ACF Repeater Field, need IF statement for if sub field has content

I’m trying to only proceed past the first IF statement if there is content in the sub field called INSTRUCTION, which seems to not work. It works if I remove && !empty(the_sub_field(‘instruction’)

<?php

if( have_rows('instructions_group') && !empty(the_sub_field('instruction')) ): 

    ?>

    <div id="instructions-group0" class="instructions-group">                
    <h2>DIRECTIONS:</h2>
    <ol>

<?php   

    if( have_rows('instructions_group') ):

        while ( have_rows('instructions_group') ) : the_row();

        $instructionphoto = get_sub_field('instruction_photo');
        $instruction = get_sub_field('instruction');
        $size="recipe-featured";
        $thumb = $instructionphoto['sizes'][ $size ];
        $width = $instructionphoto['sizes'][ $size . '-width' ];
        $height = $instructionphoto['sizes'][ $size . '-height' ];
        $alt = $instructionphoto['alt'];

        if( !empty($instruction) ) : ?>


            <li class="instruction">

                <div class="instruction-wrap">

                    <?php if( !empty($instructionphoto) ) : ?>

                        <img src="https://wordpress.stackexchange.com/questions/341782/<?php echo $thumb; ?>" alt="<?php echo $alt; ?>" width="<?php echo $width; ?>" height="<?php echo $height; ?>" />

                    <?php endif; ?>

                    <div class="instruction-txt"><?php echo $instruction; ?></div>

                </div>

            </li>

        <?php 

        endif;

        endwhile;

         ?>

        </ol>
    </div>

    <?php   

    endif; 

endif;

?>

As seen on ACF documentation, to check for a value before displaying it, simply use:

<?php if( get_field('field_name') ): ?>
    <p>My field value: <?php the_field('field_name'); ?></p>
<?php endif; ?>

So in your case, you are already getting the sub_field into $instruction, so simply use this:

 if( $instruction) ) :