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Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, and we shall walk in his paths.

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Welcome to Come On Up, the radio ministry of the Mountain Cross in Waynesville, North Carolina.

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You're accusing me of saying that I'm I'm making the temple less than it should be, because that's where the holy place where God meets with me and God meets with us. But if you look at the whole story, you see that God didn't just meet in this tabernacle. He met at different places with people. And now, because we have the Holy Spirit indwelling in us as believers of Jesus Christ, our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit. God goes with us everywhere we go.

SPEAKER_00 1:50

In the Old Testament, God made special appearances to his chosen people, but only in certain sacred locations. Prophets would journey to those special places in search of God's presence. But do you know that the New Testament totally transformed everything? Today, Pastor Carl dives into the beautiful truth that God's presence is alive within you, embodied in the Holy Spirit. Thanks to Jesus, you can not only experience God's presence, but also have a personal relationship with him. And now here's Pastor Carl.

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So Moses, after 40 years, came to his own, and his own did not recognize him, did not receive him, they rejected him. In fact, he felt threatened, and so he left into the land of Midian. And he had two sons there, which implies, which of course, if you go back into the story, you see he did, he married a Midianite, a foreigner. He didn't marry a Hebrew, did he? This is Moses, the one that we exalt with the law and everything. He wasn't even married to a Hebrew. Okay? All right. So with that said, this is also a picture of Christ and his church. The Lord came, we rejected him. In general, the Jewish people rejected him, right? And where is he today? In a land far away, at the right hand of God the Father in heaven, at a time where he will return to restore the kingdom. But while he's there, what has he done? He selected a bride. Who is his bride? The church, who eagerly awaits his coming, and he is coming again. Like I said, lots of pictures in here, and a great, great place to go back and do some study. So verse 30. And when forty years had passed there, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire in a bush in the wilderness of Mount Sinai. And so he's 80 years old at this point. You know, 40 years growing up in the royalty in Egypt, and then 40 years away. And now he's met by the Lord. God met with him in that fire in the bush. And when Moses saw it, he marveled at the sight. Wow, how can a bush just be burning and not burn up? And as he drew near to observe, the voice of the Lord came to him, saying, I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob. And Moses trembled and dared not look. Wouldn't you? God is talking to you, and he hasn't talked to you for he's never talked to you. And now he's talking, and you don't know how to respond. The Lord said to him, Take your sandals off your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground. Where was this? This was in Midian, way Gentile place. And God is meeting with with Moses, and he says, This is holy ground. The temple isn't the only place that's holy, is what Stephen is saying. God met with Moses out there in the wilderness. And God meets with people where they are. Well, we'll continue here. Um where you stand is holy ground. Verse 34. Thanks for holding on with me as we just take a little break here. Verse 34. I have surely seen the oppression of my people who are in Egypt. I have heard their groaning and have come down to deliver them. And now come, I will send you to Egypt. How often do we pray and think the Lord doesn't hear our prayers? The Lord wants to encourage us, I do hear your prayers, I hear your groanings, I hear your calls of help, and I am coming to send a deliverer to you. Verse 35, this Moses, whom they rejected, saying, Who made you a ruler and a judge, is the one that God sent to be a ruler and deliverer by the hand of the angel who appeared to him in the bush. And he brought them out. And after he had shown wonders and signs in the land of Egypt and in the Red Sea, and then he dwelt with them in the wilderness for forty years. And you know the story of Joseph. He was the great deliverer, which is kind of like Jesus, right? This Jesus that you're accusing us of following. He's the one that we was rejected. Who made you a ruler and the judge? He is the one that God sent to be a ruler and deliverer. A deliverer of his people, a deliverer of those who trust in him, a deliverer of those who follow after him and believe what he tells them to do. Not just the judge, because the judge will come as well, to judge those who did not believe, who did not accept, who did not follow. And they were in the wilderness for another 40 years, so forty, eighty, hundred and twenty years old was Moses. Verse 37. This is that Moses who said to the children of Israel, the Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brethren, him you shall hear. Moses said, I delivered you. God used me to deliver you out of the hand of Pharaoh, into freedom. But there's somebody else that's coming. The Messiah, the prophet, the one that will speak the truths of God and say, Come this way, follow me, because I have the words that lead to life. Stephen is implying that this prophet is Jesus Christ Himself, whom he's getting in trouble for declaring the truth. The gospel of Jesus Christ is our whole hope. Without Jesus, we have nothing. He's the one we've been waiting for, and you want to reject him. These guys were smart. They knew that that's what Stephen was telling them. Verse 38, this is he who was in the congregation in the wilderness with the angel who spoke to him at Mount Sinai and with our fathers, the one who received the living oracles to give to us, and whom our fathers would not obey but rejected. And in their hands they turned back to Egypt, saying to Aaron, Make us gods and go before us for this Moses who brought us out of the land of Egypt. We do not know what has become of him. And they made a calf in those days and offered sacrifices to the idol, and rejoiced in the works of their own hands. Again, there's a lot here. I'm just going to give you a little bit to chew on. So Moses, you know the story, at the beginning of their forty years, he went up on the top of Mount Sinai and met with God, and there was thunderings and all these crazy things, earthquakes, and people below are watching, and they were scared. And then a day went by, and then two days, and three days, a week, two weeks. A month went past, and they're like, He's gone. He's gone. I don't know what happened to this Moses that took us out of Egypt. We need to make ourselves our own God. And so Aaron capitulated and he built this golden calf, which, you know, of course, when he told Moses, well, they gave me all this gold, I threw it in the fire, and poof, this this cow came out. I don't know what to tell you. But isn't that the way we are? Do we grow weary in well-doing? Do we grow weary in continuing in our faith as Christians? Because from from here, from the beginning of the church, it they were always saying, Jesus is coming back anytime, any day now, he's coming back. Here we are 2,000 years, and we're saying, Jesus is coming back. He's closer to coming back than he has ever been, and that's true. But we don't know if he's coming back next week or in another hundred years. But the way the things are going in the world, it sure seems like he's coming back a lot sooner than a hundred years, right? But it's so easy to lose heart to say, Lord, you said you were coming back, you haven't come back. I don't see signs of you coming back, so I don't think you're gonna come back. And a lot of the church doesn't think he's gonna come back. And what do we resort to? Good works. Did you see that last part of verse 41? They rejoiced in the works of their own hands. Look at what we've done. We built this great idol. Let's worship him. Look at what we've done. We've fed the poor, we've built highways and hospitals, and we did all these great things for humanity. It's wonderful. And we hearken back to the parable that the Lord gives about the folks that went into heaven. And they say, We did all these great things in your name. And what did Jesus say? He said, Get away from me. I never knew you. I never knew you. We're to be in fellowship with the Lord, intimate relationship with him, filled with the Spirit, yielding our way, not my will, but your will be done. Not rejoicing in the works of our hands, but rejoicing in the work that he does through our hands. You see the subtle difference? And if we're not in the word, if we're not fellowshipping with him and growing with him, listening to him, allowing him to cut us to the heart and convict us and say, Lord, you're right. I repent, help me and change me and make me more like you. If we're not doing that, we will easily lose track and say, you know, Lord hadn't come back for a long time. He's not coming back. It's up to me to make these things right. And we take, we take the work of the Lord into our own hands, we corrupt it and we think it's great. Let's heed that warning. Verse 42. Then God turned and gave them up to worship the host of heaven, as it is written in the book of the prophets. Did you offer me slaughtering animals and sacrifices during the forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel? And the answer is, yeah, we did. But you also took up the temple of Moloch and the star of the god Rephraim, images which were made to worship, and I will carry you away beyond Babylon. You took a little bit of God's thing, and then you also took a little bit of the gods of this world, the God of Moloch, the God of prosperity, the God of Rephraim, the God of success. And sometimes, or oftentimes, we run into a bump in the road that keeps us from that success, from that prosperity. And it's when children come along. And so we just get rid of the children. They offered their children into the hands of Moloch. That was a burning idol. And they put their live children in the hands of Moloch and sacrificed them to that God. And we do the same thing as we sacrifice our children to abortion, and we try to make it simpler by trying to say that it's not really a child, it's not really murder, but it is. We need to recognize it. We've drifted from the Lord. We're not, we kind of dabble in the things of the Bible, but then we dabble in the things of other things. We need to repent as a people, as a nation, even in the church. And if we continue in that way, he will take us away beyond Babylon. And it did happen, didn't it? They were taken captive into Babylon for 70 years. Verse 44 Our fathers had the tabernacle of witness in the wilderness, as he appointed, instructing Moses to make it according to the pattern that he had seen, which our fathers, having received it in turn, also brought with Joshua into the land possessed by the Gentiles, whom God drove out before the face of our fathers until the day of David, who found favor before God and asked to find a dwelling for the God of Jacob. So he's just squishing a whole lot of history in here right now. In the wilderness, God instructed Moses to build a tabernacle where God would meet with man, with Moses, and accept the sacrifices to cover sin in that tabernacle. And it could be taken wherever they went because they were nomads for that 40 years. Until, you know, King David came, and King David was a man after God's own heart, and he wanted to build a permanent place for God to meet with men. I want to build you a house, God. And God said, That's nice, David, but you're a man of war, so you're not going to build it. But your son can build it. And so Solomon would receive all the plans and all the preparation and all the supplies that David saved up, and he would build the temple to God. But, you know, God cannot fit in a temple. Here's the I this is the point that Stephen is making. You're accusing me of saying that I'm I'm making the temple less than it should plead, because that's where holy place, where God meets with me, and God meets with us. But if you look at the whole story, you see that God didn't just meet in this tabernacle. He met at different places with people. And now, because we have the Holy Spirit indwelling in us as believers of Jesus Christ, our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit. God goes with us everywhere we go. That's the implication that he's making here. So in verse 47, but Solomon built him a house. However, the Most High does not dwell in a temple made with hands, as the prophet says. Or what is the place of my rest? Has my hand not made all these things? Boy, do we want to put God in a box, don't we? Here's God, very practical. We know where he is, and we know where to meet with him, and he'll do what we say, otherwise we'll we'll shake up the box or something like that. He's big, he made it all. How can you confine his holiness to a little temple? Although he's glad to meet with his people, and so he made that, and that's the purpose of it, but it's not for him, it's for us. And as Jesus spoke to that woman on the well, the Samaritan who was half Jewish and half Gentile, who was condemned by the Jewish people because she wasn't pure, God told her, God's going to meet with you wherever you are, to those that are seeking him, those who worship him in spirit and in truth. In truth of who Jesus is, empowered by the Spirit of God to do that. Because we believe, we trust, we obey, and Jesus comes and meets us where we are. Verse 51. He couldn't hold back any longer. You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in your heart and ears. You may be circumcised, you may have done all the things that the law requires for you to do, but you've missed it. Because your hearts are still hard. You have not received the Lord, you've missed who Jesus was. You always resist the Holy Spirit as your fathers did, so you do too. Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? Son, now you've gone to meddling. These are the holy appointed leaders of God to the people. And you're talking to them about these facts that are real facts when you really look back and see, yeah. Every time a prophet came along that the religious people didn't like, they were persecuted or killed. They were killed, those who foretold the coming of the just one. Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. There's another that's on the way. We don't like to hear that. We like the way the system is set up now, and we need you to stop talking. The just one, of whom you have now become the betrayers and murderers who have received the law by the direction of angels and have not kept it. You elevate the law, you elevate Moses, and yet you don't listen to what was written in the law. You don't see that Jesus was prophesied in it, and that these things lead to him. The law wasn't an end of it of itself. The law showed us our need for a Savior, and our Lord fulfilled it. And he took our sin upon himself on the cross. So that in him we are perfect. We fulfill the law. In him. You can't do it on the road. No man can fulfill the law. These are all the implications that he has. You who received the law by the direction of angels, and it's not in the word, but it was a tradition that angels brought the tablets to Moses on Mount Sinai. You you guys are responsible for the law. You guys are defending the law, but you don't read it. You don't live it. Because if you did, you'd realize that this is Jesus who you murdered. And that was enough. Verse 54. When they heard these things, they were cut to the heart. That's good, right? When you're cut to the heart, you're convicted of your sin. And at that moment, if you're wise, you repent. You turn from your wicked ways that you just got convicted of, and you turn to the one who can cleanse you of it. But instead, their hearts hardened and they gnashed at him with their teeth. But instead of trying to defend himself and to call them idiots or anything like that, 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 the Father and said, Look, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God. They were coming after him, they were upset. There are people that are going to come our way that are going to be upset with us. The enemy is going to come our way and throw stuff at us because he's upset with us. And what do we often do? We look at the enemy, we look at the situation, and we get overwhelmed and we try to defend ourselves and whatever, right? Instead of, what did Stephen do? He's in the midst of becoming the first martyr, and what is he doing? He's looking to Jesus. Isn't that the secret? Whenever something comes your way that's from the enemy, from your own flesh, don't look at that and try to fight it on your own, but look to Jesus. Ga on Jesus and see that he stands at the right hand of the Father. And that's interesting because in other places it said he sat down at the right hand of the Father. So here he's standing, almost cheering on Stephen. Stephen, you did a great job, son. Of course, when Stephen goes to him, he says, Well, I didn't do it, your Holy Spirit did it. And isn't that how God is? He's going to give us crowns for the things that we've done in his name that we allowed him to do through us, and he's going to reward us for it. And we're going to say, hey, it wasn't me, it was you, Lord. We're worshiping you. You're the good one. You're the righteous one. And we take those crowns and we throw them at his feet and we worship him forever. What a glorious day that'll be. So Jesus is standing at the right hand of God Almighty, our Father in heaven. And he's cheering on Stephen. And he's getting ready to welcome him in to eternity. Verse 57. Then they cried out with a loud voice, stopped their ears, and ran at him with one accord. It's sad how the kind of things that we can be in agreement about. Let's be in agreement about seeking the Lord together, not destroying people because of something that they've done to us as a group. Amen. Verse 58, and they cast him out of the city and stoned him. And the witnesses laid down their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul. Now we're introduced to Saul, who later becomes the Apostle Paul. Verse 59, and they stoned Stephen, and he was calling on God and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. Same words that our Lord cried out to his father when he was on the cross. In verse 60, then he knelt down and cried with a loud voice, Lord, do not charge them with this sin. Boy, may that be the sort of thing that I say when if I run into a situation like that. But what would we normally say? Lord, get them! Revenge me. Avenge me. Right? But no, Stephen's like, forgive them, father. And maybe, just maybe, with what they see here today, they'll come to faith in you too. And when he had said this, he fell asleep. Now, just a few more verses in chapter 8. Now, Saul was consenting to his death, and at that time a great persecution arose against the church, which was in Jerusalem, and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles. So because Stephen opened his mouth, because he was submitted to the Holy Spirit, because he was living out this faith, because he said what the Lord put on his heart, he was killed, and the rest of the church was scattered. And this new persecution, this even ever-heated persecution came upon the church, and this Saul character was highly involved in that. Yet in verse 2, the devout man carried Stephen to his burial, and they made great lamentation over him. They were proud of him. They say, I wish I could be like Stephen. I know God was with him, and this was wonderful. But he's he's gone. He's gone. And when we lose men and women that were great in the faith, that were heroes to us because we knew they walked with God, it hurts, doesn't it? But at the same time we can rejoice, knowing that we will see them again, and that uh they're being welcomed with open arms by Jesus in heaven. And verse 3 As for Saul, he made havoc on the church, entering every house, dragging off men and women, and committing them to prison. Because that's what any zealous man protecting the law of God would do, right? But soon God would set Saul straight.

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That's Pastor Carl of the Mountain Cross on Come On Up. We're currently in the book of Acts, which was written by Luke, who came to know and follow Jesus through the Apostle Paul. Luke was a physician, a Gentile, and had never even met Jesus. Jesus' followers came from all walks of life: rich, poor, educated, illiterate, men, women, old, young. Jesus is for everyone. Why else would his original twelve disciples be a hodgepodge group of fishermen, a tax collector, a religious zealot, brothers who were known to rage, and Thomas, who we only know for his moment of doubt. That means Jesus is for you too. He came to earth to save whosoever would believe in the gospel. Christ died for sinners, was buried, and rose again. Do you believe? Learn more about God's amazing grace by clicking on How to Know God when you visit themountaincross.com. If you're local to Western North Carolina, we'd love to meet you in person and continue this discussion about the good news of Jesus Christ. We meet Sundays, 10 a.m. at the Smoky Mountain Cinema in Waynesville. Quickly, we'd also like to invite you to Faith Film Night, featuring faith-based films on the first Monday of the month. Learn more on our Facebook page, Faith Film Night. If you enjoy Come On Up, would you consider making a gift to help us continue? Simply visit themountaincross.comslash donate. Thank you. Come on up to the mountain with us again next time as we seek to learn more from the Lord through His Word. Come On Up is sponsored by The Mountain Cross, a Calvary Chapel fellowship.