What Is in Everybody’s Heart

This shows us what we are as to our natures. Scripture always takes a remarkable case and by means of it presents to us what is in everybody's heart. The same principle governs man now as it did then. There is the same resistance to the present testimony of the Holy Spirit as there was then, and the same trusting in ordinances. The Holy Spirit gives us by the mouth of Stephen a picture of human nature in its most advantageous circumstances. What the Jews were doing then, is just what men are doing now. Men are as rigid about ordinances now as ever the Jews were, and as determined in rejecting the testimony of the Holy Spirit. God must have life and holiness; ordinances cannot give these things.
The testimony of Stephen cut the Jews to the heart, and "they gnashed on him with their teeth. But he, being full of the Holy Ghost." Here Stephen was full of the Holy Spirit, not merely as a prophet, but for himself. Here he takes part in the sufferings and rejection of his Master. The power of the Holy Spirit puts him in the place of testimony and this draws down the hatred of men.