“And He ordered us to preach to the people, and solemnly to testify that this is the One who has been appointed by God as Judge of the living and the dead. 43 “Of Him all the prophets bear witness that through His name everyone who believes in Him receives forgiveness of sins.”
“But now in Christ Jesus you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. 14 For He Himself is our peace, who made both groups into one and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall,” Eph 2:13-14
There is something about the tenth chapter of Acts, that whenever I have turned to any part of it – whether reading from the beginning or landing on some portion in the middle of this chapter – it grabs me every time.
There is so much here to absorb that it just engulfs me with its fullness and richness.
Here we have this amazing cast of characters. The chapter begins introducing this noble Centurion, Cornelius. He is commander over the Italian cohort, meaning he has about 600 men in his command and at his disposal. A Roman soldier and without doubt a loyal patriot of Rome, he at some point has become a God-fearer.
Now this is not just a general term to describe someone who believes in and respects God.
To the Jewish nation a God-fearer was a Gentile who had declared faith in the God of the Jews and expressed a desire to learn Moses and the Prophets and to live by them.
These people had a place to worship set aside for them in the outer court of the Temple. It was called a place of prayer for the nations (Isaiah 56:7), and it was in this court where Jesus found the money changers and sellers of sacrificial animals. This was what made Him angry and it is why He drove them out. They had deprived God-fearing Gentiles of their place to worship and had turned it into a marketplace.
So Cornelius was a God-fearing Gentile who, in sharp contrast to the Pharisees who cheated the poor and deprived the aging and burdened the downtrodden with ever greater weights of legalism, was described as a devout man who gave many alms to the Jewish people and prayed to God continually.
Next we have Peter the Apostle who is enjoying the generous hospitality of a man named Simon, who has a house by the sea. And we can get this picture of Peter, enjoying the cool, scented breezes coming off the Mediterranean, going to a quiet spot up on Simon’s roof, which would have been that culture’s version of our backyard patio, with chairs, small tables, awnings for shade and a great view of the city on one side and the sea on the other.
Peter has come to this peaceful place to pray while he waits for the announcement that lunch is ready, and he falls into a trance and receives a sort of educational video from God. We’ll talk about that.
And in this amazing account we have angels, faithful servants of the Centurion, Cornelius’ extended family, partners of Peter who are Jews who have also believed in Jesus the risen Lord…
… this chapter has visions and people learning very important lessons… in fact it is a chapter of awakenings! I want us to do what we can to absorb as much of this as possible.
But the main thing I think we need to be certain does not escape our notice, with all of this great scenery and amazing people and surprising events, is that what we really have before us today is a story of God working out all the details as the Master choreographer, from beginning to end orchestrating every part of the account, bringing each person, each circumstance into line so that what works out in the end can be likened to a perfectly conceived and perfectly executed dance – and in the end the very Choreographer Himself is found center stage.
I want to follow an outline that will demonstrate God’s sovereign design in the entire matter, and as we go we’ll also make some observations about these various people and how so many lives were altered significantly and forever all in this one day in history, that marked the launching of the ministry of the Gospel to the Gentiles in the undeniable plan and blessing of God.
PLOWING – Preparing the heart
In Matthew 13 Jesus told the parable of the sower with which most of us should be very familiar, and then in 1 Corinthians 3 Paul draws upon the analogy of the natural process of planting, growing and harvesting to make the point to his readers that while men work, God brings the increase.
Perhaps nowhere else in scripture are the spiritual truths being taught in those passages made more poignant than here in our text chapter.
Because as I mentioned, while Luke is saying, ‘here is this man Cornelius and here is what he was doing, and here is this man Peter and here is what he was doing’, all of it is God-orchestrated from beginning to end, and we see that it is He who plows and prepares the heart to receive the seed, it is He who sends Peter to water, then with absolutely no help from the preacher or the hearer, God brings to Himself the harvest, for His purpose and His glory.
And of course as in all the work that God has done, the creature benefits eternally.
There were two hearts in particular that God had to prepare for the work He was to do here. We can say generally that He was working in the hearts of everyone involved of course. There is a story in the case of every individual; Simon, the servants of Cornelius, the devoted soldier, the gathered family members, the on-looking believers of the circumcision mentioned in verse 45 – and maybe we should not hurry past this point.
Any story, of necessity, must focus on main characters, always, or become so bogged down with detail that no real point is made or noted. But let’s not miss the truth here that pertains to the life of all the rest of us who are not the main characters, not famous, not at the front of the line, not the center of the stage, that God has a use and a purpose for all who are His, and every small role that is played completes a step or even a part of a step in the process of the whole.
There is the main story: A God-fearing Centurion with influence, with prominence. A chief Apostle with a message the Holy Spirit will use to bring life.
Then there are all the behind the scenes people who comprise the mortar of the story, if you will – the servants who were faithful to go, the devoted soldier who went along to protect them and see them safely to their goal and back; the man, Simon, who opened his home to this now itinerant preacher, feeding him and giving him a place to pray and to rest; the family members who came together at the beckoning of their leader and patriarch. The witnessing Jewish believers, some of whom at least probably went on later to recount this story as convincing proof that God had opened the way of salvation to all peoples.
Here is my point for you. If you are a believer in Christ and you have His Spirit in you, you have no idea from one day to the next and in many cases one hour to the next, what small thing He has led you to, brought into your life to deal with, moment of inspiration He has placed in your heart, that is some small step or even half step in a larger thing He is doing that He has not yet revealed to you – in fact, that you may not realize this side of eternity.
Friends, God is the perfect Employer. Whatever task He has set you to, whatever He has accomplished through any small act of yours, you can rest assured that your work in and for Him has not gone unnoticed or unappreciated. You have no idea now what small thing today has earned you a crown tomorrow. All he calls for is faithfulness and willingness from you, and He will use jars of clay to preserve eternal treasures beyond our imagination.
Having that said, we look at these two main characters and we can see God working in the background, because what we see in them is the result of what has gone on previously in their hearts and lives.
This Centurion is not a new convert to the truth of God. He is described as devout. By definition it takes time to demonstrate devotion. If you’ve just met someone at the store or at the airport or some other public place, you don’t turn five minutes later and introduce that person to someone else as a ‘devoted friend’.
Devotion is a characteristic that is both developed and proven over time. It is also a characteristic that must be proven at every opportunity – every time a choice has to be made. How often in history has a servant or a mate or a friend of years made a poor choice, a bad decision that has betrayed devotion and smashed relationships beyond reclamation? I wonder how long Demas was considered a devoted partner in ministry with Paul before he turned away to go after the world and the things of the world?
How many marriages last for years and suddenly break because one or the other member of the couple proves unfaithful?
We can never let our guard down against the flesh, believers in Christ. While we walk this sod the siren call of worldly comfort and pleasure will always be in the background trying to draw us away from devotion to Christ and eternity; always beckoning and promising some satisfaction now that will at times seem preferable to waiting for that which is not seen.
Devotion does not come on a certificate. It is a point of character, the life and reputation of which hangs in the balance of every dawn and every decision. Cling to it and keep your focus ever Christ-centered.
The Centurion feared God with all his house. That means that under his influence as the head of household, all in his house had adopted faith in the one true God and feared Him.
How often have we witnessed a situation where the wife or one or two of the children in a house have become believers, yet the home remains their worst field of conflict and persecution; where in another house where the father has come to salvation in Christ the entire family eventually follows?
It’s not a rule and it’s not a guarantee, but it is not uncommon nevertheless. And in that ancient culture it was simply understood that when the head of a house adopted a new religion the entire household came under the tenants of that religion.
He gave many alms to the Jewish people and prayed continually. What does this say? It says to me that this was a man whose heart had so come under the control and influence of God that Godliness shown from him like light through the globe of a lamp that cannot contain the glow within but radiates outward giving light to all around.
This was a prepared heart. God had long-since plowed the fallow ground and prepared this man to receive Grace, and the time had come for God to launch His Gospel out to the Gentile world beginning with someone already established like a lighthouse waiting for the fire.
Then there was Peter. We know much about Peter and the preparation of his heart, don’t we?
But there was still one major alteration that had to be made, and we can’t justly criticize Peter, because this lesson, which Scripture evidence bears out was one Peter learned slowly, was a lesson that went against everything he had ever been taught in the teachings of the Rabbis, the traditions of the elders – an attitude that saturated the very culture he lived in.
He had to learn that God was no respecter of persons, and that the Gentiles were included in the outpouring of Grace.
Wouldn’t it be nice if every time we learned something it just stuck and did its work and changed us for good, and we just got better and better every day because every day we absorbed something permanently and went on to build upon what we learned?
It doesn’t happen that way, does it? I know there have been lessons I learned early on as a believer in Christ, and for a while the things I learned made a change in me and I blessed God for the change; but over time I forgot and let those lessons lay by the side of the road and I slowly slid back into behaviors that were according to my old nature. Then I caught myself saying certain things or reacting in certain ways and I was ashamed because I had learned that lesson and should have known better – should have been better.
We can never let our guard down, Christ-followers, and assume that because we’ve been a believer for a long time or because we’ve learned a lot of the Bible or heard many great sermons [insert smile here, right?], that we are always on the right track, always responding appropriately to people and circumstances, always making the right choices based upon right thinking.
Paul talks in Galatians 2:11-14 about having to confront Peter concerning his hypocrisy, in acting differently toward the Gentiles when the Jews came into the room than he had in their absence, and that incident happened some time after this one recorded in Acts 10 and 11, where it is Peter himself who opens his sermon announcing that God is not one to show partiality, and in chapter 11 defends the position that the way of salvation is opened to the Gentiles also.
Listen. The hardest habits to break are the bad ones, and the most difficult prejudices to overcome are the practiced ones.
But let’s look at God’s teaching method here in Acts 10. He uses both audio and visual media because He knows He has before Him a tough nut to crack.
First He gets Peter’s attention by putting him in a trance. That was a clever way to keep Peter from gazing out at the sea and slipping into daydreaming, huh? If he’s in a trance he is no longer aware of his immediate surroundings – at least, that’s the way I envision a trance. I wonder how many teachers wish they had the power to do that in their classroom each day?
I remember when all six of our kids were with us for the Summer and the oldest was eleven. One afternoon they were all in front of the television when I wanted to say something to them as a group.
I tried several times; the third time in a very loud voice. But they were in a trance. Not one of them was aware of anything but the image on the screen before them.
I finally stepped between the group and the tube, turned it off and looked at them, and it was amazing to see in each and every one, the sudden realization that what they had been watching was gone and I stood in its place. They were dumbfounded. It was as though I had beamed in like on Star Trek.
Peter was in a trance. God had his undivided attention. Then He brought on the visual; and what a visual it was! A great sheet came down from the sky, lowered by its four corners, and as it came down and opened up Peter saw all kinds of animals, and crawling creatures and even birds.
I wonder what Peter’s initial thoughts were? “Leapin’ Lizards!” Y’think? We can’t know, of course, but what a strange sight! Does God have his attention now? You bet.
So He brings on the audio. “Arise, Peter, kill and eat!”
This next part should amaze us just a little. Of all the things Peter could have said: “Oh, thanks, Lord, but someone’s bringing me a sandwich in just a few minutes.” “Kill and eat? I have no means to cook up here on the roof, and no weapon with which to kill!”
No, what comes to mind immediately is that these are all creatures considered unclean according to Mosaic law and perhaps some by tradition.
So, forgetting that it is the Creator of all telling him to partake, Peter corrects the Lord’s doctrine. “By no means, Lord; for I have never eaten anything unholy and unclean”.
Hadn’t he heard Jesus teach that it is not what goes into the stomach that defiles the man, but what proceeds from his heart? Mark 7
“What God has cleansed, no longer consider unholy.”
Slow learner, huh? Go easy on Peter now… what thing does each of us have so deeply ingrained in our thinking that we are unable to see the disparity between what we would teach as truth and what actually emanates from our life?
God brings on the trance, the visual, the audio, and has to do it three times, and verse 17 says,
“Now while Peter was greatly perplexed in mind as to what the vision which he had seen might be…” He still wasn’t getting it! But it was too late to sit and ponder any longer, because the three men from Cornelius show up at the house at that moment…
…is God choreographing it all? Yes, He is…
The Spirit said to him, “Behold, three men are looking for you. But arise, go downstairs and accompany them without misgivings, for I have sent them Myself”. And Peter was about to get part two of this lesson in a field trip!
Is God the Divine Teacher? And isn’t God wonderfully patient with us? He might have sent any one of the other Apostles or even a lay member of the church who had already ‘gotten it’, and accomplished His purpose.
But Peter, it seems, is the most dense concerning this ‘dividing wall’ thing between Jew and Gentile, and he needs a heart-change, so God chooses Him.
How many missionaries, who were sent to teach some people indigenous to the foreign land they’ve traveled to, have come back and recounted lesson after lesson that they themselves learned about God and their own relationship to Him through the experience?
SOWING – Drawing and Confirming
Next we see God seeding these prepared hearts for what He wants to grow out of this seminar He is setting up.
Look once more at verses 3-6 of Acts 10.
“About the ninth hour of the day he clearly saw in a vision an angel of God who had just come in and said to him, “Cornelius!” 4 And fixing his gaze on him and being much alarmed, he said, “What is it, Lord?” And he said to him, “Your prayers and alms have ascended as a memorial before God. 5 “Now dispatch some men to Joppa and send for a man named Simon, who is also called Peter; 6 he is staying with a tanner named Simon, whose house is by the sea.”
Before moving on could I just say something here about the reaction of Cornelius to this vision?
It says he was much alarmed. The word for alarmed means ‘afraid’, ‘terrified’. The transliteration from the Greek is ‘emphobos’. Does that have a familiar tone to it? Emphobos? Phobia? Because it is the word from which we get the English, ‘phobia’.
He had an immediate, inexplicable, petrifying fear of what he was seeing. He was alarmed! And any place in Scripture where we are told about an angelic visit we find the person being visited reacting with alarm, falling down as dead, or tempted to worship.
So when I hear some so-called preacher boasting about how he was visited by an angel or had a vision of the Lord, and he sounds like his reaction was very spiritual and he just said, “Yes, Lord, what would you have me do?” or to the angel “Tell me the message the Lord has for me”, or some such tripe, I have to wonder what it was they saw if they saw anything at all.
Christians, we can only imagine, and probably not very well, what glorious splendor must accompany the presence of one of God’s holy angels. They are winds of fire! They are shining, majestic things, only one of which could destroy the world if instructed by God! Let’s be very careful not to revile angelic majesties or to try to put ourselves forward as on an equal plane with them or on some plane of familiarity, as though we wouldn’t be terrified if one suddenly appeared in the room and hailed us.
This was a brave commander of hundreds, and a man who feared and revered God, who prayed continuously and freely lavished alms upon God’s people, and when he was confronted by an angel he shook in his boots.
So this angel comes to him, sent by God of course, to plant the seed in his prepared heart. He is to send a delegation of two slaves and a soldier to a certain place in Joppa which is about 30 miles down the coast; to the home of a man named Simon who is hosting another man named Simon, who is also named Peter.
Do you notice that the angel doesn’t tell Cornelius what he is supposed to do after that? He doesn’t even give Cornelius a message for Peter, but just says, ‘there he is, send some men to him’.
Personally, I think Cornelius, who was a continual pray-er, desired to know more about this God he served and feared and I think in his heart he knew that this was an answer to his prayers that God would send someone to teach him more. And that’s not just a wild guess; the angel said, “Your prayers and alms have ascended as a memorial before God”…
Then we go to verses 30 – 33 and read:
“Cornelius said, “Four days ago to this hour, I was praying in my house during the ninth hour; and behold, a man stood before me in shining garments, 31 and he said, ‘Cornelius, your prayer has been heard and your alms have been remembered before God. 32 ‘Therefore send to Joppa and invite Simon, who is also called Peter, to come to you; he is staying at the house of Simon the tanner by the sea.’ 33 “So I sent for you immediately, and you have been kind enough to come. Now then, we are all here present before God to hear all that you have been commanded by the Lord.”
“Your prayer has been heard…” so it’s logical to believe that this is the specific answer to a specific prayer, is it not?
And what we have in these verses we just read is confirmation to Peter that the seed God placed in him on the rooftop was to draw him here for this purpose.
Here are two men, separated by much more than mere miles. Separated by nationality, by culture, by history, by tradition, by experience, just about every way imaginable except they were two men presumably with two arms and two legs. Other than that all they had in common was an awareness of the one true God and a desire to worship and obey Him.
But that’s all God needs, isn’t it? Cornelius, your prayers are heard and your alms are a blessing. Send some men to Joppa, find a man named Peter and ask him to be your guest speaker at a conference to be held in your home.
Peter, call nothing I have made unclean, common or unworthy. Some men are coming, I have sent them, go with them.
So both of these men obey, and when they come together Peter’s presence confirms to Cornelius that this is the person who is sent in response to his prayers, and the way it came about, as Cornelius present his story, confirms to Peter the meaning of his vision and God’s purpose in sending him here.
Who did it all? God.
So now the stage is set – or maybe I should say the planter box is ready. Soil prepared, seed planted, everyone in place, time for Peter to water with the truth of the Gospel.
WATERING – Through Peter, Preaching Truth
I love the mental image that comes with this story. Peter and the others arrive on scene, they enter the house and here is this large gathering of people all sort of wide-eyed and expectant. The air is virtually alive with the electricity of the moment as these two men explain the manner in which God actively entered into particular moments in their lives to give instruction and bring about this meeting.
Peter is saying, well, this is really something. You all know it’s unlawful in the eyes of the Jews for me to even be standing in this Gentile house, but – and here’s where we get real confirmation that he actually had begun to understand his vision – God has shown me that I should not call any man unholy or unclean, so here I am.
Then Cornelius tells his story and fills in the blanks for Peter and his Jewish witnesses, then says, ‘so I sent for you and you’ve been kind enough to come’, so here we are, everyone sitting tall and expectant in their little folding chairs, just waiting to hear what it is God wants you to share with us.
I’ll tell you something folks, this is a preacher’s dream. If you knew the thrill God put in the hearts of preachers for getting up and preaching His Word and what a privilege it is; just the thought of having three men come to the door and say, ‘hey, there’s a large group of people gathered in a neighboring town and they sent us to get you, if you’ll come, so you can tell them what God’s Word says’…
as I say, just the thought of it gives me goosebumps! Tell ya what; it’s not that I have confidence in myself – I have confidence in God’s Word and in His Spirit, and if that happened to me I’d be grabbing my Bible and heading for the car so fast the messengers would have to catch up with me!
“Such confidence we have through Christ toward God. 5 Not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything as coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God, 6 who also made us adequate as servants of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.” 2 Cor 3:4-6
Now what I really want to do today is get to why God did all of this and what He taught through it and what He accomplished through it.
First, let’s just look once more at this sermon of Peter’s and make a few notes that we might have neglected back in part one.
34 Opening his mouth, Peter said: “I most certainly understand now that God is not one to show partiality, 35 but in every nation the man who fears Him and does what is right is welcome to Him.”
Now these opening words of Peter should not cause any confusion in regards to our doctrine of salvation by faith alone through God’s grace alone. Peter is not teaching a works based salvation by saying that in every nation the man who fears Him and does what is right is welcome to Him.
This is not a doctrinal epistle we’re studying today; it is an historical accounting of the acts of the Holy Spirit through the Apostles in establishing the church, beginning in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria, and to the remotest parts of the earth (Acts 1:8).
Peter has just had a revelation from God that has astounded him and he is now sharing this new revelation with the people God Himself has sent him to.
The idea being expressed here is not how salvation comes about, but to whom it comes.
When Peter says that those who fear God and do right are welcome to Him, he does not mean they are necessarily born again, he just means that they are on the right track. Jesus might have said, ‘not far from the kingdom of God’ Mk 12:34.
I can be confident in this interpretation of Peter’s meaning, because the order of the text itself is that Cornelius and his household have already been called God-fearers, and we’ve already been told of this Centurion’s good treatment of the Jewish people and his habit of praying, but it is not until the end of the chapter and following Peter’s sermon that the Holy Spirit comes upon them as a group.
So in his opening words Peter is making a two-fold declaration. 1.“Oh, I get it now!” and 2.“Salvation is for everyone everywhere who will turn to Him”.
We mustn’t make any more of it than that.
It is from there that he goes on to preach the meat of the Gospel. We looked at the body of this sermon in detail in part one; just let me reiterate here. Peter followed a systematic progression, leading them from acknowledgement of the facts of recent history in both Galilee and Judea and in Jerusalem pertaining to this Jesus of Nazareth and all that He went about saying and doing, then moving on to the crucifixion and resurrection of this same Jesus, and confirming that he, Peter, and others, perhaps even some of the six that were with him here at the home of Cornelius, both ate and drank with the risen Lord and were eye-witnesses of His resurrection, and recipients of His command to preach the good news.
Just one more comment on the end of this sermon before we move on, and it is another statement from Peter that I find very interesting. It is in verse 43.
“Of Him all the prophets bear witness that through His name everyone who believes in Him receives forgiveness of sins.”
Notice that Peter doesn’t go into a teaching of the prophets. He has been brought before a Gentile audience and to teach them about the prophets he would have to begin at the beginning. However, he saw importance in hammering home one more nail in the structure of his message, standing on Apostolic authority to say in essence, not only are we eye-witnesses, but all the prophets of old also testified of this One who was to come and the forgiveness of sins that would come through his name. Isa 53:11, Jer 31:34, Zech 13:1
If this point is sounding familiar to you it may be that you’re remembering what Jesus said to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus after His resurrection.
“…and He said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ would suffer and rise again from the dead the third day, and that repentance for forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in His name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem. “You are witnesses of these things. Lk 24:46-48
This is the complete Gospel, Christ-followers. I’ve told you this before; the Bible tells us this clearly; repentance, turning from sin, a changing of the mind and turning toward God, salvation does not happen apart from this. We cannot say that we have presented the good news of salvation to anyone until we can say that we have presented the bad news of their sin and their spiritual death and their need of forgiveness.
Jesus said it was written, and He was talking about the Old Testament – remember that for a minute because we’re coming back to it – He said it was written that the Christ would suffer and rise from the dead and that repentance for forgiveness of sins would be preached to the whole earth.
Peter, in obedience to the command, said “Of Him all the prophets bear witness that through His name everyone who believes in Him receives forgiveness of sins”.
I want you to take note that these were the final words of his sermon; not because he was done, but because he was interrupted.
The Holy Spirit, I think, often knows the preacher is done long before the preacher knows it. But that’s for another discussion…
HARVESTING – Regeneration and Sanctification
“While Peter was still speaking these words” verse 44. These Gentiles, this whole gathering of God-fearers whom God had blessed with the desire to know Him, heard that in the name of Jesus forgiveness was offered to all who believed, and they believed!
“The Holy Spirit fell upon all those who were listening to the message.”
Isn’t that amazing? Did God do all of this? Yes! The whole dance was His! He gave them desire, He arranged the meeting, He prepared hearts, He planted the seeds, He brought them into the same house, He gave Peter the sermon and when Peter had said enough God danced to center stage and made them all His own; regenerated, given life in the Spirit, and sanctified, set apart for God and for His glory.
“All the circumcised believers who came with Peter were amazed, because the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out on the Gentiles also. For they were hearing them speaking with tongues and exalting God.”
How do we know that any gathering is God-ordained and God-blessed? Insofar as it is God-honoring and God-exalting.
I mentioned earlier that this was a chapter of awakenings. God caused awakening in Cornelius that made him a God-fearer and brought him to desire to know more. God caused awakening in Peter to the fact that salvation is for all who believe, Jew and Gentile alike.
God caused awakening in the group of listeners, and finally in the witnessing Jews, as He gave the Holy Spirit to the Gentiles making them speak in tongues in exultation of God for confirmation’s sake.
“Surely no one can refuse the water for these to be baptized who have received the Holy Spirit just as we did, can he?”
BROKEN BARRIERS
Well, I promised to talk about why God did this and what He taught and accomplished in it all.
Quite simply, He broke down the barriers between Jew and Gentile. Paul put it this way to the Ephesians:
“But now in Christ Jesus you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. 14 For He Himself is our peace, who made both groups into one and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall,” Eph 2:13-14
Understand that I am not saying it was by this meeting in Caesarea by the sea that God broke down the dividing wall between Jew and Gentile. He very clearly did that at the cross, by the blood of Christ. Ephesians 2:13 says so.
But social and mental barriers had to be torn down also, and while to some degree the Gospel had already gone out to the Gentiles, until now the primary target had been the Jews.
Now we know there was still resistance. If we go to chapter 11 we see that the first thing that happened when Peter returned to Jerusalem was that he was dragged up before a committee. I know that feeling. I once had the audacity to make the off-the-cuff statement that technically any believer could baptize a new believer, and found myself in the midst of a bunch of irate older ministers who wanted to impress upon me that if I was going to be a Southern Baptist minister I needed to be the best Southern Baptist that I could be.
“You went to uncircumcised men and ate with them” 11:3
Isn’t that funny if you think about it? Who had brought them news? I don’t know, but we do know what it is they heard, don’t we? It says so in verse 1 of chapter 11.
“Now the apostles and the brethren who were throughout Judea heard that the Gentiles also had received the word of God” They heard that the Gentiles had received the word of God – and what was their charge? “YOU WENT TO UNCIRCUMCISED MEN AND ATE WITH THEM”!
If I went to a Southern Baptist conference and got up and said, “I was walking in downtown Montrose and went in a bar” – not that this has happened, I’m just making it up – “and when I went in the bar I got everyone’s attention and told them the Gospel and every person in that bar believed and was saved” I guarantee you that a few and maybe even more than a few at that conference would respond with, “You went in a bar?”
It is always the nature of legalism that it strains out the gnat and swallows the camel.
“But Peter began speaking and proceeded to explain to them in orderly sequence”.
That’s important, isn’t it? Peter didn’t respond as though personally attacked, but treated them gently, ready to give them an explanation. Remember, just a very short time before he would have been among them, expressing the same kind of shock that a good Jew would put Gentiles up for the night, feed them, go with them to the home of a Gentile, visit with them and even stay with them for a few days (as we see Peter was invited to do in 10:48).
Now I want to take a couple of minutes to read some of chapter 11 to you because this is where we see the outcome of this entire account recorded in chapter 10.
Starting from verse 18 of chapter 11, this is after Peter has recounted his experience to the Jerusalem Jews.
“When they heard this, they quieted down and glorified God, saying, “Well then, God has granted to the Gentiles also the repentance that leads to life.” 19 So then those who were scattered because of the persecution that occurred in connection with Stephen made their way to Phoenicia and Cyprus and Antioch, speaking the word to no one except to Jews alone. 20 But there were some of them, men of Cyprus and Cyrene, who came to Antioch and began speaking to the Greeks also, preaching the Lord Jesus. 21 And the hand of the Lord was with them, and a large number who believed turned to the Lord. 22 The news about them reached the ears of the church at Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas off to Antioch. 23 Then when he arrived and witnessed the grace of God, he rejoiced and began to encourage them all with resolute heart to remain true to the Lord; 24 for he was a good man, and full of the Holy Spirit and of faith. And considerable numbers were brought to the Lord. 25 And he left for Tarsus to look for Saul; 26 and when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch. And for an entire year they met with the church and taught considerable numbers; and the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch.”
Do you see where this has led? It began with God giving Peter his audio/visual lesson on a rooftop, sending him on a field trip to the home of a prominent Gentile – and even a Roman soldier – to give the Gospel, and at the caboose of this train of events we find Paul, called Apostle to the Gentiles, in Antioch teaching “considerable numbers” of Gentile believers there, in that place where they were first called ‘Christians’.
Friends and family, God is in the business of tearing down walls. In contrast, it seems it is firmly implanted in the fallen nature of man to establish walls, isn’t it?
I don’t know who it was who first cynically said that good fences make for good neighbors; but in saying that he echoed the attitude of man toward man and man toward God. If men could put up a physical wall to keep God out I promise you, they would do it.
Instead they put up walls of unbelief in their silly, baseless arguments against Him. We put up walls against each other. Religion itself is a wall.
The key word really, is separation. Walls ensure separation and separation is comfortable, as long as we remain self-centered and self-focused.
But God is “our peace, who made both groups into one, and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall.”
Through the cross of Christ and His shed blood, God has forever torn down the dividing wall that separated man from God, Jew from Gentile. And although men continued for another 10 years to keep the barriers up, God orchestrated a dance and brought everyone together on the same stage and put Himself in the middle.
Does it occur to you, that if God had not chosen to take action, Christians would have done the same with the Gospel that the Jews had done with the oracles of God? Christians, even Jewish Christians, would have said, ‘What we have is for us. The Messiah came to the Jews.’
But God broke the barriers. He broke them down between Peter and Cornelius, He broke them down between the nation of the Jews and the nations of the earth, and He can break down the barriers between people and between people and Himself.
“The word which He sent to the sons of Israel, preaching peace through Jesus Christ – He is Lord of us all – …He ordered us to preach to the people, and solemnly to testify that this is the One who has been appointed by God as Judge of the living and the dead. Of Him all the prophets bear witness that through His name everyone who believes in Him receives forgiveness of sins”
Barriers broken, peace made between men and men and men and God, and God did it all, my friend; He is the Lord of the dance and He gets all the glory.
“And when they heard this, …they glorified God, saying, ‘Well then, God has granted to the Gentiles also the repentance that leads to life’.” 11:18
