Acts 8:1-3
Please remain standing and turn
in your copy of God’s word to the book of Acts. Acts chapter
eight, verses one to three will be our reading. As you make your
way there, remember we’ve hit a significant turning point in
the book of Acts. Number one, persecution will
scatter the church out of Jerusalem, keeping Jesus promise. that the
gospel will spread from Jerusalem to Judea, Samaria to the ends
of the earth. But also we have the end of the
life of Stephen and the beginning of the life of others who will
minister in Jesus name. Before we read God’s word, let’s
pray together. Pray with me. Lord grant us grace
to read and mark your holy word, its truths with meekness we might
receive and by its holy precepts may we live. All for your glory
through Jesus we pray, amen. The book of Acts chapter eight,
beginning at verse one says, and Saul approved of his execution. And there arose on that day a
great persecution against the church in Jerusalem, and they
were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria,
except the apostles. Devout men buried Stephen and
made great lamentation over him. But Saul was ravaging the church
and entering house after house. He dragged off men and women
and committed them to prison. The word of the living God, you
may be seated. Our theology teaches us that
God primarily works through what we call ordinary means. God is
at work in his creation. So God made the sun, the moon,
the stars. He made the birds, the fish.
He made trees. And how do trees reproduce? Well,
through flowers and pollen, which we’re all sniffing and choking
on now. How do animals reproduce? Well, they have their ways. The
sun or the earth spins around the sun and all that. I’m going
to get lost in things I don’t really know about. But you understand
God works through the world he made and the processes he put
into place. We sometimes talk about this
miracle and that miracle. And yes, God does do miracles,
but he ordinarily just lets things work. as he made them to work. So the big miracle would be creation,
right? But all these processes and ways and means are, are the
way God, um, He does things. An example, when he doesn’t,
the sun stood still so that Israel would have a longer day to fight
against their enemies. The sun doesn’t ordinarily stand
still. You may think it does when you’re
at the beach or out in the yard working and you get burnt and
red and whatnot. But no, God ordinarily works
through his creation, ordinary processes. God also works through
what we call providence. He oversees, he governs. His works of providence are his
most holy, wise, and powerful, preserving and governing all
his creatures, all their actions. So how does God do his work in
the world? Well, it’s through the world
he made, the creation. But it’s also through his wise counsel
and superintendence. And we see this illustrated very
often in stories of the Bible. Think, for example, of the life
of Joseph. Joseph was the baby son of uh, the patriarch, uh,
Isaac or Jacob. Uh, Jacob’s youngest was Joseph
and, and well, he loved him very much. So he gave him a coat of
many colors and remember how he had bragged to his brothers.
Oh, I had a dream and y’all bowed down and worshiped me. Uh, so
the coat of many colors probably didn’t help. That’s kind of like
maybe you’ve got a couple teenagers and the first kid gets a Ford
Pinto, the second kid gets a AMC Pacer, and the third kid gets
a brand new BMW convertible. The first two children don’t
like the third child. Well, that’s kind of the coat
of the many colors thing, to maybe put it in modern day terms.
And what did they do to Joseph? Well, they sold him. They sold
him into slavery and he ended up in Egypt in Potiphar’s house.
They took the coat, they put some blood on it and told their
father, your son, your favorite son, the one we hate, the one
you love is dead. And so later you fast forward,
a lot of hardship, a lot of prison. Joseph’s brothers come because
there’s a famine in the land and Joseph finally reveals himself.
They fear for their lives. And what does Joseph say? What
you meant for evil. God meant for good. And so God,
through his works of providence, used the wickedness of the brothers
to do good, to work good for Israel. Joseph, as you know,
became the steward of Egypt, and he foresaw that a famine
in the land was coming, and he worked for years and years to
make sure the granaries were full, so that when the nations
of the earth found themselves hungry, including Israel, the
people of God, the people of promise, they could come and
receive from God’s appointed steward. They could have their
nation preserved. Well, in the same way, we have
to see how good comes from evil in the stoning of Stephen. We’ve
looked in weeks past at this unjust situation where Stephen,
the great deacon of the church, was proclaiming the goodness
of God through the Messiah, Jesus Christ. And the temple officials,
the religious Jewish officials, took great offense, accused him
of blasphemy and without a trial, without justice, they took him
out of the city and stoned him. They put him to death. And we’re
told in this passage, the results of the stoning of Stephen, the
church was scattered out of Jerusalem for fear of their lives. They
left Jerusalem. We’re watching a refugee crisis
on our televisions, on our gadgets, as we watched, what, nearly 40
days of a war in Eastern Europe. We’ve seen millions of people
flee a country, not for religious persecution, no, but for war
and for bombing and shooting and all these sorts of things.
And so when hardship comes on a people, they scatter, they
go places. And it was in God’s providence
that persecution came on the church. at Jerusalem because
it scattered the people out of the city and into Judea and Samaria. And as Jesus promised when he
left his disciples, my gospel will go to the ends of the earth. And so because of Stephen’s unjust
stoning and the persecution that would come, the churches scattered
and we must see this scattering like the seed. Remember Jesus
said that the sowing of the gospel is like a farmer who scatters
seed. He sows it. He sows it. Some falls on the
path, some falls among the rocks, some falls among the weeds. Those
don’t really grow, but much of it falls on the good soil and
it produces a harvest a hundred fold. And so we have to see here
that the stoning of Stephen, the persecution of the church,
scatters the people across the globe. And it’s the seed of the
gospel which is spread across the globe and then a gospel harvest. Now we sit here a couple thousand
years after these events. None of us Jewish, all Gentile,
I do believe. And the gospel that once began
at Jerusalem, has been scattered across the globe, and it has
come to America, it’s come to you, it’s come to your family,
God willing, your household, and a gospel harvest has begun
in your life. Well, the church grows sometimes
best under hardship. It’s been said that the blood
of the martyrs is the seed of the church. We understand from
history and from news that we receive today that the church
is often strongest in areas of persecution. Church for us is,
well, it’s off and on, not for y’all. Church in America, y’all
are a faithful bunch. But you know, we have our mountain
houses, we have our beach houses, we have our soccer fields, we
have our other meccas, our other aisles. And so in America, you
can have your cake and eat it too. You can go to church when
you want. You can a la carte, a little vacation, a little trip
here, a little sports, so your kids can get ahead. And then
we come back to church, maybe Christmas and Easter. We think
that’s how it works. But think about our brothers
and sisters in other parts of the world where they are desperate
to meet with God. They are longing to be with one
another. Many of them don’t even have a copy of God’s word in
their own possession. We have many. We have them on
our phones. They’re not blocked. We have
copies that we were given when we were confirmed, copies that
we received when we were babies. We have copies that we bought
on Amazon. We have copies that the church
has given us and so on. We have plenty of copies. We
can leave one here and have one at home. We can have one in the
car, one at, well, you get the idea. For us, church is at our
convenience. For others, though they want
to go, they may be met with a chain on the door. Some may show up
at church only to find their building has been seized or bulldozed. And so for church, for us here
in America, it’s, well, it’s optional. It’s a la carte. It’s
what we want, when we want, and often how we want. But the church
best grows when it’s under pressure. And I fear for the American church
because I believe persecution is headed this way. We see the
beginnings of it and what an emptying of church buildings
I think we’ll see in our nation. But thank the Lord that his church
grows best in winter. His church grows stronger under
duress. The faithful want to remain true
and strong to the gospel. One of the things we’ll see in
the coming weeks is the conversion of Saul. A couple of things we’ll
see in the coming weeks is the church expands through the preaching
of God’s word. These preachers willing to risk
it all to pray and to preach and to proclaim the excellencies
of God. Something interesting to think
of in this passage is the contrast of Saul and Stephen. Stephen,
if you remember from some weeks ago, was a man full of the spirit. He was a man full of grace, chosen
by the church to be a deacon, a servant, chosen to do the ministry
of service so that the elders could pray and preach the word.
If he were to have an epitaph written on his Gravestone, it
would say simply, Stephen, a servant of Christ, now crowned in heaven
by Christ himself. But then there’s Saul. His resume
is long. He’s a member of the Sanhedrin. He voted affirmatively to stone
Stephen, to put him to death. He even stood at the feet of
the witnesses holding their coats. He was a destructive man. You
read this passage, Saul was ravaging the church. Other places in our
Bibles where it describes Saul says he was breathing murderous
threats. It says he was entering house
after house. He was dragging off men and women
and committing them to prison. When Saul is converted, which
we’ll see three times, counted to us in the book of Acts. He
was on the way to Damascus, some distance away from Jerusalem.
It wasn’t just that he persecuted Christians in Jerusalem. No,
he went to far away cities with official letters saying, I’m
bringing you back. so that we can harass and persecute
you and possibly put you to death for your faith in Jesus Christ. Saul was a destructive man, sweeping
away Christians because he hated Jesus, he hated the way, he hated
the Messiah. I saw a cartoon this week and
it’s a sad cartoon. I don’t mean to point it out
to be funny or cute, but it’s a cartoon of a Russian war plane
And you know how in days of old, a fighter pilot would mark their
kills on the plane. They would have some kind of
mark, and those numbers of marks showed how many times they were
accurate and made a kill. Well, on the side of this Russian
plane were the marks of women and children. We’re witnessing
the atrocities of this wicked regime doing these things. And you could put on the side
of Saul’s cloak, Christians, men and women and boys and girls
who named the name of Jesus Christ. You have quite a compare and
contrast here. You have a deacon, a servant,
and you have what we might say in modern day terms, the butcher,
of the early church of Jesus Christ. Both of these men meet
their end and meet their savior. Stephen, as he was stoned, we’re
told, saw into heaven and Christ stood and received him, probably
to give him the crown, which his name meant, Stephen, the
crowned one, gave him his crown of eternal life. We know Paul,
Formerly Saul will lose his head under Nero, probably about 30
years after this, he will be beheaded by the executioners
of Rome, but it will only be after he fulfills his calling
that Jesus will give him as he saves him. His calling was this,
to open the eyes of the Gentiles, to bring them from a place of
darkness that they might turn to light from the power and dominion
of Satan to that of almighty God. And he preaches in order
that people might receive repentance and forgiveness of sins and be
given a place among those who are sanctified in Jesus Christ. And brothers and sisters, we
have only now to be thankful that the word of God has prevailed
That the blood of the martyrs has been the seed of the church
and that the scattered church has spread the gospel abroad. And that by God’s grace and by
the power of the Holy Spirit, you have heard the word and received
it. And maybe some of us in our generation will face hardship
and persecution. We’ll need to be those who faithfully
endure even to the death. And as we see from Stephen and
not Saul, but Paul, God can do many and mighty things in the
life of his church and in the life of his people. And so we
need not fear not, but have faith of plenty. Pray with me. Our
God, we ask you that you would give us grace to receive your
word, even your warnings of hardship. We know that Christ who has ascended
into heaven, is still receiving many sufferings, many hardships.
They do not reach him in the heavenly places, but they land
upon us, the faithful church here on earth. So Lord, as we
receive what is lacking in Christ’s suffering, as we are being filled
up with these hardships, may we endure. Lord, help us to count
it a privilege to be numbered among your saints in light. To
have an open church with morning and evening service, with plenty
of opportunities to grow in grace, forgive us for not assembling
together, for forsaking the assembly, for not stirring one another
up to love and good deeds when there are those we often pray
for who suffer and cannot meet, for fear of their lives and even
destruction like that of Saul. Help us to be diligent, not only
to gather and grow, but to pray for others under great hardship.
We ask all this in the name of Jesus, our great savior. It’s
in his name we pray, amen. We want to stand together and
sing in preparation for communion. Number 201, “‘Twas on that night
when doomed to know, To us all that rise, we’re doomed
to know the eager blade