The Book of Acts 10:1-22 Peter with Cornelius & the Great Sheet

I must admit today's lesson was one of uncertainty in terms of approaching this and when I got into this I really realized I had never really looked at this section of scripture before. That's kind of the beauty of Acts is that we hear the the mountaintop stories like Paul and Ananias and Paul's conversion.

But then there's these little side bits that ultimately don't get much attention. And I must admit, I really was ministered to in preparing for today. And I think we'll have fun with this. It's kind of a neat little section of Acts. So I've divided it into three segments.

I've got verses 1 through 8. And I wanted to ask Roger why he quit at 22. We'll talk about that later. And then the second section is 9 through 16 and the final one is 17 through 22. Maybe a better split would have been 20 or 24, but I think you can go either way on that. Who's teaching next week? Jeremy. Alright, so let's do this. We're going to read the first eight verses and why don't I just do that and then we'll deal with that section.

There was a certain man in Caesarea called Cornelius, a centurion of what was called the Italian Regiment, a devout man and one who feared God with all his household, who gave alms generously to the people, and prayed to God always. About the ninth hour of the day he saw clearly in a vision an angel of God coming in and saying to him, Cornelius. And when he observed him, he was afraid and said, What is it, Lord?

So he said to him, Your prayers and your alms have come up for a memorial before God. Now send men to Joppa and send for Simon, whose surname is Peter. He is lodging with Simon a tanner whose house is by the sea. He will tell you what you must do. And when the angel who spoke to him had departed, Cornelius called to his household servants, and a devout soldier from among those who waited on him continually. So when he had explained all these things to them, he sent them to Joppa. Cornelius was a Roman and a Centurion, so presumably if he's a Roman he's a non-Jew. I think you have to make that assumption and I think the rest of the story really reveals that he was a Gentile.

So what's a centurion? It's a non-commissioned officer who commands a division in the Roman army consisting of 100 men. That's where the term centurion, century, 100, kind of comes from. And as we look at this in more detail, the regiment, which is also stated early in this passage, or band. Some of your verses may say band. Does anybody have band rather than regiment? Band. Mine says band. Band. It was 600 men and that's 10% of a Roman legion which is defined as 6,000 soldiers. Centurions over a hundred of the regiment which is 600 which is one-tenth of a Roman legion.

So that's kind of the position that Cornelius has here. Five centurions are mentioned in the New Testament. Cornelius and others in Matthew 8, Luke 23, Acts 22, and Acts 27. These are the five different centurions. shared in some detail and elsewhere in scripture.

So we can look at those, but I don't think we're going to take time right now to do that. If we end up a little early, we may go back and look at that. But anyway, the centurion is often someone who's playing a role here in he or himself being a sharer of the gospel, or coming to salvation, or alternatively being involved in a process by which the gospel is spread. Okay, Caesarea, remember we showed the map last week. Holly wasn't here, but we showed the map last week. Caesarea is north of Jaffa on the sea. And it's approximately 30 miles north of Jaffa. So Jaffa is on the coast. If you go up north from Jaffa, that's the plains of Caesarea. Yeah, I think of Caesarea. Caesarea is a city within those plains.

The question comes up here now, in terms of what we just read, was Cornelius a believer? Oh, it's interesting, he's called a God-fearer, which is interesting. And the Lord is speaking to him, so is this a privileged communication, or is this coming from out of the blue? I think the Lord is just going to use Cornelius here. which is why he's sending, but obviously he's some kind of a devout, it says he's devout. He's described as a devout or pious man, one who feared God and gave alms generously and prayed continually and presumably his prayers to the God of the Jews, right?

I mean who else would he pray to? he must have in fact had some information related to the God of Israel. Even in Jesus time the woman that came to him that were outside Judaism but realized that the God that the Jews worship was the true God. Cornelius seems to be one of those even though they aren't They haven't converted Judaism and they aren't Christians yet. So it's interesting how these people outside knew that that was the true God or had some understanding of that.

Well, think of one of the other centurions who in fact is mentioned in the gospel, right? I mean, he got saved, right? He did. So yeah. Would that relate to some of our founding fathers in this country that were deists? Okay. Would that be kind of like that? I like that. Yeah, I think that's possible.

I mean, we presumably were founded on the principles of God, but many question whether these are in fact Bible born again believers, right? OK, so I think we need to be skeptical about his being a believer, because the story that follows, really, one would suggest he's not a believer. So I don't want to jump ahead too quickly. But I'm going to contend that he's not a believer. More about Cornelius.

In fact, let's do a look at these verses, because I think they're relevant. Margaret, would you take Acts 10, 28, 34, and 44? And Bonnie, would you take chapter 11 verses 1 and 8? And Holly, do you have your Bible? I forgot my Bible. A 15-7 for you. Oh, I don't have my Bible. Oh, you don't, okay. Doris, do you have that? I have the 15-7. Yeah, so we'll go in order. So these are all kind of related to Cornelius. and ultimately provide a little bit more explanation about where he's at. So, Margaret. Okay. Acts 10, 28. And Jeremy will cover this next week.

And he said unto them, you know that it is an unlawful thing for a man that is a Jew to keep company. unto one of another nation, but God hath showed me that I should not call any man common or unclean. I do, but I'm not looking at them. Peter opened his mouth and said, of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons.

While Peter yet spoke these words, the Holy Ghost fell on all of them which heard the word. Now the apostles and the brethren who were throughout Judea heard that the Gentiles also had received the word of God. But I said, by no means, Lord, for nothing unholy or unclean has ever entered my mouth. And when there had been much disputing, Peter rose up and said unto them, Men and brethren, ye know how that a good while ago God made choice among us that the Gentiles by my mouth should hear the word of the gospel and believe. All right, so all of these kind of paraphrase, kind of attack the Cornelius is probably not a believer that he's a Gentile. who is a God-fearing man, the God of the Jew, and ultimately is sure of salvation.

Now, the vision occurred, according to Cornelius, at the ninth hour, which is around 3 PM. And that's the hour of prayer. If you turn back to Psalms 55 or Daniel 6, which we'll not look at, actually there were three times of prayer traditionally in the nation of Israel. One was at 9 o'clock in the morning, one was at noon, and the other was at 3 o'clock in the afternoon. this would fit into the last of those three. So Cornelius, if you will, is kind of following the Jewish tradition. So he must have known a lot about the Old Testament truths, in fact, in terms of the way he was being described.

Notice the gender of the angel that approaches him. It said he and him within that verse, implying that angels are male gender. The Bible clearly identifies angels as men. An angel is never referred to as a female, but not always clear whether it is a male or a female. Presumably this is a male angel form.

Now, why were Cornelius, his alms and prayers called a memorial before God? Why do you think that is? A memorial? Here's an unbeliever, and we're calling his alms and his prayers a memorial. What's a memorial? It's not remembering somebody who's dead. It's just a remembrance be a tragic event or a good event. About Memorial Day, right? It's an event.

Well, when the Israelites crossed over the Jordan, they built memorials. So in the future, they can point and say, this is when God brought us to the promised land. So it's not always in a negative thing. It's sometimes just a remembrance of, this is what God has done in our past.

All right, Jeremy, put it in context. Why would Cornelius Assaulton first be called a memorial? By the way, I don't I didn't put the answer down because I'm asking the class. I don't think it's worthy of discussion for you. You're raising your hand. You know, I'm nervous. OK, I just think so. He's I don't know. I haven't.

I guess we could assume he's has some relation to Israel, someone seeing something about what God has done. And maybe he's just almost like the. Ethiopian eunuch that we talked about before, just somebody who had seen the works of God, who realized what God has done and was honoring that in some way. All right, well, think of that, the fact that he's praying at three in the afternoon, which is one of the timetables of Israel's prayer.

I mean, not nine, twelve and three. That, in a sense, represents kind of a memorial to the Jewish tradition. Alms, I mean, you know, think of the, yeah, Han. So people would convert to Judaism. It's not I kind of thought it was something you were born into. But would he then be a non-Jewish person who converted to Judaism? Does that happen? It does. Yeah. Very likely. I mean, based upon his situation, if he's a Gentile, then he's a proselyte. Generally, those proselytes are considered among the Jewish. If he was circumcised, then he would be in the Jewish religion.

The scripture here doesn't indicate that he was circumcised. No, we don't have any evidence of that. But, again, obviously if he hasn't trusted Christ, there's no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved, and that's Jesus Christ. And so he is not, even as Apollos, who was a devout Jew, who was baptized in the baptism of John, was not saved until they came to him and said, have you been baptized into Christ? And he said, I don't even know about this. And so he then became saved, even though he was a devout follower of God.

And this is evidence of Christ's words, where he says, if you've been given a light, you respond to that light, then I'll give you more light. And so, as far as the memorial aspect of it, the scripture, throughout the scripture, indicates that, obviously in the book of Revelation, I saw the books were opened. There's also the book of life opened. God has books written before him. Also speaks of our tears being held up in a bottle, whether that's a literal bottle or a large one of those, but there's different aspects of God remembering those actions, those deeds which have been done, whether they be good or bad. And here it comes up before God, where God says, I know now, based upon the things that are written before me, that you desire a relationship with me, and so I want to respond to that.

And that's the memorial, I think, in this case, is that this book is being written on Cornelius' life, where God says, you have responded to that which I have presented to you, and I see that you want to have a relationship with me, and so I'm going to now open that way up to you through And same point, teach Peter. So the memorial to some extent reflects Cornelius's ability to take in what he knew and really make that a major part of his life even though he came short of Christ and salvation at this point. So the memorial is to God's truth. that ultimately he has learned up to this point. It's a record of what's happened in his life. There's another verse that I thought might be relevant here. Roger has it in Revelation 8-4. Revelation 8-4.

And the smoke of the incense with the prayers of the saints went up to God out of the angel's hand. So the prayers, this incense, smoke of the incense was really a sign of the faith of the saints or prayer of the saints and that was considered memorial. So in a sense the memorial there related to the acceptance of the truths of the time and only projected to events to follow. So a memorial in a sense is a process of dedication to someone or some event that ultimately brings truth to that event and or that individual.

I think James said it well. It provided a lot of detail about that, but I think it really says the same thing in more words. All right. If Cornelius is unsaved, which I think he must be. He's had a certain amount of truth delivered to him, but he has at this point stopped short of coming to a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ.

Doesn't this experience remind you of Paul's conversion here a little bit? What's similar? In other words, remember Paul. What's similar? What's different? And ultimately the third question, why didn't the Lord bring Peter to Cornelius rather than the opposite? What's similar between what's going on here and Paul's conversion? This is a divine intervention. It didn't come directly to Paul. God came directly to Paul or spoke directly to him.

How about Ananias? Wouldn't he be part of that? So in a sense, ultimately Cornelius, ultimately going to Peter so that Peter will come back to him. In other words, there's an intermediary. In fact, Cornelius was serving as the intermediary perhaps to get Peter to come to him.

I mean, that's really what this is all about. point that illustrates Paul's teaching later on, that as God did beseech you by us, we pray you in Christ's dead be reconciled to God, where we don't see in the scripture, even in Paul's case, we don't see God saying, you know, Paul, you're saved, everything's done, you're baptized, and you're it. But God chooses to use an individual to come. In Paul's case, in his case, there's a divine or an angelic message or messenger, but in each case there is a human instrumentation that is needed. Good. Other thoughts on this? Similar? Different? Well, you know, Ananias was really, was Ananias a safe man?

Cornelius is not a saved man but God is approaching someone to ultimately reach an apostle to get the message delivered. To Paul himself directly which would then be the Gentile church to follow and then Peter ultimately to carry out a task which in fact he was alarmed and surprised that he had to do too. So there are differences or similarities, but it's kind of interesting to see that both of these are kind of, if you will, very special transmissions of information from the Lord down to a person to accomplish a task going forward. Notice the command was to send men, not himself. Why didn't Cornelius get on his horse or get on his shoes and walk down there himself? It's interesting, if you go back to the centurion that approached the Lord Jesus, he took a very similar tact. He used logic that the Lord said it was okay. He said, Lord, I know. He said, I'm a man that commands men.

I tell a person to go here, go there. So this is almost a similar kind of thought. I mean, I was, you know, hey, I'll send my men down. I'll bring them back. And that's just the way I operate. I tell men to do this and that. And they do that. It seems interesting. Take on some responsibility for yourself. OK. Any other thoughts about the journey? Yeah.

Well, it's I mean, it's definitely testing Peter's faith to have to go to the house of the Gentile. I like that. Which would have been. difficult for him. Not that, even that it's a centurion and who it is because they probably know when they go down and he says this guy, this centurion Cornelius wants you to come back. Who the heck is this guy, right? Well, no, I think they know who he is because he's probably a very important. Peter doesn't know who he is. I bet you Peter does know because I bet this guy If he commands all these people and he's a Roman, his name would precede him. It would be like he was an important Roman in the area. This is Margaret's commentary. I don't want to go along with her commentary. Think about it. He sent two servants and a soldier. That's a bunch of hoax.

Peter really had to worry about coming back to meet with this Cornelius guy. But we don't have any evidence whether Peter knew him or not. He may have known him, but I don't know that the scripture indicates that he did. But anyway, that doesn't make any difference.

So I think Roger's point, I mean, Cornelius is used to sending guys out, right? And he's in a position of command. He oversees a hundred soldiers. So presumably it seemed logical and appropriate for him. And the Lord didn't tell him necessarily whether he should go himself or send men. So anyway, the decision is to send men. Let's turn to the second section, Peter's vision in 9-16. The next day as they went on their journey and drew near the city, Peter went up on the housetop to pray about the sixth hour.

Then he became very hungry and wanted to eat, but while they made ready, he fell into a trance, and saw heaven opened, and an object like a great sheep, bound at the four corners, descending to him, and let down to earth. In it were all kinds of four-footed animals of the earth, wild beasts, creeping things, and birds of the air. And a voice came to him, Rise, Peter, kill and eat. But Peter said, Not so, Lord, for I have never eaten anything common or unclean. And a voice spoke to him again the second time, what God has cleansed you must not call common. And this was done three times and the object was taken up into heaven again. The great white sheep.

The men are on their way and around 12 o'clock Peter is up on the flat roof. He is like Margaret slipping off the roof and breaking her ribs. The stairwell to the roof was on the outside of the house typically. You can safely get up there. Peter got hungry and proceeded into a trance. I don't know about you. I like trance better. I questioned whether he was hyperglycemic. He hadn't been eating for a while. His blood sugar was bad. He should have had a glucose test. His glucose test has been 33 or something. That's why he's in a trance.

I've been there and done that by the way. Then he had a vision of clean and unclean animals coming down on a white sheet. What the heck is this anyway? white sheep coming down from heaven with all these animals on it. you know it's similar states like this we don't have to look at these verses of describing 2nd Corinthians 12 and in Revelation I knew a man in Christ about 14 years ago, whether in the body I cannot tell, or whether out of the body I cannot tell, God knoweth, such an one caught up to the third heaven. Okay, good, so something very different, something very experiential, something very unpredicted. I was in the spirit on the Lord's day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like the sound of a trumpet. OK. So that was kind of, again, something coming out of the unexpected and ultimately not well explained by those who participated in that.

Seems like a reasonable vision for a hungry man, doesn't it? Seeing all these animals coming down here that were ultimately made available for a quick snack or maybe lunch. It's 12 noon. So this vision seemed perhaps something like we might be dreaming about ourselves if we're falling into a trance and hungry. So there seems to be a little bit of a reality to this vision, if you will. And he saw heaven opened up, verse 11. Heaven was opened up. This is, you know, like Stephen and Acts. I mean, Jeremy, did you teach that or did Roger? I taught that. Yeah. OK.

So, you know, Stephen saw heaven opened up. I wonder what that looks like. Actually, Paul in the third heaven too, right? I mean, so we've got examples of kind of this. Heaven being opened up. They don't really describe what they saw, although here's, if you will, he's seeing this white sheet full of animals. Is that the heavens? But that's something coming down.

So he presumably experienced something more than the white sheet full of animals. And there are other visions in the book of Acts. We can look at those if we have time, but we're not going to look those up now. But there's visions here and there throughout Acts, and you really don't see too many outside of the book of Acts. What do we make of the sheep being bound at the four corners?

Is it more of a picture? I don't know. It's like these animals are contained by this sheet or held by this sheet. I don't know. I wonder about that too. I wonder if it ever touched the ground. It doesn't say it ever touched the ground. Because it's coming down. It suggests that it's suspended, doesn't it? And the concept here is something coming down and being allowed to come down and being held by something from above.

Other than us. Bound at the corners. So maybe something was holding it. You know, angels or something that he couldn't see. Because it sounds like they were inside the sheet, like you would hold something, you know, inside of it. It was holding those animals. Well, we've got all those animals on there, so presumably the animals aren't just floating around in space, right? They're being suspended by some physical principle.

Well, I think one thing that we're going to see later on is that the fact that there's going to be A mixed group of people. As far as the Jews are concerned, there's clean and unclean animals. Yes. and they're together and that's kind of what the Lord is trying to impress upon him that does not relate that to down the road and we're going to see how that relates to Jew and Gentiles. Yeah, they're very important I think. Okay, let's move on here then. And this was difficult for Peter because these animals were not all kosher. And if you go back to Leviticus 2, you know, 11 through 45, you can see the whole listing of animals that are kosher and those that are not.

So, Pete's got a problem here. I mean, he's got all these beasts, he's hungry as can be, he's got a vision, kind of like a dream, where he's got all this food before him, and he's being told to eat. And who is speaking to Peter here? And the message is repeated three times. Get out your knife and fork, Peter. It's time to partake.

Well, Peter interprets it as his Lord. What did he say? By no means, Lord. So, apparently he believes it's God, I guess. Wait, here's a similarity to Paul in a sense. This is the Lord speaking to him. Okay, this is the Lord God, presumably, right? Or is this the Lord Jesus Christ? I think so. I know it. What's the great term for Lord here? I'm curious.

Which is what? Basically there are three kinds of transmissions of the Heavenly Father to man historically by scripture. One is the Lord Jesus Christ himself, the second is angels, and the third is the Holy Spirit working through the new creations we all are in Christ Jesus. So we've got three mechanisms by which God, the throne, ultimately communicates to man.

This is an important turning point. Let's leave the law behind Peter. In other words, what's the matter with you? Ultimately Christ is dead, risen from the dead, and ultimately you have a whole new set of principles now. It's called grace, and the law no longer has any control. Three times this was repeated to him. Get out your knife and fork, it's okay, you can eat any of these things.

And I'm going to quote Constable here. Constable said, he had either not understood or not remembered Jesus' teaching in which he had declared all foods clean. We can look at that if you wanted in Mark 7, 14-19, although in that section it's not entirely clear that that's what the Lord said to him, but I think you can interpret it that way. Romans 14, 14 for sure, of course that wasn't the direct communication between the Lord Jesus Christ and Peter. But the Mark verse does suggest that he's telling Peter that really all foods are clean. And Peter's quote, no, Lord, is, of course, an inconsistent contradiction. Nevertheless, Peter's response was very consistent with his impulsive personality and former conduct. He had said no to the Lord before in those examples. So Peter's continuing to be laced in law.

I mean he's still overwhelmed by the Jewish tradition and what he grew up to learn and how to act. Yes, James. And I think on top of that more so than even being the law is that this is his culture and this is all that the Israelites have known for hundreds of years was that eating certain things, eating pork and such is a cultural abomination not just a legal issue but it is. but that even the smell of pork, even the smell of bacon in the morning would make somebody...

It reminded me, just here within the last week I read a story and it was on the news regarding obsessive compulsive disorders and such and there was one, and I can't remember the situation, all that stood out to me was that there was one teenage girl that was Jewish that would fear the smell of pork to such extent that she would do just... you know, obsessive washings and cleansings and everything else that she would just, you know, all the food that she ate, she had to check the ingredients list, you know, time and time and time and time again, because for her, pork was so atrocious that she just could not stand, you know, so for a Jew, not just the legal issue, but having been raised in that environment, you think of something, you know, how many people have eaten bugs, you know, whatever, something that's not our culture, you know, that that we would think is atrocious. And so obviously God's lesson here is there's a legal issue that we're making a separation, as you just mentioned, but there's also a cultural issue. And as you go to a different culture, and this I think maybe comes from being in tune with cross-cultural missions, but as you go to a different culture, realize that there are tremendous aspects that will be different to what you're used to. And the gospel transcends culture.

I hang out with a lot of Jews in my profession. We have many good friends that are Jewish. It's the same kind of deal. It's not that they're devout Jews. They take all the holidays. There's no real serious intent. to really look at the scripture and believe it for what it's worth. But there's the cultural touch I think with just Benedict Park. I mean so, that's tradition, culture, it's a good point. Other thoughts? Bob, this is a small point, but do we know that this is the Lord Jesus Christ who is speaking to him? For sure? I'm not sure who is speaking.

Because why up here when it's an angel, he says what is it Lord? And the angel doesn't correct him. He says the same thing. He says, well, you know, he says, what is it? Well, it seems like that the angels talk to Cornelius, right? Yeah. He looks like he's calling him Lord. He says, well, yeah, but I'm just wondering. It's just a small point. I'm not sure. Because usually if they bow before the angel or they'll correct them and say, don't. Yeah, I don't know. OK, good. Can anybody else provide any clarity? I'm not quite sure.

We're going to come to this in a second and just a few minutes in terms of the communications that LeRoy uses to reach people. And so the other thing is in calling someone common should become invalid. So Acts 10, 28, and you've got Acts open. Somebody read verse 28. I think we maybe touched on it. Can I already read this? Yeah, read it again.

And he said unto them, ye know that it is an unlawful thing for a man that is a Jew to keep company or come unto one of another nation. But God hath showed me that I should not call any man common or unclean. Right, so it's a lesson for Peter to learn. And that's really what's a major part of this.

Can you think of ways in which our response to culture or legality continues today? Are we still falling under some sort of a net of tradition? Even in our Bible-based, non-denominational church? You know, we meet on Sundays. Do you want to meet on Saturdays?

Mondays, Tuesdays, you know, it's kind of a convenience. It's an expectation, but it still is. Well, you know, Christ talked about first day of the week, right? And so we kind of assume that Sunday's the first day of the week. But OK, that's maybe somewhat traditional. But in other cultures, their weekend in the Middle Eastern cultures, their weekend is Friday and Saturday, not. And so Sunday is a full workday in those cultures.

So if you're a believer there, then you have to. Yeah, you have to adjust. Right. OK, because that's the way their countries work. I know a pastor that was in a church that was in an area that was gradually becoming a more Hispanic speaking area and the pastor said basically it's time to leave and move to a different area and this is a great summation of the story and the pastor was I mentioned to a Hispanic member of the church saying I don't believe God has called me to minister to Hispanics so I can't remain in this area I want to go to a place where I can minister to other individuals. Here to me it seems and again the entire story is not there but there is an aspect of here is a cultural difference that you see a language difference whatever else it may be but I choose to with what I'm comfortable with rather than God is basically saying we should be in ministry to all members of all cultures and there are things that are different. Peter, I know this is going to do things that are very different from you, but it's your responsibility to go and share with him the message of the gospel.

And so I think that aspect touches us where we Am I willing to go out of my comfort zone to share with somebody else even though they may look different, they may smell different, they may act different, eat different, whatever? Or, as we've just been talking about, are these aspects of my Christianity, so-called, that are more based upon my tradition than anything that we find in Scripture? Wayne? I mean Jeremy?

Well, I think there's a lot of areas where we confuse our culture with God's plan, I guess you could say, where there are certain things that are accepted and taboo, and it's based solely on the culture that we live in. Even, I think, amongst our own body here, we can have a tendency, whether it's music or dress, and well, we can't have that, because God doesn't want to have that.

We're really very cultured here. But I think there's a point. And, you know, Vern talked about when they go to Uganda, most of us would be quite uncomfortable with the way they worship there, you know, because it's they dance, they go on for an hour or two. And it's very rhythmic. And we would be.

And that's ultimately a cultural thing as opposed to a scriptures thing. And I was talking with Brad Mastin about this a few weeks ago that we have a tendency to want to convert people to our culture rather than just relying on the gospel itself. We could go through and pick out so many things, where when it comes down to it, it's not about what God wants for us, it's about this is what our culture has dictated is acceptable and this is not acceptable. Which is fine, because we live in a culture, but we need to understand, like James is saying, The gospel transcends culture. Our emphasis is first and foremost the gospel, but we have to understand how that fits. into a culture. Right, so there's the cultural aspects and then there's the legal aspects.

And Peter was still hung up on the law, right? And what the law indicated that he should do or how he should act based on Jewish tradition. Still God-given, right? There's the important oil and water of law and grace. The law is always correct and righteous. We can't question the law. But the principle of grace is allowing those things that are ultimately in the law, ultimately with a veil now being open, are left behind.

And Peter, that's his struggle. It's not only cultural, but it's also Old Testament scriptural. Even that he was praying at noon, right? And there were certain times, like, okay, now's the time to pray. And here's an interesting thing, Holly, because Cornelius is praying all the time. We know he's not praying all the time, but the context for us as believers is we are told in many places of Scripture to pray always in all things, right?

And how are you doing at that? I mean, the Lord's not making sure we're on our knees 24-7. But I don't know about most of you, you communicate with the Lord constantly, back and forth. So in a sense I think we don't take credit for that, that's the Spirit working in us to communicate with the Lord Jesus Christ.

So you're right, Peter's responding to the Jewish tradition and the law, praying at certain times, Psalms and Daniel, but here's Cornelius already entering into that, which reflects his prayers are really to the Jewish God. The last section here is going to be entitled Peter's response to the vision and men sent by Cornelius. Now while Peter, verse 17, wondered within himself what this vision which he had seen meant, all the men who had been sent from Cornelius had made inquiry for Simon's house, and stood before the gate, and they called and asked whether Simon, whose surname was Peter, was watching there. And while Peter thought about the vision, the Spirit said to him, Behold, three men are seeking you. Arise therefore, go down and go with them, doubting nothing, for I have sent them. Then Peter went down to the men who had been sent to him from Cornelius and said, Yes, I am he whom you seek.

For what reason have you come? And they said, Cornelius the Centurion, a just man, one who fears God, and has a good reputation among all the nations of the Jews, was divinely instructed by a holy angel to summon you to his house and to hear words from you.

All right, so Peter's response of wondering or doubting about the white sheet Basically it was a phenomenon which is in the imperfect tense, the verb is, meaning he continued and repeatedly wondered and doubted. So this just wasn't, oh I wonder where that's coming from, you move on. Here he's dwelling on this, what the heck's going on here? this vision from above. And notice how the Holy Spirit leads. And Donna, here to get to your question here, I think this is where I deal with this. Now, let me wait just a second.

So the timing of the visit related to Peter's ruthless experience, so I call it. So the timing was kind of perfect. And that Peter was to come down and greet the men sent by Cornelius and realize the Lord had brought them to him. In addition, here's the point, to being called by angels of the Lord, verses 3 and 22, and the ascended Lord Jesus Christ, here's verses 4 and 14. So that points to at least this This person's view, I'm not sure which commentary this was, I looked at several different ones. Anyway, these were two different means of the Lord communicating. So the Holy Spirit, the ascended Christ, and angels are documented in these verses to be the method by which God is communicating to Cordelius or to Peter or to anyone else. to us today, presumably, but I think today it's really the Holy Spirit that is the means of communication.

How unexpected this all must have seemed to Peter. Here he's praying on the roof, this white sheet comes down, now you've got guys at the front door. What the heck's going on around here, right? It's interesting how the Lord does, when the men approach, he doesn't just say, well you learned something, you saw this sheet.

He talks to him again. He says, now go down. The Lord knows Peter's heart and knows this is hard. I was kind of curious that he actually told him, arise and go down. Another separate thing on top of the experience with the vision. Now he says, okay, now I want you to go down, and without misgivings.

Right. So in a sense if you're not going to go ahead and take of all these meats that I've given you, clean or unclean, get the heck off the roof and go on down and see these guys. You're welcome. You know, it's interesting, I'm just noticing it. The angel said to Cornelius, he didn't say arise, but he said that to Peter. Get up! All these questions just sitting around. That's a question I wasn't going to ask. Keep in mind these are Gentiles. Who the heck are these guys? These aren't of my tradition or my faith. These are Gentiles. I thought that was Paul's novel, but Peter didn't really know about that yet, did he?

Summoning him into the house of Cornelius and sharing words with him was really the task that was at hand. Presumably these words that Cornelius is ultimately going to be receiving are words of truth or the gospel, correct? The Lord has prepared Cornelius, as James indicated before. His heart has been prepared. He's ready to hear the gospel. And so now the Lord is saying to Peter, you're the guy. And in fact, I've told Cornelius to ask for you. So you're a very specific messenger.

And if you think about our own trip through this world in terms of sharing the gospel, it's very similar. Again, the heart of Cornelius had been prepared. And the question to the class is, is this the way God works today? Is this the way ultimately we reach the unsafe work anyway? Yes.

I'll tell you, when I was first saved and felt that the world needed to know my salvation and had this great desire for the world to be saved, I made so many mistakes just pounding the gospel down people. And I think that was wrong. And I think sometimes we do more damage to the gospel when we do that, that we do benefit. Somebody else might say, a more legalistic person, well, you're planting the seed. No, I think you may be unplanting the seed. in fact the way we go about doing things.

In terms of this thing I'm going through with the American Heart, my faith has been made known to the world now because it has become viral. I was being criticized as how could someone be scientifically accurate who believes in creation. This has gone all over the world. The American Heart Association is getting dinged because of this. I'm getting personally assaulted by this repeatedly. and by one person actually is the source of this blog. But all that aside, in a sense there may be a couple of people's hearts who are open doors that have been cracked and in some ways the Lord is going to use this to reach out to them with someone else coming by with the truth.

I think we really underestimate the working of the Holy Spirit. God tells us over and over and over, it is the Holy Spirit. We can say anything we want, pro-gospel, con-gospel. We can, you know, shove it down people's throats or whatever, but unless the Holy Spirit is working in their heart, it means nothing. And so I think we tend to think, oh, well, it's up to us. Well, if I don't tell them, well, if I don't tell them. But the Holy Spirit, and if you are listening to the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit will guide you.

And the neat thing there is, I think, We're in a position to be able to, in fact, I think what I'm going to end with in a second, we can go there now. Let me come back to this question. My verse for the day to take homage is to sanctify the Lord God in your hearts and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asks you a reason for the hope that's in you would make you sincere. That's a verse that I've really seeded down deep.

Notice they're asking you. We all have credibility in our own space, don't we? I mean you don't take credit for that, you give it to the Lord, but I mean Wayne and Roger and Bonnie, we all hang out with different people under different circumstances and that credibility, our friends, the people who we interact with, Ultimately, they sometimes want to know more. When I'm accepted among physician scientists and what I do in my work, ultimately, if they'll hear something about that I'm a believer, they're asking more about that.

And boy, that's when the door gets not only cracked, but wide open. And of course, the spirit leads in sharing the Lord. But yeah, Jeremy, go ahead. I think that verse is important. And I think our, not our goal, but our understanding is, if we're walking in the spirit, we're going to give people a reason to ask us of the hope, and then we're ready.

And that's going to work itself out in many different ways, but ultimately it's going to be through our daily walking. And I think particularly in our culture, we need to understand this by developing relationships so that I mean, walking down the street, people are not necessarily going to know, oh, that person, there's something different about him. But if we're in close contact with people, if our focus is on beholding Christ and walking by faith, there is going to be reason for people to ask us, well, what is different about you?

And then we're there, we're ready to give the answer. I mean, hopefully is going to work itself out in a lot of ways. But I think that that is key is understanding, like, like Joyce said, it's the. It's even the spirit in us that's going to provoke other people to ask for the reason in us. But God's in the business of preparing hearts at least to some extent, right?

Yeah, absolutely. So that's perfectly exemplified in this particular passage. Cornelius' heart was as prepared as any heart could have ever been. Here's a Gentile, if you will, who's carrying out the Jewish tradition probably better than 99% of the Jews, right? His heart's being prepared that there is a God. He's crying daily. He's a devout, pious man.

And yet the Lord's calling Peter to come by his side to make the truth. Now, of course, Peter stumbles a bit along the way because he's still wrapped up in four foot of animals. And you know what, too? I think that just the stuff that I've heard since becoming a Christian and people's stories, God also takes those nasty, nasty, nasty and turns him around.

It doesn't look like there was any preparation. Like I remember hearing this one preacher said that he was going in to kill his wife and children. And on TV was a preacher and it was like that he heard it. So it was like the Holy Spirit gave him that at that moment without preparation.

You know, I think I can work all different ways, however you want. Yeah. Jeremy, this is kind of. off that topic, but it's interesting. We talked about Cornelius, and I think I ran across this when I was studying about Ethiopian eunuch. There was proselytize. Those were people that had fully committed to the Jewish religion. They had become circumcised. But people that had not taken that final step were known as One commentary said, God fears. And I think that's why when it says, Cornelius is a God-fearing man, that's specifically what he's talking about.

But what I find is interesting is he wasn't a proselytize based on what they said. I think we can assume he had not become circumcised. And I think that's interesting that God chose this man to be the one that is kind of where the gospel is given to the Gentiles. Would it have been different if he was a full proselytite, if he had been circumcised? Would that have made it more difficult down the road for the Jewish people to give up their legalism?

I think it is significant, the fact that they specifically refer to him as a God-fearer, which implies this stuff. And that's going to be interesting to see later on. I know we need to close, but I want to ask the class one final question. How important do you think it was for these men, by the way, what's going through the minds of these men, if you will, the catalyst of this whole event? Was it necessary for them to tell Peter about Cornelius, the details that are used to describe Cornelius and what a godly man he was? How important was that? Do you think that needed to be given to Peter for him to make the trip?

You can't speculate. Being less afraid of going, like maybe Margaret was saying, like maybe his name was out there, but it was like, just so you know, he's a God-fearing man and he is being prepared and it's not going to be a battle. Yeah, that's kind of what I take from that too. That his name, it wasn't just that he was a centurion. There were 600. He was over a man. So he had a big influence in the area. And even though that was a distance from where Peter was, I think Peter knew the name Cornelius. And maybe he initially would have thought, if they hadn't said that, that he was in some trouble, that he was going to be in some way punished or something.

Well, let me give you just a quick ending example. I mean, Meredith Hawkins in New York and Shreya Golden, African-American woman in Baltimore, both know the Lord very well. We're both physician-scientists and we kind of hang out and sometimes get together and pray at meetings. so if Sharita would say to me Bob I heard somebody in Denver is kind of interested a little bit about your faith or something that would mean a lot more to me than not knowing that because that person that if he or she crossed my path I might be prepared to look at the door being more widely open. So I think that it was important for these messengers to let Peter know what kind of man that he was asked to go see.

So we'll let that set the stage for Jeremy's continuing of the story next week. Jeremy, could you close this in front of us, please? Father, we thank you so much for your word and the truth that's in it. We thank you for the grace that we have. We know we have the privilege of displaying your name to the world, but we know that ultimately it's your spirit and that the salvation of souls is not up to us saying the right word or handing out the right track, Lord, that we can rely on you in our evangelistic efforts, Lord, and just help us continue to trust in you and may we be able to be focused on you so that other people have reason to ask us of the hope that lies within us. We pray this on your name. Amen.