The Death of Stephen and John Rogers
Acts: The Mission of God • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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ROGERS INTRO
ROGERS INTRO
On February 4th, 1555, they came to get John Rogers.
You know John Rogers.
You met him back in July when I preached through the life of William Tyndale.
Rogers was chaplain to the Antwerp English merchants’ house in Belgium.
He is the man who rescued William Tyndale’s work and preserved it and published after Tyndale’s arrest and martyrdom.
Rogers was in trouble with Bloody Mary, the brutal daughter of King Henry VIII. He was to be her first Protestant martyr burned at the stake.
After Henry died on January 28, 1547, his son, Edward VI ascended to the throne.
Though he was only 9 years old, Edward was an ardent Protestant and his reign represented a distinctive change in England.
Suddenly, the Land of the Rose, which had been under the thumb of Henry’s adjusted Catholicism, was a bastion for Protestantism in Europe.
The fires that had been burning in Germany and Switzerland and Belgium were starting spread into England.
But the Protestant boy king only reigned for 6 years.
He tried to keep his Catholic sister off the throne by devising a plan to hand the crown to Lade Jane Grey.
She was reluctant, well aware that Mary was the rightful heir.
But she accepted it and asked God for strength and guidance.
Mary marched on London nine years later, sending Lady Jane Grey and her husband and father-in-law to the Tower of London.
The day that Mary had her killed for being a usurper, she recited Psalm 51 and then said, “Do it quickly.”
But this was just the start of Mary’s terror.
She would take one year on the throne to lull the nation into a sense of security. She sold everyone on a unified Catholic nation, before she began to systematically hunt down and kill those that rejected the Roman mass.
She would have at least 288 Protestants burned at the stake.
At least 100 more would die in prison before they could even be taken to the stake.
1555: 71 are burned
1556: 89 are burned
1557: 88 are burned
1558: 40 are burned
Arrests, trials, re-trials and executions
She killed important religious leaders in the English Reformation.
But she also killed businessmen and farmers. Blacksmiths and beer brewers. Lawyers. Servants. Couriers. Wool makers. Wheel makers. Merchants. Tanners. Saw-makers. Iron-makers.
People like you. Everyday people who held to the Bible as their authority, who proclaimed salvation in Christ alone, through faith alone, by grace alone—for the glory of God alone.
People who refused to accept the Roman Catholic dogma regarding the Mass.
In fact, Mary was so brutal that she had 54 women burned and unspeakably—four children.
But the first one that she killed…The first Protestant to be burned…The first Marian martyr...
That was John Rogers.
STEPHEN CONTEXT
STEPHEN CONTEXT
Rogers is a fitting parallel to the man in our text this morning.
Rogers is the first Marian Martyr.
Stephen is the first Christian Martyr.
If you remember, the last time we were in Acts together, we saw Stephen on trial for blasphemy.
This faithful brother has been accused of being anti-Law and anti-Temple and to be a blasphemer of the Lord, Himself.
But as he was on trial, he did not endeavor to defend himself, but defend the Gospel.
He did not try to clear His name, but to confront the hard-heartedness of the men on this convicting council.
They were spiritually lithified.
Their hearts were hard.
Years of rejection and rebellion of God’s truth and God’s prophets and God’s signs of the coming Messiah had hardened their hearts.
And then, their generation rejected the Messiah Himself.
“You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you. Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who announced beforehand the coming of the Righteous One, whom you have now betrayed and murdered, you who received the law as delivered by angels and did not keep it.”
And as we reach this morning’s text, they have come to get Stephen.
Like they would come for John Rogers 1500 years later.
What we see this morning in Stephen’s life is that the man who was one of the prototypes for deacons, will now be the prototype for martyrdom.
We will spend time working through this passage this morning, comparing the deaths of Stephen and John Rogers and then draw some conclusions as we go.
Let’s pray for God’s help this morning.
Prayer of Illumination
SCRIPTURE
SCRIPTURE
But he, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. And he said, “Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.” But they cried out with a loud voice and stopped their ears and rushed together at him. Then they cast him out of the city and stoned him. And the witnesses laid down their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul. And as they were stoning Stephen, he called out, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” And falling to his knees he cried out with a loud voice, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” And when he had said this, he fell asleep.
And Saul approved of his execution.
And there arose on that day a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem, and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles.
STEPHEN’S DEATH (7:55-8:1)
STEPHEN’S DEATH (7:55-8:1)
The response to Stephen’s speech is one of blind rage. Abnormal anger.
It would almost be comical if it wasn’t headed toward a bloody murder of a man.
They hear these things and they are “enraged.”
Oddly enough, the Greek word here is diaprio.
It means “Cut to the heart.”
This is a different type of cutting than the one we saw in Acts 2:37
Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?”
That was a cutting that led to repentance as Peter preached the Gospel at Pentecost
Those men heard Peter’s words and repented and were baptized into Christian brotherhood
But this is a cutting that had led to a feverish rage.
Their guilt stung them to the heart, and they sought relief in murdering their reprover, instead of sorrow and supplication for mercy.
Matthew Henry
They grind their teeth at Stephen.
This is the fury of Hell, is it not?
In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God but you yourselves cast out.
Stephen had just told them that their rejection of God’s Word, God’s prophets and God’s Messiah had hardened their hearts.
They had uncircumcised hearts, meaning they do not have the faith of Abraham and therefore, stand outside of God’s promises to Abraham.
And like those who fail to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven through the narrow door will gnash their teeth in eternal punishment, so these men gnash their teeth at Stephen on earth.
They grind their teeth in a hellish anger over the truth about the state of their hearts.
JESUS STANDING (v. 55-56)
JESUS STANDING (v. 55-56)
But Stephen is not full of rage like them.
He is full of the Holy Spirit (v. 55). And on the precipice of death, he looks to heaven and he sees Jesus standing at the right hand of God.
Why is Jesus standing?
This is not Jesus’ normal position in heaven.
And Jesus said, “I am, and you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven.”
But from now on the Son of Man shall be seated at the right hand of the power of God.”
Jesus said to him, “You have said so. But I tell you, from now on you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of heaven.”
The theological term for Jesus being seated at the right hand of God is the “Session of Christ.”
Jesus’ session was predicted in the Psalms:
The Lord says to my Lord:
“Sit at my right hand,
until I make your enemies your footstool.”
And in the New Testament, we are urged to look to Him seated there and set our minds on the things above, knowing that when He gets up and returns, we will also appear with Him in glory.
If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.
But here, Christ is standing. And I believe it is in acknowledgement.
Stephen has not acknowledged himself before the council
He did not even defend himself
Stephen acknowledged Christ and he heralded the truth of the Scriptures and of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And Jesus promised that He would acknowledge those who acknowledge Him in the midst of the enemies of the Gospel in this world:
So everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven,
That’s a verse that is referring to the eternal reward that faithful believers will receive from Christ, but Stephen gets to see it before he even dies.
Jesus stands and gazes upon Stephen in approving acknowledgement.
In verse 56, Stephen describes what he is seeing to his onlookers.
And he said, “Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.”
This is it.
They have had enough.
Hearing this young man claim that he has seen the realm of glory break through the realm of earth was too much for them.
Especially his use of the term “Son of Man.”
It is a direct reference to Daniel 7:13-14
“I saw in the night visions,
and behold, with the clouds of heaven
there came one like a son of man,
and he came to the Ancient of Days
and was presented before him.
And to him was given dominion
and glory and a kingdom,
that all peoples, nations, and languages
should serve him;
his dominion is an everlasting dominion,
which shall not pass away,
and his kingdom one
that shall not be destroyed.
Stephen is saying, “I see Daniel’s Son of Man. It is Jesus—the King of Glory, the Son, standing at the right hand of God.”
They had accused him of blasphemy and in their minds, this is all the proof they need.
MOB RULE (v. 57-58)
MOB RULE (v. 57-58)
Mob rule takes over at this point.
This council does not have the power to put Stephen to death. We know that from Jesus’ trial.
Pilate said to them, “Take him yourselves and judge him by your own law.” The Jews said to him, “It is not lawful for us to put anyone to death.”
But at least some of them band together here and cry out with a loud voice, put their fingers in their ears and run at him.
Their anger has reduced them to acting like children.
Richard Baxter said that if you could see yourself when you are angry and how ugly your anger makes your face, you would not want to be angry again.
These men are made ugly and childish by their anger.
There is no verdict in this kangaroo court.
They decide to take vengeance into their own hands and they take Stephen outside of the city to stone him.
This is about the only lawful part of this.
“Bring out of the camp the one who cursed, and let all who heard him lay their hands on his head, and let all the congregation stone him.
Lawful in terms of following the letter, but their lack of justice and their lofty pride is actually an abomination to God’s law at every single point.
This isn’t right—this is unlawful murder.
LIKE JESUS (v. 59 and others)
LIKE JESUS (v. 59 and others)
As Stephen is being killed in verse 59, you see that he cries out, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.”
And then, just before he dies, he falls to his knees and prays for his killers.
“Lord, do not hold this sin against them.”
It is worth stopping here to recognize how Stephen mimics his Messiah.
He does it in the giving up of his spirit:
Then Jesus, calling out with a loud voice, said, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” And having said this he breathed his last.
He does it in the prayer for the forgiveness of His enemies:
And Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” And they cast lots to divide his garments.
As he is squaring off with death itself, Stephen does not flinch in his faithfulness.
He is Christ-like to the very end.
As rocks are pelting him...
As his bones are cracked and broken...
As his teeth are busted...
He cries out to His Master and pleads for the Lord’s mercy for his murderers.
And with that, Stephen becomes the model example of Christian martyrdom.
Stephen gains a worthy place in redemption history.
SAUL (v. 58; 8:1)
SAUL (v. 58; 8:1)
Notice that as the men remove their garments so that they would be less constricted as they cast their stones, they lay those garments at the feet of a young man named Saul.
And then in 8:1, Saul approved of his execution.
This is Saul of Tarsus.
The church’s number one persecutor
He is the hound that ravages the church
He is brute doing the bidding of Satan
And by God’s grace, he will become the main character of the second half of Acts—not because he will continue to persecute, but because the Lord Jesus will save this terrorist and make him a proclaimer.
He goes from the Architect of Threats to the Apostle to the Gentiles
For this is none other than our brother, the Apostle Paul
The author of half of the New Testament
The most important missionary in church history
JOHN ROGERS DEATH
JOHN ROGERS DEATH
Fast-forward 1500 years.
After rescuing Tyndale’s work and publishing it...
After having taken a wife in Belgium...
After spending time studying in Germany under Luther’s friend and pupil, Phillip Melancthon...
John Rogers came back to England in 1548, ready to help with Edward’s Protestant revolution.
He would work with Tyndale’s old college friend, Thomas Cranmer and others to bring about a golden age of Protestant worship in England
But it was all cut short by Edward’s death and Mary ascending to the throne.
All of the Protestant dreams came crashing down as England was to be made Catholic again.
John Rogers did not take this lying down.
He went to Paul’s Cross, an open air preaching site outside of St. Paul’s Cathedral, where he was the “Divinity Lecturer” and he celebrated Mary’s crowning with a sermon.
He commended the crowd to stay with Edward’s Protestant ways
He denounced the Pope and superstitions that have no biblical grounding
As he is preaching, the pamphlets are being handed out telling people to remain Protestant and to resist Mary
And Rogers involvement in all of this would get him arrested.
As soon as Mary gets to the throne, Rogers is arrested.
And like Stephen, he is taken to trial.
He is asked if he believes that the sacrament of the Mass is the very body and blood of Jesus Christ.
This was the whole issue.
Transubstantiation—the Catholic dogma that says when the priest blessed the Mass, it actually becomes Jesus’ body and blood.
And Rogers rejected it. And he rejected it on the basis on what we talked about earlier— “Jesus’ body and blood is seated at the right hand of the Father.”
He is in session there.
And that means His body and blood is not in the hands of the Roman priests.
Rogers said that until the 2nd Coming happens, the body of Christ will not be on earth again.
After a brief time, he is charged with heresy, he is stripped of his positions as the divinity lecturer and he is placed under house arrest.
But in January of 1554, the bishop of London had him taken to Newgate prison.
He is separated from his wife and his 11 children.
He is placed behind bars with other Protestant preachers.
In December 1554, Parliament passes new laws saying, “If you don’t hold to Roman Catholic teaching, you will be put to death,” and that means those imprisoned men at Newgate will die if they do not recant their Protestant beliefs.
And the first one arrested is the first one marched before Mary’s hatchet man a month later.
Rogers faced Stephen Gardiner. Mary’s muscle.
Formal charges of heresy are brought against him
He is condemned to death for preaching against the Mass
Rogers stands firm.
They will burn him at the stake.
Like Stephen, he will not defend himself.
He has nothing to recant.
He has spoken the truth and he will not apologize.
So they came to get John Rogers.
February 4th, 1555.
He requested a final meeting with his wife. They refused him. He had not seen her for over a year. He had never seen the son she was pregnant with when he was taken away to Newgate.
He was marched past her and his kids on his way to the stake.
The son he never met was literally nursing at wife Adrana’s breast.
A few mocked him, but they were drowned out.
Foxe’s Book of Martyr’s says that there were people in the crowd shouting for him to die in strength and not recant.
His own kids yelled for him to stay strong.
His church members yelled for him.
Others applauded him.
He had so much support that one historian said you might have thought it was his wedding day.
Others were watching intently—for this was the first of Mary’s convicts. What would he do? Would he back down?
At the stake, the sheriff asks, “Will you revoke your evil opinions of the Sacrament?”
Rogers says, “That which I have preached I will seal with my blood.”
“You are a heretic then,” said the sheriff.
“That shall be known at the day of judgment,” Rogers said.
“I will never pray for you,” the sheriff replied emphatically.
And Rogers, in the spirit of Christ and the manner of Stephen said, “But I will pray for you.”
And then, they burned our brother John Rogers.
Fox also describes this moment. As the flames engulfed his legs and shoulders, Rogers was stone-faced as if he felt no pain. And then, in an act of defiance, he took his hands and washed them in the flames like it was cold water.
Then he held his burning hands up to heaven and held them there until they licked down his arms and consumed his body.
And John Rogers died as the first martyr under Bloody Mary Tudor.
One day, when Christ returns, the ashes of Rogers’ body, which bore the image of the first Adam, will be raised imperishable, with a body bearing the image of the Second Adam—the Lord Jesus.
THREE CONCLUSIONS
THREE CONCLUSIONS
What do we make of this sort of conviction?
What do we make of this sort of resolve unto death that we see in Stephen, the first Christian martyr and John Rogers, the first Marian martyr?
How do we take what we have learned and apply it to our own lives? Our own context?
I want to offer three brief conclusions for us to consider as we go this morning.
Three conclusions that I hope will compel us toward a life that will honor Christ unto death.
1. We need a martyr’s steel for a faithful life.
1. We need a martyr’s steel for a faithful life.
The reality is that you and I live in a land of religious freedom. At this point in the country we live in, we do not deal with an angry queen seeking to kill us for holding to the teaching of the Protestant Reformation.
We sang loud and proud in our neighborhood this Wednesday.
We belted out great Protestant truths in melody and lyric.
Guess what? Nobody came for us.
But I want you to understand that persecution is beginning to happen here in our own nation.
In Watertown, Wisconsin, there was a Pride in the Park Drag Show event in which drag queens were twerking on stage with children.
A young man was on a public sidewalk outside of the park with a speaker producing a legal amount of sound.
He was simply reading the Bible over the speaker.
He wasn’t even reading a passage having to do with homosexuality.
You can watch a video online of police snatching his personal property from his hands and arresting him in a matter of seconds
He was released at the police station because he had done nothing wrong
Days later he went before the Watertown City Council and proclaimed the Gospel.
Marcus Schroeder is 19 years old. I challenge you to find his speech and watch it.
What you will see is a young man who has steel in his spine.
And that is what we are going to need.
I am not telling you to go seek out a martyr’s death. That is silliness.
But I am telling you that we need a martyr’s steel.
We need some Stephen in our backs. Some John Rogers.
We need that boldness.
We need that resoluteness.
We need that unflinching conviction that Christ is King and what He says goes—no matter what.
Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted,
Paul tells us that godliness brings persecution.
Persecution can look different in different contexts.
But the further our culture drifts from its roots of Judeo-Christian ethics and the more it barrels full speed into a godless, naturalistic mindset, godliness will only beget more intensified persecution.
The evidence of what our culture thinks of biblical values is all around us:
Church was not essential in 2020
A movie about child trafficking in 2023 must not be taken seriously because it is made by Christians—no matter how much money it makes or noise it generates
And the Bible will not be read by a teenager on a public sidewalk, while children are sexualized by adults mere yards away
If you go up North, to British Colombia, the government in the capital city of Victoria just put out a lovely video where they say that:
Most people live their lives as the gender on their birth certificate
But some people must change their gender to be who they really are
The video says that there is nothing wrong with being LGBTQ and that those “identities” are compatible with every religion on the earth
And then they say there are those who say that being LGBTQ is a choice and that is something that people can turn away from.
And they show these images of the sort of people who might tell you that the LGBTQ lifestyle can be turned away from and they put the word DECEPTIVE on the screen.
Right next to a cartoon preacher.
So that is the government of British Colombia officially naming any pastor who holds who an orthodox position on biblical sexual ethics as DECEPTIVE.
They are calling a guy like me a liar.
And they have passed laws saying that it is illegal to use prayer, pastoral conversations and counseling to help someone out of that life.
These efforts they say, are harmful to the entire community.
That’s a different country, but it is alarming nonetheless.
It is alarming because we know that this is where a multitude of people in our own nation want us to be. In fact, they would even argue that is what freedom looks like.
As our culture finds us more and more outdated and outlandish, and as they move further and further into a purely secular worldview, we will need a martyr’s steel.
It may cost preachers to say, “I will not do that wedding.”
It may cost Christians to say, “I cannot sign that document in the workplace.”
It may cost our children, who will be even more of a remnant, as the West grows more and more anti-orthodox Christian values.
So what do we do?
We do what Paul told Timothy to do on the heels of his promise about persecution.
But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it
Press on in your firm faith
Hold to your convictions
Remember the faithfulness of those who taught you these things
Don’t stop believing God
Don’t stop obeying God
Don’t stop imitating godly people as they imitate Christ
Paul tells Timothy that evil people will go on from bad to worse, being deceived and being deceived.
The world is going to be the world.
In fact, it will get worse. Don’t be surprised by that as if God didn’t tell us.
Instead, hold on.
2. We must love our enemies as we stand strong.
2. We must love our enemies as we stand strong.
This is where we are not just Christlike in our trust of the Father, but we are Christlike in our love of our opponents.
This is what Jesus taught us:
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,
And as we saw earlier, Jesus showed us this love in its most incredible expression when He prayed for His enemies from the Cross.
And Stephen followed in his footsteps, falling to his knees and pleading mercy for his murderers.
Just like Rogers saying that he would always pray for the sheriff who burned him.
In Stephen’s case, his loving prayer was answered in the most dramatic of ways.
“Lord, do not hold this sin against them.”
God answered that prayer in the life of Saul.
Here is how Paul described his salvation:
The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.
Stephen prays for his murderers to be forgiven.
And not long from this moment, God would pluck up the one who held the coats for the mob and save him by grace through faith.
Paul was forgiven of this sin. It was laid on Jesus.
Think about that.
Jesus stands for Stephen, but He also dies for Paul, who murders Stephen.
Meaning, Jesus receives the Father’s wrath on Paul’s behalf for the death of Stephen and every other sin Paul ever committed.
How deep is the mercy of Jesus for His sheep?
This brings us to our final conclusion.
3. We never know who is watching our perseverance.
3. We never know who is watching our perseverance.
Stephen’s life had an effect upon Paul.
And when the blood of Stephen your witness was being shed, I myself was standing by and approving and watching over the garments of those who killed him.’ And he said to me, ‘Go, for I will send you far away to the Gentiles.’ ”
Did you hear that?
Paul takes Stephen’s death and makes it just as much a part of his story as his calling as the Apostle to the Gentiles.
Satan must have thought Stephen’s death was grand. He killed the Jerusalem church’s star-boy. The up and comer. The wise deacon, doing signs and wonders.
And God in heaven took this and used it to help draw Saul of Tarsus into the Kingdom.
Here is Lorraine Boettner talking about how God uses the sinful actions of man in His all-wise plan.
Even the sinful acts of men are included in this plan. They are foreseen, permitted, and have their exact place. They are controlled and overruled for the divine glory. The crucifixion of Christ, which is admittedly the worst crime in all human history, had, we are expressly told, its exact and necessary place in the plan (Acts 2:23; Acts 4:28).
Lorraine Boettner
And Stephen’s death had its exact place.
And Paul’s conversion is fruit that fell off God’s ordained vine and its seed spread throughout the whole world.
It is not unlike the results of the death of John Rogers, either.
Steven Lawson says that as Rogers was at the stake, the other preachers in prison wanted to know what was going to happen.
Would Rogers stay strong? Would Rogers recant?
And when they heard that Rogers had held strong, Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley also held strong.
Latimer and Ridley were burned together in the same year.
Before the flame, Latimer said:
Be of good comfort, Dr. Ridley, and play the man. We shall this day light such a candle by God’s grace in England, as I trust never shall be put out.”
Hugh Latimer
If Latimer is right, we would say that the wax of their candle was molded and shaped by the death of John Rogers.
Just as Paul’s was shaped by the death of Paul.
Who is watching you? Who needs to see your perseverance?
Who needs to see you wash your hands in the flame of trials, resolved in your faithfulness to Christ?
Who needs to see you stand strong when it seems like everyone else is shrinking back?
CONCLUSION
CONCLUSION
We are all likely to never experience a martyr’s death.
We are all likely to never die by a flame for our faith in Christ.
But may God give us the steel for whatever lies ahead.
And may He give us a great love for whoever opposes us.
And may our lives be examples of perseverance that motivate perseverance for the glory of God and His Kingdom’s advance.
We might not like die like John Rogers or the dear deacon Stephen—but may we have just a sliver of their impact.
May our numbered days count for Christ.