Do you remembering learning a specific truth that was very hard to adapt to?

Acts 10

In the Book of Matthew is recorded the great commission, “Go into all the world and preach the Gospel.” And they were to start where they were in Jerusalem and then go to Judea and Samaria. Then go to the Gentiles. And, initially, the church was Jewish. Those who came to Christ at first in Jerusalem, obviously, were Jews; and it was a great stretching of them to be able to reach Samaritans, whom they despised; and it would even be a greater step to reach Gentiles, whom, if they despised Samaritans, they doubly despised; and so as we come to chapter 10 of Acts, we find that most monumental account in the record of the Word of God which tells us how God began to open the church to the Gentiles; and He did it through Jewish vehicles, which is a great, great truth.

The key to these days in the early church is Peter. The church had been founded on the Day of Pentecost. It had exploded in Jerusalem, and then it exploded all throughout Judea and Samaria, and people were being saved everywhere along the way. Great revivals were breaking out, particularly in Samaria under the ministry of Philip and, as well, Peter and John and the other apostles. Peter was moving around. He was the preacher to the unsaved. He was also the teacher to the saints. He was the dominant figure in the early church, and he was available to God, and he moved about from place to place.

So Peter is this most dominant individual. He is God’s catalyst in the explosion of the church. Peter had a very special commission. More than just his general ministry and general availability, he had a very specific calling. For in the Gospel of Matthew, our Lord Christ had said to him, “I give unto you the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven.” And what He meant by that is that, “Peter, you will be the guy who will unlock the next door in the expansion of the church. You’re the one who is the point of contact between the Spirit of God and the church.”

And, on the Day of Pentecost, you remember, he was in Jerusalem; and the church began there, and it was he who preached, and it was he who they … who was there when the Spirit came. It was he who was there when they were baptized and added to the body. And then the Gospel went to Samaria as they were scattered under the persecution led by Saul of Tarsus; and as they went into Samaria, they began to preach, and people were saved. But they had not yet been added to the body by the baptizing work of the Spirit until Peter and John arrived, and Peter laid his hands on them, and they received the Spirit. And, again, Peter was the point of contact for the opening of the church to the half-breed Samaritans.

There’s one key left in Peter’s hand that hasn’t yet been put in a door and turned, and that’s the key that opens the church to include the Gentiles. And so Peter is about to unlock that last door, and that’s going to be a tough key for Peter to turn, because he has been raised a whole
lifetime engrained with Jewish traditions, engrained with legalism, and super-nationalism. And it’s an almost intolerant kind of engraining, so that there isn’t any room for Samaritans, and there isn’t any room for Gentiles, who were considered to be unclean.

Already the Spirit of God has begun to do some preparation. Peter has accepted the Samaritans, and that’s a monumental step for him.

Another tradition that was breaking down is apparent because he stayed, it says in verse 9:43, in the house of Simon, the tanner; and a tanner was a despised trade to a Jew, because he dealt with the flesh of dead animals; and no self-respecting Jew would have anything to do with such a man. But Peter stayed in his house maybe as a long as a couple of years and, consequently, he shows that his prejudices are being melted down by our Lord. But there’s a still a tough, tough barrier to knock over, and that’s the barrier between the Jew and the Gentile, but it has to come, because, you see, in the new covenant, the design of God is to take of two and make, as Paul says, “one new man.” And this is Paul’s great message when he defines the church in Ephesians 2;11. “Wherefore, remember that ye, being in time past Gentiles in the flesh,” and then he goes on to discuss what that means. “You were without Christ, aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.” He says, “You were a mess. You were cut off from everything God was involved in.”

And he says in verse 13 of Ephesians 2, “But now in Christ Jesus, ye who once were far off are made near. You who were separated are brought together in Christ. In 3, he says, “This is the mystery, that the Jews and the Gentiles would be one body.” Well, this was just a difficult thing for the Jew to understand. Extremely hard, after centuries and centuries of exclusiveness, and especially from the Gentiles, to be then thrown together as equals like Paul says in Galatians 3:28, “From now on there’s neither bond nor free, male nor female, Jew or Gentile. You’re all one in Christ.” That’s a whole new concept for the Jew.

A strict Jew wouldn’t have anything to do with a Gentile. In fact, a strict Jew wouldn’t even be the guest in a Gentile’s house, dust or the dirt from a Gentile country was defiled and, if anybody happened to have some Gentile country dirt on their feet and tracked it into Israel, it remained defiled. It never mingled with Israel soil. It just stayed there continuously defiling the land. Consequently, whenever they left the Gentile country, they would always do what became a very famous phrase in the Bible. They would always shake off the dust off their feet so as not to track any Gentile pollution back into Israel

Now, the Gentiles retaliated. They had their own thing going, too, believe me. The Jews were a … were a scorn to them.. The circumcision, the Sabbath day rest, the worship of an invisible God, the … the abstinence from certain foods, the dietary laws and all of the things the Jews went through, that was a mockery … a point of mockery for the Gentile. So for centuries, they had been butting heads, you see; and all of a sudden, Christ came along and said, “Now, I’m going to take Jews and Gentile. I’m going to make one new man.” And, in theory, it was great;
and in theology, it was great; and by His power He could do it; but it was a tough thing for the Jew to swallow and to practically really make it happen. And Peter, even though he got going here in chapter 10, had a few relapses in his life …

Gentiles being brought into the church.

God prepares two people. First He prepares the Gentile, and then He prepares the Jew.

The Gentile is Cornelius, and the Jew is Peter. It has to start somewhere, so it starts with two guys.

By the time you hit chapter 11, the Gospel’s gone to Antioch and Gentiles are getting saved. By the time you come from there and you start moving ahead, you hit chapter 13, and all of a sudden Paul’s going full blast to the Gentiles, and the problem is … is moving out, and it’s becoming sublimated. The thing is really going, and Jews and Gentiles are coming together in Christ. Peter runs back to Jerusalem. Says, “You’ll never believe it. People, you’ll never believe it. They got the same gift we got.” See. And then the report comes, and the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15, which finally comes to the conclusion that they will accept them fully as those who belong to Jesus Christ. So it all begins here in chapter 10, and I’m glad it did, aren’t you? I’m a Gentile … so this is a great chapter. I love this one.

The vision of Cornelius

As we watch what God does with these two, we see principles of what God does with everybody in this situation,

It says in verse 1, “There was a certain man in Caesarea called Cornelius.”—Cornelius is the guy who’s going hear about Christ and get saved. He’s going to be the Gentile convert.

God initially does the choosing of the receiver. That’s His plan, but that is never against the volition or the will of the one chosen; and here you have added to the sovereignty of God and predestination an election, the choice of man. The two go together in Scripture. They just don’t go together in my brain or in yours, and I just let it not go together and say, “That means God is smarter than me, and that’s the way I want it.”

Cornelius lived in a place called Caesarea, Caesarea was the place, and it was a … it was a military garrison, because it was there at Caesarea that the home of Pilate existed, or any other procurator for that matter of Palestine, because the Roman government had their headquarters there. There were soldiers there. It was a military outpost, and also it was populated dominantly by Gentiles with only a minimum of Jewish populace. It was about 30 miles north of Joppa,

The man also had a mind to know God, that he was a seeking heart, that he had lived up to the light that he had, and so God moved in to give him more light, and here you have volition brought into sovereignty. Look at verse 2. “Cornelius was a devout man and one that feared God with all his house, who gave much alms to the people and prayed to God always.”

God responds to the willing heart. God responds to the open heart. Election never violates volition or choice. They always go together. But Cornelius was sovereignly chosen by God, but he also had a searching heart. God reached down and gave him, really, the disposition to turn and seek God, even when he was dead in trespasses and sins.

If an individual lives up to the light that he has, God will give him more light. Romans 1. Here’s Cornelius. He’s a devout man. He fears God. Here is a man who, in his own heart, in his own mind, has come to the understanding of the true God. He’d have certain amount of light, and he’s living to the full capacity of that light, and God moves in and really shows him the full light, the light of the world, Jesus Christ.

I do not believe that God ever, under any circumstances, will hinder the truth from somebody who wants to know it. I don’t care where he lives. In John 7:17, Jesus said, “If any man wills to do His will, he shall know of the doctrine.” If anybody really wants to do what God wants him to do, God will give him sufficient light to be able to fulfill what God desires and demands. In Jeremiah 29:13, it simply says, “If you seek Me with all your heart, you shall surely find Me
Matthew 7:7 Everyone that seeketh, he shall find. For everyone that knocks, it shall be open to him.” God never restricts His full light from the one who seeks it, so don’t ever worry about the heathen. God is just, too just to ever make a mistake. He is loving, too loving to ever be unnecessarily judgmental. God always gives the light to the one who lives up to the light that he has.
A devout man. That means he was pious, and he was religious. Honestly religious, and he feared God.

There were three kinds of Gentiles in the mind of a Jew.

One kind was just the plain, old, run-of-the-mill Gentile.

A second kind was a God-fearer. This was a Gentile who had been sick of his own religion, the immoralities and the idolatries of his own faith, and he was sick of the whole polytheistic thing, and he had come to the conclusion in his mind that the God of Israel was the true God. He actually began to pray to that God. He perhaps become involved in the worship in certain synagogues or temple, or the temple itself. Much like, you remember, the eunuch, chapter 8, whom Philip met. But he was … he was involved in the Jewish ethic. He believed in the ethics of the Old Testament, but he had never been circumcised. He was not then a full proselyte. He was what they called a God-fearer.

The third kind of Gentile would be the proselyte who had come all the way to Judaism, actually gone through the act of circumcision, and fully identified himself with Israel and was considered to be a Jew in a spiritual sense. Now you have all three. Well, Cornelius is the guy in the middle.

He’s the God-fearer. He is not a full Jew, so he is to be considered a Gentile … but he did fear God. He was sick of the immorality and the emptiness of his own religion.

Here’s a picture of a man who is a very religious man. You can be a very religious man and not be saved. In 11:14, 11:14, says, “Who shall tell thee words by which thou and all thy house … here comes three words … shall be saved.” See, he was not saved. He was not a Christian.

It’s an interesting thing to see there are many religious people, active in many religious activities, who are not saved. Cornelius’ religion was very honest, and he was seeking the true God with a true heart, and God always honors that.

“He saw in a vision evidently, about the ninth hour of the day,” which would be 3:00 in the afternoon, which was the normal time for the evening prayers for the Jews, and since he was a God-fearer, he may have followed that custom and spent that 3:00 time praying; and, at that time, he saw a vision. “An angel of God coming in to him, saying unto him, ‘Cornelius.’ ”

Verse 5, “And now … says the angel … send men to Joppa and call for one Simon, whose surname is Peter.” Now, he says, “You go to Joppa.” God gives the receiver the opportunity to respond actively. Now God could’ve said through this angel, “

You see, God always wants to tie with faith an act of obedience, because that’s what the Christian life is all about.

God wants some kind of act of obedience tied in with that salvation. So He gives to Cornelius the opportunity to be obedient;

God wanted Peter also to act on faith, because Peter was going to have to pack up and head for Cornelius’ house strictly on faith. I mean to have a bunch of Roman soldiers arrive at his door and say, “Come on, we’re taking you to a man who wants to see ya.” That’s a little scary.

In order to break the barriers down, that the Lord wanted Peter to lead Cornelius to Christ in Cornelius’ own house, which no Jew would ever enter, and so God had the plan laid out, and Cornelius didn’t hassle God. He believed and obeyed. He says, “Just send some men,” and so He says, “Now send men to Joppa, call for Simon, whose name is Peter. He lodges with Simon, a tanner.” So He makes a distinction, so he could find out which one, “whose house is by the seaside.” Tanners had their house by the seaside, because they needed the salt water for the tanning processes. “He shall tell thee what thou oughtest to do.”

Peter’s Vision

Verse 9, Peter went up upon the housetop to pray about the sixth hour.” That’s noon.

God had a lotta work to do on Pete, he began his career as a very sincere bigot, and God had to sort of tear him down, piece by piece by piece;

God is in the business, not only of choosing the receivers, but He’s also in the business of choosing the messengers. verse 10 says, “And he became hungry.” Now, Cornelius was fasting at this time, verse 30 says, He could not really comprehend sensually what was going on; and,
at that point, God invaded his consciousness with a vision. And it’s interesting how that it’s … it’s a vision of involving eating, so God accompanied it to his hunger.

Verse 11, here it comes, this is interesting. “And in his vision, he saw heaven opened. He looks up and there’s heaven. He sees it open, and a vessel descending unto him as it had been a great sheet knit at the four corners and let down to the earth.” Here comes a big sheet.

Verse 12 is even more interesting. “In which were all manner of four-footed beasts of the earth, and wild beasts and creeping things and fowls of the air.” Now, it’s full of all conglomeration of animals, this big tarp that he sees in his vision. Now, the animals in this thing, and here’s the key point that you must get, the animals in it were clean and unclean. Back in Leviticus 11, God laid down some absolutes in terms of the diet of Israel.

verse 13 “And there came a voice to him, ‘Rise, Peter; kill and eat.’ But Peter said, ‘Not so, Lord.’ ” You remember when the Lord was on earth, Peter made a career out of rebuking Him, and now he’s no different. He says, “Not so, Lord … he says … now I have never done that. I have never eaten anything unclean.” He was zealous for the standards that God had set up. He had never touched anything common. The word common means defiled.

Well, that’s a hard message to get, so verse 16 says that He told him three times. He is abolishing, the Old Testament Jewish dietary laws. Why? They were designed to separate the Jew from the Gentile. What is the body of Christ designed to do? Unite them. Paul dealt with in Romans 14. That’s the whole reason Roman 14 is written, because the Gentiles were abusing their privileges. They’d have Jewish converts over and serve ham.

Paul says, “Now, you don’t need to do that. Sure, you’re free, and there’s nothing unclean, but you don’t need to do that, because that’s purposely offending that Jew who doesn’t yet understand his liberties. ”But he also says to the Jew, “Don’t you try to make the Gentile conform to dietary laws that God has set aside.”

Just to show you that this is exactly what our Lord meant, Mark 7:14 records the words of Jesus. He called the people together and said, ‘Hearken unto Me, every one of you, and understand. There is nothing from outside of a man that entering into him can defile him.”

But He says, “The thing I’m concerned about is what’s on the inside spiritually.” Verse 21, “Evil thoughts, murder, fornication, adultery, theft, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, evil eye, blasphemy, pride, all these evil things come from within and defile the man.” Jesus is simply saying, “I’m not concerned anymore about what you’re putting in your mouth. I’m concerned about what’s coming out of it.” It’s a whole new thing.

In Peter’s vision, the Jew is represented by the clean animal. The Gentile by the unclean. He’s saying, “Jew and Gentile are going to be mixed in the church.” The tarp or the sheet is the church. The church was born in heaven, in The mind of God. The church came down to earth. It includes Jew and Gentile, and the significant part of the vision is that it says, “And the sheet, when it was finished, was received up into heaven.

verse 17 says that Peter acts. Peter had his vision, the thoughts were there. Before he could wake up, bang on the door, there the guys were.

Well, verse 19, “While Peter thought on the vision, the Spirit said unto him, ‘Behold, three men are knocking.

Peter makes this point at the end of his sermon in 10:43 He brings the message to a close with these words: “To him, to Christ, all the prophets bear witness that every one who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.”

Forgiveness of sins is salvation. No one is saved whose sins against God are not forgiven by God. And Peter says that forgiveness comes through believing in Christ, and it comes through the name of Christ.

He does not say, “I am here to announce to you that those of you who fear God and do right are already forgiven.” He says, “I am here so that you may hear the gospel and receive forgiveness in the name of Christ by believing in him.” So again it is very unlikely that verse 35 means that Cornelius and his household were already forgiven for their sins before they heard the message of Christ.

Everyone must understand the gospel, and commit to it, in order to have real salvation. Cornelius believed in what he knew, but he did not have enough, the specifics, concerning Jesus and the price He had paid for sin.

We as Christians, are to be the Peter, one who goes and shares the truth, the specifics of God’s Word, so that people might be saved.