Through The Bible - Acts 7:37 - 8:3 - Part 2

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Brett Meador: The same things we see Israel do against the Lord, the same things we see the church do in modern times. Whenever you talk about the old gods and goddesses of the Bible, keep in mind there is really the same corresponding paganism going on today. We may not have gods of gold and silver put up on our mantle, but we have the same notions. Baal, Asherah, fertile land and crops—they would worship basically for success, for wealth, and stuff like that.
Guest (Male): When asked to speak before the religious leaders, Stephen boldly proclaimed God's truth, even though it cost him his life. In revealing the hardness of Israel's leaders, Stephen's witness would become the catalyst for the spread of the gospel. As Pastor Brett Meador closely considers the message of Stephen, the application for us is made clear as well. All from today's word.
Brett Meador: Stephen, of course, was picked as a deacon in the book of Acts, one of the seven deacons chosen by the church. He did many great wonders and miracles; we learned that earlier. Then we see him debating theology with Jews and some Grecian-type Jews, but then they started accusing him falsely. They accused him of speaking against the law of Moses and against the temple. So the high priest asks at the end of chapter six, "Is this true that you speak against the law of Moses and against the temple?" This is where chapter seven picks up; Stephen answers that question. He's going to preach this sermon. Stephen technically is on trial before the Supreme Court or the Sanhedrin, but really Stephen is turning the tables. It's really the Sanhedrin—they're the ones who are actually on trial. Stephen's indicting them, and how is he going to do that? He's going to give a logical argument, but he's also going to give a profound prophetic argument. He appeals to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and the twelve tribes of Israel. Then he refers to Joseph, but one of the things that Stephen really camps out on is how Jacob's sons, the twelve tribes of Israel, rejected Joseph. The father sent Joseph to seek and save his brothers, but his brothers despised and rejected him. They left him for dead in the pit, but then he emerged out of the pit. You see the correlations here? We looked at some of the similarities of Jesus as shown in the story of Joseph. Notice it would be the second time the brothers would meet Joseph that they'd realize, "He's our brother." Just like it's Christ's second coming that the Jews will realize that Jesus is their Messiah. It's a great prophetic way that Stephen is talking about. He's saying, "You rejected Jesus the first time, just like our tribes rejected Joseph." He used that as an example. Prophetic implications—rejection of his brothers, rose to power, that whole thing. One thing to remember is the church is not Israel. The church doesn't replace Israel; we've talked about that exhaustively. But the church certainly parallels Israel. When you read the story of Israel, one of the things we can learn is that we do the same things the Jews did. We can learn from their mistakes; we can learn from their blessings. The same things we see Israel do against the Lord, the same things we see the church do in modern times against the Lord. In fact, we're given a warning about not making the same mistakes Israel made. In Romans chapter 11, it says this in verses 20 and 21: "Well, because of unbelief they were broken off, and thou standest by faith. Be not high-minded." This is again reminding Gentiles not to be prideful against Jewish people. Paul is talking about how the Jews, because of their unbelief, some of their branches were broken off. "And thou standest by faith. Be not high-minded, but fear. For if God spared not the natural branches—the Jews is the context here—take heed lest he also spare not thee." In other words, if we rebel against the Lord and fight against the Lord and go against the work of the Spirit, we could find ourselves not really part of His kingdom as well if we reject and despise. Some people say, "We're not as bad as the Jews were." Well, be careful, because we have the same propensities, the same sins, and don't be high-minded about that. We see the parallels of what happened to the Jews with the church, and really Stephen's going to do that. We're going to see more of that as we keep reading. Look at verse 39: "To whom our fathers would not obey, but thrust him from them, and in their hearts turned back again to Egypt, saying unto Aaron, 'Make us gods to go before us: for as for this Moses, which brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him.'" Then it says they made a calf in those days, offered sacrifice unto the idol, and rejoiced in the works of their own hands. Then God turned and gave them up to worship the host of heaven—that's astrology, you know, the stars. As it is written in the book of the prophets, "O ye house of Israel, have ye offered to me slain beasts and sacrifices by the space of forty years in the wilderness? Yea, ye took up the tabernacle of Moloch." Whenever you talk about the old gods and goddesses of the Bible, keep in mind there's really the same corresponding paganism going on today. You know, we may not have gods of gold and silver where we put them on our mantle, but we have the same notions. The goddess of Diana or Astarte was a multi-breasted goddess that had to do with sexuality and fertility, and people would go to the temple of Diana there in Ephesus, sleep with the temple prostitutes, and that was their way to worship the goddess Diana. Baal, Asherah—fertile land and crops. They would worship basically for success and for wealth. But Moloch was also the god mentioned here that dealt with prosperity, but it sadly, as we often mention, this one is the most audacious one in some ways in my mind because what they did is child sacrifice—human sacrifice of babies and children. That's tragic. If you believe the Bible, the unborn child is a life of a person, a baby that God loves and cares for; it's not a blob of fetal tissue. And yet, you say, "Brett, how is abortion like Moloch?" Well, with Moloch, the reason you'd sacrifice your baby was for prosperity, convenience, to be more comfortable. It's the same reasons we give: "We're not just ready to have a baby yet. It's not convenient. I'd rather have a career path instead of a baby." When a woman says, "It's my body, my choice," God has something different to say about that. It's not just your body; we're talking about the body of a baby that's being formed in your womb. Listen to this—this is what Psalm 139 says in verse 13: "For thou hast possessed my reins: thou hast covered me in my mother's womb. I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvelous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well. My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them." Same penalty, by the way, in the Bible—just like this is a weird double standard. Have you ever thought about the double standard? If you're a murderer and you kill a mother who's pregnant, there's still places around the country where you'll get charged for double homicide, because they deem it—if you killed the mother and the baby in her womb—that's another life. So isn't it weird that our government says, "Yeah, that's a life in that case," but as soon as a mother wants to kill the baby, or the father and the mother, then suddenly it's not murder? How is that even possible? That doesn't mathematically work out. The Bible actually defines that as well. Exodus 21: "If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit—her baby—depart from her, and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished, according as the woman's husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine. And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life." Isn't that interesting? The unborn baby is called "life." Life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe. This law and its punishment clearly indicate that God considers a baby in the mother's womb to be just as much human as being a full-grown adult. So for the Christian who believes the Bible, abortion is not a matter of a woman's right to choose to have a baby—the baby's already present and living. Abortion is a matter of the life or death of a human being made in God's image. Now, we did touch on this, and since we're on the subject, I'm going to keep going. Sorry about this for some of you, but not sorry. What about the case of rape or incest? This is one that comes up all the time. I'm going to tell you, this is a hard way to look at it because no matter what happens, rape and incest—that's already a horrible thing. Either one of those two things is like sinful humanity at its worst. But it's never right to do something wrong to do something right. This is what you have to understand the Bible talks about. As emotionally difficult and horrifying as it might be to face pregnancy resulting from rape or from incest, is the murder of the unborn baby that's innocent inside the mother's womb—is that a good way to deal with that? Is that going to help the situation? Well, our world says, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's going to help the situation. Make the baby go away, and we'll kill the baby in the mother's womb because the rape was so horrific and all that." Two wrongs don't make a right; hopefully you've learned that when you're a child. But a child who's conceived through rape or incest is made in the image of God, the same as any other human. So what do we do with that? Well, hopefully the church—I'm always amazed the secularists and those screaming for abortion rights, they act like the church does nothing to help women, but we're like the only ones who help women that are in these situations. It's the church of Jesus Christ that helps women who've been raped or in the case of incest. It's the Jesus institutions that actually help. But man, I'm not saying it's easy or wonderful, but it is something. In the case of rape or incest, a child should not be the punished one in that situation. There's some great stories, too, of people that were born in the case of rape or incest and how God actually used them. I don't know if you've ever heard of Pam Stenzel, but she was a girl that was a baby born of a rape situation, never met her father, and she went on to be one of the great truly advocates of sexual abstinence and purity as a Christian and a very great communicator and amazing woman. Like, there's story after story of that where the Lord has worked that out. The sad truth is that overwhelming majority of abortions—90 percent—are performed today are really what I would call sacrifice to Moloch, where they really didn't have to do it and it's so heartbreaking. So what do we do as Christians? Call to arms? Picket and protest? I think the first thing we should do is pray. I think we need to pray as Daniel prayed: "Lord, forgive us for our nation and our bad behavior." Daniel prayed, "Lord, forgive us," and Daniel was the good guy in the story and he was praying for forgiveness for his nation. We are egregiously in error before God with the issue of abortion. So with all that said, for every Old Testament idol, there's a modern-day equivalent, and I think this is the one we're worshipping maybe the most today is Moloch because of that. Now, every time I talk about this, there's always—well, one in three women perhaps in this room have had an abortion. That's the number statistically. I'm in a predicament because there's a part of me that wants to say, "Man, I've got to talk about the egregious sin of abortion," and I have to do my best to try to get especially our young women to say, "Never. We're never going to do that. It's against God, it's against His word." So I must say that. Meanwhile, I also am aware that there's a bunch of women perhaps even listening right now that's feeling super guilty and maybe broken even right now. But can I remind you that abortion is not the unpardonable sin? That abortion is egregious sin, but man, the Bible tells us if we confess our sins, He—the Lord—is faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness and He will heal you. He can lift up your soul. So don't let the enemy, Satan, come back and whisper, "See, you're an abortion person, and you deserve death," or whatever he says. Nope, we all deserve death. You can agree with your adversary: "Yep, I'm a sinner, but good news, Jesus died on the cross to save sinners like me." I would hope that more women could be healed from the wound of abortion and that they could then in turn talk to some of our young ladies from experience and boldly say, "This is not the way." From your experience, I think that it's such a hidden sin and it tends to come with shame, and that hidden sin and that shame that goes along with it makes it so not a lot of women, I think, are willing to actually go and talk. But man, some of you ladies that have been through this, I think that you guys can be a powerful testimony if the Lord first of all heals your heart and then you can speak with authority on that topic. I pray for more of that in our world. Well, where were we? Oh, Book of Acts chapter seven. To pick it back up again, I just feel like that this mention of Moloch is just undeniable. It's just one of the things of our country. Well, verse 44: Stephen's making a radical case, and you can imagine their blood is boiling. In verse 44 he says, "Our fathers had the tabernacle of witness in the wilderness, as he had appointed, speaking unto Moses, that he should make it according to the fashion that he had seen. Which also our fathers that came after brought in with Joshua—into the possession of the Gentiles, whom God drave out before the face of our fathers, unto the days of David; who found favor before God, and desired to find a tabernacle for the God of Jacob. But Solomon built him an house." Now, the word "Jesus" here in verse 45, don't be confused. That's the Greek way of saying the Old Testament name Joshua. The Greek would be Yeshua, which we say Jesus. By the way, there's people that will make you feel bad for calling our Savior "Jesus," especially if you go to Israel. You'll meet certain Messianic Jews—"It's not Jesus, it's Yeshua." The Bible actually transliterates words, and it does that from the Hebrew to the Greek Septuagint, from the Greek Septuagint to the New Testament. The Bible takes those words and changes them as time and history goes by. So it's not a problem if you call Him Jesus; don't let anybody put a guilt trip on you that you're saying it wrong. But this is not the Jesus of Nazareth; this is Joshua of the Old Testament. So that's what it's saying in verse 45, "Which our fathers that came after brought in with Joshua, Yeshua, into the possession of the Gentiles." That's what he's talking about. Then David went to want to build a house for the Lord, but he desired to build it—remember, David was a man of blood. Finally, God told Nathan, "You've got to go tell David not to build it." "You gave him your blessing! Do all that's in your heart, David," Nathan the prophet said. David's like, "Cool, I get to build the temple." And then the Lord said, "Nathan, you've got to go eat your words, man. Go tell David you can't build the temple." So David was told by Nathan, "Sorry, you can't do it." So David did what he was good at. Don't complain about what you can't do; do what you can. So what did David do when he found out he couldn't build the temple? Anybody remember? He started killing people—lots of people. Now you say, "That's horrible, Brett." Well, it was the Canaanitish people that were supposed to be killed, and David slew and huffed and cut down and killed and wiped out all these pagan nations because they were enemies of Israel. They were surrounding Israel, and they were constantly attacking Israel. So David says, "Well, if I can't build a temple for God, I think I'll just go do what I'm good at." And by the way, in doing that, he collected all the materials that they needed to build the temple. So it's like he didn't complain about what he could do; he did what he could. That's always a good thing. But did God ever want a temple to be built? There's an interesting question. You might say, "Well, yes." I'm not convinced of that. Now, we know that there's going to be a temple built in the tribulation period; then there's going to be a millennial temple built. But this temple, the rebuilding of the temple, it makes me wonder sometimes. In fact, let's keep reading in verse 48. It says, "Howbeit the most High dwelleth not in temples made with hands; as saith the prophet, 'Heaven is my throne, earth is my footstool: what house will ye build me? saith the Lord: or what is the place of my rest? Hath not my hand made all these things?'" You see, Stephen's a true Bible scholar. I love this—he's preaching the Old Testament to those people that should know the Old Testament, but he's making a case. What's the case? Remember, they said, "You are speaking against the law of Moses and you're speaking against the holy temple of God." And Stephen's saying, "Oh yeah, you think your temple's holy? God didn't even need a temple. You guys are all into your temple." Now, is this okay for Stephen to talk like this? He actually is kind of speaking against the temple now, but he's doing it on good grounds because he's quoting from the Old Testament. Let me show you where he's quoting from because this is amazing when you put it all together and see how much the Lord said stuff like this. 1 Kings chapter eight, verse 27: "But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, the heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain thee; how much less this house that I have builded?" Like, the house of God is not going to contain Him in a box. Look at what 2 Chronicles 2:6 says: "But who is able to build him an house, seeing the heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain him? Who am I then, that I should build him an house, save only to burn sacrifice before him?" The Psalmist wrote about it in Psalm 11:4: "The Lord is in his holy temple, the Lord's throne is in heaven: his eyes behold, his eyelids try, the children of men." Isaiah 66:1 and 2: "Thus saith the Lord, 'The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool: where is the house that ye build unto me? And where is the place of my rest? For all those things hath mine hand made, and all those things have been, saith the Lord: but to this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word.'" What's God saying? Heaven is His throne, earth is His footstool. He's big, giant. It's not like you can put God in a little tiny box in Jerusalem. So false accusation: "Stephen, you spoke against the temple of God. You've blasphemed the temple," is kind of the way they would have said it. But Stephen's response: "God doesn't even care about you and your stupid temple." Do you realize how that would drive them nuts? But he's actually scripturally correct. Was God even dwelling in that temple? Does anybody know? Was God really ever in that temple? Well, as it turns out, initially if you take it for Zerubbabel's temple, not Herod the Great—that was a remodel—but Zerubbabel's temple is an interesting thing. In Ezekiel chapter 10, we actually see something crazy happen. Do you remember? We saw the glory of God depart from the temple. It's a crazy story where suddenly the cherubim and the wheels all start whirring up, and the children of Israel saw the glory of God leave the temple and go up over the Kidron, up over the Mount of Olives, and it was gone. And the glory never returned to the temple until—when did the temple get its glory back? Anybody want to say? Right, when Jesus came and walked on the Temple Mount when He was 12 years old and came with His parents—that's when suddenly God's glory returned. And then what did they do ultimately to the glory of God that came back to the temple? This is what Stephen's talking about—they crucified Him and said, "We will not have this man rule over us." Like, the glory of God, if you track it throughout history, it comes and goes from the temple, but it's gone and it's been gone for a long time. And the moment they had the glory back with Jesus, they despised Him and rejected Him. So it was really just a spiritual empty building that was a religious place. Have you ever been to a church where you just felt like the Lord was not there? Like you walk in, it just feels chilly and not like the Lord is there, you don't sense the Holy Spirit. It's really heartbreaking how many churches have that vibe. They act religious, they say religious things, they give religious TED Talks, and they think they're doing something wonderful, but you still need the glory of God. We still need God's presence in His church, the Holy Spirit moving. And these Jews in Stephen's day, they didn't even know that their temple was dead cold and was useless. And Stephen—man, he's just calling them out on that. This was dangerous talk; you have to understand this. This might just be the thing that made the Jews the maddest when Stephen started talking like this. So God forbid that ever happens to Athey Creek. If the Holy Spirit up and leaves Athey Creek, turn this into a bowling alley or something, and we'll find wherever the Holy Spirit is moving—that's where we should be. Watch out for the dead church. I'm sad to say that's actually happening more and more around the world, which is a sign of the times. The Bible talks about in the last days there'll be a falling away, and apostasia is the word there in the Greek. So Stephen's calling them out big time.
Guest (Male): Pastor Brett Meador drawing more caution for the church from a sermon of Stephen before the religious leaders in today's word and a focus on Acts chapter seven, to be continued next time. And also, I'd invite you to stay right there as Pastor Brett will join me here in a moment. But first, Today's Word is the radio ministry of Athey Creek Church, just south of Portland, Oregon, where Pastor Brett Meador's the senior pastor. 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 Pastor Brett's messages online at todayswordradio.com. All right, Pastor Brett is with me now. You've been a pastor in the Portland, Oregon area for 30 years, and I know you have a real heart for the people in that city. So much so that you actually held a two-day PDX crusade last year where over 35,000 attended and more than 3,200 made commitments for Christ. Brett, can you tell me why you and your church have such a heart for a city that is sometimes looked upon as lost?
Brett Meador: Great question, Kurt. I think one of the reasons we love Portland so much is because the Lord loves Portland. You know, it's easy for people to look at a city and label it, and I think nationally you'll see a lot of crazy stuff out of Portland and it's not all unfounded. But at the same time, if you're around Portland, you actually realize there's a lot of great people and the Lord cares deeply about them. Jesus said in Luke 19:10, "The Son of man is come to seek and save that which is lost." And Portland is a city that is greatly lost in a lot of ways, and that's the heart behind why we're here. We're not here to condemn a city, but we're here to reach as many people as we can. And we've seen that firsthand. You know, like you mentioned, like the events at the PDX crusade where more than 3,200 people came down to give their lives to Christ. It just reminds me that God still loves Portland; He's still working. Instead of seeing Portland as a lost cause, which I think some of our nation—I can see why they would think that about Portland—we see it as a Christian. We see it as a great place of opportunity. It's like what the Bible says: where sin abounds, grace does much more abound. I just feel like I have a huge privilege to be a pastor in a city like this, and I have a lot of work to do. So we love Portland, the reason because God loves Portland.
Guest (Male): Oh, no doubt about it, God does indeed love the city, and I'm glad Athey Creek and other churches in the Portland, Oregon area are there to share the good news of the gospel. Thank you, Pastor Brett. Well, next time Pastor Brett will continue in the Book of Acts, and we'll see how Stephen's exposure of Israel's long history of rejecting God and turning to idols caused the religious leaders to respond with anger. Today's Word with Pastor Brett Meador is an outreach of Athey Creek Church in West Linn, Oregon.