This is your turn to Acts chapter 7. We're going to be reading in Acts chapter 7 beginning at verse 44. Stephen is addressing his accusers, accused him of blasphemy, and this is part of his response. Acts chapter 7 beginning at verse 44. Our fathers had the tabernacle of witness in the wilderness as he appointed, instructing Moses to make it according to the pattern that he had seen. which our fathers, having received it in turn, also brought with Joshua into the land possessed by the Gentiles, whom God drove out before the face of our fathers until the days of David, who found favor before God and asked to find a dwelling for the God of Jacob. But Solomon built him a house. However, the Most High does not dwell in temples made with hands, as the prophet said, 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? You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you. Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who foretold the coming of the Just One. of whom you now have become the betrayers and murderers. You have received the law by the direction of angels and have not kept it. Heaven and earth will pass away, but God's word will by no means pass away. This is the second part of our mini-series called Tradition vs. Truth. Last time we started looking at the classic passage which reveals this manifestation where The historic battle is waged between tradition and truth, people's traditions waging war against the truth of God, whereas the traditions always seek to trump what God has said. We saw that Stephen had been accused by the religious leaders of blasphemy because of Jesus' teaching about the destruction of the temple and the changes that were coming because of the whole new era of Christ's redemption coming in. Stephen presented his defense as a history lesson about what God had done and revealed, and how God's people, for the most part, had responded over the ages to God's revelation. And this historical lesson about Moses quickly makes it obvious that the nation had rejected him many times, and this fact sets up Stephen's argument for his killer punch, really, his main blow that he is bringing to his audience. We ended last time looking at the shiny man-made idols and the little tabernacles that the children of Israel continue to keep with them in the wilderness and hold on to and bow before. And Stephen now puts this foolish behavior into context for us. As he says in verse 44, our fathers had the tabernacle of witness in the wilderness as he appointed, instructing Moses to make it according to the pattern that he had seen. You see, the idolatry in the wilderness which consisted of worshipping these artificial glory of gold and precious stones was being done in the presence of the true glory of God that resided over the tabernacle and in the tabernacle as it dwelt the glory cloud of God. The people continued their foolish worship of idols while in the presence of that glorious manifestation. Stephen's point throughout this whole speech is always to draw a parallel from the people there of what happened in Moses' time and to Christ's time and the people that were dwelling in Christ's time. He's doing this constantly, the parallel and connecting the dots for them. The generation that Stephen was speaking to looked upon the wilderness generation and scoffed at their stupidity. I mean, how stupid could they be to worship those silly little idols in the presence of the glorious tabernacle with the glory cloud, the Shekinah glory of God was resting over it. How could they possibly do that? And so, this wouldn't have got past them. They clearly recognized that. Christ had come, however, and tabernacled with these people. as John 1 and verse 14 tells us and the glory of the Lord as in the days of old filled this tabernacle of Jesus Christ to the degree that John could say we beheld his glory in Hebrews we are told that Jesus is the brightness of God's glory Hebrews 1 verse 3 While the wilderness generation worshipped their foolish little idols in their shiny little tabernacles, if they raised their eyes, they would have seen the glory cloud of the Lord filling the tabernacle, and they would then leave that glorious vision of the glory cloud there. Moses has gone there, and we were even afraid to go there to the presence of God, and they'd bring their eyes back to their little tabernacles that they had created, and their little shiny idols, and they would once again commit themselves to these creatures, to these objects. They prefer to worship the images made by their own hands. Man loves that. We love to worship those things we've created, whether it's ideas, whether it's objects, whether it's philosophies, whether it's religious systems. We love to worship the things that we have created with our own hands. Man's traditions are designed for comfortable worship, to keep us comfortable. to make us secure, a worship that is defined by man, a service that is defined by man and therefore man is able to manipulate, he's able to shift it and shape it according to his needs. Tradition is more appealing to the flesh. The imitation is more attractive than the reality. You see, we are not impartial judges when it comes to comparing our traditions with God's truth. Our traditions usually trump that truth. Who can doubt that the actions of the wilderness generation were completely stupid? Who can doubt that? When you read the scriptures and you look at that and you say, this is just so clear. It's just so obvious. Stephen's listeners definitely thought so. Yet how much worse went the actions of those whose traditions were so precious that they chose rather to destroy the glory of the Lord in order to continue worshipping according to their tradition. That's what they were doing. That's what they had done. This generation Stephen was speaking to had destroyed the glory of God in order to continue worshipping according to their tradition. The Israelites in the wilderness, despite their rebellion and their foolishness, they never reached the level where they waged war upon the tabernacle of God. Not overtly. They didn't attack the tabernacle, they didn't rip down the curtains, they didn't try and blow away the Shekinah glory of God. It was there and there was this inconsistency in their lives, but they didn't do that. This generation Stephen was speaking to did exactly that. They destroyed the tabernacle of God, the glory of God that was manifested to them. They waged war upon it. The Israelites in the wilderness rebelled against the tabernacle which pictured Christ, whereas Stephen's accusers destroyed the true tabernacle. As the tabernacle in the wilderness was a witness against that rebellious generation, so too Christ was an even greater witness against those who rejected Him, for He was greater than the temple that declared Him, greater than the temple that imaged Him. Who would have thought that this childish hanging on to shiny images in the wilderness Some beloved traditions, while claiming to follow the true God, would eventually mature to the stage where a generation would rise up and murder the Messiah. Who could have believed that they could progress to that degree? But sin always matures, as we saw last time. If it is not dealt with, it matures. And what is sin? Sin is lawlessness, according to 1 John 3, verse 4. Verse 45, Stephen continues, which our fathers, having received, it in turn also brought with Joshua into the land possessed by the Gentiles, whom God drove out before the face of our fathers until the days of David. You see, Israel had the tabernacle with them wherever they went in the wilderness wanderings. When they stopped to set up camp, they would erect the tabernacle. And when they moved on, they would take down the tabernacle and they would carry it with them. It was not only a clear sign of the very real presence of God with them, but it was also a picture of God's constant desire and provision for their salvation and prosperity. I am with you. I am here. The tabernacle is evidence of my presence. It's a sign of my love for you, my provision for you. Everything is summed up in that. These things were always before the eyes of the wilderness generation, yet they refused to submit to the covenant details that God had instituted. The tabernacle that Moses had made according to the exact requirements of God was passed on to the next generation. They'd made it, this faithless generation had fallen while following the tabernacle the whole time, but God got rid of them and they had fallen and the next generation was received this tabernacle and that was going to now lead them into the promised land. and they were going to possess that land that the Gentiles dwelt in. And God didn't only give Israel some land, but he gave them land which at the time was possessed by other nations, meaning they were going to be dispossessed in order for Israel to come in and possess that land. And these other nations were what? Idol worshippers. Why were they being kicked out of that land? Because they were idol worshippers. And here you've got Israel. coming towards that, and yet you've got the same leaning and tendency in the nation. So, the Jews saw Stephen's doctrine about the destruction of the temple as the destruction of God. But it's the heathen gods that are restricted to manifesting themselves in temples. They locate it. You'd have the idols, the great Diana, she had a temple because she couldn't go anywhere. So they built a temple for her. But God is not bound by that. Stephen has made it very clear that the true God in no way is restricted to his temple. He had revealed himself without a temple in many places. He had revealed himself to Abraham in Ur. He had revealed himself time and time again in Haran in Egypt, before the burning bush with Moses in the burning bush in Midian. And in the wilderness, time and again, Stephen's audience had so united the Jerusalem temple and God that they now believed that if this temple disappeared, then God would be gone, true worship would be gone. The long-standing tradition of doing worship in a particular way had been equated with ultimate truth. The people believed that if this form was done away with, it would mean the end of true worship. However, Stephen's point was that even when God used the tabernacle as a place where he revealed himself, this was first done in the wilderness. For 38 years, the tabernacle didn't even cross into the promised land. It was all in the wilderness, traveling around as the children of Israel moved throughout those years. And even when it eventually did cross over, it had no fixed resting place. And Stephen says, based upon the scriptural evidence, there's no basis for these people to demand that the Jerusalem temple was forever going to be the center of religious life and the only place where God would reveal himself. This was a presumption of man's making. From Moses to David, God dealt with these people and in a movable tent. He was revealing himself to them. He was ministering to them in that way, which was taken from place to place. For hundreds of years, the tabernacle, which was not based in Jerusalem, was all that Israel had. The tabernacle was what they used. It was with the tabernacle that God conquered the pagan nations and then gave Israel complete victory over their enemies in David's time. The Jews that had put Stephen on trial acted as though The God of heaven and earth would cease to exist if the Jerusalem temple was destroyed. You are assaulting the very God of our faith by talking against the temple. They were not defending the triune God of the universe, but something created in their own minds, fashioned according to their own liking, confined to their own comfort zones, their own traditions, And their own traditions now were warring against Jesus Christ. They had warred against Him. They had murdered Him. They'd betrayed Him, Stephen says. They had murdered Him. And they continued this battle even now, as Stephen was proclaiming Christ. You see, their thinking and their knowledge was not based upon the Word of God. Stephen continues in verse 46. who found favor before God and asked to find a dwelling for the God of Jacob. But Solomon built him a house." You see, was God in desperate need of a temple in order to prop Himself up? Let's go to the beginning. He's saying, let's go back and see, did God need this temple? Was He in desperate need for a temple? Was a temple crucial to God's plans and His sovereign rule? Was it impossible to relate to, serve and worship God without the temple? Such things were implied in the attitude that these people had. The Jews prided themselves in the fact that they were the ones who had the truth, but they had received it in the wilderness, far away from Jerusalem and far away from the temple that they were now so preciously trying to guard, where the ground was so holy that people were not allowed to even come close to the mountain. That's how holy that ground was out there in Sinai, because of God's presence. Stephen asks, why don't we look at the facts? David was loved by God and greatly blessed by Him. He also had a very strong desire to build the Lord a wonderful temple. Yet the Lord was not in desperate need for this temple, or else He would have made this known. But He didn't. It was David's idea that God needed a grand temple. If I'm living in a place like this, why? We need a great place for God to live. That was David's reasoning. Thus God said no and it was delayed until Solomon came, clearly showing that this wasn't essential in God's thinking. It had a place and it had a purpose, but it wasn't fundamental to the God that was being worshipped. So verses 48 through 50 is talking about God's response to this. However, the Most High does not dwell in temples made with hands, as the Prophet says. Heaven is my throne and the 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 things? You see, even Solomon himself, who constructed the most glorious temple in the history of the nation of Israel, openly declared that the building that he had made, that God doesn't dwell in such things, in 1 Kings 8 verse 27. God not only said this through Solomon, but also through Isaiah, whom Stephen now quotes, Isaiah speaking more than 250 years after Solomon clearly shows that God did not always intend to have a temple in Jerusalem. So he's quoting from this. This is all my purpose. Isaiah 66 in verse 2 tells us that it was God's intention to dwell in human hearts. Isaiah 57, 15 as well. And that the ceremonial laws which God himself had instituted for a season would be changed by God himself. These will be changed. This is how I want worship to be. This is what is going to consist of. You see, the destruction of the temple that Stephen had talked about would be God's doing. However, this would not mean the end of true worship. The prophet says to follow the old rituals after their change, which we read about the change in Hebrews 7, 9 and 10. He says to follow those old rituals after the change would be as offensive to God as idolatry. That's what it is, it's idolatry. You don't follow these changes once you've passed these things. Jesus had talked about the change in worship that was coming to the woman in the well. John chapter 4. No, this is not about this temple and that temple and God is coming and he's looking for worshipers to worship him in spirit and in truth. Not there or not over there. Jesus had already introduced that. Stephen is merely showing the biblical support for his position, for Christ's teaching. He's not condemning earthly temples in and of themselves, but condemning the idea that God had restricted himself to them for all time. God dwells in heaven and on earth. God cannot be limited in any way, and he is everywhere at the same time. The whole universe is his temple. The earth is his footstool. The mindset of these people who are listening to Stephen was just being shaken beyond control. It was just something that was too great for them to grasp. How can I fathom this? How can I reconcile that with all that I have understood up until this point? This was the center. This is the glory. No, Christ was the glory that was here walking in your midst and you did not recognize Him. The Jews had come to place an unbiblical significance upon the temple and believed that it was God's permanent home. God had promised to always be with his people, to be where they are. But despite this, Stephen was accused of blasphemy for saying the Jerusalem temple was not essential. God's revealed truth was not the ultimate authority for the religious leaders. The traditions were trumping what was true. Those things that we're accustomed to and comfortable with are what our traditions usually seek to defend. The temple and the tabernacle were only ever meant to be signs and were given because of man's weakness. The sign confirmed the promise of God and that he would be with his people. I will be with you. How can we be sure? Well, there's the temple. And I will be with you in this temple. And that's where we will worship. And that's where it will take place. Well, this is a sign. This is leading to maturity. It's a sign that is leading to the reality. Because when Christ comes, He said, I will be with you. I will never leave you and forsake you. I will dwell within you. We will walk together. We will be a people. And I will be with you until the end of the earth. End of the age. They were bound to the sign. God could never be worshipped by the sign in and of itself. The temple, no less than all the ceremonies, pointed to a spiritual reality, and it was only as the people entered into that spiritual reality by faith that their physical ceremonies had any worth whatsoever. This is the same with baptism. It's the same with communion. It's only as you enter into it by true faith that it has any significance. There's no power in these things. No power in the elements. You can drink a whole bottle of wine, it's not going to help you. Eat the whole loaf of bread, what's that going to do? It's only in the reality which is Jesus Christ that our hearts rise up in faith and we feed upon Him. Then the reality of the sign has significance and we can say, yes, indeed, I am washed. I was washed when I was baptized. I was washed and sprinkled clean as a shower, as the body is clean of its filth. That's the connection. The faith connects to the sign. God has never been pleased with the physical worship of ceremonies or the holding on to ceremonies as though that somehow does anything. in the bloody sacrifices. Hebrews 10.6. This was never the issue. This was never the big deal. It was always the spiritual significance that was most important. The Jews had turned these things into important things in themselves, whereas God gave these things to help direct His people toward the ultimate goal. The goal has always been Jesus Christ. The ultimate goal was that the heart, with pure faith, ascends into heaven in true spiritual worship of Jesus Christ, and embraces Him and feasts upon Him, cries out to Him for mercy, receives forgiveness from Him and knows, without Him I can do nothing, I would be lost. However, instead of rising up to worship in spirit and in truth, these people accusing Stephen brought God down and bound Him to these signs. That's where God is. Remove that, and I don't know where God is. But in doing this, the concept of God was perverted, and God had been remade by their own minds, and thus they were worshipping man-made images and not the true God. Man's traditions always distort the truth about God. Always. These people exalted their own will-worship to such a degree and that they arrogantly boasted about and prided themselves in their childish activities and saw themselves as superior to those who didn't join these traditions. Stephen, who do you think you are? The true worshippers who are heard by God in His heavenly temple are those who lift their hearts by faith and spiritually feast upon Christ in heaven, which is what Jesus tells us that Abraham did in John 8.56. Abraham rejoiced to see my day and he saw it and he was glad. Abraham wasn't trusting any signs, he wasn't trusting in anything around him, he was trusting in the fact that God had promised and he was believing that promise. To think that God is restricted to some physical location or to think that we are truly worshipping Him by merely going through ceremonies and ritual is to be greatly deceived. God has always wanted true worshippers to worship Him in spirit and in truth. And so Stephen quoted the prophetic words where God asks, where will my resting place be? Meaning, his presence couldn't be localized or contained, and no building could restrict his activity. Even the heavens is not a home for God, but his throne. That's my throne. And the earth, which is insignificant in comparison to heaven, is only his footstool. Neither heaven nor earth can contain God. for they were made by him. If God does have a home on earth, it is with the true worshippers. If anyone loves me, Jesus said, he will keep my word, and my father will love him, and we will come and make our home with him. If there's any place to dwell, that's where it is, John 14, 23. When we forget the infinite greatness of God, our thoughts about him will be shaped by man's imagination and traditions, which are designed to control him, to control God. Because when we shape a God, it's in order to control him. When we allow man's mind to determine what is and isn't possible for God and make all of God's activities submit to man's ability to understand them, then we are limiting God and making God after our own imagination. Grand buildings and ceremonies might impress people, but they are offensive to God when the hearts of the worshippers are not humble and broken before Him, when they're not submitting to His every word. Man's greatest problem is his desire to determine by himself what is right and wrong for every area of life. He's constantly bringing all things into line with his own understanding, rather than into line with what God has revealed. And God's desire is for a meaningful relationship with those who worship Him, and that means a meaningful relationship with our whole being, with everything we are. His love for us is total, and He wants us to love Him with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. He wants us, and He wants us not all we have. He made everything and needs nothing. He wants us not some cold ritual, and the essence of God is relationship. That's what it's about. I want to be in relationship. And this relationship is based upon loving, obedient submission to His every word, starting with what He has revealed about Jesus Christ. That's where the beginning is. Who is Christ? What has He done? How can I be in communion with Him? What I've revealed about that, that is the basis of relationship. That is the starting place of relationship. He's completed work for us. Relationship with God has nothing to do with man's whims, with our likes, with our dislikes. It has nothing to do with what man feels comfortable about. It has nothing to do with how long people have been doing something. It has nothing to do with these things. It has nothing to do with in what way they've been doing it. Well, we've been doing it like this for a long time. The only basis for relationship with God is on His terms. And He's revealed those terms. He's not left us guessing as to what these are. To believe in a son and listen to his son, that's what it is. This is my son, hear him. Broken hearts that trust not in the traditions of man, that love only the truth which has been perfectly revealed to us in the person of Jesus Christ. And thus, Stephen now comes to his clincher. It says in verse 51, You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears. You always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you." Now, this is just in case Stephen's accusers hadn't heard the history lesson and how it applied to them. He thought, well, the application needs to be pressed home. And he makes this in a very powerful way. He had been charged with blasphemy and accused of disregarding the law of Moses. Stephen had been preaching the message of Christ. To charge him was to charge Christ himself, therefore he set out to defend the doctrine that Jesus had proclaimed from these false accusations. He clearly showed that the ceremonial law and the temple were aspects of God's revelation that were going to pass away with the coming of the Messiah. He proved this by referring to Solomon and Isaiah who spoke of these exact changes. He could even quote from the other prophets to prove the same point. This was not a new idea in Old Testament scripture. Stephen had also shown that despite the great privileges that God had given to Israel, they had constantly been unfaithful. Therefore the removal of the temple in Jerusalem was also a sign of God's judgment upon a rebellious generation. This is probably the point that was the hardest for these people to swallow. The fact that this temple is going to be removed has to reflect our rebellion and we refuse to acknowledge that we're in rebellion against God. So he clearly showed these things to them. He had pointed to the rebellion of previous generations, and his hearers would have agreed with him about the rebellion. But then he said those listening to him were even worse rebels than those older generations who rebelled against Joseph and Moses. They rebelled against those people. His hearers would have quickly agreed that God's evaluation of previous generations was just and right, and yet they suddenly suppressed the evaluation that Stephen was bringing of them. Isn't this what we see all the time? Throughout society, people shout loudly about the sins of others while at the same time stubbornly refusing to allow God's Word to point out their own many sins. When the scriptures talk of having soft and humble hearts, this is not talking about sinless hearts. That is an impossibility, the side of glory. A soft heart speaks of someone who doesn't want to sin and strives not to. However, when they do sin, they quickly bow to the authority of God's Word and repent, crying out for God's forgiveness and grace to bring their thoughts and their actions into line with His truth. David understood the need for a contrite heart, a heart that felt deep sorrow for personal sin. Psalm 51 verse 17. The whole of Stephen's speech had been leading towards this one inescapable point that those who put him on trial were no different than their forefathers whom God had repeatedly called stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart. Over and over again in scripture these terms are used, whether it's in Exodus, Leviticus, Jeremiah, the prophets use these terms constantly. Such terms likened the nation to a rebellious disobedient ox that refused to take the yoke and was therefore useless to its master. No work can be done with an ox that stubbornly refuses to bow its neck to the yoke. I refuse to put my neck in that yoke, no matter how glorious this beast is, no matter how agricultural prizes it could win, it shows and stuff for its size and its stature and its looks and its colors and all that kind of stuff. If it's not prepared to put its neck to the yoke, it is a worthless beast for a farmer. Uncircumcised hearts and ears spoke of their impurity, their insensitivity and their resistance towards God and His truth. Such an accusation was extremely offensive to these people. You see, circumcision was a sign that they prided themselves in. It was a sign that they were God's special children. It testified to their unique relationship with God and that they were in this relationship with the Lord of heaven and earth and maker of all things. And it made them out to be A separate nation. That's what it was. It separated us. It showed us to be distinct. It showed us to be special. By calling them uncircumcised, Stephen was saying that they were not God's special children and were cut off from the blessings and the privileges of the covenant. These religious leaders paid no more attention to God's word than the heathen did. In fact, they were worse off than the heathen because they had the revelation. They had the light and the truth and they hardened their heart toward it because they did not like what it said. They did not like what they saw. And so they hardened themselves to it and said, no, we refuse to receive that. Their behavior was nothing but treason to the Most High God. All the outward signs of the Old Testament were meaningless unless the worshipers entered into the spiritual reality of those things by faith. As Paul said, he is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, not in the letter. His praise is not from man, but from God. Romans 2.29. You see, Christ is the focus of all these things. Thus, their rejection of Christ didn't mean that they hadn't yet made the connection between the Old Testament sign and Christ. They weren't merely making a little mistake. Oh, we didn't realize. We didn't realize this was the connection here. But rather, they were living lives of rebellion against God and His Word and had been doing so for a very long time, even before Jesus Christ appeared on the scene. When Jesus Christ appeared, they merely continued their rebellion and had to steamroll over Him in order to protect their rebellion and their traditions. They were dead to the reality of these signs. To reject the law of God is to reject Christ, for Jesus said, If you believe Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote of me. John 5.46 Those who exalt their traditions above the word of God are suppressing the truth in unrighteousness. Stephen makes it very clear that these leaders' rejection of Christ was not a matter of ignorance, but rather deliberate resistance to the Holy Spirit. This meant that it was clear what God's Word said. It was clear who Christ was. It was clear that they were rebelling against God, and yet they continued in their resistance. The Holy Spirit doesn't work in an uncertain or unclear manner. These people, in resisting the Holy Spirit, were resisting the truth, and they were resisting the truth while knowing it was the truth. It wasn't merely one more idea in the huge bag of ideas in the world that they hadn't realized was the truth. This was the truth, and they suppressed it in unrighteousness. So when the Holy Spirit reveals, it's clear. When you're evangelizing someone and you are proclaiming the truth, and you're bringing God's Word and truth, and you're being faithful to that truth, in dependence upon the Spirit, and they say this is absolute stupidity, you need to realize that The only way they can make that statement and claim is because they are suppressing the truth that they know inescapably, but they refuse to bow to it. And so they say, it makes no sense at all. It makes no sense at all. If you believe Moses, They were claiming, Moses we're following, Moses is who we obey, Abraham is our father. These are the truths that we're following. These are the principles we've studied. I've memorized the first five books of Moses. I know how to quote any verse from that. He said, you do not believe it. Because if you did, you would clearly see me. And when we proclaim the truth faithfully, and when we make it known, and people say, this is stupidity, we must not be intimidated by that, because they know the truth, it's inescapable. Not only do the heavens declare the glory of God, but when we bring the living word of God through proclaiming the gospel to people, they know the truth and they are hardening their hearts to it because they do not like what they are hearing. We can't change that. Only the Spirit can change that. But that is the reality of what is taking place at that point, and we need to have our thinking renewed so we understand what is really going on here. Oh, well, maybe I've got to try and explain it in a different way. Yes, you can, because you've been gracious and you're trying to give them many different ways to see things. But ultimately, when they walk away and say, no, this is just a load of hogwash, don't be intimidated. I've proclaimed the truth and you know that's the truth. You're just stubbornly resisting it. Because if you believed truth and you truly wanted truth, you would embrace what I'm saying. It's inescapable. You see, they knew the truth, but it was the truth that they'd specifically hated and thus were attempting to suppress with their traditions. All throughout Israel's history, the Spirit of God was reaching out to this people. Jesus also testifies to this constant reaching out on the part of the triune God in Matthew 23, verse 37. How oft, how oft have I wanted to gather you? Stephen says to this generation, that they were as guilty as their fathers. He says the nation has one consistent characteristic common to every generation. Rebellion against God and resistance to the Holy Spirit. As we move on to verse 52. Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? They killed those who foretold the coming of the just one, of whom you now have become the betrayers and the murderers. So the nation had resisted the very clear prophetic word, and not some uncertain, obscure revelation. Their resistance was not due to ignorance, but to willful rebellion against what they knew to be true. Stephen removes all grounds for a plea of ignorance from Israel. When Israel rejected a prophet, they were rejecting the Holy Spirit who spoke through the prophet. Every single prophet that God sent to his children was persecuted, according to Stephen. Which one didn't you persecute? Tell me his name. I'm all ears. The Prophet's greatest honor was due to the fact that they spoke about the coming Messiah. So all these prophets that came, generation after generation, the greatest thing was proclaiming Christ the Messiah. The Messiah is coming. This is who he is. This is what he will do. This is what he expects. This is what it's going to look like. They spoke of the just one, meaning the one whose life would be lived in perfect obedience to the law of God. There would be no fault in him whatsoever. The rebellion of these previous generations, however, was nothing in comparison to Stephen's accusers, for they had not only betrayed, but they had murdered the just one. The prophets who came spoke about the just one, and the people hated them and persecuted them. Stephen's generation betrayed and murdered the very person that all the prophets had proclaimed was coming. When the Sanhedrin had hired Judas to betray Jesus, They became his betrayers. When they forced Pilate to kill Christ, Luke 23, verses 13 through 18 and 24, where they put pressure on him and said, no, you must crucify this man. They became his murderers. The supreme leaders and judges of the nation conspired to murder the righteous one. Now, this is not pointing a finger at any people group. This is the nature of the sinful heart. It's what man does. People continue to do the same thing today when they hear the truth about Christ. The Jews throughout their history killed the people that brought them the good news. How are we different in our day? We're not. You stand up there on Wall Street or somewhere and proclaim a consistent biblical message? It's not allowed. Not allowed in the sense of won't be accepted. It's not quite illegal yet. They wanted to put out the only source of light there is, thus destroying the basis of hope and light. You see, sin does not make sense, because to rebel against God is the height of foolishness. And finally, verse 53, as we end off. These are the people who murdered Christ, who have received the law by the direction of angels and have not kept it. What was the greatest privilege of being a Jew according to Paul? The most important thing in his mind was that they received the oracles of God, Romans chapter 3 and chapter 9. To receive God's special revelation was indeed a wonderful and incomparable blessing. The law of God is glorious and is a real treasure to those who have spiritual eyes. The greatest advantage that the Jews had over other nations was being in possession of this special revelation. This revelation was ultimately meant to be a blessing to the whole world, as we know from Genesis 12, verse 3, when Abraham was told, and also from Deuteronomy, chapter 4, verses 6 through 8, where the nations were supposed to look at Israel and say, wow, isn't this a glorious people? Nevertheless, in the early stages of God's plan of redemption, the Jews were the ones who were meant to receive extensive advantage from it. They were given divine wisdom, showing them how to live in all of life, and they were also given wonderful promises and a certain hope about the coming Messiah in His kingdom. And these, of all people in the world, were the ones equipped to receive and thus recognize the Messiah when He appeared. They had all the preparation, all the revelation, explaining what it would be like, how it would look. They had all this prepared, and when they had that in their hands, when He appeared, they rejected Him. Why? Because they rejected the word that they had received previously. That word to them was conformed to their own traditions and by their own traditions. It contains not only God's desire to save us from the penalty of sin, this revelation, but also His intention to deliver us from the bondage of sin by joining us to Christ in a perfect and eternal relationship. God has used His heavenly messages, the angels, to reveal this to the nation. And he did this through his chosen servants like Abraham and Moses and Isaiah and the prophets. And God revealed this to them by this divine standard and showed them the only way of salvation and the assurance of God's sovereign control and victorious reign over all things. They went groping around in the darkness trying to discover these things. But Stephen says, you the very people who had all this divine revelation have rebelled against it. You had all its light delivered to you in a most stunning way through angels, and yet you have not walked in obedience to it. So the very ones who were given this light had rejected it. But every generation is confronted with the same challenge and potential pitfall. Namely, where is the ultimate standard found? In the traditions of man or in the revelation of God? This question applies to every person, it applies to every area of life, with a personal family church national. There's not many truths. There is one truth. Yet men love their traditions and they love their own wisdom more than this truth. May we not be numbered among those who trump truth with our tradition. This battle will continue to rage throughout our lives and we must never think that we are immune from the struggle. As Paul testified to the battle between the flesh and the spirit, we need to realize that our tendency towards exalting our experience and our traditions above God's revelation will remain, and thus we ought to be constantly casting down arguments and high things that exalt itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. 2 Corinthians 10, 5 and 6. It's by our hearts. We thank you, Lord, for your truth. We thank you for your great patience with us, in giving us your Son, in giving us the revelation, and in bringing us to maturity through the powerful working of your Spirit. We pray, Lord, that we might continue to grow, that we might be found faithful in our day, where we bow our hearts quickly to all that you have revealed, and that we seek to live by every word that you have proclaimed. Help us, Lord, to deal with our confidence in our own wisdom, in our tendency to embrace our own traditions above Your truth, and in just trusting in man's wisdom, Lord. We know that in ourselves we cannot fight against these things, and thus we pray that by Your Spirit and by Your power You would more and more deliver us from our confidence in these things. May we find our complete confidence and rest and hope in that word which you have revealed. We ask this in the name of Christ our Lord. Amen.