What does it mean to have a stiff neck?

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English: Repent window, Mathon church, near to...
English: Repent window, Mathon church, near to Mathon, Herefordshire, Great Britain. Beneath the left side: Repent ye for the kingdom of heaven is at hand" and the right: "Thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness". (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
“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.” Acts 7:51–53

Stephen goes on to tell them the end of the story in order to make his point: God’s people, the nation of Israel, time and time again, rejected God’s provision for them. They complained to Moses their deliverer, and rejected and killed the prophets that God raised up for them. What Stephen is saying is, “You’re doing the same thing! You need to repent!”

Sadly, most people, when they hear the call to repentance, harden their hearts and close their ears.

Why do you think it is so hard to repent?

Repenting demonstrates that we are needy—we’re not God. God is the only person in the universe who doesn’t need to repent because he always does what is just and right. We don’t. We are sinners. We need help. We need forgiveness. We need healing and atonement for our sin.

In this account, Stephen is pointing out their hypocrisy. They claim to be religious, but their actions tell a different story. They need to repent of their hypocrisy. The religious leaders hated Jesus for exactly the same reasons they hated Stephen: he accused them of failing to lead God’s people.

One of the things that God hates the most is hypocrisy. He wants his people to follow him as he has declared, not as they see fit. But instead of repenting of their sin, they rejected God and his messenger.
Read
“The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.” Mark 1:15
  • Why do you think Jesus said this when he began his ministry?
  • Why does God love it when we repent?
  • What things do you need to repent of?
  • When we repent, what assurance do we have that God will forgive? (Read 1 John 1:8–10.)
Prayer

Father, help us to not be like Stephen’s audience. We don’t want to have stiff necks and hardened hearts. We want to be softhearted toward you. Help us to repent even when we don’t want to face our sin and its consequences. Help us to love you more than our sin and our need to be right all the time. Thank you that Jesus promises to forgive our sin when we repent. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

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