Acts 6:15-8:1
When I was in the sixth grade, about 11 years old, I was standing in line to go into Mrs. Greenleaf’s class. A third grade student came to give a message to her and as he passed us I told him, “Be careful, she’s in a bad mood this morning.”
I meant it as a joke, but I think I must have been on target because after the student talked with Mrs. Greenleaf, she came storming out and demanded to know who had said that she was not in a good mood.
We went into the class and she called me up front and asked me again what I said. In my defense, I told her that Tom, my best friend, had said it too. So she called Tom up and paddled us both.
I have long regretted my weakness in naming my friend Tom. I wish I had been stronger. I wish I had told her, “With all due respect, this seems to be a bit of overreaction. Paddle me if you must, but it would seem that what I said is true.” If we could only go back…
But I had only one concern, to defend myself, to somehow not get punished.
That is our instinct. We seek to protect ourselves. If we are accused of a crime, even if we are guilty, we hire lawyers who can work to get the charges against us dropped so we can go free. When there is an accident, the first instinct is to run away so we are not held responsible.
This makes Stephen’s actions in his trial all the more admirable. The way Stephen conducted himself in this trial that led to his death reveals him to be one of the great believers of history.
I talked last week about how Stephen was prepared to die before he came to the trial and this is what allowed him to have a face like an angel in the presence of the hostility of the Sanhedrin. This week we will take a closer look at his defense and learn lessons from that.
And next week, in the last of the sermons from Acts this year, we will look at the trial from the perspective of Saul, later known as Paul.
We start with Stephen standing in front of the Sanhedrin with a face like that of an angel. He was calm and at peace. He was prepared to die and be with Jesus. He was not afraid.
It is likely that the high priest at the time was Caiaphas, the same high priest who had overseen the trial of Jesus three to five years earlier.
The trial of Jesus was a distant memory, but over the years, there had been reminders of that trial. John and Peter had been brought before the Sanhedrin and then some time later, all twelve of the apostles had been brought before the Sanhedrin.
These had all been Hebraic Jews who spoke Aramaic. Now this was a Greek-speaking Jew who was being brought before him. This heresy was spreading and that was not good news.
It helps to understand the strategy of Caiaphas. The temple in Jerusalem was a point of national pride. It was a bit like the black stone in Mecca to which Muslims go each year for the Haj. To speak against the temple was to speak against the heart of Israel. When the prophet Jeremiah prophesied that Jerusalem would be captured by the Babylonians and that the temple would not protect them, he was viewed as a national traitor and thrown into prison.
If Caiaphas could get these followers of Jesus to speak against the sanctity of the temple, then he might turn the people who were now supporting the followers of Christ against them.
Caiaphas had tried to get Jesus to speak negatively about the temple but Jesus had remained silent, not willing to answer the accusations brought against him. Now he had another chance with Stephen.
False accusations had been used in the trial against Jesus.
Mark 14:57
Then some stood up and gave this false testimony against him: 58 “We heard him say, ‘I will destroy this man-made temple and in three days will build another, not made by man.’”
These charges were based on Jesus’ response to the Jews when they asked him by what authority he cleansed the temple of the money changers.
John 2:18
19 Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.”
Now the same false accusations were leveled against Stephen who had been teaching the resurrection of Jesus and using these words.
“Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.”
Stephen was accused of two things: blasphemy against Moses and against the temple
This fellow never stops speaking against this holy place and against the law. 14 For we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and change the customs Moses handed down to us.”
And then came time for Stephen to make his defense.
Then the high priest asked him, “Are these charges true?”
This speech of Stephen is the longest of all the speeches in Acts. It is important to remember that there were no tape recorders and no stenographers to record exactly what was said. So the speeches in Acts are just summaries of what was said. Even this speech, the longest in the book of Acts, takes just six minutes to deliver. Certainly Peter spoke longer than this at his first sermon at Pentecost and Stephen spoke longer than this in front of the Sanhedrin.
When Luke wrote his gospel of Jesus and the history of the early church, he interviewed people who were eyewitnesses to the events and then wrote his two books. When we read a speech, we are reading what Luke wrote from the memory of someone who had heard it.
Who was the eyewitness to this speech of Stephen? Not Stephen who was killed just after giving the speech. Who? The most likely candidate is Paul. Paul, then called Saul, was an eyewitness to the defense of Stephen and Luke traveled extensively with Paul. So there were many opportunities for Luke to listen as Paul recounted his experiences.
In this speech, the defense offered by Stephen has two theses.
1. Throughout its history, Israel had rejected the prophets and now they rejected the Messiah
2. The God of Israel is a pilgrim God, who is not restricted to any one place.
You will see how directly these two theses attacked the authority of the Sanhedrin.
To illustrate these two points, Stephen recounted the history of Israel, focusing on Abraham, Joseph and Moses.
Joseph was rejected by his brothers, the patriarchs of the twelve tribes of Israel, when they sold him into slavery.
Moses was rejected by his fellow Israelites when he killed an Egyptian who was mistreating two Israelite slaves and he was further rejected when they chose to worship a golden calf rather than wait for him to come down from the mountain. There was continual rejection by Israel of the leadership of Moses in the wilderness.
This pattern of rejection was continued with the prophets who followed. One of the parables of Jesus addressed this. A landowner planted a vineyard, rented it to some farmers and then went away on a journey. When harvest time came, he sent servants to collect his fruit. The farmers beat one servant, killed the second and stoned the third. The landowner sent more servants but they were treated the same. Finally he sent his son and they killed him as well.
Matthew 21
40 “Therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?”
41 “He will bring those wretches to a wretched end,” they replied, “and he will rent the vineyard to other tenants, who will give him his share of the crop at harvest time.”
42 Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures:
”‘The stone the builders rejected
has become the capstone;
the Lord has done this,
and it is marvelous in our eyes’?
43 “Therefore I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit. 44 He who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, but he on whom it falls will be crushed.”
45 When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard Jesus’ parables, they knew he was talking about them. 46 They looked for a way to arrest him, but they were afraid of the crowd because the people held that he was a prophet.
This teaching of Jesus caused offense when he first taught this parable and it continued to cause offense when Stephen taught this parable. The Pharisees and Sadducees had good reason to be offended because this was a direct attack on their leadership of Israel. Their forefathers had rejected the messengers of God and now they were continuing that pattern by rejecting the son who had come.
The second thesis in Stephen’s speech was that the God of Israel is a pilgrim God, who is not restricted to any one place.
God spoke to Abraham, Joseph and Moses but where did he speak to them? God spoke to Abraham in Mesopotamia, modern day Iraq and Iran, before he left for Canaan. God spoke to Joseph in Egypt. God spoke to Moses in Egypt. In fact Moses never entered into the Promised Land and yet who spoke to Moses as God spoke to Moses?
Exodus 33
Whenever the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the entrance to the tent, they all stood and worshiped, each at the entrance to his tent. 11 The LORD would speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks with his friend.
God spoke to these three great men in the history of Israel yet he did not need to have a temple to do so.
When there was no temple, God spoke to the ancestors of Israel. Who did they think God was that he could be contained in one spot, that he could be spoken to only in the temple in Jerusalem?
In fact, at least in part, this was a matter of control they were fighting for. If God could be spoken to only in the temple in Jerusalem and they were the priests in charge of the temple, then all the worshipers of God from anywhere in the world had to come through them. That, in worldly terms, is reason enough to fight.
the Most High does not live in houses made by men. As the prophet Isaiah says:
49 ”‘Heaven is my throne,
and the earth is my footstool.
What kind of house will you build for me?
says the Lord.
Or where will my resting place be?
50 Has not my hand made all these things?’
With solid, Biblical illustrations, Stephen made his defense to the Sanhedrin that God was not restricted to the temple and that the pattern of rejection of the messengers of God was long standing.
It does not seem that Stephen had the opportunity to finish what he had to say. He made his two points and then like all good preachers, he came with an application of his message. This was a direct, full-frontal, accusatory application.
51 “You stiff-necked people, with uncircumcised hearts and ears! You are just like your fathers: You always resist the Holy Spirit! 52 Was there ever a prophet your fathers did not persecute? They even killed those who predicted the coming of the Righteous One. And now you have betrayed and murdered him— 53 you who have received the law that was put into effect through angels but have not obeyed it.”
If Stephen had more to say, he never had the chance.
When they heard this, they were furious and gnashed their teeth at him.
I hope you see why they were so furious. I hope you can sympathize a bit with them. This Greek-speaking Jew was directly challenging their authority. He was telling them that they had killed God’s Messiah for whom Israel for centuries had been waiting. He was telling them that they had now been pushed aside by God and no longer were the leaders of his people. They had good reason to be furious.
And then it got even worse. In the midst of their anger, Stephen received from God a vision of heaven.
But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. 56 “Look,” he said, “I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.”
Is there anything Stephen could have said that would have made his situation worse? I don’t think so.
When he declared to them what he was seeing, he put an exclamation point at the end of his accusation. If Jesus, the man they had killed, was now standing at the right hand of God, then Jesus was in the position of all power. If this was true, then they had killed the one who had all power over them and they had killed the one who now had all authority over Israel.
Stephen, in declaring his vision, cut off completely their position as spiritual leaders of God’s people. Stephen, in effect, told them they were fired and out of a job.
At this they covered their ears and, yelling at the top of their voices, they all rushed at him, 58 dragged him out of the city and began to stone him. Meanwhile, the witnesses laid their clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul.
59 While they were stoning him, Stephen prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” 60 Then he fell on his knees and cried out, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” When he had said this, he fell asleep.
As Stephen made application of his message to the Sanhedrin, let me also make application of what I have said thus far. Hopefully you will not want to stone me at the end.
The first application is that we learn from Stephen’s death that even though we do not see the fruit we have longed for and worked for all our lives, we trust God to bring fruit after our work is over, even that God will bring fruit from our death.
Most of us have a difficult time seeing past our own lives. How we feel about the world and Christian faith is determined by how we personally are doing and how the ministry in which we are involved is doing.
We need to know that we are only a small part of a larger picture. A general in a battle sees the whole picture and sends troops to this area or that. The troops who are sent may not understand the importance of what they are doing and it may seem a waste to do what they are doing. But in the larger picture, their actions make possible the advances the general is working for.
If we are knocked out of the picture, the battle is not lost. God is still in control and knows what he is doing.
I was talking with a friend after Deon Malan was kicked out of this country. He was thinking of coming and wondered if it would still be good for him to come. I told him that what mattered is whether or not God was calling him to come. It was his obedience that mattered. If God called him to come and he was here just for two or three months and then was told to leave, it would not be a waste for the kingdom of God if it was God who had sent him.
We may not know why we are called to go to this place or that, but we are still responsible to obey God when he calls, trusting that he will use us to build his kingdom.
Did Stephen know what would happen after he died? No, but look what happened. Saul of Tarsus stood there as a witness to his execution. Saul of Tarsus heard the teaching of Stephen. Saul heard the defense Stephen offered. Saul remembered this teaching and defense and God undoubtedly used this to influence Saul so when God appeared to him in the noonday sun on the road to Damascus, Saul had God’s words ready to work in his life.
Stephen died and Paul arose from his dead bones and took the Gospel to the Gentile world.
Albert McMakin is not a name known to most people. He had a friend he invited to come hear an evangelist who had come to town. In heaven we will hear more about Albert McMakin but on earth we all know the name of the person he invited to come hear Dr. Mordecai Fowler Ham preach. Albert coaxed his friend into coming and offered him the incentive of letting his friend drive his pickup truck and that is how Billy Graham came to hear the evangelist and give his life to Christ. Dr. Ham and Albert McMakin are not well known names, but they played the part they were asked to play and that is what counts.
As things go, I am a pretty small potato. I am pastor of a small church in Rabat with a congregation that races through the few years they are here in Morocco. But someday someone sitting in the pews may hear through me a word from God and give his or her life to Christ or become inspired to start some ministry that will change many, many lives.
That person will become well known to the Christian world while my name will quickly fade away. Is that too bad? Of course not!
So do not be discouraged. Play the part you have been given. Work hard at what you have been called to do. But let your hope rest on the whole work of God, not your small part in it.
A second application from this message is that when Stephen made his speech, his speech was not designed to have the charges against him dropped. His speech was designed to defend the work of God in Christ.
Stephen did not try to refute the charges made against him. He did not take the Sanhedrin back to his teaching and show them how words had been taken out of context. He did not try to win their sympathy so they would be lenient with him.
Stephen viewed his arrest and trial as an attack on Jesus and he set out to defend him.
This illustrates one of the themes that has been part of my preaching for the last year or two. Christianity is not about us, it is about Jesus. It is not our honor that needs defending, it is the honor of God that is to be defended.
When Stephen stood before the Sanhedrin, I don’t think he was worried about what the Sanhedrin thought about him. I don’t think he was concerned that after the trial they would sit around and discuss how eloquent he was and what a wonderful man he was.
Stephen understood that it was the message of God, the Gospel, that was on trial and that God’s honor and message needed defending, not himself.
How do we apply this? I have said in marriages in the last couple years, that when you get married, it is important to realize from the beginning that the institution of marriage is more important than the two people in the marriage. God created marriage as the protective relationship for the gift of sex and the bearing of children. Jesus taught about marriage saying,
Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate. (Matthew 19:6)
There are Biblical exceptions to this and when a spouse commits adultery, divorce is permissible, but it is not mandatory. It is still far better to forgive and to try to restore a broken relationship. Why go through this additional pain? Because it is more about God than it is about us. If a wife is being abused, I am not an advocate for her staying in the marriage, but this is, for me, a narrow exception.
If you need an airline ticket back home and someone comes to you and offers you a half-price ticket, why not take it? You know that somehow the ticket is not legitimate. Somehow the airline is being cheated out of the full price for the ticket. So why not take the ticket and save some money? If you are a Christian, you are a child of God and what you do reflects on the character of God. You may need the money or this may be the only way you can afford to fly back home, but God’s honor and character are more important than your need or desire to go back home.
If you are in business and losing money and facing the prospect of losing the business, why not take shortcuts, pay some bribes, do whatever is necessary to make some money? My dad talked about visiting printers who were having a difficult time making money and so finally resorted to printing pornography as a last ditch effort to avoid bankruptcy. Why not do whatever you have to do to keep the business going?
God’s honor and character are more important than the success or failure of your business. I had several opportunities over the years to pay bribes to increase my business and I refused. One customer was amazed because I would make a lot of money in the process if I gave the bribe. But I told the man that there was a price I was not willing to pay to be successful in business and I could not do it.
Why not pay a smuggler 10,000 dirhams to take a leaky rubber raft to the Canary Islands to get to Spain? Why not pay to be smuggled in the trunk of a car or the back of a truck to get into Ceuta or Melilla? It is because the actions of Christians are watched by others and they learn from Christians about the character of God. Is God a god of deceivers and cheaters? Absolutely not! So why do something that dishonors God? God is far more important than your desire and determination to get to Europe.
Why not cheat on exams when everyone else is doing that? Christians are called to a higher standard. We know that even if the teacher or professor does not see us cheat, God will see us cheat. And our classmates will know we cheated. Do we represent God properly when we cheat? Do we bring honor to God when we cheat?
There is nothing more important in this life than to bring honor and glory to God. Whether you are on trial for your life or facing one of life’s temptations, chose to bring honor to God by what you do.
You may not be on trial for your life, but you have many opportunities each day to reflect the life of Christ to the world. Bring honor to his name by the way you live your life.
