So this is part two of two in the sermon begun this morning. How to come to believe in Christ. A meditation on Acts 17, verse 11, which reads, These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind and searched the Scriptures daily, whether those things were so. Amen. Raise the possibility that an unbeliever might say to you when you witness to him or her, I really wish I had your faith, but I just don't. The question is, as a testifying Christian, what is your counsel to such a person? What would you tell them to do until they become a Christian, that they might become a true believer in Christ eventually? Well, the example of the Berean Jews in Acts 17 and 11 suggests three things that every unbeliever ought to do. To come to believe in Christ, then, keep an open mind, open ears, and an open Bible. These are three points that arise from the three parts of verse 11. An open mind is seen when Luke says, these were more noble than those in Thessalonica. And the trait mentioned here, noble, is a word that means open minded or fair minded. It could be translated. So keep an open mind, and some unbelievers are more open-minded even about hearing the gospel than others are. So that's one piece of counsel to the interested unbeliever, keep an open mind. have open ears for the gospel as it is preached. And this comes from the middle of the verse where Luke says in that these were more noble minded in this particular. So here's the evidence or fruit of their noble mindedness. They received the word with all readiness of mind. They received the word with all readiness of mind. And this is talking about not private Bible study, but hearing a public preaching ministry of the word, namely what we would think of especially as sermons, where Christ is preached out of the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. So the second line of counsel is don't just keep an open mind about Christ and the gospel. Get yourself regularly under the sound of good preaching of a capable, faithful man that knows how to relate Old and New Testament scriptures together so that they converge in a testimony to Jesus Christ, the Lord and Savior. So that's what the Berean Jews were doing in Berea. They were eagerly attending upon Paul and other Christian preachers' ministries of the word. And thirdly, we came to this line of counsel from the verse, keep an open Bible. And this comes out of the third part of the verse 11, which says the Bereans search the scriptures daily, whether those things were so. That is whether those things they heard were so according to the standard of the Old Testament scriptures. And that's where we had to leave off. I just pointed that out. But I want to elaborate more on this and then I want to make a few points of application, draw a conclusion from all this. So again, having studied the Greek text behind our English translation, I found out that the word searched in the phrase search the scriptures means probably exactly what you already knew it meant. There's no great insight to look up the Greek, the definition of the Greek words, but I have and a few good lexicons say this, this verb search the scriptures means they engaged in careful study of a question. And another says they examined carefully, investigated, studied thoroughly to try to learn the nature of truth of something by the process of careful study, evaluation, and judgment. And another said, the verb means to consider in detail and subject to an analysis in order to discover essential features or meaning. And this is all these senses make perfect sense in this context. These Jews were in the habit of meeting together on Sabbath days in the synagogue and hearing the scriptures read by their rabbis. And then in their experience, the apostle Paul came around. He was welcomed as a guest preacher. He did essentially the same thing. He read from the scrolls in the synagogue and then explained how these prophecies of the Messiah in the scrolls have their counterpart in redemptive history in this man named Jesus. And he would tell them all about Jesus and how he fit perfectly the prophetic word about the Messiah in the Scriptures. Well, that is to make the claim for Jesus. Paul made this very momentous, substantial claim that Jesus, the man who used to be born of Mary, raised by Joseph and Mary together, walked about the promised land, you know, taught and told his parables and preached his sermons and called sinners to repentance and then raised the sick and cast out demons and all those things. This Jesus, who was finally crucified in Jerusalem, rose from the dead on the third day and then ascended to heaven. Paul claimed, This Jesus is the very one being foretold in the prophetic scriptures. Now that is a claim Paul made. But just because Paul said that about Jesus doesn't make it so in the judgment of the Berean Jews. So they listened attentively and eagerly to what Paul was saying, but they needed confirmation of that by their own investigation of the scriptures, which they did. And so when Luke praises them here, and he does praise them for their example, he praises them for searching or investigating these things in the scriptures. He's using a term here, translated search, which is the activity, the same as the activity of a judge in a court asking questions of those who appear before him to ascertain the facts of a case. So that's the kind of activity in their minds. They're in the position of being a judge to discern truth from error. And they go about that activity of searching the scriptures with a view to making a judgment. It's also a term that would describe what a detective might do when he interviews suspects to discover who is the guilty party. One of my famous, you know, fictional detectives is Columbo. And some of us are old enough to remember him on TV. Peter Falk, the actor, played Columbo. And Columbo was so clever in his investigations, and you remember if you're old enough, He would appear to somebody and ask a few questions and then start to leave. Oh, one more thing. And it just seemed like an offhand thought without any forethought. But it turns out the last question was extremely illuminating when the person responded to it. But he looked like a disheveled boob in his trench coat, all wrinkled and everything, but he had a mind like a steel trap. And that's what he was doing. He was searching or investigating the case and the people to figure out who done it. Well, this is the mindset that people, the people of Berea had when they looked into the scriptures, except in this case, the subject examined is the Bible. And the question to be determined is whether Jesus is the Christ. Because they were not yet fully convinced, even though Paul had most solemnly insisted that Jesus is the Christ. Just because Paul preached this doesn't mean that they believed it was true. Luke says further, they searched the scriptures daily, which means every day. So we take this to mean that their investigation into the scriptures about whether Jesus was the Christ became an obsession with them. It's something that they felt they just had to know, and they had to know for sure, and not be in any doubt about it if it were so. And Luke tells us further in the text, not only did they search the Scriptures daily, but the point of their searching the Scriptures in the last part of the verse was whether these things were so. That is, whether these claims made about Jesus in the pulpit backed up by the evidence of the Old Testament scriptures. And this is an amazing thing to consider how Luke praises them for seeking confirmation of the teaching in the scriptures. Because remember, their preacher very often was the apostle Paul himself. One who was handpicked by Jesus to be his spokesman in the world, a spokesman in the world for him. So this is Paul, not just pastor so-and-so of any local church. This is an apostle. And yet, the Bereans went to the scriptures as a quality control test in their estimation of the goodness or badness of what it was Paul was telling them. In other words, they were not apt to believe what Paul preached without convincing evidence or proof. And they found that evidence in the scriptures here, specifically. And this is, this is all healthy. This is, you know, if, if you're witnessing to an unbeliever and they say, you know, I want to, I hear what you're saying, but I want to look in the Bible for myself to see whether what you're saying is so you would be wrong to say, no, no, don't do that. Just believe it. Cause I'm telling you it's true. Don't do that. Encourage them to search it out in the scriptures and seek to know for their own contentment, whether what you're telling them is true or not. Matthew Henry comments on this place in Acts in these words, he says, their readiness of mind, that is the Bereans, their readiness of mind to receive the word was not such as that they took things upon trust, swallowed them upon an implicit faith, no. But since Paul reasoned out of the scriptures and referred them to the Old Testament for the proof of what he said, they had recourse to their Bibles, turned to the places to which he referred them, read the context, considered the scope and drift of those passages, compared them with other places of scripture, examined whether Paul's inferences from them were natural and genuine and his arguments upon them cogent and then they determined accordingly. Excellent, excellent description of their mental process they went through in their Bible study after the sermons. were preached, especially day after day after day. And it was in this process of being open-minded, listening to the sermons, the gospel sermons, and then resorting to the scriptures for confirmation that Luke says, therefore many of them believed in verse 12. Now, my dear friends here at Calvary Baptist Church, what Luke describes the Berean Jews were doing that led up to them becoming believers. I have been doing this for over 40 years now. I have been open-minded about Jesus being the Christ. And I have heard many preachers telling me it is so and why it is so and what the implications are and so forth. And I have been resorting to my Bible daily for a long, long, long time. to investigate the truth or falsity of claims i've heard in the pulpit and i can tell you i can tell you at this point in my life more than ever before i am more convinced and more amazed that the gospel of jesus christ is true in fact i know it is so but i know it not because Pastor Martin told me it is so, or Pastor Smith, my childhood pastor, told me it was so. I know it partly because I have gone to the Scriptures, and the Scriptures have been the touchstone of truth for me. And the more I study the Scriptures, and I'm 58 years old now, in the pastorate more than 30, well, about 30 years, and a professing Christian for 48 years, I think a born again Christian for 38 years, and in the Bible since I was 10 years old. Look, The more I learn out of the Bible, the more amazed I become. And my wonder at this book called the Bible and what it says in the details and in its wide scope, my wonder is not only increasing, it seems to me like it is accelerating with my senior experience now compared to before. In fact, I would say as a general rule, Scripture is an inexhaustible ocean of truth that even accelerates the wonder of open-minded investigators. And, you know, if you have been walking with God for a while and studying your Bible for a while, Don't you testify again and again that you've learned so much from Scripture in the recent past, it seems like it was at least as much as you had ever learned for many years before. That's my experience too. And so, for what it's worth, I give you my testimony. I get the privilege to speak to some people who are not Christians from time to time, and I even tell some wobbly Christians of things along these lines. What I say to them is, this message about Jesus Christ is telling us about things that are objectively true. These things are true truth. They're based on God's revelation in history. Jesus really lived and died and rose again, whether anybody believes it or not, it's, it stands as a fact. And so you can't afford to live as if it's not so because it is. I was, I recalled in the preparation of the sermon, the testimony of a famous apologist for Christianity named Josh McDowell. And let me share with you just a few sentences, several sentences from his testimony I found online about what happened to him in his conversion to Jesus Christ. Some Christian friends issued a challenge I couldn't believe. They challenged me to make rigorous intellectual examinations of the claims of Jesus Christ, that he is God's Son. that he inhabited a human body and lived among real men and women, that he died on the cross for the sins of humanity, that he was buried and was resurrected three days later, and that he is still alive and can change a person's life even today. I accepted my friend's challenge, mostly out of spite and to prove them wrong. I was convinced the Christian story would not stand up to evidence I was a pre-law student and I knew something about evidence. I decided to start with the Bible. I was sure that if I could uncover indisputable evidence that the Bible is an unreliable record, the whole of Christianity would crumble. I took the challenge seriously. I spent months in research. I even dropped out of school for a time to study in the historically rich libraries of Europe. And I found evidence, evidence in abundance, evidence I could hardly believe with my own eyes. I took the challenge seriously. I spent months, I'm sorry, I read that part already. Finally, I could come to only one conclusion. If I were to remain intellectually honest, I had to admit that the Old and New Testament documents were some of the most reliable writings in all of antiquity. And if they were reliable, what about this man, Jesus, whom I had dismissed as a mere carpenter? I had to admit that Jesus Christ was more than a carpenter. He was all he claimed to be. And there he tips his hat to one of his titles, more than a carpenter, about these things. Well, many, many people, as I said this morning, have come to gospel preaching or come to the scriptures with no intention to believe, no intention to become Christians. And then they have found themselves joining the throng of Christian believers. Look, Luke is inferentially teaching us that gospel truth has nothing to fear from investigation. The Christian need not be embarrassed or nervous about the credibility of the scriptures and the message about Jesus Christ. I challenge all my unbelieving hearers to see for themselves how amazing is the correlation between the Old Testament and the New Testament as proof that Jesus is the Christ. Look, what Josh McDowell might not have appreciated in his younger days is, you don't have to go to the libraries in Europe to check out these claims. The very Bible we hold in our hands is amazing and really compelling evidence of the truthfulness of the gospel of Jesus Christ. If you're curious about how that is so, ask me afterward. But I can tell you in the sermon, just check out the Westminster Larger Catechism, question four, with his answer. And you'll see there an outline of why I make a claim that the Bible is self-authenticating. Well, what was the consequence then of the Bereans' open mind, open ears, and open Bibles? Luke tells us plainly. In verse 12, we read, therefore many of them believed. That is, they believed the things Paul was preaching about Jesus being the Christ. That is to say they became Christians and no doubt they were baptized and formed into a Christian church under Paul's direction. They were converted in other words. But what I want you to notice is this connective word, therefore, that starts verse 12. Therefore, many of them believed. And I didn't, I certainly didn't want to be mistaken about this. So I examined it carefully myself. And the Greek word so translated means therefore, or consequently, or it could be translated, as a result. So we have something that is logically prior in verse 11 and something that is logically posterior in verse 12. They were noble-minded. And so they received with all readiness the word preached to them and search of scriptures to see whether these things were so. Therefore, many of them believed. As a result of all this, which was certainly their condition before they were committed Christians, as a result of this noble disposition they had, These open ears they had, this zeal to study the Scriptures they had, as a consequence of that, all that Luke says, they believed. In other words, they trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ and they were saved. Now by the prompting of the Holy Spirit in verse 12 of Acts 17, Luke clearly draws a causal connection between their noble-minded conduct and their subsequent faith. In other words, let me put it in a different way, they came to believe in Christ through open-minded, teachable reception of the Christian message for consideration and daily diligent investigation of it by the standard of the scriptures. This is the process by which they moved from a position of skepticism about Jesus, first of all ignorance of Jesus, then skepticism about Jesus, finally to trust in Jesus as their savior. Their faith came by hearing and hearing by the word of God preached to them, Romans 10, 17. Now I am not for anything suggesting that they produced this faith of their own power or decision. Their faith was the gift of God's grace to them for sure. But God uses means as a rule to impart this faith in an unbelieving world. And here we see He uses, and He still does this today, God uses the means of Gospel preaching to impart faith in the hearts of unbelievers who hear the Gospel preaching. God uses the means of written Scripture, which now is published both physically in books and tangibly on the internet, and is heard on the radio all over the world. God uses the means, as well, of open-mindedness in unbelievers to give these things a fair hearing. God uses natural intelligence, even of unbelievers, to think clearly enough to see that the claims being made for Jesus as the Christ are entirely credible. And that's what maybe we have failed to appreciate as much as we should. There is a tendency in some of us who are Calvinists, let me just say it that bluntly, to magnify the supernatural and the grace of God and the supernatural act of God in the Holy Spirit, regenerating a soul and imparting faith and all the Godward side of these things. But let us not forget the human side and responsibilities of sinners toward conversion, toward their conversion. This is not the error of preparationism that some have fallen into, but just the practical inference from a passage like this about how we should counsel unbelievers. You say, you say you wish you had faith like me. Well, let me tell you what you can do. Indeed, you can't just snap your fingers and become a believer. The Bible never teaches that. You can't pray a prayer. and instantly it will happen because you prayed a prayer. But what you can do and what you ought to do is have an open mind toward the person of Jesus Christ. You ought to have open ears to hear good preaching about Jesus that's faithful to the scriptures. Then you ought to have an open Bible and seek confirmation of what you hear in that written holy standard. And I'll pray for you and you can pray for yourself that this is true. God will convince you of it. And very often it is the case when people will do this, they discover that God does give them faith using all these means toward that end. Amen. So, so this is, this is what we can tell them. We don't have to be stymied when they say, well, I just don't believe. Nor do we just have to say to them, well, you should believe, believe. We can give them practical counsels like this, that God may be pleased to bless to their true conversion. Now, let me draw some conclusions and applications as I close out the message for the day. First of all, I have in mind counsel to you as witnessing Christians, counsel to you as witnessing Christians, which I presume that you are. I presume everybody here I hope is witnessing Christians. That is, you're a Christian, a true Christian, and you seize opportunities from time to time to bear witness to Jesus Christ when you have conversations with people who are not Christians. So you speak of the Lord and you tell them about Jesus. This is advice for you. And I think all these things, can be drawn by inference from the passage we've studied. Here's my advice to you in some specifics. Faithfully relay the gospel to unbelievers. You want your parents or your children or your neighbor or your sister or brother or your spouse or anybody at all to be saved? Well, they need to know the content of the gospel to trust in the Lord. They need to know the gospel. So relay that gospel message to them. Here's another piece of counsel. Give them Bibles. We live in a time when it's so easy to get a copy of the scriptures, so cheap, and we can give them a copy of the Bible for themselves. Some people don't own a Bible. That might seem incredible to you, but it's true. Urge them to come to church with you. What do you hear? as a rule in person, faithful, sound, expository, biblical preaching that shows how the Old New Testament relate together and converge on a person and work of Jesus Christ. Where do you hear that kind of preaching? Those of you who are in the habit of coming here, hear it here primarily. So bring them in to hear that kind of preaching. Recommend faithful preachers to them on the radio or the internet. And they, if they're unbelievers, they have no discernment about these things. So you could tell them, steer clear of this one or that one and give your attention to this one or the other. Offer to study the Bible with them. You know, for most people, Bible study is, you know, you might as well tell them to study Egyptian hieroglyphics. They have not a clue how to begin, but you can guide them in their Bible studies and show them how to do it. Explain to them how reasonable it is that they should keep an open mind while they're still not Christians. Learn true Christian theology and the substance of it and compare it with what the scripture actually says. I think all that is a fair inference from our sermon text for witnessing Christians. Let me give counsel to you, Christians, as growing Christians yourselves. Now, while the context of Acts 17.11 focuses on how some who were not Christians came to believe in Christ, their commendable example at Berea applies to us Christians also. You know, this is not just, they were doing something that's not just commendable in those who were becoming Christians. This is commendable for Christians, even very mature Christians, experienced Christians. We too must keep an open mind to learn the gospel better. We too must remain teachable for the sake of decreasing our ignorance and correcting our errors and reforming our lives. We too ought to subject everything we hear to the touchstone of scripture so that we may increase in our discernment between the true and the false, the good and the bad, the beautiful and the ugly. And you know, when we read of the Bereans attitude, hearing sermons, we ought to be challenged to be like them. Do you come to sermons as one who receives the word preached with all readiness of mind? Do you have that kind of intense interest and zeal to learn more about the Lord, His ways and His will for your life, and specifically, to be learning from the sermons you hear? John Owen, I think it was, said, some in the church have become so hard-hearted, they are sermon-proof. Don't let that be you. This kind of attitude of eager, zealous interest in the things preached is really important for your spiritual growth. Now, a word of application for unbelievers. And we may have one or two or three, I don't know, in our midst who are not truly converted. Well, let me say to you, Would you really want to be exposed as a narrow-minded bigot against Christianity? Which is what you would be if you didn't have an open mind, open ears, and an open Bible. How much do you really know about the scriptures and about Jesus? Really, if you were asked to prepare a lecture in 15 minutes from now, give a 15 minute lecture about what you know about Jesus and the content of Holy Scripture, what could you say about it? Few non-Christians know very much and even fewer understand to more than a very shallow degree If that's your case, how can you dismiss the Lord Jesus so casually? I have to say, I just don't believe the sincerity of the one who says, I wish I had your faith, unless that person who says it has been doing these things like the Bereans for a good while. You know, if somebody said, I wish I had your faith, I would find that testimony credible if they were open-minded and hearing good sermons as a habit for a long time and searching the scriptures daily whether those things were so. Otherwise, I don't think it's believable. And if they had been doing those things for some time, I might encourage the person who says that to realize that maybe he already believes the gospel. You know, if you really are open minded to Jesus Christ, and you can hear gospel sermons with zealous interest, and you're seeking confirmation of the truth of those sermons in the Scriptures, why do you think you're not a believer already? It's possible, I suppose, but not everybody has a clear sense of when they transition from an interested unbeliever into a new Christian with a new faith. This is an illustration that I think helps us to understand the issue of sincerity. Once there was a marvelous concert pianist. After a show, during a meet and greet, one enthusiastic fan proclaimed, I would give anything to play the piano like you. Without missing a beat, the pianist responded. Would you give up your youth, forego playing with other kids and participating in extracurricular activities so you could practice six to eight hours a day, year round for years on end? Would you give up dating and all other desires for a single-minded commitment to the art of the piano? The fan slowly lowered his head as the enthusiasm of the previous moment left his face and he turned and walked away, dejected. You know, you can use this in your counsel to unbelievers. If anybody seems, wants to tell you that they would believe if they only could, You should challenge them. Are you doing all you can do for now to come to faith? The fact is that unbelievers suppress the truth and never really have the spirit and commitment of Bereans unless the Lord is in the process of graciously drawing them to Himself. You know, when people act like the Bereans did, this is a very good sign that they were among God's elect. That they were not hostile, overtly hostile like the Thessalonians to Paul and his gospel message. Because that's the normal reaction of unbelievers to the gospel. Hostility, fingers in the ears. No, no, no, no, no, no. Don't tell me that. I don't want to hear it. In the Gospel of John chapter 3 we read, this is the condemnation, that light is coming to the world, and men love darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. John 3, 19 and 20. So let us who believe in the Lord faithfully call attention to this and exhort unbelievers to have a change of heart and a change of habit by the grace of God. Amen.