The glory of the Lord is always resisted by the organized systems of men.
Religious man, determined to obtain the essence of life by his
accomplishments, continually stands in opposition to the life of God, which
is freely given. The failure to understand this mystery of life always
drives man to attempt to save his life by his own actions. Thinking that he
can control the destiny of his life from within himself, man continually
rejects the opportunity to experience the life of faith, the life of glory.
The determinism of God that directs the course of events that produces the
glory of God in man can be seen in Stephen. Standing with the glory of God,
the manifestation of Jesus in his life, radiating from his face, he tells
the story how God brought life, the glory of God, to Israel. Stephen,
demonstrating by his own life the manifest presence of the glory of God, was
a living testimony that the Life of God had come into the world.
It was a testimony that would bring about his death. It would cost him his
earthly existence, as it did with Jesus, because the manifest presence of
the glory of God exposes the gross failure of man's religious attempts to
produce life. Once exposed, religious man must repent or defy the exposure.
Refusing to confess the error of his way, religious man will ostracize the
exposé. In the case of Stephen, as with Jesus, this scorn killed him.
Stephen was brought before the council of Israel and asked to defend his
statements concerning the coming of Jesus Christ. He began by stating that
"The God of glory appeared unto . . . Abraham" (Acts of the
Apostles 7:2). Stephen continued to tell how Abraham was told to leave his
country and go into a land that God would show him. Although Abraham would
not be given the land as an inheritance, his seed would inherit the land.
The seed of Abraham, although he had none at the time, would eventually come
into this promised land.
They would not inherit the land, however, until they had spent some time in
Egypt to which they would come into bondage. After four hundred years, God
would deliver them and bring them into the land promised unto Abraham. A
promise that God sealed with the rite of circumcision.
Thus, the promise to Abraham began to unfold. Abraham begat Isaac, in turn,
Isaac begat Jacob. With Jacob's name eventually being changed to Israel, he
begat the twelve patriarchs of what would become the nation of Israel. God
was working out His will through the life of Abraham and his descendants.
The Children of Israel would dwell in the land promised to Abraham.
The means of how God was going to bring about His promise is quite puzzling.
The outworking of the will of God in His creation is rarely ever understood
by man. It is difficult for man to comprehend the use of evil in the plan of
God. Since all things are "of him, and through him, and to him"
(Romans 11:36), in some way evil deeds fit into the all things that are of
him, through him, and to him.
Suffice it to say, in this study of the Acts of the Apostles, evil deeds are
not the essence of themselves. Evil deeds are never done for the sake of
evil. In other words, evil deeds are the product of something else.
When man moves into his own perception (the fruit of the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil), evil must be done by man because God has
decreed it ("I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and
create evil: I the LORD do all these things" [Isaiah 45:7]). Just as
darkness occurs at the mere absence of light, evil occurs at the mere
absence of peace. When man turns away from God as his source of life, there
is nothing else that can happen but man doing evil.
Moreover, the evil experienced by man is always used by God to bring about
the ultimate will of God. Such was the case of the Children of Israel
getting into Egypt. Eleven of the twelve children of Jacob, full of envy,
turned upon their youngest brother and sold him into Egypt as a slave.
However, the evil deed of his brothers would eventually turn to be a
blessing for Joseph and eventually the Children of Israel.
God delivered Joseph from his slavery. The determinism of God caused him to
receive favor and wisdom in the sight of the king of Egypt. Joseph soon
became a governor of the land. God was moving him into position in order
that the descendants of Abraham would fulfill their destiny.
A severe drought swept throughout Egypt and Canaan. Great affliction came
upon the people. When Jacob heard that there was corn in Egypt, he sent his
eleven sons into Egypt to get relief. They found themselves at the feet of
Joseph not knowing that he was their younger brother. Joseph, having made
himself known unto them on their second visit, sent them back to their
father to bring his entire family to Egypt. So Jacob came into Egypt to live
the remaining days of his life.
The Children of Israel as a people grew in number and prestige in Egypt
reaping the benefits of Joseph and his influence. There would come a time,
however, that the Children of Israel would lose their position of
prominence. When a king of Egypt rose that knew not Joseph, the Children of
Israel began to be viewed as a threat to the safety of Egypt. God would
again used the evil deeds of men to bring about His promise to Abraham.
As Stephen said, "But when the time of the promise drew nigh, which God
had sworn to Abraham, the people grew and multiplied in Egypt, Till another
king arose, which knew not Joseph. The same dealt subtilly with our kindred,
and evil entreated our fathers, so that they cast out their young children,
to the end they might not live" (Acts of the Apostles 7:17-19).
Stephen's story now turns to the second great figure in the history of the
Children of Israel, Moses. Because the number of the descendants of Israel
was multiplying rapidly, the new Pharaoh that knew not Joseph decreed that
all male children of Israel must be killed. Moses, who was exceeding fair
and nourished in his family of origin for three months, however, found
himself under the providential hand of God in the care of Pharaoh's
daughter.
Moses grew under the guidance of his new guardian until he became
"mighty in words and in deeds" having "learned all the wisdom
of the Egyptians." At the age of forty, perhaps desiring to return to
his roots, Moses visited his people of origin. He at once saw the injustice
being done upon the Children of Israel. Taking matters into his own hands,
he killed one of the Egyptian who was abusing an Israelites.
Thinking that his brethren would understand that the hand of God was upon
him to deliver them, he set out to bring immediately relief to his people.
However, when he attempted to settle a disputed between the Israelites
themselves, he found that they did not understand his mission. They simply
replied, "Who made thee a ruler and a judge over us? Wilt thou kill me,
as thou diddest the Egyptian yesterday?" (Acts of the Apostles
7:27,28).
Moses found out what Stephan was about to find out. The people cannot be set
free from their bondage until they have been made willing to be. Moses fled
into the land of Midian and it would not be until forty years later that the
Children of Israel were ready to be delivered. In Stephan's day, some of the
people who later killed Stephan would go to their grave still in their
bondage.
Finally, after much more tribulation the people of Israel began to cry out
to God for their deliverance. God called Moses for the task through the
visitation of an "angel of the Lord in a flame of fire in a bush."
As Moses drew near to the bush, the voice of the Lord came to him,
"Saying I am the God of thy fathers, the God of Abraham, and the God of
Isaac, and the God of Jacob." In the midst of Moses' fear and
trembling, God continued, "I have seen, I have seen the affliction of
my people which is in Egypt, and I have heard their groaning, and am come
down to deliver them. And now come, I will send thee into Egypt" (Acts
of the Apostles 7:30-34).
God sent Moses to the Children of Israel that they might be delivered from
their bondage and be brought into the promised land. If the story ended at
this point, it might sound like a happy ending. However, Stephan then began
to list a long series of the people resisting the God who had delivered
them.
First, Stephen set the tone of their rebellion by stating that this
"Moses whom they refused, saying, Who made thee a ruler and a judge?
the same did God send to be a ruler and a deliverer . . . ." It was
through Moses that God showed many signs and wonders in Egypt, crossing the
Red Sea, and in the forty years of the wilderness journey. The same Moses
which said, "A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of
your brethren, like unto me; him shall ye hear." It was Moses "who
received the lively oracles . . . ." It was also Moses "whom our
fathers would not obey, but thrust him from them, and in their hearts turned
back again into Egypt" (Acts of the Apostles 7:35-39).
It was not long after God had delivered them from the bondage of Egypt that
the Children of Israel would again fine themselves in bondage. It was not a
bondage of an another pagan King, yet. For now, they had returned to the
real problem of all bondage. They did as Stephan would later say about his
day, "Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always
resist" the Spirit of God.
In addition, the people who were delivered out of Egypt to inherit the
promised land given to Abraham would find themselves once again in bondage
to a foreign king. The descendants of the people who ask Aaron to make them
a golden calf and offered sacrifices unto it in the days of Moses would also
take "the tabernacle of Moloch, and the star of your god Remphan,
figures which ye make to worship them." Because of this idolatry, the
Children of Israel would find themselves carried away into the captivity of
Babylon.
Stephan continued with the rebellion of the people by stating that God had
given Moses "a tabernacle of witness" in the wilderness. It was a
tabernacle that would stay with the Children of Israel until the time of
David who desired to build a house or a temple for God. It would not be
David who would build it, however. It would be Solomon. Stephan then added,
"Howbeit the most High dwelleth not in temples made with hands; as
saith the prophet, Heaven is my throne, and earth is my footstool: what
house will ye build me? saith the Lord: or what is the place of my rest?
Hath not my hand made all these things?" (Acts of the Apostles
7:44-50).
As recalling all the rebellion of the people to whom God had sent
deliverance, Stephan boldly cried, "which of the prophets have not your
fathers persecuted?" The same prophets that have proclaimed the coming
of the Just One. The One "of whom ye have been now betrayers and
murderers." "Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears,
ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye"
(Acts of the Apostles 7:51-53).
With his face shining as an angel and the power of his words ringing in
their ears, the people of Israel who were there that day were "cut to
the heart." As their fathers had done, they too lashed out at the
prophet. They "gnashed on him with their teeth."
In the midst of their hateful accusations and threats, however, Stephan
"being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up stedfastly into heaven, and
saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God." In
this time of painful rejection and denial from the people, Stephan cried,
"Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the
right hand of God" (Acts of the Apostles 7:54-56).
It was more than they could take. Probably, cupping their hands over their
ears and crying out in rage and hate, they charged Stephan to bodily cast
him out of the city to stone him to death. Even as the stones where being
hurled to end his physical life, Stephan cried out with a loud voice,
"Lord, lay not this sin to their charge." Calling upon the Lord,
Stephan prayed, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit . . . and . . . he fell
asleep" (Acts of the Apostles 7:57-60).
The man whose face shone as the face of an angel was no more. The powerful
voice of a prophet of God proclaiming the coming of the Son of God into the
world was forever silenced. The religious system of man had once again
attempted to end that which was exposing the corruption of
self-righteousness.
The stilling of the voice of Stephan, however, could not stop what God was
doing. For those who stoned Stephan lay down their clothes at the feet of a
young man whose name was Saul. God would take this young man and make him
into one of the greatest spokesman for God in recorded history.
The physical life of Stephan was over but the message he preached would
never end. The sad tale of the rejection of Stephan introduced to the world
the soon to be joyful encounter of the one who became known as Paul, the
Apostle.
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