Just a couple of things before
I start. Rupert Reibenbach went to meet the Saviour just
the other day. If you get a chance to go on
Sermon Audio and listen to Rupert's messages, he had a distinct and
delightful style of preaching. He was like Greg and many others
we know, he was a pastor of a church for many years, and then God
saved him, as He did in Maurice Montgomery, He saved him as a
pastor. So I have a great deal of empathy,
sympathy, because I went to India with all of the religion that
you could muster from this part of the world. And yet the Lord
took me there to save me and he took me there to make me a
preacher. Before I went to India I was so shy that I had never
spoken in public and the idea of me speaking before a bunch
of people was just unbelievably painful. And so the Lord works
in the hearts of his people to bring them bring them together
and bring them to himself and then work in the hearts of those
people. I love what Paul said to the
Thessalonians. He says, doesn't need to write to them about Christian
love. He said, you're taught of God to love one another, brothers
and sisters. And of course that's what we
want, is for God to be the teacher. And it seems, as we go through
Acts, that these Bereans are sort of set aside as a special
group of believers. There was a church here, and
the church sent people with Paul to Rome, and so this church grew
and flourished from this beginning. But it seems as if it had a beginning
in Berea which was different to the others. There wasn't the
same opposition. The Jews were stirred up. again
and again and again when they heard the Lord Jesus Christ proclaim
before them. That's why Paul describes them
as being noble. It's about the only time in all
the scriptures that the word noble is used as a compliment
rather than something that's a compliment. caution to people
in the pride of their religion. Let's just read these few verses
again. In verse 11, these were more noble. He went into the
synagogue of the Jews, verse 10. Paul always went to the synagogue
of the Jews. Paul always went to a place where
there was an opening provided by God for him. We keep thinking
that we have to knock doors down. Never once in the book of Acts
do we find that Christians are told to go and knock doors down.
They wait for God to provide a door of opening. And that's
exactly what the synagogues were about. When Paul went to the
synagogues, he was invited to speak in the synagogues. It was
politeness on the part of the Jews for Paul to speak there.
And so he went to where the door was opened and he was invited
to speak. And it says, verse 11, these
were more noble than those in Thessalonica. And we know what
happened in Thessalonica. in that they received the word
with all readiness of mind and searched the scriptures daily
whether those things were so. Therefore many of them believed,
also of the honourable women which were Greeks, and of men
not a few." So this is a mixed congregation from the very start,
Jews and Greeks gathered there by God. So these are the Christian
nobility in the New Testament. The Christian nobility. And they
searched the scriptures daily. So they gave Paul a hearing,
and then they searched the scriptures daily. The scriptures remind
us God in the New Testament compliments and encourages you to search
the scriptures. It says in 2 Corinthians 13 verse
5 that you are to examine yourself to see that you are in the faith,
to examine yourself to see that you agree with the apostolic
testimony and consort and join with the apostles in their declaration.
1 John, at the end of the New Testament canon, 1 John chapter
4 says you are to test the spirits. He says, Beloved, believe not
every spirit. He's talking about preachers.
You are listening to a spirit now. Believe not every spirit,
but try, test the spirits, whether they are of God. Because many false prophets have
gone out into the world, hereby know ye the Spirit of God. Every
spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is
of God. And that's just not a declaration
of the historic fact of the Incarnation. It's talking about all of what
the Lord Jesus Christ accomplished in His flesh. that he came specifically,
as Matthew 1 says, to save his people from their sins. To talk
about the Lord Jesus Christ coming in the flesh is to talk about
what happened on Calvary's tree, how that he represented his people
in his flesh on Calvary's tree and he was made the curse of
God for his people on Calvary's tree. It's to declare a sovereign
God, it's to declare particular redemption, it's to declare a
successful substitutionary saviour, it's to declare what happened
on that tree, that he bore the wrath of God. He bore hell, brothers
and sisters, for you who are his. And we can say those words,
and we don't have a clue about what they mean. We can contemplate
what happened to him in Gethsemane's garden, and we don't have a clue.
But by the grace of God, we can believe him and declare him. It says in 1 John 4, we are of
God, and he that knoweth God heareth us. To know God in a saving way is
to hear the apostles. And he that is not of God heareth
not us. Hereby know we the spirit of
truth and the spirit of error. These noble Bereans heard the
word of God. They heard it as the Thessalonian
believers did. They heard it as it really is.
A word from God. If you are to be saved, brothers
and sisters, you must hear the gospel. And if you are to be
saved, you must hear the gospel as the word of God. The word
of God. See, saving faith is not a leap
in the dark. It's not a walk in the fog. It's not, as we have a friend
wanting to tell us, that it's nuanced now. It's a wonderful
word, isn't it? It sounds very intellectual and
nuanced, isn't it? The love of God is a nuanced
love. that he has a particular love
for his people. In fact, you can go to find books
where it's got five different sorts of the love of God. It's
a nuanced love, and it's a nuanced sovereignty, and it's a nuanced
death on the cross. There was a nuanced activity
between God the Father and God the Son and God the Spirit. That's
a lovely word sounding, and you know what the word really means.
It's a French word. It means clouded. clouded. That's what it means. Well, brothers
and sisters, we're here not because of clouds. We're here because
that cloud on that Mount of Transfiguration revealed an Almighty Saviour
who really saved His people from their sins. So saving faith is
not a leap in the dark. It's not a walk in the fog. It's
actually, as John says, it's walking in the light. It's walking
in the light. It's coming to him as he's revealed
in the scriptures and revealed in the gospel. I love what Peter
says is, to whom coming? Once you've come to him, you'll
be coming for the rest of your days. He'll draw you to keep
coming to him. And you'll come to him in what
he has said in his word. See, it's not a wop that, Paul preached
to these people. Paul didn't go there preaching
a doctrine, he went there preaching a saviour. He went there preaching
a person, a God-man who has defined and distinct characteristics
and he preached him out of the Old Testament everywhere. I love
how Paul is commissioned. Well, the commissioning of him
in Acts 9 is that he's a chosen vessel unto me and is to bear
my name. To bear the name of the Lord
Jesus Christ is to bear everything to do with his character. It's
not just words, it's all of his character as the Christ of God. And that's exactly what happened
in Acts 9.20. He straightway, he met the Lord Jesus Christ
He was baptised. His eyes were opened and what
happened? Verse 20 of chapter 9 of Acts. He straightway, the
very first thing that came out of his mouth, he preached Christ.
Proving from the Old Testament that this is the very God This
is the very Christ, and to be the Christ is to be God. A Christ
who is anything less than God is not the Christ of the scriptures.
A Christ who is anything less than absolutely perfectly successful.
He shall not fail. He shall not fail. He declares
the end from the beginning. So at the beginning, God had
a beginning. In terms of his plan and purpose
for this creation, he begins at the end, he begins at heaven.
He begins at heaven, a new creation, the home of the righteous, and
he declares the end from the beginning, in the beginning,
in the beginning God. Paul preached to him out of the
Old Testament. He started with Genesis 1-1, I'm sure, and he
went all the way through and he just preached the Lord Jesus
Christ. I love how he describes that
he has to defend himself. So we have a description of Paul's
commissioning several times in the New Testament because it's
such a significant commissioning, because he had such a significant
role to play in the New Testament church. It says in chapter 22
of Acts, he says, the God of our fathers has chosen thee,
that thou, 22, 14, that thou should know his will, to see
that just one, to hear the voice of his mouth. For thou shalt
be his witness unto all men of what thou hast seen and heard.
You cannot be a witness unless you've seen something. You cannot
be a witness to the Lord Jesus Christ unless you have seen Him. These men bore apostolic witness.
They knew His will. In Acts 26, verse 16, Paul's
commission again, we're looking at why, what he was doing there
in Thessalonica, in Berea. It says, the Lord spoke to him,
he said, Rise, stand on thy feet, for I have appeared unto thee
for this very purpose, to make thee a minister. All ministers
of God are made by God. That's what he says in 2 Corinthians
3 and in many other places. He makes them. He makes them
and he makes the people to hear them and he makes the success
of all of what happens. To make thee a minister, a witness
both of those things which thou hast seen and those things in
which I will appear unto you. delivering thee from the Gentiles
unto whom I now send thee." And this is what he's doing. This
is why he's gone out. This is a commissioning from
the Lord Jesus Christ. This is a description of every believer. This is a description of every
believer. He sends him, Acts 26, to open their eyes. If he has to open their eyes,
it means that their eyes were blind beforehand. No matter what
religion and what activities they had, to open eyes, to turn
them from darkness to light, to translate them from the kingdom
of darkness, which is what he says in the next phrase, to turn
them from the power of Satan unto God. That's what Colossians
1 speaks of, doesn't it? Colossians 1 says that we have
been translated. He's made us qualified, verse
12. He's made us qualified, made
us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in
light who have delivered us from the power of darkness and has
translated us into the kingdom of his dear son in whom we have
redemption through his blood even the forgiveness of sins.
So Paul in Colossians is quoting in effect what the Lord Jesus
Christ had commissioned him to do, that they may receive the
forgiveness of sins. That receiving is like the receiving
that these Bereans gave to the Word of God. I don't like talking
much about Greek because I don't know enough about it and I don't
want people to think that it's special. God speaks perfectly
good English, brothers and sisters. He's been good at it for a long
time. But that Greek word is a perfect word. They receive,
perfect, and it's passive. To receive something is to have
something given to you by God. To receive the forgiveness of
sins and the inheritance among them. The inheritance among them. How do you get an inheritance?
My children won't get very much if I keep going the way I'm going
at the moment. But nevertheless, how do they
get their inheritance? They get their inheritance because
they're my children. The children of God get their
inheritance because they're children, they're heirs and joint heirs
with the Lord Jesus Christ. And then I love what it says,
to them which are sanctified by faith, that is in me. If you're going to be sanctified,
brothers and sisters, you're sanctified by something that's
done completely and entirely outside of yourself. According
to the commissioning that Paul had, this was his commissioning,
this was his commissioning, to make them holy, to set apart
them for God's use. So Paul goes, With the commission,
it's good for us to remember that he probably still had very
raw wounds from the beating he received in Thessalonica. And
he probably still bore, as he says in Galatians, he bore the
marks of Christ in his body. He probably still bore the scars
from the stoning to death that he received in Lystra. He bore
those scars. His back would have been raw. But he went there. He went there
with a commission from his God. He went there with a guarantee
of success wherever he went. As I've said so often, the more
you study and look at Paul's life and read what he wrote,
the more fond of him you become, the more in admiration you are
for him as a man. Remember in Thessalonica, all
he had to do as they were about to beat him, was say, I'm a Roman. End of the matter altogether.
He bore that beating in Thessalonica, and we're not given any reason
particularly why, except that that was God's ordained way for
him to get into jail, and for him with Silas to be singing
praises, and for that Philippian jailer to hear the word of God. So these Bereans, these Bereans
heard this word from him. They received the word with all
readiness of mind and they exerted the scriptures daily whether
these things were so. As we've seen from Acts, you
can read Paul's sermon in Acts chapter 13. He just had one message,
didn't he? Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
Jesus Christ and Him glorified. Jesus Christ in unity with His
people. As Acts 17.9, if you wish to
go back through a few verses, we'll look at it, isn't it? In
17.9, these enemies actually were declaring exactly what he
was, that there's another king. There's another King Jesus, 1707,
sorry. There's another King Jesus. This
Jesus was born a king. This Jesus lived a king. This
Jesus said that I must be about my father's business, this king.
He's a king over men. He's a king over the thoughts
and the deeds and the activities of everything in this universe.
He's a king over demons. He's a king over nature. He's
a king over everything in this world. Our God reigns. He's a king over all the circumstances
of all life. He's a king over creation. He's
a king over death. He's a king over everything in
this world. Verse 17, verse 3, it says, Paul
was opening and alleging that Christ must needs have suffer
and risen from the dead. and that this Jesus whom I preach
to you is Christ. There's a must-needs about everything
to do with the Gospel. There's a must-needs about all
the activities of the Lord Jesus Christ. There's a must-needs
about the Gospel going out. There's a must-needs about the
reception of the Gospel going out. It's God sovereignly sending
His Word to His people. That's why in verse 31 of chapter
16 they could say, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou
shalt be saved. And this was to a man who had a sword at his heart, about to
fall on a sword. These men, even the demons declared
that they were the servants, verse 17 of chapter 16. They're
servants of the most high God, which shall unto us the way of
salvation. And I love how they describe
it in that Jerusalem Council in chapter 15 verse 14 that says,
God at first did visit the Gentiles to take out of them a people
for his name. He takes out, he'll take his
people out of the Gentiles, he'll take his people out of the Jews,
he'll take his people out of this world, and he'll take them
out, a people for his name. In their being taken out and
in their continuing in being taken out, they will be there
for the glory of the character of our God to be declared in
this world. He comes. He comes. He comes. bearing witness, verse
8 and 9 in Acts 15, and God, which knows the hearts, bears
them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost, even as He did unto
us, and put no difference between us, this is the apostles and
the Gentiles, no difference between us and them, purifying their
hearts by faith. Then he speaks to all those who
would put any Christian, any child of God, under any bondage
of works whatsoever. Why are you testing God? Why do you test God? He put no
yoke on the neck of the disciples. We've been through 17 chapters
of Acts, and there's not one mention of the law, people being
put under a bondage. We believe, the Apostles' Creed
in verse 11 of chapter 50, we believe that through the grace
of our Lord Jesus Christ, we shall be saved even as they. Paul just preached Paul just
preached the Word, and he preached the Lord Jesus Christ, who is
the Word, from the Word of God. And these Bereans, these Bereans
heard that Word, and God had worked in their hearts to cause
them to receive it. They've received the Word. One of the great declarations
of the Lord Jesus in Psalm 110 verse 3, and they preached it
in the day of Pentecost, and they preached it otherwise in
those early chapters, and they preached it in the early church
all the time. In Psalm 110 verse 3, your people, thy people shall
be willing in the day of thy power. They'll be willing to
receive the word of God. They'll be willing to hear through
the Lord Jesus Christ. He makes them willing in the
day of his power. And it doesn't matter if the
Jews despise the Word of God. Satan must be extraordinarily
frustrated by the Gospel. There he is, he stirs up people
and all that happens is that he causes Paul to go into a jail
to meet a jailer. He stirs up people and Paul just
is sent to another place. He stirs up the Thessalonians
and what happens? The disruption in Thessalonica
just causes him to go down to Berea. Why? God had some people in Berea.
God had his bride in Berea. God loved her with an everlasting
love, and therefore with loving kindness, he drew her to himself,
and he sent his servant there. I do remind you who goes with
the servants, which is why messing around with the servants is a
dangerous business. That's why the Lord says, touch
not mine anointed, and do my prophets no harm. I love what
it says in Acts 3 verse 20. It talks about people repenting
and being converted that their sins may be blotted out when
the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the
Lord. When times of refreshing come from the presence of the
Lord, people will repent. They will repent of their understanding
of who God is and they'll repent of their understanding of who
they are and they'll repent of their understanding of who, how
God and man can meet in the Lord Jesus Christ. Never once in the
Scriptures are we told about repenting of your sins. You don't
have a clue what they are, brothers and sisters. And as you start
repenting, you're wrong. Because you're wrong. Anyway,
verse 20 of Acts 3. Who comes? Who comes in the preaching
of the Gospel? He shall send Jesus Christ. which before was preached unto
you. You might recall the parable
of the soils. The word goes out seemingly indiscriminately
and some of it is plucked off the path by Satan before it even
has time to root. And some of it looks Half of
it looks really wonderful, doesn't it? It takes root and it grows
and it looks terrific. You read on that parable and
those halves, that half is taken away. It's choked by the cares
of this world. It's choked. It's choked and
dies. What happens to the good seed?
It's received into good ground, isn't it? So how do you make
good ground? I've been a farmer. Some of you
have played around with farming. Cole has a garden. And there's
something remarkably different about Cole's veggie garden to
the lawn just beside it, is there not? What's happened? How do
you make good soil? Well, good soil is actually made
by the Lord. Really good soil is made by the Lord, but good
soil is ploughed deep. It's a violent work. Good soil is unrecognisable from
what it originally was. It's ploughed deep. When I was
a kid, they used to have ploughing competitions because farmers
were vain people and they liked to boast about how good they
were. They used to boast and brag about
how straight a corn furrow they could plough, and it was a simple
way of getting a really straight corn furrow. You looked unmovingly
at a point on the horizon. You didn't look at the end of
the paddock. You looked at a point on the horizon. You didn't take
your eyes off it. And when you got to the end of the paddock,
you looked around and there you had a straight road. Everyone
would drive up and down and examine. But they used to plough. They
used to plough with a mouldboard plough. And the best of them
could take what looked like a pasture or a lawn and the competition
was judged on how beautifully you ploughed it. So that sharp
point of that plough went into the ground and the ground was
cut by a blade. Think about it in terms of Acts
chapter 2. These men were cut to the heart. Their world was
turned upside down and then that sharp point and then there was
this steel blade and the paddock would be turned over and it would
go from being beautiful green grass to being ploughed dirt
in a heartbeat. They're all pictures, brothers
and sisters, aren't they, of what God does in the hearts of
his people. God comes and the Spirit brings
conviction of sin and righteousness and judgment. But sin, because
you believe not in him. These Thessalonians, these Bereans,
were made ready. They received the Word of God. We describe the believers in
Thessalonica as they received the Word as it is in truth, the
Word of God, and a Word that acts powerfully in people. So
the Gospel doesn't come as an offer, and the Gospel doesn't
come as an invitation. The Gospel is sent as a command,
a command from a king. You might recall Cornelius was
a man like these Bereans, to in a sense sort of show the depths
of the wickedness of the Jews in their enmity against God. But Cornelius, he had a man standing
before him in bright clothing, And you would think, well, here's
a great opportunity. Can't the man in bright clothing, this angelic
being, or whatever it might have been, couldn't this angelic being
have proclaimed the gospel to Cornelius? And he doesn't, because
you must hear the gospel from a man. You have to be plowed
deep with the humility of listening to a man who has been humbled
before God himself, like Paul, humbled and dusted off and sent
out to proclaim it. But Cornelius speaks amazing
words in Acts 10.33. He immediately sent for Peter
and he says that Peter's done well to come. But what does Cornelius
want to hear? Now therefore, are we all here
present before God to hear all things that are commanded of
God? God commands the sending out
of the Gospel. The Gospel is not an offer. The
Gospel is not an offer. And when it's received by people,
they receive, as James says, they receive the ingrafted Word,
they receive it with meekness. And they do, as Peter says, they
desire the sincere milk of the Word that you might grow. There
is created in these people a hunger and thirst just to hear what
God said. It says they received the word
with all readiness of mind. Readiness of mind. God expects people. to actually, as I said earlier,
to test the spirits. God declares these Bereans noble
because they tested what Paul was saying. They had a simple
test, didn't they? They just went back to the Old
Testament scriptures. Is this the Christ of God? Is this the
truth of who God is? God's children who have been moved by the Spirit
of God in their hearts, they must know what is true. We are,
like the people in Jeremiah 6, we are so often standing in the
ways. It says, stand ye in the ways. See, there are so many ways,
aren't there? There are so many paths of religion in this world. There are so many paths of Christianity.
And when you talk to people here now, as I do, on a regular basis,
the first thing they say so often is that it's just so confusing.
There are so many ways. The command of God comes to his
people in remarkable ways, doesn't it? It says, stand ye in the
paths and see, and ask for the old paths. Ask for the old paths,
Jeremiah 6.16. Where is the good way? That old
path means a path that has no beginning. It's a path, it's
an eternal path. You go and find the eternal covenant,
find the God in eternity, and ask for the old path, and where
is the good way, and walk therein, and you shall find rest for your
souls. You'll find rest for your souls.
You stand in the ways. and that you seek the path of
the eternal covenant of our great and glorious God. You stand in the ways. With all
readiness of mind, these Beroeans received the word of God. There is in the gospel a stone of stumbling, a tried stone,
Stone that's rejected by men, but it's the stone of stumbling
and it's the rock of offense and you will either fall on him
or he will crush you, says Matthew 24. You will come to him being
humbled by who he is and find yourself rejoicing in that humbling
or he will fall upon you. So the gospel will stand examination. One of the things that's been
so helpful for us is that we are
forced by the circumstances that the Lord has put us in to keep
saying, is this the truth? Is this the truth? Is that the
truth over there? If you are in a large denomination
or a large organisation, people can find comfort from all of
those things. When you are just a little cottage in a field of
cucumbers, You have to keep saying, is this
right? As we keep repeating the words
of Moses at Mount Sinai, Lord, if you don't go with us, don't
take us up from here. If you've given us grace, give
us more grace that we might know you. But don't take us up from
here, don't let us. Please, Lord, don't let us join
with those that are deceived. It's interesting, isn't it, in
the scriptures, it talks about those in Acts 17 that believed
not. believed not. Some people are
never given the opportunity of believing. God hides his gospel
from them altogether, as he did to the whole Gentile world for
thousands of years. But there is a believing not,
isn't there? There is an active rejection of the truth. There is a willful rejection
of the truth. People who hear the gospel and
go to hell are 100% responsible 100% responsible before God. Salvation
is 100% of grace. Damnation is 100% of human responsibility. All the religiously lost are
100% responsible for their willful rejection of God, their willful
rejection of His character, His truth, His Son. the Spirit's
work. That's why these Bereans are
noble, aren't they? They search the Scriptures daily. This was their daily habit. These
Scriptures that come from God, these Scriptures that are the
living and active Word of God, these Scriptures that point to
He who is the Word of God. I love what Titus says, God cannot
lie. He cannot lie. That's why the psalmist said,
Oh, how I love thy law. It is my meditation all day. And people ask me about reading
schemes in the Bible. I'm really encouraging. I mean,
I'm encouraged by people who systematically read through the
scriptures and have a marker and other things, and I'm encouraged
by all sorts of other reading of the scriptures. But for me,
for this last 20 years, the best reading of the scriptures is
to read the scriptures until you find a verse that jumps out
and grabs ahold of you. and then you have something to
meditate on all day long because you can't let it go. You can
do all your other activities in that Word from God. The Lord says, Seek out of the
Book of the Lord and read, and not one of these shall fail,
says Isaiah 36.14. To the man who was in hell in
Luke 16, The Lord said, Abraham said to him, They have Moses
and the prophets. Let them hear them. No amount of physical evidence
is ever going to bring anyone to salvation. Salvation is a
spiritual work of God applying it to the hearts of His people. This word of God that these Bereans
heard. There was a remarkable generation
wherever Paul went they had the gospel undiluted. We live in
an age now where we have to actually sort out which gospel is the
real gospel. But in those days there was just
one at this time. There would be a confusion of
it in the not too distant future. But wherever Paul went, they
heard it. And they heard this word as it was really a word
from God. And they searched the scriptures.
And what did they find in the scriptures? They found that Paul was telling
the truth. When he describes the Lord Jesus Christ and he
describes the character of God, out of the Old Testament scriptures,
Everything he says is true. And in the Thessalonians he lays
a scripture beside a scripture and he shows that the promises
are all yea and amen in the Lord Jesus Christ. He really did come
into this world because he had a people who the Father had given
him. And he really did represent them
as he did in eternity. And he really was, he really
was the Lamb of God who was slain from the foundation of the world. To the law and the testimony,
says Isaiah 8.20, if they speak not according to this word, it
is because there is no light in them. No light in them. It doesn't say they have a little
bit of light. It says there is no light in them. And they tested
these things whether they are so, whether the gospel that Paul
proclaimed, the person, the God-man that Paul proclaimed, was the
God of the scriptures. And he really was. Everywhere
he's tested. He comes through gloriously. So therefore many of them believed.
God blesses his own gifts. He opens Lydia's heart and what
did Lydia do? She actually clung to the word
that Paul preached to her. The Philippian jailer heard the
word of the Lord and he rejoiced and was baptised. Those that
hear the word of God, they believed and they consulted with Paul
and Silas. So God gives to those who has
his gifts and he comes to them in saving grace and knowledge. But where the gospel is preached
faithfully, there will be opposition. And most of the opposition to
the gospel comes from the religious people. They end up doing God's
bidding in the lives of his people. But it's impossible, it's impossible
to make the divine truth of who our God is and who we are palatable
to natural man. And Paul continues to give us
the response of God's servants. Where there's opposition, what
happens? You move on and you preach again. And you pray for a door of utterance
and you preach on. Enemies of the Gospel, those
that believe not, they grieve our hearts. And the goats go
on abutting. And the lambs, like Isaiah 40
says, the lambs His lambs, his babes, they are carried in his
arms, close to his heart. They're carried by him above
this world. They're carried by him next to
that wound that was opened up on Calvary's tree. That's what
Paul says in Acts 13. Therefore many of them believed,
and the honourable women not a few, which were Greeks, and
the men not a few. But when the Jews of Thessalonica
had knowledge that the word of God was preached of Paul at Berea,
they came there also and stirred up their people. And Paul just
went on. Because God had a people somewhere
else. The word of God is not constrained,
brothers and sisters. It goes on and it gathers He
gathers the lambs as the great shepherd goes over hill and dale
to get his own. He died for them. He died with
their names on his heart. He takes them into the Holy of
Holies in heaven. He shed his life's blood for
them, and they're precious in his sight. So we will send his
servants to where they are, and they'll find him delightful. Let's pray. Heavenly Father,
we pray that you would continue to cause your people to find
the Lord Jesus Christ all of their rejoicing. Heavenly Father,
we pray that we would find in Him all of the righteousness
that you require of us in this world, all the perfect obedience
to the law that you require of people, Heavenly Father, and
all of the wrath of God consumed by Him, that there is nothing
left, Heavenly Father, between Him and you and your people accept
bonds of love. Heavenly Father, we thank you
that you cause your people to be drawn to hear your gospel
and we praise you, Heavenly Father, for that work in the hearts of
your people. Bless us, Heavenly Father, with
your truth and bless that truth to the hearts of your people.
May the words of your Son be spirit and life to us. And make it, Heavenly Father,
that we have nowhere else to go but to Him. May we be found,
Heavenly Father, rejoicing in the glory of our great God and
Savior, your dear Son. Bless us, Heavenly Father, and
bless your words to the hearts of your people. For His sake,
amen. We might just sing our closing. unto Him who is able to keep,
able to keep you from falling. And the search unfolds before
the presence of His glory. We sing joy to the only Christ,
? In glory and majesty ? ? Dominion
and pride are mine forevermore ? ? Amen ?