Acts 7:35-43 This Moses whom they refused, saying, Who made you a ruler and a judge?… I. The REJECTED OF MEN WAS IN EACH CASE THE HONOURED OF GOD. The Israelites refused Moses as their ruler and judge; and God sent him as ruler and as emancipator to the people. Moses went into exile, and there was honored by a revelation of the glory of God; and with a special mission Jesus had been slain in Jerusalem, and in that very city had come back in the power of the Spirit, to clothe the disciples with fiery eloquence, to vibrate through their hearts with power, and to put forth mighty power to heal through their means - thus being proved Leader and Savior of the people. Human blindness and folly only bring a new reaction of the power and mercy of God. So often with us all. We resist the leading thoughts of the day. We hate the new truth which brings change with it, the fresh revelation which calls us to larger freedom. We think to silence the new teacher by contempt. But lo! in some unexpected quarter power breaks forth to seal the teacher and his message, and we are silenced. II. THE CAREER OF MOSES AND THE CORRESPONDENCE IN THAT OF CHRIST. Grandly the figure of the desert lawgiver rises before us in the sketch of Stephen. 1. His mighty works. Those in Egypt, when he outdid the profound magicians, and established the supremacy of Jehovah over Pharaoh and all the gods of Egypt, were one of the originating causes of Israel's freedom. The memory of those deeds lived in the heart, could never be forgotten. They laid the foundation stones of the great structure of their history. So did Jesus lay the foundation of his kingdom in works, the power of which and the purport of which he could appeal to as evidence of his Divine mission. 2. His prophetic forecast and its fulfillment. The memorable prophecy of the great Teacher to come, found in the Book of Deuteronomy, was one of Israel's lights shining in a dark place. Though Stephen does not identify the prophet to come with Jesus in so many words, his meaning is evident to all the Sanhedrim. Was there a hint in that prediction which was wanting in the actual character of Jesus? And if the Sanhedrim had rejected him, how could they fail to incur the judgment threatened in that great passage of the Law? Some of the later parables of Jesus (as that of the wicked husbandmen) were also, perhaps, fresh in the recollection of many. Thus did the lines of ancient and recent evidence converge upon the present, and give to it a solemn significance. 3. The renewed contrast of the divinely accepted and the humanly rejected. (Vers. 38, 39.) Moses was the channel of ancient revelation. He received loving words to give to the people. And Jesus had said that the words he spake were not his, but the words of him that sent him. Yet Israel in the desert and Israel now were found alike unwilling to obey. The Divine presence was manifestly with Moses. In the desert the angel of God was ever at his side. So had it been with Jesus. Had not one of this very Sanhedrim confessed to Jesus that God must be with him, seeing the works that he did? Yet both Moses and Jesus had been rejected. And in both cases, when the voice of God said, "Forward!" the heart of Israel turned back. In the one case they longed for the comfort and the luxury of Egypt, in the other for the sensual joys of an earthly kingdom. Better to retain power and position than to go on the idle chase after the ideal and the spiritual; so the low mind, the carnal heart, argues in every age. It was the choice of the flesh and the denial of the Spirit that was in each case the cure of the sin, as it is everywhere and always. 4. The lapse into idolatry. The worship of a visible form is far easier than the lifting of the spirit to an invisible God. Idolatry is the making to one's self a god; spiritual religion is the constant exertion to rise to him who cannot be reproduced in finite forms of the intelligence or of art. The element of self-denial or of self-pleasing predominates in each and every form of worship. An upward and a downward movement is always proceeding in the religious life of a people. Some are ever trying to bring God into the service of their passions and interests; while true religion tries to mould all life into conformity with God's will. Idolatry brings penal consequences. Men are given up to their hearts' desire. The moral nerve decays. Spiritual energy being lost, they become weak in the presence of their enemies. Those touches of reminiscence from the past were enough to touch tender chords in the minds of Stephen's hearers. Well they knew idolatry had been the curse of the nation. Defeat, slavery, exile, - all came in its train. All might be traced back to the bitter root of disobedience, as that to unbelief in the living God. And what if now a similar vista of calamity were opening; if history were to repeat itself, and disobedience to the voice from heaven in Jesus should lead to a final downfall? Our history mirrors our sins and our mistakes. If we do not heed its warnings, nothing can avert our fate. No act of disobedience to conscience has passed unpunished in our lives. The worst of madness is deliberately to repeat old errors and stereotype our moral failures. If the ghosts of the past, as they appear in memory and reflection, do not deter us, what will or can? - J. Parallel Verses KJV: This Moses whom they refused, saying, Who made thee a ruler and a judge? the same did God send to be a ruler and a deliverer by the hand of the angel which appeared to him in the bush. |
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