Godbey's Commentary - Acts - Romans - Enter His Rest

positively and unequivocally that our hearts, “the temple of the Holy Ghost,” shall be sanctified
wholly, literally radiant with the beauty of holiness.
48. “But the most High dwelleth not in temples made with hands, as the prophet says:
49. “Heaven is my throne, and earth is the footstool of my feet: what house will ye build unto me,
saith the Lord, or what shall be the place of my rest?
50. “Hath not my hand made all these things?” It is a historic fact that a hundred and fifty years
of the Christian era had passed away, and all of the apostles long been playing on their golden harps,
before a church edifice was ever built. We find Paul at Troas preaching in a third-story room. Like
the holiness movement at the present day, the Apostolic churches used little rented rooms in garrets
and cellars, private houses and green trees. An awful tide of idolatry is at the present day running in
the line of church edifices. If the house should burn down and the preacher backslide a whole
modern congregation would collapse spiritually in twenty-four hours and conclude they hadn’t a bit
of religion. I am glad to see the holiness camps everywhere rendezvoused beneath the twinkling
stars, amid the primeval forests, thus utilizing God’s primitive temples. How will we ever get the
heathen saved if we do not quit sacrificing the Lord’s money to that hellish goddess, Pride, in
needless expenditure on church edifices, thus using God’s money “to sacrifice to devils.” The whole
compoodle is an insult to God, as Stephen here says. He does not want His money wasted in this
way, thus mocking His majesty. When all of these fine edifices dwindle into insignificance and sink
into total eclipse, contrasted with the broad temples of the firmament, roofed with the glittering
constellations, lighted by the sun, moon and stars, floored with the beautiful green sward, jotted with
Rocky Mountain pulpits, and ventilated by the salubrious breezes wafted from the saline billows of
majestic oceans whose thundering waves respond to the music of roaring thunders enlivened by
forked lightnings. Instead of settling down and going to sleep amid the idolatrous incantations of a
fine edifice we are to utilize the meeting-house God has already built, which is the “whole world,”
and our commission is “to every creature.”
STEPHEN’S CULMINATION.
51. “Ye stiff-necked and uncircumcised in hearts and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost;
as your fathers did, so do ye.
52. “Which one of the prophets did not your fathers persecute? And they slew those proclaiming
concerning the coming of the Righteous One, whose betrayers and murderers ye became,
53. “Who received the law in the administrations of angels and kept it not.” If Stephen had been
a modest, prudent, courteous preacher, he might have saved his life. On the contrary, he looked the
leading preachers of his own fallen church squarely in the face and told them of their pride, carnality
and rebellion against the Holy Ghost. A modern wiseacre would say Stephen made a mistake and
lost his life. Stephen was guided by the Infallible One. He made no mistake. But those seventy big
preachers and church officers to whom he did this straight preaching made the mistake. It was really
the opportunity of their lives to hear, receive and obey the truth straight from God. Saul of Tarsus,
their heroic leader, was subsequently rescued by a miracle of grace. His comrades were only