the will of the father that we be confirmed into the image of his -- amen. that means that we look like him. it is the will of god to work things in a way so that we are being confirmed into the image of jesus. the holy spirit come in so we have at the power and he will be the one that will be the facilitator and one that is the internal operator to produce in us a likeness to the process of sankation. are you with me? i want to you understand that full people like steven are called to a fellowship to the suffering. it means again, so you can write it down, to participate in life experience, did you get that, to be treated in the same way and

thirdly to be joined in partnership. what does that mean for steven? it meant that he was rejected. it meant that he was challenged it meant that he was hated. and guess what? the ultimate price was it meant that he was killed. you must understand when you are on your best jesus behavior, the world you live in, the secular system you live in will not applaud you. in fact, if you talk too much, it gets save or hate you. when you talk to talk that people talk, they either get saved or they will hate you.

many times that's what separates faithful people from people that were not so faithful. so steven ministry his service, listen to this, his message was in nature with christ. his ministry his message and service was in nature with christ. faithfulness is when we walk dominated by the nature of christ when you walk and dominate by nature of christ jesus said these kind of things, john 15:18 listen to what jesus said, if the world hates you, if he hates you know that it hated

me before it hated you. jesus has noticed if they hate you for locking like me and talking like me, i want you to know that they hated me first. in matthew 10:22 he says you will be hated because of my name. so establishing that, those thoughts, the major thing that jumps out of this first point that deals with his character is that steven is called the first martyre of the church. steven is called the first martyre of the church.

now the word martyre, we talked about that before, it literally moans means a true witness. there's a difference between a true witness and not true witness. amen. are you with me? do you understand what i am saying? i don't mean not true in the sense of false. that is a fact that there is not a true witness. a true witness is somebody that's not ashamed of what they are. they are true witness because they live what they are. are you with me? you cut them, they will bleed profession. they believe what they are. they are true and true. they are through and through what they are. that's a martyre. the tendency is to define

martyism as somebody died. i suggest that death doesn't make martyres. we tend because that's a traditional way of people that died for the faith. death only reveals what they really were. they were a martyre really before they died. did i slip that by you? listen to what i'm saying that a martyre is a true witness before they die. persecution and death does not make a martyre only reveals what they are. now some versus i would give to you make that point in revelation chapter 1:5 jesus is

called the faithful witness. same word. faithful witness. in revelation 3:14 he is called again and the faithful and true witness. again, very much alive. in revelation 2:13 he talks about this man this individual who was my faithful martyre. steven was not a martyre just because he died but he was, listen to this, here it is. he was faithful until death. death could not make him back up, turn off, turn away from what he was true in his heart. oh, my gracious.

so revelation chapter 2 verse 10 jot that down. in fact a few years ago i preached that text, faithful until death. remember that? that verse says be faithful until death. i will give you the crown of life. persecution in death does not create martyres but reveals them. it confirms them but they were true and true as they lived which made them a true witness when they died. because not everyone will hold true to their profession when threatened with death. let's back it up. that's what makes it so easy. some of us will not hold true to our profession or witness if we get a little criticism.

just a little bit of persecution. what do you mean? they won't eat lunch to me. they won't speak to me. they won't like me. they roll their eyes at me. see, we laugh. some people say that's not funny because you don't know how it is to eat lunch alone. i'll tell you this, it's much easier to eat alone than to die alone. if you want what you want through and through you will hold the course no matter what. martyres, listen to this, are true to the truth of their faith. they would rather die than

violate their faith in life. a martyre is one who bears a testimony. and so steven is an example of a true witness because a true witness is confirmed when they are tested. okay. are you with me? am i moving slow enough? so what you see happening is verse 8-15, steven full of faith and power, he was doing great wonders and signs among the people. you see that. then there arose some who were from the freedmen, it is a group

of jews who were either themselves freed or they were really the dependents of free jews by the romans. they had established their own culture or their own group and it was like 3 or 4 sing 4 syna. they were jews. they rose up. they rose up and dismuted with disputed with steven. he was a full man doing what a full man does. he does ministry. his ministry was impacting their culture, their environment, so what they did was they challenged him and entered into a dispute with him. do you see that? here is the problem. they could not win are you with

me? steven, he didn't have time to prepare. but really the issue is not do you have time to prepare, the issue is are you prepared. does that make sense? when you are out there doing ministry and living your life in ministry not here but in your home or job doing ministry, you don't have time to be prepared. you never know when the freedmen will show up and they will pick a fight with you. they will try to derail, they will try to be little, to demean you, to cause you to shake in your testimony. you don't have time. youant you can't argue with them.

the reality is you in the moment you are doing ministry and they show up and start disputing with you. sanctify christ as lord in your heart and be ready to give answer with meekness and reverence. you prepare yourself by having a genuine faith in christ. that is the first thing. you also prepare yourself by study. study before the encounter to be prepared. second feeter 2: peter 2:15. not to be ashamed or dividing the word of truth. given those 2 verbals, those 2

areas of preparation, what is really true to our context here is that if you are going to be prepared you just simply must be yielded to the holy spirit. that is why i made a big deal about steven being a full man. a full means the holy spirit doesn't have to study. are you with you. stephen was a man full of the holy spirit and because of that he was full of wisdom. he was full of faith and he was full of power. now there are 3 statements in the gospel. there are more than 3 but there are 3 that say the same thing. when it is said by 3 of the gospel writers you can bank on it. it means that all 3 saw the same thing.

amen. that's right. it's 3 witnesses for this truth you can jot these down in matthew 10, 19-20. mark 13:11 and luke 12, 11-12 they all say basically the same thing but they are appropriate for our text today because the scripture says this jesus said in verse 11, when they arrest you, are you there? no? i told you i would take my time mark 13:11.

mark. mark 13:11. are you there? the scripture says but when they arrest you and deliver you up, do not worry beforehand or meditate what you will speak. but whatever is given to you in that hour, speak that for it is not you who what? but the holy spirit. i yielded person becomes a mouthpiece. and that is the major way to be prepared for these encounters when people cease seise upon verse 10, they were not able to

resist the wisdom and spirit by which he spoke. the new american standard says this, they were unable to cope with the wisdom. i suggest to you that human answering reasoning and ideology can never stand against holy spirit-led biblical truth. when the holy spirit has yielded a believer they are powerful. no form of wisdom, no form of religious i'd ideology. they couldn't cope with him. do you get that?

now now my second point dealing with steven's message. are you with me? are you with me? his message was a forced decent they prevailed upon him. and they seized him. and when they could not prevail verse 11 said they secretly introduced men to say -- they went and got some liars. it was more than one because men is plural so we have to make sure that these men had the same lie. they secretly induced men to say, this is what we want you to say. we have heard him speak blas p

phemous words against joseph. this man has been speaking blasphemous 2 major subjects that are hallmark in our religion. listen, if you are a student of the gospel and the trial of jesus, doesn't this look familiar? they blame jesus for speaking blastamy and got witnesses against him true. for freedmen the issue was not truth the issue was winning. you have to deal with the women you are dealing with in struggles or disputes or some

type of defenses of your faith they are not into getting truth from you. they are into winning. your motive is they are walking into something they may not get out of. the holy spirit is deal down wrecking deep in the inner person. is that true. they are trying to lay intellectualism to up root you. you realize in your camness you are speaking the truth because it is not you doing the work but it is the holy spirit doing the work and he's using the words of work and he is working in places that people don't want to be worked on. all you have to do is remember how some of you got saved. you wasn't trying. you wasn't trying to receive the

truth once it happens the power of god, that's powerful. so they secretly induced men to have we have heard him speak blasphemous words against god and joseph. they believe that a crowd means they are right. they stirred up the people the elders and scribes around they came upon him and seized him and brought limb to him to the cou we have witnesses, we have him

in custody. they know. as you and i move into chapter 7 i want to you understand that it was an open door through trumped charges. i don't know if you have ever been to court, i mean real court. sometimes in real court you get a chance to speak your faith based upon what the charges are. >> well my friends we must stop at this point in our consideration of act chapter 6. steven's challenge, the basis of their true relationship. it's as if he wanted the religious leaders to focus on the fact that the real issue here is faith in religion versus faith in the true god. the issue is a person

relationship. he gives a list historical revw using old testament leaders to show inspite of man's rejection of god god has continue today send his messengers today and time again with the message of salvation that all who hear would believe. i pray that you are blessed real special to many message. i ask you to join us on food for the soul television broadcast and may the lord bless you special. man does not live by bread alone but from every word out of the mouth of god. may the lord bless you real special. >>real-time closed captioning provided by u.s. captioning company.

>> welcome to gospel truth with andrew wommack. a teaching ministry that focuses on god's unconditional love and grace. >> and now, here's andrew. welcome to our wednesday's broadcast of the gospel truth. again today, i'm teaching through the book of romans. we're now in romans, chapter 9, beginning to go into chapter 10,

and let me say one more time, that this is going to be my last week of teaching through the book of romans. i would like to please encourage you to get these products that we're offering. i have dvds that were taken from television. i have cds that were taken from one of my live teachings on this. i've got a study guide, a book and a commentary on the book of romans. so anyway, at the end of our program they will give all of that information, but i encourage you to please get these materials, because you can just get so much more in depth through going through all of these things and it's...and it's good to go back over this. yesterday i read romans, chapter 9, verses 30 through 33, and i was making the point that paul here was making some astounding statements to the religious people of his day. he was saying that the non-religious people... the people that didn't go to church... the people that didn't tithe...

the people that didn't do all the things that they were supposed to do, they were actually receiving relationship with god quicker and better than the people who were all of the religious... doing all of the religious things. now, that's a paraphrase of romans, chapter 9, verses 30 and 31, but i believe that that's accurate what he's saying, and this was offensive to the people of that day, just as it is offensive to religious people today. you know, many people who are going to church and doing all of the things that they should do... those things are good, but if you are putting your faith in those things and thinking that that somehow or another makes you more acceptable to god than the person who doesn't go to church and doesn't do all of these things, then when you start talking about a person being totally cleansed of all sin and given the righteousness of god, not based on their performance but as a gift, this becomes offensive to the religious person because it makes them think,

well, so you're saying that all of my goodness and all of the things that i'm doing don't make me any better than the...than this old sinner over here? that's exactly what i'm saying. it doesn't make god love you any more, and if you live badly, it doesn't make god love you any less, and to the religious person whose faith is in their performance, that is very offensive. so i believe that this is one way you can tell whether or not you are a legalist or whether or not you're walking with god by faith in what he's done for you. are you offended when you do all of these things and then somebody else comes along and gets healed or receives from god and they haven't been near as holy and if you were offended saying, god, why did you heal them and not me? it's because your faith is in yourself. you know, i've heard... i've s...i've heard this many times, that somebody in church, you know, some...somebody's been going to church and paying the tithes and they...they never miss a service and they do all of these things and then some drunk co