The Sermon That Produced Death

Preachers sometimes talk about “a moving sermon,” meaning if you preach it you may be moving to another location.  Of course, these words could mean that the sermon moved those who heard it to become better, more like Christ.  Few sermons that are preached today, at least in America, would ever produce death.  However, there was once such a sermon.

Not much is known of Stephen, but what is known is most revealing about his love of the truth and those who heard him preach.  He is introduced to us in the setting of the first “major” problem in the young church of Christ.  When “the number of the disciples was multiplied, there arose a murmuring of Grecians” that their “widows were neglected in the daily ministration” (Acts 6:1).  The apostle’s answer to this problem was to have the church look among them and select seven men that the apostles would appoint to handle it.  Stephen is one of the seven (Acts 6:5).  It is interesting that Luke, the church historian, wrote nothing about how the seven handled the problem, but one is left to conclude that it was handed and that it was handled well!

Stephen is then introduced as one “full of faith and power, did great wonders and miracles among the people” (Acts 6:8).  Next, there arose some of “the synagogue of the Libertines” disputing with him (Acts 6:9).  The word, “Libertines,” more than likely refers to Jews who had been made captives by the Romans and who had been freed; thus “Libertines,” freemen who had built a synagogue in Jerusalem at their own expense (Thayer, p. 377).  The subject(s) of their “disputing” is not given, but the result is: “they were not able to resist the wisdom and the spirit by which he spake” (6:10).  It is here that their character is revealed: “then they suborned men” (verse 11).  The word “suborned” refers to those who “whisper” and “instigate” (Vine, p. 1110), here by their words: “We have heard him (Stephen, frw) speak blasphemous words against Moses, and against God” (verse 11).  Through these words “they stirred up the people, and the elders, and the scribes” who then “came upon him, and caught him, and brought him to the council” (verse 12).   These “Libertines” then produced “false witnesses” before the council.  At the hearing of these false witnesses the “high priest” asked Stephen, “Are these things so?” (Acts 7:1).  What follows is the sermon that produced death!

Stephen, in answer to the charges, covers the history of the Hebrews starting with these words: “The God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham,…” and he continues for the next forty-nine verses.  No doubt their attitude changes when Stephen says: “Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Spirit: as your fathers did, so do ye” (Acts 7:51).  Then, he says, speaking of the prophets: “which showed before the coming of the Just One: of whom ye have been now the betrayers and murderers” (Acts 7:52).  Here, Luke gives the reaction of those who heard him: “When they heard these things, they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed on him with their teeth” (Acts 7:54).  Stephen speaks a few more words, but “they cried out with a loud voice, and stopped their ears, and ran upon him with one accord, and cast him out of the city, and stoned him: …” (Acts 7:57-58).

Friends, well could have Stephen asked, as did Paul: “Am I therefore become your enemy, because I tell you the truth?” (Gal. 4:16)  As hearers, we must understand that truth has the ability to set us free! (John 8:32)  Do you love the truth enough, to respond toward it, even when it hurts?  Even when it demands that you must change what you believe, and what you do?

Frank R. Williams

SUNDAY SERMONS

Marion Fox

Frank Williams

“Truth is so obscure in these times, and falsehood so established, that, unless we love the truth, we cannot know it.”

Blaise Pascal, Mathematician/Philosopher, (1623-1662)

For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.

THE ATHEIST AND THE BELIEVER

There’s a little old Christian lady living next door to an atheist. Every morning the lady comes out onto her front porch and shouts “Praise the Lord!”.  The atheist yells back, “There is no God”.  She does this every morning with the same result.

As time goes on the lady runs into financial difficulties and has trouble buying food. She goes out onto the porch and asks God for help with groceries, then says “Praise the Lord”.  The next morning she goes out onto the porch and there’s the groceries she’s asked for, of course she says “Praise the Lord”.  The atheist jumps out from behind a bush and says, “Ha, I bought those groceries – there is no God”.  The lady looks at him and smiles, she shouts:

“Praise the Lord , you made Satan pay for the groceries!”