Look at All The Ways God Has Reached Out To You
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. “But our ancestors refused to obey him. Instead, they rejected him and in their hearts turned back to Egypt. 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!’ 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. 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? 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. “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. 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,”
Acts 7:38–45 NIV Read More
This is still part of Stephen the Genius’ speech before the Jewish council about Jesus.
Look at how Stephen puts Jesus into the context of God’s chosen people rejecting Moses and rejecting the prophets.
When Moses went up on to Mt. Sinai to get the Law, he was gone for 40 days. The people got tired of waiting and talked Aaron, Moses’ own brother and Moses’ mouthpiece to Pharoah, into making a golden calf for all of them to worship. He did it and there were terrible consequences.
Then he skips to the time of the kings of Israel, when prophets warned the people not to worship foreign gods or participate in the evil practices of the pagans. Israel didn’t listen and so they were carried off to Babylon for 70+ years of exile. Israel was destroyed and Jerusalem was deserted.
Stephen jumps back to Moses and Joshua and talks about how God made ways to live among His people. God came down in the tabernacle and met with Moses face to face. As Joshua conquered the promised land, God was with them and continued to meet with Joshua and to help His people.
The people listening to Stephen’s speech would remember that Jesus had been there just months to a year previous. It wasn’t so long that there weren’t still many eye-witnesses around that had been healed, dined with, or spoke face to face with Jesus.
Stephen’s hope is that as people remember how wayward Israel is and how faithful God has been, they will see that Jesus is God’s best and final attempt to reach out to them.