Acts 7:56

STEPHEN’S VISION

‘Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing on the right hand of God.’

Acts 7:56

Many do not think Christ worth living for: St. Stephen thought Him worth dying for. St. Andrew was the first Christian missionary. St. Stephen was the first Christian martyr. Some faces haunt us: we think of St. Stephen as the martyr with the shining face and the praying lips.

I. A wonderful vision.—‘He … saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God.’ The Lord Jesus was ‘not sitting as in peace and ease; but standing up, as One Who felt the pain that His member on the earth endured.’

II. Wonderful prayers.—‘Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.’ ‘Lord, lay not this sin to their charge.’ We cannot help thinking of our Lord’s first and last Sentence on the Cross. ‘Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.’ ‘Father, into Thy Hands I commend My Spirit.’

III. A wonderful sleep (Acts 7:60).—The dying martyr outside the city wall casts himself like a tired child into the Everlasting Arms and ‘fell asleep’ amid a shower of stones. St. Paul’s first Epistle to the Thessalonians is the earliest of St. Paul’s Letters, earlier probably than the four Gospels. And in that Epistle believers are said to sleep and not to die. Sleep does not destroy the powers of the mind. It is the emblem of repose. Then there, is the certainty of waking.

—Rev. F. Harper.

Illustration

‘The murderers have never been able to hear the dying testimony of the victims. In an age comparatively recent, they beat the drums to drown the last words of the Scottish Covenanters. “Argyll’s sleep,” on the night before his execution, made the blood run cold in his enemies’ veins.’