"You men who are stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears are always resisting the Holy Spirit; you are doing just as your fathers did.  Which one of the prophets did your fathers not persecute?  They killed those who had previously announced the coming of the Righteous One, whose betrayers and murderers you have now become; you who received the law as ordained by angels, and you did not keep it."

It looks as though Stephen has tried everything else.  Now he gets right in the face of his accusers.  He holds nothing back.

You have to admire a man like this.  He speaks the truth until it gets him killed.  He refuses to stop trying to bring the people around him to a saving knowledge of Life; a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.

This is what determination will do to you.  This is a picture of a man changed - he wants to see everyone live.

How often do we fold under the trouble of persecution?  People tell us to be quiet and we obey.  People threaten us and we decide that we would rather be quiet than to see them find Jesus.  That is not showing them love.

Stephen loved the men who were his accusers.  He loved them until he died.  Oh, that we would discover that kind of Love.