20 Seconds Can Save a Life

for the rest of us. Verse 54. If you've never

read Acts chapter 7, that's good homework for

Acts 7 · chapter mention

you today. I say we don't have time. I got time.

I would be glad to go through the whole chapter

and we could just sit up camp and stay till tonight.

But I suspect y 'all probably don't want to do

that. And so we won't. We'll just cover the end

of it. But if you want a good summation, a real

brief summation of the Old Testament, From Abraham,

kind of up until the time of Jesus and things

that transpired and the importance of them. There's

a guy by the name of Stephen that's preaching

here in Acts chapter 7. And he preaches a beautiful,

Acts 7 · chapter mention

beautiful sermon, kind of really getting on to

some of these Jewish people. They should have

been looking for the Messiah. They should have

understood the Old Testament prophecies. They

should have known that Jesus had fulfilled those

things that the Old Testament said. But they

had missed it. And they were really focused on

the ways of the Old Testament and in particularly

the ways of Moses and the law. And Stephen, he

just kind of cuts to it. And he starts from the

very beginning. He says, hey, here's where it

started. And here's how God worked through these

people. And here's how things happened. And he

preached this great sermon. We saw earlier in

the text that it had said he was a man who was

full of grace and he was preaching, but the people

did not want to hear what he was preaching. He

was preaching the truth. He was preaching the

gospel of Jesus Christ. And it says in the scriptures

that they really couldn't debate with him. They

couldn't make an argument against what he was

saying. There was no argument against it. He

was speaking the truth of the gospel. There was

no good response. There was no good rebuttal

to the truth that he was speaking. And he spoke

that truth and he preached that truth in all

boldness. And what we're going to look at today

is the response of the people that he preached

to. So in Acts chapter 7, verse 54, Acts chapter

Acts 7:54 Acts 7:54

7, verse 54, we'll read through the end of the

chapter. And then we'll pray and we'll talk for

a minute. Acts chapter 7, verse 54. This is after

Acts 7:54

Stephen finishes up his sermon. When they heard

these things, they were enraged in their hearts

and gnashed their teeth at him. But Stephen,

filled by the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven.

He saw God's glory with Jesus standing at the

right hand of God and he said, Look, I see the

heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at

the right hand of God. Then they screamed at

the top of their voices, covered their ears,

and together rushed him. They threw him out of

the city and began to stone him. And the witnesses

laid their robes at the feet of a young man named

Saul. They were stoning Stephen as he called

out, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. Then he knelt

down and cried out with a loud voice, Lord, do

not charge them with this sin. And saying this,

he fell asleep. Let's pray. God, we come to you

today. We thank you for these good words. And

I pray that your Holy Spirit would help us to

be focused today, that you'd free us of the worries

and distractions and the thoughts of this world.

I pray, God, that you would reveal to us in your

word, through your word, the things that you

want us to hear today. That as we look at the

life that Stephen lived and the opposition that

he faced, dear Lord, that there may be something

in this word, God, that would be what we need

to hear. God, maybe there are some here today

or some online, God, and they're the crowd that's

not wanting to hear the truth. I pray, God, that

you would open their ears, that perhaps they

have closed, that they would... Hear the truth

of the gospel of Jesus Christ today. God, maybe

there are some of us here that are like Stephen,

trying to do the work and face opposition. God,

whatever it may be that's in your word, I pray

that your Holy Spirit would speak to us this

morning. I pray that you'd hide me behind the

cross, that I'd be able to preach and teach in

a way that brings glory and honor to you. Take

away any fear or any pride that's in me, dear

Lord, and recall to my mind the words that you

would desire for me to say today. Now, we're

going to get into this text in a little more

detail here in just a second, but I wanted to

talk about something else for a second, and that

is when we go out into a crowd, when we go to

a hospital, when we go just about anywhere these

days, we wash our hands pretty frequently. Everybody

does that, especially after COVID. Man, we got

all kind of disinfectant and antibacterial and

stuff all over the place these days. And we're

always washing our hands and scrubbing our hands

and cleaning our hands. It only takes about 20

seconds to wash your hands. That's what the CDC

recommends, at least. The Center for Disease

Control says, hey, take about 20 seconds, scrub

your hands real good, work up a good lather,

rub them off real good, wash them off, and that's

enough to kill the germs. But it wasn't always

that way. Now, you may have heard of people like...

Florence Nightingale, perhaps you've heard of

her, have some knowledge of history. She was

a nurse that became quite famous during the Crimea

War. Perhaps you've heard the name Louis Pasteur,

or maybe you've heard the name Joseph Lister.

Maybe you don't know those people, but I suspect

you know of the things that they did, whether

you know their names or not. Perhaps you've heard

of the process of pasteurization. That was invented

by Louis Pasteur. He discovered that if you warm

up certain things to a certain temperature, it'll

kill the germs and make it last longer. You see

that a lot with milk, pasteurized milk. Almost

all the milk that you're going to get these days

is going to be pasteurized. Perhaps you've never

heard of Joseph Lister, but maybe you've heard

of Listerine before. an antiseptic. And while

Joseph Lister didn't invent the product that

we call Listerine, he did a lot of work and he

did make an antiseptic because he realized the

importance of killing germs along with Louis

Pasteur, along with Florence Nightingale. These

were all people that were crucial in the process

of killing germs and protecting people and saving

lives. But there was one man to really think

for the whole process of washing hands. Now,

you would think that humanity for many years

would have realized the importance of washing

hands, but that simply was not the case. There

was a man by the name of Ignaz Semmelweis. He

was a foreigner, and he was a doctor, and he

discovered something that was quite interesting

one day when he was in his hospital. He realized

that the mortality rate of mothers who were giving

birth was really outrageous. Over 18 % of the

mothers who were giving birth would die after

their childbirth from some sort of infection.

Now, this was all taking place in the 1800s.

Around 1847 is when all this took place. But

Dr. Samuel Wise began to investigate, and he

discovered something interesting. In the hospital

in which he worked, there was a couple of different

groups of people. There was one group of people

that delivered babies, and that group was doctors.

And there was another group that delivered babies,

and that group were midwives in different parts

of the hospital. And what he realized was is

that the women who were giving birth by the midwives

didn't have this death rate. Less than 2 % of

them were dying. There are very few of these

mothers who would die as a result of their childbirth.

And so he decided to investigate and figure out

what is the difference between the doctors who

were delivering these babies and the midwives.

What's going on here? And so he quickly discovered

the problem. He realized that the doctors who

were so often delivering these children were

coming from the morgue. They were doing work

on dead bodies and they were doing all these

different things and they would leave straight

from working on these corpses and go straight

in and deliver a baby with no steps in between.

And he began to ponder and he began to think

if there was something that was being spread,

germs, from the corpses of these dead bodies

that was being spread to these women who were

getting pregnant. Now this was a remarkable discovery.

Because up until this point, everybody just thought

that germs were spread through the air, which

they certainly are sometimes. But generally speaking,

the medical field believed that bad air was the

result of sickness and germs that were being

spread. And Dr. Semmelweis realized that there

were germs that could be spread from one person

to another by touch. And so he began to institute

a new policy in the hospital. that everyone in

the hospital, before delivering a child, washed

their hands. And guess what happened? The death

rate among mothers giving birth dropped drastically.

In the whole hospital, less than 2 % of mothers

that gave birth died. This was a remarkable discovery.

It took until 1847 to discover this. And so Dr.

Semmelweis excited... about what he had discovered,

he began to tell all the other doctors around,

all the other doctors in the area, he began to

tell them that he had come up with this great

discovery that, hey, we can spread germs from

one person to another. So before we go from one

patient to the next, we need to wash our hands.

And I have proof. I have the evidence that this

is true. This is a life -saving thing right here.

We can save lives. And do you know what the other

doctors that he told this to did? They all laughed

at him. They said that he was crazy. They wrote

him off. They didn't pay any attention to what

he said. They continued to practice medicine

without washing their hands. And guess what happened?

Germs continued to be spread. People began to

die needlessly from simple things that they didn't

have to die from. And so he began to write papers,

and he began to try to get the word out everywhere

we could. Look, this is true. I'm not crazy.

I'm telling you the truth here. Look at what

I have discovered. This is life -changing. This

will save your life if you'll just do this thing.

And for years and years and years, Dr. Semmelweis

tried to convince people of that simple truth.

That if they would just be washed, if their hands

would just be washed, it would save their lives.

It would save the lives of others. And by the

mid -1860s, very few people had listened to him.

He was so aggravated. He was so passionate about

it. He was so angry that people wouldn't do this

simple thing. And he tried and he tried and he

just, oh, it just got off with him so bad that

by the 1860s, he had literally gone insane because

nobody would listen to what he had to say. His

doctor friends made fun of him, they wrote him

off, they said he was a lunatic, and eventually

he was tricked into going to an insane asylum

to visit someone else. Little did he know that

he himself would be locked up there. And ironically,

only a couple of weeks after being placed in

the insane asylum, he died due to an infection

that probably would have been avoided if those

treating him... would have washed their hands.

Now you would think that at the end of that part

of the story, that within the next few years,

that it would have been mandatory and it would

have been a standard that everyone in the medical

field would wash their hands. But do you know

when it became a medical standard from the CDC

that you wash your hands in a medical facility?

Anybody want to take a guess? 1985. 1985. Before

the CDC published a standard that required people

in the medical field to wash their hands. And

here this man knew the truth all along. And he

was ridiculed and he died trying to get the truth

across to people. Well, now it's second nature.

We all know that we should wash our hands. Hopefully

we all do wash our hands. But I share that story

because I think that maybe in some way that's

not so unlike what it is for us to be a Christian.

Stephen knew a wonderful truth. He had discovered

the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ. It changed

his life and he realized the importance of that

truth. He said, Jesus Christ can save lives.

Jesus Christ can save your soul. And so he discovered

this great truth. He had experienced this great

truth. He had the evidence for it. And so he

goes out into the world and he begins to preach

and to teach and to show people, look at what

I've discovered. It's Jesus. He is the Messiah.

He can save your soul. He can save your life.

You're doomed without him, but he can cleanse

you and make you as white as snow. And he went

and he preached that gospel, and his result was

not so unlike that of Dr. Semmelweis. Because

as we see from this scripture, the crowd that

heard the truth of the word that he spoke told

him he was crazy, essentially. They wrote him

off. They said, we don't want to hear what you

got to say. And he preached all the more with

all the boldness. And when he had finished preaching

and presenting the word of God to them in the

most beautiful and precise way, and he says,

look, y 'all need to pay attention. You're still

missing it. You're still hard -hearted. You're

still stiff -necked. And after presenting to

them the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ,

what did it say they did? It's said that they

begin to holler at the top of their lungs and

they close their ears. The more he began to speak

the truth, I don't want to hear it. I don't want

to hear it. And as a result of him speaking the

truth, they killed him. They took his life. Maybe

our experiences are similar in some way. Because

I want to tell you something, the world has not

changed. The people of Stephen's day are not

so unlike the people of our day. There are a

lot of people that don't want to hear the truth

of the gospel of Jesus Christ. There are a lot

of people that if you try to share with them

scripture, if you try to share with them the

love of Jesus, they will tell you that you are

insane. They'll tell you that... They don't want

to hear any of that. But when you've lived the

truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ and experienced

the grace of Jesus Christ and know that your

sins have been forgiven, when you've discovered

such a truth, you have to speak it. You have

to share it. There are many Christians in this

world. They do that regularly. Hopefully we are

some of them. And there are still some Christians

in this world that are no different than Stephen.

That they discovered the truth and no matter

where they are and who they encounter, no matter

how crazy they may tell them they may be, they

say, but this is the truth. This is the life

changing truth. Would you just listen to what

I have to say? And they continue to promote the

truth even though it costs them their lives.

What about you and I? Are we ready to promote

the truth in that way? Yeah, we may face opposition

sometimes. Maybe we're quick to turn when opposition

comes. Maybe we speak the truth to someone and

they come back at us a little bit or they attack

us in some way and maybe we back off and go on

our way. Maybe we need boldness to be more like

Stephen, to say, I've discovered the truth in

Jesus Christ, and I want to make sure that you

know that truth. And even when we speak the truth

to those who don't want to hear it, you never

know. You never know how it may change their

life. Isn't it interesting that in this story,

That in the middle of the crowd of those who

were stoning Stephen were introduced to a character

just in one brief little line here. That there

was a man there before them who held their coats

as they stoned Stephen and his name was Saul.

Later to be called on by God who would be at

the forefront of the church and spreading this

same news. God would rename him Paul and he would

use him in a mighty way. So sometimes the very

people that we're ministering to, sometimes the

very people that don't want to hear the message

are the very people that God is going to let

that message begin to eat away at them, let that

message begin to speak to them. And sometimes

it may be the very ones who attack us, the very

ones who kill us, that God uses in a mighty way.

We wash our hands today all the time. We don't

think anything of it. It seems like common sense.

But sometimes common sense isn't so common. Sometimes

the things that are obvious to us as true and

good may not be as obvious to others as being

as true and as good. But as Christians, God calls

us, those who have trusted in Jesus Christ, to

take the good news. To take what we know is true

and to share it with a lost and dying world.

We understand the importance of washing our hands

and killing those germs. But how much more so

do we need to have our souls cleansed? How much

more so do we need to get all the gook and the

gunk and the nastiness that the Bible would call

sin? All that sinfulness that was in our heart.

Boy, that anger we have, that bitterness we have,

that lust that we have, that greed that we have,

the things that we say that we shouldn't say

and the things that we do that we shouldn't do,

the way that we open our mouth that we should

shut our mouth, all of these things that lead

to sin in our life, the list goes on and on and

on. These things make us as dirty as can be.

Even our righteous acts are like, Filthy rags

before the Lord, the scripture says. Nastiness.

Nastiness. Praise the Lord, the scripture says

that if Jesus washes us, we are as white as snow.

Jesus tells his disciples as he washes their

feet, soon afterwards he says, once I have washed

you, you are clean. Have you been made clean

today? Maybe you've heard the truth of the gospel

and you've been covering your ears and resisting

it for many years. Maybe today the Lord wants

to speak to you. Maybe today the Lord's already

convicting you. Maybe today the Lord wants you

to take your fingers out of your ears and listen

to his word and seek his son, Jesus Christ. It

doesn't take long. The truth of the gospel is

this, is that we are sinners in need of a Savior.

Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is that Savior.

That He was crucified, that He was buried, that

He was resurrected. That He gave His life, that

He shed His blood to cover our sins so that we

could be forgiven. Have you put your trust in

Jesus today? Do you have faith in Jesus Christ

today? Have you repented of your sins today?

Does it take long? Maybe about 20 seconds. Maybe

it'll only take you about 20 seconds today to

say, Lord Jesus, I know I need you. Lord Jesus,

I know I'm a sinner in need of a Savior. I have

sinned in so many ways. And God, I know I can't

earn your favor, but I know you died on the cross

for me so that I could be forgiven. Jesus, would

you forgive my sins today and be my Savior? It

only takes about 20 seconds to seek God, to call

out to him, to know the truth, to live in the

truth, and to be washed as white as snow. Let's

pray. God, we come to you today. We thank you

for these good words, and I pray, dear Lord,

that you would help us to have a boldness like

Stephen. God, I pray that you would help any

that are here today and any that are online that

are not. followers of Jesus Christ, that today

that they would be followers of Jesus Christ,

that they would put their faith and their trust

in Jesus Christ and that they would follow him.

God, maybe there are some here today and they

are already yours. They are already your followers,

dear Lord. Pray that you'd give us all the boldness

to share the truth of the gospel. Pray that we

all have experienced the truth of Jesus Christ.

And I pray, God, That we would be at the forefront

of sharing this truth with others. But God we

have to know. We have to be ready through your

strength. To know that. God when we share the

truth. It's not always celebrated. It's not always

accepted. And so God even in our lives. As we

share the truth of the gospel. We may be ridiculed.

We may be mocked. And God. As is the case. Still

in our world today. There are Christians. Whose

lives are taken for sharing the truth. But God

let us never give up. Give us the strength and

the ability to stand strong. And to be able to

speak truth. Give us wisdom dear Lord. To share

your word and to not back down. God I pray that

there are any today that do not know the truth

of Jesus Christ. Have not accepted that truth

that they would do so this morning. God it only

takes a few seconds. To come before you. To repent

of our sins. To ask you to forgive us dear Lord.

And we will be clean. But that only comes through

Jesus Christ. So I pray God that if there are

any that do not know him. That they would know

him today. God whatever uncleanliness is in our

heart. Even those who are yours. I pray God that.

Maybe we would just take a few moments dear Lord.

To have a spiritual cleansing this morning. That

we wouldn't allow these sinful things. that wear

us down to continue to spread in our body, but

God, that we just would seek you today to kill

those spiritual germs. And I ask these things

in Jesus' name. Amen.