Introduction: In one of the books I’m currently reading, I came across this quote:

In every age, including Elijah’s and our own, there are too many politicians and too few prophets. Politicians tell people what they want to hear, prophets tell people what they need to hear. Politicians are worried about keeping their power, prophets are worried about honoring their God. Politicians are covert, and dishonest, prophets are overt and honest. Politicians say what they want, prophets say what God wants. Today, as much as in the days of Elijah, we need far more prophets and far fewer politicians. This is especially true in the church where the politicians too often get onto the board, into the pulpit, or running the denomination.

Segue: Remember the Christian kitschy fad a few years back with the plastic bracelets that read, “What Would Jesus Do?” Sometimes they were just abbreviated: WWJD.

You know what’s interesting? We don’t have to guess. He actually spoke. He actually wrote 66 books. He actually has told us so that we are not left in the dark. Here are just a few examples:

• O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not! (Matthew 23:37)

Here’s another example:

Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures:

“‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this was the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes’?

Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits. And the one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and when it falls on anyone, it will crush him.”

When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they perceived that he was speaking about them. And although they were seeking to arrest him, they feared the crowds, because they held him to be a prophet. (Matthew 21:42-46)

And here’s another example:

And Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor, except in his hometown and among his relatives and in his own household” (Mark 6:4).

And Paul’s Words to Timothy, as yet another example:

For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wonder off into myths. As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry (2 Timothy 4:3-5).

Stephen was about to be murdered:

Remember the book of Acts? Remember how the whole point of the book of Acts is what the young Christian church was facing amidst great suffering and persecution? Remember how Stephen was stoned with rocks by those who hated his message of the truth? Remember how Jesus told his people that the world system hates the truth and kills the prophets of truth? Remember Acts 7, as just one example?

The whole point of Acts 7 is that Stephen is telling the truth to a hard-hearted people who largely rejected the truth and him. Why? Because he was a man of courage and conviction who told the truth. And they killed him because of it. He was not there to curry favor. He was not there to be what the New Tesament calls a man-pleaser: “For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ” (Galatians 1:10).

No, Stephen loved people. He actually loved them. That is why he told them the truth.

The whole thrust of the argument Luke makes throughout Acts by recording the acts of the apostles is how God’s judgment is just and deserved. Why? Because fallen sinful people don’t like truth. They crave soft words, sweet words, words that comfort rather than confront them in their position before the holy God of Scripture. The crowds didn’t murder Jesus and Stephen and Paul for being nice and proffering sentimentality.

Stephen calls them “stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you. Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who announced beforehand the coming of the Righteous One, whom you have now betrayed and murdered, you who received the law as delivered by angels and did not keep it” (Acts 7:51-53).

Stephen was murdered. Paul was executed. Peter was crucified. John was exiled. Thomas was run through with a spear. Jesus was spat upon, mocked, flogged, whipped, and crucified. These are not insignificant details, dear ones.

Encouragement: “For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope” (Romans 15:13).

May God be pleased to send us courageous men who are faithful to the Scriptures. Why? Because as Stephen was uttering his magnificent speech before those casting stones to murder him, Stephen said these words that day: “Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God” (Acts 7:56).

And then Stephen saw his Lord and prayed as he died at the hands of wicked men, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit” (Acts 7:59). And the Lord Jesus did. But Stephen was faitfhul amidst the crowds. He was not in it for Stephen; he was in it for truth. Because he loved the truth, he was courageous to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the redeeming truth. And he went to his reward.