HISTORY LESSON (PART 1)

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

Then the high priest asked Stephen, “Are these charges true?”

To this he replied: “Brothers and fathers, listen to me! The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham while he was still in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran. ‘Leave your country and your people,’ God said, ‘and go to the land I will show you.’”

“So he left the land of the Chaldeans and settled in Haran. After the death of his father, God sent him to this land where you are now living. He gave him no inheritance here, not even enough ground to set his foot on. But God promised him that he and his descendants after him would possess the land, even though at that time Abraham had no child. God spoke to him in this way: ‘For four hundred years your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own, and they will be enslaved and mistreated. But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves,’ God said, ‘and afterward they will come out of that country and worship Me in this place.’

Then He gave Abraham the covenant of circumcision. And Abraham became the father of Isaac and circumcised him eight days after his birth. Later Isaac became the father of Jacob, and Jacob became the father of the twelve patriarchs.

Acts 7:1-8

This ends today’s reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

“This fellow never stops speaking against this holy place and against the law. For we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and change the customs Moses handed down to us.” Acts 6:13-14

These were the words of the false witnesses used to accuse Stephen as he was hauled in front of the Sanhedrin following a running dispute with the members of the Synagogue of the Freedmen.

Of course, Stephen had said no such thing, no more than Jesus Himself had said things He was accused of while brought before the council. We spent the past four messages looking at this similarity and others before the life of the Savior of the world and His devoted servant.

As the accusations were raised in court, we read where the high priest looked at Stephen and asked a direct question:

“Are these charges true?”

It was a simple yes or no inquiry but as we see, Stephen didn’t give a simple answer. Instead, he launched into a lengthy history lesson which encompasses nearly the entire length of Acts 7. His point was that it was the Jewish religious leaders, not him, who were blaspheming against Moses and God. In fact, it was the Jewish religious authorities who had not only willingly murdered an innocent man in Jesus but they did so without an ounce of consideration that He was who He said He was, the one and only Son of the God Most High, the very God who had granted the order not to murder. The Jews believed that God resided in their temple as if God could be contained within a human structure. At the pinnacle of his long historical message, we will find Stephen proclaim the truth that God doesn’t simply reside in any houses constructed by human hands. Rather, He abides with His people wherever they are.

To start highlighting this truth, we see Stephen begin in a place where his audience would find familiarity, with their beloved Abraham. After he commands all present to listen, he says these words:

“The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham while he was still in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran. ‘Leave your country and your people,’ God said, ‘and go to the land I will show you.’”

“So he left the land of the Chaldeans and settled in Haran. After the death of his father, God sent him to this land where you are now living. He gave him no inheritance here, not even enough ground to set his foot on. But God promised him that he and his descendants after him would possess the land, even though at that time Abraham had no child. God spoke to him in this way: ‘For four hundred years your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own, and they will be enslaved and mistreated. But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves,’ God said, ‘and afterward they will come out of that country and worship Me in this place.’

Then He gave Abraham the covenant of circumcision. And Abraham became the father of Isaac and circumcised him eight days after his birth. Later Isaac became the father of Jacob, and Jacob became the father of the twelve patriarchs.

The Jewish religious leaders worshiped and adored Abraham who was viewed as the father of the Jewish nation. In fact, we read where he gave birth to a son named Isaac who would then give birth to a son named Jacob who would go onto have twelve sons who became leaders of the twelve tribes of Israel (the patriarchs). Yes, Abraham was a father but it was with a lower case “f”.

You see, Stephen makes sure the Jewish religious leaders get focused on the main Father, their God who was willing to help them see the wrongs of their ways, if they would just allow Him to do so. In regard to Abraham, nothing would have happened from a historical perspective with the man seen as the progenitor of the Jewish nation had God not ordained it first. The Bible starts with these words, “In the beginning, God”, for a reason. He was present before anything was created and He is the holy Author and Orchestrator of everything.

And so, it’s of no surprise when we see God taking center stage in the first part of Stephen’s history lesson. It was God who appeared to Abraham, not the other way around. It was God who commanded Abraham to leave his country and people to journey to an unidentified destination. All Abraham was told by God was that He would show him the way and that’s all that matters. If God calls us to go somewhere, we don’t need all the details. We just need to trust in Him and His purposes, knowing that He always leads us to where He wants us to be and does so without fail.

Stephen reminds his listeners that this is exactly what Abraham did. He responded to God’s call with obedience, leaving the “land of the Chaldeans” and ending up in Canaan, the land God had sent him to, the very land the Jews inhabited as Stephen spoke. At this time, Abraham was childless at the time but God made this promise to His faithful servant:

“For four hundred years your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own, and they will be enslaved and mistreated. But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves,’ God said, ‘and afterward they will come out of that country and worship Me in this place.”

It was a glimpse into the future, one that provided amazing future implications, not just for Abraham but for his family. Yes, family. For although Abraham and his wife Sarah had no children, this was obviously going to change because God said it would. Abraham would have descendants, a lot of them, and eventually they would find their way to what would be called “The Promised Land” but not before a lengthy period of hardship marked by enslavement and mistreatment in a country that wasn’t their own, a country we now know was Egypt. It would be a long time spent in oppression and suffering but it wouldn’t last forever because God would deliver them from their captors, punish the nation that enslaved His people, and then bring them to the land He set apart for them, the land He brought Abraham to more than four centuries earlier.

In the beginning of creation, it was all about God.

As the Jewish nation was conceived and then birthed, it was all about God.

And as we’ll see in the second message of this series and those after, God takes center stage because that’s where He has always been.

Tomorrow we’ll take a look at Joseph.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

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