Signs of life!
Faith = action
Having a truth without living it is worse than not having it
Stephen has walked through the history of the Jews and their consistent rejections of God‘s spokes people.
Joseph is rejected by his brothers end of our founding fathers of the Israelite nation.
Moses was rejected by the Israelites when he first tried to work on their behalf.
The Israelites again rejected Moses while he was on the mountain speaking to God – they asked for guards that would go before them.
They limited God‘s influence in their life to the temple – they lived their life as they wanted to outside of that
The old testament shows us the tendency of mankind through the actions of the Israelites.
Israelites rejected God’s leading and direction consistently throughout their history.
Their claim to faith in God was proved false by the way they lived
Is there a sign of life – eternal life – in your life?
Looking for signs of life!
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Read Act 7:51-54
Having the truth but not living it is worse than not having it.
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Act 7:51 (ESV) “You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you.
What is circumcision? An outward sign of an inward change… What are actions? Outward signs of inward change
Looking for signs of life!
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Act 7:52 (ESV) 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,
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Act 7:53 (ESV) you who received the law as delivered by angels and did not keep it.”
to keep from being snatched away, preserve safe and unimpaired
The Israelites were given the privilege of the revelation of God’s character but they did not hold it in higher steam or keep it pure and holy.
They used it for their own and rather than for the purpose God intended
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Act 7:54 (ESV) Now when they heard these things they were enraged, and they ground their teeth at him.
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Stephen spoke the truth and the response of the council revealed their heart… Was not one of repentance but of anger and self righteous indignation
2Co 7:10 (ESV)
10 For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.
Jas 1:22-25 (ESV)
22 But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.
23 For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror.
24 For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like.
25 But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.
Rom 2:28-29 (ESV)
28 For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical.
29 But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man but from God.
