March 02, 2023 | Be On Mission
The Legacy of Moses & the Prophets
Scripture: Acts 7:17-53 (NIV)
17 “As the time drew near for God to fulfill his promise to Abraham, the number of our people in Egypt had greatly increased. 18 Then ‘a new king, to whom Joseph meant nothing, came to power in Egypt.’ 19 He dealt treacherously with our people and oppressed our ancestors by forcing them to throw out their newborn babies so that they would die.
20 “At that time Moses was born, and he was no ordinary child. For three months he was cared for by his family. 21 When he was placed outside, Pharaoh’s daughter took him and brought him up as her own son. 22 Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was powerful in speech and action.
23 “When Moses was forty years old, he decided to visit his own people, the Israelites. 24 He saw one of them being mistreated by an Egyptian, so he went to his defense and avenged him by killing the Egyptian. 25 Moses thought that his own people would realize that God was using him to rescue them, but they did not. 26 The next day Moses came upon two Israelites who were fighting. He tried to reconcile them by saying, ‘Men, you are brothers; why do you want to hurt each other?’
27 “But the man who was mistreating the other pushed Moses aside and said, ‘Who made you ruler and judge over us? 28 Are you thinking of killing me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday?’ 29 When Moses heard this, he fled to Midian, where he settled as a foreigner and had two sons.
30 “After forty years had passed, an angel appeared to Moses in the flames of a burning bush in the desert near Mount Sinai. 31 When he saw this, he was amazed at the sight. As he went over to get a closer look, he heard the Lord say: 32 ‘I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.’ Moses trembled with fear and did not dare to look.
33 “Then the Lord said to him, ‘Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground. 34 I have indeed seen the oppression of my people in Egypt. I have heard their groaning and have come down to set them free. Now come, I will send you back to Egypt.’
35 “This is the same Moses they had rejected with the words, ‘Who made you ruler and judge?’ He was sent to be their ruler and deliverer by God himself, through the angel who appeared to him in the bush. 36 He led them out of Egypt and performed wonders and signs in Egypt, at the Red Sea and for forty years in the wilderness.
37 “This is the Moses who told the Israelites, ‘God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your own people.’ 38 He was in the assembly in the wilderness, with the angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai, and with our ancestors; and he received living words to pass on to us.
39 “But our ancestors refused to obey him. Instead, they rejected him and in their hearts turned back to Egypt. 40 They told Aaron, ‘Make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who led us out of Egypt—we don’t know what has happened to him!’ 41 That was the time they made an idol in the form of a calf. They brought sacrifices to it and reveled in what their own hands had made. 42 But God turned away from them and gave them over to the worship of the sun, moon and stars. This agrees with what is written in the book of the prophets:
“‘Did you bring me sacrifices and offerings
forty years in the wilderness, people of Israel?
43 You have taken up the tabernacle of Molek
and the star of your god Rephan,
the idols you made to worship.
Therefore I will send you into exile’ beyond Babylon.
44 “Our ancestors had the tabernacle of the covenant law with them in the wilderness. It had been made as God directed Moses, according to the pattern he had seen. 45 After receiving the tabernacle, our ancestors under Joshua brought it with them when they took the land from the nations God drove out before them. It remained in the land until the time of David, 46 who enjoyed God’s favor and asked that he might provide a dwelling place for the God of Jacob. 47 But it was Solomon who built a house for him.
48 “However, the Most High does not live in houses made by human hands. As the prophet says:
49 “‘Heaven is my throne,
and the earth is my footstool.
What kind of house will you build for me?
says the Lord.
Or where will my resting place be?
50 Has not my hand made all these things?’
51 “You stiff-necked people! Your hearts and ears are still uncircumcised. You are just like your ancestors: You always resist the Holy Spirit! 52 Was there ever a prophet your ancestors did not persecute? They even killed those who predicted the coming of the Righteous One. And now you have betrayed and murdered him— 53 you who have received the law that was given through angels but have not obeyed it.”
Devotional
Four hundred years passed between the previous verse and the opening verse of today’s reading. In that time, the Hebrew people grew greatly in number while living in Egypt. Pharaoh’s answer to this growing population of Jewish people was to enslave them, oppress them, and systematically eliminate them. So God raised up Moses.
Stephen, still being accused and questioned by the Sanhedrin, launched into the life of Moses from his birth, to his exile, to his encounter with God at the burning bush. He spoke about how Moses led the people of God out of Egyptian slavery through forty years of tabernacle (tent) worship in the wilderness of freedom. Then, in verse 47, Stephen jumped another five hundred years to when the first temple was built by Solomon in Jerusalem.
Recollect that Stephen was being accused in Acts 6:13-14 of “speaking against this holy place (the temple) and against the law (the first five books of the Old Testament).” In Acts 7 he covered both topics, ending with the construction of the temple which was built by Solomon a thousand years earlier, destroyed by the Babylonians, then rebuilt by the Jews five hundred years after Solomon. The temple represented everything to the Jewish authorities, priests, and people. They saw it as the very place where God dwelled.
That’s why Stephen’s next statement got him into so much trouble. He said, “However, the Most High does not live in houses made by human hands” (v. 48). He then quoted Isaiah 66:1 where God said that His true home is heaven and the entire earth and everything in it is His footstool. It probably didn’t help Stephen that he called the religious authorities stiff-necked people with uncircumcised hearts and ears who always resist the Holy Spirit!
We know that Stephen is right, don’t we? While your church building and sanctuary are places where you offer sacred worship to a holy God, they are still just buildings. God is in heaven, far above church properties and the earth itself. But here is what is amazing. Through His Holy Spirit, God had chosen to dwell in all who follow Jesus! Invite Him to come into your life today!
Prayer
Holy God, Creator of all things and abounding in love and mercy, I come with a humble heart. Romans 7:15 says, “I do not understand my own actions, for I don’t do what I want, I do what I hate.” Help me be faithful like Moses who boldly went with the spiritual armor of God to Pharaoh, demanding freedom for God’s people. As we walk through Lent, forgive our offenses. Guide us to be unafraid like Jesus, reject the evil of the world and avoid where darkness resides. Remove the scales from our eyes and replace it with courageous boldness to clearly walk in Your light. Thank you for the greatest gift of all, Jesus Christ who died on the cross for me.
Poem
Try To Remember
Come on a journey
A journey with me
Back through our hist’ry
Our hist’ry to see
Try to remember
The covenant true
Try to remember
God’s promise to you
Think about Abraham
Moses, the Psalms
Think about David
The prophets, our songs
Try to remember
Before memory’s lost
Try to remember
Messiah’s great cost
Open your ears now
And listen to me
Open your eyes
And Anointed One see
Try to remember
God’s covenant true
Try to remember
Atonement for you
If hearts will be softened
If repentance you seek
You’ll embrace this Good New
Which the Spirit doth speak
