““You stubborn people! You are heathen at heart and deaf to the truth. Must you forever resist the Holy Spirit? That’s what your ancestors did, and so do you!”
Acts 7:51 (NLT)
At this point in Stephen’s sermon to the high council, he lets off a truth bomb. We reach the moment his sermon has been building for, his main point — the two-by-four he’s whacking across the forehead of the council members to try and wake them up. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work, but maybe it’ll work for one of us today as we inspect ourselves.
Stephen calls them stubborn — having to have everything your way. He says they’re heathen at heart — rotten at the core — because good or evil flows from the heart. And he says they’re deaf to the truth, so they can’t even hear what Stephen is trying to teach them by the Holy Spirit speaking through him.
That last line may be the start of the whole problem. When we can’t hear the truth — what’s right and what’s wrong — and we’re the only influences on our heart, it becomes vile and corrupt, wicked and deceitful, and then we become stubborn, all about ourselves. But if we’re open to the truth, we listen and hear God’s word and plant it in our souls and minds. We’re transformed by the renewing of our mind through God’s word, and we become more and more pure at heart — and when we’re pure at heart, we won’t be stubborn. We’ll be led by the Lord and become God’s people, not stubborn people.
Then Stephen asks a question that lands like a mirror: must you forever resist the Holy Spirit? It sounds like it came out of nowhere, until you see the pattern. Joseph was rejected, Moses was rejected, Jesus was rejected — all men God was speaking through by Holy Spirit. Even though Holy Spirit is now available to every believer, we can still resist by refusing to yield to that voice. The Lord reminded me of 1 Samuel 8 — when Israel demanded a king, God said, “They are rejecting me.” They chose an earthly reign over God’s reign. My prayer today is that we would stop rejecting God as king and allow Jesus to be Lord of our lives. Let’s yield to the Holy Spirit instead of resisting him, and let’s not be stubborn, heathen at heart, or deaf to the truth — let’s listen and follow Jesus today.