Convictions From Acts 7

00:01 Keep your Bibles open to where we just concluded reading this morning. Just a few thoughts before the message. There's a couple of things on my mind this morning. One is the condition of Sister Martha Koblenz. She is still in the hospital this morning. 00:21 I went in last night to see her briefly, and she's doing fairly well with pneumonia. She was on oxygen for a while through the night, but she is receiving good care. 00:33 So continue to pray for Martha as you go throughout your day and remember her and Junior and Forrest and Teresa as well as they work with her and minister to her. Then I also have on my mind this morning, my mind is kind of going back. 00:51 Was this first Sunday in January 40 years ago that I took responsibility? Yes. Okay. My wife's giving me instructions. She said the hospital was locked down. It is not anymore. So she announced that in Sunday school that it was locked down. It is not locked down at this time. 01:11 So yes, thank you, hon. Anyway, going back 40 years, 40 years ago, this first Sunday in January, I had the privilege of taking responsibility for the first Sunday at a little mission church in Southern Oregon and preached my first sermon as a pastor there. And that has been a great experience. 01:33 And now 40 years later, like I have said numerous times, we have a lot more of our ministry behind us than in front of us. 01:40 And it has been a joy to serve the Lord and to have the privilege of preaching the gospel not only in a couple of churches, the church in Oregon as well as the Mount Joy Congregation and here at Living Water for the past 26 years, but in many, many places where God's people meet in various places, 02:00 various conferences and denominations. And appreciate the opportunity this morning to handle the Word of God and to handle this very beautiful passage of Scripture this morning, very dramatic passage in Chapter Seven of the Book of Acts. A lot has changed in the last 40 years. 02:20 Probably one of the most, the things that has changed the most in my recollection, both in the culture and in the church, is the erosion of convictions, the erosion of convictions. And we see this as around the world in many places, 02:40 especially in the Western world, where it's becoming increasingly difficult for people to draw a line and to say, "Thus says the Lord," and to say, "This is where I stand," as Martin Luther did so many years ago. Here I stand. I can do no other. 02:58 In fact, there has been such erosion that the Anglican Church in 03:04 the nation of not in losing my place here. The Anglican Church just appointed a lesbian archbishop who says she is baffled that people are fleeing from her church over her sexuality. In other words, why would you do that? 03:23 Why would you leave your church because of a lesbian woman archbishop and the first openly lesbian archbishop in Christian history? She said she finds it very hurtful that some people are leaving her church in protest of her gender and sexuality. 03:42 And this so-called archbishop says it's very hurtful to witness members walking out of their own congregations because of her gender and sexuality. Her rise to leadership was widely seen as a groundbreaking step for inclusion. But now it's triggering one of the most intense divisions within global Anglicanism in decades. 04:03 Some devout believers are leaving in protest, feeling the denomination has crossed a line they can't reconcile. My point that I want you to hear in that feeling that it has crossed a line that they cannot reconcile. Where's your line? Where is your line this morning? 04:24 And what would it take to cross that line? And what would it take for you to say, "This is no longer a faithful church. This is no longer a faithful person. This is no longer a faithful worldview. This is no longer a faithful anything, faithful to God, faithful to Scriptures, faithful to the Lord Jesus Christ"? What are your convictions? 04:44 And I want to share a two-part message on convictions. This morning, we'll be sharing from Acts Chapter Seven on the convictions of Stephen, those things that he held so dear and so important that he laid down his life for it. He was called to give an answer for his convictions, and he drew a line. 05:03 And that line was not a line in the sand. It was a line on the rock. I never understood quite drawing a line in the sand because that line can be movable. We want to draw a line on the rock, the Lord Jesus Christ, where he drew a line. But what are your convictions this morning? Convictions can be described as firmly held beliefs. 05:26 It can also be described as things that you would be willing to stand for no matter what. We oftentimes have historically thought of convictions as being something that you would be willing to die for. I think that's one level of convictions. Another level of conviction is things that we hold deeply. I may not be willing to die for, 05:47 may not have opportunity to die for them, but I'm convinced that this is God's will, and both in Scripture as well as His will for my life, His call upon me, His call upon what He wants me to do. So there may be levels of importance of convictions, 06:07 but nevertheless, where are yours? Where are your convictions? What are they? And where do you draw the line? Because people draw lines, even those who say they don't draw lines, draw lines. Even those who say you shouldn't draw lines, draw lines. And the problem is they oftentimes draw them in the wrong place. 06:28 And we oftentimes make them a line in the sand, which is movable rather than rock solid. So this morning, we see here in passage of Scripture here in Acts Chapter Seven, a follow-up to Chapter Six, where Stephen was being falsely accused, and he was being accused of blasphemy. 06:49 In verse 11 of Chapter Six, they secretly induced men to say, "We have heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses and God." Well, they stirred up the people, the elders and the scribes, and they came upon him, seized him, and brought him to the council. And the false witnesses reminiscent of Jesus and the false witnesses, 07:09 probably some of the same people in this passage here bearing responsibility as what did in Jesus' trial. So they set up false witnesses who said, "This man does not cease to speak blasphemous words against his holy place and the law, against Moses and God, against the holy place, meaning the temple and the law." For again, 07:31 this worn-out accusation that they used against Jesus, 07:34 "For we heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and change the customs which Moses delivered to us." And so the message here in Chapter Seven is largely related to reciting and rehearsing salvation history in the life and the 07:52 journey of the children of Israel and proving them that what Moses said about Christ, who Moses was, what he said about Christ, and what the nature of the tabernacle and the temple were. And he comes down through verses one through about 43, the intensity starts ratcheting up. 08:14 And one through about 42, just basically a reciting of salvation history, Jewish history. And they probably wouldn't have had any problem with what he was saying up to that point. But then he began to expose their sins and how that they had wandered away from Moses. You see, 08:33 they were accusing him of rejecting Moses, but they also, their forefathers had rejected Moses and turned against him. It's ironic here that they were accusing him. And in so doing, he is proving that they were actually accusing their own forefathers. And then in verse 44, 08:52 he turns toward the tabernacle as being the legitimate place of God's, the real place that God established as where His presence would dwell, and that the temple was something that came later and that was actually going to be destroyed about 30 years later, 30, 35, 40 years after this event. 09:13 We know that happened. They didn't know it at the time. But God is not limited to His temples that are made by man. Heaven is my throne. Earth is my footstool, and so on. Then in verse 51, He turns the sights and the scope on them where He says, 09:31 "You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit as your fathers did. So do you." And so this was Stephen's undoing as far as his earthly ministry was concerned and his earthly life was concerned. But this is what we remember about Stephen, 09:51 how that he took the convictions of the Word of God and made those a part of his message, a part of his life, non-negotiables that he would lay down his life for. He preached with conviction, revealing their sin, exposing their heart, and all the while reflecting the glory of the Lord. 10:12 Chapter Six, verse 15, "And all who sat in the council, looking steadfastly at Him, saw His face as the face of an angel, reflecting the glory of God." Filled with the Spirit, verse 55 says, "Filled with the Spirit, being full of the Holy Spirit, He gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God. 10:33 He was proclaiming Christ as Lord." In verse 52, "Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who foretold the coming of the Just One, of whom you are now have become betrayers and murderers. 10:50 And now you're fixing to kill the one who's declaring to you who that Just One was. And you are no different than your fathers in the wilderness throughout the rebellion of Israel." And he's making that very, very plain in his sermon. Now, what we see here is conviction, 11:10 conviction in preaching, absolutes. And what I'd like to do is go through some of these this morning that we can glean from Stephen's sermon. And then in our next message, we'll talk a little bit more about specific convictions, specific convictions that we have based on the Word of God. 11:29 But these convictions that we're going to cover this morning must be in place before we ever talk about specific convictions. In other words, the convictions that we hold personally or as a church are only able to be held because we hold the convictions that Stephen is preaching about in his message. You must think Christian before you can act Christian. 11:51 Amen? You must think as a believer before you can act as a believer. And so we want to think God's thoughts, and we want to hold on to these things that Stephen held onto. So that's where we're going with this message this morning. 12:07 He was, number one, relieved that God is personal, that God is real and personal. In fact, in verse two, he says, "Brethren and fathers, listen. 12:23 The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia and gave him instruction." Do you believe that God is real this morning? Do you believe that God is personal this morning, that He's really personal, that He is not just a God out there somewhere, but He is a God here? 12:45 He is both transcendent over all, but He is also imminent. That means He's right here with us. He is near us. The Bible says, "In Him, we move and have our being." He's so close that He knows the thoughts and intents of our heart. He even knows the number of hair on our head. And He cares for the dogs, the puppies. 13:04 He cares for the sparrows. And will He not much more care for you, O ye of little faith, that He is a God who is real and personal? The next thing we see is in verse three, that God gives direction. God gives direction to Abraham. 13:24 Said, "Abraham, I want to be your God. I will be your God. You will be my people. And I want you to get out of your country, from your relatives, and come to a land that I will show you." God gives direction. Thank you. Thankful for that this morning, that as we enter into a new year, that God can give us direction, the direction that we need from His Word, 13:44 helping us to understand His Word, helping us to apply His Word, and by His Spirit's direction, giving us the specifics of where to go, how to do things, wisdom, understanding that come from His heart and His Spirit. So God gives direction. 14:00 If you need direction today from God, He is happy to share with you His direction. Sometimes that means we must seek Him and seek Him diligently. And for they that seek Him diligently shall find Him and surely find Him. 14:17 And so then the third thing that we see here in this passage is that God requires His people to be separate from the world. Verse four, "Then He came out of the land of the Chaldeans and dwelt in Haran." Do you believe that God is calling us to be a separate people? Yes, He is calling us to be a separate people, a people. 14:37 In fact, the word church, by virtue that we have the word church in our name and that we are part of the church of Christ, means that we are a separate people, a called-out people. The word church in the Greek is the word ekklesia, which means a called-out assembly. After the pattern of the church in the wilderness, 14:58 the Old Testament people of God called out of Egypt. This is what He's referring to here a little bit later, called out of Egypt and called to be a chosen people separated unto God. I prefer to think about us being separated unto God, which is Paul's term in the book of Romans, 15:17 rather than separated from the world, because our focus is not to be on the world, but it's to be on God. And so as we separate unto God, we will find ourselves walking contrary to the world. In fact, God's Word says in Second Corinthians Chapter Six, "Come ye out from among them and be ye separate and touch not the unclean thing, 15:39 and I will receive you. And I will be your Father, and you will be my people." God requires His people to be separate from the world. And in doing that, He keeps His promises. He has made promises to us. In Chapter Seven, verse Five and Six, 15:59 God gave him no inheritance in that land, not even enough to set foot on, although He did buy some property for a burial plot. But He made some promises. 16:12 And His promise was that to give Abraham's descendants the land for possession to Abraham and his descendants after him. And God spoke in a way that His descendants would dwell in a foreign land and that they would bring them into bondage and oppress them for 400 years. And so here we have promises being made to Abraham. 16:34 And we sing the song, "Every promise in the book is mine." Every chapter, every verse, every line. Well, I'm not sure that every promise in the book is actually mine. Some of them were given to Abraham and to Isaac and Jacob and to Abraham's seed. But nevertheless, the ones that He has addressed to us, we can take to the bank, not literally, but our spiritual bank. 16:56 We can lay up for ourselves treasures in heaven, where moth nor rust doth corrupt, nor thieves break through, nor steal. And we can know that those things that are committed to His trust, He will be faithful. He is faithful. He cannot deny Himself. 17:14 Next, we move on to see that God judges disobedience. Do you believe that this morning? If you're living in sin, you must not, because God does judge disobedience. A person living in sin somehow thinks that God will overlook their sin, somehow thinks that God won't call out their sin, somehow thinks that they can avoid God's judgment on sin. 17:36 But let me tell you this morning, you cannot avoid God's judgment on sin and disobedience. Verse Seven, "The nation to whom they will be in bondage, specifically Egypt, I will judge," said God. And after that, they shall come out and serve Me in this place. And so God judges disobedience and rebellion. 17:57 Then next, we find that God has made a covenant with His people. Remember, number one, that God is real and personal. He's real and personal and has made a covenant with His people. Verse Eight, "Then He gave him the covenant of circumcision." And so Abraham begot Isaac and circumcised him on the eighth day. 18:19 And Isaac begot Jacob, and Jacob begot the twelve patriarchs. And so we have God making a covenant with His people and expecting faithful obedience and loyalty to the covenant. While the covenant has been initiated by God to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, God expected that covenant to be honored by His descendants. 18:40 And God has given to us in the church a new covenant in the church age. He has given to us a new covenant that is based on the suffering, death, and resurrection of the risen Lord Jesus. And He expects us as entering into that covenant with Christ, that covenant with God, 18:59 the new covenant where He dwells within us and is establishing the law of Christ in our hearts and in our minds. That covenant, He wants us to be loyal to and faithfully obey. 19:14 And what a message again for the new year to faithfully follow the covenant of our Lord Jesus Christ, the gospel. The covenant of the new covenant, the New Testament in my blood, Jesus said, is made known in the gospel, the suffering, death, burial, and resurrection of our risen Lord Jesus Christ. 19:36 So then we see next that God is sovereign. Do you believe that this morning? Do you have a conviction that God is sovereign? I hope you do, because if you don't, a lot of things in life will not make sense and will blow you out of the water and topple your little fishing vessel, sink you emotionally, spiritually. But if you know and recognize that God is sovereign, 19:58 listen to what it says here in verse Nine and Ten. "And the patriarchs becoming envious sold Joseph into Egypt, but God was with him." Now, if you're Joseph, your little life is going to be profoundly impacted by what you believe about the sovereignty of God when you're sold by your brothers into Egypt. 20:19 Verse Ten, "And delivered him out of all his troubles and gave him favor and wisdom in the presence of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and made him governor over Egypt and all his house." Joseph didn't know at the beginning what was going to happen at the end, but he trusted in God, that God was at work and that God is sovereign and that God is over His people. 20:39 This covenant-keeping God who entered into a covenant with my father Jacob, Joseph could have said and probably did say, is going to keep me. And when he came to the end of his years of ministry, he could look back and say, "Satan meant it for evil. You brothers meant it for evil. 20:58 But God meant it for good to save many people alive." Oh, that we would trust in the sovereignty of God. Now, verse Eleven, we find that God tests the genuineness of our faith. Are you in a time of testing? Are you in a time of testing? 21:17 I preached one time in a church about the detours that God has in life and about being content and satisfied with those detours. And in the middle of the detours, a pastor's wife came up afterwards, and she said, "I feel like my whole life has been a detour." Well, thank God for the detours and that He is with us during the detours. 21:37 And those detours test the genuineness of our faith. And it is an opportunity for God to not only be convinced Himself. He already knows our strengths and weaknesses and our decisions before we make them, but He reveals to us the genuineness of our faith, which is more precious. 21:58 The testing of our faith is more precious than gold and silver. And when we are tried, we will come forth as gold. Then we come to verse Fifteen. If He talks here about the land of Egypt, Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt. And the second time, they sent Joseph's brothers down there. 22:17 And you remember the account. Then Joseph sent and called his father Jacob, verse Fifteen, and all his relatives to him, seventy-five people. And we see God moving to fulfill the covenant, even another step. 22:30 And verse Fifteen, "So Jacob went down to Egypt, and he died, he and our fathers." There's another truth there that we rely upon, that death is for sure. Even Jacob, the third generation of covenant, even Isaac, 22:50 the second generation of covenant, even Abraham, the first generation of covenant, even Sarah, the one who was bearing the covenant, the promised son, died. They died. They died. They died. They all died. And the covenant lives on. 23:10 Death is sure. And terrible things happen in this world. Verse Nineteen, "This man dealt treacherously with our people and oppressed our forefathers, making them expose their babies so that they might not live." We know that this ruler rose up that did not know Joseph. And terrible things happen. 23:32 Death is sure in all, but there is hope because the covenant lives on. Verse Twenty, "God uses men to do great works." That should be verse Twenty instead of Nineteen. "This man dealt treacherously, but at that time," verse Twenty, "Moses was born and was well-pleasing to God. 23:54 And he was brought up in his father's house for three months." You know the 24:01 accounts there that are given of the life of Moses. "But God, in their time of desperation, is going to use a man to do a great work." One poet said it like this, "When God sees a need, He sends a man." And so it was with Christ. "When God saw our need, He sent a man, 24:21 the Lord Jesus Christ, God-man. He sent Himself. He came Himself in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin destroyed sin in the flesh." And so then we see in verse Twenty through Twenty-Three, and this is a good one for Twenty-First Century North America and around the world, that all human life is sacred. 24:43 Do you believe that this morning? Do you have a conviction for that? I trust that you do. A conviction, a non-negotiable, rock-solid belief and practice that all human life is sacred from conception to the grave. 25:02 In vitro fertilization is a large issue today. You hear it talked about by governor and government. You hear it talked about by theologians. 25:15 In order to have in vitro fertilization to bear a child that way, there are multiple embryos that are created where there is conception. And then they implant several of the healthiest embryos into the uterus of the mother. 25:33 And then the other embryos are left and ultimately will be destroyed. And that is a life issue. That's a life issue. That's a sanctity of human life issue. And so I would warn anyone that would consider in vitro fertilization, 25:52 be very careful, be very careful to consider what life looks like before birth. Anyway, that's for free. A conviction that all human life is sacred. Next, we see that people often do not understand and disappoint you. 26:12 Yeah, that's a conviction, folks. That's a conviction. Verse Twenty-Four, "And seeing one of them suffer wrong," this is Moses, "He defended and avenged him who was oppressed and struck down. For he supposed that his brethren would have understood that God would deliver them by his hand. But they did not understand, 26:32 and they let him down." And Moses was not acting under direction from God at that point. He was taking matters in his own hand. But he expected that they would understand that he's the deliverer. He has a passion. He has a call. He has convictions. And they didn't understand. 26:53 They disappointed him. They turned on him. But God can redeem even our mistakes. 27:01 Verses Twenty-Six through Twenty-Nine, "The mistakes that Moses made in that incident caused him to flee into the wilderness and set the stage for an encounter with the God Jehovah Yahweh in the burning bush." And so he talks about the 27:20 burning bush and the God redeeming Moses' mistakes and using those mistakes in the good that God could even use the mistakes that we made in order to advance His purposes. You know, think about maybe you have a life of that you have regrets in your past. You have regrets in your past. Be assured from the life of Moses that God can even use the things that you regret, 27:40 the mistakes that you made, the sins that you made, and even use those things to advance His kingdom once you repent and encounter Him. So then we find next that God desires to reveal Himself. 27:56 And in verse Thirty through Thirty-Three, "The Lord appeared to Moses in the flame of fire in a bush in the wilderness of Mount Sinai. When Moses saw it, he marveled at the sight, and he drew near to observe. The voice of the Lord came to him." Have you ever heard God speak? Have you ever heard the Holy Spirit speak to your heart saying, "You need to repent. 28:16 I love you. Confess your sins. Be forgiven. 28:22 Turn your life around. Surrender your heart to Me"? Oh, when God speaks, it is a wonderful thing. When God speaks through the pages of His Word and says, "Come unto Me, all you that labor and heavy laden, and I will give you rest." What a wonderful thing to hear God speak as He desires to reveal Himself. 28:40 And then we also see that God is holy and must be feared and reverenced. This was Moses' experience. "I am the Lord. I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob." Wait a minute. This is four hundred years later, and the covenant is still in place. It's still there. 29:00 It can still count on it, Moses. "And Moses trembled and dared not to look. Then the Lord said to him, 'Take your sandals off your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground.'" When God shows up, it's a holy experience. It is a holy place. It is a holy experience. It is a holy environment. It's even a holy bush, just an ordinary-looking bush. 29:21 But it became holy because God was there. Then we see in verse Thirty-Four through Thirty-Six that God is calling out a people of His very own. This is, again, something we talked about just moments ago. "But I have surely seen the oppression of My people. I have heard their groaning. I have come down to deliver them. 29:41 I'm going to send you to Egypt, 29:43 and I'm going to bring them out," verse Thirty-Six, "after He showed wonders and signs in the land of Egypt and in the Red Sea and in the wilderness forty years." God calling a people to Himself. God is still calling a people. He's still calling us to be His people, 30:03 His covenant people, bought by the blood of Jesus, not by the blood of bulls and goats, but by the precious blood of Christ. Rebellion against God leads to idolatry is another conviction. 30:19 Verse Thirty-Nine through Forty-Two, "Whom your fathers would not obey." You see this angel in the wilderness. He calls him an angel. It was a pre-existent or a pre-incarnate experience with Christ, the angel of the Lord, capital A, who spoke to him in Mount Sinai with our fathers, 30:41 "Whom your fathers would not obey." Hear that accusing him of disregarding Moses. And their own fathers didn't obey Moses. Their own fathers didn't obey Moses and actually went beyond that, said, "Make us gods to go before us. For as for this Moses who brought us out of Egypt, we don't know what has become of him." And they made a calf in those days, 31:01 offered sacrifices to the idols, and rejoiced in the works of their own hands. Then God turned and gave them up to worship the hosts of heaven. God will eventually give you what you want. If you want to have an idol running your life, He will give you an idol to run it or to control it. 31:24 He will turn you over to what you seek. He's done that to many. When they harden their heart, be careful what you're seeking after. You're setting something up in place of God as the object of your affections. 31:40 Be notified this morning that compromising in the commands of God leads to death and destruction, verse Forty-Three and Forty-Four. "You also took up the tabernacle of Moloch and the star of your god Rephan, images which you made to worship," which you made to worship, yes. 32:00 "And I will carry you away beyond Babylon." Beyond Babylon. You can see the immediate consequences, but this is going to go beyond Babylon, beyond time. 32:15 If you reject Jesus Christ, beyond this life will be your destiny and eternal punishment. That's a conviction, folks. That's a conviction. God has spoken to us through His Word, another conviction. Verse Forty-Three and Forty-Four, 32:35 "Our fathers had the tabernacle of witness in the wilderness as He appointed, instructing Moses to make it according to the pattern He had seen." God has shown us the pattern for life. God has shown us. He's made clear what His expectations are and what we can count on Him to provide for us. 32:57 And we can take Him at His Word. He has spoken to us in His Word. Of two of the most important things to realize is that God is real and He has spoken. If you get those two things, you will be well on your way to a blessed life, 33:17 and you will be separate from those who don't believe those things. Moving along then. Compromising God's commands leads to death and destruction. I covered that. 33:30 God disciplines wrong behavior and beliefs, verse Forty-Three, "I will carry you beyond Babylon." God wants His will in heaven to be done on earth, verse Forty-Four. 33:44 Verse Forty-Four, "His heavenly will, His heavenly pattern has been given to us to live out down here." Remember the words Jesus taught us to pray? "Thy kingdom come. 34:01 Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." So God has a perfect will, and He has a perfect will for what He wants us to do as well. God desires to dwell among us, verse Forty-Five through Forty-Seven, "Which our fathers received in turn." That's the tabernacle. 34:23 "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, who found favor before God and asked to find a dwelling place for the God of Jacob. But Solomon built him a house." God moving near in the tabernacle and then blessing man's efforts in the temple, 34:43 even though it was not prescribed by God, it was blessed by God with His presence. God living and dwelling in the midst of His people. If you look at the arrangement of the dwelling places of the Old Testament tribes, there were three on the east, three on the west, three into the north, three to the south. 35:04 And God dwelt in the midst, in the center. Oh, that God would dwell in the center of our lives. "God is high above all and must be approached His way," verses Forty-Eight through Fifty. "However, 35:23 the most high does not dwell in temples made with hands. As the prophet says, '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 rest? Has my hand not made all these things?" There's a way that we come to God. We come to Him on His terms. 35:44 We come to Him by the blood of Jesus Christ. The Old Testament, they came to Him under the covenant one. They came to Him with the blood of bulls and goats, with the intervention and intermediary of the priests and the Levites and the high priests to represent them to God and God to them. 36:05 But covenant two, covenant 2.0, the new covenant that God has made with us, we come through the blood of Jesus Christ. There's no other way to come. We come through repentance, leaving our sin at the door. 36:23 We come by faith in the person and finished work of the crucified and risen Lord Jesus Christ. We surrender to Him. We give Him access to our lives and say, "Jesus, just as I am without one plea, but that Thy blood was shed for me and that Thou bids me come to Thee, O Lamb of God, 36:42 I come." Next, we see that people need to be confronted with their sin, verse Fifty-One and Fifty-Two, "You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ear." Now, this is not going to get anybody elected to government office, verse Fifty-One and Fifty-Two. This isn't going to get anybody elected to pastor. 37:01 This isn't even going to get anybody elected to be a Sunday school teacher. I mean, this kind of message and this kind of in-your-face evangelism is not popular among men and women today. But God used it. God used it. 37:22 People need to be confronted with their sins at times. And the greatest sin, of course, is the sin of rejecting Christ, verse Fifty-Two. "And they killed those who foretold the coming of the Just One, of whom now you have become the betrayers and murderers." Remember, we looked at a number of messages that Peter preached, now one that Stephen preached. 37:43 It always keeps coming back, coming back, coming back. "You killed Him. You killed Him. You killed Him. But He's still alive." We had a part in the death of Christ. Don't ever think we didn't. If our sins are real and our salvation is real, 38:04 then our judgment and our guilt is also real. We had a part in nailing Him to the cross. But He's still alive and very much active in calling people to Himself. There are things worth dying for. 38:23 "Christ is the Just One and is actively engaged with His people," verse Fifty-Five and Fifty-Six. There are things worth dying for. Say, "What is so important to you that you would die for it?" You say, "Well, my children, I'm really sure I'd die for my children." You live for them. 38:45 You die for them. You'd protect them. You'd take care of them. You'd do anything you can to advance their well-being. Would you die for Jesus? Would you die for His Word? Would you die rather than deny the Christ who saves us? I hope that we would. 39:05 We must be careful that we're not like Peter and say, "Oh, yes, yes, Lord, take me. I'm ready. I'm ready, Lord. Lord, I'm ready to give my life for You." I mean, everybody else in this church may be backslider. But I'm ready, Lord. Oh, be very careful. But by the grace of God and the enabling of His Holy Spirit, would you lay your life down for the Lord Jesus? 39:25 Sometimes we think, "Why'd I lay my life down for the Lord?" But will you live for Him and lay your life down without dying? Dying to self? Dying to the old man? Dying to the flesh? Dying to your own sinful will and carnal desires? That's something we can do today. That's something we must do because there are things that are worth dying for. 39:48 Number Twenty-Seven, martyrdom, we learn from Stephen, is the doorway to eternal reward. 39:57 Say, "How could so many martyrs give their lives, lay down their lives, and experience excruciating pain of crucifixion, of burning at the stake, of having their tongues ripped out and their eyes gouged out? 40:15 And how could we do that?" We can do that because there are things worth dying for. There are things worth suffering for. "I'll live for Him who died for me. How happy then my life shall be. I'll live for Him who died for me, my Savior and my King." Will you die for Him? Will you live for Him? 40:34 And the last one here is the Holy Spirit gives help in suffering and witnessing, verse Fifty-Five. 40:44 "But He, being full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand and said, 'Look, I see.'" I noticed Dwayne got a little bit excited when he read that. "Look, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God." What was He doing standing? 41:06 We're told in the book of Hebrews that He sat down at the right hand of God. A number of times in Scripture where He stood, He stood in the synagogue to teach and to read. He took the handed to Him the Scriptures, the Old Testament scrolls, and He read to them and said, "Today, this law or this word is fulfilled in your midst." And He sat down. 41:26 He was done reading. He stood before Pilate to be condemned. And then He went to the cross where He hung. He was done being condemned and done standing. He had to hang. He stood to heal people. He stood to heal people. 41:45 In Luke 18:40, He was approached by, I believe it was, Blind Bartimaeus. "What do you want me to do?" And He stood to heal him. He's active. He's working. But then He's done with that job. And then He stood to present Himself in His resurrected body in Luke 24:36. When the doors were locked, 42:05 the Bible says that Jesus stood there in their midst, revealing Himself. "Touch my hands. Touch my side. See my feet. See my scars. I'm not. Touch me. I'm not a spirit. I'm not a ghost. I'm alive." And then He was gone. 42:24 He had fulfilled that responsibility. He went to heaven to sit at His Father's right hand. He was done with the redemption, with the purchase of our salvation. He was done with that. He had presented His offering. He was now the high priest interceding. 42:44 But He sat down because His work of redemption is finished. But sometimes He stands. In fact, Paul said in Acts 2 Timothy 4, "At my first defense, no one stood with me, but all forsook me. 43:00 But the Lord stood with me and strengthened me." And as long as Paul needed the Lord to stand with him and strengthen him, Jesus stood. As long as Stephen needed Him to finish well and make it to the finish line, Jesus stood coaching, 43:21 coaxing, encouraging, standing with Paul, standing with us. We learned from Stephen how to die, how to die well, how to die as a martyr, how to die as a saint, how to die. Sometimes people die a tragic, 43:42 what we would call a tragic, untimely death. Young people die. Old people die. Parents die. Children die. Grandparents die. It is appointed and a man wants to die. And after that, the judgment. 44:01 Stephen showed us how to die well, how to see the finish line and see Christ at the finish line and reflect the glory of God in our going, in our dying. We also see in this passage, as we bring this to a close, the introduction of a man by the name of Saul. 44:20 We'll be reading about him and hearing about him a lot in the book of Acts. He was the mastermind. He was the one who probably one of the chief Pharisees by this time. And the witnesses laid their clothes at the feet of a young man, a young man named Saul. 44:43 They stoned Stephen, and he fell asleep with the words of forgiveness on his lips. What a trophy of God's grace. Oh, that God may give us the opportunity to serve Him well to the end. 45:03 Let's pray. 45:06 Lord, we are in need of something to believe in. And we have found it in Christ. We've found it in the covenant that You have made with us, that He who comes to You in faith, You will in no wise cast out. 45:27 Faith, repentance, humbling ourselves, surrendering ourselves to Christ, making Him master and Lord of our lives. 45:36 Lord, we have something to believe in, something that's not just a figment of our imagination, but something that has been historically validated and personally experienced and testified by countless saints through the ages of the goodness of God, 45:57 the peace of God, the joy of Christ, and the reward of faithful service. Lord, let us evaluate what we really believe, where we would draw the line, where we do draw the line between faithfulness and unfaithfulness, and be willing to live for Him who died for me. 46:20 In Christ's name, we pray. Amen.