Stephen Held in the Arms of the Lord

46who found favor in the sight of God, and asked to find a habitation for the God of Jacob. 47But Solomon built him a house. 48However, the Most High doesn’t dwell in temples made with hands, as the prophet says, 49‘heaven is my throne, and the earth a footstool for my feet. What kind of house will you build me?’ says the Lord. ‘Or what is the place of my rest? 50Didn’t my hand make all these things?’ 51“You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit! As your fathers did, so you do. 52Which of the prophets didn’t your fathers persecute? They killed those who foretold the coming of the Righteous One, of whom you have now become betrayers and murderers. 53You received the law as it was ordained by angels, and didn’t keep it!” 54Now when they heard these things, they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed at him with their teeth. 55But he, being full of the Holy Spirit, looked up steadfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God, 56and said, “Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!” 57But they cried out with a loud voice, and stopped their ears, and rushed at him with one accord. 58They threw him out of the city, and stoned him. The witnesses placed their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul. 59They stoned Stephen as he called out, saying, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit!” 60He kneeled down, and cried with a loud voice, “Lord, don’t hold this sin against them!” When he had said this, he fell asleep.

5. Stephen’s Sermon

Today we come to Stephen’s last sermon. As you have listened to his preaching, you will have seen how much he loved God and how wholly he gave himself to God. Just as he showed his faith by the way he lived, you must live as Stephen did.

Faith is never something abstract. Faith is knowing clearly the will of Jesus Christ, being sure of his work of atonement, and relying on him and committing to him everything we have. Not one of these, knowing, being sure, and committing, may be missing; only when they work together can we have a whole faith.

Faith must have an object. And that object must not be an uncertain idol but one that is perfect, certain, and trustworthy, as Jesus is. We say we trust Jesus Christ, who came to this earth, yet in the end we do not entrust ourselves to him. Without trusting God wholly, we long to receive the things of this world from him and to see our wishes come true. So God, though he knows the lusts of our hearts, leaves us to ourselves. That is because when the human heart cannot tell righteousness from unrighteousness, it does not wake up even when God pours out his wrath and judgment.

Romans 1:17

17For in it is revealed God’s righteousness from faith to faith. As it is written, “But the righteous shall live by faith.”

In the words “from faith to faith,” the first faith is the faith that receives Jesus Christ as our only Savior, and the second is the faith that springs from complete trust. Abraham, who had received God, believed God, and his faith was counted to him as righteousness. That righteousness was revealed through deeds, and God recognized the deeds of faith as complete faith.

Think of children at school. We call them students, but they do not go to school in order to become students. When they study hard for their own future, then, their parents will approve of them, because the children know why they must study. All they did was study hard, yet their parents will even thank them. In the same way, do not be content simply to attend church; like these students, you must know why you go to church and keep your faith diligently.

When God saw Abraham obey the command to offer Isaac, he said that now he knew Abraham feared him. God was recognizing Abraham, who had come from faith to faith. This is the reason James said that a person is justified by works. When by faith we trust the word, though we cannot see it, and rely on it completely, God recognizes that our faith has been made complete through our works.

In Jeremiah 32, God commanded Jeremiah to buy “the field at Anathoth.” This happened right after God had said that the children of Israel would be captives in Babylon for seventy years. Why would God tell a man about to be carried off as a captive for seventy years to buy “the field at Anathoth”? Even if Jeremiah were to come home after seventy years, it would be impossible for him to claim ownership of that land.

Yet he did not go by his own judgment or his circumstances; because he believed God’s promise, he did as he was commanded. He trusted God’s word that when the seventy years of captivity were over, the people would come back and God would see to it that they claimed the land as their own. That trust is what led him to buy the field and keep the deed of purchase in an earthen jar. He chose earthenware for the deed because over seventy long years iron would rust and wood would rot. Jeremiah’s action teaches us that faith means investing our whole life, without holding anything back, in God’s promise.

Acts 7:39-41

39to whom our fathers wouldn’t be obedient, but rejected him, and turned back in their hearts to Egypt, 40saying to Aaron, ‘Make us gods that will go before us, for as for this Moses, who led us out of the land of Egypt, we don’t know what has become of him.’ 41They made a calf in those days, and brought a sacrifice to the idol, and rejoiced in the works of their hands.

Stephen declared that although God had raised up Moses to lead Israel to salvation, there were forces that would not obey him. Since those people were in Satan’s grip, they were carrying out Satan’s plan to bring down Moses, their leader. When Aaron, who had spoken for Moses and shared in God’s work all along, became the ringleader of that faction, it showed that anyone at all who lets down their guard can become Satan’s tool.

In the book of Job, Satan goes even before God’s throne to slander Job. And Judas Iscariot, right at Jesus’ side, was driven by Satan. God, of course, will not be deceived, but there is nothing Satan will not do. This shows that Satan can go anywhere, even to God’s side, and slander you there. That is why you must stay closer to God’s side than Satan is.

The people of Israel had seen the ten plagues, crossed the Red Sea, and eaten quail and manna and drunk from the spring; they were God’s own people. But because they had not been fully born again through the word, they could not throw off the evil habits of human nature. They raged at Moses for driving them into misery, and they said it was not God but the golden calf that had brought them this far.

As you read of them abandoning the God who had planned and worked for them so long, and clamoring to serve a golden calf, what went through your mind? And what kind of faith do you hold today? God has helped you this far so that you could hear the word and grow, and he has helped you not to live a shameful life in the world. I hope you will ask yourselves whether you might have forgotten that. A heart that cannot bear the smallest trial or pain and complains against God is no different from the Israelites making their golden calf.

All who sat in the council could no longer spare Stephen’s life, because he had declared that they themselves were the very faction that made the golden calf, and that they had killed the Messiah to whom the law bore witness, just as the prophets foretold. There must have been some among them who knew Stephen was right but could not find the courage, because the mood was turning toward killing him. When we keep company like this with angry people who do not know the word of truth, we are swept along by the crowd whatever our own view. When they complain, we complain with them; when they sin, we sin with them. We need, then, to judge rightly, with the word of truth as our measure.

Acts 7:41

41They made a calf in those days, and brought a sacrifice to the idol, and rejoiced in the works of their hands.

Human beings are truly hard to understand. Because of their own sin the people lived forty years in the wilderness, yet God gave them manna and quail and granted them the miracle of clothing that never wore out and sandals that never gave way. He protected the people of Israel with a pillar of cloud that shaded them from the scorching sun by day and a pillar of fire that kept off the cold by night.

They had seen the spring flowing from the rock, the Red Sea parting, and the ten plagues; they had seen the miracle of their release from slavery, yet they gave no thought to the grace they had received. The moment things grew a little uncomfortable, they grumbled against God, lost their trust, and betrayed him. While Moses fasted forty days for their sake to receive the word, they complained that Moses and God had abandoned them, and in that short time, while he was away, they made the golden calf.

God takes a long time, and works with great care, to make a human being fully his child. But it takes a person very little time to betray him. The moment people are deceived by Satan’s temptation is over in an instant. Hearts can turn this suddenly because, alongside God’s protection, Satan’s attacks and temptations are present too. Therefore, if we are to live by faith, we need to show the deeds of faith that drive Satan back. People give no thought to the grace and blessing they have received; they lose heart easily when small troubles come, and they do not rely on God fully. That is how, in the end, they make prodigals of themselves and make themselves debased.

Acts 7:42

42But God turned, and gave them up to serve the army of the sky, as it is written in the book of the prophets, ‘Did you offer to me slain animals and sacrifices forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel?

Through the forty years Israel lived in the wilderness, they never truly sacrificed to the God who protected and kept them, and never brought him an offering. So even while they were sinning by serving that army of the sky, God did not give them the grace to turn back.

The “army of the sky” does not mean angels. It stands for all the idols the people of Israel worshiped, that is, the sun, the moon, and the stars. Because the worship of the heavenly bodies persisted throughout Israel’s history, Stephen used the expression “the army of the sky” to drive home how stubborn the people were. They did offer sacrifices to God, but they had no fear of God in their hearts; they went through the forms of worship according to the regulations of Moses. Almighty God does not accept heartless, formal sacrifice, and such worship only stirs up more of his wrath. When the people he had loved and protected with all his heart worshiped idols, God’s heart would have been grieved. In human relationships, too, actions without true love provoke anger instead. If a person speaks of love but the one hearing it already knows the words are only a formality, then the more often they are spoken, the deeper the hurt and anger will grow.

Even those of us who worship every Sunday can come under the same rebuke. God does not accept worship that lacks a sincere heart and honest love. That is why we must worship in truth and in the Spirit. God will not regard us as fearing him, for worship offered out of duty is in the end a selfish act done for ourselves.

What is truly heartbreaking is that when trouble comes, the people of Israel end up turning to God in repentance and asking for help, since idols cannot help them. They have no one but God, and yet they set up gods of plenty and fertility and worship idols. What mindset lies behind that? It is the evil in the human heart: because they think they can always be forgiven if they go to God, people rush to satisfy the pleasures and cravings of the flesh first.

People do not fear God, because he always gives nothing but love. But what we must understand is that for those who use God, there is no wonder, no joy, no contentment, no sense of worth, and no salvation. The people of Israel always lived for their own safety and profit, and they used God’s glory only for their own ends. God, who knew their hearts, asked them whether they had ever truly brought him slain animals and sacrifices.

When we do not truly trust God, we become our own idol; our children become an idol; what we prize most and what we decide become idols. We pray to God, but because every prayer is for ourselves, God does not accept those prayers. This is idol worship, and it is what God meant when he told the people of Israel that they had no faith he could accept.

Acts 7:43

43You took up the tabernacle of Moloch, the star of your god Rephan, the figures which you made to worship. I will carry you away beyond Babylon.’

Stephen lays stress on this in verse 43. God declares, “You took up the tabernacle of Moloch, the star of your god Rephan, the figures which you made to worship. I will carry you away beyond Babylon,” and so he made those who had forsaken him suffer the judgment of being carried off to Babylon.

Israel lived by God’s grace, and yet they betrayed him again and again and were failing to hold fast to a whole faith. That shows how ungrateful, thankless, and evil the human heart is. Only those who remember God’s grace and give thanks can receive Jesus Christ; but because Israel was not keeping God’s word itself, they did not receive Jesus as the Messiah. Therefore they could not escape discipline and judgment.

Once the shelter of God’s grace is gone, anyone will fall into sin. And once we fall into sin, we will drift away from God’s word; then God will give up on that soul, and judgment will naturally follow. We must realize that this very time we are living is God’s grace. Only then can we see how precious we are, living in his grace, and so find life full of happiness and joy.

Take, for example, someone who builds ships. Because the ship must sail out into the open sea, they will do their very best to build it so that not even the tiniest hole appears. But if the one using the ship takes a drill far out at sea and bores a hole as they please, the ship will sink into the deep. Then, shout as they may, no one will come to the rescue; struggle as they may, they cannot survive in the middle of the ocean. But whoever treasures and cares for the ship until the day they reach shore again will come back and thank the one who built it so well.

God has given us Christ, a ship that will keep us safe, and so long as we do not abandon that ship, we will be secure. But suppose that, after a life of nothing but security, we start to think a plunge into the sea might not be so bad, and we jump: we will run into danger after danger. Only then will we realize how safe the ship was, and getting back on board will not be easy.

At that point, if someone on board reaches out and takes hold of the one in the water, that person can live. This is exactly what brothers and sisters in the faith, made one family in the church, do for one another. If we believe that God is always keeping us, that faith will show itself in real life. I hope you will not set your hearts on the world you can see, but believe that the Holy Spirit is always walking with you, and live by a holy faith.

Acts 7:48-49

48However, the Most High doesn’t dwell in temples made with hands, as the prophet says, 49‘heaven is my throne, and the earth a footstool for my feet. What kind of house will you build me?’ says the Lord. ‘Or what is the place of my rest?

Whenever the people of Israel marched, the ark of the covenant always went before them. Wherever the ark went, miracles happened, so the people could enter Canaan in safety. When David became king, it constantly grieved him that the ark was kept in a tent. Longing to build a great temple to house the ark, David prayed to God, but God refused his earnest wish. And God said that David’s son Solomon would build the temple. Since David had always been faithful to God, it was only natural that he should build it, but because of his sin God did not allow it. Human thoughts and God’s thoughts differ in just this way. Later Solomon built the finest of temples, but God, who created heaven and earth, did not dwell in the building Solomon made. For God is the Creator who made the whole universe and all that is in it.

Yet people who serve so almighty a God still build vast, splendid church buildings and call them the temple. But God does not dwell in buildings made with human hands. We try to possess God through our own experience, tastes, and abilities, and to use him however suits us; but because God is almighty and the Savior of all, he never works according to human will. The whole universe is God’s house; it is his creation and his possession. What we must do, then, is not try to shut God up in a building called a temple, but obey his word and offer ourselves to be his temple.

Stephen told the Pharisees, the scribes, and the people who had claimed this glorious God as their own possession that they had killed the almighty Messiah who came as the Righteous One. That, he said, made them sinners who had received the law ordained by angels and yet had not kept it. When they heard Stephen’s sermon, they realized how grievous a sin they had committed. They, chosen by God, had in the end stood in the way of his plan; and when they saw that they were the stiff-necked and uncircumcised people God so detests, they were cut to the heart. This was the very moment they could have repented. But unable to bring themselves to tear down the merit they had piled up, they killed Stephen.

Friends, when we recognize our sin, the blessing lies in turning back without conditions and simply believing. When the Holy Spirit gives the chance to turn back, the one who says Amen and confesses their sin is the very person God desires.

They killed Stephen because they did not want to admit their sin then and there. But if heaven truly exists, and Jesus is God the Son, what then? What if only those who live by God’s word can enter heaven, and Jesus Christ, as Stephen preached, is the only way there? We must turn back now, while the word is being proclaimed. And we must believe that Jesus Christ alone can save us, and that nothing can separate us from the love of Christ.

Stephen was stoned to death, but the word of truth he preached, and the deeds of faith with which he gave his all to spread the gospel, live on even now, bringing life to us thousands of years later. You cannot know whose soul the deeds you do in faith today may save. I hope you will make no compromise with people, situations, or circumstances, but hold fast to faith alone and live in the joy of God’s love and grace.

May you always live out your faith, as Stephen did. I bless you in the name of Jesus Christ.