

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Luke. Then the high priest said, Are these things so?

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And he said, Brethren and fathers, listen. The God of glory appeared to our father

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Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Haran, and said to him,

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Get out of your country and from your relatives and come to a land that I will show you. Then he came out of the land of the

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Chaldeans and dwelt in Haran. And from there, when his father was dead, he moved him to this land in which you now dwell.

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And God gave him no inheritance in it, not even enough to set his foot on.

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But even when Abraham had no child, he promised to give it to him for a possession and to his descendants after him.

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But God spoke in this way that his descendants would dwell in a foreign land.

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And that they would bring them into bondage and oppress them 400 years. In the nation to whom they will be in bondage,

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I will judge, said God. And after that, they shall come out and serve me in this place.

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Then he gave him the covenant of circumcision, and so Abraham begot Isaac and circumcised him on the eighth day, and Isaac begot

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Jacob and Jacob begot the 12 patriarchs. And the patriarchs, becoming envious, sold

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Joseph into Egypt, but God was. With him.

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This is the word of the Lord, thanks be to God, you may be seated. On the last day of 1862 in Henderson County, Tennessee, at Parker's Crossroad, a battle was underway.

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And the Confederate force under the command of General Nathan Bedford Forrest was surrounded.

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And one of his colonels came riding up to give him the bad news. They're out in front of us, they're out behind us, we're surrounded.

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And with typical bravery and somewhat recklessness,

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Nathan Bedford Forrest informed his colonel, charge them both ways. And they did.

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And they got away. Now, Nathan Bedford Forrest was a very profane man, very full of sin.

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And he was very much like the man who originated this particular strategy, charge them both ways.

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In 2 Samuel chapter 10, we read about one of the generals of the south, the southern kingdom of Judah, Joab.

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2 Samuel chapter 10, verse 9. When Joab saw that the battle line was against him before and behind, he chose some of Israel's best and put them in battle array against the

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Syrians and the rest of the people he put under the command of Abishai, his brother, that he might set them in battle array against the people of Ammon.

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Then he said, if the Syrians are too strong for me, then you shall help me. But if the people of Ammon are too strong for you, then

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I will come and help you. Be of good courage and let us be strong for our people and for the cities of our

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God. And may the Lord do what is good in his sight. In the

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Older Translations, verse 12 says, be of good courage and let us play the men for our people.

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It's a good translation. We talked about Latimer and Ridley burned at the stake under the

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Marian persecution in the 1500s and how Latimer comforted Ridley and said, be of good comfort,

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Master Ridley, and play the man. Where did he get that idea? Well, you see, they were surrounded.

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They were surrounded by people who hated them, who looked on with favor as they slowly suffocated and died burning to death.

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It is time then to play the man. We're surrounded. Joab also says to Abishai, and as we look on Stephen, he certainly does.

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Play the man. Last week, we talked about Christian courage, that Christian courage rarely escapes cost, but always meets with victory.

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And again, we are reminded of Christian courage in Acts chapter seven. As we look upon Stephen and we see that Christian courage meets each expedient lie with everlasting truth.

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Christian courage meets each expedient lie with everlasting truth.

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We didn't have a very close look at the charges against Stephen last time, and we will do so today.

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With the Lord's help, I think we are going to see exactly how it is that these charges are false, brought against Stephen in this particular way.

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But I also want us to see how it is that he answers each one of these false charges by bringing the attention of his opponents upon the glory of the risen

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Lord Jesus Christ. And that though these lies were very quickly spun up and easily said, they were expedient to the goal of his enemies to shut him up and shut him down.

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He meets each and every one of them with the everlasting truth of Christ. And this will be helpful for us in that chapter seven of Acts is 60 verses long, and most of it contains the sermon of Stephen.

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And so I want us to get a idea of the whole message to see how it is in this lengthy passage, he answers the three false charges.

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Then having the full picture, the outline of the sermon, if you will, then by the

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Lord's help, we'll go through all of the verses much more carefully in the future.

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So Stephen has been charged falsely, and he's been charged falsely in the exact same way that his

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Lord Jesus Christ was. And in fact, what Stephen preaches and what

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Stephen defends is not original with Stephen. He's not coming up with this on his own. It's something that has already been preached by Peter and John and the apostles, for which cause they were arrested and beaten and threatened by the same

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Sanhedrin that now has Stephen on trial. Stephen's not coming up with anything new. He's preaching exactly the way that Jesus did in his earthly ministry.

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The reason why Stephen is on trial is because his opponents hate the

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Christ of him. They are opposing Christ, and so Stephen is the nearest target.

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There are two explicit charges against him and one implicit. The implicit charge is simply this.

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He's an enemy of the people. He's an enemy of the people. He's bad for our society.

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He doesn't represent Jerusalem values. The way he talks and the way he operates just doesn't fit with what we think is most important.

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He's an enemy to the quality of our society, therefore he's on trial.

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That's the implicit charge. Stephen, you're a threat. You're a problem. You're a nuisance. You're bad for us.

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The two explicit charges are you have blasphemed Moses and you have blasphemed

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God. And the high priest says, are these things so?

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Are these things so? And then Stephen begins with story time.

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Once upon a time, Abram lived in Mesopotamia. Excuse me.

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Now, when we watch hearings and clips of hearings online that go on in the capital of our nation and some senator or representative levels a hard -hitting question against some bureaucrat and the bureaucrat starts into story time, everybody gets a little upset.

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Come on, just answer the question. Is Stephen paltering?

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Is Stephen beating around the bush? Is he filibustering?

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No. He's telling the truth. I want you to see this.

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I want you to see the big picture of what goes on in this very large sermon and how it is that Stephen directly, though in a lengthy fashion, answers the charges against him by pointing to Jesus Christ.

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Let's think about the structure. In verses 2 through 16,

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Stephen is addressing whether or not the Christ whom he represents is truly an enemy of Israel.

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In verses 17 through 37, Stephen addresses the claim that he is blaspheming

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Moses. Am I really blaspheming Moses? In verses 38 through the remainder of the sermon through verse 50,

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Stephen addresses the issue as whether or not he blasphemed God. Now, I want to take it in reverse order, not trying to be confusing, but if I were on trial and someone accused me of blaspheming

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God, of blaspheming the scripture, and then being a bad citizen,

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I think the most important charge listed there was that I would be blaspheming God. That would be the worst thing.

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That would be the most troublesome thing. And the reason why I want to talk about it first is the same reason why

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Stephen talked about it last. It's the most important one. The second one about blaspheming

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Moses, the idea that you're anti -biblical, you're against the scripture, you're a false teacher. We'll talk about that one secondly.

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And then finally, whether or not, indeed, is Christ against the people of Israel? So let's begin with this charge.

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Did Stephen really blaspheme God? Let's look back in chapter 6 and see how they develop this charge against him.

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Chapter 6, and we see that Stephen is full of faith and power. He's doing signs and wonders, pointing to the power and the authority and the message of the risen

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Lord Jesus Christ. His opponents, the members of the synagogue of the freedmen, including

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Saul of Tarsus, cannot oppose him, cannot contend with him. They're all bowled over, undone, don't have a leg to stand on.

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And so, verse 11, then they secretly induced men to say, we have heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses and God.

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So there is the charge. You go out and you tell the people that he's a problem because he's blaspheming

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God. He's speaking blasphemous words against God. So they stir up the people, and then once he's arrested and taken before the council, now they bring false witnesses against him, verse 13.

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They also set up false witnesses who said, this man does not cease to speak blasphemous words against this holy place and the law.

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Well, the law corresponds with Moses. If you're going to be blaspheming Moses, that means you're speaking against the law. But notice how they parallel blaspheming

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God with speaking against or blaspheming this holy place.

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You see what they did? He's blaspheming God because he's speaking against the temple.

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Verse 14, they connect him to Jesus, that terrible troublemaker.

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For we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place, this holy place, and change the customs which

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Moses delivered to us. So you see the parallel again. He blasphemed Moses. He spoke against the law.

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He spoke against the customs that Moses handed to us. He blasphemed God. He spoke against this holy place, and we heard him say that Jesus is going to destroy this place.

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So do you see how in their minds, how they bring up the blasphemous charge against him? They're saying, you blasphemed

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God because you spoke against the temple. That's the basis of their charge.

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If you speak against the temple, then obviously you're blaspheming God. Remember that this is the exact same charge they made against Christ at His trial.

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We're at Witnesses 4 to say, you spoke against the temple. You're a blasphemer. And here is

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Stephen charged with the same offense. Well, how does

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Stephen respond to that? Well, we look forward into verses 38 through 50, and we see

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Stephen lay out his defense. And all along, he's been answering this. They've got a problem on their hands.

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They're saying, if you speak against this place, you speak against God. Actually, Stephen says,

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God appeared to Abram when he was in Mesopotamia, which is a little bit east of here, by a bunch.

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And also, when Joseph got sent down into Egypt, God was with him, which is

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Egypt that's way south of here. And then he tells the story of the wandering in the wilderness, and how everywhere

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Israel wandered, Moses in the wilderness, Israel in the wilderness, God was there.

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He was there in the burning bush, and there He was in the tabernacle. And all those places are nowhere near around here.

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What are you saying? That if somebody speaks against this place, they speak against God? What kind of a small, tiny

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God do you have? He accuses them outright of idolatry in his sermon.

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He brings up the story of Aaron, who took the gold from the children of Israel while Moses was up on Mount Sinai, and he fashioned out of their gold a golden calf.

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Out came the golden calf. He points to it, and he doesn't say, hey, look, everybody, Molech.

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He doesn't say, hey, look, everybody, it's Asherah. He says, behold your

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God, Yahweh, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. We're going to pretend like this little golden calf is

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Yahweh, is God. Now, why would Stephen bring that up? Why would he bring up the idolatry of the forefathers of the

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Sanhedrin to whom he's speaking? Verse 48, however, the

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Most High does not dwell in temples made with hands.

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He does not dwell in temples made with hands. Heaven is my throne and earth is my footstool.

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What house will you build for me, says the Lord? Or what is the place of my rest? Has not my hand made all these things?

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They were very proud of the temple. Do you remember what they said to Jesus when he said, destroy this temple, and in three days

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I will raise it up? They said, it's taken us 46 years to build this temple.

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It took us 46 years to build this. They were proud of the work of their hands.

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And what was the work of their hands? It was just some stone covered over with gold.

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When Stephen describes what they did, their ancestors, in verse 41, he said, and they made a calf in those days, offered sacrifices to the idol, and rejoiced in the work of their own hands.

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What was this wicked and perverse generation doing in the days of Jesus? What was this wicked and perverse generation doing even now?

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They were offering sacrifices to their idol called the temple, and they were rejoicing and very proud of the work of their own hands.

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So Stephen is saying, he spoke just as Jesus did against the temple. And he said, you're blaspheming

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God. And he says, no, actually, you're idolatrous. You think God is inside this gold covered box.

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I'm not the one who blasphemed God. You're the one who blasphemed God. Just so you know, Stephen is playing the man.

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So he's not trying to squirm out from under the accusations. He's not trying to find some way to appease the people who are accusing him of terrible things, so that they'll think well of him.

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He's not trying to get off the hook. He's playing the man. He's putting them on the hook.

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They think they have him on trial. He's putting them on trial and putting them before the face of the risen

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Lord Jesus Christ. What did

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Jesus say about the temple? Is Stephen off base here, accusing them of idolatry?

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Matthew 23, Jesus is in the middle of saying his many woes against the religious leaders of his day.

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He says, woe to you blind guys. Verse 16, woe to you blind guides.

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There's a cartoon all in itself. Woe to you blind guides who say, whoever swears by the temple, watch this, it is nothing.

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Meaning, I swear by the temple, I will pay you next week. They say, oh, well, you can break that oath and it doesn't mean anything.

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Because you just swore by the temple, that's nothing. But, whoever swears by the gold of the temple, he's obliged to perform it.

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Well, well, well, well. What did the scribes and Pharisees find so impressive about the temple?

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The God of the temple or the gold of the temple? Fools and blind,

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Jesus says, for which is greater, the gold or the temple that sanctifies the gold? Why are you going up to the temple?

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Probably to worship the temple. Not to worship God at the temple.

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Same problem happened in Jeremiah. Jeremiah chapter 7. Jeremiah was not a well -received prophet either.

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And very often, he was surrounded by his opponents. Listen to this.

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The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord saying, verse 2, Jeremiah 7. Stand in the gate of the

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Lord's house and proclaim there this word and say, Hear the word of the Lord, all you Judah who enter in at these gates to worship the

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Lord. Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel. Amend your ways and your doings, and I will cause you to dwell in this place.

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Do not trust in these lying words. Listen to this. These lying words saying, The temple of the

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Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord are these. Wow. That's their chant.

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Chant it long enough, you'll believe it. For if you thoroughly amend your ways and your doings, if you thoroughly execute judgment between a man and his neighbor, if you do not oppress the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place, or walk after other gods to your hurt, then

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I will cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers forever and ever.

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Well, the current Sanhedrin were experts at throwing out the stranger, not caring for the fatherless, and, as Jesus says, devouring widows' houses.

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Also, upon them, all the blood of all of the prophets from Abel to Zechariah came upon them, and they were guilty of that innocent blood.

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So, no, they're not going to get to dwell in that place forever and ever.

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Verse 8, Behold, you trust in lying words that cannot profit. Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, burn incense to Baal, and walk after other gods to whom you do not know, and then come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say,

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We are delivered to do all these abominations. The equivalent today is like,

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Well, I'm going to live like hell for the week, and then I'm going to come and have one little moment of heaven and feel better about myself.

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That's called pagan superstition. The Lord says this.

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Now, listen, listen. This is the Lord speaking of the temple. Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of thieves in your eyes?

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Behold, I, even I, have seen it, says the Lord. What did Jesus say when he made the whip and he was going through the temple and overturning the money -changing tables and setting the doves and the oxen and the goats and the sheep go flying all throughout the temple courtyard, and he's tearing everything up?

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What did he say? You have made this house a den of thieves. That's what he said about it.

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So, what is he doing? He's quoting Jeremiah. What's the problem in Jeremiah's day? They were worshiping the temple.

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Not at the temple. They were worshiping the temple. That was

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Jesus' point of view about the sins of his wicked and perverse generation. This is what

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Stephen himself is repeating in his sermon, in his defense of the faith.

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So, who blasphemed God? Was it Stephen, who was honoring the Lord, saying he's not stored up in a gold -covered box, but he's greater than the temple?

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And Jesus himself said that there's a big change coming, where you're not going to worship on this mountain or on that mountain, but you're going to worship

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God in spirit and in truth? Well, that sounded like blasphemy to his opponents, but, in fact, they are the ones who are blaspheming.

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So, the charges against Christ, the charges, therefore, against Stephen, was that he blasphemed God, but, actually, they are the blasphemers, not him.

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The second charge that we need to look at is that he was blaspheming Moses.

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Blaspheming Moses. How did those charges come about? We've already seen these verses.

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Verse 11 of chapter 6, we have heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses, meaning he's a false teacher.

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He's speaking against Moses. Verse 13, this man does not cease to speak blasphemous words against his holy place and the law.

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And the law. In what way? Verse 14, for we have heard him say that this

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Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and, watch this, change the customs which

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Moses delivered to us. So, they're saying, you are anti -biblical.

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You're against the scriptures. You're a false teacher. You're speaking against Moses by what you say about Jesus Christ.

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Well, how did Stephen respond to that? He didn't just let that go.

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He responded to it. And so, in verse 17, he begins transitioning from the story he tells about Joseph to the reality of Moses, talking about Moses growing up in Pharaoh's household, and then he comes to a part of the story in Exodus about Moses that we normally don't spend a long time looking at.

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It's not really the focus of Moses in our stories, but Stephen finds it very significant.

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Verse 23 of Acts 7, Now when he was forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brethren, the children of Israel.

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And seeing one of them suffer wrong, he defended and avenged him who was oppressed and struck down the

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Egyptian. For he supposed that his brethren would have understood that God would deliver them by his hand, but they did not understand.

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And the next day he appeared to two of them as they were fighting and tried to reconcile them, saying, Men, you are brethren.

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Why do you wrong one another? But he who did his neighbor wrong pushed him away, saying, Who made you a ruler and a judge over us?

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Moses got rejected. Moses understood that he was a deliverer for Israel, that he was there to deliver

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Israel, but they rejected Moses. God took care of Moses in the wilderness, told him to go back down and rescue the

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Israelites. And then verse 35, notice what Stephen says as he's preaching. He says, This Moses whom they rejected, saying,

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Who made you a ruler and a judge, is the one God sent to be a ruler and a deliverer.

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What's he getting at? He tells you in verse 37, This is that Moses who said to the children of Israel, The Lord your

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God will raise up for you a prophet, capital P, prophet like me from your brethren, him you shall hear.

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In what ways were the Messiah, Jesus Christ, like Moses? Oh, there's more than one way.

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But here's one way. He was sent to be a savior and a deliverer, and then he got rejected by his people.

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That's how. And he's saying, You're saying I'm blaspheming Moses? I am preaching the same

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Christ that Moses preached. Moses, whom your forefathers rejected, proclaimed of Messiah, that's whom

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I'm proclaiming. How am I against Moses? You're the one who's rejecting the one

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Moses proclaimed about. You're the ones who are speaking against Moses. He's blaspheming

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Moses. Surrounded by charges of blasphemy on both sides.

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Charge him both ways. No, I'm not going to hunker down. No, I'm not going to be quiet.

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No, I'm not going to squirm away. I'm going to charge him both ways. Play the man. No, I'm not blaspheming

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God. You are. No, I'm not blaspheming the scriptures. You are. Now, does that square with the teachings of Jesus?

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The ministry of Jesus? Is that how Jesus handled things? Well, consider, first of all, his teaching.

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And how his way of interpreting the scriptures was rejected by the leaders, the scribes, the official religious interpreters.

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In John 5, verse 38, he says to the scribes and Pharisees, he says to the religious

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Jews, he says, you do not have God's word abiding in you because whom he sent him you do not believe.

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You search the scriptures for in them you think you have eternal life and these are they which testify of me.

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Meaning you're searching the scriptures forward and backward thinking you're going to find the secret to eternal life when they are testifying of me and yet you reject me.

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Verse 46, same context. He says, for if you believed Moses, you would believe me for he wrote about me.

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But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words? So who is it who's against Moses?

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Is it Jesus and the apostles and his servant Stephen? Or is it the

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Sanhedrin? It's the Sanhedrin. Now, is it true that Jesus was against Moses?

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I mean, think about his miracles. It's really hard to find a miracle of Jesus that in some way did not absolutely violate the customs, the

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Mosaic customs of his day. He's always touching dead people and diseased people, getting way too close to them.

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And why does he keep healing on the Sabbath? Doesn't he know that's work?

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Violating the Sabbath? And what business does he have of just out and out forgiving somebody's sin?

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And this whole business about the wine at Cana? You know, the wedding?

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What were those big jars full of water that he turned into wine?

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Those were the ceremonial washing jars where people had to wash their hands so many different times in so many different ways in order to follow the customs of Moses.

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And what did Jesus do? He deprived them of the ceremonial washing waters and turned it all to wine.

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So it's kind of hard to find a miracle of Jesus that doesn't directly challenge the customs of Moses.

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But what did he say about it? What did he say about it? Matthew 5, verses 17 -20.

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Do not think that I came to destroy the law or the prophets.

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In other words, he didn't come to unhitch us from the Old Testament. Notice how fast it took

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Andy Stanley after trying to unhitch everybody from the Old Testament, how fast he unhitched himself and everything else from the whole

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Bible. I think it took him about a year and a half. Jesus says,

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Do not think that I came to destroy the law or the prophets. I did not come to destroy, but to fulfill.

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To fulfill. For surely I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle, meaning the smallest letter of the

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Hebrew alphabet, the yod, or one tittle, the smallest stroke in the

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Hebrew language, the little serif at the very end, the little squiggly mark. Now, one jot or one tittle will by any means pass from the law till all is fulfilled.

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He said, I didn't come to destroy the law and the prophets, but to fulfill. So, verse 19,

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Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches men to do so, he shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven.

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But whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I say to you, that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.

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See what he's saying? I've come to fulfill the law and the prophets, not do away with them.

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And they all need to be taught, they all need to be demonstrated how we are to follow them through Christ who fulfills them.

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And this is the only way that we have any righteousness is in Christ that exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and the

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Pharisees who are trying to do everything to keep the law down to tithing their mint and their cumin and their dill.

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And Jesus said, they're not getting into the kingdom of heaven and you're not either unless your righteousness surpasses them.

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I'm here as the fulfillment of the law. Romans 10 forces, the end of the law unto righteousness for all who are in him by faith.

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So Jesus was not saying I'm here to destroy the law.

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Stephen was not saying we're here to get rid of Moses. Christ was saying there is no compatibility with old and new.

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There's no compatibility. The new wine cannot go into old wineskins and the new patch of garment cannot cover the hole on the old garment.

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It doesn't work. The wineskins burst and the old garment tears. It's not compatible.

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He's here not to make things compatible between old and new. He's here to consummate everything that was said in the old covenant to fulfill.

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Now that sounded terrible to the audience to whom Stephen spoke.

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He thought that was terrible because there was a veil over their eyes when Moses was read.

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But Stephen is looking at the Scriptures with unveiled face and his face is all aglow as we read in verse 15 of chapter 6.

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All who sat in the council looking steadfastly at him saw his face as the face of an angel. He's looking at Christ in the

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Scriptures with unveiled face and he's proclaiming Jesus. Well, the implicit argument against Stephen is that he's an enemy of the people.

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He's against the people of Israel. He's against their society. He's destabilizing things. He's bad for us.

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Why else would he be arrested and on trial? He's considered a threat to their political stability, to their cultural significance, to their spiritual condition.

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So they put him on trial. What does he have to say about that?

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Well, what's the problem? He's on trial because of Christ. Christ has come and he was a disruption to everything of the status quo.

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He came and he proclaimed that something greater than the temple is here. Someone greater than Jonah is here.

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Someone greater than Solomon is here. He came in saying, I'm the Lord of the Sabbath. He came in and he was turning everything up on its head and they were very unsettled.

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And the way that Stephen spoke of Christ and the way that the apostles spoke of Christ and the way that Jesus portrayed who he was in his earthly ministry, with that kind of glory and that kind of brightness, it kind of makes all of Israel look rather dull.

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How dare you dull the gleam of our golden temple? How dare you take the shine off of our most educated men on the

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Sanhedrin? Well, Stephen tells a little story. Verse 9 of Acts 7.

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And the patriarchs becoming envious. Hmm.

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And the patriarchs becoming envious sold Joseph into Egypt. Now, why did Joseph's brothers sell him to Egypt?

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Because of all of the favor and delight that their father showed to his chosen son,

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Joseph. They couldn't stand that. Jacob made it very clear who his favorite son was.

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He gave him the coat of many colors. He showed all kinds of favor on him. He put Joseph in charge of his brothers to hold them accountable.

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And what did they do? They betrayed him. They betrayed him. Now, was

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Joseph bad for his brothers? Was he bad for the condition of Israel and his many children?

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No. Because, in fact, the promise that God made to Abram in you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed, has a real clear example of that promise in Joseph's life.

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When he was brought low, but then God brought him back up high, put him at the right hand of the king of Pharaoh, so that when there was a famine, bread would be provided for all the families of the earth, including

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Jacob's family. So, was Joseph bad for his brothers? No, he was who they needed.

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Is Jesus bad? Is he and his people bad for Israel?

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No, it's exactly who they needed. It's who the world needs. It's Christ. So you see how

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Stephen answers that implicit charge as well. So that's the big picture of the sermon that Stephen preaches.

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Why does it take him 50 verses to preach a sermon like this? Well, it's because he's starting in Genesis 12 and going all the way through Acts 1 before Acts was written.

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He's going from the call of Abram to the resurrection and ascension of Jesus and showing how it all fits together in the glory of God's Son.

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That's his defense against the charges that are brought against him. That's the defense.

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That's how he plays the man. He plays the man. Christian courage.

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In other words, courage that is modeled on the man. Christ Jesus.

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That's what Stephen's doing. He was surrounded and so he met each expedient lie with everlasting truth.

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He charged him both ways. Have you noticed all the accusations against Christians today in our pagan culture?

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Our dear brothers and sisters in Canada face fines and jail time and loss of church property, loss of freedoms, so on and so forth.

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Why? Because they do not represent quote, Canadian values.

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You know what the newest trend in the legal system is?

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Blasphemy laws. Yeah, blasphemy laws. If you speak against sexual abominations, you could be fined and thrown in prison, lose your job.

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If you speak against the murder of infants inside their mother's womb or outside their mother's womb, you could be fined and lose your job.

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Blasphemy laws are the new trend. It's hard for us.

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Sometimes we read this bad. Oh, yes, of course. Of course Stephen is going through the Bible and preaching about Messiah.

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His opponents are Jews. But today we're dealing with something different.

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No, we're not. When we look at the culture of death around us, never more has

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Paul's statement in Acts 17 to the

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Athenians been more apt than our day. Look around at your neighbors.

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Look around at the world today and say, I perceive you're very religious. They have holiness codes.

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They have blasphemy laws. If you speak against what they believe in, look out.

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You just thought that Muslim radicals were zealous. They are all very religious.

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So what's the answer? Preach Christ. What are we accused of?

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We're bad for humanity. Let me introduce you to Christ. What are we accused of?

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You're full of hate. Let me introduce you to Christ. What are we accused of? You want to take away people's liberty.

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Let me introduce you to Christ. You see, the person and work of Jesus Christ is our apologetic, is our defense, is our polemic, is our answer.

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This is not a time to go silent. This is not a time to go soft. This is not a time where we're losing, by the way, the people in this church at this time,

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Stephen included, they were winning. That's why he's surrounded by charges of blasphemy on every side.

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Because he was winning. They were winning the spiritual war in Jerusalem.

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He was winning the argument. That's why there's blasphemy charges against him. It isn't because they were losing.

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It's because they were winning. And it's not a time to switch up your strategy when you're winning and start something else.

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What we have to proclaim is the person and work of Jesus Christ. He is the answer to every single charge of blasphemy against us.

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We are charged with blasphemy all the time because we do not agree with the culture of death.

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We do not agree with the killing of infants. And we do not agree with the killing of depressed people. And we do not agree with the killing of disabled people.

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We do not agree with the killing of elderly people. We do not agree with the castration and the mutilation of little children.

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We do not agree with abominations. We do not agree with the culture of death. And we speak out against it because we are followers of Jesus Christ who is the resurrection and the life.

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And He is our Creator. All of these people who are pointing the finger at us, they don't know what sexuality is because they don't know

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Jesus. And they don't know what life is because they don't know Jesus. They don't know what freedom is because they don't know Jesus. He's our apologetic.

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He's our defense. That's who we've got to talk about. There's never ever been any other approach that has been given to us in the

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Word of God than that. In 2 Corinthians chapter 4, we'll close with this.

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2 Corinthians chapter 4. We're just not going to lose.

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Verse 6. For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness who was shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

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The God who said, let there be light is the one who changes us and changes our world and changes the lives of sinners.

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Verse 7. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us.

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We are hard pressed on every side. We are surrounded yet not crushed.

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We are perplexed but not in despair. Persecuted but not forsaken. Struck down but not destroyed. Always carrying about in the body the dying of the

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Lord Jesus. That the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body.

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For we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus' sake. That the life of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh.

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At the end of the sermon, Stephen dies. But it wasn't a defeat.

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Christ wins the victory. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for this time that you've given to us. Lord, I thank you for the reminders in your word of how to be courageous.

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And what it means. That every charge that is thrown against us because of who

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Christ is is our opportunity to answer. And that our opportunity to answer is an opportunity to show how good and glorious our

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Savior and our King really is. I pray that you would help us,

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Lord, to have courage. That you would, by your Spirit, grant to us this courage. That this fruit of your