Acts (Session 5) Chapters 6-7

well we're going to approach what is for many people their favorite chapter certainly of the book of acts and maybe even more than that and it's the address of stephen and i'm going to do something i don't normally do but i just feel led to do it here and that is i'm going to overlap a little bit some from last time there's a very short little chapter chapter 6 that we reviewed last time but by way of review i want to start with that to get the right setting for peter's address to the sanhedrin so bear with me here if you would so back in chapter 6 it said in those days the number of disciples was multiplied there arose a murmuring of the grecians against the hebrews and it's speaking there of course of the the jews that adopted a greek lifestyle and against the hebrews because their widows were neglected in the daily administration and so we're talking about hellenistic jews the rivalry with the native jews and uh so and the world outside uh that area spoke greek and that's why they impaneled the uh people in alexandria the scholars in alexandria to translate the the hebrew scriptures into greek which was the common tongue worldwide so many of these people that are jewish that came from other lands to visit jerusalem spoke greek and they had a copy of the tanakh in in greek to use we call that the septuagint version and that's a a resource that's available to us today and so uh so that was the whole purpose of the what septuagint and they spoke when they came back from babylon they spoke aramaic a close dialect to hebrew but the actual pure hebrew was re-established in 1948 with the re-establishment of the nation israel and that itself is a miracle that was predicted by zephaniah incidentally that they would return to pure hebrew when that happened and it did and so uh so uh but anyway the twelve called the mulder the twelve that's the apostles called the multitude of the disciples into them and said is not reason that we should leave the word of god and serve tables in other words they felt because they're apostles that's what they should be devoted to prayer and the word of god that these administrative acts and waiting tables and things should be handled by others wherefore brethren look ye out among you seven men of honest report full of the holy ghost and wisdom whom we may appoint over this business so it's notice that apostles don't pick the guys they have the the population pick the guys very interesting point here this is the beginning of what we call deacons men who serve and uh so uh these are impressive credentials required of them nothing trivial or incidental here they had to be men of honest report full of the holy ghost that's a big one and wisdom in whom they point over this business so but we will give ourselves the apostles say continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word and so those are very those are their primary priorities of course and it's tragically rare of course uh in our society we're so pace driven to actually be able to give themselves continually to prayer and the ministry of the word anyway following on then in verse 5 and the saying pleased the whole multitude and they chose stephen there's going to be a list of seven guys here but notice who does the choosing it's the group not the apostles i think that's very interesting and they chose stephen a man full of faith in the holy ghost and we're going to hear a lot about him obviously and philip and pro chris and nicainer and timmin and parminus and nicholas a proselyte of antioch and so it's interesting that the uh that these are selected by the congregation and we're going to hear a lot more of philip in chapter uh the next chapter eight in the next session philip has a very very interesting experience that many people that read the bible have no grasp of what's really going on there and we'll get into that next time uh procharist by the way is um the guy that becomes an assistant to john the author of revelation and pro chris apparently later becomes the bishop of nicodema and so he's a guy we know more of the rest these guys we don't know a lot of they are all grecians that is hebrews from from outside israel and one of them nicholas was a gentile converted to judaism it's interesting that it was the grecians that were upset because their widows weren't being taken care of and the group picks all grecians to be the deacons interesting we have four criteria from among you no outsiders here they're good they're all christians they're all christians a good report good witness and uh full of the spirit and full of wisdom and uh and notice who they picked they were all grecian jews except nicholas who was a converted gentile and so it was interesting because it was the hellenists if you will that were feel they were getting shortchanged so all seven picked were non-palestine jews going on verse six and when they set before the apostles and when they had prayed they laid hands on them very interesting sequence there you never lay hands on some we never ordained them to office without a lot of prayer and have that confirmed uh there are many many anecdotes anecdotal examples of people that had hands laid on them that turned out not uh they shouldn't have and paul advises to be cautious of appointing a novice make sure they're proven before they get those things uh ordained if you will and the word of god increased the number of the disciples multiplied in jerusalem greatly and a great company of the priests were obedient to the faith and i think that's very distinctive i can find several places in the new testament where priests came to faith priests being conservatives being pharisees i cannot find any place that there's a sadducee that comes to the faith and i think that that may be just a matter of the record there may have been some but they're not recorded and i think that's that to me gives me pause in that direction so the priests converted and so forth and stephen here's the guy full of faith and power did great wonders and miracles among the people that's interesting not just apostles did miracles the deacons did miracles and created quite a stir and that's really what we're going to find with not only stephen but philip and probably others and so steven full of faith and power and he was called to wait tables but he demonstrated great spiritual power he is one stephen is one of the great men in the early church and you'll see why before this session is over and apparently these deacons are one with the apostles and having signed gifts that's important to understand the sign gifts were not restricted just to the apostles they're people that make a thing of that they're wrong here the deacons have those kinds of gifts apparently then there rose certain of the synagogue which is called the synagogue of the libertines the sarenians it's alexandrians and them of cilicia and asia disputing with stephen these are all jews outside from outside palestine that are sadducees they're liberals and they're really agitated by the popularity and the stirring that stephen is causing and so he was a strong witness of the gospel so he incurs obviously the hatred of the sadducees we need to recognize we're no different if we're doing our job we're going to incur the hatred of people who deny the supernatural just understand that and so in this case false witnesses were brought before the council to accuse stephen in continued verse 10 they were not able to resist the wisdom of the spirit by which he spoke so then they suborned men that is they bribed guys which said we have heard him speak blasphemous words against moses and against god that was the testimony it's a bald-faced lie but they were incentivized to do that and stephen however was effective in his speeches they didn't get very far these are not true statements they're giving they're made by false witnesses and they stirred up the people and the elders and the scribes and came upon him and caught him and brought him to the council they set up false witnesses which said this man ceaseth not to speak blasphemous words against the this holy place and against the law so they claim he's speaking against the temple and against the law and we've heard him say that this jesus of nazareth shall destroy this place and shall change the customs which moses delivered to us those are the assertions they're making two accusations to destroy this place that is the temple and to destroy the law and all that sat in the council looking steadfastly upon him saw his face like what like the face of an angel that's a very strange record by luke here interesting well i call this mission impossible you see stephen is a new christian and yet his insights and background are staggering he is going to know the old testament the talk better than the sanhedrin watch what he does here it's gonna be he's gonna go up against the sanhedrin the elite the ruling the ecclesiastical people of israel the sadducees dominate this group understand who he's talking to it's a formal counsel it's a formal hearing and it's the leadership and he's going to take him all on steve's been accused of espousing the separation of the law of moses and he's going to answer his accusation in such a way that shows that he is more jewish than they are that really is what he accomplishes here much to their chagrin of course so we're going to explore in the session one of the most favorite uh chapters in the book of acts this is a review of the history of the nation israel and a review of their resistance and rebellion against god as recorded in the tanakh of the old testament he charges the council of being betrayers and murderers of the messiah of israel that of course does nothing more than engender their bitterest hatred and leads to him being stoned and he takes that he's he is not a martyr because he died rather he died because he was a martyr the word martyr actually means witness many people get that upside down so let's jump into uh my friend hal lindsey says is his favorite chapter i still have fond memories of teaching this at calvary chapel costa mesa i said i did the monday night studies there for about 25 years but when i happened to be doing acts 7 hal came and visited with his wife sat in the front row and it was interesting to have my dear mentor and friend sitting at my feet what a surprise that was but this is he indicated that privately this was one of his favorite chapters he wouldn't miss it anyway chapter 7 verse 1 then said the high priest are these things so he's giving stephen a chance to respond to the false witnesses and so stephen is going to take a review here of a review of the entire old testament and so stephen's going to point out many details that most bible scholars have overlooked this don't be don't be surprised with some surprises that we'll uncover through stephen's efforts here first of all note who's on trial here they think he is no it appears that the sanhedrin are he's going to turn the tables in effect and put them on trial and i think this is when so he says verse 2 this is stephen men brethren and fathers men brethren those are his peers and fathers those that are senior to him hearken the god of glory appeared unto our father abraham when he was in mesopotamia before he dwelt her on they start he has started he chooses to start with the first jew one would regard as abraham as the first jew if you will our father abraham when he was in mesopotamia before he dwelt in the haran now this is a very interesting subtlety that he deals with here that many people don't realize and so first of all he calls him brethren the flesh and he also cause calls them fathers he's a younger man and he shows them respect okay he says the god of glory stephen begins and ends with god's glory and then he's a and he was before he dwelt in haran now he's going to begin with an overlooked lapse of faith on abraham's part many people miss this because they don't look at the text in genesis 12 carefully enough there is a 25-year delay in abraham responding to what god called him to do and many people don't know that you see god if you look at genesis 12 it says god had said the phrase there in the text points out that what happened had happened before and abram finally gets around to following as stephen points out he says god sent him get thee out of thy country and from thy kindred and come into the land which i shall show thee god is saying that to abraham when he dwells in the ur of the counties to get out of the land leave your father and so forth abraham doesn't do that he moves up river for 50 miles to haran and waits till his father dies 25 years apparently and then he responds to what god called him to do there's a 25-year lapse there that stephen calls her notice to that most people don't pick up because they don't read the text that carefully god had said to him get the out of that country and from the kindred and come into the land which i shall show thee okay see notice what god had called him to do to get out of your country which was the earth calories to get out from thy kindred he doesn't do it until his kindred dies then he came out of the land of the chaldeans and dwelt in iran that's moving up river not leaving the country and from vince when his father was dead he removed him into this land where he wherein he now dwell subtlety is here but stephen is highlighting this to make a point he's going to indicate there is a pattern in israel that they always blow it on the first call and they fulfill it on the second that is his hypothesis throughout his whole talk here from vince when his father was dead he didn't leave his father he waited till he died and then left as so abram's original call was from the ur of the chaldees not haran iran was 50 miles upriver if you look very carefully at the text in genesis chapter 12 the first three verses god had said and he finally obeys abraham was called an ur he moved to iran he did not move again for 25 years later when his father died he didn't really do what his god called until his father died you could consider that 25 years a years of disobedience a lapse of faith in a sense however interestingly enough his abraham's sin is blotted out you can read the text and find it if you look hard enough but it's not highlighted if you will in the text it's alluded to in hebrews 11. now this discrepancy about the ages will only show up if you realize that abraham only if abraham is tara's firstborn listing first does not imply the order of birth but the order of importance there are examples of that shem ham and japheth sons of noah it was ham that was the youngest and he's mentioned the middle japheth was the oldest and he's mentioned last um jacob and esau esau was the older one yet jacobs mentioned first see the order is not necessarily in terms of their ages and so moses and aaron you see aaron was older than moses but moses is always mentioned first because he's more important they're listed in in the order of importance and you need to be sensitive that so you don't jump to other conclusions ephraim and manasseh again manasseh was the oldest these are all examples where the oldest is not necessarily mentioned first the more significant of the two in terms of the holy spirit editing the text okay so there may have been other sons of terror by the way besides abraham nahor because rebecca was his granddaughter and rachel was also his great-granddaughter and haran was it was because he was the father of lot and so on so steven's point here is that there was a lapse of faith on abraham's part most people don't pick up on that stephen makes a point of it in his address and of course this is not lost in the sanhedrin he's rubbing their nose in it in effect and if you want to see if you want to see a complete study of abraham we encourage you to take a look at our expositional commentary on the entire book of genesis go into all that now there's a consistent historical profile here watch carefully stephen's key points he is arguing that israel is always unresponsive in the flow of their history yet god's purpose is always persistent god is persistent israel is always unresponsive the first time they finally get it on a second occasion that's their pattern throughout their history stephen points out he starts out with abram as he in a sense was the first jew their history was characterized by rejection the first time and acceptance the second that is their point and he's going to climax that when they reject their messiah and what's implied by his whole outline is that if he would if they hadn't stoned him if they let him finish he would point out that they will accept him on his second coming and that's the point he's making here let's go on here verse five and he gave him none inheritance in it no not so much as set his foot on yet he promised that he would give it to him for a possession and to his seat after him when as yet he had no child in other words god promised the land to abraham before he had any children meaning he would have promised he would have seed okay and so you need to recognize that the land was promised when he and sarai were beyond childbearing age and that was of course a big surprise god spake on this was that his seed would sojourn in a strange land and that they would bring them into bondage and entreat them evil for 400 years this was obviously what god had told abraham in now we know they would treat them evil for 400 years but we know from exodus 12 and also galatians 3 that they were down there 430 years that sounds like a contradiction no there were 400 the last 400 that they were abused the first 30 years they had a pharaoh that knew them and that changes of course subsequently it's interesting that stephen always quotes makes his quotes from the septuagint i think that itself is provocative and so now is there a discrepancy here well there are three possible answers round numbers is is in genesis 15 13 it mentions 400 years the last 400 of the 430 were the ill treatment not all 430 in other words now if you count from the recognition of isaac in genesis 21 12 it will turn out to be uh 400 years anyway let's move on to verse 7 and the nation to whom they shall be in bondage will i judge said god and after that shall they come forth and serve me in this place now by the way satan knows that and that gave satan four centuries to lay down a minefield and once again he lays down nephilim an attempt to corrupt the path to a messiah the same thing that caused noah's flood to be brought is going to be is reinstated within the land because satan can take advantage of this he's got 400 years to lay down his mine field so to speak well stephen continues here and he gave him the covenant of circumcision and so abraham begot isaac and circumcised him the eighth day and isaac begot jacob and jacob begot the 12 patriarchs so these 12 patriots of course become the head of the 12 tribes as we as we think of them that when they say patriarchs they really mean the head of each of the 12 tribes but there's another term i don't i want to pause here and just call your attention to i can't resist this abraham circumcised uh his son isaac on what the eighth day right well let me tell you something a little bit about that i think this is kind of interesting it turns out there's a vitamin k which is a clotting element which is not formed in the newborn child until the fifth through the seventh day that's when it's first formed so if you do it earlier than that you suffer the possibility of continual bleeding and no clotting there's also a a thing called prothrombin is also necessary for cladding on the third day it's about 30 percent of normal on the eighth day it peaks up to over a hundred percent of its normal value and then levels off let me show you this graphically if i may here are the blood clotting factors if you look at vitamin k it slowly builds up and uh prothrombin does also in fact prothrombin goes over 100 on the eighth day so if you know all this and can graph this progress in a child you know that if you're going to circumcise a male child you want to do it on the eighth day you do it too early or later you run some risks eighth day it's designed to be done now the question that this raises in my mind is how did moses how did he know to do it on the eighth day these things are necessary as i pointed out how did moses know the circumstance the eighth day in genesis 17 that's what he's instructed by god to do and did moses know that by trial and error i don't think so think that through a little bit okay so i think that's kind of fun so anyway and the patriarchs let's go back to the text here and the patriarchs moved with envy sold joseph into egypt but god was with them and obviously everyone that's read their bible is familiar with the incredible saga of the story of joseph and from genesis 37 to the chapter 50 it's the saga of this incredible career of joseph but notice this that they sold joseph into egypt but god was with them and delivered him out of his afflictions and gave him favor and wisdom in the sight of pharaoh the king of egypt and made him governor over egypt in all his house let me point out something to you pharaoh is a title that is equivalent to the king of egypt it's not necessarily hereditary it's not necessarily hereditary made him governor over egypt now the pharaoh made joseph the prime minister if you will the governor over egypt and all his own house that's the incredible destiny of our friend joseph okay but he was hated by his brothers but as jesus said the stone which the builders reject is become the head of the corner and joseph is in a sense a foreshadowing of the messiah arthur w pink in his book leanings in genesis actually has a list of over a hundred ways that the life of joseph profiles the in anticipation the life of of our lord and uh so um uh he actually is 101 ways that joseph is in a sense a what we call a type of jesus christ and so now stephen is going to point out again and again that the very guy which god sent their forefathers beat up okay here joseph was hated by his brothers and they sold him into slavery yet this was in god's plan all along god's plan was executed in spite of or i might say in anticipation of the reaction of his brethren okay think that through now israel's misapprehension of god's purposes and their opposition to them in spite of which and by means of which they were accomplished so see the whole tone of stephen's recounting israel's history that it's always israel that's wrong they always oppose what god wants them to do the first time they finally get it the second time around now notice here's something else now there came a dearth over the land of egypt in other words a famine of the land of egypt and canaan and um and great affliction and our fathers found no sustenance but when jacob heard that there was corn in egypt he sent out our father's first that's the build up the story here and the second time joseph was made known to his brethren and joseph's kindred was made known unto pharaoh it was see see he knows how how stephen is emphasizing it's the second time that things get set right here again again israel does not recognize him until the second time that's the pattern so what stephen is setting the stage for here is if history is the guide then israel will not recognize your messiah until the second time not the first time you're he's talking to a group that rejected christ the first time according to their pattern throughout their history they'll get it right on the second time round then sent joseph and called his father jacob to him and all his kindred three score and fifteen souls 3 score and 15 now stephen is quoting from the septuagint which has 75 souls this the hebrew bible says 70. all the scholars believe that the five difference is the additional kindred of the 70 that went there but they don't agree on which five it was so as a little bit of background there let's keep going now here's something more important here so jacob went down into egypt and died he and our fathers and were carried over to second and laid in the sepulchre that abraham bought for a sum of money of the sons of immor the father of sikhim now this creates a problem because this people are some of the scholars argue about this there's confusion over the burial sites most commentators say that stephen made a mistake i don't believe that but it turns out that there are two different burial sites in genesis one was brought by abraham and one was bought by jacob so it's not a contradiction there's two different burial sites and the one bought by abraham was in mcpella the one that was bought by jacob was in shechem from whom abram bought his effort on the hittite jacob from the sons of hamor or shechem's father and that's in genesis 33. the one abram bought is in genesis 23. and who buried him who's buried there the one that abraham bought at mcpella was abram and sarah isaac and rebecca jacob and leia pretty impressive the one that jacob bought that's where joseph is buried according to joshua chapter 24 and probably but we're not sure the 12 patriarchs may be buried there some if not all of them the problem is that there are no mention of the 12 patriarchs burial by hebrew writers why because that region is in samaria but jerome and others do record that so that isn't as authoritative but the hebrew writers tended to dismiss samaria as part of the blighthead north north kingdom and so forth so that may be part of what's going on here but the confusion emerges simply because there are two different burial sites that's really the point so i mentioned that in passage not a big deal but if you encounter people who say the bible's got contradictions not exactly there are some alternative views here some say it's an error i don't think so uh some say abram originally purchased and jacob repurchased i don't think so the the the reconciliation i gave you i think is the correct one the altercation with the sons of hamer over the property joseph is recorded in genesis 49 so there's some discussion about that so i'm mentioning all of this primarily so that you don't be too quick to accept some commentators view that there's an error sometimes there are manuscript problems but to praise god for the contradictions because behind the resolution may lie another discovery so i urge patience here but here is the one that i think is really interesting but when the time of promised deny which god hath sworn to abraham the people grew and multiplied in egypt until another king arose which knew not joseph we all know the story of the exodus but because we're dealing with greek there's a little surprise tucked in behind the translation here when in the greek you use the word another you've got two choices in the greek there are two words for another if i want if i ask you for a pencil and i use the word aloes that means i want a pencil exactly like this one another one like this one but if i want a different kind of pencil i say give me another heteros pencil that means i need a pencil but a different kind of one a red rather than black or something follow me two words in the greek okay now so there's a significant period of time occurs between joseph and the pharaoh of the exodus obviously the greek word heteros is used when you want another of a different kind the word alos means another of the same kind stephen is using the word heteros here meaning another king of a different kind the king of the exodus was not an egyptian that's the real point that's what he's telling us here and if he's not egyptian you can begin to understand that this group of slaves that are starting to multiply start to become a majority and he's on a slippery rock he's insecure so to protect himself he starts subjugating them treating them as slaves and abusing them and and and exercising his political strength and another another king of different kind which knew not joseph he had no commitment to the history of this prime minister here and so we know from isaiah 52 4 that the pharaoh that oppressed the hebrews was an assyrian not an egyptian and that explains why he was insecure and why he was so insecure and oppressive during the period that we know as as the exodus that's something that was missed in the research lying behind the movie the ten commandments which leads on ramesses and a whole other thing and one of the things you might just put in your notes if you want there's a guy named david wall w-o-h-l i don't believe he's a christian but he's an a a fantastic egyptologist and he's made a lot of discoveries which essentially have turned the traditional view of the dynasties in egypt upside down turned them all around it happens that his discoveries tend to link up just remarkably accurately to the biblical record i'm not suggesting he's a christian but he certainly has done some extensive books and background that are very iconoclastic they very they very much turn over the traditional academic sequencing which has all kinds of problems there are major translational problems that have led to the confusion of the egyptian dynasties so if you're going to get into that make sure you really do your homework or you'll be getting into some real confusion but in any case interesting enough the pharaoh of the he of the of the exodus was an assyrian how do i know it because it's recorded in isaiah isaiah 52 verse 4. okay so here we have our friend stephen before the sanhedrin and he laying out a pattern of failures abraham's failure in acts in verse 4 joseph's failure in verse 13 if you will moses failure will show up in verse 27 and the law in verse 35 and joshua in verse 45 there's just a pattern of failures that he will lay out here so anyway let's go on here in verse 19. the same dealt subtly with our kindred and evil entreated our fathers so that they cast out their young children to the end they might not live but in which time moses was born and was exceeding fair and nourished up in his father's house three months nourished up by the way the term there is interesting it's of young children and animals nurse to promote growth it's a technical medical term in the greek it's again luke's editorial going on here he's he's he's it's the vocabulary of a doctor uh interestingly enough we see that all through the book of the gospel of luke and the book of acts now there are several places in this chapter where the term used is one that only a doctor would use which is interesting because act was written by luke a physician who had a larger vocabulary than hippocrates who's considered the father of medicine bioproperties has left a lot of writings but the vocabulary of luke is larger fascinatingly enough well let's go on here when he was cast out speaking of moses when he was cast out pharaoh's daughter took him in and nourished him for her own son and moses was learned in all the wisdom of the egyptians and was mighty in words and deeds quite a statement that has some surprises hidden behind it obviously we all know the story about how pharah's daughter brought him up as her own son pharaoh had no his own son so moses would have been the next in line apparently interestingly enough okay mighty in words that means he lied by the way because if you look at his dialogue with god in exodus 4 he says i'm a slow speech a slow tongue and so forth no he wasn't he was really quite articulate according to our friend stephen here but more to the point josephus points out that moses was mighty in the military arts he was being groomed for leadership in egypt you need to understand that that's one thing the movie ten commandments brings out that he was really being groomed to be a prince of egypt and philo also points out that moses was tutored by the most celebrated foreign schools in arithmetic geometry music philosophy hieroglyphics and the arts and sciences that all sounds pretty good doesn't it there's a dark side to that i want to touch on here by the way you see egypt of course had developed mathematics chemistry engineering architecture astronomy to a very fine point i'm not knocking them they calculated the distance to the sun that's a non-trivial exercise the the knowledge of the egyptians are astonishing on the one hand okay now so they had a highly adult culture they were not an ignorant people and yet there's something interesting that you should know about them in terms of their medicine egyptian medicine in the papyrus ebers which was is dated at about 1332 bc we learn a lot about the culture in those days if you have an embedded splinter what did you do you apply worms blood and asses done to it that was the remedy if you're losing your hair what you should do is apply six fats fats of the horse the hippopotamus the crocodile the cat the snake and the ibex did you know that i thought you'd want to know that if you want to you repair losing hair if you're turning gray what you should do is you anoint the blood of a black calf which has been boiled in oil or fat or the fat of a rattlesnake did you know that isn't this wonderful stuff by the way what should your medicine cabinet include in those days well a well-stocked medicine cabinet should have lizard's blood swines teeth putrid meat moisture from pig's ears milk goose grease acis hooves animal fats excreta from animals human donkeys antelopes dogs cats and flies did you know that you want to go home and check your medicine cab make sure you're not deficient in these essential ingredients and obviously i'm being facetious here but the point i'm going to make here i mean is moses was schooled in all the wisdom of the egyptians so while he learned obviously a lot of great things he also was exposed to this kind of error the point i'm making is what's fascinating is not only what's in the bible in the torah the books of moses what's amazing is none of this nonsense found its way into the torah you would have thought somebody coming from that culture would have inadvertently here or there said something that was wrong you know inappropriate we find none of that in the torah so not only was moses had the benefit of the right schooling which which set him well i'm sure he also was guided by the holy spirit to keep out of his right we know now by the way that the five books of moses have mathematical properties of the way the letters are arranged that are absolutely impossible to anticipate even using computers and what's interesting is if you remove just one letter from the torah many of those properties evaporate so what that tells us is not only did the five books of moses that they were given to moses by god they were given to moses letter by letter now that's an outrageous declaration and i say it in the hopes that you will challenge that and i encourage you to take a look at the cryptography that undergirds the torah of the books of moses and we have a number of materials on that if you're interested in that so but anyway none of these superstitions were retained in the torah in contrast to things like circumcision that we just mentioned things like hygiene there's all kinds of hygiene things that are in the bible that are anticipate the discoveries of medicine that as is as recent as the 19th century and the nutrition standards and so forth it's astonishing to discover how contemporary the bible is in those terms and i'm indebted of course here to a book by dr mcmillan called none of these diseases where god promises israel if you follow these things none of these diseases the diseases of their gentile neighbors would come upon them it's a very very revealing medical review of the idiocy of the history of medicine that doesn't get corrected until 18 1900 years after christ that throughout all those years the the the embodiment of hygiene and these things in the in the text has far more power than most people are aware of a neat book but anyway getting on to verse 23 speaking of moses and when he was full 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 him and avenged him that was oppressed and smote the egyptian this was moses being groomed as a prince of egypt and he finds that one of his own uh was being oppressed and he kills the guy that does it and he is what you don't get from the text but stephen points out to you here he supposed that his brethren would have understood how that god by his hand would deliver them that was moses's intent but they the other jews being abused understood not okay they understood not and that insight is not clear from the account in exodus but stephen by the power of the holy spirit highlights it for us here so seeing point is that here again israel is slow to apprehend that the divine purposes of love again they're rejecting the their leader the first time it will be later after 40 years in midian that he comes back and they accept him the second time he's pointing out they rejected him the first time we don't pick up on that reading the exodus account anyway stephen points out on the next day he showed himself unto them as they strove and would have set them once set them at one again saying sirs ye are brethren why do ye wrong one another but he and his neighbor wrong thrust him away saying who made thee a ruler and judge over us will thou kill me as thou did that's the egyptian yesterday and when when moses realizes that's been known he thought he was a secret he buried him and all that he gets pretty shook up so it's analogous to what christ said in matthew 21 by what authority and so forth so anyway then fled moses at this saying and he was a stranger in the land of midian and doesn't say this here but for 40 years so he's 40 in egypt and he's 40 years in midian then you'll come and have the exodus and he'll spend 40 years wandering in the wilderness because they didn't take advantage of keith barnia and all of that anyway so he was a stranger in my dominion where he begot two sons and so israel had to stay 40 years longer because they did not recognize moses to deliver the first time so he cools his heels so to speak on the back side of the desert and the implications here is if they had accepted moses then that god might have delivered them then but because they rejected moses the first time they were stuck with another 40 years of bondage it's the second time that he comes see the pattern that stephen is laying down here who made you ruler over us that echoes exactly matthew 21 23 and also hosea 5 15 where jesus himself says i will go and return my place until they acknowledge their offense and again so forth and john chapter 1 and john's gospel he came unto his own but his own received him not but as many received them gave you the power to become the sons of god and so forth and he would continue here and when 40 years were expired there appeared to him in the wilderness of mount sinai a an angel of the lord in a flame of fire in a bush and when moses saw it he wandered at the site here's a bush that's burning but not consumed that's a model of grace by the way the acacia book is the thorn bush of the desert and here's a thorn bush that doesn't get consumed with burning that puzzled moses he went up there to check it out he wandered at the sight and as he drew near to behold it the voice of the lord came unto him this is of course the burning bish the acacia is the thorn bush of the desert thorns are a symbol of the curse from genesis 3 18. in fact jesus bore that on his brow on at golgotha not only painful but very symbolic in terms of him bearing the curse and the fire that is burning the bush symbolizes judgment and the fire that doesn't consume symbolizes mercy or grace if you will this is what a tree it's always god's grace it's not his holiness that attracts us it's his grace that attracts us anyway saying i am the god of thy fathers the god of abraham the god of isaac and the god of jacob and then moses trembled and nursed not behold and that said the lord to him put off thy shoes from thy feet for the place where thou standest is holy ground how interesting it is that that's exactly what he said to joshua when he appears to joshua in the chapter 5 of joshua in the book of joshua put off thy shoes shoes are an interesting study you can take one of these words and do a word study in the bible it's very rewarding shoes are a symbol of the calling because there's no shoes in the tabernacle it's a symbol of divine provision in the wilderness because their shoes did not wear out in those 40 years it's a for boaz it was a marriage license his permission to step in and take a gentile bride ruth it's also a symbol of stature because john the baptist himself says i'm not worthy to unloose the shoes and so forth so the shoes are a very very interesting study throughout the is that each one of these phrases have a consistent spiritual application cover to cover in the scripture but continuing in verse 34 i have seen i have seen the affliction of my people which is in egypt and i've heard their groaning and have come down to deliver them and now come i will send thee into egypt that's god instructing moses from the burning bush who is the voice of the burning bush jesus is in john chapter 8 he claims to be the voice of the burning bush by the way an interesting side study you can get into anyway this moses whom he refused saying who made thee a ruler and a judge this same god did send to be a ruler and a deliverer by the hand of the angel which appeared to him in the bush and he brought them out after that he had showed wonders and signs of the land of egypt and in the red sea and in the wilderness forty years you realize there's three forty years here forty years in egypt 40 years in video and then 40 years in the wilderness wow after 120 years man this moses whom they refused is this point see the second trip is when they accept him first time they rejected the second time they accept him this is that moses which said unto the children of israel a prophet shall your god raise up unto you of your brethren like unto me him shall ye hear this moses which said see moses himself foretold the coming of christ in deuteronomy 18. moses quoting the prophet in deuteronomy 18 15 where moses predicts the messiah that's the the whole point here stephen clearly understands grace as opposed to the law and in this line of teaching would give rise to their accusations this is he that was in the church in the wilderness with the angel which spake unto him in the mount sinai and with our fathers who received the lively oracles to give unto us stephen his point is that moses himself predicted the very person whom they are now rejecting this is this deacon instructing the most august body of the of the nation in front of the sanhedrin in this entire passage stephen is venerating moses even more than they do to whom our fathers would not obey but thrust him from them and in their hearts turn back again into egypt saying unto aaron make us gods to go before us for as for this moses which brought us out of the land of egypt we want not what has become of him they're out and they're given the ten commandments the first time they reject it they're destroyed god had to do that a second time also as you know the deepest designer of the nation that professes the greatest jealousy for his honor boy the deepest dishonor from the nation that professes greatest jealousy for his honor how ironic and they made a calf in those days and offered sacrifice unto the idol and rejoiced in the works of their own hands then god turned and gave them up to worship the host of heaven as is written in the book of the prophets oh ye house of israel have ye offered to me slain beasts and sacrifices by the space of 40 years in the wilderness he gave them up to the to worship the host of heaven the host of heaven baal is mars and so forth gave them up to the hosa and meaning the stars and the planets and all of that psalm 81 deals with that a lot of other places idol worship is still in their blood and these idols are linked to the planets by the way you can get into a whole study there that we'll try to not spend too much time on yeah he took up the tabernacle of moloch molok was this brass altar that they heated up and put their babies sizzling to death in the arms of of this pagan worship of mullet and the star of your god rephan which figures that we made to worship then and i will carry you away beyond babylon god speaking to them now rafan is is recorded in amos 5 the star reform is septuagint for kion which is the coptic name for saturn so these are pagan worship malek was this pagan thing for infant mentality and ramfan was a was the planet somehow associated with a planet saturn and so forth male was associated with the planet mars and so on so saturn is associated with also the worship of moloch the idol of the ammonites and phoenicians with the solar bull that is taurus if you will the brass statue with human body bull's head arms outstretched worship by putting your children as arms of brass with fire all around the children would roll off into the fire it was child sacrifice done there in the valley of hinnom and in their history shameful history it's interesting that the babylonian ideograph for a planet by the way is a sheep plus the meaning for sheep plus dead is in their ideograph a sheep was a sign of augury or an omen and planets are viewed as a mechanism for forecasting the astrologe in an astrological sense and here it shows up even in the very linguistic structure if you will in babylon we have five planets in the days a week we we have five planets plus the sun and the moon give us our seven days of the week the seventh day is saturn's day or saturday even today even to the still these all have their roots in babylon and so on so it's interesting the seventh day is not saturday the seventh day is shabbat god's own day that he's singled out for himself not sunday shabbat is the seventh day and this whole field of astrology everything we know about it started in babel but it goes far deeper than this idea of a horoscope that we see today that somehow your future and your character are determined by the position of the stars at the moment you're born that's not an idea that goes back to babylon that particular style of astrology turns out to show up for the first under ptolemy in about the second century a.d about 130 a.d but astrology and its deeper senses all have their roots back in babylon that's a whole other study astrology is a form of deception far broader than uh that that than the kind of astrology you see today and obviously it's all mixed up with the ancient cultic literature astrology is expressly prohibited by the god by god in the old testament and so if you run into somebody it's in astrology you might ask them if they now have to redo all their horoscopes since the discovery of neptune and so on because that's all relatively recent in history and we can go on there's a there's a the astronomy magazine the astronomy which is a different thing it may often give you a list of ten questions to ask the astrologer they're all pretty embarrassing astrology is not only occultic it is nonsense it's pretty silly it's ridiculous actually let's move on here our fathers had the tabernacle of witness in the wilderness as he had appointed speaking unto moses that he should make it according to the fashion that he had seen gee um stephen gives us another little insight here that um according to the fashion that he had seen somehow he saw the thing and uh so so when when you see moses coming down from the hill having ten commandments under his arm you ought to put under his other arm a bunch of engineering drawings because he brought back detailed specifications for the tabernacle and all its furniture and so but here stephen points out that moses actually saw the tabernacle in his furniture if not in heaven as a vision or what have you somehow saw all that which also our fathers that came after brought in with jesus into and here is in the possession of the gentiles whom god drave out before the face of fathers into unto the the days of david the word jesus here is actually referring to joshua joshua is the hebrew the greek term is jesus and so it's a translational issue we should say joshua here and stephen here is talking about joshua the son of noon who was a successor to moses and these little subtle things are well known in the king james as you know i'm on the board of review for the international standard version bible and they obviously don't make these mistakes in fact they do something very interesting they don't speak of the children of israel they speak of israelis and that creates a lot of stir you don't find the word christ in the new testament you find messiah so it's got subtleties that are helpful because they focus our attention uh there's a number of exegetical discoveries and also discovering the dead sea scrolls that are unique to the isv so you might want to be a take a look at that who found favor before god and desired to find a tabernacle for the god of jacob but solomon built him a house howbeit the most high dwelleth not in temples which are made with hands as saith the prophet see they originally accused him of desecrating the temple and he's not disparaging the temple but pointing out that god does not dwell in the house made with hands and he's quoting from isaiah 66 the first two verses heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool what house will he build me saith the lord what is the place of my rest hath not my hand made all these things see their veneration of the temple is far beyond what god intended god continuing here ye stiff-necked and uncircumcising heart and ears ye do always resist the holy ghost and as your fathers did so do ye this is stephen accusing the sanhedrin see how he's turned the tables here you were just like your fathers were he uses moses very words from exodus 33. uncircumcising heart he's quoting there from leviticus 26 in deuteronomy 10 and jeremiah 9 and x and x is 44. and paul too by the way quotes these in romans and philippians and so on you can get these from your notes which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted and they have slain them which showed before of the coming of the just one of whom ye have been now the betrayers and murderers this is stephen laying the indictment on the sanhedrin national trait deadly hostility to the messengers of god that's his theme and even jesus makes reference that there's a lot of illusions by jesus himself that they always kill the messengers who have received the law by the disposition of angels and have not kept it so the major climax is recorded in the last few verses of matthew 23 the purpose of all history the tragedy of all history and the the restoration of all history the last last three verses of matthew 23 lay that out the purpose of all history in verse 37 the tragedy of all history see the purpose of history i would gather you as a hen gathers chicks the tragedy of all history ye would not they rejected it but the triumph of all history in verse 39 is that he ultimately will succeed and that is their portrayed jesus himself summarizes the exact point that stephen is making before the sanhedrin he did that matthew 23 and stephen's picking up on it right here and when they heard these things they were cut to the heart and they gnashed him on with their teeth wow that's a strange phrase gnashing of teeth is a hebraic way of expressing extreme disappointment or anger or rejection it isn't necessarily sateriological it isn't necessarily meaning hell or something like that it is sometimes used with other phrases that do imply that but it's just a hebraic phrase nash is a medical term in the greek by the way and nationally it's a bray isn't for extreme disappointment or frustration it's not necessarily it's eternal logical but moving on verse 55 and but he being full of the holy ghost looked up steadfastly into heaven and saw the glory of god and jesus standing on the right hand of god wow jesus standing standing because that is the role of the priest to be standing there were no chairs in the tabernacle you may recall standing is used twice both in this verse and the following one and behold i see the heavens open and the son of man standing on the right hand of god interesting phrase the son of man standing with they've heard this before from jesus when he was in trial the next time you see me you're going to see me in glory he says in matthew and he also said in luke chapter 2 by the way the son of man that's an unusual title that's god's designation of himself this is the only place that it's used by someone other than jesus himself by the way jesus is standing and standing the royal the priesthood he's the role of the priest of the order of melchizedek we know from psalm 110 and other passages stephen becomes the first martyr but that is backwards he's not a martyr because he died he died because he was a martyr martyr means witness and so be a good witness to the end and then they cried out with a loud voice and stopped their ears and ran upon him with one accord and they cast him out of the city and stoned him and the witnesses laid down their clothes at a young man's feet whose name was saul don't get the impression he's a passive bystander i suspect he was one that helped stir up the anger because he himself in his career will look back and never cease to grieve over being involved here he himself will comment on this later on in his own writings he isn't just a bystander and ii timothy chapter one he deals with this he never forgave himself for this he grieves in his letters of this very incident and they stoned stephen calling upon god and saying lord jesus receive excuse me they stoned they stoned stephen calling upon he was calling upon and saying lord jesus receive my spirit and he kneeled down and cried with a loud voice lord lay not this sin to their charge and when he said this he fell asleep now we don't know saul's reaction he's obviously a member of the sanhedrin and he heard this whole chapter laid out before him by stephen and i suspect it was ringing in his ears when he encounters jesus on the damascus road two chapters from now that'll be in chapter nine we're going to go next session will be in chapter 8 with some surprises of its own when we get to chapter 9 we have the encounter of saul with christ himself on the damascus road which changes the whole course of all history but that's coming comparing the two deaths i think this is worth doing jesus said father forgive them for they know not what they do but stephen says lord lay not this sin to their charge jesus said father into thy hands i commend my spirit stephen said lord receive my spirit see the parallelism i think this is of the heart not not contrived there is a parallel between the two well we are at the turning point in acts saul persecutes the church which will causes the apostles to move out because of salt's persecution that the apostles get scattered and that's healthy for the church and strangely enough so but we're going to now turn we've been to remember the watching orders to jerusalem and judea then samaria then the uttermost parts of the earth next chapter we're going to turn to samaria and the following chapter we have saul it'll start to the outermost parts of the earth so chapters 9 and 10 we'll move to the outermost parts of the earth 10 will be cornelius and all of that so here we are we have just taken a look at chapter 7 which as you can tell is one of my favorites and i'm just i never get over how much we've learned about the old testament from stephen's commentary this is inspired commentary this is commentary sanctioned by the holy spirit it gives us insights that many of the commentators of the old testament have missed and i wouldn't be a bit surprised the more we study chapter seven we may find some other things in the subtleties of see the greek is so precise there are subtleties tucked away there that we may have yet to discover so this isn't complete but i think it is a lesson for us to realize that the word of god is inexhaustible and all these we have subtleties here we always say that the old testament is in the new testament is in the old testament concealed and the old testament is the new testament revealed and here's another example of it that it's a it's probably one could arg one could argue the most sanctioned commentary on the old testament is acts chapter seven by this deacon not an apostle a deacon stephen and uh what a guy what a heritage he's left us very very important but next time we're going to see a fourth persecution of the church this time really energized by none other than saul because he hasn't it isn't until chapter nine that he has his encounter but we're going to discover something else several things will occur in chapter eight but one of them that is widely misunderstood by virtually everyone i've looked at misunderstood by the ethiopians misunderstood by the jews and misunderstood by most commentators we're going to see unravel before us and we're going to see some background that has been there all along in the old testament and so if you really want to do a little background for next time i encourage you to read first chronicles 30 35 verse 3 talks about josiah asking them to bring the ark of the covenant back in the holy of holies but you might read that whole chapter because tucked away in some of those verses are some surprises that we will indulge ourselves in next time

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Published: Thu Oct 15 2020