The importance of being like the Bereans, who diligently searched the Scriptures daily to verify the teachings they heard. It highlights their noble and sincere reception of the Gospel, contrasting it with opposition found elsewhere. The message encourages believers to be "real" in their faith, diligent "readers" of the Word, "reassured" of God's promises, "reasonable" in their service, "reanimated" by the Spirit, "reapers" of righteousness, and "ready" for Christ's return. By imitating the Bereans' commitment to the Word, believers can experience spiritual growth and bear fruit.
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and verse one. Acts thirteen and verse one. After these things Paul departed from Athens and came to Corinth and found a certain Jew named Aquila, born in Pontus, lately come from Italy with his wife, Priscilla, because that Claudius had commanded all Jews to depart from Rome and came unto them. Because he was of the same craft, he abode with them and rock, for by their occupation they were tent-makers. And he reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath and persuaded the Jews and the Greeks.
And when Silas and Tomothias were come from Macedonia, Paul was pressed in the Spirit and testified to the Jews that Jesus was Christ. And when they opposed themselves and blasphemed, he shook his raiment and said unto them, Your blood be upon your own head. I am clean. From henceforth I will go unto the Gentiles. And he departed thence and entered into a certain man's house named Justice, one that worshiped God who Christmas the chief ruler of the synagogue believed on the Lord with all his heart and many of the Corinthians hearing believed and were baptized then spake the Lord to Paul in the night by a vision be not afraid but speak and hold not thy peace for I am with thee and no man shall set on thee to hurt thee for I have much people in this city.
And he continued there a year and six months teaching the word of God among them. When Galeo was the deputy of Achaia, the Jews made insurrection with one accord against Paul and brought him to the judgment seat, saying, This fellow persuadeth men to worship God contrary to the law. When Paul was now about to open his mouth, Galio said unto the Jews, If it were a matter of wrong or wicked lewdness, O ye Jews, reason would that I should bear with you. But if it be a question of words and names and of your law, look ye to it, for I will be no judge of such matters, and he drew them from the judgment seat.
Then all the Greeks took Thaustini's, the chief ruler of the synagogue, and beat him before the judgment seat, and Galileo cared for none of these things. We'll stop reading there because this concludes Paul's second journey. We'll take up his third journey, Lord Willink, next Sunday. Now his second journey or his second tour runs from chapter fifteen, verse thirty-six, up until this verse that we have read here. You could have read on to verse twenty-two, but verse seventeen at the end concludes it really well.
In other words, the Apostle Paul now, he has touched on two or three places. He received a call over into Macedonia, as we were noticing this morning, when he had the vision. after twice trying to go in his own way, but the Spirit suffered them not. And finally God, through a vision, had a voice called to Paul, come over into Macedonia and help us. And so Paul enters Europe and teaches the gospel. This is the entrance of the gospel in through Europe. And this morning we were speaking on what took part in Philippa.
conversion of the jailer and prior to the jailer, you have Lydia converted, then we have the young slave girl converted, and then the jailer converted. That is the beginning of the first church or assembly in Europe, and what a strong, flourishing, thriving assembly it was. Then we have the work in Vesalica, and we didn't read that tonight, nor did we read it, on any previous occasion because it's in chapter seventeen. Lord willing, next Sunday we'll be speaking on chapter seventeen in Acts when Paul is preaching from Mars Hill to be on that Sunday night.
But there was a work going on in Vesdonica, and you have that in verses one to nine in chapter seventeen. And this is a wonderful assembly. It was a real model assembly. The Apostle Paul, he entered into Thessalonica. He preached the gospel as you have in verses one to three. The gospel was received in verse four, and it was opposed in verses five to nine. And you find that time and time again in entering these some dozen cities of the Apostle Paul entered during his three journeys, the gospel was preached.
and the gospel is received by some, and the gospel is opposed by others. And you can more or less boil down all your activities if you're serving the Lord under those three heads. You seek the witness for Christ, you seek to preach the gospel, and some will believe. But there will be those who will not believe. But we can't do anything if they reject the gospel. Our responsibility is to preach. It's up to the responsibility of the individual whether they believe it or whether they refuse it. But when Paul came to Thessalonica, he had liberty and there was an open door.
You notice in verse four, he said, every place or fate to Godward is spread abroad. This is in verse the Thessalonians. chapter one where I'm reading. Every place your faith is that Godward is spread abroad, so that we need not to speak any day, for they themselves show of us what manner of entering in we had unto you, and how ye turn to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath of God. And so when Paul entered into Thessalonica, he preached the gospel, and the result was, they turned to God from Isaac, to serve the living and the true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven.
And the Apostle Paul, he reasoned with them out of the Scriptures. That's very noticeable. He reasoned with them out of the Scriptures. And there were those who did believe, but there were those who did not believe. And so from Thessalonica, he goes into Berea in chapter seventeen and verses ten to fifteen. Berea was another city and a fine city. The city was open and they're spoken of as noble people. These open-hearted Bereans, and they were noble Bereans. They were honest people. They were sincere.
They searched the Scriptures daily to see if these things were sold, and they got saved. Now there you have an ideal situation for a Christian preacher or a missionary to go into a city like Berea and find these people. They're open-hearted. They're noble, and they are honest. They're sincere. They searched the Scriptures to see if you're telling them the truth. and many got saved. Many years ago, I was invited to go up to Camp Berea, up near Boston, to one of their conferences, and it takes place at Camp Berea. So on the way up, I began thinking about the Bereans in this verse.
I thought, well, I guess they call their conference after the Bereans here, because they search the Scriptures daily. So I began thinking of the first six words in that word, Berea. B-E-R-E-A, or rather first five words. B-E-R-E-A. But again, thinking of other words that could be made, starting with those first five letters. B-E-R-E-A. And I stopped the word B-E-E-B. Then R-E-A-L. In other words, God wants us to be real.
These Bereans were real. And God would get us or have us to get the message and be real in whatever we do. Not artificial, not a sham, not a pretense, not to be hypocritical, but God wants us to be real, real and genuine and true. That's the first characteristic you'll find of these Williams. They were real. The next thing I thought about is be reader. B-E-R-E-A-D-E-R-S. Be reader. God wants us to be readers. They search the Scriptures daily, it says, to see if these things were so.
The people who get help from any Bible ministry are the people who go home and sit down and read the passage that has been preached from or expounded and go over it. Read it for yourself. Or if you know what the preacher is going to speak on the next Sunday or the teacher is going to teach, read the passage, read the passage and become acquainted with it. Be readers of the word. Someone asked me, I may have mentioned this on the platform, I don't know. Somebody asked me not long ago, about two weeks ago, where I got my sermons from. Well, it was Mickey Hicks who asked me the question.
Well, I said I get quite a few of them on Slappy Drive. He said, what do you mean? Well, I said I walk up and down Slappy Drive about two miles every day, and I get a lot of sermons. In other words, I get thoughts. And I hurry home and try and remember. If I can't remember them till I get home, we should drop in the Brother Hugh Roach's service station right down two or three things so I wouldn't forget them. And I've got many a message right on a sloppy drop. And I've got many in bed at night, turning on my candle, my light about eight or ten or a dozen times during the night. And I'm sure some of the neighbors wonder what the world's wrong with me.
My light's going on and off and on and off. But I've done that up to three o'clock in the morning. Then I've got off to a sound sleep. When I woke up in the morning, I blinked. There I had some thoughts on a message outline. I did it before I went to sleep. Other times I get my message studying the word. In other words, while I'm reading the scriptures and trying to get references on it, God gives me messages. Some thoughts. Then I get some up here in the flat. So I told this young fellow, I get my messages in that way. In various ways, and the thing I emphasized to him was this. Live in your message. We are to be the Lord's messenger in the Lord's message.
For instance, I said when I was on the book of Daniel, that's all I studied. That's all I read. I concentrated on Daniel. I was in Daniel morning, noon, and night. Everything I thought, every illustration I could pick up, anything I could see in the paper relative to Daniel, I used it. And since last September, I've been living in the Acts. Everything that comes into my mind that fits into Acts, I used it. In other words, there's such a thing as living in yourself. You're in that atmosphere, and I've been amazed in going through the book of Acts the first time I've ever done it in my life.
to see how things come to light when you least expect it. Almost at a traffic jam or to stop like you get a thought. And I found this out that my memory is not quite as good as it used to be. And like a Scotchman said to me, he said, you know the way to get your money, he says, make a prisoner of every dime. Well, I've learned this. The way to get a message is make a prisoner of every thought. If God gives you a thought, write it down. Don't trust your memory. A number of years ago, I was teaching in Toronto with Irwin Paul. Brother Paul was just started out in the work.
And he asked me, we were having the meetings together, and we were rotating. I would go first one night. He would go first the next night. We would go on for seven weeks. He said, would you mind if I go first every night? I said, not at all. Well, he said, I want to go first every night. So he'd hurry through about fifteen minutes, and he'd sit down on the front seat, and he would take down all my notes. And he had far more notes about my message than I had myself. Well, I think about what to do after that. He had a series of meetings with old Mr. Sylvester. Some of you wouldn't remember him. He never came to the States. Old Brother Sylvester was told...
by some of the preachers of his day, his contemporaries, never take down a note, never mark your Bible, depend on the Holy Spirit for every. After meeting one night, Brother Sylvester said to Mervin, Mervin, what a fool I be. Jesus tonight I read five texts. In my heyday a number of years ago, each one of those texts meant a message of forty-five minutes. He said, tonight I read those five texts. He said, and I couldn't remember enough the last fifteen minutes.
And he said, I don't have a note on outline from all my years of preaching. My mind is growing, and he says, so is everything I do. There's a value of writing things down, jotting them down. If God is good enough to give me a thought, I'm going to jot it down. And I've jot it down thousands and thousands. And so these Bereans, they search the Scriptures daily to see if these things did so. God would have us to be reading. Read it daily.
They search the scriptures daily. That's what God wants us to do each day. I remember hearing many years ago of a Mississippi farmer, his big farm, a great big ranch on the Mississippi River, or a little way off it. And the time came when the big boat used to go down the Mississippi River and pick up the bales of cotton that were left on the dock. And this farmer, he had a roof. And of course he had plenty of hired help. He had a couple of forms also working with him. And his roof every morning was prayer and reading the scriptures at six o'clock.
All the hired help had to be there, and he was a wonderful Christian. He read the Bible and he had prayer. Well, this morning something went wrong. and they weren't able to get stopped. And if they didn't get down to the dock at a certain time, they missed the boat. That's what we meant, that there were a double load for the next day. And one of the foremen wasn't a Christian. And he tried to convince this farmer, we haven't got time today. We'll miss the boat. Farmer says, we'll take time. God... And he took his good old time, and I suppose there were some men saying that, they'd say his cotton picking time.
He took his time to read the Scriptures, just as if he had all day. And he went ahead and prayed just as another time. He didn't cut it short. And the foreman was just few. Man came back and he told the farmer what he thought of. That's what you get by putting your God first. That afternoon that boat caught fire on every bale of cotton that down in the Mississippi River.
And the poor realized there was something to believing in God after all. But had the air cotton been on that boat? It would have gone down because the ship had gone up, but they still have. So it changed to recognize God, the book God first. Be reader. Be reader. Spurgeon picked up a Bible one time, and in those days they used to have board covers. I have seen a few of them. You'll see them in museums. And he picked up this Bible in an old bookstore. And he kind of admired the cover. Sometimes those books, the cover was more on the content, but not so in the Bible.
But Spurgeon looked at it and he saw a little hole and he held it up to the light. And he saw a light right through it. A little bookworm went right through it. And Spurgeon says, Oh God, make me a bookworm like that. For that's how you see the light go through the Bible. From Genesis to Revelation, don't be a butterfly. You know what a butterfly looks like. The butterflies here, there, were younger. A bee gets into a nice flower, and it gets the woman out of it. It gets the honey out of it. The sweetness. Sometimes you'll see a farmer let a big herd of cows into a new field of pasture.
Some of the cows are just keep on walking or right through the field to the other corner, picking up a little here and there and so on. Some of those cows, they just get inside the gate and they start eating. And they clean off a nice patch. They've had plenty. They lie down, begin to chew the cut. They're chewing the cut while the others are still warming around, taking a little bite here, a little bite there. God wants us to study the Word of God like that. Don't jump here, but I'll read a verse of two in Genesis today. And I'll read a verse over in Acts the One. Then in Ezekiel, God wants us to start at the beginning and go through the book, especially if you're taking the study of one of the sixty-six books.
But the best thing is to go from Genesis through to Revelation. I have my mother's Bible. got at the front of the Bible. How many times she went through, the date she stopped, the date she ended, twenty-six times. And she did that in the last fifteen years of her life when she became an invalid. She has the date when she stopped it and the date when she ended and then she started over again. Going through the Bible. It's a good thing to go through the Bible, but the important thing is let the Bible go through you.
That's what it is. Let the Bible go through you. And so they searched the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so. And those read the Bible through colored glasses. That is, every denomination sees that the Bible, certain doctrines, through their particular glass of color. Maybe a light color, maybe a dark color. Otherwise... you wouldn't have the denominations. But the reason you have Baptist churches, Methodist churches, Presbyterian churches, and so on, they're perpetuating their doctrine by sending their students to that college to read and study the Bible in the light of those classes they wear.
And they perpetuate their ideas and their thought and teaching on certain Bible tools. If they didn't have those lessons. and they came together as Christians only and studied the word of God as Christians only. You wouldn't have all the denominations. The danger is studying the Bible with certain colored glasses, certain denominational color, and so on. That's why you have denominationalism perpetuity because each denomination had her future ideas and certain color with which to read the scriptures.
It's nice to open your butt. Nothing back in your mind about what the Baptist believed, the Methodist believed, the Presbyterian believed, just the scriptures as God has given them to us. Then you'll get an understanding of it. The Spirit of God is free to open up the word when you are not blurred in any way or sidetracked by a certain colored glance. They searched the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so. Then the third thing, by the way, I preached this sermon when I got to Berea. I didn't know what the brethren were going to say. Of course, they were all going to give you a free hand. But I thought I'd speak on Berea at the Berea Conference.
The third word was be reassured. Be, E-R-E-A, there are the first five words, B-E-R-E-A, S-S-U-R-D-D. Be reassured of what? reassured every day of his love reassured every day of his care be reassured every day of an unchanging character be reassured of his faithful it's nice to be reassured be reassured then be reasonable is another word be reasonable or be intelligent Romans twelve one the Apostle Paul urges us to be intelligent.
I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your body a living sacrifice, wholly unacceptable under God, which is your reasonable, or your intelligent service. Be reasonable. Use common sense. Be intelligent and live for things, not our eternal, and not things for time. Be reasonable. Then be intelligent. Revive or be reanimated to use your five first letters. Be reanimated. Be revived. Be renewed. Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy of Satan, Satan, by the washing of regeneration and by the renewing of the Holy Spirit.
Christians need to be renewed every day. and you'll be renewed by studying the scriptures sometimes you get up on monday morning and you're just wilderness you don't seem to have any energy energy left no physical energy no mental energy and no spiritual energy you really hit the wall well how are you going to get revived like a drooping flower as a rule the drooping flower can be revived by water. The Bible speaks of by the scent the water shall the roots thereof be revived.
And there's no way to revive you any better, especially spiritually, than to get into the Word in the morning. And a little walk of the Word will feed the roots of your feet, and you be revived. Be able to lift up your head by noon. Be reanimated. provide. Then the next one is be repert. B-E-R-E-A, B-E-R-N. Be repert. Yes, they searched the Scriptures daily to see if these things be so, and the result was that was the most evangelical church of the Apostles' Church.
These people, Koreans, boy, there were a great class of people. Be repert. Be repert. We're going to reap one way or another. I think of that text, but not reaping the works of the flesh, but of the Spirit. You have your choice. You're either going to reap the works of the flesh or the fruit of the Spirit. The Christians still have the flesh for them. God says, don't let the flesh have his way. If you do, you'll reap the consequence. And I'm going to read this to you.
Signalations five. Now, verse nineteen, now the works of the flesh shall manifest which are deeds. Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulation, wrath, strife, sedition, or heresy, division, rebellion. Endings, murders, drunkenness, revelings, and such like, of the which I tell you before, as I also told you now, as I tell you now, I have told you in the past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.
If ever I saw a nest of rattlesnakes, it is right there. And that's in your heart, and every one sting. Go over to yourself. What a nest a rattlesnake. Snakes. That's the flesh. And God says, you sow the flesh. You reap in the flesh. In verse twenty-two, but the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, and faith. Meekness, temperance against such there is no law. Be not deceived. God is not mocked. For whatsoever the man soweth that shall he also reap.
For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption. But he that soweth to the spirit shall of the spirit reap life everlasting. That's what the Word of God says. You can either sow to the flesh, give in to the flesh, or want a harvest. You get stung. Every day you live in the flesh. One of these rattlesnakes or gets it. There they are curled up in the human heart, ready to strike. It is the nest of rattlesnakes. The only thing that will keep them in control is the Holy Spirit of God.
If you let the Spirit be dominant, will not be fed by others and you will be manifesting the truth of the Spirit. That's what he says. He reapers. Reapers are the fruit of the Spirit. He says you can reap sparingly or you can reap boundably. Why I hate to reap boundably of the fruit of the flesh, the works of the flesh. Many of God's children have gone home to heaven ahead of time because they sowed the flesh.
And they got stung, and they prematurely went to heaven. Had they fostered the fruit of the Spirit by reading and prayer that likely have lived for a number more years. He says, reap. Spitteringly, you'll reap. You sow spherly, you'll reap spherly. If you sow bountifully, you'll reap bountifully. You get what you grin for after you're saved. I can think of a few Christians right here at the chapel. I don't question their salvation, but I haven't seen them at the Lord's table for about two months.
And I don't suppose if you call them up, I've called them up several times. And they said, we know it. We're to blame. We're just laziness. We can't get up. Well, you get up during the week. Yeah, no. Well, we're to blame. And they've told me that five or six times this year. They take the blame. Now, when a man's down, you can't knock him down. And they're smart enough to get down. When I call him up to me. Well, we're to play it, little thing. We just don't get up. We're just lazy. We shouldn't do it. We should. To get out on Easter, thank the Lord, I should have wished them a Merry Christmas when they were here last year at Easter.
Be reapers. Be reapers. Not of the flesh, but of the Spirit. And the last one is be ready. Be, are ye, hurry up. Be ready. Be ready to speak for him. Be ready to serve him. Be ready to see him. Paul says, I am now there. Be ready in the morning. That was the exhortation to Israel whence used to depart out of Egypt. Be ready in the morning on the tiptoe of expectation the Lord has come. Be ready to give an answer to every man that asks of you a reason of the hope that is within you.
Be ready. Be ready. Isn't that wonderful? You know there are three essential things in your Bible for serving the Lord. The first is the Word of God. The second is the Spirit of God. And the third is the Man of God. You'll never be a good reaper unless you study the Word of God. And you'll never be a real reaper in your life or in your labor. unless you know something of the ungrieved spirit of God. And if you're studying the Word and being led by the Spirit, you'll be a man of God.
And they're the ones God is using in the Acts. Those who study His Word and spend time in prayer, yes, here are the ones who are reaping the benefits of it. Blessings of the Spirit and of all personal lives, and also in their lives. And so these Bereans, they search the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so. Oh, be real. Be readers of the Word. Be reassured that God has not changed the same yesterday, today, and forever. Be reasonable. Be intelligent.
Be wise unto these things. and be reanimated, revived each day by the Spirit and by the Word, and be reversed, or the Spirit and not of the flesh, and be ready. For in such an hour as you think not, the Son of Man, come. These Bereans were a wonderful group of Christians. I trust that we will, in some measure, seek to imitate and accept them as our shepherds, our paddocks for the victorious Christian life are going to shock you all and are going to close before time.
Shall we pray? Our Father in heaven, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, who came into thy presence, we ask thy blessing upon thy word, oh that we might take it in, soak it up, and then give it up. Father, bless what has been said. Remember thy beloved people. We pray for those who are indifferent tonight. Careless about getting out to fellowship with thy people to hear thy word, we wouldn't want to be in their shoes for a moment. Lord, we pray thee to stir them up and give them a hunger for spiritual things and the fellowship of saints.
Some of thy people are discouraged. summer suffering. We pray for the household of God. O Father, what a variety of needs we pray for everyone. For any unsaved who might be in the audience, Lord bless such. May that one or that two who are here open their hearts to receive the Savior. We ask it in the Lord Jesus' precious name. Amen. Shall we sing number four to seven? At least I close. I didn't want to get into Corinthians. It'd be too long. Furthermore, I think if we practice what we heard tonight, we'll do well.
Four hundred and twenty-seven. When all my labors and trials are oar, and I'm safe on that beautiful shore, just to be near the dear Lord I adore. through the ages be glory for me. This was the glory hymn that was sung constantly at Moody's campaign. The glory song, four to seven, shall we stand? Please. With all the livers and trials, our Lord, and I am safe on that beautiful sword.
Just to be near the gift Lord I adore, will prove the ages deep.