We're turning again this morning to the book of Acts chapter seven. And while you're turning, just let me say how important it is when we consider the early church. You can't find a believer in the book of the Acts who was not baptized. It follows salvation. When a person is saved, the next step they should take is that of baptism. And I'm always glad when people become exercised, concerned these things, and therefore this afternoon, as members of the New Covenant, we're going to witness together the identification of Mr. George Adams and Ann Barker with their identification with the Lord. in the blessings of the new covenant and I'm always excited about these times for there are times when the church and the world if any who are outside of Christ are there they can witness what it really means to belong to Jesus Christ now we're in Acts chapter seven I'd like to read the whole chapter But I notice the clock is my biggest enemy this morning. I'm only going to read a few verses in the beginning. I'm going to trust you to read the rest of the chapter, and we'll be coming back probably to the last few verses next Lord's Day morning. Verse one, Then said the high priest, Are these things so? 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 Heron, and said unto him, Get thee out of thy country and from thy kindred, and come into the land which I will show thee. And he came out of the land of the Chaldeans and dwelt in Heron, or Heron. And from thence when his father was dead, he removed him unto this land wherein we now dwell. Now may the Lord bless the reading of his word. Let's pray together. Our Father, in the precious name of our Lord Jesus Christ, we bow before you. We thank you for the unity of your people. We thank you for the body of Christ, for the relationship that exists between thy dear son and his members on earth. He is our head. We are the body. And we thank you for this truth concerning the unity of the body. And grant our God that by thy grace we may behold it as we see from your word that which you provided for us by grace in Jesus' name. Amen. This morning at the Lord's Supper, our brother gave us a good, line of ministry on the relationship of the believer to Christ. The fact of the community of the body of Christ. To be in Christ means that we're in fellowship with him and we're in fellowship with other believers. That is what the message of Stephen is all about. That is what the message of the early church is all about. When you come to the end of this chapter, the seventh chapter, We read verse fifty-nine, or verse fifty-eight through verse sixty, we read these words, and cast him out of the city and stoned him. And the witnesses laid down their clothes at a young man's feet, whose name was Saul. And they stoned Stephen, calling upon God and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. And he kneeled down and cried with a loud voice, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge, and when he had said this, he fell asleep. Now Stephen is the man of Acts chapter six, whose face was as a face of an angel. He is a man in Acts chapter seven who gives one of the clearest apologetics for the work of God in the Old Testament that you can find anywhere. Acts chapter seven is one of the great sermons of Scripture. It is a sermon that led to Stephen's death, but he becomes the first Christian martyr. But when we notice Stephen, as he is given to us here in Scripture, we find that at the end of the chapter that we just read, his clothes were laid at the feet of one whose name was called Saul of Tarsus. Now I want you to turn over to chapter nine. Chapter nine is the conversion of Saul of Tarsus. And you know how Saul of Tarsus was met on the Damascus road by our Lord Jesus himself. And we read beginning in verse four. And he fell to the earth and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecute us, thou me? Here we have the glorious truth of the body of Christ. Saul had not touched Jesus Christ. So of Tarsus had Stephen stoned to death. But Stephen belonged to Christ. And when he touched Stephen, he touched Christ. And when we are touched by the world in any way, in persecution, in derision, or any other way, they are touching the head, even our Lord Jesus Christ. This is a glorious truth. of the union and the communion that exists between those who belong to Christ and our risen head in glory. The chapter that is before us, chapter seven, we have a record of the defense of Stephen. For the high priest asks the question in verse one, are these things so? And he's making his defense before the Jewish leaders. God's, and the message of Stephen really in his defense is that God's key dealings precede the temple, and you have magnified the temple out of proportion. You have to be acquainted with chapter six, what we went over last week. These false witnesses said that Stephen spoke blasphemous words against the temple and against the law. So the high priest says to him, are these things sold? And it's a trick question, really. It's like one of those questions that you can't answer honestly. It's like the question that is often asked to get a man in trouble. Do you still beat your wife? You see. If he says no, that means he beat her in the past. If he says yes, that means he's still beating her, so he's in trouble either way. And this is a question of the high priest. And it's wicked. It's wicked, you see. And Stephen is preaching here that God's key dealings with Israel as a nation preceded the temple and that they have magnified the temple way out of proportion. It was like a fetish to them. Like Israel thought in the book of Samuel, First Samuel of Acts chapter four, that the ark of God could save them from the Philistines. And they took it to battle. And the temple has become the same thing to them now. You see, the very sacred places in the Old Testament scripture that equal and may be outshine the temple, or the Chaldees, the place in which God called Abraham, Mount Moriah, the place where God offered or where Abraham offered Isaac to God. And our Lord could say of that time, Abraham rejoiced to see my day and he saw it and was glad. and we can go down through Old Testament history. God has worked outside the temple. In fact, friends, God did not ordain the temple. He permitted it. God ordained and he commanded the tabernacle to be built. That's the building that he ordained. You see, but God moves with his people and he moves for his people toward that city that has foundations. whose builder and maker is God. And by the way, the promise of the Redeemer precedes the temple. The promise of the Redeemer was given when Adam sinned in the Garden of Eden. Genesis chapter three and verse fifteen. But this defense that Stephen makes is a masterful defense. It led to his being killed because they could not resist the wisdom and the spirit by which he spoke. The grace of God in Israel's history supersedes the law, and it supersedes all its ceremonies. A.T. Pearson, that great preacher, said, History is his story. If you can climb high enough to see it. And Stephen was one of these men who climbed high enough to see it. The message of Stephen, enough. thrust of chapter seven is that Israel always rejected their saviors the first time they appeared. And they received them the second time. And just as they did to Moses, he was rejected, but then he was accepted forty years later, just as they did to Joseph, he was sold into Egypt, and later he became the savior of the nations. So they have done to Christ. They have refused the Son of God. They said, we will not have this man to reign over us, but he's coming again. And when he comes again, he will be received. Now, the Stephen sermon in Acts seven can be divided into periods of Israel's history. First of all, we have the patriarchal period, the days of the patriarchs, and he singles out Joseph. in particular for special attention. But he does not begin with Joseph. He begins with a God of glory. And that's the place to begin. He begins with a God of glory. And he says a God of glory appeared to Abraham. And this teaches us the doctrine of election. It was God who chose to appear to Abraham in Ur of the Chaldees. For Abraham was living in the midst of idolatry. Caldean was a hotbed of idolatry, the Caldean area. And therefore that's where Abraham was. And in the fifty-second of Isaiah he says, Ye the fellow after righteousness, look to the hole of the pit from when she were digged and to the rock from when she were hewn. For I called Abraham alone and blessed him. I'm responsible for Abraham. I called Abraham. I blessed. Abraham. You see, the idols can never call forth true obedience in any man. But the God of glory can. And the God of glory called forth obedience in the life of a man who was living in the midst of idolatry. And it speaks to us of Colossians one where it said, giving thanks unto the Father who has made us fit to be partakers of the inheritance. of the saints in light, who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and that translated us into the kingdom of his dear son. The hundred fifteen psalms speaks of the idols of the nations and what they mean to the people who bow down to graven images. And in the midst of this, that we have the question, where is your God? If somebody asks you, can you show them? The idol worshiper can show them their God. And they're happy if their God is a God of gold or a God of silver. But the next verse there in the hundred fifteen Psalm says, But our God is in the heavens, and he has done whatsoever he pleased. And you and I, who know the reality of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, we can't show you with physical eyes the God of heavens. We can show you in a changed life what it is to serve the God of heaven. Because if any man is in Christ, he is a new creation. He possesses a divine nature, and he walks verbally of the Lord. And the God of glory that he's spoken of in Acts chapter seven is none other than our Lord Jesus Christ. And when you try to describe glory, we talk about the essential glory of Christ. We talk about the acquired glory of Christ, that glory which is His and His alone because of His redempty work at Calvary. My, what glory is subject to meditate upon. But when we talk about His essential glory, we're talking about something that belongs to the essence or the nature of his person, something that is indispensable, a chief point concerning Christ. And of course, when we think of the chief point concerning Christ, is the glory of his eternal existence with a Father. And that's what we celebrate at Christmas time. The glory of the eternal existence of Christ with a Father. For unto us a child is born. And unto us the Son is given. And these verses speak of his essential glory. But we have the testimony of John the Baptist concerning his essential glory. In John one verse fifteen, John says, He that cometh after me is preferred before me, for he was before me. And John the Baptist was born six months before Christ. He was his forerunner. He announced Christ. But he says, he was before me, for he is from eternity. But then you have our Lord's own testimony. In John chapter eight, verse fifty-eight, he says, before Abraham was, I am. And when he used the words, I am, he had reference to I am the person who can take that title of God, that name of God to myself. I am Jehovah. that was used at the burning bush when he revealed himself to Moses. In John, he says, Abraham rejoiced to see my day, and he saw it and was glad. But then we have the testimony of Paul in Colossians chapter one and verse seventeen. He says, He is before all things. You look at all the created worlds. He's before them all. For by him were all things made. He is before all things, and it says by him all things consist. They are held together by his mighty power. But then we have the glory of an eternal equality with God. You see, the patriarchs looked, or the Israelites looked to the patriarchs for guidance. So he brings up Joseph. They rebelled against Joseph. You look to the patriarchs for guidance? Why did you rebel against Joseph? And you see, they who heard Stephen, as he preached to them, they could say to themselves, We have rebelled. We have rejected our Savior. We have rejected Jesus Christ, the Lord. Just as Israel of old rejected him. But then there's a second period here, the Mosaic period, or the legal period of Israel's history. Moses' life paralleled the life of Jesus Christ. Moses was a type of Christ. Moses was rejected by his brethren. And you can read that in verses twenty-seven and twenty-eight. But in verse thirty-five we read him whom they refused. Him God sent to be a ruler and a deliverer. Moses, the man that they refused when he came to them the first time. And he had to run away and live in the land of Midian. When he came the second time, they accepted him. So you'll notice Stephen reminded them that Moses spoke to them of a greater prophet. Of the Messiah who would come. And now they have rejected him. That Messiah who came. was none other than Jesus Christ the Lord, and they have rejected him. So that brings us to the tabernacle period, verses forty-four through fifty-three. Now Steve is answering a question, friends. The question was, are these things so? That you have blasphemed this place, the temple, and you have blasphemed the law. Now notice the question of what he's doing. Stephen is answering the question that was put to him by the high priest concerning the temple. Now the tabernacle was temporary. It was a tent. It was carried through the wilderness. And David, you remember, wanted to build the temple, and Solomon did the actual building. David got the material together. God permitted the temple, but he ordained the tabernacle. In verse forty-nine he quotes a prayer of Solomon. When Solomon dedicated the house of God, the temple, he mentioned, Heaven is my throne, earth is my footstool. How can I build a house to contain you? So great is God. How can you build a little house to contain the God who made the world? You can't do it. Where does God dwell? Isaiah fifty-seven verse fifteen tells us. God says, I am the high and the lofty one who inhabits eternity. But I also dwell with him that is meek and crushed. You see, God dwells with a humble person, but he also dwells high in eternity. Now we don't like to be humble, so we wish that God would dwell somewhere in between. but he won't do it. He won't do it for you and he won't do it for me and he will not do it for anyone else. Here are the two places God dwells. And when a person humbles themselves and comes to him just as he are, God will receive them. And when he receives him, he receives him to eternal glory. But if a person says, I'm going to meet with God on my terms, they'll never meet him on their terms. God does not meet man on man's terms. God meets man on his terms. Solomon recognized that, and he says, I can't build a house to contain you. And the nice part about our relationship with Christ is that in this age he indwells his people. Christ in you, we read in Colossians three. Christ in you. Excuse me, Colossians chapter one. Christ in you, the hope of glory. Christ liveth in me. Now, the conclusion to this sermon. He gets to the end and he has showed them how they have rejected their deliverer, their Savior. And he says to them, ye stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart. Oh, their bodies were circumcised. They went through the religious right, but it never affected their heart. And you can easily go through a religious right. without ever having the heart affected. And he said to them, ye uncircumcised in heart and in ears. He says, ye do always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you. My, what a message. What a way of preaching. But then he showed the importance of, in the words, ye uncircumcised in heart and ears. You see, they sinned against the type. Joseph, Moses, the tabernacle was just a type, a picture. But these people sinned against the anti-type, the reality. And that's why we read in Hebrews ten of how much sore a punishment. Suppose ye shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden underfoot the Son of God. and the count of the blood of the covenant wherewith he was sanctified and unholy thing and that's done desperate to the spirit of grace of how much sore a punishment and that's in the context of he that despised Moses law died without mercy before two or three witnesses that's the context and he says of how much sore a punishment Stephen is preaching to these people, and they're going to kill him. You see? What he's really saying to them? Your father's kept the law? No, he's saying to them, Christ kept the law. You broke the law. The antitides kept the law for you. But you're rejecting him. In this sermon, by the way, Stephen never mentions Christ. Isn't that amazing? But he sure preached him. He never mentioned his name, but he sure preached him. What was Stephen's secret? He was a full man. He was full of wisdom. He was full of faith. He was full of power. And his message had no uncertain sound. My dear friends, the message that Stephen preached concerns Jesus Christ. Apart from him, there is no Savior. Apart from him, there is no salvation. You can have him as your Savior, and you can enjoy the salvation that he's provided by simply turning to him and telling him you want him. And you're sincere in your telling him from the heart. For he said, Him that cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out. Stephen's message is a message of grace. Stephen's message is a message that you and I need today. He took him to his death. He begins with a God of glory. He ends with a glory of God. My dear friend, if you want to end with the glory of God, you've got to receive the message of the God of glory. Let's stand for the benediction. Our Father, we thank you in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ that he who comes is never turned away. And we thank you that you've invited us to come, and we come by faith. And we thank you now for all that you've provided for us by divine grace. And we ask you to separate us with a new sense of the message concerning thy dear Son and a new sense of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ and the glorious anticipation that he's ours because we're members of the body that we shall be together with him. forevermore. We receive our thanks in Jesus' name. Dismiss us with your blessings as we commend this company to you and to the word of your grace which is able to build us up and give us an inheritance among all that are sanctified through Jesus Christ the Lord. Amen.