The job of the Spirit is to make the Word of God come alive in your experience.

Dr. Tony Evans says that's when we see the Lord invade our circumstances with his presence and power.

So invite God to do that on a daily basis, because the more regularly you do it, the more regularly you'll see it, the more real it becomes.

This is the alternative broadcast featuring the timeless biblical teachings from the

archives of Dr. Tony Evans.

As early church leaders faced opposition to the teachings of Jesus, they made the same

bold point over and over that true faith is is about a living dynamic relationship with God,

not just following religious rules or traditions. But there's a cost to standing up for the truth,

and we'll learn about it today as Dr. Evans begins with a short review. All right, we're surveying the

book of Acts, the link book between the Gospels and the

epistles, showing us the birth of Christianity and its expansion through the church,

highlighting the work of the Holy Spirit in this process of advancing the person and work of

Jesus Christ. We ended last time with Stephen as he is standing before the leaders at the end of chapter 6,

and he is affirming Jesus Christ before them.

So they were saying Stephen is a threat to Judaism. He's a threat because he's

rejecting what has been passed down to us all these years. The high priest said, are these things so?

Have you been defaming our background, our history, our temple, our laws, our customs,

as your accusers have said? This question opens up Stevens' long address in Chapter 7,

leading to his martyrdom. His point is that the Old Testament was looking

for a relationship with God. It was not looking for religious activity. The religious leaders had

staken all their commitment to the fact that they were, you know, held on to the mosaic law, that they worshipped

in the temple, that they had this tradition in history. But he says, no, you did not understand.

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