Acts 7:57

“Then they cried out with a loud voice, stopped their ears, and ran at him with one accord.”

Such is the response to the testimony of one who has been washed by the blood of the Lamb. “they cried out with a loud voice,” a cry of displeasure and stumbling to the word of God by whom their hearts were hardened in disobedience. They did not look up to heaven because they loved their darkness and hated the light which would expose their evil deeds.

They remind me of my days as an unbeliever; went to church, yet didn’t love the brethren; the gospel was being preached; yet my heart was set to disobedience to Jesus command: “Let all those with ears let them hear.” I was one of those religious judges whom “stopped their hears” from hearing God’s word. I loved my sin, I loved my self-righteousness, and when anything attempted to usurp my love, I either hid my sin from the light with fig leaves, or I would join the enemy shooting arrows at God’s saints and their holy book trying to justify myself. Therefore my wicked feet would have probably joined the persecutors who “ran at him with one accord.”

Application: I can’t help see my scowling face among those judges who stoned the innocent Stephen to death. I was among the voices of the scoffers who yelled at Pilate to “Crucify Him!” I was one of the unrighteous before I first believed, and I have to stop myself sometimes when I start classifying and judge those in the Bible supposing that “I would have never done that.” Yes I would have.

Though I was just as wicked as them in my heart, it still gives me a better sense of the truth that while I was yet a sinner, Christ loved me and gave Himself for me. May I be quick to show my past and show myself in the bad characters in Scripture so that the violent, religious, self-righteous sinners could be encouraged to open their ears to the gospel of redemption, the gospel of grace, the gospel of the glorious Jesus Christ.