What did Stephen just say?  Stephen was on trial before the Sanhedrin, he was reviewing Israel’s history…beginning with Abraham then followed with Joseph and the twelve tribes of Israel.  Next, Moses and the Tabernacle of Testimony carried through the wilderness for forty years.  Stephen continued to review the importance of the Tabernacle in the days of Joshua, David and Solomon…then Stephen quoted Isaiah.
  Stephen emphasized the greatness of God… 

(NASB) Acts 7:44-47 “Our fathers had the tabernacle of testimony in the wilderness, just as He who spoke to Moses directed him to make it according to the pattern which he had seen.
45 ‘And having received it in their turn, our fathers brought it in with Joshua upon dispossessing the nations whom God drove out before our fathers, until the time of David.
46 ‘David found favor in God’s sight, and asked that he might find a dwelling place for the God of Jacob.
47 But it was Solomon who built a house for Him.” 

  David yearned to build a temple for his God…but the Lord God said “no”.  Solomon was chosen to build the magnificent temple.  Then Stephen threw in a bombshell – when he quoted Isaiah.  Important as the tabernacle was – God was (and is) greater, God said so! 

(NIV) Acts 7:48-50 “However, the Most High does not live in houses made by men.  As the prophet (Isaiah 66:1-2) says:
49 ‘Heaven is my throne,
And the earth is my footstool.
What kind of house will you build for me?
says the Lord.
Or where will my resting place be?
50Has not my hand made all these things?”

  Picture those men sitting and listening to Stephen’s defense… ‘What did he just say?’  Perhaps they sat up a little straighter and leaned forward to listen closely.

  Today, do you and I try to “contain” the living God?  As we try to envision His greatness – don’t we limit His true size, His abilities and His very being by our finite insight into the infinite God? 

  The greatness of God cannot be contained in any building made by human hands.
  The greatness of God and His love for you and me is through His Son, the Lord Jesus. 

(Amplified Bible) John 3:16 “For God so greatly loved and dearly prized the world that He [even] gave up His only begotten (unique) Son, so that whoever believes in (trusts in, clings to, relies on) Him shall not perish (come to destruction, be lost) but have eternal (everlasting) life.”

How has your thinking been challenged by the greatness of the living God?