Acts 7:5-8 (NIV)
But God promised him that he and his descendants after him would possess the land, even though at that time Abraham had no child. God spoke to him in this way: ‘Your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own, and they will be enslaved and mistreated four hundred years. But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves,’ God said, ‘and afterward they will come out of that country and worship me in this place.’ Then he gave Abraham the covenant of circumcision. And Abraham became the father of Isaac and circumcised him eight days after his birth. Later Isaac became the father of Jacob, and Jacob became the father of the twelve patriarchs.
Abraham’s story is amazing and consistently thrilled the hearts of every one of his descendants when they heard it told. The story of a man with no possible future being miraculously given a future by God is no small thing. And to be a descendant of that man, the fruit of his divine promise, was and is a point of pride among Jewish people everywhere.
But the path to possessing the Promised Land would not be smooth, and Sarah’s infertility would not be the only obstacle that would have to be overcome. God helped Abraham to know that the path to the promise would include trouble, and even conquest and slavery for those who would ultimately conquer the land promised to him.
The country where they would be slaves was unnamed, but far from the land in which Abraham was living at the time. But that seeming dead end would become a path to riches and victory as God punished that nation and led the people back into their own land to take possession of it.
Stephen briefly touched on the ritual of circumcision, the mark of the covenant made permanently in the flesh of the descendants of Abraham. But the point that God was making through Stephen was that, even when His people go through hardships, those hardships do not negate His promises. Indeed, nearly every promise that God makes is tempered by warnings about the trials that will be a part of receiving the promise.
That understanding was important to Stephen right then. He knew that other followers of Jesus had already suffered beatings, and threats of worse, from the Sanhedrin and had come out them rejoicing that they had been considered worthy of suffering for the name of Jesus. But he also knew that the promised blessings were going to be received on the far side of the sufferings, just as they had been for Jesus Himself.
Father, there is an aberrant theology that surfaces from time to time that says that if we suffer any hard times, it is proof that we are outside of Your will, since Your path always runs smooth. But, based on the history of Your people, that is absolutely false. Help us to stay solid in our faith, no matter what the world sends us, no matter the trials that come or the sufferings that are thrown across our path. Help us to continue to understand that the promised blessings lie on the far side of those trials and push right through them, all the way to glory! Amen.
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