Today's Word Radio

Brett Meador: Some people call this Stephen's defense. I don't think Stephen was interested in defending himself. I believe he simply wanted to proclaim the truth about Jesus in a way that people could understand. Stephen's going to preach now one of the most powerful sermons.

Remember, he's standing before the great Sanhedrin. You might call it the Supreme Court of the land. But I would ask who's really on trial here? It's almost like he's going to indict them.

Kurt: From Today's Word, Pastor Brett Meador shares a brave encounter with the truth. In one of Scripture's most powerful sermons, Stephen provides a timeline of Israel's history to reveal how it foreshadows Jesus as the Messiah, while at the same time clearly addressing the people's repeated rejection of God's plan for the Jews. Pastor Brett Meador opens Today's Word to Acts chapter 7, recounting the brave proclamation of the truth of Scripture by Stephen.

Brett Meador: Well, here we are finally at Stephen's sermon, maybe one of the greatest of sermons. I think Jesus probably preached the greatest ones because He was perfect, and His sermons were amazing and powerful. But when it comes to sermons preached, Stephen's has to be right up there.

I think this is such an amazing sermon that we could really spend weeks studying this little passage, but then we kind of miss the context of what's going on. But what we have to remember is Stephen, one of the first deacons, we met him last week, chosen by the congregation as one of the seven deacons of the church.

But we saw that he was being falsely accused. Have you ever been falsely accused of something, and you knew you were right and they were wrong? Sometimes it never corrects itself. I remember one time I was doing a wedding. It was a real official, beautiful wedding at a certain fancy place.

When I got there, there were these professional wedding coordinators. These ladies are just like clipboards, comm systems, and weapons. They were amazing GI Joe type ladies that were all ready for this wedding. But I walked up and they looked at me and gave me the microphone pack with the little microphone that was going to be on my lapel.

They said, "Do you know how to use one of these?" I said, "I have used them before." "Are you sure?" I said, "Yes." What they didn't know is I had been using these for the last 40 years and kind of know how to use these probably better than they do. But I didn't say that. I just said, "Yes, I know how to use these." She said, "Okay, well, make sure don't forget to turn it on."

They were very serious. My normal mode of operation is you kind of leave it off because you don't want your mic on when you're running around talking to people because the sound guys back there with his earphones on will hear you. So I keep it off. As soon as the bride appears in the back and everybody turns and looks at the bride, that's when I secretively turn on the microphone because nobody's looking at me.

So I did that. I looked down and turned it on, but I was kind of bummed because when I turned on the on switch, I noticed the green light didn't go on. I was like, "Oh, great." So I just thought there's nothing I can do at this point. So the bride came down and I said, "Who gives this woman to be this man's wife?"

By this time, the ladies are flipping out because there's no sound coming through my microphone, and they're jumping up and down in the back trying to get my attention. I didn't want to disrupt the wedding. I have a good loud voice. I can talk loud. There were only maybe 300 people there, so I thought I'll just talk loud.

So I was doing that and they just wouldn't let it go. They just kept jumping up and down. One lady held up a big sign that said "Your mic is off" on there with exclamation marks. I just keep doing this wedding, and then I see, and this is not a joke, I see one of the ladies GI Joe crawling down the aisle.

She's right there laying down on the ground going, "Turn your mic on, your mic is off." She was being more disruptive than anything. It was like everybody saw her even though she was on the ground. She finally stood up and said it: "Turn on your mic." By this time it was so bad I had to say, "My mic switch is on," and I said it firmly because I didn't want her to bug me anymore.

I didn't know what was wrong with the pack. She gave it to me. Our sound guys check and double check, and they're really good at that. So I thought at least it's over with. Not so much. When it came to doing the vows, I said, "Would you turn and face one another?" They're getting ready to exchange vows and all of a sudden we hear this noise.

We're in this outdoor thing with this Greek pavilion with pillars and a roof and it was like a facade. Somebody had climbed up into the roof and they were using a keyhole saw with a drill motor, and they were drilling right over our head through the sheetrock that was above my head. Literally dust was falling on the bride. She-rock dust.

All of a sudden, the keyhole saw broke through, and all of a sudden, I couldn't believe my eyes. They were lowering a microphone by its cable. It was like this, and I was so tempted I was going to grab it and say, "Are you ready to rumble?" I really wanted to do that. I was this close to doing that, but I refrained because it was a wedding.

Anyway, so they turned on that microphone and it sounded horrible, even that microphone because it wasn't the right kind of microphone. I could have told them which mic to drop, but anyway, they didn't do that. Well anyway, so I finish up the wedding and then I come back and the ladies are just purple with anger.

They were like, "You totally messed it up." By this time, I had already looked at the pack. They forgot to put batteries in it. I could have said something like, "A real wedding coordinator would have known to put batteries in here," but I didn't want to pour salt on them.

But here's the problem. The whole wedding, everybody thought that pastor just doesn't know what he's doing. He didn't know how to turn on his mic. That's what the crowd got. That's what the ladies were saying. Nobody saw in the back that the ladies didn't do that. So I just remember feeling like this is so unfair.

I wanted to call everybody back and say, "Excuse me, everybody come back. I got to tell you something. The goofy ladies didn't know what they were doing. It's their fault." But have you ever defended yourself and then realized even in defending yourself, you look like a total dweeb? Like it makes it worse had you not even tried to defend yourself.

There's something in life about that that I think is really important. Whenever you try to defend yourself, even though you're right, you might be 100% right, you look like a complete nincompoop. Better to just keep your mouth shut and have people think you're a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.

Well, Stephen, he's going to be falsely accused, horribly so. If anybody should be vindicated, it's Stephen. He was a nice guy, preaching the truth, and he was only saying things that were just radically true sayings. And yet, everybody's going to falsely accuse him of saying things he never really said.

We really saw that, you know, the accusation. "He's against Moses," we learned in chapter 6. The truth is he was in perfect harmony with Moses, and we're going to see that even in his sermon. Accusation: "He was going to destroy the Temple." But that was actually he was preaching about Jesus who said, "Destroy this temple and in three days I'll raise it up," speaking of His body.

And the truth of it was Jesus rose from the grave just like He said He would. So in fact, if you look back at chapter 6, let's just review so we can remember the charges leveled at him. It's Acts chapter 6, verse 11.

It says, "Then they suborned men," remember suborned means hired liars. That's a fancy old word. "Suborned men which said, '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 came upon him and caught him and brought him to the council, and set up false witnesses which said, 'This man ceaseth not to speak blasphemous words against this holy place and the law.'" That's the holy place of the Temple and the law of Moses is what he's supposedly being speaking against.

But verse 14, "For we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth shall destroy this place and shall change the customs which Moses delivered." That's the rituals, religious rights and what have you that Moses delivered us. "And all that sat in the council, looking steadfastly on him, saw his face as it had been the face of an angel."

What a scene. They're railing against him, lying against him, meanwhile Stephen's just sitting there glowing. I don't know what a face of an angel looks like, but I think he looked calm, cool, and collected. Maybe a bit joyful, perhaps glowing. We're going to see him sort of glow here in this story in kind of an amazing way.

So this idea that they got suborned men, remember that's the Greek word which means to bribe or induce unlawfully false witness against them. That's what they did against Stephen. So sometimes defending yourself is not the right. Now some people call this, in fact some of your Bibles might even say Stephen's defense.

Like some of your titles might say that. And I guess that's sort of accurate in a way, but I want to kind of talk about how he does it. Stephen's not going to defend himself. I'm not going to even really accept this as Stephen's defense. I don't think Stephen was interested in defending himself.

I believe he simply wanted to proclaim the truth about Jesus in a way that people could understand. But also, it's almost like he's going to indict them. Remember, he's standing before the great Sanhedrin. You might call it the Supreme Court of the land. But I would ask who's really on trial here?

Have you ever noticed that? Sometimes when a person's standing on trial, it's going to be the judge and the jury that's actually on trial, not the person charged. That's the case here. Who's really on trial? Stephen's going to be the one more like the prosecuting attorney. He's going to speak the truth and we're going to see that.

So more than a defense, it's more of an indictment against the religious Jews of that day for their perspective and their actions against Jesus Christ. So that's where we pick it up now. The story just keeps going. Verse 1: "Then said the high priest, 'Are these things so?'" Now how do you answer that? Would you say, "No, I didn't say those things"?

But that's not what he does because he's not defending himself. Stephen's going to preach now one of the most powerful sermons, again, an indictment against these religious leaders. Verse 2: "And he said, 'Men and brethren and fathers, hearken. The God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia before he dwelt in Haran.'"

Now this verse 2, he starts his sermon with the glory of God, but I want to point out he's going to end the sermon also with the glory of God. He begins with the glory of God and he'll end with the glory of God. We'll see that coming up here where he's going to see the glory of God in verse 55 before they kill him.

So this is a lot about the glory of God. It begins and ends with that. But the glory of God, it's a word that you and I don't use that much in modern times. We talk about who gets the glory, which means credit. But the word glory in this biblical context, it sort of infers more of a weighty presence, a tangible presence of God.

The Greek word is *doxa*. Remember the word doxology? Maybe you've heard that. The word *doxa* is the word glory from the Greek to the English. It's glory. But from the Hebrew, it's the word *kabod*. Does that ring a bell? The word *kabod* is the Hebrew word which means splendor or abundance, honor, but also it means that presence that was over the Ark of the Covenant.

The Shekinah glory, the *kabod* was God's presence. If you remember the story when they took the Ark of the Covenant and the Philistines stole it from them and the pregnant woman, if you remember there in 1 Samuel 4:21, she was going to give birth to a son and she calls his name Ichabod. Why did she do that?

Because the *kabod*, "ich" means no glory. The glory was removed. Inglorious is another way of putting it. Ichabod is the Hebrew word for no glory. Kind of interesting. But this is what Stephen's going to talk about. Wherever God seeks to bring His glory, His presence to the Jews, they would behave badly and His glory would depart from Israel.

That's going to be one of the major themes of his sermon. So we want to kind of be aware of that idea of the presence of God, the *kabod*, the weightiness. Even as the Jews would sin and worship other gods, God's glory would depart from Israel. Even in Ezekiel, there's a place where the glory of the Lord left the Temple.

It was like a really sad part of Scripture. He's no longer there. And I believe, by the way, the Temple of these guys in this day that they were saying was so holy and "you spoke against the Temple," this Temple, there wasn't any glory in it. The glory of God long departed from the Temple in Jerusalem.

Now one of the things that Stephen's going to show is the glory doesn't have to be in the Temple. The Jews by the first century here, they'd say the only place God's glory could be possibly is in the Temple with us and the priest. "We have a monopoly on God's glory." But one of the things you're going to see Stephen say is, "Guess where the glory of God first appeared?" Was it in a Temple anywhere?

Nope. It was actually in, as it says here, Mesopotamia before he dwelt in Haran. God appeared to Abraham in Ur of the Chaldees, which is kind of important. Where's Ur of the Chaldees? Well, it's in what is today Iraq. Ur was really close to ancient Babylon, by the way. This is where we're going to have Stephen talking about the story of Abraham.

By the way, I love Acts chapter 7. It's one of the greatest commentaries on the Old Testament. What do you mean commentary? Well, there's books called commentaries. Commentators write comments on what the Bible is saying and it's helpful. One of my favorite commentaries on the Bible is the Bible, and Stephen's sermon is one of the best.

He's going to talk about stuff and he's even going to give us some information that we didn't have in the Old Testament by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. So it's pretty cool. There's other places like Hebrews chapter 11, which is the Hall of Faith about all the famous men and women of faith of the Old Testament.

That's another commentary on the Old and we learn stuff about the Old Testament that we didn't know when we read the Old Testament. This is going to be helpful. So God calls Abraham to leave Ur of the Chaldees. Let's take a look. Verse 3: "And said to him, 'Get thee out of thy country and from thy kindred, and come into the land which I shall show thee.'

Then came he out of the land of the Chaldeans and dwelt in Haran, and from thence, when his father was dead, he removed him into this land wherein you now dwell." He's talking to the Jews in Jerusalem, so he's saying you guys are here because of the story that I just referred to.

Now, Stephen's sermon, God called Abraham and he mentions something that is actually kind of a black eye on Abraham's history. Many of you know some of Abraham's biggest mistakes. What was probably one of his bigger mistakes? Remember he called Sarah his sister down in Egypt? That's a bad one.

What's another bad thing Abraham did? He went down to Egypt. Anybody remember who he picked up in Egypt? Hagar. Was there a little problem there? Yeah, that might be the biggest one. The biggest mistake. Why? Because the Arab-Israeli conflict today is because Abraham did that. He slept with Hagar. The end.

If he hadn't done that, we wouldn't have had Ishmael, and Ishmael's the father of the Arab nations, and there's been nothing but trouble ever since between Jews and Arabs. It's quite a story and Abraham's in heaven going, "Did I do that?" watching the all the bloodshed and warfare, even the Gaza and all that stuff that's happening right now.

It's because Abraham made a mistake there. It's kind of brutal. But there's another thing that you may not know was a mistake and actually I think it's interesting that Stephen brings this up. God called Abraham to leave Ur. Did you see what it said there? It says in verse 3, "Get thee out of thy country and from thy kindred."

What does it mean, the kindred? Well, that's his family. So leave your homeland, Ur of the Chaldees, and leave your family behind. Question: Did Abraham leave his family behind? No. Who did he bring with him? Lot. Anybody else? His father. In fact, let me show you this is the Genesis, this is part of the Abrahamic Covenant.

But it starts out in verse 1: "Now the Lord had said unto Abram, 'Get thee out of thy country and from thy kindred and from thy father's house. So from thy kindred, that's leave all your family behind, and from specifically your father's house, leave that unto a land that I will show thee. And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee and make thy name great, and thou shalt be a blessing. And I will bless them that bless thee and curse him that curseth thee, and in thee all families of the earth shall be blessed.'

So Abram departed as the Lord had spoken unto him, and Lot went with him. And Abram was seventy and five years old when he departed out of Haran." So there's some things we learn here that's kind of a bummer. What information did we not get from the Old Testament? That Abraham moving from Ur went to Haran.

We know that he left Mesopotamia, you know, he went to Haran. Now in the New Testament, by the way, don't be confused by this, you'll see Charran is with a C-H, but in the Old Testament, it's an H. And so you say is that the same place? Yes. Haran and Charran, same place. Greek Septuagint spelling is the C-H one, which is the Greek translation of the Old Testament which these guys would read in their day.

So that's kind of where they got that. So what was Abraham at the time? His name was Abram. What was he doing? He brought his father and he brought Lot with him and he was supposed to leave them behind. And then after his father died, if you remember the story of Genesis, then he made his way to the Promised Land.

Does anybody know about how many years he hung out there waiting for his father to die? Anybody? Twenty-five years. Like that's an interesting thing. God says, "Get thee up, leave your father and your family and go." And Abram goes like 50 miles downriver and hangs out in Haran waiting for his father to die.

And then when his father dies, he finally says, "Okay, now I can go." He put off 25 years what God had told him to do. And it really kind of makes an interesting conjecture. You know how Abraham and Sarah were in their nineties when they were talking about giving birth to Isaac? I wonder if the Lord was saying, "I was going to do this a lot earlier, Abraham, but you were sitting there in Haran with your dad, who I told you to leave."

There's a time where the Lord would have us leave father, mother, sister, brother. Jesus even talked about that to do something that's bigger, more eternal. Even in marriage, leave your father and mother and cleave into your wife as the Bible tells us. But Abraham's partial obedience didn't take God's promise away. Instead, it seems like the promise was on hold until Abraham was ready to do what the Lord told him to do.

The fulfillment of that promise didn't progress until Abraham left Haran. And then the Lord said, "Okay, I've waited for you to get with the program. Now that you're back, here we go." I wonder if some of you, the Lord has called you to do something. Maybe some of you very specific things: leave that old group of friends.

But no, you just like that group of friends and you're not going to leave that old group of friends because they're your friends. But the Lord's saying they're holding you back. I've got great things for you. And then you wonder why aren't great things happening for me? But you're not being faithful to do the small thing the Lord asked you to do in the beginning.

Maybe it's to quit something or get out of that job or get rid of that addiction or maybe to leave old friends behind or something like that. But maybe it's time to say, "Lord, am I not being faithful in the thing You've called me? Am I just putting off something that, Lord, You wanted me to get going right away?"

I think that's happened in my own life personally. I've kind of put things off to the side, and the Lord is always patient. He never cracks the whip or never says, "You better get going," but the Lord is patient, long-suffering. He does that with Abraham. God just waited patiently for Abram to do what he was called to do.

What would have happened had he left Ur of the Chaldees and went straight to the Promised Land without his dad and without Lot? Remember, we had some problems with Lot if you recall. That's a part of the story of Genesis: Abraham having problems with his nephew Lot. The whole Sodom and Gomorrah thing and Abraham had to go rescue Lot. There was all kinds of problems with Lot.

But I think it's interesting that Stephen brings up that sort of black mark on Abram's record. Now you say, what does that have to do with thing? It has to do with these guys as well. These guys, the highest thing they could say is we be the sons of Abraham, we're the descendants of Abraham, and they're so proud of that.

But actually, Stephen's bringing up something that's not so proud in their history. And so I think he's starting to even make his argument even right now. So he starts out with Abraham, you know, that was the father of their nation. Verse 5 goes on. It says 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, and to his seed after him, when as yet he had no child.

Verse 6: "And 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." This is part of that Abrahamic Covenant of God giving the land to the children of Israel, and it's important to know that, to be able to speak that I think and even rehearse it in other people because there's a lot of people that don't know the story, but it's very important. So we look at that. Is it Palestine or is it Israel? And there's people arguing to this very day on that. Well, we know the answer from the Bible. It's Israel, the land of the Jews. God gave that land for an inheritance.

Kurt: Pastor Brett Meador pausing just partway through Stephen's thorough response to the High Priest, proclaiming the truth of Jesus to false accusations. And there's so much more to come of Stephen's sermon next time on Today's Word. And I trust you'll stay right there as Pastor Brett will join me here in just a moment to talk about that very sermon.

But first, Today's Word is the radio ministry of Athey Creek Church to the south of Portland, Oregon, where Pastor Brett Meador's the Senior Pastor. Our vision on Today's Word is to proclaim the hope of salvation and help people know Jesus through careful study of the Bible. We invite you to find out more by going to todayswordradio.com. If you missed any portion of this study, you'll find all of his messages online at todayswordradio.com.

Okay, Pastor Brett is with me, and we've been in the book of Acts and come to what you've described as maybe one of the top five sermons of all time given by Stephen. In it, he gives some history of the nation of Israel. Brett, the thing that never ceases to amaze me here is that the history of Israel foretells the coming of Jesus, the Messiah, doesn't it?

Brett Meador: Yeah, that's right, Kurt. I think that's one of the reasons Stephen's sermon in Acts 7 is so beautiful. It's powerful because he walks through the whole history of Israel, shows the whole story ultimately pointing to Jesus Christ. And sometimes people think the Bible's just full of a bunch of random collections of stories.

And if you read the Bible that way, you're missing the whole point. The whole point is Christ. One united, unified story of redemption. All the way from Abraham to Joseph to Moses to David, all the way through the prophets, it's that scarlet thread that points to the coming Messiah.

And Jesus Himself said in John 5:39, He said, "Search the scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life, and they are they which testify of me." So everything really is pointing back to Christ. So the Old Testament isn't disconnected from Jesus. It's anticipating Him. The sacrifice, they all pointed to Him. The Passover pointed to Christ. Even Israel's failures show humanity's need for a Savior. All of this is what Stephen was really saying: you missed the point if you miss Jesus. It's the same God who orchestrated history back then, He's still faithfully working today.

Kurt: Yeah, and seeing the Bible explained like this from the Old Testament to the New Testament, and in this case in Acts chapter 7 with Stephen's sermon, it's pretty awesome to see how Jesus is in all of it. Thank you, Pastor Brett, for that explanation.

And if you'd like more information about Pastor Brett Meador or to hear more of his sermons, just go to todayswordradio.com. Well, next time, Pastor Brett will reflect on the beginning of God's plan for the Jewish people and also how Jesus is pictured throughout history.

Today's Word with Pastor Brett Meador is an outreach of Athey Creek Church in West Linn, Oregon.