2 Samuel 16: 15-23, 2 Samuel 17, 2 Samuel 18: 1-18, Acts 7: 20-43, Psalm 89: 9-13
Acts 7: 37- 40 (ESV)
“This is the Moses who said to the Israelites, ‘God will
raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers.’ This is the one who was
in the congregation in the wilderness with the angel who spoke to him at Mount
Sinai, and with our fathers. He received living oracles to give to us. Our
fathers refused to obey him, but thrust him aside, and in their hearts they
turned to Egypt, saying to Aaron, ‘Make for us gods who will go before us. As
for this Moses who led us out from the land of Egypt, we do not know what has
become of him.’”
In Acts 7 with verses 37 through 40, Stephen who was
speaking before the Sanhedrin, reminds them that Moses said a prophet will come
and the people must listen to him. But like Moses, this predicted “prophet” who
is Christ will be rejected generations later by his people. Stephen argues
before the Sanhedrin that the prophet that Moses predicted was Christ.
People celebrate how Moses freed the Jewish people from slavery
in Egypt, but we must also remember that they also rejected him when he didn’t
come back from the mountain. But Moses came back down from the mountains and brought
back the 10 commandments and wrote the first five books of the Torah. History
repeated itself with Christ being rejected by his own people, and with his crucifixion
Christ gave us a new covenant with God. Poor Stephen. He tried his best to tell
the high priests that Jesus was the prophet whom Moses predicted.
