Israel’s Sinful Past is Repeated Today

Transcript

GR 1205
6/10/2001
Israel’s Sinful Past is Repeated Today
Acts 7:30-43
Gil Rugh

Steven is reviewing the history of the nation Israel and there is great benefit to studying history and the facts of history. It puts our present situation in its proper context and setting. That’s one of the things that Steven is accomplishing in this review. Particularly when you’re talking about history as it relates to God’s people. Biblical history divinely revealed history. We have accurate precise facts and often God records the significance of what is taking place at that period of time in history and reviewing the workings of God with His people down through history. It gives us an appreciation of His sovereignty and His power. It also serves to warn us and remind us of dangers and problems that might be faced. That is the danger of studying history. We might just study it as a collection of facts and interesting material and fail to appreciate the lessons that are to be learned from history. So, we repeat the errors and the failures. This is what was happening in Israel’s history. Some of you have recently studied the book of Judges and you see a pattern in Judges of the same cycles occurring time after time as they repeat the same sin. Go through the same judgements and need the same deliverances and so on. It was always a danger when we study history and we see what happened, but our situation is different, for we are different today. Many people who look at the scriptures think that the God of the Old Testament must be someone different then the God of the New Testament. The God of the Old Testament He’s a God who is harsh, severe, judges sin, shows His wrath and anger. Where the God of the New Testament is more loving and kinder and gentle and understanding. They’ve failed to appreciate that God is unchanging in His nature and character. He’s both a God of wrath and anger and a God of love and mercy. In Acts chapter 7, Stephen’s reviewing Israel’s history, but not just for the facts of history, but to demonstrate certain trends and patterns that characterized God’s people and they were in the process of repeating the same errors and the same sins. He is going to confront them with the fact that they are just like their fathers. The previous generations, they are rebellious people. Let me just note here as we move into this chapter today. We ought not to think that this is simply truths that are good for Israel’s history. What is recorded in the scripture is recorded for our benefit and all scripture is profitable in order that we might be everything God wants us to be. The tragedy of the church of Jesus Christ today is following the same pattern, committing the same sins that characterized Israel’s history and is characterized the churches history for the last 2,000 years. Yet often the church sits and thinks we are different, we are not like them, we are like the Jews that Steven is addressing. We refuse to face the situation as it actually is. I had a phone call from a person in another city this past week. He’s talking about some concerns of the person I have never met, but he was sharing some concerns in the Evangelical church that he is attending, talked about some of that. He made a statement that was I think factual, but disappointing. He said no one in my church is interested in grabbling with the biblical issues at stake. Couldn’t help but think as I reflected on Stephen’s sermon, the church repeats the same sin that God’s people had been guilty of over generations and millenniums of time. They have failed to take seriously the revelation God has given of Himself and to respond in faith and obedience to that revelation and they end up in the same problem, characterized discipled down through history. Stephen opened up Israel’s history with a consideration of the man Abraham, the founder of the nation. He stands out as a man of faith, repeatedly God revealed Himself, repeatedly Abraham believed and obeyed God. That’s not a pattern that is followed in subsequent history. We begin with a man of great faith Abraham. We noted that there is a pattern that is followed through Stephen’s development of history. God has revealed Himself. That revelation does not always take place in the confines of the land of Canaan or Palestine, The Promised Land. Now this is not to say that the Promise Land, Canaan, is not significant in the plans and purposes of God. What had happened to the nation Israel, they have turned the land into an idol. They thought because they had a land that God had promised and the temple where God was to be worshiped that had some kind of magical capabilities and they were assured a relationship with God, they were the chosen nation living in the promise land with the temple where God had said He would manifest His presence. It really became an idol for them to worship because it replaced the true and living God in their lives. Their trust in faith came to be put in the land and in the temple. Rather than in the God who was behind it all. Much as happens to the church, p eople place their faith in a church, in a denomination that becomes an idol, and replaces the true and living God. Men like the reformers like John Calvin and Martin Luther battle for the truth of the Word of God. A relationship of the living God based upon faith alone, but over time the corruption sets in, and people’s confidence comes to be in the fact I am Roman Catholic, I am Lutheran, I am Presbyterian, I am, and we fill in the blank. We’ve replaced the living God and placed our confidence in an organization, building something that becomes an idol replacing God. This picks up early in Israel’s history. The pattern of rebellion and rejecting the Revelation of God. Following Abraham, Stephen talks about Joseph and the patriarchs. Joseph was the one chosen by God to be a redeemer and a deliverer of his people, in a time of famine and suffering, He was one rejected by the patriarchs who were also his brothers. They were the ones who sold him into slavery and sold at a very young age. He was removed from the land of Canaan and taken to Egypt, and he lives the rest of his life in Egypt, but God was with him in Egypt, God blessed him in Egypt. God used him to be a deliverer and a savior.

Then Stephen moves from Joseph and the patriarchs to Moses and Moses is the one who gets the most attention and is at the heart of his sermon from chapter 7 verse 17 through chapter 7 verse 43 he talks about Moses, the great deliverer and redeemer in Israel’s history. The pattern is the same as with Joseph. He divides Moses’ life into three divisions. Three 40-year segments. The first 40 years were spent in Egypt. Raised in the palace of the pharaoh. Getting the best of learning and training the Egyptians had to offer. Yet when God sent him to His people to be their deliverer and Savior, they rejected Him, they repudiated Him, they refused to have anything to do with Him. As a result of that rejection, verse 29 tells us that Moses fled and became an alien in the land of Midian. Verse 30 tells us he spent 40 years in Midian because after 40 years the Lord will appear to Him there and send Him back to Egypt again to be the deliverer of the Israelites. So, we pick up the account in verse 29 and in verse 29 to 35 cover the 40 years in Midian, but they really don’t cover the 40 years in Midian. They cover the closing days in Midian when God appears to Him to send him back to Egypt. We’re told in verse 29 “At this remark” it’s tied to the rejection of Moses by the Israelites. “Moses fled and became an alien in the land of Midian.” Now Midian is a region by the Gulf of Aqaba. That brings an area immediately to your mind I know, but if you were in Egypt then just traveled East going in and across the desert, you know you would come to the Gulf of Aqaba. The Arabian region as it is known, that is the region of Midian the area around the Gulf of Aqaba as the Suez come up and have two branches and that peninsula comes down and the one to the east is the Gulf of Aqaba. That region is Midian. You’ll note that we are told he became and alien in the land of Midian. There is a reminder that Moses is outside the land. Again, Stephen is not minimizing the significance of Canaan in the plan of God. The Jews need to understand the workings of God are not some kind of magical presence that because you were in this spot at this time you are assured you are in the presence of God, and He is pleased with you. So, Moses is an alien in the land of Midian. He’s an alien because he belongs in the land of Canaan so to speak. The land of Canaan is the Promised Land. When you are outside of that land, you are outside what God has promised as your territory as a Jew. So, he’s an alien in the land of Midian. We are told there he became the father of two sons. The Jews listening to Him were familiar with the account. He named His first son Gershom. Gershom means sojourner, foreigner. The reason he named Him sojourner or foreigner. Exodus 2:22 says, Moses says, “I have been a sojourner in a foreign land.” He was an alien in a foreign land and he even names his first son, foreigner, and sojourner because he says I have been an alien in a foreign land. Now his land wasn’t Egypt. He knew God intended him to be the deliverer of Israel up in verse 25. After 40 years in Egypt, he went to His people, and he supposed that his brother understood that God was granting them deliverance through him, but they did not understand. You see he knew he was the deliverer, the one to lead the people of Israel to Canaan. In Midian he is an alien and a foreigner. “After 40 years had passed,” so he spends 40 years in Midian. The Old Testament tells us he got married there had two sons there and he worked for his father-in-law was a Shepard, who cared for the sheep. “After 40 years had past, and angel appeared to him in the Wilderness of Mount Sinai” Note again where is he? He is outside of Canaan and God is working, God is revealing Himself, He’s in the wilderness of Mount Sinai. It’s also called Horeb in the Old Testament read in Exodus 3, the historical account of this, said that he was in Horeb, we won’t take the time because you compare several passages in the Old Testament you find Horeb, and Sinai are the same place. Moses was not a total stranger to the area that he would eventually come back to in leading the people of Israel. There God appears to Him in the flame of a burning bush. You may be familiar with the account of Moses out one day with the sheep and notices a bush on fire and said that’s strange I’ll turn aside and look at it. Verse 31, “But Moses saw it, he marveled at the sign; and as he approached to look more closely, there came the voice of the Lord.” The voice of the Lord came from the bush and said, “I am the God of you fathers, the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob.” Now I want you to note something, verse 30 after 40 years have passed an angel appeared to Him in the wilderness of Sinai. In the flame of a burning bush and when that angel spoke, he said we’re told it was the voice of the Lord who said I am the God of your fathers. And that angel that appeared to him in the bush was none other than the second person of the triune God would have been the pre-incarnated Christ. Christ before his incarnation, or birth at Bethlehem. This is what we call a theophany from the word Theos for God, fanos for manifest, were revealed. A theophany is a manifestation or a revelation of God, and all the theophanies of the Old Testament are Christophanies. All the manifestations of God in the Old Testament are really manifestations of Christ. The angel of the Lord or the Messenger of the Lord in the Old Testament is a divine being and that’s the one that we presented here, the one who spoke to Moses, and He said I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. You note how God introduces himself if you will to Moses. The God who is in covenant relationship with Israel. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The founders of the nation, those with whom God entered into covenant agreement, the Abrahamic covenant. God is revealing himself to Moses as the covenant God. The God who has a special relationship with Israel, and you’ll note Moses shook with fear and couldn’t look. Better keep that in mind. You turn on the television and watch some of the religious foolishness. You have people talking about how they talk with God. God appeared in the bathroom while they were shaving, and they just chatted away. Well, that’s not the way it happens. If God did manifest Himself, they would fall over and slit their throat probably on the way down. Moses trembled with fear. We reduce God to a fellow man and then trivialized some kind of conversation supposedly that was had. No, the living God manifest Himself in this burning bush and when He speaks, Moses trembles, he’s afraid even to look, “but the Lord said to Him, ‘Take off the sandals from your feet, for the place for which you are standing is holy ground.’” Why does Stephen pick out some of these details? Remember the line, where is Moses? He’s in gentile country. The land of Midian, outside of Canaan, and you know what? He must take off his sandals because he’s standing on holy ground. Right? I thought Canaan was the holy land. But you see where God is and manifest Himself that it becomes holy. Their prophet Ezekiel told them in Ezekiel chapter 10, the glory of the Lord left the temple and Canaan. The details are recorded in Ezekiel 10 as the profit Ezekiel sees the glory of the Lord, departing from the temple and moving to the east gate and departing, but they were living with the confidence this is a magical place we are Jews and when we are on this land and have our temple, as Stephen will get to. We are sure and secure we belong to God. They gave no consideration of their heart condition and their relationship to God. Moses was standing on holy ground. As a sign of respect and reverence he removed the sandals from his feet. Verse 34, God continues, “I have certainly seen the oppression of my people in Egypt and have heard their groans, and I have come down to deliver them; come now, and I will send you to Egypt.” God is the deliverer of Israel, but He will work through the man Moses to accomplish this deliverance and note the connection I have come down to deliver them, I will send you to Egypt. So, when Moses goes to Egypt it is God coming to Egypt not that Moses has become divine, but he is the servant and messenger of the Lord and when Moses is there God is there because God is with Moses. I have come down to deliver them I will send you to Egypt. That emphasis is important because note the contrast now as you come to verse 35, “This Moses whom they disowned, saying, ‘Who made you a ruler and a judge?’ is the one whom God sent to be both a ruler and a deliverer” you see contrast with verse 35, the whole style of Stephen’s speech changes. He continues a chronological unfolding of Israel’s history. Now the point that was more subtle is more openly declared. He shows more clearly and explicitly Israel’s rebellion and rejection of God. So here this Moses whom they disowned, they had said remember, “Who made you a ruler and a judge?” and the answer is God. He is the one whom God sent to be a ruler and a deliverer. That word deliverer, word translated deliverer. Is the Greek word redeemer. He was functioning as a redeemer as God’s representative for Israel. To redeem them from the bondage and slavery in Egypt. Bring them to the promised rest of Canaan. What did they do? The rejected him. They disowned him. They did not want anything to do with him. Also note, the angel who appeared in the burning bush at the end of verse 35 was there to help him. He was to be a ruler and deliverer with the help of the angel who appeared to him in the bush. It even becomes more explicit because we know from the unfolding of the scripture this angel was the pre-incarnated Christ. We see the rejection of Israel towards their ultimate appointed redeemer and ruler, even in their history. So, their rejection and crucifixion of Him was just a manifestation of that ongoing pattern. When they rejected the messenger of the Lord, they were rejecting the Lord. They were rejecting the God who was there to aid Moses who was none other than the ultimate redeemer God would provide. Verses 36-43 relate to the third period of Moses life, the 40 years in the wilderness. We covered the first 40 years in Egypt, the point that he wanted to focus on the revelation of God to Moses, the end of the 40 years in Midian and the rejection of this divinely selected, divinely appointed redeemer and deliverer, you note the Sanhedrin are sitting, listening and they can’t reject or deny anything that Steven is saying. So now the wilderness years, forty years, verse 36, “This man led them out, performing wonders and signs in the land of Egypt and in the Red Sea and in the wilderness for forty years.” Verses 36-38 talk about the leadership of Moses the connection with that wilderness experience naturally it begins in Egypt we are told it’s a forty-year period in the end of verse 36. He led them out, and in this context, performing wonders and signs in the land of Egypt with the plagues that came on Egypt. The signs and wonders continued, the events of the Red Sea as it parted for Israel them closed back over the armies of Egypt. The signs and wonders continued through the wilderness wanderings, manna from heaven, water from the rock, and on it goes. Moses had his ministry validated by wonders and miracles, turn back to chapter 2 of Acts. Remember when Peter preached on the day of Pentecost, the first sermon in the newly stablished church and in verse 22 he said, “Men of Israel, listen to these words: Jesus the Nazarene, a man attested to you by God with miracles and wonders and signs which God performed through Him in you midst,” you see that ultimate ruler and redeemer that God provided, his ministry validated by signs wonders and miracles was rejected by Israel, but that’s the same thing they did with Moses. There divinely appointed ruler and redeemer who performs signs and wonders beginning in Egypt and continuing over that 40-year period. Yet come back to chapter 7. Continuing, this Moses, remember Stephen has been charged with blasphemy against Moses and against the law. Verse 37, “This is the Moses,” the one who delivered Israel, the one who did signs and wonders. “This is the Moses who said to the sons of Israel, ‘God shall raise up for you a prophet like me from your brethren.’” Now you can see the noose is tightening so to speak. The Sanhedrin sits and listens they’re reminded that God supernaturally appeared to Moses removed outside the land of Canaan as an alien. Appointed Him as a divine deliverer and redeemer, validated his ministry with signs wonders and miracles, this Moses had spoke of a coming prophet who would be like Moses. Who would be the ultimate redeemer of Israel. Their Messiah and ruler Moses spoke of Him in Deuteronomy chapter 18. You can see they had to be squirming. This is not the first time they heard this sermon. Back up to chapter 3. Peter’s second sermon was delivered to the same body. The Sanhedrin of Israel. He challenged them and confronted them, verse 14 of chapter 3, you disowned the holy and righteous one. You put to death the prince of life, the one that God raised up. He called on them in verse 19, “Therefore repent and return, so that your sins may be wiped away” Verse 22, “Moses said, ‘The Lord God shall raise up for you a prophet like me from your brethren; to him you shall give heed to everything He says to you. And it will be that every soul that does not heed that prophet shall be utterly destroyed from among the people.” That’s part of the record in Deuteronomy 18 verses 15, verses 18 and 19. Not only the prophecy of a coming prophet, but the prophecy of coming judgement and destruction on all, who do not submit to him. Peter went on to tell them all the prophets had testified the same thing. Now the Sanhedrin sit and hear the sermon again from Stephen. Reminded what Moses, their great deliverer and redeemer had prophesied a coming prophet and they all knew that they also prophesied judgement and destruction on any who rebelled or rejected that coming prophet. Back in chapter 7, verse 38 “This is the one” referring to Moses, “who was in the congregation in the wilderness together with the angel who was speaking to him on Mount Sinai, and who was with our fathers; and he received living oracles to pass on to you.” You know what Stephen is saying. That truth revealed to Moses on Sinai. That truth concerning a coming prophet was a living truth. Because it was the Word of God, and the Word of God is a living and active as Hebrews 4:12 says. You know he’s telling this word that Moses received on Sinai is living, it’s alive for you today. This is not just dead historical facts; this is living truth. Driving home the point that the prophet has come. This truth is alive, it’s for you, and it was for them. He received living oracles that pass on to you. It was for those people then; it was for you today. Received it from the angel who is speaking with him, who would be through his incarnation at Bethlehem, the prophet who was prophesied. Remarkable the continuity, the revelation that God gives of himself, but note the contrast in verse 39, “Our fathers were unwilling to be obedient to him but repudiated him and in their hearts turn back to Egypt.” You see the striking start contrast now he has drawn. The Sanhedrin are boxed in what can they say? Indeed, we revere Moses, there accusing Stephen of blaspheming against Moses, but you understand Moses received living oracles on the Mountain on Sinai that you so revere you accuse me of blasphemy against the law, but you know what he received? A promise there would be coming a coming prophet and a warning of the danger of rejecting the coming prophet. These were living oracles giving to pass on to you, because the coming of that prophet was in there days. Our fathers were unwilling to be obedient to Moses. They repudiated him in verse 39, that word translated repudiated, look back in verse 27. “But the one who was injuring his neighbor pushed him away,” Remember when Israel rejected Moses after 40 years in Egypt, Moses 40 years in Egypt and he came to be their deliverer they wouldn’t have anything to do with him that verb translated, pushed away, is the same verb translated repudiated in verse 39. Remember it meant they completely rejected him; they were unwilling to have anything to do with him. So that attitude of Israel has continued, the attitude that was reflected prior to his 40 years in Midian was reflected in Israel. Through their 40 years of the wilderness wonderings, the repudiated him. They rejected him. Alright, where does it go from there? They manifest their rejection in verses 39-43. Talk about their rebellion in the wilderness. The end of verse 39, “in their hearts they turned back to Egypt,” you ought to have that underlined, that’s the foundational problem. This is the issue. They have revelation from God they have a redeemer sent from God, but their hearts are in Egypt. They do not believe their hearts are in Egypt, you remember the refrain in the wilderness, “oh, that we had never flesh pots of Egypt. Oh, life was so good in Egypt,” and they are going through the motions, physically of following God’s redeemer, but their hearts are in Egypt, in their hearts they turn back Egypt. They manifest it. They said to Aaron. “Make for us gods who will go before us, for this Moses who let us out of the land of Egypt we do not know what happened to him.” You know manifest the condition of their heart Moses out of sight, out of mind. He went up on Sinai. He’s there for an extended period of time, not five years, we’re talking about forty days. That’s long enough, we don’t know what happened to him. We don’t see him anymore. You see their problem. Soon as Moses is out of sight, they’re looking for something they can hold onto. They’re ready for an idol. They do not want to worship the living God by faith in their hearts, so in verse 40, “saying to Aaron, ‘make for us gods who will go before us; for this Moses who led us out of the land of Egypt-we do not know what happened to him.’ At that time, they made a calf and brought a sacrifice to the idol,’” Now note this “’and were rejoicing in the works of their hands.’” You know the pressures off. They were people who in their hearts would have rather been in Egypt. Had not trusted the living God. But there in the presence of a God who is revealing himself, in the presence of the deliverer and redeemer that God has provided, and it is an unbearable burden. Soon as they think they can be free of their deliverer, as soon as they can create their own god, oh it’s like a breath of fresh air. My heart is liberating. They’re rejoicing. You know we sometimes act like “oh boy people, they’ve turned away from the Lord they’re going to be miserable.” You know when they’ve turned away from the Lord it may be the happiest day of their physical life. It’s a terrible burden to sit under the truth of God, to try and conform and go through the motions of religious worship and obedience, but your heart is in Egypt. You know they don’t abandon religious activity; they don’t abandoned worship, they just want to get away from the confines of God’s deliverer, the confines of God’s revelation. Now we got the kind of religious activity and the kind of worship we can really rejoice. You tell me that kind of paganism hasn’t continued to our day. That’s what happened in Israel. They don’t abandon religion, they don’t abandoned worship, they’ve just been liberated from the confines of the living God and His truth. They are rejoicing in the work of their hand. Got to be surprised people don’t want to sit under the ministry of truth. Now, wherever it is, this church or another church, people find it a burden, I remember hearing the testimony of someone who had left. What did they say, “I felt like a burden had been removed.” Couldn’t understand, I’ve never been in their home. I wasn’t around watching them, micromanaging their lives. As far as I know the only exposure, they ever had to me was when they came and heard me preach. But somehow a burden was lifted. They were free, you understand the Lord leads people to other churches for a variety of reason’s they go, but I can’t understand, that the ministry of truth is a burden to my heart. Unless I look at Israel and say why was having Moses as their deliverer, who had the presence of the pre-incarnate Christ with him, and the living oracles of God entrusted to them. Why was that a burden? Because their hearts were back in Egypt. They did not believe. Verse 42, “But God turned away and delivered them up to serve the host of heaven;” awful words you ought to have them underlined or highlighted in your bible. “But God turned away and delivered them up to serve the host of heaven;” and remember Romans chapter 1? Those who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, God gave them over to their sinful desire. There’s a judgement and punishment of God that He turns men over to their false worship, to the pursuits of their sin. To serving the gods of their own hand. The sinful desires of their own hearts. As it is written in the book of the prophets and in the Jewish Old Testament, the twelve prophets we call the Minor Prophets were collected in one book. The book of the prophets refers to what we call the Minor Prophets. And he quotes from Amos chapter 5 verses 25-27 with a couple of corrections or alterations to make it more applicable and his Jewish listeners understand that, and you will as we walk through it. Where Amos had said “It was not to me” God is speaking through that prophet, “That you offered victims and sacrifices forty years in the wilderness, was it, O house of Israel?” Shocking. Here we’re told by Amos and is repeated by Stephen the whole 40 years wilderness wondering with a time of apostasy and idolatry. As a people who did not believe in the living God and who had rejected Him, followed the lust and desires of their own hearts. They offered sacrifices. They went through all of that, but their heart was in Egypt remember. God says it wasn’t to me you were offering these, you offered sacrifices, you did the motions, but it wasn’t me you were really offering sacrifices to. “You also took along the tabernacle of Moloch and the star of the God Rompha, the images which you made to worship. I also will remove you beyond Babylon.” When Amos said it, he said he said I will remove you beyond Damascus. Not Babylon because you see Amos wrote in anticipation of the Syrian captivity. Under the direction of the Spirit, Stephen simply modernizes it. Because their rebellious rejection of God not only results in the Syrian captivity it resulted in the Babylonian captivity and that was the history of Israel. Moloch, these are they worship the heavenly bodies, Moloch was a god of the Ammonites also known as the Venus star. Rompha, was a Babylonian name for Venus and Saturn. They joined in worshiping the heavenly bodies, the adopted the practices of the pagans. That began in Egypt, the wilderness wonderings and continued right down to the Babylonian captivity, which dealt with idolatry in its general forms. Stephen really is going to turn around and we see this even more specifically when he talks about the temple. Where he is going next. Then really Israel just made an idol out of the land and the temple. So, they didn’t have these particular gods any longer the Babylonian captivity did away with the gods they carved and molded. But this didn’t change the idolatry of their hearts. They really worshiped the land and the building. Because in their hearts, they did not worship and trust the true and living God. What a sad testimony of the history of God’s people Israel and we’re not done. A history of continued rebellion and rejection of God. I want you to turn to the book of Hebrew’s chapter 3 as we close. Because the writer of the book of Hebrew’s takes this same account of the rebellion of Israel in the wilderness and applies it to his readers. In Hebrew’s chapter 3, look at verse 12, “Take care, brethren” He’s writing to Jews who have professed faith in Christ, but something is wrong, because some of them are contemplating a return back from Christ to Judaism. Just like the Jews in the wilderness, their hearts back in Egypt. He’s concerned. “Take care, brethren, that there not be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God.” Then some exhortation. Verse 16, “For who provoked Him when they had heard? Indeed, did not all those who came out of Egypt led by Moses? And with whom was He angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? And to whom did He swear that they would not enter His rest, but to those who were disobedient? So, we see that they were not able to enter” talking about the rest, the promise land of Cannon, “because of unbelief.” Same thing Stephen said. Their heart was in Egypt. They had a heart of unbelief. Therefore, “let us fear, lest while the promise remains of entering His rest.” I take it the promise of Salvation, any one of you should seem to have come short of it. For indeed we have had the good news preached to us just as they did also. They had revelation from God, the living oracles. Even as we do, but the word they heard did not prophet them, because it was not united by faith in those who heard. You see the confidence and trust of their heart was not in the living God of Israel, it was in the land of Canaan. It was in the temple as a center of worship. They really had a heart of unbelief as regards salvation, by faith in the living God. The writer to the Hebrew’s says that is a sin that can be perpetuated right to our day. I dare say the average Catholic or Protestant just limited to the sphere. In church today is confident, his being in church assures his salvation, they may even read scripture, what more could you want we read scripture, we worshiped, how dare you say that I am not saved? It’s an afront. You want to stir anger, challenge them, that being in church, being a Catholic, and being a variety of Protestant will not get you to heaven. Does not mean you sins are forgiven; you find people can get angry pretty quickly. You want to find the Sanhedrin can get enraged pretty quickly. Why? They have a heart of unbelief. What is Stephen doing? He’s closing them in. The knife of scripture is cutting to the heart. This group of religious people is starting to see on the inside as the Word of God does its work, and it is revealed that hearing the living oracles of God does not mean you have a relationship with the living God. That being in a certain place at a certain time, does not mean you have a relationship with the living God. The Word of God must be united with faith in your heart. And that is not tied to a certain place at a certain time. It could happen to Joseph in Egypt, it could happen to Moses in Midian, it could happen to Israel in the wilderness. Now wherever it happens the key issue is you must believe the truth. You understand what we’re saying? You can come to this church all 40 years of your life to compare it to the life of the Israelites in the wilderness. You can hear the living oracles of the Word of God, you can go through the motions involved in worship, but it is no prophet to you, if it’s not untied by faith in your heart. You are doomed to destruction. Our fallen sinful hearts easily make a transition, I go to that place, I hear that message, therefore I am alright, I am saved. The message of God is you can go to certain place, you can hear even the living oracles of God, but if it is not united by faith in your heart, you have no relationship with God. You will not enter the rest of God apart from faith in your heart in the truth. Thank you, Lord, for the history of your people, Lord we are grieved to read the history of rebellion and rejection, continued down through the centuries of time. O Lord we are grieved as we have passed the millennium and see the same rebellion and rejection occur. May it be impressed upon our hearts that we must believe in you and the revelation you’ve given of yourself. God forbid that our confidence and trust should be in this building, this organization, baptism or communion or service or giving. Lord may our worship come from our hearts because we have trusted you and the revelation you have given concerning your Son who loved us and died for us. A complete confidence for time and eternity is in you. Praise you in Christ’s name. Amen.