Our text today comes from John, well, no, John is the public reading of scripture. Comes from Acts 8, 6, oh my word, it's gonna be a rough one. Acts 6, verses 8 through 15. I believe it's about on page 1094 or so of the Bible's in the seats. So last week we saw the introduction of the first seven deacons, the servers of the tables, and that included a man named Stephen that was mentioned. And this week we see the beginnings of the incident. We're not gonna get through the whole thing, but the beginnings of the incident that led to basically his eternal notoriety. So we're gonna read from verse eight of chapter six to the end of the chapter. And Stephen, full of grace and power, was performing great wonders and signs among the people. But some men from what was called the Synagogue of the Freedmen, including both Cyrenians and Alexandrians, and some from Cilicia and Asia, rose up and argued with Stephen. But they were unable to cope with the wisdom and the spirit with which he was speaking. Then they secretly induced men to say, we have heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses and against God. And they stirred up the people and the elders and the scribes, and they came up to him and dragged him away and brought him before the council. They put forward false witnesses who said, this man incessantly speaks against this holy place and the law. For we have heard him say that this Nazarene, Jesus, will destroy this place and alter the customs which Moses handed down to us. and fixing their gaze on him, all who were sitting in the council saw his face like the face of an angel. Let's pray. Lord of heaven and earth, we turn now to your word in expectation of being reformed and remade in the likeness of your son. Renew our minds through your preached word and the power of your spirit. Make us receptive to the truth found in these scriptures. Bless our gathering with your presence. May it be glorifying to you, faithful to the text, and helpful for your people. Please send your spirit to work in us now. We ask this all in Jesus' name. Amen. This is now the third chapter in a row where we have read of an arrest by the Jewish religious authorities of one of the broader group of the apostles. The first arrest came in chapter four. It ended with a warning. The second arrest came in chapter five. It ended with a flogging. And now the third arrest here in chapter six, as we will see, ends with even greater violence than the previous ones. And we see leading up to the arrest and that lead up that the opposition that is debating with Steven is being more aggressive than we saw in the previous arrest. Perhaps he lacked the prestige of Peter and John who had been previously arrested and the Jews that opposed him, therefore, maybe lacked some of the reserve that they had that they might have otherwise had toward one of the primary apostles, one that had greater notoriety and because this was, I don't know, they viewed him as a lesser apostle possibly, they were willing to be more aggressive, or maybe their patience is just wearing thin. One thing is for sure, though, the hesitation that Gamaliel had recommended in chapter five, that kept the Sanhedrin from condemning Peter and John, where he said, be careful what you do with these men. They're going to fizzle out if they're not of God. That hesitation about persecuting the Christians does not seem to be a concern for the crowd here in Acts 6 and for these next couple of chapters. That's not really on their minds. And this incident does indeed span a couple chapters. It's going to take us several weeks to complete, I think. I do believe it is the single longest trial scene that we have in the Bible, primarily because Luke gives us this really extensive record of Stephen's defense, which takes up the bulk of Chapter 7. But today, we're only going to read about the arrest and then the charges that are leveled against him. Now, we already know of Stephen's high moral character because of the fact that he was one of the seven that were chosen to serve the tables to ensure that the Hellenized Jewish widows were not being overlooked. They had some requirements for the character of those men. Stephen was one of them. He was known for that. His maturity and his reputation were well known to the growing church in Jerusalem. That's why they chose him. But then in verse eight, we read that he was full of grace and power, full of grace and power, and was among the broader group of apostles who were performing these great signs and wonders. So even though Acts 6 is the first time we're reading about him, he is indeed a significant figure. We don't know a ton about him, but he was a significant figure. And the way that this incident plays out proves for certain that his godly reputation was indeed indicative of the type of man that he really was. He does not wither under the pressure. Like the other apostles, he was out doing his job, preaching that Jesus was the Christ. And like the other apostles, the Holy Spirit was confirming the truth of his message through the signs and the wonders that he was empowered to do. For the most part, as we read in chapter five, that typically gained the respect of the people. Remember, the people held them in high esteem, even if they wouldn't agree with them, they held them in high esteem. But some of the more stiff-necked and hard-hearted Jews hated Stephen. They just hated this guy. We're not sure if the apostles kind of, I don't know, they might've divided up the city of Jerusalem and kind of assigned territories to one another where they're like, all right, you go cover this, you go there and you preach throughout this area, I've got this area, you evangelize there, I'll evangelize here, I don't know. It seems like for some reason though, he might've been in the same area repeatedly. They got to know him. This group of Jews kept encountering him. And for some reason or another, this group of Jews rose up in opposition to Stephen. We're told that it's meant from a particular synagogue, at least one of the synagogues is mentioned, or possibly even a group of synagogues. Remember, a synagogue was different than the temple. It's not the main temple where they had been preaching a lot, but they would go out, and there were synagogues. And that's not where they went to offer the sacrifices. It was sort of like church in a way, but not like their main temple. It was a place for Jewish prayers, Jewish worship, Jewish teaching. They could go and start a new synagogue in a certain area. As long as they had 10 men ready to go, that was kind of like the threshold, and they would start one. Each synagogue had an established leadership to it. And it would serve as a sort of community center for the Jews as well. They had community meetings. They would educate the children there. It's where they'd go to discuss and adjudicate their traditions and their practices, things like that. A synagogue could even serve as living quarters for officials and visiting Jews. And when the Jews would be in a certain place or a group of them would be together, usually a collection from the same area or whatever, they would start a synagogue, typically. The synagogue mentioned here is called the Synagogue of the Freedmen, which was a term for slaves who had gained their freedom. So this was probably a synagogue largely made up of such folks, freedmen, or their descendants, or and their descendants. Or perhaps it was initially built by freedmen, and it's their descendants now that continued it on. Archaeologists have actually found a dedicatory inscription from a synagogue of the freedmen. A real thing. It's accurate. And along with that synagogue, Luke tells us there were both Cyrenians and Alexandrians. That's mostly North Africans. And some from Cilicia and Asia. That's basically Asia Minor. So these were the Diaspora Jews. Remember we talked about those Jews spread out. Diaspora Jews from North Africa and Asia Minor. Basically modern-day Turkey. A lot of those Jews would come back into Jerusalem, especially if it's at the end of their life. We talked about that last week. It's not entirely clear if these diaspora Jews were part of the synagogue of the freedmen. They probably weren't. That was probably one of the synagogues, and then there's synagogues associated with the others. And it seems like they kind of teamed up together, this group of synagogues. It was likely at least two additional synagogues. There was either one for the Cyrenians and Alexandrians, and then one for the Cilicians and those from Asia. Or it could possibly be up to four additional synagogues. It could be the Freedmen's had one, the Cilicians had one, the Alexandrians had one, et cetera, et cetera, right? It's somewhere between one and five synagogues worth of people. We're not exactly sure. We have sources that do attest to the existence of two of those synagogues as well. So it's probably, most likely, at least three different synagogues. And notably, the capital of Cilicia was Tarsus. That was Paul's hometown. So in all likelihood, this was his synagogue. because he was in Jerusalem by this time. So there was a synagogue of those from Cilicia. The Cilicians had a synagogue and that's probably his because the ones that were from a certain area usually collected together, lived together, worshiped together, did synagogue together. In fact, it's almost certain since he shows up with these folks very shortly, he's gonna be introduced here into the narrative very shortly and he's with this group of angry folks. And he very well may have been one of the Jews that was arguing with Stephen, as mentioned in verse 9. That's pretty likely, actually. Stephen's arguing with Paul. One of many, but Paul's included here. Very likely. So that's interesting stuff. Remember, these were largely people whose faith had brought them back from foreign lands to be in Jerusalem. They were devout. They were serious and defensive about Judaism. And that can be intimidating. Interacting with the most strident devotees of a religion that is steeped in tradition, I mean, that is often quite unpleasant. That's some of the most unpleasant evangelizing that you will do. But Jesus prepared his disciples beforehand to put them at ease when facing such folks. He told them in Luke 21, so make up your minds not to prepare beforehand to defend yourselves, for I will give you utterance and wisdom which none of your opponents will be able to resist or refute. And that's a really cool promise. And because God keeps his promises, that is precisely what happened with Stephen. We read in verse 10 that the Jews arguing with Stephen were unable to cope with the wisdom and the spirit with which he was speaking. Couldn't cope with it, couldn't handle it. He's too wise. The spirit about him was empowering him. In their ignorance, they were actually arguing against the Holy Spirit himself. Stephen's just kind of the mouthpiece in this case, and they're arguing with God through Stephen. And as expected, when men argue against God, they debated until they had no answer whatsoever. They couldn't cope with it. They couldn't deal with the facts. They couldn't deal with his understanding. They couldn't handle the obvious fulfillment of the Old Testament typology and the fulfilled prophecies. So he argued them to silence. And yet, they were not converted. They had everything that they needed to know and hear and have explained, and they were not converted. Their hearts were not softened by the truth. They hardened their hearts. Intellectually, they had no response. But spiritually, they still refused. Their brain is not leading their heart into conversion. And that is because conversion is a matter of the will. And our will is a matter of our nature. And our nature being changed is a matter of God's grace. So it is dependent on God gracing them with a new nature to change their wills. These men did not have an intellectual problem. They had a heart problem and they needed the Holy Spirit to convince them because they had the Holy Spirit sitting there telling them the truth, giving them all the data and the information and explanation that they needed. Stephen was essentially the ideal evangelist, right? He was doing it exactly how we could all hope to do it, full of grace and power and truth and wisdom. It's full of grace, he's speaking the truth in gentleness and in love. He's full of the spirit. What he was saying was accurate. It was basically inspired by the Holy Spirit. He's not miscommunicating to these folks so as to confuse them. It's not like he's messing up in what he's saying, his interpretation, his explanation. What he's saying is it's accurate and it's gentle and it's kind. This is as good of job as anyone could possibly hope to do in speaking to unbelievers and presenting the gospel. Yet, It is fruitless without the grace of regeneration. He's doing his job, but the Spirit has to act if there's going to be conversion. I've seen men evangelize Jews in modern Israel. You can see this kind of thing on YouTube, and they will do this same thing. Converted Jews, ones that are now Christian, will go onto the streets in Jerusalem, in Israel, and they will kindly and gently make an undeniable case that Jesus is the Christ. They'll cite the prophecies, they'll get the people to affirm those prophecies, and they'll say, this is the only person that fits those prophecies. Undeniable. And the people don't have any answer for it. They have no explanation. They just deny it. They have no meaningful response. Because there is no meaningful response. There's not an answer that can be given to deny what is obviously true. But they still will not submit to Christ as Lord. The human condition needs more than intellectual information. We need a heart change. A spiritual problem needs a spiritual solution. So the church is not a gathering of all those that are just lucky enough to have heard the good news, to just have happened to have the opportunity to have it explained to us. And we are not the ones that are smart enough to understand who Jesus is, to hear this explanation and be like, that makes sense, I believe that. We're just so smart that we get it when it's explained. The church, it's not that those, the church is a gathering of those that have been blessed by God's gracious act of being called and justified by faith. Just like Steve said, we are blessed. He mentioned it in his assurance of pardon. Talked about how blessed we are. That is what the church is. Those that have been blessed by God with regeneration, a calling, justification by faith. Faith has been granted to us. Repentance has been granted to us. They are products of God's grace. We see it in action here. The perfect evangelist telling the truth perfectly with inspired words and it doesn't convert because God has to do the converting. The only difference between us and these angry Jews is what God has done. The only difference between Stephen and these angry Jews is what God has done. It's not intellectual. It's spiritual. Still an intellectual component to it, obviously, but it's a spiritual issue. Now, this crowd, after being intellectually argued to silence, when that happens, people tend to get angry. If their hearts aren't softened by it, if God doesn't soften their hearts by it, they tend to get mad. If you argue someone to silence, how do they tend to react? They get mad. They attack you. They come at you, the person, instead of you, the argument that you present. So they start making accusations. They start attacking the person verbally at times, physically even, right? And that's what this crowd does. They come up with a plan. Not at all unlike the methods that they used against Jesus. That is, they arranged for men to make false accusations to justify an arrest with the hope of the arrest leading to condemnation based on those same false accusations. These false accusations that they stirred up the people to do were enough to stir up the people to the anger that they needed. They needed a mob. And they got the mob through the lies. And not just the people. They didn't just stir up the people. They stirred up the elders and the scribes. Once they have the elders and the scribes, then they're able to employ the temple authorities once again, who then come and drag Stephen away to face the council, just like Peter and John had done twice already. It doesn't explicitly mention them. They're probably involved if the elders and scribes are involved. It's often called an arrest, you know, when we speak of the arrest of St. Stephen. You know, it probably technically was, but it reads more like just a straight up abduction. They get so angry, they're just like, get him, grab him, drag him away. So these people are reacting out of a passionate anger because they couldn't cope with his wisdom. Luke doesn't tell us the precise details here. We don't know if the Sanhedrin was already in session and they just drag him in and throw him in there. Probably took him, put him in the jail cell overnight like before, same as the other ones, until the Sanhedrin could be gathered the next day. As Luke records, he was brought out then to be questioned and faced the accusations against him, just like before. This time, the Jews use the method that worked to get Jesus killed, though. If you remember, Matthew 26 details this for us. He's before the Sanhedrin, Jesus. It says, now the chief priests and the whole council kept trying to obtain false testimony against Jesus so that they might put him to death. Arrange for liars to make false accusations for the excuse of putting him to death. They did not find any, even though many false witnesses came forward, but later on, two came forward. and said, this man stated, I am able to destroy the temple of God and to rebuild it in three days. We all know what they're talking about there. So that's what they did this time as well. So in verse 13 and 14, what's it tell us? They put forward a false witness who said, this man incessantly speaks against this holy place and the law, they're at the temple by now, this holy place, the temple, and the law, for we have heard him say that this Nazarene Jesus will destroy this place and alter the customs which Moses handed down to us. Right there, very, very similar. It doesn't take a Bible scholar to know what Stephen had said that they were twisting. You know, these guys are like modern day journalists. They change the meaning of words, they use partial quotes, on purpose so that you can't get the full context of what's being said. They completely mischaracterized the meaning of what's being stated, what Stephen had said, what Jesus had said, same thing. Obviously, Stephen had taught about Christ's prophecy. Remember, when the disciples are marveling at the beauty of the temple and the huge stones, that sort of thing, it's recorded for us in John 2. So we know Stephen may have been there with that group of disciples. And Jesus, when they're doing that, he predicts his resurrection. He told them, destroy this temple, and in three days, I will raise it up again. And they're all shocked, like, oh, it took years to build this temple, and we're told. He's not talking about the physical temple, he's talking about himself. He is the temple. Stephen undoubtedly told the Jews of Christ's prediction being fulfilled in the crucifixion and resurrection. He undoubtedly told that story and said, Jesus said this, he was talking about himself, you tried to destroy him in the crucifixion, he rose up in three days, just like he said. He undoubtedly would have explained that Jesus himself is the true temple. That's typology, this imagery that's used in the Old Testament, fulfilled in the New Testament. He tabernacled amongst us, as the apostles would say. John wrote that in John 1.14. He tabernacled amongst us. He is the temple. The temple, remember in the Old Testament, it's representative of God's presence with the people. You have this congregation of people, the covenant people, God comes down and dwells with them in a temple. That's God's presence. It's the representative presence of God. And to enter that temple, they can't just waltz in there. They needed to be ceremonially clean. That's typological of holiness, right? And to become ceremonially clean, they need a priest to offer a sacrifice of atonement so they could dwell in God's presence without being destroyed, right? And Stephen would have explained that Christ is the true temple. He is God in the flesh. He's God come down with us. Immanuel, God with us. And to be in his presence, to dwell with Christ, you need to be cleansed. You need to be holy. But instead of repeated animal sacrifices that never take away sin and guilt, Christ himself acts as the high priest. He himself served himself up as the sacrifice, the lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world. He's the temple, he's the priest, he's the sacrifice, so that we can be not just ceremonially clean, but actually holy, so we can dwell with God. And because of that work, we can be in union with him. We can dwell in him as the true temple. This is all Old Testament imagery that the apostles used to explain to the Jews, Jesus is the Christ. And it's no mystery, that's exactly what Stephen was teaching them. And even though they tried to destroy the temple in the crucifixion, they tried to destroy Jesus once and for all, he raised it up in three days when he was resurrected, just like he predicted. That is obviously what Jesus, or Stephen, had taught them. But what did they hear? Or really, what did they say that they heard? He's threatening to destroy our temple. That's it, that's all they, like, oh, that's something we can seize on. Twist that, lie about that. He said word destroy, he said temple. He's saying he's gonna destroy the temple, and Jesus is gonna destroy the temple. Twisted his words and his meaning to make him sound like a threat. What else did they falsely accuse Stephen of? speaking against the law or against Moses by saying that Jesus is going to alter the customs which Moses handed down to them. The next accusation, again, that was a serious charge. Josephus wrote of the Essenes, one of the Jewish sects at that time, that after God, they hold most in awe the name of their lawgiver and any blasphemer of whom is punished with death. So if you spoke against Moses or the law, they wanted to punish you with death. When he's writing a blasphemy against the law or a lawgiver, that just means to defame, denigrate, to demean in some way, and that's what they're trying to accuse Stephen of, speaking against Moses, against the law. So if they determined someone was speaking against Moses in some way, that's what they wanted. That person should die, in their opinion. This charge surely came from them twisting Stephen's explanation of the old covenant being fulfilled in Christ and instituting a new covenant. With new covenant comes new law. So those customs that they cared about so much are not altered. We're not altering the customs. Those customs are fulfilled. They have served their purpose. They're no longer needed. When you finish construction on a building, you remove the scaffolding. It's no longer needed. It served its purpose. That's how those old laws work. So yes, of course, the positive laws of the old covenant are abrogated and taken away, as our confession says it in chapter 19. Remember the distinction between moral and positive law. We talk about this all the time. There's positive laws in each covenant, like circumcision. We don't have to do that. It's only particular to the covenant of Abraham and Moses. The ones in that covenant need to be circumcised, but laws like do not murder, moral law, those are always applicable no matter what. It's moral law, it's always true. Positive laws for each covenant, it's only applicable for that covenant. Moral laws for all time. And that's what they're worried about. Okay, you're saying the old covenant's going away and all these customs, all these positive laws that we love so much, you're gonna alter them. Like no, they're not altered, they're fulfilled. It's a new covenant now, there's new positive laws. The Jews understood this principle, too, because none of them are obeying the positive law from the covenant of works. Remember, God tells Adam, do not eat of the fruit of this tree. He forbids one of those trees. They know that that's only applicable to the covenant of works. They're not out there looking for that tree, trying to avoid it. They get this principle. They recognize that covenant was done away because it was broken, so positive laws no longer apply. That positive law of that covenant, they get this principle. But at this point, the Jews had taken those positive laws of the old covenant, that mosaic economy. Those customs handed down by Moses, governing ceremonial worship and governing Israel as a theocratic nation, those laws containing, this is how our confession says it, containing several typical ordinances, typological typical ordinances, partly of worship, prefiguring Christ, His graces, actions, sufferings, and benefits, and partly holding forth diverse instructions of moral duties. They took that temple and those traditions and they turned them into an idol. Not like a temporary thing to lead them to the Messiah, but they turned them into an idol. And it wasn't just like these are our culture, which it was, but it was their identity that went along with that, that cultural identity as Jews. this thing that set them apart as the chosen people. We're God's chosen people, we're the Jews, we have this mosaic economy. They were clinging to that, not to God, but to the traditions, the customs. And now, even though they're no longer needed, they're unwilling to give them up. In hearing about the fulfillment of the old and the coming of something better, the Jews take that as an attack. He's attacking us, our customs, our people. If Jesus is the temple, if Jesus is the real temple, and this temple is no longer needed, worship is to be centered on Jesus, not at this location, then that temple building, one of the wonders of the world, and the heart of their Jewish culture and identity, that temple is no longer needed. They take that as an attack. It was a relic of an outdated religious worship, an old covenant relic. and it no longer applies. There's no purpose to that temple any longer, because Jesus is a new and better temple. Now here are these Jews showing up, telling people, coming out here, and they're telling people, you know, not all Israel is really Israel. And they're like, what? We're not all by default the chosen people of God? And they're like, no, that's not how it works. It's not the ethnic Hebrews are the children of God, it's those that are chosen from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation, Gentiles. And again, that's an attack on them as a people, as a culture, and they hate that. I mean, they're Hellenized Jews, but they're not that Hellenized, right? They like the Greek culture, they have adopted a lot of it, but they don't want to spend eternity with Greeks, Gentiles. That's how these Jews are thinking. That's why they're getting so mad. If they trusted in Christ as Messiah and His atoning sacrifice, then the very foundations of their religion had to be reinterpreted because they got it wrong. They could no longer look to obedience to the law as a basis for salvation, to be holy and righteous before God. They would have to humble themselves and they would have to abandon all self-righteousness. They did not see that message as enlightening. They didn't see Stephen's words as explanatory of the old covenant shadows. They instead took this as blasphemy against the Mosaic law and the temple where it was practiced. It's an attack in their minds. The temple was not needed for access to God. The priests were not needed. The sacrifices were not needed. And they hated this idea. And they hated Stephen for teaching it. They hated him even more because when he explained it, they couldn't even argue against it. And oh, does that enrage them. They hated him for graciously explaining the new covenant and the greatness of the gospel accomplished by Jesus. Jesus likewise prepared his disciples for this hatred, and we read it. John 15, if the world hates you, you know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own. But because you are not of the world, but I choose you out of the world because of this, the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you, a slave is not greater than his master. If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours also. But all these things they will do to you for my name's sake because they do not know the one who sent me." And he talks about being kicked out of the synagogues. And here it is, people of these synagogues attacking Stephen. Unfortunately for Stephen, this hatred that Jesus warned about, this hatred that we're seeing from the Jews, it exceeds all rational restraint. He could not persuade them through heavenly wisdom and gracious argument. It's not gonna stem their hatred. And even physical evidence couldn't convince them. Because look at verse 15, tells us, right before Luke records Stephen's defense, he tells us, fixing their gaze on him, all who were sitting in the council saw his face like the face of an angel. Now, what precisely that means, I don't know. Every morning I wake up, I turn to see a face like that of an angel, you know. Yeah, that's how you do it, guys. She's not even in here to hear it. But I'm guessing Luke did not mean that Stephen looked like my wife, right? But seriously, you know, I don't think we could describe what this meant with much certainty. Perhaps it was similar to the face of Moses after he would meet with God in the tent and he would come out and he'd be radiant after he met with God. Perhaps it was just a look of supernatural peace and joy, even in the face of these false accusations of potential death. But he's standing before a death panel, more or less, and he's just sitting there calm, ready to answer the accusations. Whatever it was, It was visible, they noticed it. And it testified to the presence of God's spirit in Stephen. Physical evidence with their eyes, this man is telling the truth. It testified to the fact that his witness to them was true and accurate. It was authoritative and inspired by the spirit that was within him. But facts like these do not deter impassioned hatred. a