We Don’t Need the Pleasures of the World

Acts 7:42-53

New International Version (NIV)

42 But God turned away from them and gave them over to the worship of the sun, moon and stars. This agrees with what is written in the book of the prophets:

“‘Did you bring me sacrifices and offerings
    forty years in the wilderness, people of Israel?

43 You have taken up the tabernacle of Molek
    and the star of your god Rephan,
    the idols you made to worship.
Therefore I will send you into exile’[a] beyond Babylon.

44 “Our ancestors had the tabernacle of the covenant law with them in the wilderness. It had been made as God directed Moses, according to the pattern he had seen. 45 After receiving the tabernacle, our ancestors under Joshua brought it with them when they took the land from the nations God drove out before them. It remained in the land until the time of David, 46 who enjoyed God’s favor and asked that he might provide a dwelling place for the God of Jacob.[b] 47 But it was Solomon who built a house for him.

48 “However, the Most High does not live in houses made by human hands. As the prophet says:

49 “‘Heaven is my throne,
    and the earth is my footstool.
What kind of house will you build for me?
says the Lord.
    Or where will my resting place be?

50 

Has not my hand made all these things?’[c]

51 “You stiff-necked people! Your hearts and ears are still uncircumcised. You are just like your ancestors: You always resist the Holy Spirit! 52 Was there ever a prophet your ancestors did not persecute? They even killed those who predicted the coming of the Righteous One. And now you have betrayed and murdered him— 53 you who have received the law that was given through angels but have not obeyed it.”

(https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Acts+7%3A42-53&version=NIV)

Stephen continued in the Old Testament accounts of the Israelite people.  It seems a little odd that the people saw all these miraculous works of the Lord yet still had their doubts.  They saw how God had taken care of them through all the plagues and then to cross the Red Sea on dry ground, yet began grumbling and complaining a little while later.  When they saw that their leader had gone missing they must have thought that he had ran away like he had done forty years earlier.  They felt alone and without hope.  So they turned to the hope they had been taught all the years in Egypt.  They began worshipping the gods of Egypt.

Often times this is what happens to new believers who have come into the faith with a lot of habits that they grew up knowing.  They want so much to follow the Lord and have faith that they can overcome but the first time a trial is placed before them they go back to their old habits.  The first person that might be blamed is the leader that led them out of their life of bondage.  This is where the problem is, they have depended more on the leader than on the One that is leading the leader.  We need to put our trust in God not in man, yet we find ourselves doing it all the time.

Even as a person raised in a Christian home and one who became a believer as a child, I can find myself being disappointed by the actions of man.  Yet, God has called me into a life that depends not on man but upon Him.  The Israelites did not see this.  God called them “stiff-necked people” and Stephen repeats this to them again.  They do not look to the left or to the right but only what is directly in front of them.  They see the problem and cannot find a solution because they are unable look up. 

How often do we do the same thing?  I know that I do it often.  I see the problem with no solution in sight because I look at the actions of man rather than the power of the Lord.  We begin to wander in the desert because we are stiff-necked people who cannot seem to look up.

Whether you are a new believer or one that has been around for a lot of years, it is important to remember that when troubles come our way, we need to seek Him, not be stiff-necked but look towards Him.  Look up, to the one whose footstool is the earth, seek Him, and His direction.  When we do this we find peace, we don’t need this world and the pleasures of it, we realize we need more and more of Him.

Seeking His with all my heart,

Sheila