Satan’s Blunder (Part A)

Remember that he is God the Holy Spirit. He is not coequal with us. Just because he chooses to be with us permitting false doctrine or moral evil to go on address. This is how we quench the spirit and in a church can continue to say if the church when it has very little interest in what the Holy Spirit is doing and it just seems to want to tell people all the positive things about what's going to happen to them. This is cross reference radio with our pastor and teacher Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the book of acts. Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about cross reference radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching, but for now let's join Pastor Rick in the book of acts chapter 7 as he begins his message Satan's blunder. We will start at verse 51 you stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and years. You always resist the Holy Spirit as your fathers did, so you which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute and they killed those who foretold the coming of the just one of whom you now have become the betrayers and murderers who have received the law by the direction of angels and have not kept it when they heard these things, they were cut to heart and they gnashed at him with their teeth. But he, being full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God, and said look I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God. Then they cried out with a loud voice, stop their ears, and ran at him with one accord, and they cast him out of the city, and stoned him and the witnesses laid down their clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul and they stoned Stephen as he was calling on God and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. Then he knelt down and cried out with a loud voice, Lord, do not charge them with this sin and when he had said this, he fell asleep.

That's Christianity and action unleashed that angelic face though did not save him from the stoning, but it sure blesses us. He was preaching to those who were fanatics. What made them fanatics was that they had become willfully blind to what God was doing their religion blocked God out there that can happen, we are well, if you are surprised by that, then you are a novice when it comes to Christianity, but if you been around the faith a while and you've been around your Scripture you know that this is not something that is uncommon or unheard-of, and they had put themselves against God's son, the Messiah, when they had no excuse they pretended to be devoted to God and their scripture but they weren't paying attention to what the Scripture was saying question to we Christians do we know of Christians and we have to ask ourselves the same question, do we know of Christians who claim to love God but pay no attention to the Bible.

Pay no attention to the New Testament, I have come across them. They think that somehow their passion makes up for disobedience or for ignorance and it does not, Satan would use those things against us, Peter, and years later writing to Christians brings this up he says the chief cornerstone's Christ. They should've recognized him. There's no excuse to cornerstone at but you know a little, all by itself distinguished it from everything else. Then he set a stone of stumbling a rock of offense, they stumbled being disobedient to the word to which they were appointed just as it's mind-boggling how how could they have the Scriptures pour over the Scriptures so much and still not get it.

So it is possible that you put all of us on the alert. They say he learned that some sort of thing that hides in the closet is an e-learning alert. Stephen wasn't having it. He just missed you know the spirit surges up.

It was in the spirit of set up what you people. It wasn't that, but he was fed up with the lies and he gave them the truth, and it is startling and it is alarming how many professed Christians cave into the culture. We've always done it. But now more than ever, it seems, especially our youth, Satan is trying to pick them off to recruit them to convert them and they go to church and I think that you know they're being loving when they're putting up with the enemies doctrines and teachings and the enemy is getting to spread their propaganda. Christianity remained silence in the face of this, if there if you listening online or maybe here in the church are later on your face with friends in a sexually perverted culture you roving with them without standing against sin. This is becoming more and more of a problem of trying to you know make them feel comfortable while they are making you uncomfortable doing that by having you be silent concerning this and for example I stand in the pulpit and I tell you right out that the Bible says homosexuality is a sin dealing is a sin.

Lying is a sin, but today if you say that there are some that go to church then want to hear that they think it's unloving to tell the truth. Stephen was not on loving you just giving them God's word. What God was doing and if you're holding back the truth from people who desperately needed your your being more cowardly and compromised and converted than anything else. This leads to many people fussing at the pastors fraternizing with the enemy comes with consequence, you cannot get too chummy with those who are blatantly engrossed in sin and who trample the word of God and at the same time say one being loving you turn on pastors who stand in the pulpit and tell you to your face that you are wrong. If you do these things they do they turn on us very quickly. One of the prophets are just read second Chronicles 19.

This was this is about King Jehoshaphat again.

Jehoshaphat was of the blood of the Lord. It was a good king, a righteous king but he had this thing where he had to be around bad boys and it almost cost him his life. And finally, the prophet confronts them first and second Chronicles 19, and Jay who the son of Hannah and I the seal that is a prophet, went out to meet him. That is the King Jehoshaphat and said to King Jehoshaphat, should you help the wicked, and love those who hate the Lord.

Therefore, the wrath of the Lord is upon you.

This is not changed, but considering this atomic sermon that Stephen is giving is that he wasn't making anybody feel comfortable in their rejection of Jesus Christ and to attack him and make him the bad guy in this is to do the devils work yet it happens Jesus with his estimate of Sims to cross dire, cruel and shameful death, but he felt it was worth in Hebrews 12 two looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. So here is Stephen he is sealing his loyalty to Christ with his blood. These lessons are preserved for all of us. And if you are upholding the faith. If you're not fraternizing with a perverted culture.

You still have to stand guard that you do not become self-righteous that we do not become wrongfully judge mental. We have to be careful that we do love but love does not mean we withhold God's word. So with that brief introduction introduction, we look at verse 51 and there he says you stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and years. You always resist the Holy Spirit as your fathers did, so do you. There's no way to make that sound nice maybe became a British accent. It would soften it a little bit but but this is what it is.

It is not tactful and how many would be offended.

Well, it's how you set it nevermind how I said it. What I said is true or not, was a shoe fit or not. That is the bottom line because that will not be a defense when you stand before the throne of God. What was how those Christian said because the fact is the guilty who want to remain guilty. No matter how you say it will receive. There is a time to present the gospel in a very soft way, and there is a time to use it as a hammer. It is not by accident, the word of God is referred to as a sword, but it is also light.

It is also sweet as honey in the Holy Spirit will lead us. Stephen used God's word that condemned the wilderness generation because of their unbelief and is using it on his accusers. Now remember, he never went into onto defense. At no point is he defending himself. He went straight on the attack to this is what we believe this is why we believe it. You should believe it.

This is why you're missing it and this is why it's inexcusable. Says that they are as much against God as though at as those who God condemned in the desert and is just getting warmed up. Profit motors activated in this man. Christianity makes a disturbance when it tells the truth about a world that is in sin. It rocks the boat of an antichrist culture in any age. And we should understand that as a me were looking to be offensive when we go out, which is not backing down. We you know the police. The police come back down you think this is okay you know… Go away on this call. More of them and they just keep coming.

We we want them to be that way if the good people do or what about we Christians we got JUST go away just change what I believe because you don't like it because you going to put pressure on me you younger Christians learn how to stand up what you believes in him that is what I believe I know what you believe and I don't believe that I will share that this is what I believe and I will not be moved from it by you or anybody else I find that to be a great motivator. Churchgoers can destroy their own influence simply by getting too cozy with the world.

We want to tell the truth anymore. There's always something to fight for.

There's always something to die for. But Satan has the same teaching for his side also consider the abortion activists, especially nowadays, many of them there ready to die for their cause. Look at they don't care about the innocent unborn. They certainly don't care about those reliving either were opposed to them. So to match this we have to know what uniform we wear, and wear it proudly will be ashamed of being a Christian. I have just flip that around. All you not one maybe you should be one maybe you would be better off if you are one, but the invitation is there for you to receive Christ are free to reject him because God will respect your opinion, do you not do you want it any other way would you rather of God did not respect your opinion. Well, this this mob that he is facing is stubborn indeed. And that's what he says there stiffnecked so picture picture a year. You have got a rope on your donkey and your pulling him to go right and he's pulling back the opposite way, stiffening his neck and that is the picture that is is being given to us here, but let's not confuse determination for stubbornness determination works to achieve the right course.

Stubbornness works to continue on the wrong course. That's the big difference when God says there stiffnecked. He says you know what is right because I've told you Stephen is doing the same thing you have the word of God and you still ignore what it is saying in favor of your traditions and religion so to say. You know he is so unloving in this message. Read the sermon of Stephen Regis this section, we stood up and read just a moment ago from 51 to 60.

How many people would accuse him of being on loving and yet how much food came out of the sermon.

Satan thinks he's God when they kill Stephen. He says we've got him and it was a blunder on his part will come to that soon so you know there's a nice section in second Peter for those of you who are churchgoers which you really think the gospel is to throw paper tigers that people are just something that's there's no consequence involved. Just consider Peter in the second letter he says EEs Hess widow, I begin verse four. For God did not spare the angels sin, but cast them down to hell and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved for judgment and did not spare the ancient city the ancient world would save no one of eight people, a preacher of righteousness that Noah continues bringing in the flood on the world of the ungodly and turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes condemned them to destruction, making them an example to those who afterword would live ungodly that were in the Applewood state is not finished yet Peter does Vicki continue the says and delivered righteous Lot, who was oppressed by the filthy conduct of the wicked, righteous Lot.

If your lot made so many blunders if he could understand that there is a such thing as consequence to iniquity, and we are also I don't know maybe you maybe you say yeah right on. I see it to. Maybe you don't. Maybe. Maybe you don't see that our teams are particularly our teens and our young adults trying to find something that is salvageable about the other side, the sexually perverted culture. This broken wall generation have nothing to offer you, but hell, and you've gotta be able to identify that put your uniform in front of them wear it in front of them. As for me and my house we don't believe this stuff say, but they might turn on me while the Nubian Stevens company, will you not Christ will stand to receive you as a student to receive Stephen.

He says to them you always resist the Holy Spirit, may it not be us three ways in which the Holy Spirit can be opposed that are outstanding in our New Testament play can be resisted as is here. Sinners resist the Holy Spirit's stiff arm him get back get away. Keep your spiritual distance from me. It can be grieved, as were told and asked Ephesians 430.

That one is for believers not so much for unbelievers.

Grieve, as a loving word you grieve over someone that you love someone that stands in a special and close relationship to you, Holy Spirit has that relationship with believers that he can be grieved, and I think he is grieved when we take the word of God, we hide it because we want to fit in. We don't want to be offensive.

The Christian message is offensive to sinners. Well, I was a sinner.

Apart from Christ I heard the Christian message. I was given a choice by Christ to submit to him or to resist him while I submitted so I don't buy that argument that which too harsh of a message.

It is an ultimatum. The Christian message is an ultimatum, take it or leave it, but this is the gospel. This is the consequence of not receiving it. The Holy Spirit can be quenched. This again belongs to believers, especially an assembly as were told in first Thessalonians. A church can quench the Holy Spirit. I love the background noise. This is the kind of sermon you preach during a thunderstorm. I didn't choose at England whether Lewis the weather going to be Sunday I'll preach on this. Thank you, Lord, right. So now that we have your attention coming back to this church can quench the Holy Spirit by allowing men to usurp the authority of the Holy Spirit. How does the church to usurp his authority by refusing to be led by refusing to submit to refusing to remember that he is God the Holy Spirit.

He is not coequal with us. Just because he chooses to be with us permitting false doctrine or moral evil to go unaddressed. This is how we quench the spirit and in a church can continue to say if the church when it has very little interest in what the Holy Spirit is doing and it just seems to want to tell people all the positive things about what's going to happen to them. Well, that wouldn't work if you gave Stephen that kind of sermon the day before. He stood before this crowd always going to be okay. Stephen they're going to love what you have to say just preach nice things okay.

Well, he didn't preach nice things from hell standpoint verse 52. Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute and they kill those who foretold the coming of the just one, of whom you now have become the betrayers and murderers pages loose on them. Atomic well if you think I'm being harsh UA to see what happens in hell. That's number one and number two find if you like my comments about this, read the section on your own. You tell me if you can downsize what he is saying what part of when Stephen says which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute, and then he says you killed Christ first Thessalonians chapter 2 Paul writing to new Christians for you, brethren, became imitators of the churches of God which are in Judea in Christ Jesus for you also suffered the same things from your own countrymen, just as they did from the Judeans who killed both the Lord Jesus and their own prophets and persecuted us, and they do not please God and are contrary to all men. Paul wrote that Paul is standing in this crowd listening to Stephen and guards the garments of those who were hurling stones at Stephen and yet and yet he becomes a preacher of the things Stephen preached what a blunder on Hells part thinking that they shut Christianity down by shutting down this atomic preacher backfired. God saw the religious habitually killing the righteous. He sees he sought this to happen all through his history. The Spanish Inquisition also was never been on many others that just one of religious people killing righteous people world has no idea how much it owes righteous people.

It has no idea there be no Red Cross if it were for Christians, just for an example Salvation Army. I mean, when these institutions came up.

They were they were dynamos of eventually the leaven gets in and then it becomes another thing but their fathers killed the ones who prophesied a man I was a they kill the Messiah.

This not a me, how was the sermon today. Lightning thunderous was man read verse 53. And if you're if you have not received pricing your here. I think you got some incentive to reconsider and notice the punctuation to certain points anyway. Verse 53 who have not received the law by the direction of angels and have not kept it well.

In other words, the Christianity is a spiritual feature that belongs to all of what we have going all the way back to the days of Adam and even to the end and that's where the Angels come in God employ them doesn't give us details. Suffice it to say it's it's echoed throughout New Testament and Old Testament ally Stephen pulled their religious arrogance into the light. He is there messenger all Stephen your sub negative said the man that was, Joe. I would appreciate a lightning and thunder my jokes to just to balance it out make me feel good about myself the casino anyway. We are not to make people feel comfortable in church so long as they are comfortable with sin, and I think a lot of Christians think that were supposed to do that. The apostles did for a while.

Would Christ larger offending them is what I'm trying to do because that's what has to happen if they're going to be saved but got to feel the sting of guilt before God as they will turn to you know do you know anyone who does wrong and will not listen to any you can't reach them is you know you have any friends. Well there because they're all nuts. Well maybe maybe maybe it's you I don't hear that well then nothing changes so that it could be that way with us. I I have to you know, listen to myself because I don't want listen anybody else but the dogs I mean sometimes. I've said this before, God speaks to me through people from time to time in the flock, usually not when they think their they're trying to tell your pastor you should do this and that I don't get that too much anymore, but sometimes someone will say something and it will be God really know that they did it, but I do remember one one person sit when you read the Scripture versus Canyon can you slow down a little bit.

I said no and from your he was right. You've been listening to cross reference radio daily radio ministry pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel in Mechanicsville, Virginia. As we mentioned at the beginning of today's broadcast. Today's teaching is available free of charge at our website. Simply visit cross reference radio.com that's cross reference radio.com would also like to encourage you to subscribe to the cross reference radio podcast subscribing ensures that you stay current with all the latest teachings from Pastor Rick you could subscribe cross reference radio.com or simply search for cross reference radio your favorite podcast to the next time as Pastor Rick continues teaching through the book of acts right here on cross reference radio