Bible Study

We'd like to welcome you all to our biweekly Bible study. We're going through the book of Acts. This week we're going to pick it up in Acts 6. So, certainly like to welcome you all here that are live with us in the room. We've got quite a number of people here, and certainly like to welcome all of those that are watching on the Web or listening as well.

So, we will start our Bible study now. We'd like to ask God's blessing on the Bible study. I'm Steve Myers. This is Randy Stiver. We'll be presenting that Bible study tonight. So, we'll ask Randy to go ahead and ask God's blessing on the study tonight. If you all bow your heads, please. Heavenly Father, we come before You this evening, and we thank You, Father, that You have given us Your Word, this phenomenal history of all that has happened ever, reading right up not only to what has happened but what will happen, the great prophecies of Your Word and Your coming Kingdom.

As we go through the Acts of the Apostles and again study the history of the very beginning days of Your Church, of which we are a part now, we just pray for Your inspiration, Father, that we can glean the lessons and the motivation and the inspiration and the wisdom that comes from the study of Your Word. So, we do pray for Your blessing upon our teaching, upon our learning, Your blessing upon the transmission of the cybercast out to those who are watching that and listening, as well as for all of us here.

We give You the glory, the honor, and praise, pray for Your blessing and guidance upon Your work and Your people everywhere. In Jesus Christ's name, amen. Well, sharing the Bible study tonight, we'll begin in Acts 6. We've kind of divided up the book a little bit. I'm going to start out with the opening section of chapter 6, and then Mr. Stiver is going to take the next section, and we'll kind of go back and forth a little bit. And then if we're inspired by other things that come up, we may interrupt each other every now and then to bring other thoughts to mind. And so, we hope that way it will keep it more interesting for you and certainly be able to touch on lots of different aspects of the book of Acts.

So let's pick it up in Acts 6. We have an interesting section of Scripture here, something that had never happened before. In Acts 6, just because of that, things happened in the book of Acts in a huge way. There are these momentous events that happened as God's church began. And we've already seen some of those in the chapters we've already covered with the beginning of the New Testament church, God pouring out His Holy Spirit. And so when things happen, they often happen in a huge way, in a big way in the book of Acts.

And in Acts 6, it's no different because here's an interesting situation that came up that the apostles had to deal with. So let's get right into it then. Now, in those days it says in verse 1, when the number of the disciples was multiplying, there arose a complaint against the Hebrews by the Hellenists because their widows were neglected in the daily distribution. So right here at the very beginning of the chapter, there's some interesting information. The disciples are multiplying. The church is growing. Probably by this time, we know if we just look back just a little bit, I think it's Acts 4, 4, where it talks about the size of the church by this time.

It says that the number of men came to be about 5,000. So the church was expanding. It was growing. So if you extrapolate that out a little bit, you add women, add children, the church was probably over 10,000 people at this time. This is a big congregation. So there's a lot happening. There's a lot of new things that are going on. How do we take care of people? What about our widows? And as the church is growing, obviously problems have to be dealt with.

Imagine having 10,000 people coming together for services. It would be like a huge feast site almost. Wouldn't that be amazing? And so it's interesting that this particular problem came up about differences between what it says were the Hebrew widows and the Hellenist widows. In other words, those that were more of a local origin, the Hebrew widows would have been those that would have had Jerusalem in that vicinity for their hometown.

The Hellenists would have been Greeks or those that were not from that area. And so those were the ones that were, well, they were kind of considered as outsiders. Have you ever lived in a locale where you just didn't quite fit in because you weren't born and raised there? In some ways, I suppose you could say it was, I'm not from here.

I know many years ago I lived in Colorado for a while. And in Colorado they used to have these bumper stickers. They may still have them. And they used to say, natives. Have you ever seen those? They look like the license plate and they're green and white letters native, which meant they were better than me because I wasn't a native. And in a sense, that's what was going on here.

We have these Hebrew widows and these Hellenist widows and it seems like those that weren't from town were being treated differently. Now you may wonder, well, why in the world would they be expecting some kind of distribution? Why would they be expecting assistance? Well, if you go back to the traditions in Judaism, there were some specific traditions where they would meet the needs of those that were less fortunate, those that had needs. In Judaism they had a custom. There was a fund, I guess you could call it a fund, that was called the kupa or the basket.

And with that particular tradition on Fridays in the morning they would make a collection. They'd collect food, they'd collect money, and by doing that they would be able to help those then and distribute to the ones that were in need in the afternoon. So they'd collect Friday morning and distribute in the afternoon. And they'd collect usually enough that would last them for about 14 days or so. And so they would take care of those that were in need. And so those would be like the widows, those who were in more permanent need, needy situations. Because then they also had another system that they called the tray. And the tray was more for a collection of someone that was in an immediate problem, more pressing need, something was more urgent.

And they would also take care of those. And in order to collect that distribution they would more or less go house to house in order to do it. So you could see from their tradition there was an expectation that those that were needy would be taken care of. And of course as God's people we know that's our duty to take care of.

We're supposed to show love for one another. We've got to be serving and certainly helping those that are less fortunate than ourselves. And so here are these two different widows, or categories of widows I guess you could say. We've got the Hebrews and those Hebrew widows were the ones that spoke Aramaic. So those would be more from the native area. Most of the Hebrews would have not been real thrilled about the Greeks or the Hellenistic culture.

They didn't really want much to do with that. And because of their background, I think it'd probably be fair to say there was a little bit of a Pharisaical influence that because of coming from that background, because I'm native born, there was a tendency to feel a little bit more superior.

And so I think that played into part of it as well. And then of course on the other hand we have these Hellenists or these Grecian Jewish converts, these widows who were now Christian. And yet they were not from the area. They were from the diaspora. They had been scattered after the captivity. They weren't around and they ended up coming back to the area of Jerusalem. So their influence was different. They had more or less tied into the Greek culture, Greek traditions. Their attitude, their outlook was just a different culture.

So I suppose if we were to think of it today, maybe put it in America. I'm a Yankee. I live in Minnesota. There were a number of years that I pastored down in New Orleans. And it's quite a bit different culture. I mean I didn't even know I was a Yankee until I lived in New Orleans. Then in some ways it became very obvious. And so there was just a difference in culture, just a difference in the way that you do certain things. And so that was, you know, I suppose a pretty rough comparison of what it must have been like.

But these widows would have adopted the culture of the Greeks. Even in Jerusalem, it's interesting, if you do a little study in some of the histories, that there were even Hellenistic synagogues in Judaism. So that they were in a sense separated from those that were the hometown folks, in even where they met. And so once converted, you could see how there might have been some of this carryover. And then the ones that were considered to be more of an outsider would have been a little bit more slighted in the distribution that went on.

And so it says that they were neglected. They weren't taken care of the way that they should have been. Now you wonder why there came to be so many of them. Why was there so many of these Hellenistic converts that happened to be widows? Well, if you think about it a little bit, if you were a Jew and then converted, there was a special connection to Jerusalem. That was where the temple was. And where would be a better place to spend your last days, if you're elderly, than to be at Jerusalem?

I mean, that would be the ideal place to be. And so it came to be quite a group of people there that had come to Jerusalem and then became converted. And so that seems to be part of it. And part of the reason why there would have been a problem, because if you came from another area, moved to Jerusalem, maybe you're going to spend your last days there, who's going to take care of you? Where are your relatives? Well, they're all back wherever and they're not there in Jerusalem. And so no wonder there was a little bit of a problem then with who's going to take care of these people.

The ones that were more local would have had family and friends to help them while they're in need, where these Hellenists, these converted Hellenistic widows would have had certainly less people to help take care of them. So you can see how this problem came up. So what are we going to do about it? How are we going to solve this problem? Verse 2, it says, the Twelve summoned the multitude of the disciples and said, it's not desirable that we should leave the Word of God and serve tables. And so the Twelve, talking about the Twelve Apostles, interesting reference there.

They call the disciples together. This word for disciples here is an interesting word as well, that it's talking about those that are the believers, the learners, those that have become converted by God. And they're seeking them out. They're going to them, summoning them, calling them together, having a great big meeting between them to talk about this issue. One of the interesting things about this word of disciples here, you'll find it mentioned oftentimes in the book of Acts.

You can look through the Gospels. Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, it's mentioned a lot. But you know what? If you look in the Epistles, you won't find the word. It's not used in Paul's Epistles. And so he uses a different word than the word that's used right here for disciples. Just kind of an interesting side point there. So anyway, they're going to deal with this problem. What's the problem? Well should the apostles stop preaching, teaching, traveling, ministering the Word of God in order to wait on tables, in order to make sure the widows have their needs met, their physical needs met?

And if they came to the conclusion, that's not the best thing to do. And it is also interesting here, this phrase for serving tables. To serve tables is actually the word for deacon, a diaconos. So a deacon in a sense is a person who waits on tables. I suppose a pretty literal translation. Of course there's more to it than that. But to serve tables is that word, diaconao or diaconos, the word comes from that particular root word.

So it's kind of an interesting problem that they hear. How are we going to deal with this? So the disciples came to a conclusion then in verse 3. They summoned a bunch of people, the disciples, not just one apostle, but all 12 of them got together and called the group of believers. And they said, therefore brethren, verse 3, seek out from among you seven men of good reputation, full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business.

So they're telling the disciples to seek out these people, to seek out these men. You seek them out. Now it wasn't just to be anybody. There were certain requirements. There were certain prerequisites for these individuals who would help and serve the widows. What were the requirements? It says they were to be full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom. And so this is something totally new, something totally different. The disciples or the apostles are asking the believers, the members, to seek out among themselves, to basically put forth some names of individuals who meet these qualifications.

And so the members are asked for their input. Now that's a remarkable thing. Seek out from among you. It means pick among yourselves and bring them forward to us. Give us some input. Give us some guidance here. And there are some interesting thoughts from some of the scholars on this particular verse on what it really means to seek out from among you. Some just say, well, it's just a general term from the body of believers, from the church.

Other scholars think that it means since the Hellenistic widows were the ones being slided in the distribution, that maybe it was more specific. There's a possibility that perhaps they meant seek out from among the Hellenist converts, those that have the background of Greek culture. Seek out from among those seven. And we'll notice why that might fit a little bit later. We'll see why that's a pretty good possibility that it's possible that that's what it meant. So we'll keep that in the back of your mind and we'll come back to that in just a moment.

So they're going to appoint over this business. And as we begin to look at that and think about that, what was the business of the apostles then? If there was a certain work that needed to be done to wait on the tables and to serve the widows, what were the apostles going to be doing? Well, they say then in verse 4, we will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the Word. And so we begin to see that there was the gospel to be preached, the Word to go out, and it was powerfully done, first through prayer, and we have the ministry or the service of the Word, preaching of the Gospels.

And so what better pattern for success could there be than to move the church of God forward through prayer and through preaching of the Word, plus having individuals who have spiritual prerequisites to wait on those and serve those who are in need. And so it's a powerful thing. These men that they were going to offer to the apostles were men who were going to be able to fill those physical needs. So then the ordained ministry would have the additional time to focus on the spiritual kinds of things.

So it was a great method of success, you might say. Now, does this mean that the church, the believers, the disciples were kind of like a democratic body in order to elect these guys so that the apostles would have to appoint them as deacons? Is that the kind of system that was set up? Was it a democracy of some sort? Is that what this is implying here?

I don't think it is at all. Not at all. I think what we see when you read carefully, it's obvious that this is God working. This is God working through His people, God working through the church and using them to put their own spirituality into practice. Aren't they? If these are converted individuals, these are individuals with God's spirit, can they look among themselves and see people bearing fruit so that they see wisdom, so that they see God's spirit at work in others' lives, and can suggest that these would be men that could come to even greater service?

I think that's absolutely what was happening here. And so the apostles were utilizing the congregation. They were utilizing all of us in that sense to help advance the work by suggesting these people. Now, of course, they're going to bring these names forward. Now, does that mean they have to? All right, here they are. You're forced to ordain these guys.

Well, that's not it at all. It says in verse 3, you're seeking out these seven men, but then the apostles say, as a group, the twelve, it says, whom we may appoint over this business. So they had the ultimate say. They would have the final decision. So they would have that right.

They retained that right. They were the ones then that would follow through. Thank you for the advice. We appreciate that. Now, we'll preferably consider ordaining these individuals and appointing them to this position as a table server or a diaconos. And so that's exactly what happened then. And so they were to set them in order or to ordain them.

And so that's the responsibility that they held there. Now, going on to verse 5, notice what the reaction was. This is something that had never happened before. So how are the disciples, the church, how are they going to accept this idea of, all right, utilize God's Holy Spirit and give us some names of some capable individuals that are spiritual individuals to take care of this job?

Verse 5, it says, the saying, please the whole multitude. Boy, talk about challenges.

Hard to get two people to agree on anything sometimes these days, but here, this is something that was pleasing to everyone, everyone, the whole multitude. And it says, they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit. Ah-ha! We're already starting with people that meet the prerequisites. They're fulfilling the qualifications that they just got done mentioning in verse 3.

And so Stephen was one of them. It says, and Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, Nicholas, a proselyte from Antioch. Now, if you notice those names, you could tell that those are Hebrew names, aren't they? No, they're not, are they? Those are all Greek names, aren't they?

They're all Greek names. Now, that doesn't mean that they're Greek, so we have to be careful about that. Now, that may support this idea that it says, pick from among yourselves or choose maybe from the Hellenists, from those with a Greek background. That has an indication that it is, but oftentimes people had a Hellenized name and they had a Hebrew name, so it doesn't necessarily prove that fact, but kind of an interesting thought. It's a possibility, if nothing else. So those are very, very Greek-sounding names, nonetheless. So then in verse 6, it says, they set them before the apostles, and when they had prayed, they laid hands on them. And so here we see what the apostles' reaction was. Was their reaction, you guys are crazy. Who do you think you are? These people are—they don't measure up to our standards. But it's an amazing thing. You see, God's church working together. God's church working together. These are people that they knew, they were familiar with, and they were so familiar with them that they understood that these were spiritual men. These were men who were, I would say, already doing that job, already serving, already giving, certainly already full of wisdom, utilizing God's Holy Spirit already. And so it was obvious then to everyone that these were capable men, that God was setting these men apart for greater service. Now it is an interesting thing that when you look what happens, they set them before the apostles. The apostles prayed and laid hands on them. And so we have the laying on of hands that set them apart that was the appointment or the ordination. Some of those words are interchangeable. And so the laying on of hands, I think we all have an understanding of what the laying on of hands is all about. The Bible uses the laying on of hands, it shows it's used for quite a few different circumstances, but it's always to set someone apart for a godly purpose, for a holy purpose, for a special calling, you might say. And so here, these men are being set apart for the calling of serving God's people, serving those widows.

It goes all the way back. You go to the beginning of your Bible and you'll see the laying on of hands. You go back to Ephraim and Asa had hands laid on them. Remember God's blessing that Jacob, Israel, had given over them. So there's the connection that goes all the way back. Hands were laid on the sacrifices, on animals, on the day of atonement, the goat, you know, the goat had hands laid on it. And so why would that be? Well, they're setting these sacrifices apart for a special purpose as a tribute to God. We know that when we get sick, James chapter 5 tells us where to call the elders and there to pray over us and lay hands on us because they help us to be set aside for the special purpose of healing, that God would heal us.

Think of some other ones, other reasons, other cases where the laying on of hands is used.

The laying on hands for the blessing of little children as well. We lay hands on the little ones and ask God to protect them, to bless them, and to guide them and set them apart so that they could grow up in His way. I mean, what a fantastic blessing that is! Going all the way back to numbers, some of those root causes, the root aspects of blessing goes all the way back to. And of course, for all of us who are members of God's church, can't forget when we went under the water and we washed away our sins and stood up and have hands laid on us so that we could receive God's Holy Spirit. Powerful, powerful things. So we were set apart at that time for God's purposes. We're to live a new life in Christ. We're to be a changed person. We're to put on the mind of Christ. And so the laying on the hands, what a powerful thing. And then of course, in this situation also for ordination, to set people apart for serving God. And not only for deacons, the first ones here in Acts 6, but also for elders, for those who would be ministers. Now there is an important difference, I think maybe we should mention here as well. Acts 6 certainly aligns us out on how deacons were set forth, how they brought them before the apostles, and then they were ordained by them. You know, it's interesting you won't find a case of this when it comes to elders.

Elders are a different case. You won't find an example in the New Testament where the apostles went to the church and said, put forth some names of elders so that we may appoint them to ministry, to serve God as an overseer or anything. You just won't find it. And it's kind of interesting. So you do find instruction. Paul gives the young minister Timothy instruction to ordain elders in every city. And it doesn't mean that you can ask for advice, you can't seek advice from others. Certainly that would be a wise thing to do, especially if a minister is going to be ordained, you'd certainly want to seek advice from other pastors, other ministers as well. But it's just handled differently in that way. And so the ministry itself is the one that should be praying, should be petitioning God to make it obvious who those would be, who would be then ordained to the ministry itself. And so we see that little bit of differentiation here in Acts 6. Now, okay, we have the hands laid on, they pray over them. This is the first time this had ever happened in the New Testament church. So you wonder, well, how is it going to go over? Is this going to work out or is this going to be a problem?

You know, when something happens for the first time, you know, have you ever thought, well, we never did it like that before? I think sometimes humanly we've all thought that one at one time or another. And that could be a problem. You know, sometimes something new, something different is better. And of course, here we see that is the case. What was the result of this? It says, after they had prayed, they laid hands on them, they dedicated them to the service. It says, then the word of God spread and the number of disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem and a great many of the priests were obedient to the faith. So what was the fruit?

It's great. Fantastic. God really blessed this. This was a great decision, a wonderful way to utilize the entire church. And so the whole church moves forward. We see that the gospel was even preached more effectively, that people were converted. And we see the gospel was going out more effectively, the word of God spread. Of course, there wasn't television or magazines or any of that sort of thing. And so just the enthusiasm, the excitement, the word of God going out, the effectiveness of it. Can you imagine what it must have been like? You've got 10,000 people that are converted and you have a huge number of widows that aren't being taken care of. You think a lot of people knew about that? Yeah, probably. Absolutely. You've got hundreds. I'm sure the number must have been hundreds, hundreds and hundreds of widows who weren't being taken care of. It would be hard not to complain about that, wouldn't it? So the word would have went out. Now, when the problem was solved, the opposite would happen. All the great news would go out. Wow, we had this major problem and it solved. And so what a powerful message that this is God's word in action. This is the gospel in action. It's not just the good news and, wow, we have the truth. It's not just that. You see, we get into trouble if we think that. If we think, well, I've got the truth and isn't that great? Well, only to the extent that we put it into practice. And so they put the gospel, they put the good news into practice and they solve this problem. And so the word spread. The gospel went out. People were converted. And even, it says, many of the priestly families, the great many of priests, became obedient to the faith. So that was a powerful statement that God thoroughly blessed. All right, Mr. Steinberg, do I have anything to add to that? Nope. Okay, overkill, right? But I do have a word from one of our sponsors before we progress. For those of you who are watching on Cybercast, well, I suppose those of you in here, too, have textable blackberries and stuff like that, telephones. If you'd like to send in a Bible question for the Bible study tonight, here's the email address. Just email it to ucgbiblestudy.ucgbiblestudy, all strung together as one word, ucgbiblestudy at gmail.com. That's gmail.com. So ucgbiblestudy at gmail.com. And we'll do our best to answer it tonight. We're going to save the last 20 minutes or so for answering Bible questions. And now we'll move from the ordaining of the deacons to what we actually have found to be our experience in the church as well, that it is often, very often, from the ranks of the deacons that we find God calling men into the eldership, because they begin to serve there. And then, you know, training ground, testing ground, whatever Christ might choose to call it. But it certainly is the area where generally our elders come from. They've served as deacons for time, and then it's clear that they are being used as elders. Stephen would be the first one. Granted, didn't serve very long as an elder, and I don't know that he was ordained as an elder.

Just wasn't really time, as we're going to find out. We'll read when we get to either the next Bible study or the one after that. You'll hear about Philip, who was one of the seven here as well. And Philip went on to become an evangelist, lived in Caesarea. And if I'm not mistaken, he had five daughters. But that's still part of the book of Acts on the head. So in verse 8, And Stephen, full of faith and power, did great wonders and signs. Now, great wonders and signs usually is a way of just saying miracles. Probably healing people. It doesn't say what they were. We know what some of the wonders and signs were that Peter and John did. It was healing people. So Stephen healed people. For how long? We don't know. Wouldn't have had to be terribly long, but it certainly got attention. And God used miraculous signs in the first century as a way to, for one of a better term, advertise the kingdom of God and the gospel.

Because that got people's attention, and words spread like wildfire, and people wanted to know more about it. So Stephen was being used as one of those who could do that. So then there arose from some of, from what is called the synagogue of the freedmen, which included men who were Cyrenians, Alexandrians, and those from Cilicia and Asia. Cyrenians are those from the Cyrene. The Alexandrians are from Egypt. Alexandria was a huge city, bigger than Jerusalem by far. It had more Jews in Alexandria than in any other location in the Roman Empire. Cilicia and Asia were provinces in what would be today called Turkey. It was Asia Minor at that time.

And Asia was in the western side of that. And Asia, some have speculated, comes from the name of the Ase, typically assumed to be the tribe of Asher, traveling through and leaving their name at a particular spot. And they disputed with Stephen. Now, talk about synagogues for a moment, because synagogues have a lot to do with the church itself. Synagogues were local meeting places and local meeting houses or congregations of the Jews. The tradition, we don't know exactly when it's started. As one commentary points out, there seems to be a hint of it clear back in David's day.

And that would be found in Psalm 74 and verse 8. For your reference, you can read about it. It refers to the meeting places being torn down or destroyed. Well, what were the meeting places?

It's possible it refers to that. We do know that when the Jews went into exile, when they were taken captive by Nebuchadnezzar and then they were in exile in Babylonia, that they began to develop the synagogue system. This was a local congregation of Jews, where there were a few Jews in an area, they had to wait until they had 10 men. And when there were 10 men, then they could have a synagogue. Otherwise, Paul came across a few where they didn't have an organized synagogue. And in that particular area, they met by the river on the Sabbath. But when they had 10 men, usually meeting 10 families, then they could have a synagogue and they could start to get organized. Synagogues typically, and this is interesting as well because the concept of the church grew out of the concept of the synagogue or the church congregation. Although the synagogues were subject to the law of the land in Judea and Samaria, each synagogue had its own government, led by elders, as obviously was the case with the apostles leading, who were empowered to exercise discipline. And in the case of Stephen, they thought that they had the power to punish him as well. But they served as local law enforcement almost, it seems. But the synagogues were for spiritual instruction as well. The temples where you went for the Holy Days, for the great offerings, for the pilgrimages if you live too far to be able to go there on the Holy Days. But the synagogue was the typical place. By 70 AD, it is reckoned that there were between 400 and 500 synagogues in Jerusalem by 70 AD. That's a lot, a lot of synagogues. So this was one of them. The synagogue of the freedmen. These were men who were either free men like Paul was. He was born as a free Roman citizen. Others would have had to pay for their citizenship or in some way earn their freedom from slavery. Paul was born free.

And disputed with Stephen, and they were not able, we're in verse 10 now, they weren't able to resist the wisdom and the spirit by which he spoke. One of the things that we overlook a lot, or the world overlooks, I think, is the wisdom of a thing and the logic of the argument and the presentation of what should be the truth. We try to emphasize that in the Church of God, that we need to be logical. We need to think critically and to analyze things and come to the right conclusions. That's the essence of wisdom.

And be inspired in that wisdom, so by the wisdom and spirit which he spoke.

And so, since they couldn't trick him up in his arguments as they tried to do Christ earlier on, others had tried to do, well then they turned to slander and attack. And typically that's what happens when somebody, when you have people of bad will, not of good will, and they are, you know, frustrated because they can't defeat the arguments of the person who's speaking, then they'll go around behind and they'll turn nasty. And they turn very nasty.

They secretly induced men to say, or false witnesses, we have heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses and God. And they stirred up the people and the elders and the scribes, and they came upon him and seized him and brought him to the council. The council is the Sanhedrin. That was the governing council of the Jews in Judea. It was, in a sense, it was almost like a provincial government underneath the Roman federal system, but it was that government of the area of Judea. And it had great authority, as far as religious matters went, for Jews everywhere.

So they brought him before the council and they set up the false witnesses and they said, this man doesn't cease to speak blasphemous words against this holy place and the law.

For we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and change the customs which Moses delivered to us. Oh, so he was going to change doctrine, and they were infuriated by that. How dare he change doctrines? Well, there were teachings that Christ had set up to be changed. Circumcision was certainly one of them, and the sacrificial system itself was part of that. That was going to be changed because it was being made obsolete by the very sacrifice of Christ himself. So they were chanting all this. Now, some of this has truth in it. He was proclaiming that there would be changes and that Christ would destroy this place because Jesus had said he would, but they were presenting it in a wrong way. So you can actually take the truth and make a lie out of it if you're clever. They were clever. And all who sat in the council looked steadfastly on him and saw his face as the face of an angel. In our society, when people think that somebody has a face of an angel, it's always a woman, and angels are typically women. Well, the Bible doesn't brook that. You know, they could be the face of a man. In fact, when we get to the Bible questions, I'll show you that they have a few other faces, too. I've heard something interesting. I don't know that this would be the case, but some have speculated that because they're talking about Moses and they're criticizing Stephen for seemingly criticizing Moses, going against the teachings of Moses, that perhaps if we remember what happened to Moses, when he would go up to the mountain, he would come back and he would shine, and he had to wear a veil. Is it possible that when they're gazing at Stephen's face, was something to the effect of what happened to Moses happening to Stephen here? So they're looking at him steadfastly, meaning like, what's going on with this guy's face? Could that be a possibility? We're not given enough information to know that, but it's certainly plausible. A glow in the dark prophet he became.

And that would certainly get their attention. So this is what very much gets their attention. Get our attention, I'll tell you what. And the high priest said, and we're in chapter 7 now, just entered it, are these things so? At least they let him give an answer, which was, you know, you have to say that at least they were decent about that. Maybe it's good that a number of the priests had believed, so maybe the high priest was a little more conciliatory since his party of the Sadducees was weakening by the church. Maybe he didn't want to irritate them. So he let them, let Stephen answer. Now, what we get in chapter, the rest of chapter 7, is Stephen's apology.

And he didn't say he was sorry, because an apology, technically, is not saying, I'm sorry. We use it that way today. But an apology is a defense. Stephen defended the faith.

When it says, give an answer of the hope that lies within you in 1 Peter chapter 3 and verse 15, it is actually give an apologia, or give a defense of the hope that lies within you. When we say an answer, you know, that's more straightforward in our parlance today.

And so what he gave was a formal apology in the sense of a defense, not in a sense of being apologetic, as we use the term today. It's interesting how the word has changed.

But he starts off, and he gives a dissertation of history.

Start to finish. We'll see some of this as we plow through, you know, perhaps most of it tonight. But it is important to know history. When Oliver Cromwell, if you, of course, remember Oliver Cromwell when he was a president, wasn't the president, was he? Although I think my theory is that Oliver Cromwell was a monessite, because he didn't get along with the English, the royalists at all. In the 1640s, he's the one that started the English Civil War, and that's when they gave the king the royal boot across the Channel into France. And so the king was in exile. He was still the king, but he was in exile, King Charles. Cromwell then ruled for a number of years in England. And when he was outlining the education that he thought necessary for his son Richard, he said to the teachers, he said, I would have him know a little history. And believe me, God would have us know a little history.

Stephen understood the power of the historical evidence, and it was unfolded in a timeline fashion, emphasizing key themes in the history of Israel that should have led these men to the right conclusion if they would listen. They wouldn't listen, but many have read and have listened since then because it was written down. Brethren and fathers, he says in verse 2, listen, the God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia before he dwelt in Haran. Well, in Mesopotamia before he dwelt in Haran. So you're getting a lot of historical detail. He just threw some geography at you, so if you don't know your maps, you know, you're kind of stuck. And we do need to look at maps periodically and look at history and read history, soak that up. Don't live in the text, as in, you know, the cell phone text. Don't live in the text too much in our age. Get into the history and learn the histories of things. Recite history to your children. Tell them about when you came into the church and the experiences that you had and the stories that you've heard of those who were in the faith before you. Because that's the stuff of which Stephen was doing, but he was going back through the biblical history of the prophets and the patriarch, starting with Abraham, was in Mesopotamia before he came to Haran, which is up near Syria, and he said to him, and this is now quoting from Genesis 12, get out of your country and from your relatives and come to a land that I will show you. So God told Abraham, I want you to change. I don't want you to live here now, Abram. His name was Abram initially. I want you to go to someplace else. And the next thing he comes and tells him, I'm going to be giving you a new name too, by the way. We're going to add a syllable, which he did. Abram was a father, is what the word meant, and Abraham meant father of many, as in many nations. It was prophetic. And then he came out of the land of the Chaldeans and he dwelt in Haran. And from there, when his father, Terah, was dead, and you can read about that back in Genesis, he moved him to this land, that is, to the Promised Land, in which you now dwell. Now that makes it immediate presence, you know.

They're identifying with this. These men know this history. Never get tired of hearing the history of the Bible. Never assume that, well, I've read that, I know that. No, listen to it again, because there's more detail, there's more lessons and wisdom to be soaked up from the history. He moved him to this land in which you now dwell, and God gave him no inheritance in it, not even enough to set his foot on it. So he moved in, but he didn't own anything. He just was a sojourner in the land. He promised to give it to him for a possession and to his descendants after him, but God spoke in this way that his descendants would dwell in a foreign land and that they would bring them into bondage and oppress them 400 years. And it was round numbers. It was about 400 years.

And the nation to whom they will be in bondage I will judge, said God. They knew those scriptures.

See, Stephen had their attention and they weren't entirely sure where he was going, but they knew that history. He was talking their language. He was being initially all things to all men, as the apostle Paul said to be. And after that they shall come out and serve me in this place.

And then he gave them the covenant of circumcision. That was a sign of the Israelites. And so Abraham begot Isaac and circumcised him on the eighth day. You know, notice how the details are just dropped in there. We understand that. We understand that. And you've got to put yourself occasionally in the other camp and you think, oh, so what were these angry synagogue goers of the synagogue of the freedmen? What were they thinking while they were listening to this? And so, well, he's talking about circumcision and he's talking about beginning Isaac. Where was that doctrinal change he was after? And where was all that other stuff he was going to say? And so Abraham begot, don't worry, Stephen gets to it, begot Isaac and circumcised him on the eighth day. Isaac begot Jacob and Jacob begot the 12 patriarchs. Begot, by the way, doesn't mean he conceived them. It means that he got them. That would be the whole process from the time the sperm and the ovum are conceived in the relations of the mother and father until the baby's born. Then you've got them. The whole process takes place. That's to be begotten, is that. And so he begot Jacob. Jacob begot the 12 patriarchs. And I am going to turn over to Mr. Myers now. Okay. It's interesting that from here he continues with this. We get to the patriarchs. We get to the 12 tribe, the ones who would become the 12 tribes. And he comes to a very familiar story out of all those brothers. Remember, they became very envious, it says right here in verse 9, of Joseph. So what happened? They sold Joseph into Egypt. Genesis 37 gives us the whole story. But the point is, God was with him. And so through this long story, it almost harkens back to this concept of the widows once again, because we had these widows of different backgrounds. Yet God was working with all of them. So God was working when there was this great dispersion of God's people. He was working with them when they weren't in Jerusalem. Here he's working with Abraham, and he wasn't in the Promised Land at first. Mesopotamia? What is that? And so here's Joseph. He's down in Egypt. Don't tell me God's working with him there, too. Yes, he is. Let me add something. There was no temple in Abraham's day, or Joseph's day. And remember, they were angry at Stephen because he said the temple was going to be torn down. This is strategic history telling. Right. And so that all ties together, which makes it very interesting. So he's coming to that point, and he's setting the groundwork to basically come to that. Wait a second. There's something you're missing totally here. You're missing the whole point. And so he's building up to that. And so he uses the story of Joseph. It says that God was with him down in Egypt, verse 10, and delivered him out of all his troubles and gave him favor and wisdom in the presence of Pharaoh, the king of Egypt. And he made him governor over Egypt and all his house. Very familiar story. We know this story. We know it by heart, probably. We could recite it. Well, they certainly knew it as well. All right. What point is he getting to then? Verse 11, he says, Now a famine and great trouble came over all the land of Egypt and Canaan, and our fathers found no sustenance.

All right. They were in Canaan. They were more or less in that area that God was blessing, right there in that area around Jerusalem, I think we could say. But what happened to them? Did they stay there? No. When it was all this trouble, there were seven good years, seven very difficult years, years of famine. When Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, verse 12, he sent out our fathers first. The brothers all went down there. And the second time Joseph was made known to his brothers, and Joseph's family became known to the Pharaoh.

Guess what? They ended up down there, didn't they? Was God working with them when they were down there? Absolutely. Seems to fit as well here. Joseph's family is literally the word that seems to represent race. They were of a different race than the Egyptians. These are totally different people. They didn't just blend in. These were different. And so it was obvious they were different people. And so what ultimately happened, verse 14, Joseph sent and called his father Jacob and all his relatives to him, 75 people. So they all end up down there. Was God still with them? Yes. Did they have to be in Jerusalem? No. That wasn't the point. There was a greater point being made. Now some will argue, oh, the Bible disagrees with itself because in other areas it says there was only 70 people. And well, how do you reconcile that? If you go back to Genesis, it says 70. Well, it seems like if you get into it that some people counted some and some didn't count others. So evidently some of the grandkids that didn't come directly from Jacob weren't counted. So Stephen seems to count those. And there's also a connection to the Septuagint, the Greek translation of God's Word. And so it seems to make sense if you dig into it a little bit farther. So the point is ultimately, verse 15, Jacob went down to Egypt and he died. He and our fathers. And they were carried back to Shechem and laid in the tomb that Abraham bought for a sum of money from the sons of Hamor, the father of Shechem. So despite the fact they were down there, God was still with them. Now some will also argue about this last verse, verse 16, about the tomb of Abraham and what that means, because that also seems to be a contradiction with other passages. But it seems that that's not talking about where Abraham was buried, but the descendants of Abraham purchased this particular tomb where Jacob was later buried. Mr. Diver. Okay. So now we switch. We're starting to switch from Joseph, because we've talked about Abraham, and then Isaac, Jacob, and so on. Then Joseph, going down into Egypt, now time is coming for leaving Egypt. It's always going out. There's always a change. Changing of the guard is essentially what Stephen is talking about. There's a theme to his recitation of the history in verse 17. But when the time of the promise drew near that God had sworn to Abraham, the people grew and multiplied in Egypt until another king arose who did not know Joseph. Oh, that wasn't good.

This man dwelt treacherously with our people and oppressed our forefathers. Notice how Stephen is using the plural possessive, you know, including himself in that. Oppressed our forefathers, making them expose their babies so they might not live. And there was the time when the Egyptians decided the Israelites were propagating too fast so they had all the boy babies killed.

At this time, Moses was born. Ah, now we move to Moses. And it was well pleasing to God, and he was brought up in his father's house for three months, as you remember the story. Miriam went along in the bulrushes, watching where the little boat with baby Moses floating in it was going because they released it upstream of where Pharaoh's daughter did her bathing in the river. And then when the Pharaoh's daughter wanted to keep the baby, she needed a wet nurse. And so the girl came forward, I can go and find you one. And so she did. It was Moses' mother.

But when he was sent out, Pharaoh's daughter took him away and brought him up as her own son. She adopted Moses. So he was a prince of Egypt, being the adopted son of Pharaoh's daughter.

And Moses was learned, or learned, in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was mighty in words and deeds. Now, you remember the episode at the burning bush when God said, okay, Moses, that's time to stop shepherding sheep. I want you to shepherd Israel. In fact, we've got a little breakout planned. We want you to go back to Egypt and gather them all up and, you know, just, you know, crash the gate doing 98 and let those Israelites roll out of Egypt. And you're going to tell off Pharaoh in the process. And Moses said, whoa, whoa, whoa, I'm agreeable about everything except talking to Pharaoh. I can't give speeches. Well, what do you mean? You're used to?

You were mighty in words and deeds. Well, he'd gotten used to talking to sheep and they never talked back. So his verbal skills were not used for 40 years. So he was a little unconfident. Now, actually, this is a little interesting sidelight that Stephen's dropping in here for us. We don't have a lot of the history of Moses. This is a significant comment that he was learned or instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians. And he was very sophisticated education for his time. From Josephus and a couple of other ancient historians, we have the Jewish traditions recorded for us that actually Moses rose to be a great general in the Egyptian army. And he led, because they were always fighting with Ethiopia, and he went down and subdued Ethiopia during his day and led one of the armies down there to do that. And so we find that Moses was very capable. He had a history in Egypt up until he was 40 years old. And then he had to kind of get out of town fast, as you remember the story. He came back when he was 80, and he'd grown up and learned something. So he was mighty in words and deeds back in those days. And when he was 40 years old, it came to his heart to visit his brethren, the children of Israel, and seeing one of them suffer wrong. He defended and avenged him, who was oppressed and struck down the Egyptian. You know that story. It's an Exodus. For he supposed that his brethren would have understood that God would deliver them by his hand. But they did not understand.

You mean Moses was rejected by the Israelites of his day? See? There's a little parallel Stephen is bringing out. That'll start to dawn on these fellows after a while.

And the next day he appeared to two of them as they were fighting and tried to reconcile them, saying, you are a brethren. Why are you wrong with another? But he who did his neighbor wrong pushed him away and said, who made you a ruler and a judge over us? Do you want to kill me like you did the Egyptian yesterday? And then at this saying, Moses fled because he knew that he was going to be a wanted man. His thought and plot to save his people has become big news.

So he fled and became a dweller in the land of Midian. Then he had two sons. So a little bit more of his history there. And then another 40 years went by. Actually, Stephen cites all of the three 40-year cycles in Moses' life. First 40 years in Egypt, a prince in Egypt. The second 40 years, a big sheep rancher out in the Sinai Peninsula. And then the last 40 years, putting up the Israelites as he's trying to get them through the Sinai and up into Israel. When the 40 years had passed, an angel of the Lord appeared to him. An angel here is actually a reference to the Lord himself.

He was the messenger of the covenant. And as it says in Malachi 3, verse 1, that it's a reference to a theophany or an appearance of God is Jesus Christ was the Lord God who led the Israelites out of Egypt. 1 Corinthians chapter 10 and verse 4 makes that very clear that that's who was at the burning bush talking to Moses. And God appeared to him in a flame of fire in a bush in the wilderness of Mount Sinai. And Moses heard that, or saw it rather. He marveled at the sight, and he drew near to observe. And the voice of the Lord said to him, I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

And Moses trembled, and he dared not look. And the Lord said to him, Take off your sandals for the place in which you stand as holy ground. I have surely seen the oppression of my people who are in Egypt. I have heard their groaning and have come down to deliver them, and now I will send you to Egypt. So you remember that story? Well, they remember that story. But notice the conclusion. This Moses, whom they rejected, saying, Who made you a ruler and a judge, is the one that God sent to be a ruler and a deliverer. So things changed. They rejected Moses, but that's who God sent. You rejected Christ, but that's who God sent. See, there's a point he's making. It wasn't lost. And he's the one that God has sent to be a ruler and a deliverer by the hand of the angel who had appeared to him in the bush. And he brought them out, and after he had shown wonders and signs in the land of Egypt and in the Red Sea and in the wilderness for forty years.

And, Churchill. All right. I think there's an effective sales presentation being done here. If you've ever studied sales, oftentimes salesmen will try to get their customers to agree. They get them to say, yes, yes, agree with me. So you can imagine the audience here.

We've got these priests and Sanhedrin. They don't want to hear any of this, but how can they argue with it? Abraham. Oh, yeah, right. We're with Joseph. Yes, we remember that story. God was with him. Yes. So they're saying, yes, yes. We had Moses down in Egypt, and he became a great leader. Yes, obviously he was. So they're having to say, yes, yes, yes, in agreement with every one of these things that, yes, actually the people did reject Moses, but God still used him. Yes, that's true.

Uh-oh. Here's where we get to the, you've got to buy this now. You've agreed with me all this way. Now you've got to buy it. And so that's where he gets to verse 37. He said, This is that Moses, who said to the children of Israel, The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brethren, him shall you hear. Well, can they say no? Not in follow logic, not in really hold their beliefs, because he has so logically laid it out that this is, he was talking about Jesus Christ.

So you're going to have to agree with me. Of course, that was not their reaction.

They weren't buying into it once this came up. This became the catch point here. He says, This is he who was in the congregation in the wilderness, that prophet, talking about Jesus Christ, the angel here is talking about Christ, with the angel who spoke to him. Moses was with Christ. Christ spoke to him on Mount Sinai, and it says, with our fathers, the one who received the living oracles to give to us. You see, Christ was there with Moses. Christ was that prophet, the one who would become Jesus Christ. And what happened to Christ?

What happened to Christ? Verse 39, Whom our fathers would not obey but rejected. They rejected Moses. They're going to reject Christ. No wonder you're thinking the way you do is kind of what Stephen's getting at here. It says, Their hearts turned back to Egypt. They remembered all the good things about Egypt, not that they wanted to be in slavery or anything. But when you think about the good old days, do you remember all the hardships? Do you remember all the struggles?

Oh, I don't think so. I remember my grandmother talking about the dirty 30s and the difficulties that there were. But when she talked about those things, she remembered the good things, the fun things, the family things, the good times, but the rougher times weren't the first things that came to mind. And so we have a tendency to do that. So they turned back because they remembered the things that were good, the food, the other things that they had there. And so they turned spiritually away from God. Verse 40, they said, To Aaron make us gods to go before us. As for this Moses who brought us out of the land of Egypt, we don't know what's become of him. So they turned their back on Moses. He didn't come down from the mountain. I'll read that story in Exodus 32. And so we know what Aaron did, that the urgings of the people, he made a golden calf. It says, verse 41, They offered sacrifices to the idol. They rejoiced in the work of their own hands. Instead of rejoicing in a work that's made without hands from God, they figured they could create their own God with their own hands. And so what happened? Verse 42, Then God turned and gave them up to worship the host of heaven. Not meaning angels or God in that regard, but the host of heaven, the stars, the moon, the sun, pagan worship in other words. That's what they turned to. And then he quotes here from the prophets. He says, Did you offer me slaughtered animals and sacrifices during the 40 years in the wilderness, O house of Israel? Answer would probably yes.

But really the truthful answer is no. Not godly sacrifices. Look what they did. Verse 43, You also took up the tabernacle of Moloch and the star of your God, Remphan, images which you made to worship and I will carry you away beyond Babylon. And so despite the fact that God was with them, they still turned to pagan gods. They imitated the Egyptian gods. So they set up an ox, which is like a seraphis, I think is the name of the Egyptian god, that they set up. They were imitating this pagan worship. And so they turned back to that rather than worshiping the true God. So Stephen's making this comparison. Just like what happened then, you're mirroring that exactly with what you did with the Messiah, with the Christ. That's what happened. And so just like our forefathers, what are we, repeating history again? Stephen's drawing them to that conclusion. And so as we see that, I guess these pagan gods were supposed to help them as they got carried off in the captivity, which of course they couldn't. It didn't happen. So you've got these strange pagan practices going on. Malak is that if you read back in history, the one where they sacrificed children, passed them through the fire. I mean just horrible, horrible religious rites that were so far removed from God, it was unbelievable how they could see these powerful miracles happening before them and yet turn away from them, deny God. It says, then the star of your God, Remphan. If you read back in Amos, this is actually a quote from the book of Amos. Amos 5, I think it's verse 25 or so, actually quoting that. The names are a little bit different than are used in Amos, but read into it a little bit. They all seem to be pointing back to the same God or the same group of pagan idols that they worshiped and worshiping even the star.

Some of the research that some people have done here gets pretty far out there. I mean, you can read all kinds of things about what is the star that they're talking about and that. Some people try to come to the conclusion that it may be the star of David. Some things like that. I don't think that's necessarily the case at all, but it's just referring to the fact, I think most basically, that they got into pagan worship and denied the true God. Now, why would He bring Him to that point?

Well, in verse 44, He comes to the fact that our fathers had the tabernacle of witness in the wilderness as He appointed, instructing Moses to make it according to the pattern that He had seen. So God instructed Moses. God's presence was going to be with Him. His glory was going to be right there, right among them, right in the middle of the camp was the tabernacle. And God's presence was going to be right there. Verse 45, it says, this tabernacle, it says, which our fathers, having received it in turn, also brought with Joshua into the land possessed by the Gentiles, whom God drove out before the face of our fathers until the days of David. So now we're getting to the Promised Land. We had God's presence in the tabernacle coming into the Promised Land. David found favor before God, verse 46, and asked to find a dwelling for the God of Jacob. Remember, David posed that question, why am I living in this beautiful palace while God's house is a tent?

Why is that? So then God allowed David to put together all the accoutrements for building the temple. And so it's interesting. What is He coming to? Was the tabernacle God?

No, that wasn't God. What about the temple? You see, He's coming to this. He's drawing this conclusion. So what happens? Verse 47, Solomon built him a house. However, the Most High does not dwell in the temples made with hands. He's trying to get them to realize this. Verse 49 quotes from Isaiah, Heaven is my throne, and earth is my footstool. What house will you build for me, says the Lord? Or what is the place of my wrath? Yes, God's presence was in the tabernacle and later in the temple. But could that contain Him? God's everywhere. God is everywhere, and He works in the way that He wills. Steve is trying to get them to understand that, just because the temple was in Jerusalem, that doesn't make you anybody. That's what He's trying to get them to understand. And so God tells us, tells them by extension, Has not my hand made all these things? He's trying to come to the conclusion, John 20, where it says, the day is coming when it won't be worshipped in this mountain. It's not at the temple. It's not a place. But we're going to worship God in spirit and in truth. That's what Stephen is drawing them to see.

All right. Just as an addition there, talking about the earth is my footstool and heaven is my throne, and God doesn't dwell in a temple made with hands, that's what Paul told the Athenians in Acts 17. One of the most fascinating parts of the book of Acts is the sermon about the unknown God. And a marvelous example of preaching the gospel to those who know nothing really about the Bible. But he says over there in Acts 17 that God who made the world and everything is in it, since he is the Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell. That's verse 24 of chapter 17. Does not dwell in temples made with hands. It's the same story he said to the Jews that were sitting there or standing there before him, depending on where they were. But Judaism or the Jewish people in history have had a problem. Jeremiah took them to task before Jerusalem was destroyed and the temple of Solomon was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar. In Jeremiah 7 in the first few verses, they kept chanting, the temple is there, the temple is there, the temple of the Lord is there. And the chant was that nothing will happen to us because God's temple is there and they trusted in the building instead of the one who built it. You know, the Pharisees did the same thing. They worshiped the Sabbath rather than worshiped the one who made the Sabbath. It's the same fallacy of logic. We worship God and not the things that God made. We worship God Himself. So the Jews had a false sense back in Jeremiah's time, a very false sense of security because they were rationalizing their sinful conduct because they were okay. God was never going to let Jerusalem fall because the temple is there and they could look at it every day. It's right there. So as long as it's there, we're fine. Not so. You stiff and those, Jeremiah dealt with some real stiff-necked Israelites and lo and behold, Stephen was too. So now he gets to the stir to action in spokesman's club manual of old.

One of the main speeches he needed to learn, I know Herbert Armstrong used to stress that you must have a stir to action even in a sermon as well. There has to be a stir to action. Get people moving. Do something with what you've learned and so should we do something with what we've learned? So Stephen gave them something to do. Use stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears. That's a serious insult. You always resist the Holy Spirit as your fathers did, so do you. They knew their history that many of the prophets had been martyred by their generations in their days. Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who foretold the coming of the just one, the Messiah, of whom you now have become the betrayers and murderers who have received the law by the direction of angels and have not kept it.

Oh. Do you remember that? It was a young ambassador thing. You didn't play Big Bird, did you?

I've been accused of that before, but I did not. But you remember the big red button he wasn't supposed to touch in that one scene? And he couldn't stay away from it. He had to push the big red button. Well, Stephen pushed the big red button, but he planned to. This is premeditated. He was telling them they were for the birds. That's it. Yeah, that's basically it.

So Stephen was unleashing on them the full force of what they had done. When Peter said this, the first time it was Acts 2, but the audience was in a repentance attitude. These fellows weren't repentance. And when they heard these things, they were cut to the heart and they gnashed at him with their teeth. Gnashing at him means they snarled and showed their teeth like chimpanzees do, you know, or gorillas. That's essentially what it does. When people are really angry, they show their teeth.

And just the way we react, I suppose, gnashed at him with their teeth. But he, being full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God. Now, we're talking about a miracle here.

God rolled back the heavens to where Stephen could see into the third heaven. First heaven of the birds. Second heaven is deep space. Third heaven is where the Father and the Son reside and the angels come and go from the throne of God. He could see that. And Jesus was not sitting on his throne. He was standing at the right hand of the Father, standing at the right hand, as if he was cheering Stephen on. Stephen had a job to do. His ministry was short, but his service to God was immense. And his service to the people who would learn and read this later, like we are now.

Stephen was willing to give his life for Christ. You know, are we willing to do that?

Are we willing to give up some comfort to serve God in his work? In our day, Stephen was willing to give his life. He, being full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into the heaven and he saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God and said, Look, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God. And of course, that infuriated these zealots even worse. As I said, they worshiped the law. They didn't worship the God, the lawgiver. And they cried with a loud voice, stopped their ears, ran at him with one accord, and they cast him out of the city. They turned violent instantly. And the witnesses laid down their cloaks, or clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul. And they stoned Stephen as he was calling on God. Now, according to the research, the traditional way the stoning was done, you take the person, the guilty person outside the city, and you cast him over a precipice, at least a 12-foot deep pit or whatever convenient precipice you had. And if he survived, then you grabbed up boulders and smashed him from up above. That was how they did it. Now, we don't know if that's exactly what happened.

That doesn't say that they shoved him, but the witnesses themselves would do the shoving, pushing him off the edge, if that's what happened. They laid down their clothes at the feet of Saul. They stoned Stephen as he was calling on God and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my Spirit.

I would like to point out that he prayed to Christ there. It's not wrong to occasionally pray to Jesus Christ. There's been some discussion of that recently. That is a classic example. Lord Jesus, receive my Spirit. That doesn't mean he didn't pray to the Father, because he did.

He also prayed to Christ at that moment. He knelt down. Whether he was shoved over a precipice or was being hit with the rocks and came down to his knees, he knelt down and cried out with a loud voice, Lord, do not charge them with this sin. Stephen had a totally different attitude, converted attitude versus the thoroughly carnal attitude, do not charge them with this sin.

And he died. When he had said this, he fell asleep as the rocks were pounding his head in his body.

There was a violent execution. It was the way executions were done. They weren't pretty.

And that was the end of Stephen's ministry, but it was powerful. Because here we are, two thousand years later, soaking up the lesson for ourselves and preparing ourselves to dedicate all that we have and all that we are and all that we can do to do the work of God before the Second Coming of the just one. And now it's time for questions, right? Yeah, maybe just to take note in verse 58 that Saul was there. This was the one who would become the Apostle Paul. So he participated in the stoning of Stephen. He was there right at the beginning of the New Testament church, and he was the one that was opposing it. And he was condoning what was happening. So it's important to remember that because the monumental change that's going to happen in him as God strikes him down later on the road to Damascus. So that's a powerful thing that we see happening there. It's also interesting, the words that Stephen is saying here also reflect the words of Christ when Christ was being crucified. There's direct connections to what he's saying. Into your hands I commit my spirit, Christ. Not talking about an immortal soul or anything like that. If you were to look that word up, especially in a traditional Hebrew sense, a Jewish sense, my very breath, my whole self, my very life, I'm turning over into your hands. And so he knew God held him in his hands. He sustained him. And so he was turning that over to God, everything that he was, his entire life he was turning into God's hands. And so certainly some try to turn that around and say it's some immortal soul, but that's not the case whatsoever. And so he knew he was in God's hands and he put his life squarely into God's hands and looked to his will to be done. Then he went to sleep. Sleep is a way of studying death. By the way, Saul is the Hebrew name for Paul. Paul is his Greek name because he was from not in Judea, so he had both a Greek and Hebrew name, which was the typical custom of the time. Now we're ready for questions. Okay. I have a question. Are we ready for questions? And we are ready for questions. All right. So this was one we held over from the last time I was helping with the Bible studies. I saw that four weeks ago, something like that.

Who are or were the elders in Revelation? Where do they come from? Did God raise them with Jesus? And did Jesus present them as first fruits of the wave sheaf offering on the day after his rising from the dead? Prior to his ascension, Jesus mentioned that no one in heaven or is in heaven or had been in heaven except the Son. Jesus' revelation was written after the ascension of Jesus. Also, elders are seen alive walking amongst the people in the city and the graves were uncovered at the rising of Jesus. Could this be the case, please enlighten me? Thank you.

Enlighten you, we will, and ourselves. Let's go back to Matthew 27 and verse 52 to get a reference to those who came alive when Jesus was resurrected. Well, not when he resurrected, actually when he died. In verse 50 it says, Jesus cried out with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit. He died.

From the spirit of man, the spirit of God went back to the Father.

And then in verse 51, and behold, the veil of the temple was torn into from top to bottom, and you couldn't get enough human beings in the temple to be able to pull it apart from top to bottom. It would have had been torn from bottom to top, but it was torn from top to bottom supernaturally. And the earth quaked under their feet, and the rocks were split, and the graves were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, and coming out of the graves after his resurrection, they went into the holy city and appeared to many. So there were some who were resurrected, and the question is, were they resurrected to eternal life? And the answer is no. They were resurrected to human life again, like Lazarus had been. Or like, you see, was it Elijah or Elisha? He was buried. He died and he was buried. One of those two great prophets. It escapes me which one it is because their names are so similar. And then some other guy died some time later, and they threw him into the grave of Elijah because the Midianites or the Amalekites or some outlaws were coming through the territory. And so they heaved the dead body down into this grave where the prophet had been buried, and as soon as he landed on the tomb, he came back to life and climbed out. And he saw the marauders coming. He ducked back down. Well, I don't know if he did that, but anyway, he was brought back to life. These were brought back to life. They did not receive, you know, they weren't resurrected to eternal existence then. The other reference, though, about the elders is in Revelation 4. So we'll go back and look at the elders. And by the way, it didn't say specifically elders were just saints, people, that came back to life, you know, when Christ died and was resurrected. So in Revelation, chapter 4, we read about the elders at the throne of God, the twenty-four elders.

This is the throne room in heaven. This is the vision that's there. And John says in verse 2, Immediately I was in the Spirit, and behold, a throne set in heaven, and one sat on the throne. And he who sat there was like Jasper and Sardis, Sardius stone in appearance, and there was a rainbow around the throne in appearance like an emerald, an intensely colored rainbow. And around the throne were twenty-four thrones. And on the thrones I saw twenty-four elders sitting clothed in white robes, and they had crowns of gold on their heads, and on the throne proceeded lightnings, and thunderings, and seven lamps of fire were burning before the throne, and the seven spirits of God, and there was a sea of glass in the midst of the throne. And there were four living creatures full of eyes in a front and in the back. And the first living creature was like a lion, and the second like a calf, and the third like a creature had a face like a man, and the fourth had a face like a flying eagle. Those were symbolized by the four dominant tribes of the Israelites.

Judah's banner was the lion, Dan's banner was the eagle. Dan was the eagle, Reuben was the man, and the other one is the calf or the bull that was Ephraim. And that's how they camped around the tabernacle out in the wilderness, just like these living creatures where they're at the throne. Now, in other places, it appears that the four living creatures each had those four faces, eyes in the front, eyes in the back, and so on like that. We're talking about angels. So again, the 24 elders here is a governing council of the angels. The carabim, seraphim, living creatures like this. We have all kinds of animals in the world, and obviously some of the angels look a little bit like some of our animals and their facial features. They don't all look like humans or women or guys, and none of them look like cupids. So the 24 elders are 24 angelic elders because nobody's resurrected until Christ returns. And this is a prophecy that is long before Christ's return. However, it does give you pause for thought. What do the 24 elders look like?

Some angels look like men, and other angels obviously have faces like cattle and lions and other things. It makes you wonder if the scene in Star Wars with the Jedi Council... No, it's going to be interesting to meet the angels because what we have on earth in many respects is a pattern of what is existence in heaven, the spirit existence. So it's going to be a grand adventure to get to meet all the angels and get to know them. And I just hope none of them look like Jar Jar Binks.

Some of us have more vivid imaginations than others.

All right, I have another question. I have one here for you. I'll share them with you here.

Another question came in. We still have just a few minutes. It says, if the minister that laid hands on a newly baptized person and that minister of the church who perhaps was not truly converted, was not truly converted, would that person still be reckoned by God to receive His Holy Spirit? All right, let's see if I understand the question properly. If I get this scenario, it seems that someone's being baptized by a minister whose conversion is being questioned. So the minister is a questionable person, whether he's really a minister or not. Is this minister or…? I'm guessing maybe what happened is someone was baptized by a minister, had hands laid on, and the minister left the church.

That's happened. And maybe that's the scenario that's being painted here.

I think that kind of fits, or maybe that's what they're referring to. So perhaps you were baptized by someone, had hands laid on you, and then that person left the church. That minister is no longer a part of God's church. Well, does that make your baptism valid? So I think that's the question that's being posed here. And I think you have to understand, is our salvation dependent on another individual? I don't think so. Was our baptism valid? Is it more dependent on that minister that laid hands on us or our relationship with God? You see, the baptism is symbolic.

Ultimately, it's symbolic. We go through an object lesson. The object lesson is we're mirroring the resurrection, the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ in our baptism. And so when we come up out of that water and have hands laid on us, God can certainly use someone to bestow His Holy Spirit upon us. We fulfill the requirements that are laid out. In fact, we'll get to those in the book of Acts. And we know that God's Spirit only comes through the laying on of hands.

So what happens? If that person left, does that impact your receiving God's Spirit and your utilization? No, I don't think so at all. Not at all. Think about the instruments that God has used throughout time. Has He ever used false prophets to preach His Word? Absolutely.

Absolutely. Has He ever used false ministers to accomplish His will? Yeah, He's used donkeys to accomplish His will. All right, I'm not referring to ministers as donkeys, so don't confuse that.

But so it is not dependent on that whatsoever. Once you've had hands laid on, you've received God's Spirit. It's your relationship with God. That's what it comes down to. You've received God's Spirit, and now you've got to utilize that Spirit as you live a converted life.

Okay, do we have time to answer the last one? Okay, good. Listen really quickly. Listen fast. Yeah. Warp four for your ears. Ephesians 2, verse 8 and 9 has to do with grace and faith. Verse 8 says, For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. Okay, the question is, which one is the gift of God? Grace or faith?

And I might ask that it says, For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that is not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. So which one is it? Is faith the gift, or is grace the gift? And, you know, a greater question would be, what isn't a gift of God?

You know, both are gifts of God. There was a man that came to Christ and he said, Lord, I believe, help thou my unbelief. He asked for more faith. And we need to ask God for His grace because that's how, literally, that is how we're saved. You know, God has to forgive our sins. We have to come under that aspect of His grace. That's not the only way He expresses His grace. That means divine favor. But we have to come under that aspect of Christ shed blood and accept that for our sins because we are not going to obey God's law perfectly into the Kingdom of God. Bear in mind this little test. If you could, from the time you were baptized, live absolutely perfectly and never sin in the mind or in the action, hand or in the word, never sin, could you earn your salvation? No. And the reason why? Because you're just like the bismarck to start with. The bismarck was dead in the water. That was a German battleship back in 1941, and it was a torpedo from one of the Royal Air Force torpedo planes hit the rudder and wrecked the rudder so that the battleship was just steaming in a little tight circle. And that meant, as a battleship, it was a sitting duck for the Royal Navy. And we were like that battleship. We're dead in the water because we have sinned before, you see. So you can't, and we can't not sin. We're humans, and we struggle. So both grace and faith are gifts of God. We need to ask for both.

Okay, we're done. I think so. Well, there's one other question. Maybe we could just go really quick. If elders are ordained by other elders, does this mean that there has been a continuous line of elders since Christ? Sure. Yep. Absolutely. Easy question. So we'll say yes, and in fact, it goes back farther than that. You can go back to some of those other examples we've even talked about, the tradition. Not that Christ necessarily baptized anyone or laid hands on them, but the line is still connected. We don't know everyone. We don't know the continuous history. We know pieces of the history, but that gives the momentum of the existence. There's been a wane and rise of God's people, and periodically we have had times of revival, and then it's drifted off. We are in a huge time of revival that started in the 1930s. So let us stay alive.

And you all have a good evening. Thanks for coming to the Bible study. And in two weeks we'll have another one. Okay, great. We'll see you then.