Morning, brothers.
As we come again to look into the Lord’s precious Word, we remember that principle of Bible study that is absolutely indispensable, a principle that we cannot lay aside. We cannot do without it. And that is total reliance upon God’s Holy Spirit.
How thankful we are that He has given us His Spirit in order that we might know the mind of Christ, have the mind of Christ. He searches the depths of God, and He reveals it unto us by His life.
Before we pray together, let me share this verse from Psalm 97. Psalm 97:11:
Light is sown for the righteous,
And gladness for the upright in heart.
And I just love that expression: light is sown, and gladness is sown. Light and gladness are connected together there.
You know, we say, “Whatever man sows, that he shall reap.” That is true in kind, but it is not true in degree. You never reap what you sow in degree. You always reap more than you sow. You sow a seed and you reap a field. That is positive or negative. You sow the wind, you reap the whirlwind, the prophet says.
I just think it is precious that God wants to give us light, but not just a ray of light. He wants to sow light like seed, so that we will have a harvest of light. And with light, He said gladness.
I wonder this morning if we can ask the Lord, not merely, “Give us light,” but, “Sow light like seed, and gladness for the upright in heart,” so that we might have the harvest of all that revelation means. So let us trust the Lord together as He desires to sow light like seed.
Father, we thank You so much that we can come as Your children and just call upon You to perform what You have covenanted with us and promised. We ask in a real way that this morning You would sow light like seed, and that You would sow gladness like seed.
We praise You, Lord, for our union with You: that we are not like some branch leaning against a tree, or glued to a tree, or tied to a tree, or even nailed to a tree. But, Lord, we are a branch united with our Lord Jesus Christ. Your very life and sap, vitality, is our life and sap and vitality and fruit.
So this morning we trust in You, and we ask You, Lord, to do what You delight to do and put the light upon our Lord Jesus. Help us, as we come to the end of our meditations, to tie all these things together and clinch them in our hearts, we pray.
Sow light like seed, we ask, because our Lord Jesus deserves it, and we claim it in His all-prevailing name. Amen.
I ask you to turn, please, to Acts 7 again.
Let me give you the sense of my heart this morning before we actually begin to look in the Word. In 2000, I had the privilege of having a massive heart attack. After that experience, many saints came up to me and said, “What did you learn of the Lord through that? What great light did God give you through that experience?”
To be very honest with you, brothers, none. I did not get—I thought I would get a new revelation of the Lord. I think some of you know that I have struggled with seeing the Lord in Timothy. So, in my recovery room, the first thing I did was ask for a Bible, and I thought He spared me to give me some light on Timothy. But that did not happen.
Anyway, what He gave me was confirmation. I received confirmation. I had believed before my heart attack certain truths, but after that, I saw those truths, and I believed in a fresh way.
I believe this morning that that is what God has laid on my heart: to share with you some confirming truths. I really do not believe that there is anything I am going to say today that you have not heard many, many times before. But I am praying that God will confirm it.
As we look for the revelation of Christ concerning the hour of death, may God confirm in our hearts all that we know is true. We do not always need a new revelation. Sometimes we just need to be quickened. I am trusting the Lord to quicken your hearts and confirm some of these things that we already know.
As we come in our study to this last look at God’s servant Stephen, we have looked at the contribution he makes to the history of redemption. God graced him to be the first to discover who he was in Christ. He was the first to discover where he was—where his life really was—in heavenly places.
God not only opened his eyes to show him, as an individual, who he was and where he was, but He opened his eyes wider. Stephen saw the broader picture: he saw the church, the invisible church. He saw that God is not limited in His methods, His time, or His place. He cannot be nailed to a place or to a building. Everywhere He appears to His people, that is holy ground.
He saw that the church is a spiritual church, that the changes taking place in that church are redemptive changes, that all believers are on the same ground, and that there is a universal priesthood of all believers.
Because of that vision, Stephen stood under an open heaven, beheld an exalted Savior, identified with that Savior, and was transformed by that vision. Because of that vision, he was able to have a victorious Christian life, and he was able now to have a victorious death.
This morning, I would like to look at that last part: that vision Stephen had is unqualifiedly enough to sustain me, you, us, in the hour of death. We can have a triumphant death.
Now, let me make a couple of observations that I think will prepare us for looking at this subject of victorious dying. It is an issue that some Christians do not like to talk about. Back home, this is one of my favorite themes. I just love to talk about this. But I do not always find that kindred spirit when I want to share some of these things.
But I think especially in a group like this, I have heard so much talk about overcomers. You know, if you do not die, you cannot overcome it. So I think that is part of overcoming. Well, that is not one hundred percent true, because we have already overcome death, have we not? In the Person of Jesus Christ, our Substitute. And so I know that is the fact.
You have all heard this expression, I am sure: “If the Lord tarries, we will do this or that.” That is not my favorite expression. I do not really care for that. I like, “If the Lord wills, we shall do this or that.” I find some Scripture for that.
It is interesting that, in terms of the Lord’s return, the only time the word tarry is used in the Bible is in Hebrews 10:37. It says:
Yet in a very little while,
He that cometh shall come, and shall not tarry.
So the only time tarry is used, it says He is not going to tarry. It does not say, “If the Lord tarries.”
All things being equal, I am quite sure that we are all going to die, if the Lord wills. You know what I am saying. There is a possibility that we are the generation that will not die, and I do not know about that. But probably we are all going to die.
So do not take life too seriously. You are not getting out alive. We are all going to have to die. How can we then have a victorious death?
The way God has written this record seems to me to be an invitation to all Christians to contemplate the Christian in the hour of his death. As far as the record goes, except for our Lord Jesus Himself, there is no other death laid out like the death of Stephen. It is the greatest record we have in the New Testament.
It is almost like the Holy Spirit is saying, “Study this. Someday you will be there. Study this.”
As Stephen was royal in his life, we have the record that he was royal in his death as well.
Death is man’s most unsolvable problem. Life is full of problems, as you know. They come in all kinds and all shapes and all sizes. Some problems have simple solutions. Some problems have complicated solutions. Some problems have yet to receive their solutions. But as far as the greatest problem is concerned, it is death. There is no solution to that apart from God’s revelation of Himself.
Add to that the fact that Stephen died a martyr’s death—a violent death. There are three kinds of martyrs mentioned in the Bible.
There is one kind like the apostle John. He was willing to be a martyr. He was a witness, but he never got the chance; he did not become a martyr. I suspect this room is filled with that kind of martyr—heart martyrs. You have identified with Christ, and if God ever called you to that, He would give the dying grace and you would be able to do that.
You cannot reason on the wrong side of grace. You cannot say, “How would I do at the stake?” because you are not there yet. If you got there, you would have the grace in order to honor the Lord in that.
Then there are martyrs like those little babies that Herod killed—those innocent babies. They were murdered as if they were Jesus, for His name, for His cause, but they did not have a will in the matter. They did not choose it. They were martyrs without the choice.
Then there is the martyr like Stephen. God bless that tribe. They were willing, and they had the privilege of dying for the name and cause of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Stephen becomes God’s illustration of someone who had victory over man’s most unsolvable problem. Because he died a violent death, it is not only victory over man’s most unsolvable problem, but victory over that problem in its most aggravated form. You have an extreme example of a victorious death in the life of Stephen.
He did not get sick. He did not grow old. He did not die of some disease. He had a very violent death. When you look at how he died and how he fell asleep in that condition, you just say, “My, it must be possible.” And possible indeed it is.
If we have the vision he had, we could have the life that he lived, and we can have the death that he died. If he had victory, then every lesser problem is included in that.
I create occasions to have favorite verses. I have favorite verses on everything. They keep changing, but it is just an excuse to have a verse sink into my soul.
At the moment, my favorite verse on victory is 1 Corinthians 15:54, just the last part of it:
Death is swallowed up in victory.
Is that not a great verse? Death is swallowed up in victory.
If you got up tomorrow morning and took the newspaper, and there was a headline that said, “Cancer is swallowed up in victory,” what would that mean? It would probably mean they found a cure for cancer. From now on, perhaps they would give you some kind of vaccine, and anybody who would have gotten cancer would not get it.
But “cancer swallowed up in victory” does not help very much those who have already had cancer. That victory only says, “From now on, there is not going to be any more suffering.” But those who have already been devastated, already been hurt, and already shed tears—that does not help them.
But death is swallowed up in victory. That is a different kind of victory, because that not only takes care of the future, but the victory Christ has given over death goes all the way back to Adam and has undone all the damage that death has ever done.
You talk about victory. That is not only victory that puts the fire out; that is victory that rebuilds the house.
The only victory that you should be enjoying, that I should be enjoying, is the kind illustrated by “death is swallowed up in victory.” Just change it to this: the most unsolvable problem is swallowed up in victory. Since death is the most unsolvable problem, then any lesser problem is swallowed up in victory.
In other words, if you have a problem, the kind of victory God wants to give you is not only an answer to that problem, but an answer that will go back and undo all the damage that that problem has ever caused. That is the kind of victory God has for you and the kind of victory God has for me. He will not only solve the problem, but He will turn the curse into a blessing.
That is the kind of victory Stephen had. It is a good chance, I would guess, that in life or in death we will never face, probably not, what Stephen faced. And God gave him victory.
Listen to Acts 7:59-60:
They went on stoning Stephen, calling upon the Lord, and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.
And he kneeled down, and cried with a loud voice, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge.
And when he had said this, he fell asleep.
Is that not beautiful? That is just so tremendous. Stephen falling asleep peacefully under a barrage of stones tells me that any Christian can have peace in the hour of death under any circumstances. That is what we would like to look at and discuss.
In order to prepare our hearts for this, I am going to ask you to turn to another passage. We are going to get to Acts, but I want you to turn to 1 Thessalonians. I have been telling you this truth all weekend in one way or another, but this passage spells it out: 1 Thessalonians 5:9-10.
For God appointed us not unto wrath, but unto the obtaining of salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ,
Who died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with Him.
Is that not a precious truth? Whether we are awake or asleep, we will live together with Him.
What is the Christian life, according to that verse? It is living together with Him. What is death, according to that verse? It is living together with Him. It is the same thing. It is exactly the same thing. Whether we are awake or whether we are asleep, the only thing that changes is the degree.
Whether we are physically alive or whether we are dead; whether we are still in this body or whether we are out of this body; whether we are still on the earth or whether we are in heaven; whether we are in time or whether we are in eternity—He died that whether we sleep or are awake, we might live together in union with Christ.
Now, if you have never had Stephen’s vision, and you do not know who you are and you do not know where your life is, then death is going to be a big change for you.
Thousands of Christians dread death. Believers are afraid to die. They dread that because they are not prepared for the change. Or else they look forward to death because they want a change. They want death to deliver them from the burden that they call the Christian life.
They have that idea expressed in the song, “I’m just a poor wayfaring stranger, traveling through this wilderness.” And that is their whole life. They have no clue. They have not seen the vision. Their life is not filled to the brim and flowing over on all sides at all times.
They think death is going to set them free from one thing in order to have something qualitatively different. Not primarily so. Not if you have Stephen’s vision and life is a heaven on earth.
To live is Christ, and to die is to gain more of Christ. That is the gain: just more of Christ. If I told a great many Christians, “What follows death is more of what you have right now,” they would say, “No. Please, that is not what I want. Do not tell me that.”
But if you have had Stephen’s vision, you understand what that point is. Salvation does not begin when you are dead and buried. Salvation continues when you are dead and buried—just another phase of the same salvation.
Whether you are awake or asleep, it is just union with Him, that we might live together with Him.
For the sake of analysis, I am making two points of this: how to live victoriously and how to die victoriously. It is the same thing. It is exactly the same thing. Everything we said yesterday about victorious living, when it comes time to die, is true.
There is a completeness and a fullness. There is a manifestation of the life of Christ. There is an active Savior completing His work and finishing His purposes.
Let us read Acts 7:55-60 one more time, just to have it before us.
But he, being full of the Holy Spirit, looked up steadfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God,
And said, Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God.
But they cried out with a loud voice, and stopped their ears, and rushed upon him with one accord;
And they cast him out of the city, and stoned him: and the witnesses laid down their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul.
And they stoned Stephen, calling upon the Lord, and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.
And he kneeled down, and cried with a loud voice, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge. And when he had said this, he fell asleep.
Verse 60 again: he cried out with a loud voice. As I suggested yesterday, that loud voice illustrates the triumphant death that he had.
Let me set before your heart how I would like to put this before you. They are just confirming truths—truths we know—but so that we can have something to hang our thoughts on, I think if we look at Stephen in terms of three worlds, we will be helped.
First is his relationship to the world to which he was going. He looked up and saw the Lord, and in that world he had hope.
Then there is another world: the world in his heart. In that world he had peace.
Then there is another world: the world he was leaving. To that world he left amazing fruit.
So, if we look at the world to which he was going, the world within—the world in his heart—and the world he was leaving, I think we will be able to look at some of these principles.
Notice first of all how wonderfully focused Stephen was, not only on the world to which he was going, but on the Lord Himself. He was occupied with Christ—very much aware of two worlds.
I think the closer a Christian gets to death, the more he is alive to two worlds: the physical world and, of course, the spiritual world.
Acts 7:55-56 says:
But he, being full of the Holy Spirit, looked up steadfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God;
And said, Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God.
Now, where was Stephen when he had that vision? Some folks have the idea that he was outside being stoned, and while the stones were flying, he saw the Lord Jesus at the right hand of God. No, he was not outside yet.
According to the record, he was in the courtroom. He was still inside the council chamber. He was before the Sanhedrin when he had that vision.
It was very much like our Lord Jesus in John 17. When He was in the upper room, John 17:1 says that Jesus spoke these things and, lifting up His eyes to heaven—He was in the upper room. He could only lift up His eyes as far as the ceiling, and not these eyes. Lifting up His eyes to heaven, He looked right through the ceiling.
So Stephen, when he had his vision, the Sanhedrin did not have that vision. He saw the Lord; they just saw him. He looked right through the ceiling, through the roof, through the clouds, and saw the Lord Jesus standing at the right hand of God.
He was looking with another set of eyes. He was looking with the eyes of faith, and he was keenly aware of two worlds. He was not ignorant of what was going on before him. He knew exactly what was happening on this earth, but he had eyes here.
Stephen could have been blind and in a cave, and he would have seen the Lord Jesus at the right hand of God. It had nothing to do with these eyes. He was focused. He was occupied with the Lord.
He had been used to seeing the revelation of the Lord in the Scriptures, as we called attention to yesterday. Now, in the hour of his death, the Lord was giving him this wonderful revelation.
I think that principle is written all through Scripture: the closer you get to the hour of your departure, the more you are going to be aware of two worlds, and especially that world.
Jubilee illustrates that in Leviticus 25. Once every fifty years, on the Day of Atonement, they would blast that wonderful trumpet and everybody’s debts were cancelled. God had given the patriarchal land to families by lot, and it was His will that it would never go away.
If through financial mishandling, or through some difficulty, you had to get rid of your property, in fifty years you would get it back. Suppose Jerry had some property and he needed money. He came to me and said, “Do you want to buy my apple orchard?”
“How much?”
“Well, you are going to have it for forty years. Then you have to give it back.” Since I am going to have it for forty years, there is a good price. I have to pay a lot of money for that.
But suppose he did not sell it to me until thirty years had passed. It is cheaper now because I am not going to have it as long. If he sold me his property in the forty-fifth year, it is dirt cheap, because I am only going to have it five years. I have to give it back to him.
The closer you get to Jubilee, the more things lose their value. That is the great principle. The closer you get to the day of death, the more visible that world is, and this world, I tell you, brothers, just fades away.
That is not just for dying. Again, it is the same thing: living and dying, whether we are awake or asleep.
Paul had that in mind in 2 Corinthians 5:6-9. It talks about walking by faith and not by sight. Then he says, “Absent from the body, present with the Lord.” You read that and say, “That must be talking about when you leave your body and go to be with the Lord.” He is talking about that, but he is also talking about life.
He says there are two ways to live: absent from the body and present with the Lord, or present in the body and absent from the Lord. You can live by faith or by sight.
Why were the enemies of the Lord Jesus able to scourge Peter and John, and then they started rejoicing? Because they were not home. Their hearts were in the other land.
Why were they able to beat Paul and Silas, and that caused them to sing hymns? Because they were not home. They were absent from the body.
Why were they able to stone Stephen? Because he was not home.
Whether Stephen was waiting on tables, preaching before the Sanhedrin, or out in that valley being stoned, it was all the same: whether awake or asleep, to live together with Him.
But Stephen was not in a coma. He was not in a catatonic stupor. He knew what was going on. He was not dumb. We get this idea that all he saw was heaven and that he did not know what was happening. Certainly he knew what was happening. He was not like Grandpa’s smiling picture over the fireplace that keeps on smiling when the house burns down.
He knew exactly what was going on, but he had this victorious death because he was focused on the Lord. What was literally true for Stephen is true all through the Christian life. How focused we become on the Lord in that hour, and the closer we get, the more true that is.
I remember an illustration of this when my dear mom died. My mother was a Christian, and my dad was just a new Christian. On the level of earth, there were two scenes. On the level of earth, there was chaos. It was one of those days: foggy, raining, bad weather. My nephew was standing outside looking in the window, and the rescue wagons came. She had a heart attack. The lights were going, the medics were trying to revive her, and my dad was pacing back and forth. That was the scene on earth.
The scene God gave me was Song of Solomon 2:10, when my mother died. It was the Groom speaking to the bride:
Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away.
For, lo, the winter is past,
The rain is over and gone.
The flowers appear on the earth;
The time of the singing of birds is come.
Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away.
That was what was really happening. On the level of earth, with these eyes, it was chaos and torment. But the Groom was just calling my mom to Himself.
It reminds me of 2 Kings 2, when Elisha was told Elijah was going to leave. The key, if you want the blessing, is focus. Keep watching.
Have you ever seen a tornado? I have seen them on television. I will bet it would be hard not to look at that cloud when it is coming. They say it sounds like a train. If God says, “You are Elisha here. Focus. Do not take your eyes off him,” and all of a sudden a train comes, I am going to want to look away. But Elisha stayed focused.
There were fifty sons of the prophets, and the Bible says all they saw was the whirlwind. That whirlwind comes and leaves everything upside down and turns everything over in the house. But Elisha was focused. He saw what was really happening. He saw the chariot, and he saw Elijah carried away into heaven. They only saw the tornado.
In the hour of death, this is not only for the one dying. When you are losing loved ones—if God takes your children, your wife, a family member, or a close friend—stay focused on the Lord and see what is really happening. Otherwise, you will only see the tornado that has come in, turned the house upside down, and left everything in shambles.
The point is that there are two worlds. I do not want to get mystical here, but I have had the privilege of seeing many people die—not after they were dead; I have seen them leave this world. I have been there at the bedside. There is a qualitative difference between someone who has had the vision that Stephen had.
I have seen Christians die, and sometimes it gets a little eerie. I do not know if they see something. My wife and I were praying with an eighteen-year-old boy who had only moments to live. All of a sudden, he lit up and started talking about all these angels in the room. I thought, “Whoa.” He saw something, I guess. I do not know.
I have seen elderly saints sit up in bed with their eyes wide open. I saw one man who could hardly move a muscle, and he just bolted up, his eyes and mouth open like garbage can covers. I do not know what he saw. I think God is pulling a veil over that.
I do not put a lot of stock in experiences like that, but the principle is true: you become aware of two worlds.
What Stephen saw was true before he saw it. If he never saw it, it still was true. His vision did not create Jesus standing at the right hand of God. He was there whether Stephen saw it or not. But Stephen seeing it made a difference in Stephen’s life.
When he looked up, he saw the Son of Man. I want to say a couple of things about that title. Have you ever studied that title?
Twenty-eight times in the New Testament we read “the Son of Man”—eighty-two times in the Gospels: thirty times in Matthew, fifteen times in Mark, twenty-five times in Luke, and twelve times in John. Son of Man, Son of Man, Son of Man.
Nobody ever called Jesus the Son of Man except Jesus. He was the only one who ever used that title. One time in John it came out of somebody else’s mouth, but they were quoting Him. That was Jesus’ favorite title of Himself.
He delighted in that because that was Kinsman-Redeemer. That was His identification with us: Son of all mankind, Elder Brother, my Substitute, my Representative, the last Adam.
John 1:14 says:
And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us.
That means God, in order to save us, had to become humanity. He became man, born in Bethlehem from a virgin.
Do you think, as many Christians think, that when Jesus became man, God became man for thirty-three and a half years? He lived thirty years in obscurity, then for three and a half years He ministered, then He died for us, was buried, rose, and ascended into heaven. After He ascended into heaven, did His humanity end? Did He go back to being only God again?
Some people have that idea, but it is far greater than that. I hope you catch the wonder of it. When God decided in eternity to become man, it was a decision forever. He will always be the God-Man. Always.
If somebody asked you, “Would you take care of my pet—my dog, cat, parrot, fish, gerbil, or whatever the pet is?” I will bet one of the first things you would say is, “For how long?”
Take care of my pet for a day? A weekend? A week? A month? But if someone says, “I mean until my pet dies or you die,” then maybe there is some other brother who would be willing to take care of the pet.
Even with something as precious as a child: “Would you babysit?” “How long? A weekend? Are you going away for a week?” “No, I am talking about taking my child forever and raising the child.”
When Jesus made the decision to become man, you ask, “For how long?” Forever. Forever.
When Stephen looked up, if he had seen the Son of God as many saints have, perhaps he would have fallen down before Him as they did and been terrified as they were. But somehow he saw the Son of Man, and he was able to identify with that. That was his Representative. That was Someone he could identify with.
This was his Substitute. There will be no other time when, as you are ready to die, you will distrust yourself any more than you do then. I hope you never have confidence in the flesh, but if you are on your deathbed, you know you cannot have confidence in the flesh.
You may say, “Well, I am going to do it in my own strength.” Try getting out of the grave in your own strength. You cannot do it. There is no confidence there.
In that day when you are going to die, it has to be His merits, His works, and His righteousness. That is my hope for heaven. That is what Stephen saw. He became focused on Christ, and because He was the Son of Man, Stephen had hope.
All right, let us come downstairs. There is another world. The dying Christian also has a world in here. When you read the record, Stephen had wonderful peace in his heart.
Triumphant dying has an awful lot to do with what happens in here. There are several illustrations of it. The fact that he was being stoned and was more focused on the Lord in heaven than on what was happening in his life shows it.
There was nobody on the earth for Stephen. There was no world here. It seemed like there was no flesh and no pain. When I am focused on the Lord, when you are focused on the Lord, you are going to have the peace that passes understanding.
That is a wonderful expression. There is no natural reason for that peace. We all know saints who are presently in that situation on their deathbeds, or have been, and we have seen that amazing peace.
The world would look and say, “There is every reason for that person to be gloomy and miserable—clouds and darkness.” But in spite of the outward circumstances, there is this unexplainable inward peace, this unaccountable strength, this inexplicable support that comes from the Lord.
Stephen was well aware that they were dragging him to that rocky edge of the ravine of Jehoshaphat, by the Mount of Olives, overlooking Gethsemane. He was not stupid. He knew they were throwing stones at him, and yet he had peace.
What will be thrown at us will probably not be stones from an enemy. You might have a lot thrown at you, though, but from your friends. You might have needles thrown at you, chemo thrown at you, IVs thrown at you, radiation thrown at you, and medicine thrown at you. You might have a lot thrown at you, but those are not the stones of an enemy.
When I read that Stephen, having the stones of an enemy thrown at him, fell asleep, is that not a great way to describe it? He fell asleep. You talk about inner peace.
Is it possible, my brothers, in this world to have peace no matter what is thrown at you? The answer is an unqualified yes.
But that peace, if you read the text, is connected with another precious truth. It is not just that God gave him peace. There is a truth connected with it, and it is in Acts 7:59:
They stoned Stephen, calling upon the Lord, and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.
If he did not know he was dying, he could not have said, “Receive my spirit.” He knew he was dying.
You see what Stephen did. You may say, “Well, that is the first time he ever did that.” I think he had done it a thousand times before: “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” He committed his spirit to the Lord.
What is the spirit? That is you. That is your life. Your spirit is you. He committed his life to the Lord.
That was not the first time he committed his spirit to the Lord. It was just another time he committed his spirit to the Lord. He had been doing that all his Christian life.
When we sing, “Take my life,” are we asking God to kill us? We are talking about committing our life, turning it over to Him. That is what Stephen did. He came to this hour of death, and he turned it over to Jesus. He committed his life to Him, and then he got that peace. That is when he fell asleep.
The peace comes when you surrender it to the Lord. I am sure in the Christian life that is your habit. I hope it is. You have committed your finances to Him, your marriage to Him, your children to Him, your grandchildren to Him, your job unto Him, your health to Him, and your relationships unto Him.
You have committed to Him: “Where should I live? What should I do? When should I have children? What should I name my children?” You have committed that to Him. That is all about what Stephen did.
When he turned it over to the Lord, he got precious peace.
I told you I love favorite verses. Every year I have a year verse. This year my year verse is Isaiah 9:7b:
Of the increase of His government and of peace
There shall be no end.
Is that not wonderful? No end to the increase of His government, His lordship, and His peace.
Do you realize this, brothers? I can be totally surrendered to the Lord this moment and more surrendered tomorrow.
You say, “If you are totally surrendered now, how can you be more surrendered tomorrow?” Because my capacity for surrender increases. There is no end to the increase of His government. His lordship keeps increasing, and His peace keeps increasing. There is no end to the increase of His peace.
Every step forward I take in His lordship is a step forward I take in His peace. By the time you get here and you are committed to the Lord, this peace that passes understanding comes into your heart.
We were talking about fullness the other day, and a brother asked me about this idea of fullness. “Is there not progress? Do you not grow into this fullness? The way you are saying it, everybody is full.”
Yes, you grow, but the way you grow is capacity. First you are a thimble and you are full. Then you are a little glass and you are full. Then you are a cup and you are full. Then you are a jug and you are full. Then you are a tub and you are full. A lot of tubs here—only kidding.
The point is that there is no end to the increase of His government and no end to the increase of peace.
As for the world above, I see my Lord. My only hope for heaven is the Son of Man—His merits, His goodness, His righteousness, His salvation. I can look up there no matter what comes down here.
And the world in here: I give it over to Him, and I have peace. “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.”
I love the words, “Receive my spirit,” because Stephen was not baffled by second causes.
If that were me, on the level of earth, I would probably say, “Lord Jesus, they are taking my life.” He did not say, “Lord Jesus, they are taking my life.” He said, “Lord Jesus, You are taking my life. Receive my spirit.”
Stones did not kill Stephen. Jesus took him.
That accident did not take your loved one. Jesus did. Do not say cancer took him. Cancer did not take him. Jesus took him. SIDS did not take my four-month-old grandchild. Jesus took my four-month-old grandchild.
I tell you, that is a focus that we need. We need to see this: “Receive my spirit.” We commit it to Him.
I get tickled at some Christians. As I said, I like to talk about death; they do not. So I do it more because I know they do not, and I have a good time with that.
Many Christians have said this to me: “I am not afraid to die. I just do not want to be there when it happens.” They say, “I want to die in my sleep.”
I think what they mean is, “I do not want to suffer a lot. I hope the Lord just takes me when I am sleeping.”
Is it not interesting that Stephen died—he fell asleep? With all this going on, I think anybody who has Stephen’s vision is going to die in his sleep, in this sense: it does not matter what is going to come to your body. You are going to fall asleep in the sense of having that peace that passes understanding. Sleep is just a picture of rest in the Lord.
One more thing. Stephen looked above and saw his Substitute, his Representative, his hope. He looked within and gave the situation to the Lord. In the hour of death, whatever death God allows you to have, you can commit it—commit your life to the Lord, lay it in His hands—and you will have peace. You will probably be more peaceful than everybody standing around your bed, because you have this wonderful vision.
What about the world out there?
There is a principle that runs through the Bible. I did not know what to call it, so I just call it redemptive living, redemptive truth. Do you realize that everything that comes into your life is redemptive? By that I mean it is not primarily for you. It is primarily for somebody else, or many somebody elses. It might be a generation or two away. You do not know.
That is why you cannot understand one-tenth of one percent of what is going on in your life, and I cannot understand one-tenth of one percent of what is going on in my life. It is not about us. It is God doing His thing. Everything is redemptive, including your hour of death.
That is illustrated in Stephen. As I shared yesterday, all fruit is illustrated by Acts 7:60:
Lord, lay not this sin to their charge. And when he had said this, he fell asleep.
That forgiveness was such a miracle—that forgiving spirit—because he had seen the vision and God was working. That was one testimony he left.
But it seems like in life and in death Stephen was occupied with the Lord. He was not thinking about fruit. He did not say, “How can I leave a testimony to these bums who are stoning me?” He did not think like that. He was not thinking about fruit. He was thinking about the Lord.
He was focused on the Lord. He lived with his gaze on the Lord, and he left that testimony.
Then Acts 7:58 says:
And when they had driven him out of the city, they began to stone him: and the witnesses laid down their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul.
Talk about fruit. Talk about a redemptive influence. I mentioned in the introduction lesson how Stephen was the forerunner of the apostle Paul. I knew that, and you know that, but Stephen did not know that.
He did not say, “Well, there is a young man here. I will bet if God saves the number one enemy in the world, he could become the number one friend of Christ.” He did not think that. He was just looking to Christ, and God was working all this wonderful fruit.
Saint Augustine said that the church owes Paul to the prayers of Stephen. I am not sure how wrong, if he was wrong; he is probably right on that. There is certainly an organic connection.
But that is not all the fruit. Look at Acts 8:1:
And Saul was consenting unto his death. And there arose on that day a great persecution against the church which was in Jerusalem; and they were all scattered abroad throughout the regions of Judaea and Samaria, except the apostles.
Stephen’s death marked a change. It says they were all scattered. Are you familiar with the Greek word scattered? It is the word used for sowing seed.
Then Acts 8:4 says:
They therefore that were scattered abroad went about preaching the word.
Because of Stephen, there was a great persecution, and God began to sow the Christians everywhere. When they went, they began preaching the Word.
Stephen’s death ignited a persecution. They were scattered like seeds. As you read on, a great revival broke out in Samaria. There was the conversion of the Ethiopian eunuch, the conversion of Cornelius up in Caesarea, and a church was formed in Antioch.
It is an amazing thing. Add all that to what God did through Paul—the harvest of souls that came through his missionary journeys. All of that fruit came from Stephen, and he did not have a clue. He did not have an idea of that.
He was not trying to bring a revival to Samaria, Africa, Caesarea, or Antioch. He said, “I just want to see Jesus.” That was his hope. When he gave it all to Jesus, that was his peace. And when he gave it all to Jesus, look at the fruit. God had done a wonderful thing.
Let me end on a corporate note.
The other day I received an email: “Dear brother.” He wrote in the email a proverb. I guess people have heard it before. I had never heard it. I began to share it with different saints, and they said, “Oh, yeah, I have heard that before.” But I had never heard it.
Here is what he said:
Man can count the seeds in an apple,
But only God can count the apples in a seed.
Have you ever heard that before? Just think about that. Only God can count the apples in a seed.
Who knows the fruit that is still going on for Stephen? I, for one, am part of Stephen’s reward. Only God can count the apples in a seed.
Let us end on a corporate note. Look at the fruit from one man who had the vision.
What if, brothers, every brother in this assembly had the same vision? Can you imagine the fruit that would come? Look what came from one man looking to Christ alone. Look what God did through that one man. Revival spread everywhere.
If God would do that to the body—a whole assembly of Stephens who have had the vision, who have learned to stand under an open heaven, behold a glorified Christ, identify with that Christ, and be transformed by that revelation—only God can count the apples in a seed. There is no telling what God will do.
Let me end with this benediction from the Word of God, Psalm 121:5-8:
The Lord is thy keeper:
The Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand.
The sun shall not smite thee by day,
Nor the moon by night.
The Lord will keep thee from all evil;
He will keep thy soul.
The Lord will keep thy going out and thy coming in
From this time forth and for evermore.
And that includes your last going out. The Lord will guard your coming in and your going out from this time forth and forever.
Let us pray.
Our Heavenly Father, we thank You so much that we can have a victorious life and we can have a victorious death. We can see in our Kinsman-Redeemer all that we are, our life, everything in Him; that we can commit to the Lord Jesus our life and have the peace that passes understanding; that we can leave all the fruit to You and just stay focused on You.
Lord, will You give us this vision? I pray for every man here, and anyone who happens to hear these truths through any medium whatsoever, that we might learn what it means to stand by the Holy Spirit under an open heaven.
May we learn what it means to constantly behold our exalted Redeemer, Son of Man, standing at the right hand of God, victorious. May we constantly be transformed in conformity to His death and in conformity to His character, that You might get the glory.
We ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.