Acts 6

The Angel Face

And all that sat in the council, fastening their eyes on him, saw his face as it had been the face of an angel. Acts 6:15.

Today I want to speak to you about the man with the angel face Stephen, the first Christian martyr.

Stephen had been brought before the Jewish Council and falsely accused of speaking against God, against Moses, and against the Temple. False witnesses had twisted the words he had spoken in their synagogues till these words were given a meaning he had never intended.

It was at the moment when his enemies were misrepresenting all that he had said, at the moment when he knew that his life was in grave danger, that Stephen's face was “as it had been the face of an angel.” Doesn't it seem strange that it was just then that Stephen's face wore the angel-look? You might have expected it to wear a look of indignation indignation at the false accusations that were being made, or even a look of fear, fear of what might be before him; but Stephen had got above and beyond these things.

I think we can picture that meeting of the council the priests, elders, and scribes on whose faces were written pride, anger, hatred, and jealousy; and, confronting them, the man with the pure, calm, radiant countenance.

What was it that made Stephen's face like the face of an angel?

Well, first of all, I think it was his faith in God. We are told that Stephen was a man “full of faith.” He had got so near to God that he knew that everything was right, he knew that there was a life beyond this one and that whatever they did to him they could not separate him from the love of Christ that even if they put him to death, they would just be sending him home a little sooner.

And then, I think Stephen's pure life and character shone in his face. You cannot have an angel face without an angel heart. It was not the doing of one hour. Stephen had lived a life of love and unselfishness, and at the moment he was tested his goodness and purity shone in his face.

But I think the light came from without as well as from within. It was the reflected light of God's presence. God was very near Stephen at that time, and Stephen knew it and felt it. And a little later, just before his death, he had a vision of the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God. I think that then, too, his face must have been as the face of an angel.

Now we may each have the face of an angel. God has put an angel into the heart of every one of us, and if we only give that angel a chance to grow, we too may become as the angels. Have you ever looked on the face of a very young child when he was asleep? If you have, you will have seen the angel-look on it calm and pure. Perhaps the little one as he dreams has visions of God who gave to him his soul. But as the child grows older he gradually loses that angel- look in sleep. What is it that blots it out? It is the thing that blots all the beauty out of the world and brings pain and sorrow it is sin.

And so, boys and girls, if we want to have an angel face we must, like Stephen, have the angel heart. For the face is a sort of photograph of the heart, and all we think or say or do is more or less shown on our countenance. It is told of a missionary to China that he was so full of love to God and man that his great loving heart made his face glow. And the natives called him “Mr. Gloryface.”

Yes, bad thoughts and tempers and unkind deeds will very surely lay their mark on the most beautiful face and mar all its beauty. But kind thoughts and unselfish actions will glorify the plainest face and make it radiant with a beauty that is of far more value than mere surface loveliness.

But how are we to get back the angel heart that sin has spoiled, the angel heart that will give us the angel face? Do you know the legend of the spots on the cowslip?

On the petals of the cowslip are “five small drops of red,” and these five drops were supposed to represent the five wounds with which Christ was wounded on the

Cross. It was said that, on account of these five spots, the cowslip had the virtue of keeping the beauty of youth for ever unspoilt. It is the wounds of Christ that keep the beauty of our hearts unspoilt. It is those wounds that can wash away the stains from them when we have soiled them. It is those wounds that can make them pure and fair again. Jesus alone can give us the angel heart.

Will you ask Jesus to make your heart as the heart of an angel? Then your face will shine as Stephen's did with the very light of God's presence, and your life will be glorified and perfected in Christ.