It's impossible. If you don't know what tongues are when it mentions that, please go back and listen to the message dedicated to that from earlier in this series, where we go through it in detail. Remember what Paul wrote to the Corinthians about the gift of tongues, though he told them, that the person who speaks in a tongue is not speaking to people, but to God. It is not God speaking to man. It's man speaking to God, as we see here in verse 46, where the household of Cornelius is given the gift of tongues, which they use to do what?
Declare the greatness of God, it says. Then Peter responded, can anyone withhold water and prevent these people from being baptized who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have? He commanded underline and commanded them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. In the New Testament, we always see baptism follow salvation. Peter even makes the point that since these Gentiles have clearly received the Holy Spirit, they must already be saved and should therefore be baptized.
It's clear evidence that baptism is not what saves a person, but it is what should immediately follow salvation. And I think Peter was being smart when he got the six Jewish men who had accompanied him from Joppa to do the baptizing. Peter was like, I'm getting you in on this as well. You're not going to be able to pretend this whole thing didn't happen because you're going to be the ones who baptized these guys. So later on, when we have to go give a report about this to somebody, you're all going to be witnesses because you're part of this now, and that's what he's doing.
It says, then they asked him. They asked Peter to stay for a few days. And these are other evidences of genuine salvation. There's a hunger for fellowship with other believers and the desire to learn more about Jesus. Even if someone is a brand new Christian, we see these desires when the Holy Spirit is present in a person.
They want to be around other believers who love Jesus, and they want to learn more about Jesus by staying with them. Peter would, of course, be eating with them, and he did. All the pieces came together, and Peter was able to understand the full picture of what God was doing in bringing the Gentiles and the Jews together. In one church on Pentecost, Peter had quoted the prophet Joel in his sermon to the crowd when he said, then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. His thinking had been, of course, that everyone could become a Jew and be saved.
But now he was realizing there weren't Jews and Gentiles anymore. There was just the Church of Jesus, and Jesus would give his spirit to anyone who called on his name, repented, and placed their faith in him. There were no other prerequisites or requirements. While Peter chose to stay in fellowship with the Gentile converts in Caesaria, word of what had taken place reached the Jerusalem church and shocked them. All they heard was Peter's defiling himself by eating with uncircumcised Gentiles.
Let's continue into chapter eleven. The apostles and the brothers and sisters who were throughout Judea heard that the Gentiles had also received the word of God. When Peter went up to Jerusalem, the Circumcision Party criticized him, saying, you went to uncircumcised men and ate with them. The Circumcision Party was a sect within the very early Church made up of Pharisees who claimed to be Christians but believed and taught that one had to become Jewish in order to be saved. Most notably, this belief mandated circumcision for men who wanted to join the church.
But there will be no giant video scream and there will be no protests. And I'll tell you why. Because when we see Jesus, when we just see Him in his glory and his majesty and his beauty and his power and his greatness, nobody will dare to even say, oh, I can live up to that. Nobody will even think about it. Nobody will say, yeah, I'll give it a go way my life, I think I'll hold up.
Nobody will say it. It will all become clear the second they see them in an instant. Nobody will refute the judgments rendered by Jesus, because they will know that they're all true. All of them. And then, thirdly, praise God, the sins of every believer have been paid for and will not be remembered in eternity.
That's right. We will be able to look each other in the eye of heaven forever. For we will be who we were created to be. And we will enjoy fellowship with one another on a completely different level. Because all of us will be freed from our sins, our issues, our insecurities, and our infirmities.
There is a version of every person in this room who would blow your mind with how awesome they are. You're going to meet them. You're going to meet them. We're going to hang out together for eternity. The gospel message must include the reality of sin.
The coming judgment because it is the reason we so desperately need to be forgiven of our sins. We have an appointment with judgment apart from the mercy and grace of Jesus, and the only way to be forgiven and made righteous is through Jesus. Peter continues in verses 43, and he says all the prophets testify about him, about Jesus, that through his name, everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins. We hear again this hint that Peter is in real time having his understanding unlocked. He's beginning to realize what Jesus was talking about when he told his disciples, I have other sheep that are not from the sheep pen.
I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice, and there will be one flock, one shepherd. While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit came down on all those who heard the message. The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were amazed because the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even when the Gentiles heard them speaking in tongues in other languages and declaring the greatness of God. If you've been with us through our study, you will recall that this is the same thing that happened to the Hebrew believers in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost. In Acts chapter two, it was the same thing that happened to the Samaritan believers when Peter and John were called up to minister with Philip.
The point is that they, the Gentiles, were receiving the same Holy Spirit as the Jews and the Samaritans. God was giving His Spirit to and placing His Spirit in these Gentiles the same way he had done it with the Jewish believers in Jerusalem. This made it clear that God was making no distinctions between Jews, Samaritans, and Gentiles. God had eliminated any kind of class structure in the church, and God was not requiring the Gentiles to be circumcised or follow any Jewish rituals or anything like that. This was once again undeniable and incontrovertible evidence.
The theology of the Jerusalem Church would need to change to line up with what God was doing. And we should also note there was no special teaching on the Holy Spirit that needed to be given before these Gentiles could receive the Holy Spirit. All they did was listen and believe. And when they believed they received the Holy Spirit and they were regenerated, their dead spirits were brought to life. Simply put, when a person repents and believes the Gospel, the Holy Spirit comes into their lives, there's no such thing as a Christian who doesn't have the Holy Spirit.
This floor is made of gold. Looks like this floor is made of gold too. And this and that's what we'd all be doing in heaven for eternity because none of us would be able to look each other in the eyes. But with all that bad theology, imagine this. Imagine the angel puts in the VHS cassette of your life and the video evidence begins to play before the sea of humanity watching on that giant screen.
And you're puzzled because on the screen is a young boy who seems to have lived a long time ago. And you're watching him. And he's just the best kid. He's kind and respectful to his parents and always cares about others, never trying to get revenge on anyone who wrongs him. And he's a kid and he talks to God all the time. He's just amazing.
And as the video continues playing and the boy on the screen gets older and older, you realize it's Jesus. You're watching a video of the life of Jesus and he just becomes more and more amazing and more and more wonderful and he's just perfect. And you don't say anything because you're just so captured by what you're watching on the screen. But eventually, you can't take it anymore. And you say, I need to tell the court.
That's not me. I wish that was, but that's not me. That's not my life. That's clearly the life of Jesus. And God says, well, I guess we better doublecheck the evidence. The angel ejects the VHS cassette and holds it out toward the audience so that you can see the edge that has the label on it. And you can clearly see that the label said Jesus' life. But somebody's taken a Sharpie and drawn a line through the name of Jesus. They've written your name on there instead. Everyone knows what's going on, but to your amazement, God, the judge, says, I think everyone here can tell what's going on.
The evidence is clear. This is obviously a video of your life. And then he says, because you've lived a perfectly righteous life and there are no outstanding warrants or charges against you, I'm delighted to welcome you to my family and into heaven for all eternity. That's what I'm talking about when I say those who put their faith in Jesus are not given the power to meet his standard of sinless perfection, they are given his sinless perfection. We are robed in the righteousness of Jesus.
Not righteousness like Jesus, the righteousness of Jesus. When God looks at us, it is as though we are as righteous as Jesus. He didn't give us a fresh start so that we could try again. Because news flash, we just messed that up too. Listen, if we could lose our salvation, we would lose our salvation.
If there's any way we could mess it up, we would mess it up. I'm sorry if you haven't realized this about yourself yet, but Jesus gave us something we could never mess up his righteousness. Jesus lived, died, and rose from the dead in our place. He lived a perfect life in our place. He died for our sins and was judged in our place.
And he rose from the dead in our place so that we could follow in his footsteps and rise as he did. If you haven't written this down yet, would you please do so? Those who put their faith in Jesus are not given the power to meet his standard of sinless perfection. They are given his sinless perfection. And now, before we go on, I just need to correct some of that atrocious theology that I just poured out for you.
In some of those illustrations, you need to know that in reality, those who have placed their faith in Jesus were judged at the cross because Jesus was judged in our place. If your faith is in Jesus, you've already been judged two thousand years ago at the cross of Calvary. The only judgment awaiting believers is for eternal rewards, for good works. Our salvation is a settled issue. Secondly, you need to know that those who reject Jesus will stand before Him and be judged.
There won't be a jury who decides the eternal fate of every man and woman. It will just be you and Jesus. And the standard he will judge by will not be the Constitution of the United States, or the Canadian federal legal code, or a global consensus on what is good and what is bad. Jesus will not be grading on a curve. The standard Jesus will judge everyone by will be Himself, and he is completely without sin, perfect in every way, qualified to judge by that standard.
Write this down and we'll keep talking about it. Every person will be judged by Jesus according to the standard of his righteousness. The standard of his righteousness. But since obviously nobody can meet his standard of righteousness, how is it possible that some will be found acceptable while all others will not? Please don't miss this. I'm about to share one of the single most important pieces of doctrine every person needs to understand. Every person. If none of us can meet his standard, how is it possible that some people will?
It's because those who put their faith in Jesus are not given the power to meet his standard of sinless perfection. They are given his sinless perfection. Let me explain. It wouldn't help you if God gave you the power to meet his standard of sinless perfection because you've already blown it. You don't have a time machine.
The option of producing a complete, perfect life is long gone. Can you say amen if you have a modicum of self awareness? Amen. Jesus took the punishment for all your sins, past, present, and future at the cross. He took the punishment that you and I deserved on our behalf.
Praise Jesus for that. But that still leaves this issue of God's standard of sinless perfection that we must meet in order to be part of his family and be with Him for eternity. And that's the incredible part of what took place on the cross, the incredible second part. It's the reason it's called the divine exchange. You see, not only did Jesus take our sins on the cross, but he gave us his righteousness.
There was an exchange. Paul says it like this in two Corinthians 5/21, god made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. He gets our sin, we get his righteousness. It's scandalous, it's absurd, but praise God, it's true. It's true.
The best way I can explain this is by taking you back to my childhood and early teen years, where I had some very, very suspect theology that was deposited into me by some very well-intentioned pastors and youth pastors and people in the churches that I grew up in. You see, I grew up believing that when I died, I would be brought before God who would judge my life, and we'd be in some sort of cosmic courtroom, and everyone who had ever lived and died would be in the audience. And my life would be judged by way of video evidence displayed on a giant screen for billions of people to see. When your youth pastor tells you not to go watch that Rated movie, it hits differently when you've got this picture in your head, I'll tell you. And then what would happen in my mind is an angel would put in this VHS cassette, push Play, and there it would all be on the screen.
Everything I had ever done wrong, every impure thought, every cuss word, every wrong act, every single sin. But then at the end, Jesus would say, I've died for you and forgiven you. You may enter heaven, and then into heaven, I would go. Where I would avoid contact with everyone else for the rest of eternity because they knew every sin I had ever committed. And I just walk around forever looking at the floor.
In Peter's mind, the Gentiles don't have to become Jewish anymore to be part of the church, but they're still in a different category. Much like foreigners who joined the nation of Israel, they would never be accepted on the same level as ethnic Hebrews, even though technically they were part of the nation. Yes, they're part of Israel. Would you let your daughter marry one of them? Would you have them over for dinner? But they're part of the nation. Of course. Of course, they are. We're all equal here. Of course.
But God's going to get to this too. Peter now begins preaching to the household of Cornelius. In verse 36, he that God sent the message to the Israelites proclaiming the good news of peace through Jesus Christ. He is Lord of all, a brief opening line that is loaded with massive truths. In that opening line, Peter tells them that Jesus was sent by God to humanity to bring a message of good news.
And the good news is that a man can have peace with God through Jesus Christ. You know, the events that took place throughout all Judea, beginning from Galilee after the baptism that John preached, Jesus' impact during the three years of his earthly ministry was massive. He electrified Israel with his miracles, his teaching, and his conflict with the religious leaders of the day. Pretty much everyone in the country had heard of him and knew who he was and what he was doing. It's also possible that Philip the Evangelist had been preaching in Caesarea and may have even started a church there and shared some more of that knowledge with the household of Cornelius.
But the idea is you guys have all heard about Jesus. You've all heard about it he says you've heard how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, and how he went about doing good and healing all who were under the tyranny of the devil because God was with him. We ourselves are witnesses of everything he did in both the Judean country and in Jerusalem, and yet they killed him by hanging him on a tree. The apostle Paul would later write to the Corinthians that Jesus appeared to Peter than the rest of the twelve disciples, then to more than 500 believers at one time, then to James, then to all the apostles, and finally to Himself. The method of Jesus' death crucifixion is specifically mentioned by Peter to make two points.
Firstly, that Jesus was given a criminal's death. He's highlighting the contrast and the injustice between who Jesus was a man anointed by God, full of the Holy Spirit, who went about doing good and healing the oppressed, and how Jesus was treated. He was put to death as a criminal. He's also mentioning this for a second reason that both the Romans and the Gentiles participated in the murder of Jesus. The Jews arranged it, and the Gentile Romans executed it, for it was our sin that he died for.
On the Cross - verse 40 - God raised up this man on the third day and caused him to be seen, not by all the people, but by us, whom God appointed as witnesses, who ate and drank with Him after he rose from the dead. He specifically mentions that they ate and drank with him because people believed in ghosts at this time. But everyone at this time knew that a ghost can't eat or drink because they have no physical body. And so, when Peter mentions this, he's making the point that Jesus was physically alive from the dead. He was resurrected in a physical body.
They witnessed him eating and drinking, they ate and drank with him. He wanted them to know that Jesus in his resurrected form interacted with the physical world. He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one appointed by God to be the judge of the living and the dead. The Gospel message is incomplete if it does not include the vital piece of information that Jesus will judge every man and woman. There won't be a vote on who gets into heaven.
It says Jesus was amazed. Jesus was amazed. He was amazed that a gentile Roman centurion understood what Israel could not, that he had been given authority. And I imagine in my mind, Jesus actually being just speechless for a moment. He's just struck by amazement and then gets a smile on his face and raises his voice loud enough for everyone around him to hear him say, I haven't found anyone in Israel with faith like this.
And people like this centurion will be with me in heaven one day, feasting right next to the patriarchs. And then he says to the centurion's friend, it's done. And the servant is healed that very moment. I love this because it captures a moment when Jesus is blessed by the faith of someone, he's blessed by the faith of someone. He doesn't need anything from us.
But incredibly, God is able to be blessed by us. The way that we bless Him is with our faith showing, with our words and our actions that we genuinely believe he is who he says he is. It's the heart of a father when your children treat you as though you actually are a good father when they make assumptions about the care you will provide for them because they have confidence that you love them, that blesses the heart of a father. That's how we bless God. When we act and speak and live in such a way that shows we genuinely believe we have a Father in heaven who loves us, that blesses him.
It blesses him. Cornelius didn't just believe in God, he believed God. So when the Lord spoke to him, he obeyed and revealed his faith by gathering everyone he could to hear the message God was going to deliver through Peter. That's the way to study the scriptures, where to adopt a posture before the Word of God that says, I'm here to get my orders. I'm here to learn whatever you want me to learn.
I'm here to change whatever you want me to change. I'm ready to respond to whatever you want to say to me, because you are in authority over me, Lord. When asked what makes a great preacher, Charles Spurgeon is said to have answered, a great congregation. Because where a congregation is hungry for God's word, submitted to God's Word, and eager to obey God's word, I guarantee there will be good preaching and teaching. I guarantee it.
I'm thankful for you, by the way. You are a good congregation. Verse 34, says, Peter began to speak. Now, I truly understand that God doesn't show favoritism, but in every nation, the person who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. So Peter keeps moving closer and closer to the revelation that God is working through him.
It bears mentioning again that much of this should not have been as radical to the apostles and the Jewish believers as it was all the way back in the Old Testament. Under the old covenant in the law, god had clearly given Israel commands to embrace foreigners who wanted to be part of Israel, who wanted to be part of the people of God. In Deuteronomy 10, god told them, for the Lord your god is the God of gods and Lord of lords the great, mighty, and awe-inspiring God. Showing no partiality and taking no bribe, he executes justice for the fatherless and the widow and loves the resident alien, giving him food and clothing. You are also to love the resident alien since you were resident aliens in the land of Egypt.
Peter, at this moment, was saying, wow, this is amazing. What a revolutionary concept. God will accept everyone who responds to the revelation he's given them, even if they're a foreigner and God's like. That's always been my thing, Peter. That's always been my thing in this moment.
He understood what it meant to be in submission to a higher ranking officer. For him, it was simple Jesus was Lord, there was a God, and Peter had been sent by him with orders. Therefore, he had prepared as best he could and was ready to obey those orders when they arrived. There was a centurion at the cross at the moment of Jesus'death, and he declared Jesus to be the Son of God. In Mark 15 we read Jesus let out a loud cry and breathed his last.
Then the curtain of the temple was torn from top to bottom. When the centurion who was standing opposite him saw the way he breathed his last, he said, truly, this man was the Son of God. In addition to that centurion in Cornelius, there's another account in the Gospels that features a centurion and moves me to tears pretty much every time I read it. Hopefully not this time, though. It's found in Matthew chapter eight and in Luke chapter seven.
Jesus is entering the town of Capernaum, and some of the Jewish elders from the town come up to him with a message. There's a centurion who seems to be a God fearer like Cornelius. They tell Jesus that he loves our nation and has even built us a synagogue. He's paid for it himself. Being a sincere Godfarer, this centurion cares for his servants, and one of them has become deathly ill.
In fact, he's become paralyzed from whatever is attacking his body and is in terrible agony. This centurion did not consider himself worthy to approach Jesus directly, so he asked the elders to approach him on his behalf and beseech him to heal his servant. Jesus agrees to go to the house. The centurion knows that Jews are not supposed to enter the homes of Gentiles. So when Jesus gets close to the house, he sends some of his friends to intercept Jesus with this message.
Lord, don't trouble yourself, since I'm not worthy to have you come under my roof. That is why I didn't even consider myself worthy to come to you. But say the word, and my servant will be healed, for I too am a man placed under authority, having soldiers under my command. I say to this one, Go. And he goes, and to another, Come.
And he comes and to my servant, do this, and he does it. As a military man, this centurion understood the concept of authority, and he recognized that Jesus had authority over sickness and death. He understood that all Jesus had to do was say the Word and the sickness in his servant would have to leave because Jesus had authority in this centurion's mind, it was a simple chain of command. Then it says hearing this, Jesus was amazed and said to those following him, truly, I tell you, I've not found anyone in Israel with so great a faith. I tell you that many will come from the east and west to share the banquet with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and the kingdom of heaven.
Then Jesus gave the friends this message for the centurion as you have believed, let it be done for you. And his servant was healed. That very moment when Jesus was on the earth as a man, he emptied himself of his omniscience. Omniscience is just a fancy word for being all-knowing, knowing everything. It's an attribute of God.
God is omniscient. But when Jesus came to the earth as a man, he gave that up and really became a man. Everything that Jesus knew, he learned, or had revealed to him by his Father through the Holy Spirit. At this time, Jesus had been ministering and performing miracles. Crowds were following him.
But Scripture tells us that he knew their hearts. He knew that they didn't really believe he was the Messiah, the Son of God. He knew that his own people were not really receiving him. And then along comes this centurion. And when his friends stopped Jesus from coming all the way to the house, telling him he need only say the word I love that.
The Gospel Goes to the Gentiles (Part 2) Date:11/27/22
Passage: Acts 10:24-11:18 ..Speaker: Jeff Thompson
Peter visits the household of Cornelius and preaches the Gospel. What happens next changes the course of history.
God has spoken to a Roman centurion named Cornelius and told him to send for a man named Peter. This, of course, is the apostle Peter. And at the same time, Jesus gave Peter a vision of a sheet coming down from heaven full of all kinds of animals that were both clean and unclean under Hebrew food laws. God then told Peter to kill and eat whatever he wanted, telling him not to call anything impure that God has made clean the messengers of Cornelius. Find Peter in the city of Joppa.
Jesus tells Peter to go with them. And now we continue in verse 24. The following day, he that's Peter entered Caesarea. Now, Cornelius was expecting them and had called together his relatives and close friends. Verse 14 will tell us in the next chapter that Cornelius had gathered all of his household.
That would have included his slaves, his attendants, his family, any relatives and close friends, and anyone he could get to come in anticipation of the message that God was going to deliver through Peter. Seven orthodox Jews, Peter, and seven of the brothers from Joppa were on their way to do something none of them had ever done before. They were going to enter the house of a Gentile, and I'm certain that none of them, even Peter, could imagine what was about to happen. It would change the course of history.
Verse 25. When Peter entered, Cornelius met him, fell at his feet, and worshiped him. Cornelius did this because he knew Peter was being sent as a messenger from God. Then we read in the next verse, but Peter lifted him up and said, stand up. I myself am also a man.
Write this down as your first filling, and then we'll unpack it. The servants of Jesus, direct worship to Jesus. The servants of Jesus, direct worship to Jesus. They do not accept worship or veneration, for to do so would be to steal it from Jesus. When we reach Acts, chapter 14, we'll see Paul and Barnabas ministering in the city of Listra, and the people will respond by shouting, the gods have come down to us in human form. And here's how the text tells us. Paul and Barnabas responded. The apostles Barnabas and Paul tore their robes when they heard this and rushed into the crowd, shouting people, why are you doing these things? We are people also, just like you, and we are proclaiming good news to you that you turn from these worthless things to the living God, who made the heaven, the earth, the sea, and everything in them. At the end of the Book of Revelation, the apostle John writes, I John, am the one who heard and saw these things. When I heard and saw them, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who had shown them to me. But he said to me, don't do that. I am a fellow servant with you, your brothers, the prophets, and those who keep the words of this book and worship God. The servants of Jesus, be they human or angelic, do not accept worship or veneration. They direct all praise, worship, and glory to Jesus.
I want to show you a photo. It's a little hard to see because the projector is not great, but that is a statue. It's got a really sort of ornate background, but it's a bronze statue. In St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican sits this statue of Peter.
It was crafted over the centuries, so many pilgrims have kissed its right foot that the individual toes are now barely distinguishable. Today, most pilgrims opt for touching instead of kissing the feet. But I have a duty to point these things out when they come up in the text. Devout Catholics and the Vatican itself encourage this kind of behavior when in Scripture we have an example of a man falling at the feet of the living Peter. And what does Peter do?
Track I quit two packs a day smoking. I tried before but I really did not want to stop. The time that I did succeed was when I decided this was it, no more. I had made up my mind. I did not use the patch, nothing. This was in '84 I prayed for you and believe that you will succeed in your decision to quit...
Because if you haven't noticed, the winds are blowing hard, really hard. And anyone who has not made peace with the truth that we need to be set apart for God will be blown away. And so I beg you, if you're a kid, if you're a teenager, if you're a young adult, if you're an old adult, know this the word of God says friendship with the world is enmity with God. In other words, if you want to be a friend of the world, you are making the decision to be an enemy of God. There is no way to play both sides.
There are no double agents in the kingdom of God. None. Make peace with it. Why? Because everything that seems so pressing right now is going to fade away into nothingness so much faster than you think.
We have no concept how long eternity is. Scripture says this life is a vapor. And the only tactic that Satan really has is to try and convince you that right now is everything. Do you know that's a doctrine from the pit of hell you only live once. Demonic doctrine.
Yolo, demonic doctrine. You don't only live once. You're going to live forever somewhere. Somewhere. And the only tactic that Satan has is to try and tell you that right now is the only thing that matters.
And it doesn't. It doesn't. The better things of God are not only waiting for you in eternity, they are available to you now, available to you now in this life. But they have a price. And I don't want to lie to you.
They have a price. And the price is you will be set apart for God. You do not belong to the world. You belong to him. You will not fit in.
The whole world will blow this way and you will stay here. And you won't be able to fly under the radar forever. People will begin to notice that you're not glowing with the wind like you're supposed to be. And you have to be comfortable being set apart for Jesus. You have to be.
The second thing I want to share with you in closing is just the glorious truth that if you belong to Jesus, he has made you clean. Hear me please. He has made you clean. He has robed you in the righteousness of Jesus. And if he has declared you clean and righteous, then you are clean and righteous.
It doesn't matter what anybody else says. The fact that the Spirit of God dwells within you is undeniable evidence that you are clean and righteous and holy through Jesus. Hear me on this. How you feel does not affect that. Truth has no bearing on it.
Jesus is the judge. What he says is clean is clean. And we have to choose to stand on that truth. We have to usher out every contradictory thought and feeling. This is what scripture is talking about when it says we have to take captive every thought that sets itself up against the word of God.
These thoughts that come in and say you're not righteous, you should be ashamed. He doesn't love you. You have to get those out of your head because they're in competition with the truth and they're not accurate. We have to submit our minds and our emotions to the truth of God. Paul said, the Father chose us in Him, in Jesus before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless, in love before Him, not because we can make ourselves holy and blameless.
He chose us because he knew he could. He knew he could. And BJ's going to come up in a moment and pray that all of us who belong to Jesus would feel in a real way and comprehend in our minds and our hearts that we've been made righteous by Jesus. But because we forget we have need of communion, it's a reminder. And when we take it, we should confess our sins to the Lord.
Don't take communion without confessing your sins to the Lord, if you're aware. And then we can be blessed by the tangible reminder that our sins have been paid for by the body and blood of Jesus. And as we take those elements, we can say, thank you, Lord, for dying for me. Thank you for forgiving me. Thank you for robing me in your righteousness.
We just want to fit in. And one of the easiest ways to fit in is by adopting the beliefs of the majority in the culture. It doesn't even matter what they are. I've shared this before. They've shown that the way social engineering works is that in our culture today, all those who want to influence society have to do is convince society that the majority of people hold this belief.
So, in other words, let's take a belief, whatever belief you want to take, let's do something ludicrous. We should all chop a leg off every cat, okay? No, I don't have something against cats. I'm realizing now, this is the second time in 48 hours that I've gone up against cats. But something ludicrous.
Let's chop a leg off every cat. And people go, that's preposterous. That's ridiculous. And here's what you do, is you begin to post on Facebook, on Twitter, TikTok, every social influencing channel. These videos about people saying, people need to open up their minds and understand that chopping a leg off a cat is really good for a cat.
It makes them lighter, makes them more aerodynamic. And scientists are all saying this is a necessary evolution of the species. And then the next version of cats are going to be amazing, but we have to go through this. This is what all the experts are saying right now. And then they go on there and they use bots to give these videos millions of likes, tons of fake comments and people go, wow, this thing is really blowing up.
And it looks like everyone pretty much seems to agree we should be chopping a leg off cats. We should do this. And everybody who doesn't have an anchor, who doesn't have a moral or intellectual tether to the truth will follow completely the winds of what they believe the culture are doing. So if you don't have some kind of anchor to a system of truth that is unchanging, you don't have some kind of moral tether to something, you are a kite who will blow wherever the winds of the culture go. And wherever you think even those winds are blowing, that's where you'll go.
Because your thoughts and your actions and your views and your beliefs will be driven entirely by this deep rooted psychological need to fit in. And your subconscious is telling you, if you believe what everybody else believes, then you'll fit in. It doesn't matter how preposterous the belief is, you will believe it. If you have no tether to the truth, you will believe whatever the majority believes. And if you're any student of history at all, you will know that history is replete with examples of the majority being horribly, horribly wrong.
You will know that history has killed millions because of beliefs held by the majority. You will know that millions have suffered and died because of beliefs that were held by the majority. Hitler was democratically elected. Russians were in favor of Stalin. And on and on and on it goes.
Doctors were in favor of opioids. We could go on and on and on where there's no tether to the truth. You will blow wherever the winds of culture go. And what God says is, he says, if you're going to be my people, you're going to be set apart because you're going to be anchored to me. You're going to be anchored to the truth.
You will not be blown wherever the winds go, but all of culture might blow over there, but you're going to stay here because you are rooted in me. You are set apart from me. You don't go wherever the winds blow. You're rooted in the truth. And that is why, as Christians, we must come to terms with the truth that we are to be set apart for the Lord.
Peter then invited them in and gave them lodging. Peter knows God is doing something. He just can't put the pieces together quite yet. Peter is actually following the old Covenant law by showing hospitality and inviting these men to stay with him even though they're Gentiles. Because they were coming to stay with him, he would be able to control the environment and the food and all of those sorts of things and ensure that all the appropriate laws were followed.
It would be an entirely different thing for Peter to go into the home of a Gentile, where he would have no control over how anything was prepared, anything was served, or what cleanliness standards were followed. This is why the Holy Spirit had to tell him, go with them with no doubts at all, because I have sent them. And again we see that Peter didn't seem to have any animosity toward the Gentiles. He just wasn't sure how he could go into one of their homes without sinning against God. But that immediate concern had been laid to rest by the Lord Jesus himself, who had given Peter a direct command to go to the house of Cornelius.
The next day he got up and set out with them, and some of the brothers from Joppa went with him. Acts 11/ 2 will tell us that Peter took six of the brothers from Joppa with him. They were circumcised Hebrew Jews, and the Spirit gave Peter the wisdom to have these men join him on this trip. And I say that because, as we shall see in our next study, these men will serve as important witnesses to the amazing events that will transpire in the house of Cornelius. I'll share a couple of thoughts in closing today, the Church has been grafted in like a branch being grafted into a tree, the tree of Israel.
In this sense, we're the chosen people of God too. Israel was initially called to be a light to the nations, but that task has now been given to the Church, and the Church will fulfill that calling until she's taken to be with Jesus. But like Israel, as I said, we too are called to be set apart. We're called to live lives that are distinct from the world around us. We're called to be different.
Peter wrote to believers, you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his possession, so that you may proclaim the praises of the One who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people. You had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. We have the Holy Spirit. The world is not.
We are following Jesus. The world is not. We are going this way. The world is going that way. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus told the crowd, enter through the narrow gate.
This is so heavy. I don't think we understand how heavy what Jesus is saying here is. For the gate is wide and the road broad. That leads to destruction, and there are many who go through it. How narrow is the gate and how difficult the road that leads to life and few find it.
Jesus said the road that leads to destruction is easy. It's broad. It's a pleasant stroll for most of your life. He said, the road that leads to eternal life is narrow, it's difficult, and there's not many who find it because not many want it. As a pastor, it pains me when I see believers who are trying to figure out how to follow Jesus and simultaneously fit in with the world.
It pains me because it's impossible. I heard someone put it well too. They said, You've got too much of Jesus to enjoy the world and too much of the world to enjoy Jesus, and you just end up miserable. And I just want to share with you an honesty. This is not just a message for teenagers.
We never outgrow this. We never outgrow a desire to fit in. Do you know that? It's one of the strongest innate human needs. It affects our psychology tremendously.
But they obviously weren't. That's because what they needed was the same thing every person needs. They need a new heart. They need a new nature that desires to do what is right. And only Jesus can give that new heart.
And that's exactly what he does when we turn and give our lives to Him. He gives us a new heart with new desires. It says when he went into the house, away from the crowd, his disciples asked him about the parable. He said to them, are you also as lacking in understanding? Don't you realize that nothing going into a person from the outside can defile him, for it doesn't go into his heart, but into the stomach and is eliminated.
And then underlined this thus he declared all foods clean. Food doesn't defile a person. Jesus says food comes in and food goes out, but the heart remains. And the problem is that we're born with a heart that wants to sin. We're born with a heart that gravitates toward temporary pleasure at any cost, including harm and destruction to us and those around us.
That's our default condition. I want what's going to bring me pleasure right now or very, very soon. I don't care if it damages me in the long run. I don't care if it hurts other people in the long run. That's our default condition.
That's why we need a new heart. It's interesting that the Gospel of Mark was a collaboration between a disciple named John Mark and Peter. Peter provided the information and John Mark wrote it down and then edited it for a Roman audience. And by the time years later, peter's looking back on this event with Cornelius, he had realized that when Jesus was teaching this, Peter looks back and he goes, oh. That was the moment Jesus said, all foods are clean.
It took Peter years to understand what Jesus was saying all the way back then, because when Jesus was among his disciples, ceremonial laws were not the distinguishing mark of the people of God. The fact that they were following Jesus was the distinguishing mark of the people of God. That they recognized Jesus as the Messiah was the distinguishing mark. And on the day of Pentecost, in Acts chapter two, the Holy Spirit dwelling within every believer became the distinguishing mark of the people of God. Believers are marked by a new heart with new desires they're made distinct from the world around them by the presence of God within them.
Make a note of this. The distinguishing mark of the nation of Israel was their adherence to the law of God. Their adherence to the law of God. That means they followed the law of God. The distinguishing mark of the church is the presence of the Holy Spirit.
Indwelling every believer and then turn back with me to Acts 1017. It says while Peter was deeply perplexed about what the vision he had seen might mean, right away the men who had been sent by Cornelius, having asked directions to Simon's house, stood at the gate. They called out asking if Simon, who was also Amen Peter, was lodging there. As Peter's vision ends, the mercy seat by Cornelius arrives looking for him. While Peter was thinking about the vision, the Spirit told him, three men are here looking for you.
Get up, go downstairs and go with them. With no doubts at all, because I have sent them. Then Peter went down to the Amen and said, here I am, the one you're looking for. What's the reason you're here? They said, Cornelius, a centurion, an upright and godfearing man who has a good reputation with the whole Jewish nation, was divinely directed by a holy angel to call you to his house and hear a message from you.
Peter then invited them in and gave them lodging. Peter knows God is doing something. He just can't put the pieces together quite yet. Peter is actually following the old Covenant law by showing hospitality and inviting these men to stay with him even though they're Gentiles. Because they were coming to stay with him, he would be able to control the environment and the food and all of that sort
And that's why we read he answered them. Isaiah prophesied correctly about you hypocrites as it is written, this people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. They worship me in vain, teaching as doctrines, human commands, abandoning the command of God. You hold on to human tradition. He also said to them, you have a fine way of invalidating God's command in order to set up your tradition.
For Moses said, honor your father and your mother, and whoever speaks evil, a father or mother must be put to death. But you say, if anyone tells his father or mother, whatever benefit you might have received from me is corbyn. That is an offering devoted to God. You no longer let him do anything for his father or mother. Let me explain.
The Law of God commanded men and women to care for their parents and honor their parents, including in their old age. But over the years, these religious leaders who didn't really want to do that had come up with and codified a concept called Corbin. Essentially, you could tag anything you owned furniture, money, property. As corbyn, you could give it this tag, and that would mean it had been dedicated to God and therefore couldn't be used for anything else, you didn't actually have to give it to the temple. You could just say, oh, this item is basically a memorial to God.
I've dedicated it to God. And so here's why they would do this because mothers and fathers would come to their kids in their old age and say, hey, I can't work, I've got no income, can you help? And these Jewish men were saying, I'd love to, but all my spare money and all my investments are corbin. They've all been dedicated to God. They would say, Well, I noticed you're still spending it.
Yes, for the Lord, it's corbin. And Jesus is turning the table on these Pharisees and scribes by saying, you're so concerned about my disciples not keeping your madeup laws, but you're not even keeping the laws that actually come from God. In fact, you invent new laws to help you avoid keeping the laws that God gave you and teach others to do the same. You're so worried about my disciples not washing their hands, but you're letting your own parents live in poverty. He says you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you've handed down, and you do many similar things.
Summoning the crowd again. He told them, listen to me, all of you, and understand nothing goes into a person from outside that can defile him. But the things that come out of a person are what defile him. So remember, the food laws God gave to Israel were for the purpose of making them distinct, reminding them and the nations around them that they were set apart for God. They were not to live like everyone else.
But somewhere along the line, the Israelites began to believe that the food laws were actually making them righteous. That by eating kosher food, I'm actually being made righteous. And Jesus says, don't be stupid. Sin doesn't come from what you eat. Although we should talk about fried Twinkies.
Sin is not a food. Jesus is saying, sin comes from evil desires within the heart of a person. Sin comes from within and makes its way, finds its expression in your actions, in your speech and your thoughts. Jesus point was that the Pharisees and scribes were keeping all the food laws religiously, but their treatment of their own parents showed that their heart was wicked. So if following food laws could have made their hearts righteous, then their hearts would have been righteous.
Whatever you want, go ahead and kill it. There are no limits. That's why Peter says in verse 14, no Lord, for I have never eaten anything impure and ritually unclean. So Peter recognizes that this is the voice of the Lord Jesus. And this also makes it clear that years after Pentecost in Acts chapter two, the disciples and the apostles in the Jerusalem church were still abiding by the old covenant food laws.
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.
God didn't want his people to behave and look like everybody else. He wanted them to be distinct. And so he knew that he had to drill into their minds that they were different from the other nations because they were set apart. For Him. Everybody else belonged to the world.
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.
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.
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.
And so all indications are that he was in the city at this time. And yet the Lord chose to work through Peter, because, as we shall see, the Lord wanted to establish a connection between the Gentiles and the Jerusalem Church, of whom Peter was a representative. is he? Cornelius was a devout man and feared God along with his whole household. He did many charitable deeds for the Jewish people and always prayed to God.
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.
They would, they'll take you a second. They would, however, be second-class citizens in Israel because they wouldn't have any ethnic ties to any of the twelve tribes, and they would always be viewed as somewhat of an outsider. I don't think that Peter and the apostles hated the Gentiles. I don't think the idea that God could save them was actually an insurmountable intellectual obstacle for them. I think they hadn't yet intentionally reached out to the Gentiles for two reasons.
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.
Nobody realized. When they did, CBC did a poll of Canadians and they found that in the middle of COVID 40% of Canadians were in favor of sending the Unvaccinated to quarantine camps forcibly 40%. The Prime Minister of Canada went on TV in Quebec, and I'm quoting here, referred to the Unvaccinated as often racist and misogynist extremists, as though there is a connection between the two. And he mused aloud whether their presence should be tolerated in Canadian society. This is the same phenomenon again, that's how human nature works.
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.
The Gospel Goes to the Gentiles (Part 1) 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.
What a desire to clear yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what deep longing, what zeal, what justice. In every way, you showed yourselves to be pure in this matter. You see, worldly grief just wants to escape the consequences of sin. I don't want to deal with the shame that comes with sin. I don't want to deal with the destroyed relationships.
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.
Satan, the demons, and the gods of the nations do not willingly serve Jesus as their Lord. They are in active rebellion against him, even though they believe. Simon's words and actions reveal that. Simon believed, but Jesus was not his Lord. He couldn't deny the power and the reality of what he saw Philip, Peter, and John do, but he didn't want to respond to it by following Jesus.
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.
In pretty much every case, every religion and belief system, it doesn't take very long to find an unspiritual motive for the founder. And then there's Jesus and his followers. What does Jesus get for founding Christianity? A false trial? A wrongful conviction?
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.
Please make a note of this. The Gospel reconciles where nothing else can. The Gospel reconciles where nothing else can. Verse 18 when Simon the Word saw that the Holy Spirit was given through the laying on of the apostle's hands. Now, this interests me because it tells me that when the Samaritans received the Holy Spirit, something happened that was externally visible.
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 solution was not endless counseling or going deeper into their Samaritan roots. The solution was not adopting a permanent victim mentality. The solution was Jesus who showed up and said, I'm making something new. My church. And my church is going to reflect my kingdom.
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.
So, somebody gets a message back to the apostles in Jerusalem and it probably sounded coveting, like, you guys are not going to believe this. People are turning to Jesus and ending to the Gospel in Samaria. This would have been like somebody coming to us and saying like, "Hey, Jeff and BJ, you guys need to hop on a plane because you're never going to believe what happened. People are turning to Jesus in Prince George. It's happening. It's happening right now. Unbelievable." And so, the apostles talk about it, and they agreed to send down Peter and John to go check things out. And their heads had to be spinning already because they were thinking, "Samaria? 'Like the half-breeds? They're getting saved there?!"
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.
In more educated parts of the world, somebody who is apparently possessed in displaying outward physical manifestations would be dismissed as having a psychiatric disorder. We've got meds for that and it wouldn't affect culture the same way. Because we have so many philosophical naturalists in our society, the supernatural explanation would be discounted from the very beginning, discarded, and so it wouldn't serve the same effect. So Satan works differently in places like Canada and the States, possessing people and using them to affect culture in a different way. And again, a conversation for another day in greater detail.
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.
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What Makes Jesus Unique? No one else made the claims that He did, He is alive...............
It's impossible. If you don't know what tongues are when it mentions that, please go back and listen to the message dedicated to that from earlier in this series, where we go through it in detail. Remember what Paul wrote to the Corinthians about the gift of tongues, though he told them, that the person who speaks in a tongue is not speaking to people, but to God. It is not God speaking to man. It's man speaking to God, as we see here in verse 46, where the household of Cornelius is given the gift of tongues, which they use to do what?Declare the greatness of God, it says. Then Peter responded, can anyone withhold water and prevent these people from being baptized who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have? He commanded underline and commanded them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. In the New Testament, we always see baptism follow salvation. Peter even makes the point that since these Gentiles have clearly received the Holy Spirit, they must already be saved and should therefore be baptized.
It's clear evidence that baptism is not what saves a person, but it is what should immediately follow salvation. And I think Peter was being smart when he got the six Jewish men who had accompanied him from Joppa to do the baptizing. Peter was like, I'm getting you in on this as well. You're not going to be able to pretend this whole thing didn't happen because you're going to be the ones who baptized these guys. So later on, when we have to go give a report about this to somebody, you're all going to be witnesses because you're part of this now, and that's what he's doing.
It says, then they asked him. They asked Peter to stay for a few days. And these are other evidences of genuine salvation. There's a hunger for fellowship with other believers and the desire to learn more about Jesus. Even if someone is a brand new Christian, we see these desires when the Holy Spirit is present in a person.
They want to be around other believers who love Jesus, and they want to learn more about Jesus by staying with them. Peter would, of course, be eating with them, and he did. All the pieces came together, and Peter was able to understand the full picture of what God was doing in bringing the Gentiles and the Jews together. In one church on Pentecost, Peter had quoted the prophet Joel in his sermon to the crowd when he said, then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. His thinking had been, of course, that everyone could become a Jew and be saved.
But now he was realizing there weren't Jews and Gentiles anymore. There was just the Church of Jesus, and Jesus would give his spirit to anyone who called on his name, repented, and placed their faith in him. There were no other prerequisites or requirements. While Peter chose to stay in fellowship with the Gentile converts in Caesaria, word of what had taken place reached the Jerusalem church and shocked them. All they heard was Peter's defiling himself by eating with uncircumcised Gentiles.
Let's continue into chapter eleven. The apostles and the brothers and sisters who were throughout Judea heard that the Gentiles had also received the word of God. When Peter went up to Jerusalem, the Circumcision Party criticized him, saying, you went to uncircumcised men and ate with them. The Circumcision Party was a sect within the very early Church made up of Pharisees who claimed to be Christians but believed and taught that one had to become Jewish in order to be saved. Most notably, this belief mandated circumcision for men who wanted to join the church.