What Makes Jesus Unique? No one else made the claims that He did, He is alive...............
All the great religious leaders of history have one thing in common: they are dead. Only one man has risen from a grave never again to taste death. Jesus Christ died, was buried, remained in the grave for 3 days, then was raised to life again.
Jesus is unique. He is the only one proven to be the Son of God because God validated His Kingship and accepted His payment for our sins all with one incredible stroke: He raised Jesus from the dead!
Paul opens his letter to the Romans with this evidence about who Jesus is:
Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God, which He had promised before by His prophets in the holy scriptures, concerning His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who was made of the seed of David according to the flesh, and declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead. Romans 1:1-4
Because Jesus Christ is very much alive, five things are true right now that wouldn’t be true if He were just another dead religious leader like Confucius, Mohammed or Buddha.
Because Jesus was raised from the dead and is alive…Prayers are answered, We can talk to Jesus 24/7
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Are You Living in Condemnation? 4 Warning Signs That Something’s Just Not Right
June 27, 2019
Are you living in condemnation? The devil is sneaky, so don’t answer until you check out these four warning signs that something’s just not right!
Do you believe that God is the Giver of healing, prosperity, deliverance, peace, salvation, Baptism in the Holy Spirit, a spouse, children, and every other good thing, but don’t feel worthy to receive those things?
Wait, don’t answer just yet…keep reading.
Many Christians are refusing the gifts Jesus Christ has made available to them through His shed blood because they think of themselves as unworthy. Because of their past sins and mistakes, and the past sins and mistakes of others, they do not feel good enough to receive from a holy God.
Now you can answer. Does this sound like you? If you answered yes, then…Houston, we have a problem.
If you’ve been having trouble receiving healing, financial breakthroughs or anything else you need from the Lord, and you struggle with feelings of shame and unworthiness, you may be living in condemnation that needs to be resolved.
What Is Condemnation?
Simple definitions of condemnation include feelings of guilt, shame, regret, fear, and unworthiness…usually stemming from a past mistake or experience. These past sins could have happened 10 years ago or 10 minutes ago. Anytime we miss the mark, and we all do from time to time, the enemy will try his best to bring condemnation on us.
So, what are we to do? We are to believe and stand on the Word of God!
The Bible clearly tells us in Romans 8:1 that there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus.
Psalm 34:22 says the Lord redeems the life of His servants, and no one who takes refuge in Him will be condemned.
If we confess our sins to Him, He is faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9).
He blots out our sins and does not think of them (Isaiah 43:25).
He does not punish us for all our sins or deal with us as harshly as we deserve (Psalm 103:10).
Another important point to remember is that there’s a difference between conviction and condemnation. The Holy Spirit will let us know when we’ve missed the mark by convicting us of sin from our past or present, but He is a gentleman. He doesn’t aim to make us feel guilty, unworthy, and fearful, but He leads us to repentance. Correction usually comes by a quickening from the Holy Spirit as you read and study the Word of God, or through a minister or pastor teaching or preaching from the Word. It can also come from a fellow believer who is walking in love. Condemnation, on the other hand, is brought on by the devil, and he wants to make you feel all the bad things—unworthy, afraid, and guilty. He will often invade your thoughts or use people to accomplish his mission.
But there’s good news! You don’t have to live in condemnation, because Jesus paid the ultimate price for you to be free! So, it’s time to ask yourself, Am I living in condemnation? The devil is sneaky, so it’s always a good idea to check and see if he’s been pulling any of your strings and trying to cheat you out of the abundant life Jesus came to give you.
Below are four warning signs that you may be living in condemnation and that something’s just not right.
Warning Sign No. 1: You Think About the Past—A Lot
“One thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead.” –Philippians 3:13.
Do thoughts of your past seem to creep up out of nowhere? Sins and mistakes from 10, 20, or even 30 years ago? Or maybe you keep reliving a negative life experience that left you hurt—over and over and over. Perhaps you’ve even found yourself saying on repeat, “I wish I would’ve…” or “If only I wouldn’t have….”
This is why God tells us to leave what’s in the past in the past and to press forward into our future. God wants to do something new and wonderful in your life, completely apart from your past, but you have to stop looking to your past in order to receive it!
How do you do this? Know that Jesus already took the condemnation for your past upon Himself. As a born-again Christian, you have been made free from every sin you’ve ever committed. Jesus bore all your sin, shame and guilt on the cross, so you could live free of condemnation—FOREVER.
It isn’t enough to just mentally acknowledge this truth, however. As long as you keep allowing yourself to replay bad choices or experiences, you’ll keep yourself spinning on the condemnation merry-go-round. Are you ready to get off?
Here’s how to do it: Take your thoughts of the past captive and make them obedient to Christ (2 Corinthians 10:5). When a condemning thought from your past crosses your mind, stop it dead in its tracks by speaking out loud. Say, “No. I don’t live in the past. Jesus has made all things new and given me a prosperous, guilt-free future. I am living fully in the present, and I look forward to what God is doing in my life right now.”
This might be a daily effort at first, so don’t give up if the thoughts of your past don’t immediately stop. Plus, you have an enemy who doesn’t want you to succeed, but remember, he’s already been defeated! So, whenever the devil tries to call you with reminders of past mistakes—hang up on him. Inform him that he’s been placed on your Do Not Call List, and you will not be receiving any more of his attempts at communication.
Make a decision today. Leave the past behind, and focus on the here and now, and your glorious future!
Warning Sign No. 2: You Can’t Seem to Forgive Yourself
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” –2 Corinthians 5:17 (NLT)
If you find yourself beating yourself up for days, weeks and even years after you make a mistake, that’s a strong warning that you may be living in condemnation, and something’s just not right. Feelings of rejection, fear of failure, insecurity and depression are all connected to condemnation.
When you became a Christian, you literally became a new creation, a species that has never before existed. The old person you were passed away, spiritually speaking. The best news is that all of your past and future mistakes have been blotted out by the blood of Jesus! If Jesus can forgive you for past and future sins, who are you to not forgive yourself?
To forgive yourself, you must renew your mind to the truth of God’s Word that says you are forgiven and have been made new.
Remember, when you sin or miss the mark, confess and repent as soon as you realize it. Next, receive your forgiveness and cleansing from the Lord (1 John 1:9), and then take the next step and forgive yourself! Holding onto guilt and shame is refusing to receive His forgiveness, and it just wouldn’t be right to refuse this beautiful gift!
What’s more, satan will take anything about which you’ve not forgiven yourself and beat you over the head with it. But if you forgive yourself, he’s neutralized.
This is such a vital concept to grasp, you may need to spend some dedicated time with the Lord to inquire of Him and search your heart for any areas where you have not received God’s forgiveness and have not forgiven yourself.
Ready to build a deeper prayer life? Learn the 7 Steps to Prayer That Bring Results here.
Living in condemnation because you just can’t seem to forgive yourself is self-focused, and receiving forgiveness is God-focused. So, turn your focus back on God, forgive yourself because Jesus has forgiven you, and start living in victory!
Kenneth and Gloria Copeland pray for their Partners every day. Want to be under their covering? Find out more about partnership HERE.
Find A Daily Confession to Overcome Condemnation here.
Warning Sign No. 3: You Have a Judgmental and Critical Spirit
“For you’ll be judged by the same standard that you’ve used to judge others. The measurement you use on them will be used on you.” –Matthew 7:2
Another warning sign that you may be living in condemnation is if you have a judgmental and critical spirit about you. What is a judgmental and critical spirit? It is one that looks for flaws and failings in others and forms a verdict or opinion about them. Criticizing and passing judgment on another person can help make us feel a bit superior in areas in which we feel we have the upper hand. At least I don’t do that! you may think to yourself.
Why is this a warning sign that you may be living in condemnation? Often, we judge people because we ourselves “feel” judged either by God or by people. When we feel judged, feelings of condemnation abound. However, often, we are only feeling judged by others because of condemning thoughts replaying in our heads. If we knew the truth of the matter, we’d probably be surprised to find out that the person we “felt” judged by didn’t ever give us one thought!
If you find yourself observing, judging and criticizing the faults in people—spouses, friends, family, co-workers, political leaders—or even pointing them out to others, the Word of God has some advice for you: Stop it now! The Bible clearly warns us of the dangers of judging others. When you sow judgment, you will reap judgment (Matthew 7:2), leading to more condemnation. It’s a vicious cycle!
Most of all, God loves you so much, He sent His one and only Son to die for you. Because you have accepted this free gift, you are no longer condemned; therefore, you are free from the thoughts and judgments of others. God says there is now no condemnation for you because you belong to Him, so His Word and love for you trumps everyone else’s opinion.
Other signs of a critical spirit fueled by condemnation include:
Being highly critical of yourself and comparing yourself to others
Needing constant affirmation from people around you
Craving compliments, while feeling threatened if others are complimented.
How do you go free from a judgmental and critical spirit?
Repent. This means to change your ways to God’s ways! Ask Him to show you the root of the critical spirit. If you truly believe someone is in error, refuse to criticize him or her, but pray instead! The Scripture says, “Who are you to judge someone else’s servant? To their own master, servants stand or fall. And they will stand, for the Lord is able to make them stand” (Romans 14:4.
Refuse to gossip or speak negatively about anyone, ever (Ephesians 4:29). Be cautious of what you share about others, knowing that love covers a multitude of sins (1 Peter 4:8), which means it doesn’t highlight or gossip about the failings of others.
Walk in love by choosing to speak life and build others up with your words. Go out of your way to say something nice to or about someone. When you’re living free from condemnation, you’ll find yourself eager to build others up.
Warning Sign No. 4: You Feel Unworthy
“But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” –Romans 5:8 (ESV)
Do you ever feel like you have to prove yourself? In today’s world, that’s what you have to do, right? On the job, among friends and even at home, the pressure is on to convince those around you that you deserve the salary, the friendship and even the love they give you. Why? Because you feel unworthy. Feeling unworthy is the next warning sign that you may be living in condemnation and that something’s just not right.
If you’re feeling unworthy of anyone’s love—be it a family member, friend, co-worker or even God Himself, you have to know and accept the truth: God considered you worthy enough to send Jesus Christ to die for you. That’s how He showed His love for you, and that’s how He showed you that you are worthy. Your life is very important to God.
If you feel unworthy, it’s time to get a revelation of the love God has for you. First John 4:16 says, “We have come to know and to believe the love God has for us…” (ESV). You can’t just know in your head that God loves you, but you must believe the love, or in other words get a personal revelation of it.
As Kenneth Hagin said, “Believing takes place in our heart, not our head.”
How do you do this? Meditate on scriptures that talk about God’s love for you. Ask God to reveal to you that He loves you. Then, be on the lookout for God to show you. He will. This revelation will revolutionize your whole life! To be loved by God and to believe it from personal experience…it’s a marvelous thing!
Next, you need to understand that, as Christ’s servant, you are called to please God, not man (Galatians 1:10). It pleases Him when you understand the high value He places on your life and when you have faith in His love for you.
Remember, God hasn’t based His relationship with you on your worthiness in and of yourself. He knows where you’ve missed. He knows you’ve fallen short. But when He looks at you, that’s not what He sees. You know what He sees? He sees the worthy blood of Jesus covering you. He sees you perfect in every way, ready to complete every good work He created you to do in this world. You don’t have to struggle to prove yourself to Him. As far as He’s concerned, you’re a proven success.
So, the next time you catch yourself struggling to make up to God for something you’ve done wrong, or you find yourself working to win His approval or the approval of others, stop and rest in His love for you. Remind yourself of how much God loves you. You are worthy to be loved by God Almighty! Your job is to please the Lord with your life. You already measure up.
Watch Gloria and Kellie Copeland talk about how the devil uses shame and how you can defeat him.
Well, how did you do? Did you notice any of the four warning signs that you may be living in condemnation and that something’s just not right? Once you resolve to stop living in your past, forgive yourself, quit judging others and realize you are worthy of God’s love, receiving from God will become much easier! Jesus has paid the price for you to go free from condemnation and receive all the gifts He’s already given you. He came to give you life and life more abundantly. It’s time to begin living the abundant life—free from condemnation today!
Related Articles:
A Daily Confession to Overcome Condemnation
Series: Acts
Passage: Acts 9:32-43
Speaker: Jeff Thompson
The focus shifts from Saul to Peter, and we see God work two remarkable miracles through him as he travels across Judea, ministering to the scattered Church.
Here's the key clip from John Piper's legendary message at the "Passion: One Day" event in 2000, referenced by Jeff in this message:
As I mentioned at the end of our previous study, we will shift the focus away from Saul for a few chapters and return our focus to the Apostle Peter, whom Saul met with during the 15 days he spent in Jerusalem. We last saw Peter in Acts 8/25, returning to Jerusalem after ministering with John in Samaria. If you recall, Philip had been used by the Lord to spark a revival in that region. Still, the Lord chose to delay the giving of his Spirit to the Samaritan converts until Peter and John could be summoned from Jerusalem to lay their hands upon their new brethren. That experience rocked Peter's world as it proved the Gospel was not only for Jews but also for the Samaritans, who were considered half-Jews by the pureblooded Hebrews, like the apostles. So, let's turn in our Bibles to Acts Nine, verse 32.
As the focus shifts to Peter, we read, that as Peter was traveling from place to place, he also came down to the saints who lived in Luda. After ministering in Samaria and returning to Jerusalem, it seems that Peter started making trips all over Israel to visit the church that had been scattered by the persecution of Saul and grown through the ministries of men like Philip, who had preached the Gospel all the way to his hometown of Caesarea. As a result, there were little congregations, and little churches starting all over the place. The Spirit was leading Peter, preaching the Gospel as he had opportunity and ministering to the scattered saints of the young church. One of these ministry trips took him to a community of believers in Luda known as Lord in Hebrew.
It was a long day's journey from Jerusalem and was a local government hub in Judea, the southern region of Israel, with main roads that connected to Egypt, Syria, Joppa, and Jerusalem. We read in verse 33 there he found a man named Isaiah who was paralyzed and had been bedridden for eight years. Now, we don't know whether Inaeus was a follower of Jesus at this time, but as we shall see if he wasn't one before his encounter with Peter, he definitely was one after his encounter with Peter, Peter said to him, Jesus Christ heals you. Would you underline that? Jesus Christ heals you, get up and make your bed.
And immediately he got up. Remember that Isaiah was a real person. He was a real man who had spent the last eight years lying in his bed, paralyzed. Can you imagine the scene? Can you imagine how he felt when Peter said, Jesus Christ heals you, get up and make your bed.
The overwhelming joy as feeling and sensation returned to his whole body, the little bit of fear that he was dreaming or that somehow this wasn't real, or that when he tried to stand up, he would fall over. But he doesn't. He stands up and his legs and his body support him. After eight years. What a moment.
This healing is an example of the special anointing and power that God gave the apostles. Through them, God healed many people instantly. And the New Testament only records instantaneous and complete healings. As we've shared before, this display of the spirit's power was to be partnered with the teaching of biblical truth to prove that the message the apostles were preaching was indeed from God. It lined up with the Scriptures and had a demonstration of the Spirit's power.
An astonishing time in the church. It's not a coincidence that Peter's words to this man, get up and make your bed, are remarkably similar to the words of Jesus in John chapter five, where he walks up to a disabled man at the pool of Bethesda and tells him, get up, pick up your mat and walk. And we read that instantly the man got well, picked up his mat, and started to walk. You see, through the apostles in the early church, the risen Jesus was continuing to heal as they walked in the footsteps of Jesus himself.
Here's something you might not have noticed, even though you might have read the Book of Acts many times before. Verse 35. It says, so all. Would you underline the word all? So all who lived in Luda and Saran saw him and turned to the Lord.
Underline that word turned. That word all is astonishing because as you Bible scholars know, in the original Greek, the word all means all. It means all. And it says all who lived in Luda and Saran saw him. The man who had once been paralyzed had been paralyzed for eight years.
They saw him walking and turned to the Lord. Everyone who lived in the town of Luna and on the surrounding coastal plain of Sarah came to see the miraculously healed paralytic, heard Peter preach the Gospel, and turned to Jesus. And I'm pretty sure that meets the definition of a revival when everyone just gets saved. Yet we'll count this one. We're told that those who became believers turned to the Lord, they turned to the Lord.
And that phrase is so important because it paints a picture of what happens when we become a follower of Jesus. It means repenting, which means to change one's mind. Giving one's life to Jesus means changing your mind about who he is and accepting Him as God, Savior, and Lord over your life. It's a change of mind that inevitably results in a change of direction in your life. Why?
Because previously you were the captain, you were the driver. You were the one calling the shots in your life, and you went wherever you wanted to go, and you did whatever you wanted to do. And when Jesus becomes your Lord, he becomes the captain of your soul. He sets the course of your life. He says we're going here.
We're doing this. We're not doing that. And inevitably, it means your life changes course. It changes course. There is no turning to Jesus without a turn happening in your life.
A change of direction. That's what the people in Luda and surrounded, they turned to the Lord. They were going this way. Now they're going this way because that's where Jesus is. This region was semigile.
That means partly Jewish, partly non-Jewish. In Peter's experience in Samaria and his ministry to the church across Israel, we can see the Holy Spirit graciously taking him on this journey of discovery and progressively opening his eyes to the truth that the gospel is for everyone. And I love the way this plays out over this chapter in the next chapters in the Book of Acts because this is Peter. He was with Jesus for three years. He heard Jesus teach that he had come for everyone.
He heard it. And yet Peter takes years, years just to wrap his mind around the concept. Hey, maybe by all, Jesus meant all, even non-Jews, even Gentiles. And this process takes Peter years. The Holy Spirit has to take him on this whole journey through different experiences and encounters because he just can't wrap his mind around it.
I'm going to draw you some pictures. I'm going to show you some videos. I'm going to put you in some situations, and slowly, slowly, you'll begin to understand this truth. And we go, oh. And then we always say, like, ma'am, why didn't the Lord just tell me?
I mean, I would have just obeyed. No, you wouldn't have. And I promise he tried. And if any of that says that to him when we get to heaven, he'll be like, I can play you the tape of, like, 100 times that I tried to tell you, and you just pretended that you didn't hear me. He's like, that's why we went on this whole long journey.
This is how elaborate we had to get just for you to understand this. And we'll go, oh, okay. Okay. Peter is no different, and that encourages me. Our story now shifts from Luda to Joppa, a distinctly Greek and Gentile town it sat on the Mediterranean coast about 10 miles or 16 km from Luda, and, like Luda, was home to a community of believers.
It says in verse 36 in Joppa, there was a disciple named Tabitha, which is translated dorcas. She was always doing good work and acts of charity. At verse 39 will tell us that these good works and acts of charity included making robes and clothes for widows in the church. There were extremely limited employment opportunities for women at this time in history. Outside of prostitution, if you were a widow with no family or children to care for you, you would be faced with destitution.
Therefore, the early church placed a special emphasis on caring for widows and orphans among the body of believers. You know, when I needed help working on my car this past week, I did not call BJ. Do you know why? Because I didn't need a pastor, I didn't need an evangelist. I didn't need someone to say, hey, yeah, your car does need some work, but the good news is Jesus loves you.
If I'd wanted that, I would have called BJ. But I needed somebody who knew how to work on cars. And I won't tell you who I called because I love and appreciate them, but I called somebody who knew how to work on cars. You see, these widows needed bible studies, but they also needed clothes. They had practical needs.
Praise God, the lord provided for those needs through the ministry of Tabitha. The church needs more Tabithas. We need more people who can cook sow clothes, do accounting, help people budget, fix cars, work with AV equipment, help people with home repairs, and meet practical needs. Scholars believe that Tabitha was likely married to a wealthy man and therefore had much free time. And instead of spending it all on herself, we see the effect of the holy spirit on her life.
You see, the spirit tends to produce generosity in the heart of a believer. And Tabitha begins to ponder the question, how can I bless the church with my time? She didn't seek a platform. She sought to bless the people of the church. The spirit stirred that question within her and then directed her to the answer, which was making clothes for widows.
She's a wonderful example of a godly woman. For most men and women in the Western world, this kind of free time only appears at the age of retirement if you're fortunate enough to have that financial ability. But I want to suggest that the Western concept of retirement, as the culture perceives it, is in conflict with the Christian's view of life. And I'm not trying to pick on anybody who's retired or is about to retire. I just want to bring something to our attention and love and remind us how the lord has called us to live.
I'll go to bed when I want to go to bed. I'll play poker on my phone all day if that's what I want to do. I'll go out with friends if I want. I'll stay home if I don't. Me.
Me. My whole life is about working towards two to three golden decades of total self absorption. That's the dream that advertisers sell, right? It's the vision that drives saving for retirement in our culture. But it's not God's dream for us.
And you won't find anything like it in the pages of Scripture. Because for the believer, some things don't change at all when it comes time to retire. Most importantly, write this down jesus is lord over your life the day before you retire, and Jesus is lord over your life the day after you retire. That doesn't change. And your decision-making process is still to be based on the same question what should I do, Lord?
Retirement doesn't take the title of Lord away from Jesus and give it to us. Our free time does not belong to us before retirement or after retirement. Now. Praise God. The Lord wants us to have healthy rest as part of the rhythm of our lives.
He's the Lord of the Sabbath. He rested from creation on the 7th day. But whether we work, rest or play, all of it should be under the Lordship of Jesus at his command.
If you've never watched John Piper's legendary sermon from 2000 called Don't Waste Your Life, you have to go watch this. Every Christian has to watch this message. Just go to YouTube and search for John Piper and the word seashells and it will be it will be the top result. If you are close to retirement, especially or you are retired, you must go watch this. Tabitha shows us what should happen in a believer's life when they have the gift of much free time.
The Spirit will stir a desire to be generous, a desire to bless the church, and then the Spirit will provide opportunities to be generous. And those who are submitted to the lordship of Jesus will walk in those opportunities. Paul would later write to the church in Ephesus that God has prepared good works ahead of time. For us to do that should encourage us, because it means whatever stage of life we're in. There are good works that God has prepared for us, and we can walk in them if we continue to live under the lordship of Jesus.
If you're retired or close to retirement, think on these things. Reflect on them. The final decades of your life may be the most fruitful of your life. If you are submitted to the lordship of Jesus, that's what he wants for you. For the rest of us, if you can save for retirement, you should.
It's wise. But I want to urge you, however old or young you are, not to embrace a vision for retirement that is centered around your own selfish desires. Rather, look forward to retirement as a new season, when you can be more available than ever to be used by the Lord Jesus to bless his church and to grow in the knowledge of him. But how sad. If you take the final quarter, the final third of your life, and say, this just isn't going to matter.
I'm going to take the last two to three decades of my life and just have them not matter at all. That's no way to end a story. So make us more like Tabitha, the Lord. I plan to be teaching God's word until Jesus comes back. I die or I lose my mind.
Philip and the Ethiopian
Date:10/23/22
Series: Acts
Passage: Acts 8:26-40 Speaker: Jeff Thompson
The Gospel continues moving outward, as Philip is sent by the Lord to minister one-on-one to a marginalized Ethiopian Jew who is searching for God in one of the greatest Old Testament prophecies, the “Servant Song” of Isaiah 52 and 53.
Saul is persecuting the Church in Jerusalem, causing all except the apostles and their families to flee across the regions of Judea and Samaria. In our previous study, we learned how Philip, a helicopter holistic Jew, stopped and preached the Gospel in Samaria as he was fleeing Jerusalem. The result was a revival, a spiritual awakening in the region as many turned to Jesus. In this part of the Book of Acts, the focus shifts from events in Jerusalem and the establishment of the Church to how the Gospel message, the saving good news of Jesus, spread across the earth. Throughout redemptive history, God has worked through a chosen group of people.
First, it was the Israelites, and God told them through the prophet Isaiah, I have called you for a righteous purpose. I will appoint you to be a light to the nations. Sadly, for the most part, Israel failed to fulfill her calling. Throughout the centuries of the old covenant era, Israel either became self-absorbed and wanted nothing to do with any foreigners, wrongly believing that God had blessed Israel because he only loved the Jews and hated everyone else, or Israel would break their covenant with God and join with the surrounding pagan nations in the worship of their false Gods. When we reach the time of the ministry of Jesus and the birth of the Church in the Book of Acts, Israel is no longer involved with paganism, but they are instead in a fiercely nationalistic mindset.
And the worship of God has been corrupted into a religion that preaches salvation by good works. In other words, follow these rules, do these things, and you will be right with God. The belief is that one can earn their way into heaven by being a good person. As I said, Israel failed to be the light to the nations that God created her to be. She became so lost in her legalism and nationalism that she missed her Messiah when he appeared as Jesus of Nazareth.
And so God created a new people to bless the world through the Church. And the Church was tasked with taking the light of the Gospel to the nations. And unlike Israel, the Church would embrace all of the nations. In Acts One eight, Jesus told his disciples, you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. The Church was almost exclusively Jewish for her first three years of existence in Jerusalem, and so God had to step in and say, guys, I said, the Gospel will go to all nations to spark that evangelistic work.
God worked incredibly through Saul, who spearheaded persecution against the Church, arranging for Stephen's execution as the first Christian martyr. We read in Acts Eight, verse one, that on that day a severe persecution broke out against the Church in Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout the land of Judea and Samaria. That's a good start. And we read a few verses later that those who were scattered went on their way, preaching the Word. As people fled, they took the Gospel message with them.
As we continue reading in Acts chapter eight, we will witness the Gospel reaching a man on his way back to Ethiopia, a region considered at the time to be the end of the earth. If you study Acts chapter eight, you will also find that the Lord has placed the conversion stories of Simon, the sorcerer, who we talked about last week, and the Ethiopian man we're going to talk about this week back to back. Simon's conversion was insincere. The Ethiopian's conversion will be sincere, and I believe the Lord arranged the text that way, purposefully.
Acts chapter eight, verse 26. An angel of the Lord spoke to Philip. Get up and go south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza. This is the desert road. So he got up and went.
If you don't know in Hebrew literature, Jerusalem is up, whatever direction you're coming from. And whenever you're leaving Jerusalem, wherever you're going is down. It doesn't matter if you're going north or south, you always go down from Jerusalem, because it was the holy city, the city of God. This instruction must have seemed strange to Philip. Remember, the revival had broken out in Samaria, and now God was telling him to leave that ministry work and head toward a desert road that nobody was really using in the middle of the day.
But notice that God didn't tell Philip why he needed to leave Samaria and go to this desert road. God didn't say, Well, Philip, it's step one of a five-step plan. Let me fill you in on what the other four steps are, then I think you'll be on board. And yet we don't find Philip questioning God. He doesn't demand to know the full plan before he agrees to obey God.
We read, so he got up and went. And that's why God could use Philip. If Philip knew what God wanted him to do, he obeyed as best he could, as soon as he could. And far too often we delay our obedience to God, don't we? Well, we pretend that he's not spoken clearly to us when we know that he has.
And here's how we do this god's Word the Bible is clear on an issue, but we don't obey. We know what God has called us to do through His Word, but we delay our obedience. We pretend we need more clarity. Oh, pray for me. I need to find some wise counsel to confirm what the Bible is saying.
Let me put out a fleece before the Lord. I wonder if someone on YouTube has an interpretation that lines up with what I would like to believe not you. Of course, I'm speaking to our online listeners. I'm not talking about areas where the Bible isn't specific. I'm not talking about gray areas.
I'm talking about things where God's Word says, do not do this. It's evil, it's sin. Our response is, I wish I could discern what the Lord is saying here, but I'm not fluent in ancient Greek or Hebrew, and we play Amen instead of immediately obeying. Would you make a note of this? This is also a reminder that if we want the Holy Spirit to minister to others through us, we must be available and ready to obey them.
If we want the Holy Spirit to minister to others through us, we must be available and ready to obey them. If we're going to pray for opportunities to share the gospel, it means and I know this is tricky, but it means we must be willing to actually share the gospel when the Holy Spirit gives us an opportunity. And I don't want to be a hypocrite on this point BJ has a gift of evangelism, and it shows up because he's not scared to share the gospel at all. Some other people in our church are like this. I'll be honest.
I get terrified like most of you. Terrified, absolutely terrified. But guess what? I'm still called to share the gospel. I've looked.
There's no asterisk in my Bible on any of the verses on evangelism. And then at the bottom, there's no footnote that says, unless you're scared. I've checked every page. It's not there. It's not there.
There's nothing in there that says unless you really want people to like you, and they're scared you won't after you become that weird guy who talks about Jesus. It's not there any translation, any Bible. I've checked all of them, so you don't even need to look. I'm still called to be available to the Holy Spirit, and I'm still called to obey when he tells me to share Jesus with somebody.
Because two verses later in that same chapter, we read what happened after they prayed that prayer. When they had prayed, the place where they were assembled was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak the Word of God boldly. Prayer answered. There's a connection between being filled with the Holy Spirit and speaking the Word of God boldly, even if it doesn't come to you naturally. And this is just one more reason why we need to be filled afresh with the Holy Spirit every single day.
We need to be filled because we're asking God to do things in us and cause things to flow out of us that do not come naturally to us. We're asking Him to do things and have things come out of us that we don't wake up with. And so we're saying, Lord, fill us up with you. So that what comes out of me looks more like you than me, saying, Lord, fill me. I need it every single day.
We want to be full of the Spirit, available to be used by God and ready to obey Him when he leads us into an opportunity to share the Gospel. Continuing on it says there was an Ethiopian man, a eunuch and high official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of her entire treasury. Ethiopia was the land known as Kush in the ancient world. It was a kingdom whose borders were much larger than they are today. It lay on the Nile River, south of Egypt, and as I mentioned earlier, it was considered by the Greeks and the Romans to represent the limits of the known world.
It really was the end of the earth in Hellenistic thought. At the time, the Ethiopians believed their kings were incarnations of the sun God, and therefore the everyday affairs of government were considered beneath them. The real power lay in the hands of the queen mothers, who were known by the hereditary title Kandake or Candice. In English, it wasn't her name, it was her title, like Pharaoh or Caesar. The Ethiopian man introduced to us here is a high ranking government official who answered to the Kandaki and was essentially the country's minister of finance or secretary of the treasury.
The term eunuch didn't necessarily mean that a man had been emasculated. It was a term sometimes used in the ancient world for government officials. For example, Potiphar, who was Joseph's boss in Genesis 39, is called a eunuch in the Septuagint, and we know that he was married. However, because Stephen uses two terms for the Ethiopian man, referring to him as both a eunuch and a high official, and because he worked for the queen, it's likely he was actually physically a eunuch. It was a practice that was common in the ancient world, wherever amen needed to verses around female royalty, like a queen or a princess or a king's wife or a king's harem.
In my head, I was just imagining the scenarios where this must have happened to guys who worked for the king, and somebody brings them in and they're like, I've got good news and bad news. What's the good news? You've been promoted to be the personal assistant to the queen. What's the bad news? You might want to sit down.
I'm just good where I am. Middle management is fine. What about Steve? He's a great guy. You should talk to him.
He's ambitious. Continuing in verse 27, it says he, the Ethiopian had come to worship in Jerusalem and was sitting in his chariot on his way home reading the prophet Isaiah aloud. While we don't know much of his backstory, we can deduce that this man was a convert to Judaism who was sincerely seeking God. We see evidence of this in the great distance. He traveled to worship in Jerusalem, coming all the way from Ethiopia, and we see evidence of that in the fact that he had purchased for himself a scroll containing the book of Isaiah, the prophet, a costly investment.
This thing is crawling along at a pretty slow pace. Now, being physically a eunuch, hebrew law condemned him as unclean all the time. It's in Deuteronomy 23 one meaning that he would have been forbidden from participating in many aspects of Jewish communal life and celebration during his stay in Jerusalem. He would have been restricted to the outer court of the Gentiles at the Temple Mount, and he would have been excluded from full participation in synagogues wherever he went. Even if he was visiting Alexandria in Egypt, where there was a large Jewish community at the time, he was legitimately a marginalized person.
Even though he held a high government position, he was a seeker. He wasn't deterred by how out of place he would have been as a black Ethiopian eunuch in Jerusalem, there to worship Yahweh. He wanted to know God. And even as he journeys home, we find him studying the Scriptures, seeking knowledge of God in his word. It was no accident that he was pouring over the scroll of Isaiah, for in Isaiah 1111, it is prophesied that Kush will be one of the regions from which Jesus will recover the Jewish people when he returns at the Second Coming.
And not only that I put this on your outlines, but in Isaiah 56, the Lord speaks through the prophet about what things will look like in the kingdom of Jesus when he rules and reigns over the earth from Jerusalem in the millennium. And God says this, no foreigner who has joined himself to the Lord should say, the Lord will exclude me from his people. And the eunuch should not say, Lord, I am a driedup tree. For the Lord says this for the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths and choose what pleases me and hold firmly to my covenant, I will give them in my house and within my walls a memorial and a name better than sons and daughters. I will give each of them an everlasting name that will never be cut off.
As for the foreigners who join themselves to the Lord, to minister to Him, to love the name of the Lord and to become his servants, all who keep the Sabbath without desecrating it, and who hold firmly to my covenant, I will bring them to my holy mountain and let them rejoice in my house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and sacrifices will be acceptable on my altar, for my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations. This is the declaration of the Lord God, who gathers the dispersed of Israel. I will gather to them still others besides those already gathered. And this blows my mind, because if you're not tracking with me, foreign eunuchs is an incredibly small and specific demographic.
Really, really small. There's dozens of them. And yet, in the word of God, in the scroll this man is reading, god specifically addresses foreign eunuchs. Now, did the Ethiopian know this? Is this why he purchased the scroll of Isaiah?
We don't know, but as we shall see, it was no accident that he was studying Isaiah specifically. Verses 29 the Lord told Philip, go and join that chariot. Up to this point, Philip has no idea what he's doing on this desert road. He's just hanging there, waiting for his next instruction. But after obeying the Lord immediately, he now receives his next instruction from the Lord, which he will also obey immediately.
I know this when someone shares the Gospel with another person and they respond to it, neither party has any idea just how gloriously God has been working behind the scenes and for just how long to bring about that moment in time. May we find confidence and comfort in knowing that when we share the good news of Jesus with anyone, god was working long before we got there. God will be working in that moment, and he will continue working after that moment is gone. And that's why we don't stop praying for those in our lives who don't yet know the Lord. He's working behind the scenes all the time toward the greatest good of opening their eyes and hearts to the truth.
Verse 30. When Philip ran up to it, he heard him reading the prophet Isaiah and said, do you understand what you're reading? The eunuch's entourage would have been sizable, but Philip was too focused on obeying God to be intimidated. He ran up to the carriage and initiated a conversation with the Ethiopian man about what he was reading. It was normal at that time to read aloud, especially Hebrew or Greek.
If you weren't a first language speaker. You'd speak it aloud because it's easier to sound things out that are written phonetically, as this would have been. So Philip is able to hear exactly what this man is studying. Now, as an aside for any of you who grew up in the church, I just noticed that, contrary to what I was taught in Sunday's school, there's no indication here that Phillips running up to the Chariot is a supernatural miracle. As I said, the guy is reading a scroll of Isaiah.
They're not traveling fast, but when I was in Sunday school, I was always taught that he runs, like, super crazy fast, and he's like Usain Bolt. And he's like, what are you reading? That's not actually what happened. As cool as that would have been, I'm sorry to ruin another children's Bible story for you. He literally just had to jog for a little bit, catch up, and then he could start walking next to him while he was ending.
That's all that happened there. Philip asks the Ethiopian, "Do you understand what you're reading?" And he says, "How can I unless someone guides me?" So, he invited Philip to come up and sit with him. I wonder what Philip said.
He's like, I might have a few ideas. Philip must have smiled. He must have laughed, at least internally, at just how ridiculously perfect the Lord had arranged for this to unfold. Verse 32, it says now the scripture passage he was reading was this. And these verses are found in Isaiah 53, 7 and eight.
Isaiah 53 is one of the most famous messianic prophecies in the Old Testament because it vividly prophesies incredibly specific details about the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of the Messiah. And Jesus would fulfill all of them perfectly hundreds of years later. It's one of the great evidences of Christianity. These prophecies of Isaiah are written hundreds of years before Jesus is even born, and Jesus fulfills them perfectly, including aspects he could not have had any control over. Here's the portion of Isaiah 53 the Ethiopian was pondering.
He was led like a sheep to the slaughter. And as a lamb is silent before its shearer, so he does not open his mouth. In his humiliation, justice was denied Him. Who will describe his generation for his life is taken from the earth. ,
Scribes, scholars, and rabbis were divided in their opinions of this text. Some believed the sheep represented the nation of Israel. Others believe he represented the prophet Isaiah, while others believe that he represented the Messiah. The Ethiopian asked. Philip, what do you think?
And again, Philip must have said, wow, this is a softball if I've ever seen one. Just this nice little lob Phillips climbing in, getting ready to hit this thing out of the park. Philip proceeded to tell him the good news about Jesus and I want you to underline the word Jesus, because there is no good news apart from Jesus, beginning with that Scripture. The good news was that Isaiah 53 does not speak of the prophet Isaiah, but someone else, the Messiah Jesus. Make a note of this, and we'll keep talking about it.
Jesus is the key to unlocking and understanding the Old Testament. Jesus is the key to understanding and unlocking the Old Testament as it was for the Ethiopians almost 20 years ago, so it is for us today. When Jesus appeared to the two men on the road to Emmaus following his resurrection, he said to them, how foolish you are and how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken. Wasn't it necessary for the Messiah to suffer these things and enter into his glory? Then, beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted for them the things coveting Himself in all the Scriptures.
Personal stories are wonderful. Your testimony of what Jesus did for you is wonderful. But any effective presentation of the Gospel must be based on the word of God and must point to the saving work of Jesus. Far too often, the Gospel is presented in a whittled down form that robs it of its power by presenting it as a mere solution to stress, anxiety, shame, or loneliness. Yes, it's all of that, but it is so much more.
The Gospel is often presented as a means to fulfill your potential, find your purpose in life, and it will do that, but not in the way you think, because it is so much more than that, as we shall see when we read through more of Isaiah 53 later in this study, verse 36. As they were traveling down the road, they came to some water. The eunuch said, look, there's water. What would keep me from being baptized? And the answer to the Ethiopian's rhetorical question is nothing.
Nothing. Because of what Jesus did on the cross, nothing can stop the one who desires to be part of the family of God from being adopted into the family of God. It didn't matter that he was a foreigner, a eunuch, and ceremonially unclean, and it doesn't matter what your background is, doesn't matter what your history is. If you want to be part of the family of God Jesus has made a way. Jesus has prepared a place for you because he wants you to be part of his family.
I really want you to hear that he wants you to be part of his family. Unquestionably, Philip had explained to the Ethiopian that baptism was his next step of faith and providentially passing some water. The eunuch enthusiastically asked Philip if he could be baptized right there. So we ordered the chariot to stop, and both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water and he baptized him. The man declared his faith in Jesus publicly by being baptized by Philip in front of everyone in the Ethiopian entourage.
When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord carried Philip away and the eunuch did not see him any longer, but went on his way, rejoicing. With his most recent evangelistic assignment finished, Philip is supernaturally transported to his next assignment. Yes. Really? That's what happened.
The Gospel also continued moving outward among different people groups Hebrew Jews, Hellenistic Jews, half Jews, the Samaritans marginalized Jews like foreign eunuchs. And when we get to Acts chapter ten, Gentiles nonJews, verse 40, Philip appeared in Azatas and he was traveling and preaching the Gospel in all the towns until he came to Caesarea. Azatus was about 20 miles north of Gaza and was the ancient Philistine city known as Ashtod. Philip preached the Gospel there and in every town that he passed through as he made his way north to his hometown of Caesarea. And when we check in on Philip a couple of decades later, he's still living in Caesarea.
In Acts 21, he's described as Philip the Evangelist, and we read that Paul, Luke and others stayed with him during their missionary travels. He had a wife and four daughters who all fittingly, had the gift of prophecy. As one of the seven, Philip had waited tables and helped distribute bread to widows in Jerusalem. Then he was used by God to spark a great spiritual awakening in Samaria. Then he was removed to minister one on one to a man he likely never saw again.
And in Caesaria, he is noted for having raised four daughters who walk with the Lord and are, like their Father, in tune with the Holy Spirit. And I'm sure Philip found joy and purpose in each of those unique situations and callings in your life. There will be different seasons of ministry. The Lord will use you in different ways to minister to different people. Trust that the Lord is working in each of those seasons and give yourself fully to the Lord in each of those seasons.
Don't be looking or straining for the next season. Be fully present and faithful where he has placed you. Now, you might be single, and this might be a fruitful season of ministry because you have time, you have availability, and you might be dealing with situations in your family that are taking up all of your time right now that's your ministry. One is not greater than the other, and God is doing significant things in each season of our lives.
Remember that the Lord is so powerful and so profound that he is able to simultaneously work on us, making us more like Jesus, while also ministering to other people through us. In other words, the season that you're in right now is not just about what God wants to do through you, it's just as much about what God wants to do in you. And I didn't like this as a pastor. I was like, Lord, I want you to separate them. Do bless the church, grow the church, do all this stuff over here.
Leave me out of it. Let's keep these two things separate. And God says, no, actually, I want to work on you through the church and work on the church through you as well. I can do both at the same time. And so know that the Lord is doing that.
If you're just aching for a difference season, know that the Lord is doing good in you and through you, where you are. Be present, be faithful, be focused on what he wants you to do, where you are right now. Because here's what I know about the Lord everything he does, everything he's doing in us, everything he wants to do through us is good. I know that with absolute certainty. The Ethiopian was reading and trying to understand a portion of Isaiah that is part of what's called the Servant's Song.
This is a safe place. No judgment. Turn to Isaiah 50 /213. Let's read through the Servant's Song and I'll share a few thoughts as we do. Isaiah 50 /213 begins.
See, my servant will be successful. He will be raised and lifted up and greatly exalted. You see, this song is about the Messiah. It's about Jesus, who he is, why he came to the earth, what he accomplished on the earth, what happened after he left the earth, and then finally, what will happen in the future. The song begins by introducing Jesus as a servant, an astonishing posture for the God of the universe to take in human flesh.
My servant and I love this, after introducing Jesus as an inerrant, the song declares that he will be successful hundreds of years before he came as Jesus of Nazareth. His resurrection, his victory over sin was never in doubt. It was the plan before the foundations. Of the world were laid. The second line of the song has a double meaning.
That is the essence and theme of this song. It says that Jesus will be raised and lifted up. And I say there's a double meaning because that is prophetically fulfilled in two ways. As the servant of God in human flesh, Jesus would be lifted up on the cross to die in our place. But after suffering and dying in our place, he would conquer death, rise from the dead, and be glorified to the highest place of honor in existence.
He would be raised and lifted up and greatly exalted. He would be raised on the cross, and then, following his resurrection, he would be raised to the highest place of glory in existence and the throne of God at the right hand of the Father. This song is about shocking, scandalous, glorious, and incredible contrasts between things like what happened to Jesus on the earth during His Incarnation, what happened to Him after His Incarnation, how we looked at him during the Incarnation, and how we will look at Him one day in the future, between whom Jesus was perceived to be when he was on the earth and who he truly is. It continues just as many were appalled at him, his appearance was so disfigured that he did not look like a man, and his form did not resemble a human being. Here's what Isaiah was prophesying.
He's prophesying that during his trials, Jesus was beaten and scourged to such a degree that his face was unrecognizable. You couldn't tell it was Jesus of Nazareth. He was so beaten and bloodied that he barely looked human. And all who saw Him in that state were appalled. They're speechless with horror and disgust.
And then we see the contrast. Just as they stared in amazement and were rendered speechless by the sight of the beaten and bloodied Jesus, they will stare in amazement and be struck speechless when they one day stand before the risen and glorified King of Kings. It says so many nations will marvel at him. Kings will shut their mouths because of him, for they will see what had not been told them, and they will understand what they had not heard. Isaiah now prophesied that during his incarnation, almost nobody would recognize or believe that Jesus is the Messiah, because he seems so shockingly ordinary.
He writes, who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? He grew up before him like a young plant and like a root out of dry ground. He didn't have an impressive form or majesty that we should look at him, no appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of suffering who knew what sickness was.
Jesus lived his whole life without ever sinning, and yet those around him didn't love Him for his goodness. They hated him for it. And when we first hear that, we think, that doesn't make sense. How can you hate a guy who never sinned, who's just good and loving all the time to everyone? Like, how could you not like that guy?
But I want you to imagine by thinking back to your own childhood, imagine a kid who always does the right thing, is always loving, is always kind, doesn't have a mean bone in his body. And then imagine that child in middle school. Imagine him in junior high. Imagine him in senior high. And when you do, you'll understand that that kid wouldn't be popular.
Everyone wouldn't love them. He'd be lame, he'd be weird, he'd be an outcast, and he'd be viewed as a naive fool, whatever the opposite of cool is, it's him. Because his actions were not driven in any way by conformity. His actions were not driven by the need to fit in. His actions were not driven at all by the need for the approval of anyone else who had no power over him.
No sweat. It didn't matter what everybody else was doing. He was just going to do the right Godly thing all the time. That kid is not popular. Not only does he not fit in because he won't do what everyone else is doing, but everyone hates him because there's a pardon them deep down who looks at Him and knows they should be like him.
They should be doing what he's doing. And his very goodness, in and of itself, innately convicts them, because they can't lie and say, oh, it's fine because everyone else is doing it. Well, Jesus, isn't. It's fine to make fun of them so that I can fit in with these kids over here. Well, Jesus isn't doing that.
I can't hang out with that guy, he's a loser. I got to fit in. Well, Jesus is hanging out with him. Why would we work hard? There's nobody around to see if we're doing a good job or a bad job.
Jesus is doing a good job. Jesus is working hard even when nobody's watching. They hated him, and it wouldn't have gotten better as he got older. Jesus would have grown up from a very young age being mocked for his mother's claim that God had made her divinely pregnant. They would have said things about his mom that I can't repeat in church, because everybody knew she must have hooked up with a Roman soldier.
They would have said stuff about Jesus' dad and how stupid he was to actually believe that the Holy Spirit made Jesus' mom pregnant. What an idiot. "Jesus, your dad's an idiot and your mom is a fill-in-the-blank." all the time growing up. He didn't grow up in big towns. Jesus grew up experiencing pain, rejection, loss, temptation, and all the frailties of the human condition.
Whatever hardship you're going through in your life right now, Jesus has been through it. He's been through it. He knows whatever your pain is firsthand he's endured. He was despised and rejected by men. A man of suffering who knew what sickness was.
He was like someone people turned away from. He was despised and we didn't value Him. And here the prophet makes a contrast again between how Jesus was received by us on the earth and what was really going on. We humanity treated Jesus like trash when he was on the earth, but here's what was really going on. Here's what he was actually doing.
Yet He Himself bore our sicknesses and he carried our pains. But we in turn regarded Him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted throughout his life. The hardships Jesus endured weren't because he was an outcast.
He had come to endure all those things in our place and endure them without ever sinning. He had come to live the perfect life we could never live and meet the perfect standard of God in our stead. But instead of being grateful, the world treated him with scorn.
But he was pierced because of our rebellion. He was crushed because of our iniquities. And the punishment for our peace was on Him. And we are healed by his wounds. What happened to Jesus in his life and death is what should have happened to us.
It's what we each deserve and so much more for rejecting the God who created us. And instead of getting what we deserve, Jesus stepped in front of the judge and said, pierce me, crush me, punish me. And Jesus gets pierced, crushed, and punished so that we can be healed. Healed. Why does Jesus do that?
Because he loves us. He loves us. The truth of the matter is found in verse is we all went astray like sheep. We have all turned our own way. We've all rejected God; we've all sinned against Him.
We've all acted as gods over our own lives instead of serving the true God who created us to be part of his family. We're all guilty.
But here's the glorious truth that to this day, if I'm honest, I still can't wrap my head around we're all guilty. And the Lord has punished Him for the iniquity of a soul.
That's why we love Him so much. That's why we sing songs about it. That's why we study the Bible because it's all about Him. That's why our whole lives revolve around Him. That's why there's just Jesus, and everything else isn't even on the scale, just Him.
He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth. Like a lamb led to the slaughter, and like a sheep silent before her shearers, he did not open his mouth. Jesus died for us willingly. He said, no one takes my life for me, but I lay it down. He knew it was unjust, he knew he was innocent, yet he did not protest because he wanted to die in our place.
He was taken away because of oppression and judgment, and who considered his fate, for he was cut off from the land of the living. He was struck because of my people's rebellion. After he died, a handful of people mourned. The disciples hid for fear they would be next. Life went on very quickly, and most people didn't give it a second thought.
He was assigned a grave with the wicked, but he was with a rich man at his death because he had done no violence and had not spoken deceitfully. Jesus was executed as a criminal and died on a cross between two criminals. Following his death, he was laid to rest in the tomb of a wealthy man named Joseph of Arimathea. Yet the Lord was pleased to crush him severely, and the word pleased here simply means that it was acceptable. Jesus was judged by God to be an acceptable substitute for all humanity because he was God Himself and because he was sinless.
In the cosmic math of the eternal, it would be acceptable and balance the scales of justice if Jesus himself became a man, lived a perfect and sinless life, and then suffered and died in the place of all humanity. The math works because Jesus is infinitely valuable. The math works because Jesus is worth as much as all of humanity across all of time, and even more. Therefore, Jesus was an acceptable substitute for all of humanity to be severely crushed in our place.
The result of Jesus becoming a servant in human flesh would be and will be the justification of many. Millions and millions of people will be brought into the family of God, because Jesus has made it possible for our sins to be forgiven by taking our sins upon Himself. Verses twelve therefore I will give him the many as a portion, and he will receive the mighty as spoil, because he willingly submitted to death, and was counted among the rebels. Here's the contrast again yet he bore the sin of many and interceded for the rebels and that's the gospel, that's the divine exchange. Jesus became like us so that we could become like him.
Jesus became our sin so that we could become his righteousness. Jesus came down and joined the family of humanity so that we could join his family in heaven.
The love of Jesus, as we see with the Ethiopian, seeks out those who want to be part of his family.
It sought him out on a desert road in the middle of nowhere. It sought out every person who belongs to the Gospel City Church. And if you don't yet belong to Jesus, I want you to know that the love of God is seeking you. He is seeking you. And that's why you're here today.
That's why you're listening to or watching this message. It's because God loves you. He is seeking you. Jesus loves you, and he wants you in his family. And I'm not asking if you understand everything perfectly yet.
I'm asking if you do understand that you need Jesus and you want to be part of his family. And if you do, please don't leave today without talking with me or BJ. This is very important. But a Gospel said we don't generally do an emotional hype thing. This needs to be for real.
And if you're for real, come and talk to BJ or me after the service. Even if you just want to know more about Jesus, you have questions, come and talk to us. We'd love to talk with you about it. Don't wait. In Isaiah 55, the prophet says, seek the Lord while he may be found.
Call to him while he's near. Let the wicked one abandon his way and the sinful one his thoughts. Let him return to the Lord so he may have compassion on him and to our God, for he will freely forgive.
And with that, I'm going to ask the worship team to come up. I'm going to ask you to close your eyes, bow your heads and we're going to pray together.
Father, we just love you so much. Thank you for loving us. Thank you for giving what is most valuable to you, your only begotten son, so that we could become adopted sons and daughters in your family.
Jesus, thank you for loving us with your life. Thank you for what you endured in our place. We love you for it. And we ask that you help us to love you every day by taking up our cross and following you. We ask that you help us love you by obeying you and honoring you with our lives.
And Lord, your word declares the same. Lord of all, richly blesses all who call on Him. For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. How then can they call on Him they have not believed in? And how can they believe without hearing about Him?
And how can they hear without a preacher? And how can they preach unless they are sent. As it is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who bring the good news. So, Lord, we ask that you would lead us into interactions where we can bring good news. Fill us with your spirit.
Make us more like Jesus. Use us to minister to others. Give hope where nothing seems to be happening. Give peace where we are restless. Give joy where life seems mundane.
Fill us with gratitude for all that we have in you. Fill us with Your spirit, Lord, and bring glory to Your name through us. We love you. Jesus. It's in Your name we pray.
Amen.
Date:10/16/22 Passage: Acts 8:1-25
Speaker: Jeff Thompson
Persecution crashes down upon the young Church in Jerusalem, scattering her members across Judea, Samaria, and beyond. As they flee, they preach the Gospel and proclaim Jesus as the Messiah. This study focuses on some amazing developments that unfold as the Gospel is preached in Samaria.
And as we rejoin our study in the Book of Acts in chapter eight, Stephen has just been stoned to death after a sham trial before the Sanhedrin, the ruling religious council in Jerusalem. His execution marks him as the first martyr of the Church. In his letter to the Romans, the Apostle Paul would later write that the Gospel came first to the Jew and then to the Greek or the Gentile. Stephen's execution seems to mark the final time the Jews were collectively as a people presented with the Gospel, only to reject it. And as a result, the time arrived for the Gospel to move outward to the Gentiles.
Most scholars reckon verse one places us around three years after Pentecost and the events of Acts. In chapter two, we read the first sentence sorry, we read the first sentence in verse is in our previous study, and so we'll pick things up. In the second sentence it says, on that day underlying on that day, the day of Stephen's execution, a severe persecution broke out against the Church in Jerusalem and all except the apostles were, and then underline the rest of this sentence, scattered throughout the land of Judea and Samaria. All scholars agree that pretty much everybody who had a home outside of Jerusalem, so all those who came originally for the feast of Pentecost three years ago and ended up staying because this amazing thing called the Church happened, all of them head back to their old homes that would have included all of the Hellenistic Jews. That means all the Jews who were not ethnically Hebrew but were still religiously Jewish.
So Greek Jews, Ethiopian Jews, and people from all over the world who are not Hebrew Jews, but of different nationalities, they all unquestionably headed to their homes. And most believers believe that sorry, most scholars believe that those believers who had lived in Jerusalem previously might have taken a little bit longer, they might have delayed a little bit more. When the persecution hit, those who had homes in other places kind of said, we feel like we need to go back to our homes. Those who had homes in Jerusalem said, yeah, we probably need to go. Let's just see how bad it is.
And we'll see that they likely filtered out of Jerusalem over the coming days and weeks when they realized this persecution was especially vicious. And yet it says, all except the apostles were scattered. And so we're going to lean toward taking that at face value. It doesn't mean it was one day. On the day that Stephen was executed, on the day that persecution broke out, everyone left.
It meant that was the end result. When this thing had run its course over the coming days and weeks, the apostles and their families were the only ones who stayed. And this hit me because I'm a pessimist by nature. And so when I come to Church and attendance is low, my first thought is like, well, I know what happened. Half the Church has recanted their faith and walked away from Christianity.
That's obviously what happened. That's obviously where everybody is. And then someone has to come to me and say, well, Jeff, I happen to know for a fact this person is going to a family wedding this week, and this person has obviously not recanted their faith. And they walked me back from the edge of the cliff, and I go, okay, okay. All right.
Their loud lamentations were actually forbidden by the Mishnah because Stephen had been condemned and executed by the Sanhedrin. So for these men to do this was tantamount to making a public protest about the death of Stephen. They were saying, we believe this man was wrongly executed by the Sanhedrin. There was still the hope of evangelism among sincere individual Jews in Jerusalem, and these would be the kinds of men that the apostles would reach out to in the days ahead. Verse three.
Saul, however, was ravaging the church. He would enter house after house, drag off men and women, and put them in prison. So, consumed by a demonically inspired hatred of Jesus and having received authority from the chief priests, Saul continued to spearhead this wave of persecution against the Church. He was literally going from house to house, kicking down doors, dragging out Christians, and taking them away to be tried before the religious leaders on charges of blasphemy. Paul will later confess that he would even press the sanhedrin to issue the death penalty where possible.
Verse one and verse three understand this are happening simultaneously. As I mentioned earlier, the Jerusalem church is being scattered as Paul is persecuting them, and they scatter all the way down to the place where only the apostles and their families are left in Jerusalem. Saul, after getting every Christian he can get his hand on in Jerusalem, likely starts going to the nearby towns like Bethany, where Mary, Martha, and Lazarus lived, and then going out into further away towns in the southern part of Israel known as Judea. And then we learn later that he goes all the way to foreign cities to persecute them. The sweet fellowship among believers that they had shared in homes for three years, the sweet fellowship over meals together and times of prayer together, singing together, having the holy Spirit speak to one another through words given by the Lord.
All of that was completely dismantled in Jerusalem. The church was completely broken apart in Jerusalem. Before Stephen's arrest and execution, only the apostles had been subject to persecution from the religious authorities. But that changed under Saul's direction, and anyone in Jerusalem associated with Jesus became a target. And then anyone just outside of Jerusalem associated with Jesus became a target.
Anyone in Judea, anyone in Israel, anyone in a nearby country. Jesus had warned his disciples of this, telling them, a servant is not greater than his master. If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you, and they will ban you from the synagogues. In fact, a time is coming when anyone who kills you will think he is offering a service to God. And that's certainly what Saul thought he was doing, serving God by persecuting blasphemers.
Paul, as I said, will later write that he pursued them even to foreign cities like Damascus and Syria. Such was his misplaced zeal. In his letter to the Galatians, paul was frank about what his goal had been. It was to destroy the church. That was his goal.
And everywhere they went, they shared the good news that Jesus was the Messiah. And people got saved. And as they returned to their villages and towns, they formed little churches in each of these places. The church in Jerusalem was seemingly dismantled almost overnight. But also overnight, the network of the church suddenly exploded, and there were churches all over Judea Samaria and other parts of Israel.
The picture you should have in your mind is an enraged Saul and Sanhedrin trying to stamp out the fire of the church in Jerusalem, unaware that the harder they stamp their feet, the more embers they launch into the sky, which are caught by the wind and land all over the place, starting little fires everywhere. These believers wanted to be used by the Lord. They listened to the Holy Spirit and they boldly shared the Gospel every time he prompted them to. And we must do the same. We must want to be used by the Lord, we must listen to the Holy Spirit.
And we must be unafraid to share the Gospel when he prompts us to do so at work, at school, perhaps in prison one day, wherever the Lord leads us. And here's what's so amazing. Do you remember what Jesus told his disciples in Acts in verse eight, before he ascended back to heaven? I put it on your outlines. He said, you shall be witnesses to me in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.
We've seen Jerusalem minister in Acts chapters two through seven. In Acts eight, verse one, we read that all except the apostles were scattered throughout the land of Judea and Samaria. The progression is clear. Jerusalem, check. Judea, check.
Samaria, check. And soon to the end of the earth. Jesus didn't say, I will give you the option to be my witnesses. He said you shall be my witnesses. In what must have felt like a chaotic and perilous time, the Lord's plans were coming to pass exactly as he ordained them, exactly as he said they would.
Remember? This was one of Stephen's points to the Sanhedrin in Acts chapter seven. The people of God don't get to dictate to God the manner in which he should fulfill his promises. We don't get to tell God that he's made this promise and this is how he needs to fulfill it. He does it however he wants.
And in this way, the Jerusalem church was just like us. They liked being comfortable. Talk about a universal passion shared by all men and women, right? We like to be comfortable. Nobody who is enjoying the sweet fellowship, the sweet queen in Jerusalem was thinking, oh, maybe I should just leave this and go somewhere else in Judea and Samaria and take the Gospel there.
No one was thinking that. They were thinking, this is great. This is heaven on earth. I love eating at other people's houses. I love praying together.
They were thinking, this is great. It took the persecution of Acts eight one to bring about the Lord's promise from Acts one eight. Thank goodness we're not like them, though. Thank goodness the Lord never has to speak to us through our circumstances because we are just so in tune with Him, open to the spirits, leading, and quick to obey. These guys were rookies.
Trust the Lord. Verse five. Philip went down to a city in Samaria and proclaimed the Messiah to them. This is not the Apostle Philip, who was one of the Twelve and would have stayed in Jerusalem. This Philip is one of the seven Hellenistic Jews, full of faith and the Holy Spirit, chosen to oversee the care of the widows.
In Acts chapter six, like Stephen, his faithfulness led the Lord to entrust him with an even wider ministry. And when we check in on this Philip much later in the Book of Acts, we find that at that time he's come to be known as Philip the Evangelist. Now, before we go on, we need to understand the significance of Samaria, of her people, and why it was such a shocking and amazing thing that the Gospel was being shared there. And so we need to understand a little bit of the history of Samaria. It's located about 40 miles, or 64 km north of Jerusalem.
In the Book of First Kings, we were just actually reading this recently in our home groups. We read that God judged Solomon for worshiping false gods. The judgment was that Solomon's son, Raya Bohem, who took the throne after him, was made by the Lord to listen to some bad advice which led the ten northern tribes of Israel to rebel against his leadership and split off from the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, who stayed in the south in Judea around Jerusalem. The result after the split was a southern kingdom around Jerusalem and then a northern kingdom of Israel that included Samaria. And further north in Israel, the city of Samaria would be built by King Amri to be the capital city of the Northern Kingdom.
After around 150 years of rebellion against God and worshiping pagan idols, the Lord sent judgment on the Northern kingdom in the form of the Assyrians, who conquered the city and brought an end to the Northern kingdom. Around 722 BC, the Assyrians had a devilishly brilliant policy that was designed to weaken the territories they conquered and reduce the likelihood of future rebellions. You see, what they would do is they would relocate most of the people from the territory they just conquered to other territories that belonged to the kingdom of the Assyrians. And then they would take some of the people from those other territories and import them to the territory they had just conquered. Mixing cultures and ethnicities together.
As a result, the cultural and ethnic identity of the territory they had just conquered would be completely eradicated within a couple of decades. And when there's no unique cultural and ethnic identity, the odds of an uprising are significantly decreased. And so in this area of Samaria, the resulting mix of Jews and Gentiles became the ethnic race known as the Samaritans. They were looked down on and despised by pureblooded Hebrew Jews as halfbreeds and dogs. The Jews would go out of their way to avoid Samaritans.
The spiritual results of this mix of cultures in Samaria are described this way in Scripture. It says they feared the Lord, but they also worshiped their own gods according to the practice of the nations from which they had been deported. So they had this group of people, and collectively, they kind of worshiped Yahweh and kind of worshiped other gods too. Not okay. In 538 BC.
But when Philip was casting out demons, it was sending a clear message to the Samaritans that the power of God was greater than the power of darkness that was possessing these people. It was a straight example that the power of God in Philip was greater than the powers of darkness in these people. Because when Philip commanded those demons to flee in the name of Jesus, they obeyed. Jesus is greater. That was the point of this miracle being done.
Whenever the gospel invades our lives, whenever the light of Jesus bursts into our lives, it triggers conflict with the powers of darkness. Satan is not generally a passive observer. When a person gives their life to Christ, he doesn't just generally say, well, oh well, well played, guess I'll back off now. He goes to war with our souls. Many of us have experienced this, many of us have walked through this.
Some of us are experiencing it even right now. Philip's casting out of demons was when the war in the spiritual realm trickled over into the physical realm and foreshadowed what was about to unfold between Philip and a magician named Simon. And it's enjoyable to call him Simon the Sorcerer because it's just more catchy. So I might do that. It says in verse eight regarding the preaching of Philip of the Gospel and the response from the people I love.
Verse eight. So there was great joy in that city. There was great joy in that city. The gospel had come to Samaria. People were being set free, both spiritually and physically.
They welcomed the news that the Messiah had come. There was a revival in Samaria, a great spiritual awakening. Verse nine. A man named Simon had previously practiced sorcery in that city and amazed the Samaritan people while claiming to be somebody great. They all paid attention to him, from the least of them to the greatest.
And they said this man is called the great power of God. They were attentive to him because he had amazed them with his sorceries for a long time. The people of Samaria viewed Simon as something akin to a god among men, or at least as close to that as one could get in Samaria without being accused of blasphemy. And the text tells us that Simon not only welcomed the praise, but he initiated it claiming to be somebody great. He was a celebrity in Samaria.
He had a cult-like following. Now we know from scripture that demonic powers can work miracles. We see this clearly with Johns and Gentra the magicians in Pharaoh's court. In the Book of Exodus. They do real magic.
Verse 15. After they went down there, they prayed for them so that the Samaritans might receive the Holy Spirit, because he had not yet covet down on any of them. They had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then Peter and John laid their hands on them and they received the Holy Spirit. Now isn't this interesting?
When we studied the baptism of the Holy Spirit back in Acts chapter two, we learned that the Holy Spirit takes up residence. He indwells a person at the moment of their salvation, the moment they placed their faith in Jesus. Yet here in Samaria, that's not what happened. They were saved and baptized but had not yet received the Holy Spirit. Why?
I suggest this because the Lord wanted Peter and John, two of the apostles, to be present to witness the moment when the Holy Spirit was given to the Samaritans because it would serve as undeniable evidence that the Samaritans were receiving the same Holy Spirit that had been poured out on the Jews in Jerusalem. There was no class system in the kingdom of God because despite their love for Jesus, the apostles were unquestionably, still dealing with the remnants of their cultural upbringing and worldview programming that had taught them Samaritans and Gentiles or dogs. They're second class citizens. God doesn't love them. He made them to be kindling for the fires of hell.
This is how they were raised. And it doesn't just magically go away. Jesus is transforming their hearts and minds, but it takes some time, and we'll see that playing out in the rest of the Book of Acts. It's a little hard for them to wrap their heads around this idea that the gospel is going to the Samaritans, it's going to go to the Gentiles. They're not opposed to it, but it's outside of their natural thinking.
And so the Lord chose to use the Samaritans to make it clear that he was giving the same Holy Spirit to every person who places their faith in Jesus. It was undeniable. It was incontrovertible evidence. Peter and John were watching it happen with their own eyes. Unquestionably.
They get there and they can sense the Holy Spirit telling them, pray for them to receive the Holy Spirit, and they obey and they see it happen. As I was working on the sermon and just thinking and praying and studying, I was so struck by the profound nature of the reconciliatory work that was accomplished when the Holy Spirit was poured out on the Samaritans. Because you have to picture this in your head. The hatred between the Jews and the Samaritans was centuries deep. Centuries deep.
And I'm sure every single one of those Samaritans grew up feeling like a second class citizen. It didn't matter how much between themselves. They told themselves, yeah, we don't care. Forget those Jewish guys. They did care.
And it did hurt. I know it did. It hurt having Jews step out of the way every time they came closer to each other on the road. It hurts being the constant target of prejudice and racism. The solution was not reparations.
For in my kingdom are people from every tribe and tongue and nation. And the way I'm creating my church is by purchasing her with my own blood. I've shed it for the Jew, the Samaritan, and the Gentile. I've shed my blood for every tribe and tongue and nation, and I will put the same spirit, my spirit, in every person who accepts the invitation to come into my kingdom. And as I do this, as I create this new entity called the Church, there will no longer be in my kingdom Jews and Samaritans and Gentiles.
They'll only be adopted sons and daughters of my father. When Peter and John saw the same Holy Spirit that dwelled in them, fill the Samaritans standing before them, and when the Samaritans realized they had been given the same Holy Spirit that was in Peter and John, there was reconciliation between those Jews and those Samaritans. The blood of Jesus shed on the cross covered all the sins that had led to that generational brokenness, and it began to heal these wounds that ran deeper than can be described with words. And I'm sure there were embraces shared between people who only months earlier would have been unwilling to even look each other in the eye. There are some miracles that are impossible apart from the grace of God.
And I'm not saying that it was all instantly healed and forgotten. I'm not saying that forgiveness wasn't a journey for most of the Samaritans. But I am saying that in that moment, through Jesus, forgiveness became possible, and healing became possible. He made a way, he forged a path, and those who chose to follow him on it found healing on that path.
You're smart enough to make the connections yourselves. In our world today, there are so many situations between individuals and groups, politically, ethnically, and nationally, where the pain runs deep, centuries deep. Sometimes the history runs deep, the prejudice runs deep, and the only real hope is Jesus. Everything else is a half measure. Everything else is a half measure because nothing can heal the deep wounds of the heart other than Jesus.
Nothing else but the blood of Jesus. And I'm not saying some of those things aren't needed or aren't just, but can we just be real to say in any situation, do you think when you've had trauma that goes back generations and you were raised by traumatized parents and traumatized grandparents, you think somebody can write a check to make up for that?
They can't. Nothing can. Nothing can. Only the blood of Jesus can heal those deep, deep wounds. The Gospel reconciles where nothing else can.
Christians don't believe that every person is equally precious because it's a nice idea. Christians believe every person is equally precious because Jesus has valued every person as equally precious by shedding his blood for them and dying for their sins. Jesus invites all people to be part of his family because he wants all people to be part of his family. And he proves it by giving the same Holy Spirit to all who accept his invitation. The Gospel paints pictures like we find here in Acts chapter eight.
Where the same John who three and a half years earlier was asking Jesus to empower him to commit some light ethnic cleansing on his behalf. Is now seen embracing the same Samaritans he feared. Even touching. He laid his hand on their heads and prayed for them to receive the same Holy Spirit that God had given him. Praying, Jesus, please do for them what you've done for me.
Please put us in the same family, your family. The presence and loving actions of Peter and John would have astounded the Samaritans, and perhaps as far as signs and wonders go, been second only to the moment when they received the Holy Spirit.
And this makes sense if the reason God delayed giving them the Holy Spirit was so that Peter and John could witness it. Because whatever that outward manifestation or manifestations were, it proved to Peter and John that the Samaritans had received the same Holy Spirit they had received in Jerusalem. And therefore it seems logical that the manifestation would have been what the apostles had seen in Jerusalem as an outward evidence of receiving the Holy Spirit speaking in different tongues as the Spirit enabled them, declaring the magnificent Acts of God. And if you have any questions about that, you can go online and watch or listen to the whole Bible study we did on the gift of tongues. Back in Acts chapter two, it says when Simon saw that the Spirit was giving on through the laying on of the apostle's hands, he offered them money, saying, give me this power also so that anyone I lay hands on may receive the Holy Spirit.
Simon's astounded by what he sees, but he doesn't think, oh, praise God. Instead, he thinks, I got to learn how to do this, because this would really spice up my act. I mean, people would go nuts. I would make a fortune. The cult of Simon would jump into the big leagues.
The dynamics remind me of the time when Jesus was in Bethany with his disciples at the home of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. John 12 records a beautiful act of worship by Mary, who pours out a bottle of expensive perfume upon the feet of Jesus and wipes his feet with her hair. And Jesus would comment that unbeknownst to her, Mary had acted prophetically, anointing Jesus' body as it would be for his coming burial. But Judas, a Scariot who had later betrayed Jesus, said, why wasn't this perfume sold for 300 Daenerys given to the poor? And then we read he didn't say this because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief.
He was in charge of the money bag and would steal part of what was put in it. You see, no one who truly loved Jesus would ever complain if someone worshiped him extravagantly and at great cost. In a similar way, no one who was truly saved would intentionally scheme to use the Holy Spirit to bring themselves fame wealth, and power. Jesus said it like this a good person produces good out of the good stored up in his heart. An evil person produces evil out of the evil stored up in his heart, for his mouth speaks from the overflow of the heart.
And that's why we see Peter respond strongly to Simon's request to buy the ability to give people the holy Spirit. It was blasphemous and moronic to suggest that anything of God's could be purchased with money. Do you think God is short of cash? Like what are you going to offer him? But Peter told him may your silver be destroyed with you because you thought you could obtain the gift of God with money.
Unbelievably, our modern translations had actually softened Peter's words. A more accurate translation would be to hell with you and your money. That's what Peter says. This touches on one of the key differences between the Gospel and the origins of all other religions and belief systems. It's also one of the great apologetic evidence for the Christian faith.
When evaluating belief systems, I encourage every critical thinker to ask this question how did the founder of the movement stand to benefit from creating the movement? Did he become rich? Did it bring him political power? Did he form a harem or develop some sort of theology that allowed him to indulge in his s*xual fantasies? Did he conquer and rule over new lands and territories with his newfound power?
The people he preached to, chanted for his death. He gets beaten, scourged, spat upon, and crucified. Where's the motive? Where's the motive? And then here's what gets really crazy his followers who were with him, who ran for their lives when he was arrested and were fully aware of what happened to him on the cross all pulled a 183 days later and testified that he rose from the dead, appeared to them and filled them with his Holy Spirit 40 days later.
And do you know what that gets them? Persecuted, thrown in jail, beaten, chased down by Saul Ostracized from Jewish communal life. Some of their families lose everything they have to flee. All of the apostles except for John, die martyrs deaths swearing to their final breath that Jesus is alive. Where's the motive?
There's only one motive and possible explanation that makes sense of the facts of history. They were telling the truth. They were telling the truth. They really did see Jesus alive after death, meaning that Jesus really was who He said He was God in the flesh. And we see here early in the history of the church there was an opportunity to commoditize the Gospel message, but such a suggestion was repulsive to the apostles.
They preached a salvation that was the gift of God and could not be purchased with money. To state the obvious, that's not the position you take and this is not the Bible you write if your goal is to get rich and powerful by inventing a fake religion.
Peter continues rebuking Simon in verse 21 saying you have no part or share in this matter because your heart is not right before God. Therefore, repent of this wickedness of yours and pray to the Lord that, if possible, your heart's intent may be forgiven. For I see you are poisoned by bitterness and bound by wickedness. All signs point to Simon not being saved. Record scratch.
But how is that possible? Verse 13 tells us he believed he was baptized. When the Bible talks about belief, it's talking about more than intellectual ascent. It is talking about more than simply recognizing that it is true that Jesus is God and has risen from the dead. James wrote that the demons believe and tremble.
Satan and the demons and the gods of the nations all believe that Jesus is God. They all believe that the Bible is the word of God. They all recognize that reality. They all know he rose from the dead, and yet we know they are not saved. So, what's the difference?
The difference is that the belief the Bible speaks of is not only acknowledging the truth but also responding to it. By placing your faith in Jesus to save you from your sins and then following him as Lord. We cannot be saved by simply agreeing that it is true that Jesus is God. We must welcome and accept his offer of salvation by placing our faith in Him as our Savior. And we must agree that in doing that, our lives now belong to Him, which means we willingly follow him as our Lord, as our Master.
This is why our brother James told us that faith that doesn't transform life is not saving faith. Writing what good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but does not have works? Can such faith save him? And faith, if it does not have works, is dead by itself. James wasn't saying that we're saved because of the stuff we do.
He was saying that genuine salvation is accompanied by regeneration. God's spirit coming into our lives as he did the believers in Samaria when Peter and John laid their hands on them. And it is impossible for the Holy Spirit to come into your life and for there to be no transformation in your behavior. It's impossible. Faith that doesn't transform life is not saving faith.
He wanted that same power for himself, for his fame, for his glory. His motives were Luciferian. Had Simon been genuinely saved, he would have realized that God could use him to give others the gift of the Holy Spirit. The only difference is it would have to be for God's glory and not his. All he would have to do is preach the gospel, as the Spirit called him to, and proclaim as Peter did in Acts chapter two.
Repent and be baptized, each of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. As Paul would later write in Ephesians, you're saved by grace through faith, and this is not of yourselves. It is God's gift, not from works so that no one can boast. The Christian never goes to bed more content than when he can say in honesty, Jesus was glorified in my life today. That's a good day.
Days don't get better than that. If you want to be used by God to minister to others, you must understand that Christians are in the business of bringing glory to Jesus. That's the business we're in. Would you write that on your outlines? Christians are in the business of bringing glory to Jesus.
And we see more evidence of Simon's unregenerated Spirit in his response to Peter in verse 24. Pray to the Lord for me, Simon replied, so that nothing you have said may happen to me. Peter told Simon the solution to his condition, wherein he was bound by wickedness, was to repent and pray to the Lord. Simon's reply is no, you pray to the Lord for me. Simon doesn't want to love and serve Jesus, but he doesn't want to experience the consequences of rejecting Jesus.
And we see this sadly very often in those who recognize that, yes, the intellectual arguments for Jesus are unquestionable. All the evidence points to this being true. But they don't want to serve Jesus as Lord. They reject the path of righteousness. But then they want the church and believers to step in and bring relief and help when they experience the consequences in their lives of rejecting Jesus.
I don't want to follow Jesus. I want my sin. But I don't want to deal with the natural consequences of choosing sin over Jesus. Can you help? That's who Simon was.
We're almost at the end here, but would you turn with me in your Bible to Second Corinthians, chapter seven, verse eight? Paul is responding to a report he received from Titus, who told him about the effect his first letter had on the church. First Corinthians is a letter full of rebukes corrections and calls to repent because that's what the church at Corinth needed to hear at that time from their founding pastor. Paul writes in Two Corinthians, chapter seven, verse eight even if I grieved you with my letter, I don't regret it.
And if I regretted it, since I saw that the letter grieved you yet only for a while, I now rejoice, not because you were grieved, but because your grief led to repentance, for you were grieved as God willed, so that you didn't experience any loss from us. For Godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret. Here's the key. But worldly grief produces death. Consider how much diligence this very thing, this grieving as God wills, has produced in you.
I don't want to deal with the blowback of my sin. And I'm grieving over that. Worldly grief is the shame you feel when you get caught or exposed. You're not really sorry, you just want the consequences to stop. That's worldly grief, Godly grief wants to be made right with God.
It wants to experience his forgiveness. It wants to be washed by the blood of Jesus and delivered from the power of sin and given freedom from condemnation that only Jesus can give. And to then use that freedom to follow Jesus on the narrow path that leads to life. Satan entices here's the trick of the enemy. Satan entices you to sin.
And when he entices you, he says, it's not that big of a deal. And then once you sin, Satan shows up to pile on the shame. You are the worst person in the world. How could you do that? Jesus calls you to repent when you fall and step back into the light so that you can be set free of shame and guilt and condemnation.
Shame comes from the enemy and drags you further away from God. But conviction comes from the Holy Spirit and pulls you back to God.
Finally, we read in verses 25. So after they had testified and spoken the word of the Lord, they traveled back to Jerusalem, preaching the Gospel. In many villages of the Samaritans. Peter and John don't leave the same men they were when they first arrived in Samaria. On their way back, they stopped everywhere they can, telling every Samaritan they can about Jesus and praying for them.
Belief alone cannot save you. Please hear me on this. Belief alone cannot save you. Baptism cannot save you. Hanging out with genuine believers cannot save you.
The only way to be saved is by placing your faith in Jesus as your Savior and surrendering your life to Him as your Lord and your Master, receiving His Spirit in you, changing you from the inside out, and then be baptized. And because I love you, I have to ask are you saved? Are you saved? When you hear even the demons believe and tremble, do you know within yourself, yes, I know I've placed my faith in Jesus. I know his spirit is in me.
Do you know that? Or do you go, I don't know. I don't know if the Holy spirit is in me. I believe Jesus is God. I believe this is real.
That's why I'm here. But I don't know if I've ever viewed Jesus as the One who has control of my life. I don't know that I've ever given my life to Him and said, you're in charge. I don't know that I actually have a spirit because I love you. I have to tell you, be sure he loves you.
He died for you, and his invitation is open to you to come and be part of his family, to be adopted into his family. The life and the hope and the healing and the peace that you are looking for can only be found in Him. Everything else is a half measure. Everything else is a half measure. So if you don't know Him, turn to Him today and give your life to Him.
Even as we close in prayer in a minute, as we worship in the coming time, say that to Him. Jesus, I want to give my life to you. Come into my life, put your spirit in me, and then just let me or BJ know after the service that you've done that we just want to talk with you and give you some things to help you get going in your walk with God. But don't leave your unsure of whether or not you're saved. And if you're experiencing Godly grief today because the Holy Spirit is convicting you, respond to it.
Jesus isn't heaping shame on you. Conviction is different. Jesus is calling you back to Him to set you free from the power of sin. Say yes to that invitation. Accept it, receive it.
Date:11/20/22 Series: Acts
Passage: Acts 10:1-23 Speaker: Jeff Thompson
God continues moving the Gospel outward toward the Gentiles, as He gives Peter a strange vision and commands him to go to the house of Cornelius, a Roman centurion.
As we pick up our study in the Book of Acts, we find ourselves accompanying the Apostle Peter as he travels around Judea, the southern region of Israel. He's been traveling west toward the coast, visiting Christians who fled Jerusalem due to the persecution led by Saul several years ago. Those scattered saints have started churches all over Israel, and Peter was visiting them to see how they were doing, to encourage them, and to minister as the Holy Spirit directed him. Last week, we saw God move through Peter to heal a man who had been paralyzed for eight years and then raise a woman, Tabitha, from the dead. And we closed, with Peter staying in the coastal town of Joppa in the home of Simon the Tanner.
A couple of thousand years earlier, God had called a man named Abraham to be the starting point of a special nation, a people chosen by God to represent him to the world and invite the world to be part of the family of God. This special nation would become known as Israel and was called to be a nation of ambassadors and evangelists for the kingdom of God, showing the world what it looked like to follow God and be cared for by God. But human nature ensured that's not what happened. As soon as we're told that we are special in some way, something in us begins to look down on people who are not special in that same way, and it spirals very, very quickly into things like bigotry and even persecution of those who are not special like us. Indeed, before 99, 99% of people can mistreat and abuse other humans, psychology tells us they need a reason.
They need to be given a belief system to justify their prejudice. I'd watched a couple of documentaries recently about the elaborate lengths to which the Nazis went, because Hitler understood that the final piece of his final solution was to find a scientific basis for his theory that the Germans were descended from a superior race, the Aryans, and were ubermench supermen, essentially. And he came up with this whole mythology tracing their roots back to the Norse regions of Europe, and he said, but I need scientific proof. And of course, the problem was that there was no scientific proof because the entire thing was fabricated by Hitler's perverted imagination. But that didn't stop them from sending teams of scientists to conduct anthropological research as far as Tibet and different regions of Africa, cataloging different human physiological traits to try and come up with a unifying theory that would prove that the Aryans were superior.
Now, why was this so important to Hitler? Because he knew he had to give the German people a basis for their belief that they were superior if they were going to enact the Holocaust. In other words, you know, I'm not going to be able to get the German people on board with killing millions of people unless I can give them a basis to believe that they are special in some way and others are not special in that way. And therefore it is not unreasonable. It's actually logical for those who are special to treat those who are not, as less.
It's not wrong for a human being to step on a bug because they are not the same species. And so Hitler came up with this entire fabricated scientific system because there were men who really liked being alive. And so they came up with research that supported what Hitler was looking for. And indeed, we've seen this phenomenon play out. This is why I was so nervous in the middle of COVID We're so close to this.
I'm part of this group. This group is special. This group is enlightened. This is the group that's going to create a glorious new future. Therefore, everyone who's not part of this group is not special.
And so treating them differently is okay. It's reasonable and logical because they're not special. They're not special. This is the psychological phenomenon of othering, and it's behind all kinds of bigotry, from the Holocaust to racism, to religious persecution, and to secular humanism's hatred of religion. And the same phenomenon was in play with the nation of Israel.
This nation of God's chosen people completely abdicated their calling to be a light to the nations and heralds of the kindness of God. Instead, they turned inward and reveled in their privileged status, concluding that everyone else must have been created simply to be kindling for the fires of hell. We see this mindset in the Old Testament prophet Jonah, who was sent by God to preach the gospel to the Nineveights in Assyria and call them to repent. And when they do, Jonah is furious at God. He's furious because he doesn't want them to repent.
He wants them to all die and go to hell because that special status should be only for him and his people. When a Jew would return to Israel from any other country, he would shake the dust off his sandals to get rid of every trace of non-Jewish Gentile impurity he could. This is the worldview into which the apostles and those who made up the Jerusalem Church were born. They were raised in this type of thinking but through the ministry of Jesus and the gift of the Holy Spirit. God had been at work tearing down paradigms about the kingdom of God.
Philip had been used by God to spark a revival in Samaria, the central region of Israel, inhabited by an ethnic group of half-Jews who were hated by the pure-blooded Hebrews. Peter and John had been summoned to pray for those Sumerian converts, and they were shocked when they witnessed the same Holy Spirit being given to them that had been given to the pureblooded Hebrews in Jerusalem. Philip was then sent by God to preach the Gospel to a Jewish Ethiopian eunuch, a man who was a foreigner and perpetually ceremonially unclean under the old Covenant Law. As Peter journeyed across Judea last week, we saw him go through the semi-Greek town of Luda, and then the fully Greek town, the fully Hellenistic town of Joppa, where he stayed with Simon the Tanner, a man whose occupation made him perpetually unclean under the law due to his constant exposure to dead animals and blood. We can see God moving through circumstances to bring the apostles into contact with Gentiles so that they might practice what Jesus had commanded and make disciples of all nations under the old covet.
In the days of the Old Testament, it was possible for a Gentile, for a nonJew, to become part of the nation of Israel. But they would need to commit to living like a Hebrew by following the law and worshiping Yahweh alone. And if they were men, they would need to undergo the right of circumcision. And some people complain about a member class. Unbelievable.
Firstly, they were unbelievably busy in Jerusalem, leading the church there, and then checking up on all the saints who had scattered from there, which took up every spare minute they had. Secondly, they couldn't figure out, though, how it would be possible for Jews and Gentiles to integrate into the same churches. In the Jewish mind, adherence to God's law, and following God's law is what marks a man as one of God's people. And the apostles understood that the law couldn't save you, it couldn't make you right with God. They understood why Jesus had to die in our place.
But there was still some ambiguity as to whether the whole law was now done with, or whether certain aspects were still intended to be identifying marks for the people of God. The most prominent example was circumcision. It was the physical mark God gave to Abraham that indicated a man was a worshiper of Yahweh. It seems clear from the coming chapters in the book of Acts that the Jerusalem Church and the Apostles were under the impression that circumcision continued to be a distinguishing mark of those who followed Yahweh. There seems to be a similar mindset around the Old Covenant laws relating to food.
You've likely heard of kosher food. It's a term that means food has been prepared in accordance with the Old Covenant laws of Israel. Like circumcision, eating kosher food was considered a distinguishing lifestyle mark of the people of God. It's just what God's people do. They eat kosher food.
There were all kinds of other Hebrew ceremonial laws that related to one's lifestyle. And for this reason, the Jews would not even enter the home of a Gentile, because they had no idea what manner of uncleanness they might be exposed to. The idea of sharing a meal with a Gentile was abhorrent to a Jew because the food would almost certainly not be kosher, and you weren't going to take a Gentile's word for it. So by eating with a Gentile, you would be choosing to sin against God and defile yourself. And these are the kinds of issues that were in the background of the Apostle's minds.
Yes, the Gospel is for the Gentiles too, but how? How do they need to start their own churches? How can we minister to them without going into their homes and sharing fellowship that way? How do we explain to gentlemen that they need to be circumcised before joining the Church? Samaritans were circumcised.
How can we be in the same church if we can't even share meals together? I think it's fair to say that the Apostles were likely glad to be too busy in the early years of the Church to try and tackle those kinds of questions. So with all that background, let's jump in. In Acts, chapter ten, verse one, it says there was a man in Caesarea named Cornelius, a centurion of what was called the Italian regiment. Caesaria was about 30 miles, or 50 km north up the coast from Joppa, where Peter was staying.
A centurion oversaw a hundred soldiers. The Roman historian Polybius described centurions as not so much venturesome daredevils as natural leaders of a steady and sedate spirit. Not so much men who will initiate attacks and open the battle, as men who will hold their ground when worsted and hard pressed and be ready to die at their posts. His position tells us Cornelius was a strong, responsible, and reliable man. It's interesting to me that when we last saw Philip the Evangelist, he was ending up home in Caesaria.
Cornelius was what scholars call a God-fearer. A Gentile who followed the law of Israel as best he knew how, didn't worship pagan or foreign gods, worshiped yahweh alone, was a friend of the Jewish people, attended synagogue and studied the scriptures, but they weren't full proselytes because they had not yet been circumcised. For some reason, that was a bit of a stumbling block for some Gentiles. God-fearers were ripe for conversion to Christianity, and Luke himself, who was writing the Book of Acts, was likely a God-fearer. Technically, God gives every person some revelation.
He gives every person some light. And to those who embrace the revelation they receive, he gives more to those who reject it, he does not. Now, why does he stop giving revelation to those who reject it? Because the more revelation a person has, the more they will be accountable for when they stand before God one day. Therefore, it is a mercy that Jesus limits the amount of revelation he gives to those he knows will always reject Him.
Peter tells us in his letter to the Romans that every person, every person has received two glaring massive revelations of God. The first is creation. The world and the universe around us shout that there is a designer, there is a Creator, and there is an intelligent crafter behind the universe who has to be overwhelmingly great and powerful and has to transcend the universe itself. Creation and science tell us that the universe had a beginning point and exploded from nothingness. And so whatever created everything that exists in our physical dimensions must be outside of those physical dimensions.
There was no time before the beginning of the universe, so whatever created the universe is outside of time and has the ability to create from nothing. And whether you're looking at your own hand or your eye in the mirror or the world around you, creation screams that there is a God, there is a Creator. In Romans 1/20, Paul writes about God. His invisible attributes, that is, his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen since the creation of the world being understood through what he has made. As a result, people are without excuse.
The second piece of evidence illumination, light, and revelation that Paul says everyone gets, is our moral conscience. We know intrinsically in the depths of our souls that we have a moral obligation to do certain things and a moral obligation to not do certain things. This is why there's never been a culture in the history of the world where it was considered admirable to murder a man and steal his wife. Our conscience condemns us when we sin because we know that what we are doing is wrong, no matter what the culture tells us. In Romans chapter 2/14 16, Paul writes about how God's moral standards, his laws, are written on every heart, whether they've read the Bible or not.
Paul says that Gentiles who do not by nature have the law do what the law demands. They are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts. Their consciences confirm this. Their competing thoughts either accuse or excuse them.
On the day when God judges what people have kept secret, every person either embraces or rejects these two revelations of God. Cornelius was a man who had embraced them. He found himself stationed in Judea, where he was exposed to more light, more revelation. He saw the culture of the Jewish people. He saw their laws and ethics in practice.
He heard their scriptures being recited and taught. And his conscience testified that he was witnessing the truth. It was light. He had not found it in the gods of the Roman pantheon. This was a living God and Cornelius could sense it.
He didn't care if he was a second or third-class follower of Yahweh in Israel. He was a man who just wanted the truth and followed the truth wherever it led. And that's why, as we meet him, we find him living up to the light that he's been given as best he knows how, fearing God, showing charitable kindness to the Jewish people and praying as part of his lifestyle. So devout and sincere a man was Cornelius that we are told his whole household has followed him in his devotion to Yahweh. He responded to the revelation he had received.
He lived up to the light he had received from living in Judea. He abandoned his Roman pagan gods and worshiped the gods of the Hebrews as best he knew how, but had not yet fully converted by getting circumcised. Something was holding him back. Something was telling him that he didn't need to do that. So would you write this down?
Cornelius embraced the revelation God had given him, so God gave him more. God gave him more.
Verse three, about three in the afternoon, he distinctly saw in a vision an angel of God who came in and said to him, Cornelius, staring at him in awe, he said, what is it, Lord? Now, just to clarify, this angel is not Jesus. This is just Cornelius showing reverence by referring to his divine visitor as someone who is above him. And we'll see this kind of humility displayed by Cornelius again later when he meets Peter in verse 25. The angel told him, your prayers and your acts of charity have ascended as a memorial offering before God.
And so the picture is that Cornelius and acts of charity have been rising up to heaven like sweet-smelling incense. And God has been blessed by his sincerity. God has been blessed by him responding to the revelation that he's been given. And so God was going to bless him by giving him more revelation and light. Now send men to Joppa and call for Simon, who was also named Peter.
He's lodging with Simon, a tanner whose house is by the sea. When the angel who spoke to him had gone, he called two of his household servants and a devout soldier who was one of those who attended him. After explaining everything to them, he sent them to Joppa. This is how a good soldier responds to orders have been given and they must therefore be acted upon immediately. Now we switch from Cornelius back to Peter scene change, verse nine.
The next day, as they were traveling and nearing the city, Peter went up to pray on the roof about noon. At this time, being on the street level was the hustle and bustle of every town and city. If you wanted a quieter spot, you would head upstairs on the outside of your house to your roof, which had a solid enough surface to walk on. You'd probably have some sort of basic structure with some sort of sheet to give you some shade, and that's where you would go to relax or have a conversation and just chill for a little bit. Or in Peter's case, go pray.
It says he became hungry and wanted to eat, but while they were preparing something, he fell into a trance. And I know you might be thinking, I know exactly what you're talking about. I've been this hungry. I saw burritos just like coming down from heaven, and I just had to eat something. That's not what we're talking about here.
This is a genuinely supernatural trance that Peter is in. God is putting him in this dreamlike state where he's fully lucid, he has his wits about him, he's able to think clearly, but it's like he is seeing something as surely as I'm seeing you and you are seeing me. It says he saw heaven open then an object that resembled a large sheet coming down, being lowered by its four corners to the earth. In it were all the four-footed animals and reptiles of the earth and the birds of the sky. So in this sheet are a mixture of animals, animals that are clean under the food laws of Israel, and animals that are not clean under the food laws of Israel.
And so this is already starting to freak Peter out a little bit, and we have to address this question at this time. Why? Why were certain animals considered clean under the laws that God gave to Israel and others considered unclean? Why did God say, you can eat this one but not this one? Why did God say, your food has to be prepared in a certain way?
In some cases, there are and were clear health benefits to the ceremonial laws God gave Israel. But there can't be the overarching reason for all the ceremonial laws, because some of them have nothing to do with health. For example, in Leviticus 19/19, God tells Israel not to put on a garment made of two kinds of material this has nothing to do with health. I don't know about you. I praise God for whoever figured out that you put a little spandex in your jeans with cotton.
You can stretch these bad boys. Thank God for that. I love my tribal and soft T-shirts. The reason for God's ceremonial laws cannot be purely health-related, because all those laws also passed away when they were fulfilled by Jesus. And we know that.
It's not like, unfortunately, the perfect life of Jesus suddenly removed all the downsides of every food. It's not like because Jesus lived a perfect life, we can just eat whatever we want we don't get fat and we don't clog our arteries because Jesus lived a perfect life. Well, that'd be awesome. But we know it's not true. We also know that it's not like God's attitude before the cross was, I care deeply about your physical health.
And then after the cross he's like, Eh, whatever, just do whatever you want. We know that didn't happen. So the overarching reason for the ceremonial laws that God gave Israel cannot be health. It cannot be some of the other explanations that I've heard suggested either. The overarching reason is given to us by God.
In Leviticus chapter 20, verses 25 through 26, God says to Israel, you are to distinguish the clean animal from the unclean one and the unclean bird from the clean one. Do not become contaminated by any land animal, bird, or whatever crawls on the ground. I have set these apart as unclean for you. You are to be holy to me, because I the Lord am holy, and I have set you apart from the nations to be mine. And so here's the idea.
When God created the nation of Israel, he created them to be a distinct, special people who would be set apart from the nations for Him. In Deuteronomy seven, Moses reminds the Israelites that they weren't chosen because they were special in any way. He tells them, The Lord had his heart set on you and chose you, not because you were more numerous than all peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples. That's why the human nature side is so compelling with Israel because God told them from the beginning, I didn't choose you because you're special. You were the least of all peoples, the most insignificant group of people.
God chose Israel because he wanted to. At the end of the day, that's all we can say with the knowledge we have right now. He wanted to. Likewise, the ceremonial laws that God gave Israel were not primarily about health. They were about this concept of being set apart.
System. Everybody else belonged to the kingdom of Satan, but Israel belonged to God. And so God created these rules that affected every area of their life to condition his people, to get comfortable with the fact that they were to be different from everybody else. They were different in the way that they valued one another, they were different in the God that they worshiped, they were different in how they were to handle their agriculture. They placed a different value on the sanctity of human life to all the other cultures around them.
They placed a different value on marriage, they placed a different value on family, all these things. And so God said not only these things, but I need you to have differences in every area of your life because you're not going to be okay with the big stuff if you can't be okay with some little stuff. So from the time a child is born, I want to condition you to understand you are set apart. You are not like everybody else. And if you think this sounds like folly, if you think this sounds like random laws being passed down by God, ask yourself this today, 4000 years later, is there still a bigger problem that Christianity has than compromising with the world?
Have we ever got past that? Or is that not the number one thing doing damage to the church and to the lives of those who follow Jesus today? People who don't want to be set apart. I want to be part of the world and part of the family of God. And from the very beginning, God told his people, you have to get it through your heads, you can't.
If you follow me, you are set apart. Can't have 1ft here and 1ft here. You belong to me. And so he's teaching his people this through what they eat, through how they wash, through how they navigate all kinds of issues. You're not like everybody else, you're set apart for me.
And is anyone's thinking like, well, wasn't he setting them up to be arrogant and to other everybody else? Remember what he told them? He said I didn't choose you because you're special. You were the least of all people. And if they had remembered that, there would have been no room for arrogance.
But they couldn't remember that because they just had human nature. They just had human nature. For us who are Christians today, what is the protection supposed to be from us looking down on everyone else and uttering everyone else and saying oh, we're special, what's the protection? It's in the scriptures. The faith that we have to believe in God was a gift from God.
Why? Scripture tells us, so that no man may what boast. God designed even the gift of salvation to come to us in such a way that it's impossible, if we have the right doctrine, to say well, I'm better than people, that's why I'm saved. I saw the light when other people could not perceive it. I'm just better.
God says, Listen, the faith that you even have to believe was a gift from me to you. You've got nothing to boast. It's all the work of God. It's the work of God. And if you remember that, it's impossible to look down on anybody else.
Impossible. So Peter sees in his vision the sheet of clean and unclean animals coming down. He's disturbed by the presence of all these unclean animals because he associates following God with being set apart in the area of food as well. But it gets even worse, because then a voice said to him, get up, Peter, kill and eat. And that command means kill and eat without distinction.
They were still eating kosher. Only verse 15, again a second time, the voice said to him now underline this in your Bibles what God has made clean, do not call impure. This happened three times, and suddenly the object was taken up into heaven. It happens three times because Peter's paradigms are so ingrained that he can't make sense of what Jesus is saying or why he's saying it. But if you've read Acts 10 before then you have the benefit of hindsight.
Here's what we know Jesus is really saying to Peter. He's saying, Peter, the ultimate reason that something is clean or unclean is not because it appears in the law of Moses. It's because I have declared it to be clean or unclean. I'm the author of the law, and I'm the judge of all things. If I call something unclean, it's unclean.
It doesn't matter what anybody else thinks, they're not the judge. And if I call something clean, then it's clean. It doesn't matter what anybody else thinks. They're not the judge. And Peter, I have called all these animals clean.
This is possible because I fulfilled the law on behalf of all those who belong to me. And what will mark my people as distinct will no longer be food laws or circumcision. What marks my people as distinct now, Peter is the presence of the Holy Spirit. For everybody who belongs to me has something within them that the world does not have the Holy Spirit. That is how my people are marked now.
That is how my people are set apart from the world. And Peter couldn't understand all that just yet. He soon would, though, at this point, he's just confused as to why Jesus is telling him that all animals are now clean in the sight of. God. Turn with me if you would stick your bullets in where we are and act and flip back a couple of books to Mark, chapter seven, the Gospel of Mark, chapter seven.
Matthew Mark, Luke, John Acts gospel of Mark chapter Seven I want us to read through this together because in it we see Jesus tackling the very issue that was tripping up. Peter. Mark, chapter seven, verse one. It says the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around him. They gathered around Jesus. They observed that some of his disciples were eating bread with unclean, that is, unwashed hands of the Pharisees.
All the Jews do not eat unless they give their hands a ceremonial washing, keeping the tradition of the elders when they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they have washed, and there are many other customs they have received and keep, like the washing of cups, pitchers, kettles, and dining couches. All these laws that are mentioned, by the way, are not in the law that God gave to Israel. These are all additional laws that they had added to the Law of God, like bonus laws. Who doesn't love bonus laws? Nobody loves bonus laws.
Rabbis, scribes, and scholars had expanded the Law of God and claimed that, well, what God meant would clearly include these things as well. Spoiler alert it didn't. Verse five. So the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, why don't your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders instead of eating bread with ceremonially unclean hands? The religious leaders, you see, had put the traditions of their elders on the same level as the word of God.