a blessing though. The Bible says here in Acts chapter 7, ìThen said the high priest, ìAre these things so?î And he said, ìMen, brethren, and fathers, hearken! The God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Sharan, and said unto him, ìGet thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and come into the land which I shall show thee.î Then came he out of the land of the Chaldeans, and dwelt in Sharon. And from thence, when his father was dead, he removed him into this land wherein ye now dwell. And he gave him none inheritance in it, no, not so much as to set his foot on. Yet he promised that he would give it to him for a possession, to cede after him, when as yet he had no child. God spake on this wise, that his seed should sojourn in a strange land, and that they should bring them into bondage, and entreat them evil four hundred years. 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. And he gave him the covenant of circumcision. And so Abraham begat Isaac and circumcised him the eighth day. And Isaac begat Jacob, and Jacob begat the twelve patriarchs. Let's stop right there for tonight and pray, and then we'll take a look at this. Father, we love you this evening. We thank you, Lord, for how good you've been to us. And Lord, I pray for all of our folks who are out sick. I pray that you'd put your healing hand on them, help them to get over the virus, the cold, the bug, the whatever it is, and help them be able to get back into church, and in the meanwhile, just stir up their hearts and take care of them and help them feel better. And I pray for those of us that are here tonight, I ask you to speak to our hearts, God, and help us, help us as we study your Word, help us to get out of this what it is that we need, help us to learn our doctrine, Lord, I know the first application of Scripture is doctrine. And help us to learn our doctrine. Help us to know our Bibles. Lord, I want to know my Bible better. And I want to be, I don't want any excuses. I want to be a hard worker when it comes to studying to show myself approved unto God. And I pray you'd teach me the Bible, and I pray then that you'd help me as I strive to be apt to teach like I'm commanded to be, and that you'd help me to be a pastor and teacher, and that as we go through this stuff, Lord, we'd make good application to our lives that your folks can get fed, and that, Lord, you'd be in control of it all, and give them something tonight that'll help them, encourage them, and strengthen them. We ask these things in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, amen. All right, so now we're into Acts chapter 7, and you're going to see that this is one of the turning points for the nation of Israel as you go through the book of Acts. And let's not forget, we're coming off of Acts chapter 6, right? So Stephen has gotten hauled into court, and he's being drilled in court. And it's funny to me, if you look back at Acts 6-8, Stephen, full of faith and power, did great wonders and miracles among the people. So here he is, full of faith, don't forget that, and full of power, and great wonders are being done among the people. And what happens when he's full of faith and full of power? Resistance. Not surprising, right? Just because you're trying to serve God and just because you're full of faith and just because God's hand's on your life does not mean that the resistance won't come. Here's what I found interesting in looking at this. Notice in verse number 9 in chapter 6, there arose certain of the synagogue. It's always the religious people. It's the religious crowd that gets the most mad at you. It's the religious crowd that hates the preachers the most. They're the ones that want to push back. It's funny to me that the religious crowd are the ones that hate the Bible. When you say, thus saith the Lord, and you start preaching the Bible and just calling the baby ugly, it is what it is, right? The people that supposedly are interested in God are the ones that get mad at the preacher for talking about what God said. So it's the people of the synagogue, which is called the synagogue of the Libertines, and Cyrenians, and Alexandrians, and them of Cilicia and Asia, disputing with Stephen. Watch this. And they were not able to resist the wisdom and the spirit by which he spake, when they could not resist his wisdom. In other words, he's winning the argument. And when not just his wisdom, not just the words of God coming out of him, not just the fact that God was using him, and that, listen, with the truth is some strong logic and common sense. If it don't make sense, God ain't in it. And I'm thankful for that. I'm glad that when it really, when it comes to witnessing, use common sense when you're talking to people. There's nothing common sense about evolution. There's nothing common sense about somebody saying that we just kind of like evolved and came from nowhere and we're going nowhere. Use common sense. It's shocking how powerful common sense is. And when you got good strong wisdom and you got faith in God and the right spirit, a lot of people, I believe this, a lot of people get turned off to the truth because the person preaching the truth has the wrong spirit about them. I don't want that. Listen, I realize it's an excuse on their end. If you hear the truth and the person preaching the truth you don't like and you don't think they have the right spirit about him and you reject the truth because you don't like the spirit about the person, shame on you, right? But the fact of the matter is, is that they couldn't resist his spirit or his wisdom. They were saying, yeah, not only is he saying the right stuff and we don't really have a way to debate him and wrestle him down to the ground with our debate and our logic, but on top of that, that guy's got the right spirit about him. You know what that does? When they are resisting the truth, when their heart is resisting the truth, when they don't want the truth of the Word of God, when they can't resist your wisdom and when they can't resist your spirit, they just get more angry and now they're coming after you. Because they hate you. They couldn't resist the Lord Jesus Christ's wisdom. The way He spoke with authority, and not as the scribes and Pharisees. The way He answered all the questions, and all the setups, and all the times that they tried to circle around Him, and trap Him. And He always won every single time, because He was wisdom personified. He was Almighty God in human flesh. And here He was just beating them, and beating them, and beating them, and beating them every time. And His Spirit was always 100% right. And when they couldn't beat Him, they just decided to kill Him. They just ramped up the resistance even more and the resistance got personal. And that's what they did with Stephen. And then it says in verse 11, shows you the wickedness of their hearts. They suborned men. In other words, they bribed some people, they're paying some people off. And what they did is they paid these guys off to get these guys to come in and lie. Now listen, that's like Pilate saying, I'm gonna wash my hands, I'm not guilty of this man's blood, while you're an accomplice to his murder. You don't get to play some kind of little fake game and pretend like I'm washed, I'm clean of this. Yeah, no, you're not, you're an accomplice. So what they did is they're buying people off. This is the religious crowd. This is the people in the temple. This is the people that know the Bible. These are the guys that know the faith, the Judaism. These are the guys that should be able to look back at those prophets and see that Christ was fulfilling all that stuff. These are the guys that ought to know better, highly educated. And here they are then, instead of just themselves saying, let's just kill this guy. Just be honest. I hate him. He's bad for business. He's impacting our offerings. Just slit his throat. Instead, they try to do a little workaround so they can act like they're all pious and they're really not part of the problem. It's a lot like, you know, people in church that, you know, I'm not gossiping, but I just have a prayer request. No, you're gossiping. Something's wrong with that guy. You think? Why I didn't say anything? I just, I didn't feel right about him, and so then I just suggested it to, let the security team take care of that. You're insinuating against somebody's character, and then you're leading their mind to believe something, while you're saying, my hands are clean, no I didn't say that. Yes you did, that's exactly what you said. That's what they're doing. They're playing these demonic, subtle, twisty little games, and they're bringing other people in, and they're stirring up all these ignorant people, and getting the crowd all frothed up. That's what the news media does. That right there in verse number 12 is the news media. I don't care if you like Fox, or like CNN, or whatever you like, they're all doing the same thing. You see, stirring things up, and keeping things aggressive, and keeping that beehive going, and keeping people mad, and keeping people talking, and keeping people afraid, and keeping people stirred up, that's good for business. 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. And then they set up false witnesses. These religious people are a bunch of lying dogs. Claiming, thou shalt not lie. We're the Pharisees. We're the leaders in the temple. We don't lie. Here, man. Here's 50 bucks. Go in there and say that guy. You are a liar. No, no, I'm not a liar. No, you're worse than that. The love of money is the root of all evil, and you love money, so you found somebody that'll respond to money like you will, and you're trying to kill this guy because he's affecting your pocketbook, so you're buying off somebody else to do something so you can stay religious and clean. That's demonic. That's as evil as it gets. So they're out there, they're buying these people off and they're paying these false witnesses to come in and to lie about this preacher. And they're saying, this man ceases not to speak blasphemous words against this holy place and the law. Folks, I'm telling you right now, the biggest crooks are the religious leaders that resist the Bible. You guys remember that Bible I loaned out to you? I mean, I loaned out to somebody else that helped me out with it. I read it to you, and I opened it up, I showed you in the front that they claim that it's a King James text, it's the Bible written as literature, and they claim that it comes from all the right lines, and even Martin Luther and all the rest of the guys the King James Bible come from. Do you know there's books in there, the foreword to that book, the foreword to that book, and I didn't research this myself, I loaned it out to somebody who's smarter than me and he found it. The guy that wrote the foreword or something like that in the beginning of that book is a guy that also wrote, what was it, the book of Judas or something like that? Is it something like that? It was the story of Jesus Christ's life and ministry from Judas' perspective. And at the end of that thing, the sum of it, Judas said, I betrayed the Master, but I did not betray the truth. The author of that book wrote the foreword in that Bible that I showed you they present to slide into the hearts and minds and lives of people that believe the right Bible, and they lie straight through their teeth, full of the devil. You know what they do in the new Bibles? They take the name of Jesus Christ, and they give it to Lucifer. In the book of Revelation, Jesus Christ is the bright and morning star. In the book of Isaiah, chapter 14, Lucifer is the son of the morning. They say morning star. You King James people, you're just so fanatical. No, we believe the truth. We don't believe in lying to people. We're not in this for the money. And there's nothing more demonic than somebody takes a Bible or a religion and gets up in that religion and lies to people for the sake of their own pocketbook, their own popularity, their own power. God help me, I'm going to stick with this book, and we're going to build this church based on the preaching and teaching of the Word of God. I'm going to give you the truth for your soul, for your walk with Christ, and if that means we never become a megachurch, and we don't keep growing, then I'll be happy knowing that I'm pastoring a bunch of sheep, and I'm helping people get to know the Lord, and draw closer to God, and keep you in the book, and keep you safe from all that danger, and all that false doctrine. and all those liars and all those cheats that are after your money, I would rather be small and right with God than big and magnanimous and a lying dog." And what he does is they set up these false witnesses, and they bring them in here. And then they're sitting there looking at him in verse 15, and now here's what I want you to see. Here's Stephen standing there, and they said they look at his face, and his face is as the face of an angel, in the face of resistance. Ain't it wild how God lines stuff up? I didn't strategize and lay out Psalm 140 to Acts chapter 7. In the face of resistance, Stephen's standing there, and of the face of an angel. What were they seeing? I'd say this, I'd say something about his face looked clean. Something about his face looked peaceful. Something about his face looked strong. Something about his face looked holy. Something inside of that man, standing there, and he is no dummy. He had to know he was about to die. They just crucified his Messiah. He's seeing people getting in trouble. He's seeing the persecution that's arose. And he's standing there in that council, looking at those fellas, and he's calm. You guys ever see somebody in the middle of panic that just keeps their head cool? I want to be like that, man. I want to have such strong faith in God. I want to have the wisdom of God in my soul, so that if the world's burning down, and my life is falling apart, and it's not because I'm messed up in sin, and ignoring God, and pushing against God. No, I'm trying to serve God, but it's all falling apart around me. I want to stand there with the strength of Stephen, with the calmness of Stephen, with the boldness of Stephen, with the and power of a relationship with Almighty God, full of faith, in the face of death. And I have people look at me and say, that guy ain't normal. And say, you're right, I'm not normal, I'm weird. Now watch what Stephen does in Acts chapter 7. Then said the high priest, are these things so? So here they are, everybody's stirred up, this big tumultuous thing is happening, all these people are upset, liars are over here, deals are being made with paying people off, and finding base in ungodly men that could care less about even the Old Testament law, let alone Jesus Christ, let alone Stephen, and paying those guys off, oh, 50 bucks? Yeah, well, I don't care. And all this debaucherous mess is going on, and Stephen's standing there calm, and the high priest looks at Stephen and says, so is this true? Now watch what Stephen does. This is so cool to me. And he said, watch it, men, brethren, and fathers. It's a Jewish message. You got that? He is still talking to the Jews, and He's starting from the back at the beginning of their nation, and He's going to start preaching to the Jews from their history and from the Bible. He says, men, brethren, and fathers, hearken. Now, here's how I see it. I see it when the high priest looks at them and says, are these things so? He said, you ask me a question, I'm going to give you the answer. Listen up. You know what he's doing, folks? He's preaching. What you've got in Acts chapter 7 is God showing you a perfectly inerrant, infallible, inspired message coming right out of a man's mouth and going straight into the ears of a bunch of hearers that don't want to hear the message. If you are or have a Bible-believing preacher, If you are one, then when people ask you a question, give them the truth. If you have one, don't ask him the question if you don't want the truth. I cannot tell you how many hundreds of times people have come to us. I say us. That means men and women, because I don't meet with women alone. and say, well, you know, here's the issue and here's the problem. And we say, okay, here's what the Bible says. Let's talk about you. You always want to talk about everybody else. Let's talk about you. You can't do anything about them. What about you, accomplice? What about your guilt? Oh, no, I'm the innocent one. No, you're not. You're as filthy as the person you're mad at. What about you? Don't ask the question if you don't want the answer. And then the audacity of somebody to know what we stand for, know what we believe, know what we're about, and then get all upset and all mad and all attitudinal, all fool the devil, because you got the truth when you asked for it. Instead of, well, he just didn't tell me what I want to hear. Well, that's not what we're about. I'm supposed to be teaching tonight, and I'm tired. Sorry, it's the truth. When you ask a true preacher, are these things so? Alright? You want the truth? When I feel like somebody doesn't want the truth, you know what I try to do? I try to just say, okay, fine. No problem. What do you think? God doesn't force the truth down people's throats. I don't want to burn bridges. But don't ask if you don't want to hear it. He says, men, brethren, and fathers, and then look at this. Here's a good message. Let me just give you, if you're called to preach, three things that I notice about this guy's message. Number one, he's bold. There is a boldness to this message. And don't forget, that boldness is not mean, it's not harsh, it's not crude, it's not rude, it's not arrogant, it's not him being some kind of ultra-manly show-off of the flesh. It's just him giving the truth, because he was asked the truth, and he's going to give them the truth. Is this so? So with the truth, a real preacher and a real Bible message, I want you all to hear this, a real Bible message and a real Bible preacher will preach the truth with boldness. And that is the right spirit. Number two about his message, you're going to notice it is Bible, Bible, Bible, Bible, Bible, Bible, Bible. Acts chapter 7, he preaches such a long message here, it's going to take me three weeks to preach it. He gives them so much Bible right from the beginning. And then number three, I want you to hear this. The preacher, he's not just bold with the right spirit, but he's full of Bible. And number three, he believes God. When I get up and preach, When I'm studied, and I'm giving them the Bible, and I'm praying, and I'm giving them the Bible, I give that message out, and it goes out, and it doesn't come back. That's wild to me. That scares me. I'm literally praying and seeking God personally, and you pray for me on it, because I want the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart to be acceptable in His sight. I want, when I preach, as time goes on, when I preach, I want the words coming out of my mouth to be the right words with the right spirit, the right way. And when I put that message out there, I have to believe that God will do with that message something. If you don't believe, if you're called to preach in here, and you don't believe your preaching is going to get anything done, then why are you preaching? If you don't expect people to get saved, if you don't expect people to grow, if you don't expect tears, if you don't expect people to be convicted, if you don't expect people to get right with God, if you don't expect God to bless His Word, why in the world would you preach it? But here's the thing. Believing God is more than all the positive things I just said. Believing God means that when I get up and preach the message, and somebody gets mad at me, and somebody leaves the church, and somebody catches me in the lobby to rebuke me for something I said, that that shouldn't bother me one bit. That I don't need your pity. I don't need you to feel sorry for me. I'm not going to get all tore up and up at night, worried about whether or not. Listen, God's Word goes out. And when it hits a heart of somebody that's resistant to the truth and doesn't want to know and doesn't want to hear and expects God to fit their mold and expects God to give them the answer they want and expects God to see it the way they see it. And they're looking for a preacher and looking for a church to tell them what they want to hear. And then they get the truth, that hard heart, that stubborn mind, that rebellious spirit, that wicked soul. ought to get mad. And that doesn't make the preacher wrong. If he preached the Bible, and he preached it with boldness and the right spirit, and he preached it for God, then when it falls on the ears of high priests, and Pharisees, and dirty dogs that don't want the truth, and goats, and they get mad, he ought not to worry about it. He ought to believe God, and say, there it went, man. I try, I try to keep the attitude of when somebody's all worked up and mad and upset, bad-mouthing, leaving bad reviews or whatever they do, I try to keep the attitude of, my goodness, praise the Lord, that must have been good preaching. Because you can go to a thousand churches in the area, and the same wicked people that don't want the truth will leave that church completely unoffended, completely untouched, and blessed, and then go right back into their wicked sin, and feel no conviction, feel no pressure at all between them and God, have no fear of God at all, and come in and sit down and say, oh, it's just so great to be in church again. Well, that's not what we're here for. I want something real, and I'm telling you this book is real and this book is powerful. Notice how he starts his message. The God of glory. Off to a great start. Folks, preaching. is not about you, and it's not about me, and it's not about us, and it's not about our best life, and it's not about blessings, and it's not about feeling better, and it's not about solving all your problems. Preaching ought to glorify and exalt God first, that in all things He, the Lord Jesus Christ, might have the preeminence. That's what I want for us. That's my burden for my preaching ministry, my pulpit ministry. I want to make sure that when I stand in a pulpit and open up the Word of God, people don't see the preacher, they see Jesus. They don't leave talking about the preacher, they leave talking about the message. They don't leave saying, oh that was so entertaining and that was so great, they leave saying, man, God showed me something I didn't see before, God convicted me, I need to work on that. Off to a great start, Stephen. He said, The God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Sharon, and said unto him, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and come unto the land which I will show thee. Then came he out of the land of the Chaldeans, and dwelt in Sharon. And from thence, when his father was dead, he removed him into this land wherein ye now dwell." Now, here's what I find very, very interesting about this. God calls him to go out of his country and from his kindred. You see that in verse 3? Get out of your country and from your kindred. We're not going to turn there for the sake of time, but you know what Abraham did? Abraham partly obeyed. Abraham took Lot with him and took his father with him. God said, leave him. Do you know why that encourages me? It ought to encourage you too. You know why? Because I'll bet you most of us in this room are in this stage of our spiritual growth of partial obedience. God told you to do something and you're doing it, but you're not really I'm not trying to be hard on you, because God bless you for coming back tonight, and it's one of those Sundays, you know what I mean? Is it just me, or it's kind of one of those Sundays? We're like, we're here, but we're like, am I going to get the plague like everybody else, you know? Some of you kind of got the plague, and you're trying to get over the plague right now, right? I'm not trying to be hard on you, but I wonder how many of you are here tonight in partial obedience? Meaning, you're sitting there and you came to church, but you're not really, you're not really in church right now. You're not really asking God to deal with you tonight. You're just here. What breaks my heart is no matter how much I preach, or how I can preach until I'm blue in the face and beat the drum until you know the tune by heart, and still, some people are always going to come to church for the wrong reason. You're never going to get the point that church is not about your friends. It's not about your family. It's not about your preferences. It's not about the drive, how close it is to your house or how close it isn't to your house. It's not about the building. It's not about the music. It's not about, well a preacher's going to be upset if I'm not there. Church is about you hearing from God. Church is about God saying, alright, here's what I want from you, out from your country, from your kindred, from your father's house. And going, oh, okay, so I have a step that God just gave me. And I need to take that step. And that means I need to obey. And listen, Abraham, if you do it the wrong way, you're going to slow down your progress. I mean, I'm glad there's partial obedience, right? God was pleased to see him move the right direction, but things got stuck until dad died, because he wasn't obeying fully. Here's what's amazing about God. God says, when his father was dead, he removed him into this land where you now dwell. What blows my mind about God is how long-suffering and patient and good and kind God is. Go back with me, if you would, please. Keep your finger here and axe. Go back with me, if you would, please, to Psalm 103. Psalm 103. Look at verse 8. The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy. Ain't that great? I am glad I got a merciful, gracious, slow to anger, and then as if merciful, merciful, full of mercy. Merciful wasn't enough. He says, plenteous in mercy. In other words, you know, the paragraph – what's that escaping my mind right now? The prepositional phrase you put the – I'm doing it with my hands. Say it. Parenthesis. Yes, thank you. Parenthesis of the verse is merciful and plenteous in mercy. Do you think God's maybe telling us all something? Man, it's great to serve a merciful God. He will not always chide, neither will He keep His anger forever. Chiding is when you'd get on Him. He hath not dealt with us after our sins, nor regarded us according to our iniquities. You're gonna tell me God has dealt with everything about you that you have coming? Yeah, everything you've done and that you have come and God's given you, as far as discipline is concerned. No. 100% not. I am 100% sure that God has let me go on some stuff. I don't believe that he's up in heaven just waiting to bust everybody's brains out with a baseball bat. I don't think that's the God I serve. Verse 11, for as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward them that fear him. As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. Man, what a blessing. Like as a father, Dad, here's a great thing for you about God. I had a young man come to me recently and he said, so how do you see God? And I said, what are you talking about? He said, how do you see God? I said, do you mean like how do I understand God like my in my mind and in my heart, my view of the Lord or what do you mean? He said, yeah, like how do you see him? You see him, your perspective of him. I said, I see him as a father. And he said, Okay. Yeah, that's the generation you're in. They don't have a father. So they don't even know how to see God. Dad, you need to see God. I told them, I said, I developed my view of God based on what the Bible says about God. And then based on what the Bible says about God, I look at my life, and I see where God has been consistent in my life to what the Bible says about God, and that develops my view of God. And as the weeks and months and years go by, if I invest in that relationship and spend time with Him, and try to get to know Him better, If I try to walk with Him, then as time goes on, my understanding and view of God grows, and our relationship gets closer, and He dispenses more to me as I accept what He shows me next. I took some partial obedience, and He said, it's not what I said, dummy. All right, I'm not going to break your neck. You're just going to sit there for a little while and wonder. When is God going to bless me? When is He going to bring me into the land? Because He didn't say, leave here, and here's what He said, unto a land that I will show thee of. Right? Take this step. Well, where are we going? That's not your problem. Take this step. But where's it going to end up? Oh, you're waiting to find out where I'm going to end it up, so then you can determine whether or not you want to obey me. It ends up where I say it ends up. Take the next step. Because Dad said so. Okay, fine, I take the step, but it's kind of partial obedience. Okay, fine, all right, we'll just have to... All right, kid. Go ahead, beat your brains out for a while. And no, I'm not bailing you out. I'm not gonna swoop in and rescue you from your problem. I'm gonna sit back and let you struggle. So you learn your lesson. Because I'm a pitiful father. I'm not going to chide you. I'm not going to rebuke you. I'm not going to jump on you. I'm going to let you sit there until you figure it out. You guys see that? Man, gentlemen, the more you can know about God, and the sooner you can do that, the more you can learn how to be a good father to your children, and you can help them draw closer to God, and have their own relationship with God, because they will develop in a Christian home with Bible preaching, and a Bible-believing parents, and a Bible-preaching, Bible-believing church, those kids will develop a view and an understanding of God that will help them in their life. He's a pitiful father. Thank God for that. Like as a father pitieth his children, fathers ought to pity their children. So the Lord pitieth them that fear Him. He's not a father pitying some rebellious backslidden nut. He's not afraid of ruffling his children's feathers. Have you read your Bible? He's not at all afraid of them getting mad at him. He's not going to fall off his throne if you're mad at him. You self-destruct. Doesn't change his plans, his operations, who he is, his power at all. It damages you. And he says, when they fear me, See, Abraham did what he was told and took partial obedience, but God knew something about Abraham's heart, and so God was able to be merciful to Abraham, because Abraham took that step. Here's the best illustration of walking by faith I can think of, and it's frustrating, so just buckle up, you're not going to like it. You get in the car. You go that way. Where are we going? Not telling. Just go that way. Here's the way, walk there in. When are we going to get there? Not telling you. Go that way. How long is it going to take? Not telling you. When are we getting a bathroom break? Not telling you. Just go. You walk in the right way, you go the right direction, and the right road will lead out at the right place. Go onto a land that I'll tell you of. What land? I'll tell you when I'm ready to tell you. Go. Yeah, but I mean, if you would just tell me, I just want to know what we're about so I can be ready for that. I don't want to mess it up. Then go. You understand what I'm saying? When we don't just do what we were told, because we want to, you know, we will once we know the end game. What we're saying is, I'm not, I'm figuring out whether or not I want to obey you, Lord, because I might not like where this is going. I'll tell you, you better know, you better know that you have a fear of God in your life. Because God knows. And you want His pity? I do. And you better fear Him. Look at verse 14. I love this verse. For He knoweth our frame, He remembereth that we are dust. That's divine, inspired, inerrant, infallible, perfect words. That is not a human being giving a false pretense of humility. God knows and God remembers that we are nothing but dirt. As for man, his days are as grass. As a flower of the field, so he flourishes. For the wind passeth over it and it is gone. and the place thereof shall know it no more." Ain't that scary? That's the truth, folks. I wish young people could ask God for the wisdom and the ability spiritually to see and understand that. That your life doesn't last very long at all. And that you remember to fear the Lord in your youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them. That early, early will I seek thee, early in your life will you say, God's first and everything else is second. Early. Because the earlier you get started, the farther down that road God can take you, and the more he can teach you, and how more he can use you, and the more wonderful and blessed of a life you're going to have. As for man, his days are as grass, as the flower of the field, so he flourisheth, for the wind passeth over it, and it is gone, and the place thereof shall know it no more. But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him, and his righteousness unto his children's children, to such as keep his covenant, and to those that remember his commandment to do them. Look at one more passage over here on this topic, go to Genesis chapter 18, and let me show you something that God knew about Abraham. So we see Abraham's partial obedience, and I do appreciate God writing the Bible, and one of the ways you know God wrote it is that He puts the truth in there about people. Men wouldn't write all this stuff about themselves. Men would just show you the highlights, you know. But God knows and shows the truth about them. And Genesis chapter 18, look at verse 19. God says regarding Abraham, for I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him. And they shall keep the way of the Lord to do justice and judgment, that the Lord may bring upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of him. Back to Acts chapter 7, so what happened is, God told Abraham to go, and Abraham went, but he went in partial obedience, and some disobedience was going on, but the reason God was patient with him, and kind to him, and slow, and didn't beat him up real bad, is because God knew his heart was for God. And I wonder if God knows that about some of you, and that's why He's being so patient with you. I hope so. I hope your heart is for the Lord above all else. All right, verse number five. And he gave him none inheritance in it. So he sends him into that land once his father dies, and he gives him none inheritance in it. No, not so much as to set his foot on. Yet he promised that he would give it to him for a possession and to his seed after him, when as yet he had no child. God spake on this wise that his seed should sojourn in a strange land and that they should bring them into bondage and treat them evil 400 years. So God gives him a promise. God says, Listen, Abraham, I'm going to take you in here and I'm going to I'm going to I'm going to make your seed like the stars of heaven. And Abraham believes God. Would it never happen? That's faith. because God said it. Stephen is showing his faith by standing there preaching the Word of God to these people because God said to preach, and he knew God said to preach, and he had an opportunity to preach, and so he's standing there preaching faith. Well, I mean, I don't see anything for it. Nobody's getting saved. I don't even have a child. Well, God said you're going to have one. Okay, if God said I'm going to have one, then I'm going to have one. Faith is the substance of things hoped for and evidence of things not seen. We need more Christians full of faith. We need more Christians like Abraham who believed God because God said it, and that's that, and nothing more to it. It doesn't really matter. Let the world mock you. Let the world make fun of you. Listen, some of you are struggling, and you're up against it, and the resistance is on you, and your own flesh keeps failing you, and you're getting discouraged. Stay at it. Don't quit. Get right again. Ask God to forgive you again. Confess it again. Keep reading your Bible anyhow. Keep coming to church even if you feel like a hypocrite. Keep doing right, knowing that God eventually can help you and can give you the victory, but if you quit, you won't get the victory. How many times can I confess the same thing and God keep forgiving me? One more. I've already asked a hundred times, ask a hundred and one. I've asked a thousand times, ask a thousand and one. You see, what encourages me is that it bothers you. What's a blessing to me is that you're saying, like, how many times can I keep, I just keep messing up, I just keep, I just keep, yeah, you're bothered by it. Don't you understand that's a good sign? Don't you realize that the fact that that's convicting you and it's agitating you and it's bothering you means God's working on you, and maybe the reason your Heavenly Father hasn't snapped your full neck is because He's full of mercy, and He's plentiful in mercy, and He's got more mercy for you, and He understands your frame, and He knows how weak you are, and He knows your dust, and He knows you're messed up, and He loves you anyhow, and He's looking at your heart and watching your partial obedience, and He's saying, at least they went to church tonight. At least they tried to read their Bible. At least He confessed again. Is that the altar again? Ah, that poor kid. Man, the resistance. Man, that flesh. And Jesus is standing there at the right hand of the Father, and ever livid to make intercession for him, and the devil's like, yeah, God damn him, just damn him. Don't you see what he's doing? Don't you know he knows better? And Jesus is saying, Lord, it's taken care of. And the Father's saying, yeah, you're right, it is. That's a good God. Do you do know if it was up to Lucifer or you, you'd lose your salvation? He knows how weak you are. He knows how small you are. Keep your finger on Acts 7. We'll be right back in just a minute. Go over to Hebrews chapter 11 real quick. Hebrews chapter 11. If Lucifer had his way, you'd lose your salvation. But he doesn't. If it was up to your flesh alone, you'd lose your salvation. But it's not. Thank God for a Savior that ever lives to make intercession for us. One God, one mediator. I'm glad He's there. The problem isn't God. The problem is me and my faith and obedience to Him. In Hebrews 11, verse 8, He says, By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out unto a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed. That's faith. Faith is obedience. And he went out not knowing whether he went. That's faith. Where are you going? I don't know. When are you going to get there? I don't know. Why are you going? God said go. Well, how do you know you're going the right way? Because there's lines over here, and there's lines over here. There's a ditch on the other side of that line, and a ditch on the other side of that line. And there's a line, a rumble strip, and a ditch. So I try not to cross the line, but when I cross the line, I hit the rumble strip. I was thanking God last night at about one o'clock in the morning for rumble strips. One point my head went like that. I was like, ehhh. Didn't even feel that coming. Another point I was like, whoa, I'm in that lane. Thank God there was no traffic. On the way down there, it was just raining cats and dogs up here real bad. And I got to check my tires in that car because I was like, man, this feels weird. Everybody's just flying. And that just didn't feel right. It just felt like light. You know what I mean? Like too light. And the road curved there in Ann Arbor on 23 South. And that car just, I just, I said, we're sliding, hon. I mean, we just went right off. Thank God, you know, Michigan roads are terrible. Do you guys know that? Anybody tell you? Even though they're trying to like repair them and all that stuff. Thank God for those stupid potholes all along the edge over the white line where the rumble strips are. Because I literally, I was turning that wheel real slow and gentle, we were traffic everywhere, everybody was flying, and I'm like, we're sliding, we're sliding, she's like, no, no, no, and just kind of hit that, all that, those potholes and the rumble strips, and that gave me a little traction, and I was able to pull it back in. That's your life. Because sometimes it takes a little longer to get there than you thought. You don't see all the partial obedience in your life, but God's pitiful. and you're trying to go the right direction, don't cross the line. The lines are there to help you stay in the right way. But when you're across the line, God's got some rumble strips. Wake up! You're welcome. Hey, don't wind up in the ditch, please. Because now it's a lot of work and a lot of money and a lot of repair. We can get you there. We can get you back on the road and get you going again. But don't waste your time. That's what he's doing. He went out. He just obeyed. And he didn't know where he was going, but he just obeyed. It's the key to life as a Christian. It's the key to life as a Christian. Obedience. By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country. dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, and heirs with him of the same promise. For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God. Through faith also Sarah herself received strength to conceive seed, and was delivered of a child when she was past age, because she judged him faithful who had promised." Sarah? Yeah, the one who laughed because she didn't believe God? Ain't he merciful? He remembers we're just dust. He said, oh I didn't laugh, and then she lies. Sarah, laughing at God and then lying, I didn't laugh. God said, that woman had great faith. What a great God. Therefore sprang there even as one, and him as good as dead, so many as the stars of the sky in multitude, and as the sand which is by the seashore innumerable. These all died in faith, not having received the promises, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers, and pilgrims on the earth. Faith, didn't see the promises, Never fulfilled, but they saw it afar off, and they believed God, and they just stuck by it, and they said, you know what, it doesn't even matter, because this world is not my home, I'm just passing through. My treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue. The angels beckon me from Heaven's open door. I can't feel at home in this world anymore. Doesn't matter. I'm on a great road, in a great car. On a great ride, going to a great place, and it don't matter if I see it or not. It doesn't matter. I got great fellowship and I'm enjoying the journey. That's faith. Look at verse 6 in Hebrews 11. But without faith, it is impossible to please Him. For he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him." Back to Acts chapter 7 and let's stop for tonight. So your faith in God, your problems, your frustrations, your lack of seeing things fulfilled or whatever it might be, is a tremendous opportunity for you to please the Lord. Because without faith it's impossible to please Him. And God sits back and watches you on that journey, frustrated, not knowing where you're going, partial obedience, finally figuring it out, and then He can bless you and move on again. And He watches your faith, and He's pleased. And He doesn't take away the thorn, and He doesn't take away the pain. He lets you walk in faith, and you're making Him happy. And Stephen's making him happy in Acts chapter 7, because he's trusting the Bible, and he probably knows in his guts the outcome. And so he's giving it one last hurrah, and he's preaching, and he's exalting God. Look at verse 6. We're almost done. And God spake on this wise. See that? He's preaching what God says. And he tells him in verse number 7, verses 6 and 7 and 8, he's showing him that God made a promise, and that God forecasted some things before they happened, and that those things panned out just like God said they were gonna. Now how about that? You can't find that stuff in a Quran, or a Book of Mormon. You can't find that stuff in all the spiritism and, you know, all this weird new age yogi stuff and, you know, mind over matter and you send out vibes and you bring things into your life by your positive energies and that's all just a bunch of puke. This book tells you hundreds of years before it happens that it's going to happen and God puts it down on ink and puts it in the earth. and then sits back for 400 years, 500 years, 2,000 years, 2,500 years, sits back and waits and watches to see what little dust balls are going to have the sense to pick up his book and study to show themself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth, and say, that is a miracle. That Bible forecasts it and it happens. and did it so much, all the way down through history, that we're here to tell you, Jesus is coming back soon, and an Antichrist is going to set up his reign in this earth, and a tribulation period's going to happen. Before all that happens, a rapture's coming, and a judgment seat of Jesus Christ is what you're going to face, and He's coming back to set up a kingdom on this earth for a thousand years, and you're going to rule and reign with Him if you're faithful now. If you suffer now, you'll reign with Him. If you resist, the resistance. If you don't cave to the pressure, if you walk in faith, if you do right, if you stand up for God, if you don't let the resistance get to you, you're going to reign with them for a thousand years. And if the Lord doesn't return and rapture us out, I'm going to keep preaching with God's help, and I'm going to get older, and slower, and weaker, and frailer, And if God helps me, if God helps me, I'll have somebody help me up on the platform. I don't ever want anybody to have to help me up on the platform, but they might come, but I'll get up on the platform and all the way till God says I don't anymore, I'll try to get up here and say, listen, if you suffer, you'll reign with Him. And then I'll die in faith, never having had a chance to reign yet, but knowing it's going to happen. And God smiles and says, yeah, it was a good boy. All right, let's stop there for tonight. We'll pick it up here next time in verse number nine. Let's dismiss in a word of prayer. Father, we love you tonight, and we thank you, Lord, for showing us Stephen's faith, and help us, God, to be people like this that have faith in you. As Stephen was getting resisted, Lord, he knew how to respond to the resistance. And He just gave him the Word of God, gave him the truth, and stood by the truth. Didn't apologize for it, didn't cushion it, didn't back off of it, just gave him the truth with the right spirit, with boldness, with the Bible, and believing that book and believing its power, and then they ended his life. But boy, we get to study him now, and you put his story in the eternal Word of God. What a blessing, Father. So I pray You'd help us tonight as we're dismissed to leave here with a little bit of encouragement in our hearts to walk by faith and to follow You and to look for those areas in our life where there's partial obedience and to thank You for Your mercy and not take advantage of it and to get ourselves into full obedience by faith and to get on that road and stay on that road. And if it means we die on that road, never seeing everything that we want to see, that we would just trust You by faith and know that You're God. and that we die with that strength and that peace that Stephen had with a face like an angel. God, that's what we need in our lives and in our culture and in our church and in our homes, and we ask you to help us with it. We pray these things in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and for his sake. Amen.