Stephen's Speetch:Spiritual Lithification
Acts: The Mission of God • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION
Mightier than the thunders of many waters,
mightier than the waves of the sea,
the Lord on high is mighty!
When waves crash upon the shore, the water brings the dissolved minerals and sand of the ocean to the sand of the beach.
With each crashing wave, more and more sediment is brought to the shore and in the right situation, it is deposited in a place where over months and years, it hardens.
It compacts. It cements.
And then the sediment turns to rock.
Sandstone.
This process, water to sand. Wave after wave. More and sediment. The compacting and the cementing—it is called lithification.
The Encyclopedia Britannica describes lithification as:
The complex process whereby freshly deposited loose grains of sediment are converted into rock.
Encyclopedia Britanica, lithification
This morning we are picking up where we left off in Acts.
We have Stephen—one of the seven men selected to solve the issue of the unfed widows.
And he is up against opposition.
He is staring down the barrel of persecution and the prospect of dying for the Kingdom.
Following His Lord in faithfulness to the end.
And what Stephen battles is the result of spiritual lithification.
It is the result of waves of sin washing over the heart.
It is the result of waves of obstinate rebellion rising up and crashing down in a person’s heart.
What Stephen faced and what we are talking about this morning is spiritual hard-heartedness.
Hard-heartedness toward God.
The One who is mightier than the thunders of many waters
The One who is mightier than the waves of the sea
The Lord on High.
There really is nothing more dangerous than this.
The hardness of heart
So let us listen well this morning. And not just with the ears, but with the heart.
Because God is merciful.
And even if you are in the process of being spiritually lithified this morning—today is the day of repentance.
Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.
PRAYER
PRAYER
A glory gilds the sacred page, majestic like the sun; it gives light to every age; It gives but borrows none.
Bless Your Word
Bless Your Servant
Bless Your Sheep
Bless Your Son
CONTEXT
CONTEXT
I won’t read the text as that has been done this morning, but I want us to remember the rhythm that we have seen in Acts.
Acts 4—opposition from the outside
Acts 5—opposition from the inside
End of Acts 5—opposition from the outside
Beginning of Acts 6—potential division—more opposition to the Gospel from within
And now as we head into the end of Acts 6, we have opposition from the outside in the most extreme of measures.
For the most that the world can do to us is kill us.
That is the full measure of wrath they are able to inflict.
They cannot touch the soul which calls the palm of Jesus home.
But the full measure—the murder of the body—this is what will happen to our brother Stephen.
But that is not until next week, Lord willing.
For today, we see how we got there.
I will break this large text up into three sections.
We will see THE OPPOSITION (6:8-15)
We will see THE SPEECH (7:1-50)
We will see THE CHARGES (7:51-54)
And we will see how Stephen’s opponents got to where they are—opposing God’s will and God’s way.
For in each section of the text, we can point to their cementing and compacting of their hearts.
THE OPPOSITION (6:8-15)
THE OPPOSITION (6:8-15)
Stephen’s Character and Ministry (v. 8)
Stephen’s Character and Ministry (v. 8)
We see that Stephen is a man full of grace and power, right off the bat.
This is another way to say that Stephen is a Spirit-filled man.
The grace of God has changed his life.
That is the only way someone is full of grace.
Grace is the unmerited favor of God.
Unless God does a work of grace in you, you will not be full of grace.
And Stephen is ministering in power because the same Spirit who brought power to the work of the apostles has brought power to the witness of this deacon.
The Spirit of God has made Stephen His dwelling place because He is a child of God, by grace through faith.
You’ll remember that Stephen stands out as being “full of faith” in verse 5.
Therefore, Stephen ministers among the people in power.
The signs and wonders that are being done are in the same manner of the Apostles and Jesus before them.
It is a marker for us from Luke the historian—Stephen is a faithful brother.
He follows in the footsteps of his elder brothers.
And he follows in the footsteps of His Master, King Jesus.
Godliness Brings Opposition (v. 9-10)
Godliness Brings Opposition (v. 9-10)
But in the same way that he does signs and wonders in the pattern of the apostles and Christ, he is also going to experience the same sort of opposition that they experienced.
This is what so often happens. Godliness brings opposition.
That is not to say that all opposition in your life is because you are so godly!
But certainly, where we see hearts after God, you will find the world after those hearts.
The opposition from within at the beginning of the chapter had to do with Hellenistic widows—Jewish widows who spoke Greek.
Now the opposition from the outside in the back half of the chapter is coming from Hellenistic Jewish men.
Member of the Synagogue of the Freedmen: These were Jews who were slaves and then they got their freedom back
Cyrenians and Alexandrians are Jewish people from North Africa.
Cilicia and Asia would refer to Jewish people in modern-day Turkey.
Jewish people were scattered into areas and regions like these during the times of Exile
But as you can see in verse 10, these people could not the wisdom of God or the Spirit of God with which he was speaking.
The wisdom of God would refer to His Word—it would refer to arguments from a place of reverent faith in God’s Word as sufficient.
If Stephen relied on himself, he would have wilted.
But he seems to leave his flesh at home and bear down on the Word as he contends with them
These are the weapons that we take into the world.
The Spirit of God within us
And the Sword of His Word in our hands
For how did Christ battle His opponents while on earth?
With the wisdom of the Father’s Word—the Sword of the Spirit
The main weapon which Christ wielded was “the Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.”
The Almighty Warrior, Volume 58, Sermon #3292 - Psalm 45:3-5
Charles Spurgeon
Why would we pick up different weapons?
You don’t need to be afraid of talking to Atheists or Mormons or Agnostics or your idealistic angry twenty year old.
No Atheist is going to confound the wisdom of the Spirit with the wisdom of man.
No Mormon is going to confound the wisdom of the Spirit with the wisdom of Joseph Smith.
And no angry twenty year old is going to confound with wisdom of the Spirit with some critical theory garbage they got out of a liberal arts classroom.
Just bury yourself in the Word of God each day.
Ask God for more grace to change
Ask God for more faith to believe
And when you face opposition to your godly witness and work, gently and respectfully contend for the faith with your Superior Weapons.
CONSPIRACY (v. 11-14)
CONSPIRACY (v. 11-14)
So you see that they conspire against Stephen, in the same way that Jesus was conspired against.
They get men to issue a false accusation, as they say that Stephen is:
Anti-law
Anti-temple
This is what they are referring to in verse 11 when they say that Stephen is blaspheming Moses and God.
To blaspheme Moses is to be anti-Law for it was called the “Law of Moses.”
To blaspheme the temple is to be anti-God because that is the place where the Lord dwelt.
These were serious accusations. If Stephen is found guilty of blaspheming God, he is going to die.
Whoever blasphemes the name of the Lord shall surely be put to death. All the congregation shall stone him. The sojourner as well as the native, when he blasphemes the Name, shall be put to death.
So much like the apostles and like Christ, we have Stephen brought before a council of elders and scribes and false witnesses are set up against him also say that he is anti-Law and anti-Temple (v. 13)—confirming the accusations against him
They say twist Stephen’s words regarding the temple and the Law to make it seem like he is some radical revolutionary seeking to destroy the divine oracles of God.
But in reality, they are the ones opposing God’s oracles. God’s prophecies. God’s Word. God’s work.
1. Sin is compacted and cemented in the heart when God’s Word and God’s work are opposed.
1. Sin is compacted and cemented in the heart when God’s Word and God’s work are opposed.
Just as the waves bring the sediments and deposit them on the shore, when people hear God’s Word proclaimed and they see God’s work at hand and they attribute it to evil, they are hardening themselves to the Lord.
Listen to what Jesus is accused of in Mark 14:58
“We heard him say, ‘I will destroy this temple that is made with hands, and in three days I will build another, not made with hands.’ ”
Again in Mark 14:63-64
And the high priest tore his garments and said, “What further witnesses do we need? You have heard his blasphemy. What is your decision?” And they all condemned him as deserving death.
Why is Stephen accused of the same things as Jesus?
Because he is teaching the same things as Jesus.
The Apostles taught Stephen everything Christ commanded them.
Now Stephen is being obedient and teaching others—he is fishing for men
And react the same way that they did to Christ
They harden their hearts against God’s Word, reject it, twist it and then they turn it on Stephen like a weapon
ILLUSTRATION: You’ve seen this before right? You share the good news of Christ’s love with someone and they say, “Well the Bible says ______________________,” and then they twist some Scripture or point of theology up and throw it back in your face.
That is another wave of rebellion washing over that person’s heart.
That is another wave of sin.
The sediment of hatred toward God and His principles deepen
The sediment of haughtiness toward God and His throne deepen
A little more sludgy sand settling in and being pressed down
They are hearing truth and saying NO and it is a dangerous game to play
For what was sand and minerals carried along in the waves becomes the rock on the shore
No person should take lightly the hearing of the Gospel at any time.
One can never know what their rejection is doing to their own hearts.
One never know how willful rebellion could be searing the conscience
Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared,
Paul tells Timothy that in the last days, the days in between Jesus’ ascension and His return, people will depart the faith because they devote themselves to false teachers whose consciences are seared
That means the conscience is burnt up. Like a candle with no wick left to ignite.
The conscience is given over to a debased mind.
It is the same as what Paul describes in Romans 1 where Paul says trading God in to worship creation will devolve into God giving someone over to the sinfulness of their own hearts and the dishonoring of their bodies if they refuse to repent:
and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves,
These verses should motivate us to repent.
Christians and non-Christians alike.
We should hear this and be alarmed at the prospect of a hardened heart.
We should be alarmed at the prospect of spiritual lithification taking place in our own lives.
If you look at verse 15, the council see that the face of the one they accuse looks like that of an angel.
I believe Luke was saying Stephen was peaceful and worshipful—that as he was about to speak, the favor of God was visibly upon him.
He is like Moses, the one he is accused of opposing, after Moses meets with God to receive the Law.
Aaron and all the people of Israel saw Moses, and behold, the skin of his face shone, and they were afraid to come near him.
Maybe the council felt a bit of fear when they saw Stephen’s resolve.
THE SPEECH (7:1-50)
THE SPEECH (7:1-50)
A FLYOVER
A FLYOVER
Now, let’s look at the way he responds.
He doesn’t stand up and defend himself directly.
He doesn’t defend his character.
He doesn’t point to his signs and wonders that God did through him.
He doesn’t even answer their question.
Are these things so? (v. 1)
Instead, he gives a speech. A lesson.
He takes the posture of a teacher.
ILLUSTRATION: When I was 15 years old, I went to England with the Powhatan High School Marching Band. On the way home, we flew over Greenland—and that is how I found out it wasn’t very green.
What I did not see was polar bears or arctic hares or reindeer or narwahls or any of the other things that live there.
I did not go to Nuuk and eat food downtown.
I did not go see the viking ruins.
I was 30,000 feet in the sky.
It was a flyover, not a 5 day vacation.
Stephen’s speech is a flyover.
It is not meant for a 5 day vacation.
You could take one if you wanted. There is enough content to stay for a while.
But that isn’t the purpose.
It is one long speech, taking us from Abraham to Jesus, showing the council how he is actually pro-Law and pro-temple and they are the ones actually committing blasphemy.
In the speech we will essentially go from Abraham to the 12 Sons.
The 12 Sons to Moses.
Moses to the Temple.
And then the temple to Jesus, the Righteous One.
ABRAHAM (7:1-8)
ABRAHAM (7:1-8)
We start with Abraham.
God chose Abraham.
Abraham didn’t know God anymore than I know a rock that exists on Mars this morning.
He was born in modern-day Iraq.
He was probably worshipping a moon god named Nanna.
He was probably praying to the moon itself for blessings
Then God called Abraham. The God of glory appeared to him (v. 2)
God told Him to leave his land and the inheritance he would had there and his father’s gods and go to Canaan. (v. 3-4)
And Abraham believed God’s promise and he went, even though he had no claim on an inch of property in the place God was calling him to. (v. 5)
God told him that he would have offspring, though he had no heir
Again—this was faith.
“I will give you a land. Go to this place where nothing belongs to you.”
“I will give you offspring, even though you have no child.”
But you also see that God spoke to Abraham and told him that his offspring would be enslaved in a foreign land for 400 years (v. 6)
But God also promised to judge that nation (v. 7)
So Israel’s narrative begins like this—God is making promises, but His people must respond in faith.
Abraham’s people will have a land, but for four hundred years they won’t be in it.
Abraham will have a people, but he has no children.
So from the very beginning, with the father of Israel, God must be trusted by His people.
The section on Abraham ends with a little monument from Stephen.
In verse 8, he mentions:
Abraham’s sons, Isaac and Jacob
The Covenant of Circumcision
the 12 sons who are the patriarchs of the 12 tribes
What’s the point?
Before the Temple is built...
Before the Law of Moses...
God was keeping His promises to those who believed in Him and did not reject His Word.
JOSEPH AND THE PATRIARCHS (v. 9-16)
JOSEPH AND THE PATRIARCHS (v. 9-16)
In verses 9-16 you get the story of how the Israelites end up in Egypt.
Joseph is sold into slavery by the patriarchs
And yet, God uses gives Joseph favor and he rises up from slave to magistrate in Egypt. He is ruling.
And the circumstances of famine bring his family to Egypt.
Egypt then, becomes a place of refuge and rescue for Israel.
But was there a temple there? No.
Did they have the law of Moses? Not yet.
And yet God was with Joseph
And God was sustaining His people
Egypt is mentioned six different time in these verses to emphasize that God was faithful to Israel even though they still do not have the plot of land that God promised and they are only 75 people going as beggars into this powerful nation
The emphasis is on God as a promise-keeper
In verse 16, we get another little monument.
Dark times in Egypt—we know what will happen during Egypt’s time there
But even still, Stephen makes mention of the patriarchal tomb in Shechem.
A reminder that the bones of the patriarchs would not rest in Egypt because the people of God don’t belong in Egypt.
God is faithful to His children. He is a Promise-keeper. He will not leave them in chains and without a home.
THE NATION (v. 17-19)
THE NATION (v. 17-19)
In verses 17-19, Stephen tells the story of how Israel became a nation.
What was 75 grew and multiplied and by the time we get to the tabernacle in the wilderness, after they are freed from slavery, there are 600,000 men.
But of course, before their story of redemption included oppression.
The next king over Egypt didn’t care about the name of Joseph or anyone in his family.
They were a labor force to him.
And he was so brutal that he started to kill off the male population by having Israelite baby boys killed.
MOSES (v. 20-43)
MOSES (v. 20-43)
This brings us to Moses. He gets the most time from Stephen—probably because Stephen has been accused of being anti-Moses and anti-Law—and probably because the council’s misunderstanding of the Law is much of why they reject God’s grace.
He breaks Moses life up into three parts.
The first 40 years
The middle 40 years
The final 40 years
The first forty years gets covered in a few verses.
Moses is born (v. 20)
He is adopted by Pharaoh’s daughter (v. 21)
He gets brought up under the top Egyptian education (v. 22)
The second forty years get covered in verses 23-29.
He visits his Israelite brothers
He sees one being wronged and avenges him
He tries to deliver the man
He thought they would understand that, but they did not.
When he tries to play mediator the next day between arguing Jewish men, they reject him.
This becomes the pattern for Moses’ life
While he is acting a Deliverer and a Mediator for them, they reject him
In this first rejection, Moses is driven to Midian.
And then you have the final forty years of his life. In many ways, the most significant forty years. They get the most time from verses 29-40.
This is the time in which he speaks with God in the burning bush and calls him to be a Ruler and a Redeemer for the people (v. 30-34)
They asked, “Who made you ruler and judge?”
The answer is that God did. God raised him up (v. 35)
He led them out of Egypt performing signs and wonders—much like Jesus, the Apostles and Stephen (v. 36)
He was so great in the historic records of Israel’s memory that they cherished God’s prophecy to raise up another Prophet like Moses and they believed that Prophet would be the Messiah.
“The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers—it is to him you shall listen—
He received the Law in the wilderness to give to God’s people (v. 38)
But how did the people respond? They were in rebellion against God.
Verses 39-41 describe the disgusting scene as Moses comes down from receiving the Law only to find his people engaged in full-on idolatry, worshipping a golden calf that they made. Making sacrifices and all.
They rejected Moses’ leadership, but more than that—and much more tragic for their hearts—they rejected God’s law.
You see that in verses 42, Stephen says that “God turned away and gave them over to the worship of heaven.”
This is another way to say that God let them worship creation and feel the devastating effects.
And then he quotes from Amos.
It is an interesting move to do that in verses 42-43.
Not Moses—Amos.
He doesn’t tell about God’s severe punishment of Israel in that generation.
Stephen pulls from a prophet who speaks on the time of Babylonian Exile.
Why?
Because Stephen wants them to see the golden calf was just the start.
From the second they got the law, they couldn’t stop breaking it.
Israel’s history from Moses to Malachi, is one long tale of disobedience, repentance and then more disobedience.
And along the way, from the days of the Prophet Moses to the days of the Prophet Amos, Israel rejects God’s Word and God’s law.
THE TEMPLE (v. 44-50)
THE TEMPLE (v. 44-50)
And then, he brings it home by moving Moses to the time of King David and King Solomon and the building of the temple.
He is now addressing the other half of the accusation.
He shows how the tabernacle and the temple are not evil.
Quite to the contrary, they were directed by God.
The tent of witness (v. 44) was made according the pattern Moses had been shown
And the fathers of Israel moved it until the generation of David (v. 45)
This is where God chose dwell with His people—the tabernacle.
But David found favor with God as a man after His heart and asked to build a permanent house for the Lord and it was granted for his son, Solomon, to do it (v. 46-47).
So again, there is nothing wrong with the temple. God authorized it.
The problem in the council’s false understanding of the temple is that they thought it contained God.
They thought it was the only place that the presence of God could even be found.
But Stephen already showed how silly that is.
God was with Abraham in the land of the Chaldeans and Haran
God was with His people in Egypt.
God was with Moses at the burning bush—so much so that it was holy ground
He is not contained in a building.
Stephen quotes the prophets again—Isaiah this time:
Thus says the Lord:
“Heaven is my throne,
and the earth is my footstool;
what is the house that you would build for me,
and what is the place of my rest?
All these things my hand has made,
and so all these things came to be,
declares the Lord.
But this is the one to whom I will look:
he who is humble and contrite in spirit
and trembles at my word.
So what is the point?
So what is the point?
Now, you might be asking—nice speech, but what’s the point?
Nice history lesson, but what does it have to do with Stephen being anti-law and anti-temple and on trial for blasphemy?
Well everything—because what Stephen’s lesson has done is expose the way that these men have utterly rejected God’s Law, God’s Prophets and God’s presence.
2. Sin is compacted and cemented in the heart when God’s Law and God’s Worship are rejected.
2. Sin is compacted and cemented in the heart when God’s Law and God’s Worship are rejected.
PURPOSE OF THE LAW
PURPOSE OF THE LAW
This kangaroo court has accused Stephen of being anti-Law and anti-Moses, but he has shown that truly, they are anti-Law and anti-Moses.
This is the crowd who believed they could provide a righteousness for themselves from the Law.
If they could obey it, God would accept them.
And worse, they felt they were obeying it and they were righteous through their ability to obey the Law.
But this is not the purpose of the Law.
If the Law could make you righteous, then why did the Israelites commit idolatry upon its delivery?
And if it can make you righteous, then how come Israel continued to reject God well into the days of the prophet Amos?
And if it can make you righteous, then how was Abraham counted as righteous without it?
How then was it counted to him? Was it before or after he had been circumcised? It was not after, but before he was circumcised.
See, the real purpose of the Law is not make you righteous, but expose the lack of righteousness that you actually have.
It is a schoolmaster or guardian or a tutor that leads us to Christ.
So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith.
The Law exposes our unrighteousness and then drives us to run to God for help and rescue.
It exposes our sin and drives us to come to God and cry out for help.
And that help has come to us in Christ.
And so we must believe the promise of God in Christ, just as Abraham believed.
And in doing that, apart from the Law, our faith is credited as righteousness to us.
We are justified by God when we trust in Christ and we have good, legal standing with Him in His court.
The Law could not give us that. It is meant to drive us to the One who can.
So who is anti-Law? Is it the guy preaching Christ, the One the Law points us to? Or Is it the guys twisting it to try and derive righteousness from it?
Stephen has taken their own accusation and indicted them.
PURPOSE OF THE TEMPLE
PURPOSE OF THE TEMPLE
It is very similar with the Temple.
The Temple was good. But it was not an end in and of itself.
This council took God and made Him small and said “He lives in a house.”
And they took the temple and blew it up and said, “This building is the center of all worship.”
And that is idolatry. They made the Temple the main thing.
Stephen is showing them that the Temple points beyond itself to Christ.
If they don’t see that, they are actually anti-Temple.
They are missing the purpose of the Temple, by not seeing that the Temple points to Christ.
For in the Tabernacle and the Temple, God came and graciously dwelt and dealt with His children.
Well in Christ, God has come to us in a Person and He has dwelt with His children. He has dealt with His children.
And when He returns, He will dwell with us forever as the promise to Abraham is finally fulfilled and God’s children live on the New Earth under King Jesus—the fullness of God’s people in the fullness of God’s presence.
The temple points to all of that.
It begs us to make Jesus the center of worship.
When these men stop short and count the temple itself as object of worship, they completely miss the point and in the process reject the worship of God, which only happens through His Son.
Once again, what was an accusation against Stephen is now his indictment against the council.
And his history lesson is showing the rockiness of their hearts.
He is showing how the years of and years of rejecting the Law and rejecting worship has formed layers of hard sediment in the hearts of these men.
He is showing how you can be so familiar with God’s truth, but still end up far from God both in righteousness and reverence.
And now it is time to formally introduce his charges against them.
THE CHARGES
THE CHARGES
Having made his case, Stephen says these men are:
Stiff-necked
Uncircumcised in the heart and ears
Always resistant to the Holy Spirit
Receiver of the Law who do not keep it
In other words, you are Israel, but you are not Israel.
You have Jewish blood, but no Jewish faith, because you rejected the Jewish Messiah, the Righteous One, Jesus Christ.
And this should be no surprise because their fathers rejected every prophet before Him too.
The charge of being stiff-necked and uncircumcised is a New Testament charge with Old Testament words.
Go up to a land flowing with milk and honey; but I will not go up among you, lest I consume you on the way, for you are a stiff-necked people.”
Circumcision was the sign of the covenant.
To say someone is uncircumcised in the heart is to say they have dead skin around their heart and they are cut off from God and outside of His covenant.
They might bear the physical mark of Abraham’s circumcision, but their hearts look nothing like Abraham’s.
And in resisting the Spirit and the Law, they are dismissing the way unto salvation.
3. Sin is compacted and cemented in the heart when God’s way of salvation is dismissed.
3. Sin is compacted and cemented in the heart when God’s way of salvation is dismissed.
God’s Word is clear on who we need to break through the deadness of our hearts.
It is the very Spirit that they resist.
For the New Covenant promise is that the Spirit will bring life to the heart and the heart will not be hard and rocky, but soft and alive to God.
I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.
The New Testament follows with confirmation that this is what the Spirit does in God’s re-born children:
For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another. But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit,
When Jesus speaks to Nicodemus in John 3, He makes it clear that a man must be born again.
That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
He tells Nicodemus that unless you are born of the Spirit, you will not enter the Kingdom of God.
But if you are dismissive of the Law that leads us to Christ, you will not see your need for re-birth.
And if you are rejecting God’s Spirit, you will not be reborn.
For the way of salvation is to have your sin exposed by the Law.
To turn to Christ in repentance and believe on His saving work for salvation
And to be reborn, having the Spirit of God make you alive, regenerating your heart and dwelling in you as a the temple of the living God
This is the Good News of the Gospel
Apart from that Good News, there is no salvation.
Apart from that salvation, there is hope.
To dismiss the way of salvation is to dismiss the eternal hope of your soul
PAUL’S WARNING
PAUL’S WARNING
And Paul warns us not to do this in Romans 2.
Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.
Do you oppose God’s Word and work?
Do you assume He will just keep giving you more and more days to live and reject Him?
Do you think that in the end nothing will happen? You will die and be eaten up by worms?
Do you reject God’s law and God’s worship?
Do you think there is no repercussion for this in the here and now?
Do you dismiss the way unto salvation?
Do you think that has no impact upon the heart?
Friend—heed the warning of Paul in Romans 2. The Apostle is telling us that while God is showing you kindness to lead you to repentance, with each rejection of that kindness, you are hardening your heart against Him.
And you are storing up wrath for yourself, for which each hearing of the Word and each rejection of His kindness, you are stacking up more and more rebellion against Him.
You cannot claim ignorance—just like the men on this council.
CONCLUSION
CONCLUSION
As the band returns, I want to close by saying this.
Your heart might be hard as a rock today.
Maybe the waves of sin and rebellion and rejection have washed over it for years and years and you are just hardened toward God.
You feel very little toward His Word.
You feel very little toward His people.
You feel very little toward Him.
Your soul is in a very dangerous place.
It is not unlike the state of those who listened to Jonathan Edwards preach his famous sermon Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God all those years ago:
12 There is nothing that keeps wicked men, at any one moment, out of hell, but the mere pleasure of God.
Jonathan Edwards
“Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” sermon (1741)
Jonathan Edwards
If not for His kind hand, your hard heart would already be feeling the eternal ramifications of your rejection of the Lord’s grace to you in Christ.
But that same kind hand will break through the rocky ground of your heart and soak it with the love of God, if you would just stop fighting with Him today.
For He is the Sun that can harden the clay next to the road and the asphalt on it.
But do not presume on His kindness as Paul says because we simply do not know when the day of wrath will come.
Turn to Him today.
The Law has exposed you.
It leads you to Christ.
And in Him, you will find that all hardness created by years of sin and shame washing up on your shore, will be broken through and the white sands of eternal hope will replace it.
For He gives beauty for ashes. He overcomes the hard heart.
And He adorns it for His own worship and worth.