8-24-25 Study of Acts Chapter 10:34-35 The Salvation of the Gentiles Part 3a

➡ This Bible study focuses on the Book of Acts, specifically chapter 10, which discusses the transition from old to new within the church. It highlights the integration of Jews and Gentiles into one body, the church, through the teachings of Peter and Paul. The chapter also emphasizes the importance of individual spiritual growth and the role of the church in guiding this process. Lastly, it underscores the significance of Christ’s resurrection in enabling salvation and the transformation of believers.
➡ This text emphasizes that true peace can only come from within, through a relationship with God. It suggests that humans are vessels for the spirit that guides their lives, and that peace is not something that can be achieved externally or through human efforts alone. The text also highlights the importance of self-assessment and transformation in achieving peace, and warns that without peace, one should question their salvation. It concludes by stating that any peace created by humans is temporary, and that true, lasting peace can only come from God.
➡ This text discusses the concept of peace, arguing that true peace cannot be achieved through legal documents or human-made systems, but through a shared love for a common entity, in this case, Jesus Christ. It suggests that when individuals, regardless of their backgrounds, find a common love in Jesus, they can achieve peace with each other. The text also touches on the idea of changing hearts before changing systems, implying that societal change must start at the individual level. Lastly, it mentions the role of leaders like Trump in facilitating this process, suggesting they are tools used by God to transition society from man’s system to God’s system.
➡ The text discusses Peter’s shift from Jewish traditions to the church, using the story of the prodigal son as an analogy. It emphasizes the importance of education and the dangers of ignorance. The text also compares the current financial system to the enslavement of the Israelites by the Phoenicians. It concludes by discussing the concept of salvation, stating it’s not a process but an instantaneous event, and the importance of self-assessment in one’s relationship with Jesus Christ.
➡ Salvation, according to the text, is a divine process initiated by God, not by human effort or will. It starts with a sovereign call from God, followed by a human response. This process is not influenced by any external factors but is solely dependent on God’s timing and the individual’s readiness to respond. The text emphasizes that understanding and accepting the difference between good and evil is a crucial part of this process.
➡ This text discusses the spiritual journey of understanding and connecting with God. It emphasizes that God has a plan for everyone, even those who seem lost or misguided. The text also highlights the importance of service to others as a part of one’s spiritual journey, suggesting that God chooses individuals for specific tasks. Lastly, it encourages a spirit of obedience and willingness to follow God’s commandments, stressing that this obedience should come from a place of love and eagerness, not fear or obligation.
➡ The text discusses the importance of obedience and maturity in relation to spirituality. It suggests that obedience to God’s principles, rather than worldly standards, is a sign of maturity. The text also criticizes charity as a band-aid solution, arguing that it fosters a sense of entitlement rather than teaching principles of obedience. Lastly, it emphasizes the need for a simple presentation of the gospel, stating that God prepares individuals for salvation and all they need is the basic message of the gospel.
➡ Peter, a skilled speaker, uses a situation everyone is aware of to introduce his sermon. He addresses a tense gathering of Jews and Gentiles, breaking centuries of prejudice by stating that God doesn’t favor any person over another. Peter emphasizes that God doesn’t see the outward appearance but the spirit within. He avoids condescension and focuses on delivering God’s word, reminding everyone that they are all equal in God’s eyes.
➡ The speaker is expressing gratitude for the presence of divine light in their lives, which they believe can transform any place into a heavenly one. They ask for continued guidance, healing, and understanding from a higher power, trusting that everything happens according to a divine plan. They also request peace and joy, rather than frustration, in dealing with life’s challenges. The speaker ends by asking for guidance in facing these challenges.

Foreign. Welcome. This is our Sunday morning Bible study in the Book of Acts. We’re, we’re taking our time with this in looking at chapter 10 from various angles to provide you with a baseline of understanding the transition between old to new as it relates to the church. Just like you are learning old to new in your self assessment in Ephesians, so is it in. In the formation of the church. So we’ve been studying Acts chapter 10 and the flow of our study of this book. And we’ve been learning so many practical points. That’s what we’re, that’s what we’ve been talking about, practical points about the church.

Why? Because you are the church. So in Ephesians, we’re learning about the application of God’s plan and principles and commandments. And you’re, you’re applying those individually in your life using set guidelines like purity, holiness, meekness, humbleness, all this other stuff we’ve talked about and we’ll continue to talk about. And in chapter 10, we’re looking at the same process, but as a church, and you are the church, but collective whole, we are the church. So Ephesians provides us the individuality and Acts provides the group type of view. So without being rep. Repetitious in and to the point of annoyance to you, I just want to remind you of this thought that you got to remember that in ancient times the Jews and Gentiles were completely antagonistic to one another.

And that had been that way for centuries. Centuries. Let’s just call it back to the beginning of time, okay? And we come to Acts 10 and for Christ to build his church. Because the mystery of this whole life was withheld from the world until Christ announced it to the apostles and mainly to. To Paul that he was. And I don’t think Peter got it at the time that Christ says, I’m giving you the king keys to the kingdom of heaven and he gives Paul the keys to the kingdom of God. And that set in motion the dichotomy that existed in history.

Peter was to manage the process of transition from the Jewish legalistic point of view. And Paul was to bring in the Gentiles without the law. So the law was in the kingdom of heaven and the church was in the kingdom of God. If you think about it that way. So we’re moving of the Gospel for the Gentiles to include them in the church is. It was a. Was and still is today a monumental and cataclysmic event. All right, I was, we were having some fellowship time with a couple local couple last night, and we were talking about a new church that they’re going to, and we were talking about, they do a lot of community service, this couple.

And we were talking about a, an Orthodox Jew that’s part of this. And the fact that basically every time they have a gathering, they’ve got to split his mill out from the rest because he won’t eat pork. And we got, got off on this conversation about, well, that’s no different than the time going all the way back to Genesis. So this has been a monumental task even today to integrate the two into one. Now, it’s very, very important that this is the theme of the tenth chapter. As, as Peter, as you recall, was chosen to be the instrument to carry the Gospel to Cornelius the first Gentile and other of his household who came to know Christ during that meeting.

And that begins the inclusions of the Jews and the Gentiles into one body. Now, Peter had to go through a complete transformation, as you recall, that Christ did. And again, what I tried to do is relate to you that Christ does not change you. He molds you around you to do his bidding. Okay, A lot of, A lot of people who get saved saying, okay, now what’s going to happen? Well, really nothing. What you’re going to do is you got a new mind, you got a new body, you got a good, you got a different nature.

You need to start studying the Bible and becoming sanctified. And as that process occurs, Christ is using that to mold you. Your thinking, your thoughts, your behavior, your actions, all the things in Ephesians begins to mold you in a manner by which he can use you for his ministry. And that’s very important for you to understand because you, who you are, at the crust of who you are is your born nature, your personality. Your personality is developed by the age of three. Okay, and how do you study the Bible unless your parents teach you and all that stuff? But your personality is born at age is, is molded in shape at age three.

And so therefore, that does not change throughout your life. Now, as you go through life and experiences everything, you begin to change yourself. But Christ doesn’t do that. Christ goes to the heart and wants you to allow the heart where he resides, sealed, you know, by, by the, the ceiling of the Holy Spirit inside your heart. He wants you to go to your heart to allow him to shine through you. And therefore he uses you with his ability to do your missionary work, whatever that might be. It might not be teaching. It might not be doing anything other than, you know, serving your community in various ways or whatever.

So. So that begins the inclusion of the Jews and the Gentiles into one body that we now call the body of Christ or the Church. And it started in Jerusalem and then it went to Judea and then it went to Samaria and to the other parts of the earth. So it’s a great and classic historical chapter. When you actually go through it in detail and you lay it out, you can now see. You can now see not only the historical side of things, but you can now see why certain things go on today. Because it’s the same, but it’s also the story of the conversion of a man, Cornelius, and some real people who were his friends.

And so it’s important, not only historically, but it’s important for you, for us to get to the. The condition of evangelism and setting the course of salvation. Because remember, salvation didn’t occur until Christ was resurrected. Because nobody could be saved to go to heaven because that’s what salvation was. Being saved, transformed, regenerated, all that process, nobody could get that done until Christ actually rose and ascended to heaven. That’s the reason why all the Old Testament saints went to the bosom of Abraham, named Sh, so that basically they would be protected. But there was no ability for them to go home until Christ came and did his thing.

So it’s. It’s an important point of history for us to understand. And it’s important because it’s a story of Amen’s conversion. And we’ve looked at both of these things as we’ve evolved through this 10 chapter. And we’re going to look at some other things about this today and. And couple more sessions and we’ll be out of. Out of this. So we come now to the conflux of events, to the very moment of the meeting between Carneus and Peter. Now we’ve already gone through the calling, we’ve already gone through the visions, we’ve already gone through the collection of Peter and bringing in Carnegus.

Cornelius has got his entourage, Peter’s got his entourage. We’ve already gone through that. And that entourage came without the direction of Christ. But what the two people’s intuitions, the. That goes back to what I’m saying. They did that. Christ didn’t do that. But that. But Christ uses that for the benefit of him. So God has done some tremendous preparation in that regard. Peter has been made ready by a special vision. He’s prejudice were attacked and begun to be broken down. Cornelius. Cornelius has been made ready by another special vision. And told to go send some men together.

Peter, for Peter would be the one to communicate the truth to him. And at that point in time in history, under the dispensation period of the train of the transition, the only way you could get saved and receive the Holy Spirit was for an apostle to tell you and then to lay hands on you, and then you would be saved and receive the Holy Spirit. That’s different. When Paul comes on the scene, as we now know and as we now utilize and experience that in our life today. So. So everything is ready. The. The men have met, they’ve done their readings, they’ve done all that stuff is.

Is that tradition would have you. And in fact, they met in our study last week and they came together reporting how it was that they were led to the meeting. In other words, both of the men shared because they never met before. They didn’t even know each other. Both men shared how they got to the point of the meeting. Okay? And that. That’s how. How God works. So as we approach the text today, we’ll find that Peter begins to preach. And the first words of the verse, which really will become our. Our topic for today, says this.

Then Peter opened his mouth and said, and here Peter poured out the content that is needed at that moment to bring an already prepared vessel to the salvation that he awaits. A couple of points about this. We are nothing more than a vessel. We’re nothing more than a vessel to house whatever spirit is leading our life. That’s important because a vessel can’t think. If you look at a definition of a vessel, it’s. It basically is just a shell. Now, that’s different than vassals. Okay? This is vessels. We’re nothing more than a vessel to house that spirit which is going to guide our life.

So the passage which Peter gives the. The dominant message in that is stated in verse 36. And we’re gonna. We’re gonna get that just a moment after the introduction here, getting into that. But. But it says the word which God sent unto his. Unto the children of Israel preaching peace by Jesus Christ is the Lord of all. The message that Peter is giving is the message of peace. Okay, another valid point. Excuse me. Scripture tells us that Christ is the only peacemaker. I want you to hear me. Christ is the only peacemaker. And Christ is the only entity that can give peace.

Let’s look at our history. We’ve been. We’ve been a nation almost 250 years. The world has been in existence well over 6,000 years. And we’ve had peace less than 2% of the time. 217 years out of 6,000 years has peace been on this earth. And that period of time of peace was when Christ took or God took back charge over the Israelites and brought them back to him. Wait a second. I thought man could negotiate peace. I thought we could have peace treaties and get on with this. No, that’s not how this happens. That is why what’s going on in this world today and the requirement to get to peace before any major shift goes into this world, peace has got to be made.

Or who’s, who’s. If, if, if the scripture says that Christ is the only one that can make that peace, then who do you think is in control of this process? This is biblical. That is the message of the gospel. Okay, if that’s the message of the gospel peace, why do you think the world is calling for a revival? Because those that are aware of scripture know that the only time that this peace will actually happen is when what the gospel is preached and people begin to turn from their evil ways. Self assessment. That’s the reason why you might not feel peace is because you’ve not allowed the complete transformation to occur in your life.

Now man is in open rebellion against God in the first place back then and today. And it’s not at peace with God in any way. We live in a world of chaos and evil. Peace can only come from within. Peace is not going to become outside inward to you, because that’s not the condition of the world. So if you want peace, the only way you’re going to get it is through salvation. It is only Christ who can bring him, Cornelius, to peace with God. Man is also in rebellion against his fellow man. Well, we got Jews and Gentiles going at each other’s throats back then.

And then you got Gentiles and Gentiles that did the same thing and got Jews and Jews did the same thing. There’s no different today. We’re in complete rebellion. In some cases with ourselves, in other cases with our home, in other cases with our fellow man. And we’re definitely in rebellion against God. Men are selfish, we’re self centered, we’re self motivated, we’re independent. And they do things which will reflect best on them, not on somebody else. You can only have peace when you get peace. What do we talk? You can only get the blessings of God if you bless him.

Well, that’s the same thing with any principle that we live by in this world. If you want love, you got to give love. If you Want peace, you got to get peace. If you want charity, you got to give charity. You don’t get it by sitting there and say, oh, I want it. Well, that is why the governments of this world gave so much to the people, because they hooked them into the process of needing that assistance and allowing them to sit on their butts on a couch instead of doing what the scripture says by go work, work is the condition of Christ.

Command, consequently, to bring men to peace with each is extremely difficult, extremely difficult. Today, let’s just look at what’s going on in Europe. After the meeting with Trump and the European leaders with Zelensky, they got on the plane and everything they told Trump that they were going to do, they’re not going to do. Why? Number one, they have no resources. Two, they’re the ones that started the war in the first place because they needed it for the globalist. So when you look at the condition of scripture and you apply it to today’s history, you’ve got to apply it in totality.

You can’t take just one concept of the Bible and say, oh, that’s this world. No, that’s not. The Bible is the history book of understanding ancient history, applying it to today’s world. But what Peter did is exactly that which the Gospel accomplishes. First, peace with God. He had to have peace with God. God was changing him. So he had to come to peace with God in his transformation process. Self assessment, that’s how you get to the next thing. Secondly, peace among men. Why? Because the Jews and Gentiles were going at it. He had to not only come to peace with God, the fact that that was not the correct way of life, he also had to come to peace within himself because he was fixing to go talk to a Gentile.

In fact, he was going to let Gentiles into the house of Simon to stay overnight. That is not. Was not a Jewish tradition. In fact, the only true peace comes from God. Peace for the Christian is a reality. Self assessment. You don’t as a Christian go through times of peace and no peace. If you do that now, I’m not saying you’re not going to have ups and downs and that time. That is not what I’m saying. You’re going to sin, you’re going to feel guilty, you’re going to, you’re going to do that, but at peace, at peace knowing that you have a relationship with Jesus Christ, that’s the peace.

And if you feel no peace, you better check your salvation. Because in your heart, because it’s sealed Nothing can go in and nothing can come out, right? We’ve got that. Peace exists. And if you feel no peace, then you better check your salvation. Peace toward the unsaved man is an impossible dream. It can’t happen. That’s the reason why I said, in your self assessment, are you at peace or not? In 1st Corinthians 14:13, the apostle Paul said this. God is not the author of confusion, but what peace. You having troubles in your home, you’re having troubles with your kids, you’re having problems with your workplace or others, or what? And you just seem to not have a peaceful structure.

Well, go look at the mirror because that’s where it starts. You’re not going to get peace unless you’re at peace. God is not the author of confusion, but peace. You look around the world and you might say, if God’s God, why is the world in such a mess? God didn’t make the mess. God is not the author of a mess of confusion, of hatred, but a peace. Who’s in control of this world? Prince of the power of the air, Lucifer himself. So God does not create this confusion. He doesn’t come into the world to to change the world.

He comes into the world to change you. And it’s through your peace that gives peace in this world. That’s how he operates, you know. He operates through man to do his bidding. Paul, in this benediction, the church at Rome called God the God of peace. At the end of the book of Hebrews, chapter 13, verse 20, the same statement is made regarding God. He is called the God of peace. In second Thessalonians, Paul calls Jesus the Lord of Peace. Jesus leaving, said to his disciple, my peace, my peace I leave with you. Not your peace, not the world’s peace.

That’s all confusion. My peace. I live with you. Not as the world giveth, because they don’t give peace, not as the world giveth. Give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled. He gave the peace. Peace comes only from God. Anything manufactured by man is temporary. That’s the reason why we’ve only been at peace less than 2% of the time this world has been in existence. An amazing statistics from a historian that I once read. All the people peace treaties that have ever been made between men, all of them have been broken on a national level.

That’s the reason why the only time period of peace was when Christ took back control over his people. You see, papers don’t really make for peace. How can you write on a piece of paper a peace treaty that exists only in the man’s world. Where in any peace treaty has it ever said, this treaty is made through the inference of God’s principles? Where’s ever a peace treaty where God was brought into it? There’s never been one. Paul put it this way, in Ephesians 2, he said this, he is our peace. Now what did he mean by that? Well, suppose two people had a quarrel, a knock down, drag out quarrel over some whatever issue and they could not resolve it.

And it was very, very volatile. And so lawyers got into the act, which is typically what we do, lawyers gets in the act and there were countersuits and all this kind of things going on, which is so common even today. There was no contracts back then to do business. You either did it or you didn’t. Today we have contracts to do business. If you don’t do it, I’m going sue you. They went to court, typical practice. The court drew up a legal document stating the rights of, of each and told them to be at peace on the basis of that document.

Well, there was a comment in the other forum this week about my podcast with Sovereign Radio with Rob Cunningham where we’re talking about the changes in the world and how it’s going to affect everything and why certain things are going to not go as planned and you know why a whole lot of stuff. And this guy said, you know what? I don’t, I don’t like, number one, like that is an emotional feeling of an emotion that we’re not supposed to have. I don’t like the fact that while I get my sovereignty back, I don’t want people to be able to manage the process of sovereignty because it violates my due process rights.

The problem with that is, number one, he didn’t uncompletely understand how the system of managing due process rights works. And instead of talking to me and wanting me to get involved with somebody to make a change in this process, he didn’t realize that the person he needed to talk to about his was his elected official, which was the person that had the responsibility of establishing the law. Now that’s our legal system we’re going into. It’s going to be based upon common law. And common law is for a court to decide, number one, if you’ve done anything wrong in, in accordance with the lies on the books or you know, or do you have an issue with the Constitution and your due process rights? Well, that’s the same thing that we were talking about.

The Bible says don’t sue anybody. That’s a That’s a real weird concept for us today. If you loan money to somebody, it says, don’t expect it back. Oh, now that would change the mindset of a whole lot of you. You loan money, you come to terms with whatever payment. If they don’t pay you, what do you do? You saw. Well, what does scripture say? Why is that important? Because you’re not going to come to peace in the process of a legalized system of man. I don’t care if you win or lose, you’re not going to be a peace.

The only time you’re going to get peace is when you begin to formulate the rules, the structure, the commands and laws of God. Well, let’s go back to our story. So the chances are friends, you know, they were friends, and you know it as well as I do that the quarrel would continue even after the thing of the court decision. That breach will never go away. That breach solved by court. A lot will never go away. It’s always going to remain in your thoughts. Why? Because there was no peace ever made on the basis of a piece of paper.

Christ said to his apostles, I give you my peace. That’s not a piece of paper. But then suppose this. There, there’s a third party involved. And this third party is somebody that both of these two fighting people love, who in return loves them. And let’s say that this, that the individual takes the hand of one and the hand of the other and clasps their hands together. That person becomes their peace. And the chances of their peace are much greater when there is a common love for an individual and they can get together on the basis of that common love then through some kind of legal document.

Now that’s exactly what Paul meant when he said, he is our peace. You see, God couldn’t draw up a thing and say, all right, now all of you Jews, you have these 42 rules. And all of you Gentiles, you got 42 rules. And on that basis, these two rules, now I want you to be at peace. That wouldn’t work. That’s peace treaty today. I want you to listen to me. I said that this is going to be a repeat world for us. Why? Because it was just not the right timing for the second coming of Christ.

So let’s go on the basis of these two rules, I want you to be at peace. It wouldn’t work. So God just took Jesus Christ and he found that if a whole lot of Jews fell in love with Jesus Christ and a whole lot of Gentiles fell in love with Jesus Christ then because of Jesus Christ being one in Jesus Christ, okay, that is the only way this works. Biologically, we’re one. Your DNA shows that because of that connection, a whole lot of Jews would be in love with a whole lot of Gentiles. Now, remember Old Testament, they didn’t have salvation.

They had faith in what God was, but they didn’t have the process of the host body system in its complete prototype design. They had half. They got half the. They got half of it. So they could not understand this because they didn’t go through a transformation process. They didn’t get regenerated just by having faith in a God. Only time. The only time that that occurred was at Christ’s resurrection, where he completed the prototype of the host body system to allow the church to now receive Jesus Christ inside of them as their. As them being the house of God, sealing them inside of them.

And that was the difficulty in understanding Jews that never had that process and Gentiles who were receiving that process and putting the two together. So Paul put it in this way. In 1 Corinthians 6, he said, for he that is joined to the Lord is what One Spirit. All right, let’s. Let’s take this in history. The Spirit came and went in the Old Testament. They weren’t of one Spirit. They were living in a legalistic system controlled by a law of Moses that says, these are things you must do in order to. To gain favor with God.

In the New Testament, because of the host body system being complete, we now, by having Christ, Christ as you know, everything everywhere, omnipresent, omniscient, you know, all this stuff, he living inside of us, we become one not only with him, but we come one with everybody that’s in him. And that is reason why we can have peace one to another. So he said, if I’m one with Christ as a gentile and a Jew is one with Christ as a Jew, we’re one with each other. That’s how you have peace. There’s only one body. There’s only one body, and we are one in Christ.

Now. He’s our peace. He doesn’t teach us about peace. Oh, that’s the other side. We get to define peace. How we get to define peace by people trying, like Trump, coordinating peace. There’s, you know what there’s. You got to think of it this way. Christ is using Trump as the vehicle to obtain peace. He’s getting wars stopped. He’s doing it by paper. He’s influenced by Christ to work in. Work in man’s system to migrate them into God’s system along the way. Why we’re into the process where the gods have already returned. How are you going to get peace in a system that God’s government is not the controller of that you follow what I’m saying? Doesn’t work.

When the apostles went into the cities they had to change the hearts of men before they changed the hearts of the government. Removing the the pagan gods from the system and putting in God’s governmental system. What’s going on today? Same thing. Trump and others are utilizing the system because they are the awakening process was what yet changing the hearts of man. The awakening process is going on. They’re working on man’s system and getting that change. When everything comes together and it all gets cleared out, we’re going to have then a point where we can put God’s governmental system back in place.

So that’s Paul’s message. See here’s Peter and the Jews are there and the Gentiles are there and Peter knows that peace is in Jesus and first of all establishing peace with God and then a man could have peace with his brother. They both had to come peace with God. Remember we talked about that last week. They both came to peace with God because why God grew carnes light because he sought him and he grew Peter’s light because he was changing Peter’s process of getting out of the legalistic process of the Jewish traditions and moving Peter more closely aligned into the church.

Now remember the prodigal son? What happened to the prodigal son? Well, the prodigal son thought it’d be better to go off and do what he wanted to do, do his own thing. So he gathered up all of the goodies and told his father he wanted his inheritance. He took off for a fore country and lived it up. He was, he was righteous, righteous living. He, he was, he was dealing with prostitutes constantly. He was drunk all the time. A whole lot of stuff you already distort and he had a great time. Basically what he did was shot his wife.

That often happens in today’s life. Going back to my podcast that I gave with Sovereign Radio last I don’t know what, two weeks ago, our biggest issue, and I’ve told you this, and I stated this before we ever got involved in, in, in assisting the transformation of this world. Our biggest issues education far not because the world has educated us into a process of lack of knowledge. And while we get lack of knowledge and we might get major benefit from this process, the two don’t meet and Our issue is education. So he decided he needed a job and he got a job.

Stopping hawks. That’s not a very good job. By the way, those of you who’ve ever been on a farm and lived on a farm or had animals on a farm, the hog pin is not something you want to be dealing with. I had just a pair of boots to go in the hog pin, and I left them right there. I didn’t carry them with me because I didn’t want to clean them up. I just got out of the truck, took my boots off on the back of the tailgate, put those boots on, did what I needed to do, came back and the boots came off okay.

Just an ugly job. So that’s a terrible job. And, you know, he came to himself one day during this process and he said, this is not a good job. And you can look back on the story, it says, about time you started thinking that way. And so he decided to do what? I’m going home to my father. So he took off for his father. And remember, his father was out there singing and a long way off because the Bible says his father fell on, on his neck and kissed him, you know, and they had a wonderful scene.

They had a wonderful scene. He was reconciled to his father, but, you know, there was still a renegade in the group. And who was that? It was his brother. And it took a little time before that reconciliation came about. But first of all, reconciled to the Father, the possibility of reconciled to the brother was made. I’m not sure you ever got that out of the prodigal son. And that’s exactly the picture of the church. You see, it is when men are reconciled to the Father that they can be reconciled to their brothers, to each other, only in Christ, on no other basis that be done.

The Jews had been going around for thousands of years saying Gentiles were created to provide fuel for the fires of hell. And the Gentiles had been going around for thousands of years saying Jews are no good, but for slave material. Think about Pharaoh. Now. The. The Israelites went to Pharaoh for food, but Pharaoh took charge of their money and enslaved them. It’s exactly what this world is set up on. That system of the Phoenicians is exactly the central banking system. I, I’ve taught to you that the Rothchild bloodline was there many years. I’m. I’m still doing a trace.

I’m going. I know it’s. I know it was there 500 years before Christ was born, but I want to get it back to the physician The Phoenicians and I’ll get there at some point. But that system that we live in today as slavery because of money control is the same system that the Phoenicians used to control the Israelites and that had been inbred and ingrained in those two groups too long to ever be settled by a document. The Jews and the Gentiles. It had to be settled by an overwhelming love, by a miracle from God, and it could only happen in Christ.

That’s the message that Peter wants them to get, that there is peace not only with God and the peace of God, but peace with each other. So peace dominates and that becomes Peter’s thing. Well, let’s look. You need to look at your life self assessment. That’s what I said earlier. If you do not have peace, you got to check your salvation. Now there’s a twofold thing as we have repeated, repeated several times now since we begin studying chapter 10, that is that we see here the record of corneas getting saved. And we also see the beautiful record of the history of the Jews and the Gentiles becoming one in the church.

Now we’ve looked at Acts, we said it’s the transitionary book from Old Testament to New. We’ve looked at Acts and says, okay, these are the things of this, the dispensation transition process from the old to the new. There were five of those. We looked at those, okay, now we’re into getting the understanding that through that process, the that that all was leading up to one thing. The creation of the church, the unification of Jews and Gentiles to create the church. Both of those things, the salvation of man and the reconciliation of Jews and Gentiles to become the church are very important to our history.

But as you know, we have decided to concentrate on the salvation of Cornelius, seeing the features of his salvation that are universal. Why? Because we’re identifying what were the conditions of Cornelius salvation in order to match that with the Ephesians 4, 5 and 6. Study and then you look to your life in a self assessment to figure out where you’re at in your relationship with Jesus Christ. Now there were six things that we mentioned and we put a little outline that are the sequence of events in salvation for you over the course of the last two times.

Now we’re going to add some footnotes by saying this. Salvation is not a process. I had this think about this. I had this inclination that I was going to get saved. I look to say what I needed to do to get saved. I said a prayer I elevated myself, I sought the spirit world and I was saved over a period of time where my prayers to the spiritual world actually reconditioned me my thoughts so that I became one with what? The spirits. That is not how this happens. This so called religious phenomenal of new age, of Gaia, of all of this stuff by praying to the nature gods, by you know, getting one with nature.

And that’s how I say that’s all hogwash. Salvation is not a process. It is a moment, instantaneous moment of America. Let’s look at this, let’s take birth. Not talking about labor pains, but I’m just talking about birth. Birth is not a process. What is the process growing that infant, but when that infant is fully mature, Birth is not process. It’s something that happens in a moment. That’s not the labor pains of moving the baby from the womb to the birth canal out the vagina walls. Birth occurs when, when the child hits this atmosphere. That’s birth. Why they’re in heaven until that time.

So birth is not a process. It’s something that happens at a moment a child comes out and it’s alive and. But there’s a period that leads up to it. It’s called a pre preparation period. And then there is a post preparation period. The baby is prepared of God to be born and then is prepared to live a life after he’s born. Certain things need to be done prior to birth and after birth you got to take care of that baby. The same thing is true in salvation though the actual new birth is a momentary miracle. There’s a pre preparation.

What did God do? Gave Peter a vision, gave Carneus a vision. And there is a post preparation and that is what we’re going to look at now. Now salvation is not a process. You don’t say to somebody, well I’m in a week six of being saved. And you know, it’s a nine week process. No it’s not. You guys talk to people like that. Matter of fact, some of you might have even done that. You better check your own salvation. It’s not that at all. It’s just that there is a pre preparation period of time, a moment, instant moment of salvation, new birth.

And there’s a post preparation that’s obvious in the sequence of salvation. We see that all outline here in the 10th chapter of Acts. Now we’ve already considered several things in this universal picture. Let me start. Let me just give you some reminders. You, you’ve been given an outline of chapter 10. We did that in the first week, there are six things that are really featured of the sequence of salvation. It’s the sovereign call. Remember the submissive will. A simple proclamation, a spiritual power, a symbolic confession, and then fellowship. First of all, salvation begins with a sovereign call.

We saw this already. Peter had been prepared by God to meet Cornelius. Cornelius is the guy who’s going to be saved. And God has prepared Cornelius salvation. Initially in God’s activity from the divine side, it begins. Oh, that’s. That’s okay. You cannot be saved by man. You only get saved by God himself through a sovereign call. Predestined. Ephesians 1. You were called. You’re predestined. You’ve written in the Lamb’s Book of life before this world foundation, the world. You will be called by God when it’s time for you. Just like it wasn’t time for the new world order to take effect today.

It’s not going to be time for you to try to be saved by your own Ventian. You have to wait on your calling. When you seek God, he will. He. When you seek God, it’s because he is drawing you near him for your calling to take place. Cornelius Guy is going to be saved. And God has prepared Cornelius. Salvation initially is God’s activity from the divine side of it. It begins the natural man, which is basically the human beings that were born into this world, he has no capacity to understand the things of God. Why? Because he doesn’t have a relationship with God.

How are you going to understand if you don’t have a relationship with God? You are born with a spirit of. Of evil, controlled by the prince of power, error. And your whole focus of life is his chaos. How are you going to understand the things of God? There’s spiritual discern. You have no discernment until you are called. His spirituality is dead. He doesn’t know anything about it. He cannot comprehend it by. By any means. He can’t comprehend it by philosophy. There’s no way that a natural man can know God. Romans 3. Paul says, no man seeks after God.

He’s just completely lost. Second Corinthians 4 says this. He is blinded by the God of this world. Okay? Lest the light of the glorious gospel should shine unto him. He didn’t say on him unto him. That is that metabolic light. In other words, the man is locked into deadness, blindness, deafness, and inability to raise or make a rational conclusion concerning God and salvation. He is completely trapped in sin one because he’s controlled by the prince of power of the earth. Therefore, the Initial initiation of salvation must come from God’s sovereignty. How in the world could you think you could be safe to go to heaven under a sovereignty area that you have no control over? How do you think you could do that? You can’t.

You can’t even do sovereignty control in the United States, which you have no control over. So how in the world can you as an individual think that you can save yourself or use whatever techniques that you decide to use to go to heaven? Doesn’t work. That’s exactly what it says in John 1. As many as received him to them gave he the power to what? To become the sons of God. That is the only time it happens, even to them that believed on his name, not of the will of man, not of the will of the flesh, but of the will of God.

Salvation initiates with God. Romans 8:28. Paul put it this way. All things work together for good to them that love God and are called. Called according to what? His purpose. You can’t initiate anything. You don’t own anything. You don’t control anything. You’re nothing but a vessel. A vessel controlled by whatever spirit you’re allowing to live inside of you. In Romans the same chapter, Paul later on says this. Whom he call Ephesians 1, whom he called. And then he goes on, whom he called, he saved, he sanctified, and he glorifies. Oh, that tells us something. He calls you, he saves you, and he sanctifies you, and he glorifies you.

But you have to get out of the way. You see, salvation begins with God. Paul. Look at what Paul, for a classical example, just tripsing down the Damascus road and all of a sudden, wham. He got smacked right straight in the face with a vision of Jesus Christ and said, I want you. And he said, okay, sovereign. That’s the sovereign call. We’ve covered that in the first 20 verses of this chapter. Now that’s what we’re talking about. Oh, it’s a sudden, immediate thing. The second point is submissive will that we talked about. Now when we talk about sovereign call, we’re not saying that God is in heaven stomping out like rubber ducks with no will of their own who just quacks when he pokes them.

What did I say earlier? God does not change you, your personality, the way you. You like to do things. He molds them into his glorification. So God is not manufacturing little robots all around with spiritual springs determined by God and planted in guys. That’s not happening. But there is an activity on the part of A man. Salvation is not just God. It’s us responding to God. And that’s where sinners of will comes in. When we find that clearly outlined in verses 21 to 33 in chapters 10, which, which we’ve studied last time. Because in the those verses we find how responsive Carnelius really was.

Cornelius was really open. He had just, God just moved upon his heart and he had responded immediately. In verse 33, he says, Immediately, I said to you, as soon as I heard what the angel said to me in the vision, this is Cornelius talking. I moved on it. I did not wait. Salvation is a matter of free will. Jesus simply said this. He was looking at Jerusalem and the leaders, and he said, you will not come unto me that you might have life salvation. You gotta have a sovereign call. It’s not done by you, it’s not done by another man.

You can’t go to a Pentecostal church and some man touches your forehead and you go bonkers, flopping all over the ground and speaking in tongues. That is not how this happens. So you got to have a sovereign call. And. But that beautiful paradox is it also demands a human response. I said your first calling was salvation. If your first calling is salvation using this process and God is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow, then every calling thereafter will be the same process. It’s not done over time. It’s not done by another man. It is done by the sovereign will and calling of Jesus Christ.

Said last week. You don’t go running around saying, gee, I hope God will save me one of these days. I’m waiting to get zapped. It’s not a matter of your will. You’re not just waiting for some divine act. You are involved in this process, in your free will of the design. Now the spirit of God moves upon your will till you come to that crisis point of decision which you receive. Jesus Christ. Okay, so you’re going to get called. Oh, you might not hear that calling at first, but that calling’s still going to happen. That’s that, that little soft voice, okay? That calling is still going to happen.

When he, when he says it’s your time, he’s going to start calling you. That calling doesn’t stop at the. But your life in its unruliness, evil, evil world begins to intensify. At some point in the process of this calling, in the intensification of your life towards ungodly things, you’re going to get hit over the head by a two by four. And that’s the time that you now understand who’s doing your calling. And immediately when you understand that, now you understand what good and evil and when you understand that, it requires an immediate human response. And that response is based upon how you want to live the rest of your life.

Now let’s go back to the garden. God put two people in a garden. They knew what the roles were, by the way. Let’s just understand that they knew what their roles were. And he’s. He told them not to eat of what? The tree of knowledge for good and evil. Not the tree of evil, the knowledge of good and evil. So that’s your calling, okay? Your calling is understanding that the life of evil that you’re living is not the right way to go. You got to come back to good. That is the same thing as the guard.

You get that? Now the knowledge of good and evil in Genesis is a process of putting into your mind, not eating a piece of fruit, putting into your mind the difference between God and hell. So it’s like a Google tree. It’s the tree of knowledge, it’s not the tree of fruit. Tree of knowledge of the needle. So when you look at that system, okay, and understand that the only place that you could get that, that knowledge of good and evil was in the garden, partaking in that tree. Who do you think you are? You have inside of you a tree.

It’s made of roots, it’s made of barkish like material. It has limbs, it has flowing water in the tree. And the tree has a DNA. And the calling is where God takes that tree and regenerates that tree with a new flowing water, a new flowing nature of that tree from a different set of roots. And in that process of that change, your DNA change. Now you now you got a. A knowledge base of good and evil inside your system, your host body system that allows you now to begin to understand who God is. Before that, you don’t have an understanding why because you have no relationship.

Right? It so we find then that corneas had a will to respond to God. God had done the preparation work in his heart. God had taken a blind dumb pagan who couldn’t understand God. God couldn’t talk to God, couldn’t see God, couldn’t know God. And God did a work in his heart. He turned him around, gave him a sight that he could see God. He saw God. He saw the light that God had given him, that metabolic light. He saw that light and he lived up to that life. And when a man lives up to the light God gives him, God does what he gives you more Light.

That’s the sanctification process. So people say, oh, what about this heathen? What about that? Don’t worry about the heathen. Don’t worry about the minute, about the heathen. Why? Because you are it. God knows exactly what he’s doing with the heathen. You don’t have to worry about it. Oh, let’s think about that. I don’t like this group of people. I don’t want to associate and anything in the community that deals with the outcome of the community regarding those people. I don’t even want to go to a church and sit by that person. I can’t stand that person.

That’s what this is talking about. Don’t worry about that stuff. God knows exactly what he’s doing, and he might be using you to get access to those people in order to reach their hearts and showing them Jesus Christ. There’s no such thing as a man who’s lived up to the light that he has, who will be damned by God. Shall not the judge of all the earth do right? Here was a pagan corneas, and he had somehow God had worked on his heart and he had seen the light. And then he saw that the Jehovah of Israel was the God that he knew to be.

And he attached himself to Judaism as a God. Fear. We talked about that last week, remember? We gave you a definition of that. He attached himself to Judaism and he was living up to the light he had. And he was a good man. God saw the man. He saw that his heart was right and that he had lived up to the revelation God had given him inside of him, as it has it shown on the outside of him. And God moved to give him a full revelation that he might be saved. That’s what Peter’s job was.

And that’s how God deals with pagan people, whether they’re pagan in New Orleans, New Guinea, Madison Avenue, New York. Carneus illustrates the missive will. Now, let’s go a little further. Peter shows the will of a Christian in this. Oh, he didn’t show the will of man. He showed the will of a Christian. Why? He was transformed. He’s no longer a man. Okay, he’s a man in a. As a suit, but he’s a Christian inside that suit. So do you know that God not only chose people for salvation, but hang on to this. He chooses people for service.

You are the calling. Just look down in verse 41 and you’ll see it. God had raised Jesus and shown him openly, not to all the people. Oh, think about that. But to but upon the witnesses chosen before God. All right, gotta, gotta think about this. God chose Christ on in his resurrected body as he walked down the street to the people who were going to be witnesses unto him and the other people couldn’t see him. You’re getting this. We live in a spiritual world, guys, that we have placated so much that we don’t even understand what the spiritual world is.

We’ll just go right back to here. God resurrected his son, sonship. Let him walk down the street with 500 other saints. And only those that were chosen unto witnesses by God before the foundation of the world could see Christ and the 500 people everybody else couldn’t see him. Do you know that God has certain select people that he can choose to be the witness of the resurrection? John 15 says this. Jesus said this. You have not chosen me. Ah, you can’t save yourself. You can’t choose me. I have chosen you and I have ordained you that you should go forth and what bear fruits.

You see, he chose the disciples. God not only chooses to salvation, but he chooses people to serve. Now I’m here teaching you because God has called me to the task of doing this. I’ve chosen of God for this task. I know that. I understand it. I know this watchman. I know responsibility. I know all of that stuff. Okay? Why? Because I had to learn it. And I’m really grateful that I have the opportunity to teach. That’s what I love to do. That’s how I ran businesses. I didn’t walk in with an iron hand that says, you got to do this.

I walked in and sat down at a soldering machine with the people who soldered. And I says, teach me how to solder and let me see the process. And by that way, I learned what they did, their frustrations. And then after a period of time when I learned the business in my takeovers and, and turnarounds, I put in place what I needed to do to turn the business around. But you can’t go to it if you don’t know the details. Just like your Christian life. You can’t live this Christian life if you’re not sanctified. And you can’t get sanctified unless you’re willing to put the time in and the effort to allow God to reveal all that stuff to you.

God chooses his servant. But you know something else? The servant also has to be submissive. God may have chosen you for a certain specific duty, but you need. You need your will, your will to get involved. God’s not going to pick you up by some kind of divine chariot like Elijah and you know, haul you off, you gotta go. And so Peter illustrates the submission of the will of a Christian in doing what God called him to do. If he didn’t do it as a Christian, he would still be sitting there trying to figure out the differences between Jews and Gentiles and how he’s going to get over that.

You see, now we went all over that. I closed last time with Psalms 1:1960. And let me just remind you of a principle. In Psalms 119 you have a tremendous statement that is repeated 176 verses. And it’s just over and over and over. It talks about how the psalmist loves the word of God. Now that’s the spirit of obedience. We’ve talked about that. We’ll talk about it every time we’re together. Psalms 119 says this verse 16. I will delight myself in thy statutes. I will not forget thy work. Can you imagine a guy who loved commands that he had to obey? That is what is known as a spirit.

Spirit of obedience. Here’s what I mean. You say to your daughter, I need to go do the dishes. Well, then you’ll find out whether she has the spirit of obedience or not. She’ll say, oh, the dishes. She goes and does the dishes. Why? Because she’s afraid that you’re going to give her a little shot if she doesn’t, or take away her allowance or something like that. Have you ever had your daughter come in and say, mom, are you done so I can get the dishes done for you? Oh my gosh. You say, no, never had that happen.

Or you say, son something. Your son comes in says that. Do you think it’s time to mow the yard? No. Today you can’t get kids up to do anything. Why? Because we have taught them what’s called entitlement. It is a reflection of you. Oh my gosh. That which you give is what you’re going to get if your kids are are in feel entitled to everything. Where did they get that from? Where did they get it from? They got it from you. The Psalmist said in 119, verse 60, and this is a classic definition of the spirit of obedience.

I made haste and delayed not to keep thy commandments. Isn’t that beautiful? The spirit of obedience says, I’m in such a hurry, I got to get going because I got some commandments I got to keep. Oh, let’s look at your self assessment. I bet some of you are still working on Trying to figure out whether you’re obedient. And then when you find out that you’re not obedient, you really don’t care because you don’t do anything about it. Some are obedient out of fear. They’re afraid of God’s punishment out of legalism. They think that they can please God by doing it and he’ll like them better.

And some people are obedient because they love him so much they’d rather serve him than do anything else. Now that’s the spirit of obedience. And incidentally, that’s synonymous with maturity. Oh, self assessment. If you’re disobedient, you’re immature. Why? Because your maturity is based upon the world, not based upon God’s principle. And if you’re immature and Just had a similar conversation last night with this couple because we had dinner with them. Misty and I went to a charity event, I don’t know what, sometime back. And it was an organization to feed children in schools that don’t have food at home.

And nice event, had a good dinner. We circulated and it happened to be that the lady of the household last night was one of the organizers of the event. She’s my best friend, guys. You guys already know who she is. So we went over Sherry Kin s last night. And so I was talking to Sherry. I says, you know what? What you guys did at the Cherry is just a band aid. It’s bandit. And she, the first word out of her mouth says no. And then she stopped and she says, you’re right, because they’re not approaching the real issue to the problem.

They’re putting a band aid of giving kids food, which is a gracious thing to do, but that child is going to look to the future for another handout that’s entitled. They’re teaching the kids by doing a charity act. Entitlement. Oh, think of you, your children. You give an allowance for what? You give an allowance for what? Something that they must do. Now, when I was growing up, I got X amount of coin for my grades as an ability to keep me interested in achieving a higher my old standard of education. At some point, it didn’t matter to me anymore.

I’d already figured out what I liked and what I didn’t like. And I didn’t really care about that those that coinage anymore. I was making my own money, so that didn’t help. But the whole thing about it is, is we do something to stimulate the mind of our children instead of teaching them the principles of being obedient. Follow. I’m saying you’ve done this to your kids by what you thought, use the operative word there. You thought was best to motivate them instead of allowing God to motivate them through what? Being obedient in teaching them about obedience in the word of God.

So obedience is synonymous with maturity, and that goes with everything. All right, if your child is disobedient to you, what is the first thing comes out of your mouth when you’re talking? Oh, they’re immature still. Why? Because they’re not obedient to what you want. Oh my gosh, isn’t that the same thing you’re doing? That synonymous with maturity? Spiritual maturity, the spiritual mature purpose. People are in a hurry to obey God. Now remember, being disobedient in one thing is disobedient and whole. So you must understand what obedience is in accordance to the scriptures so that you can hurry up and do those things.

In order to do what? Get the blessing of what you’re doing. What you give is what you’re going to receive. If you give nothing, you receive nothing. And look at, look in the Psalms. He just repeats it. Verse 20. My soul breaks for the longing that it hath unto thine ordinances at all times. Can you imagine any guy like that? He says, God, my heart is just breaking because I can’t get over the desire to keep your commandments. Wow, that’s a far long way from where the majority of this group is at. But I’m gonna tell you, that’s spiritual maturity.

You go to verse 24, the testimonies are my delight. That’s interesting. Verse 47. I’ll delight myself in thy commandments, which I have loved. Verse 70. That their heart is as fat as a geese. But I delight in the law. You know, it’s like saying, mom, give me some commandments. I am just so eager to obey whatever you want me to do. Oh, that sounds so strange. But that’s maturity. Guys. If you haven’t taught your children before the time of pre teenage years the truth about scriptures and obedience, they’re going to go their own way, like the scriptures tell you they will.

Verse 103. I’m just picking some out of this just as example. How sweet are thy words unto my taste. Sweeter than honey to my mouth. And over in verse 140, the word is very pure, therefore the servant loves it. My, my soul hath kept thy testimonies. I love them exceedingly. Now that’s the spirit of obedience. Peter had that submissive will as a believer. He had the desire to submit himself to the will of God, not grudgingly, but because he loved to do it. Oh, wow. I do the things of God. Okay, so let’s. Let’s take a.

Let’s take a little test here. How many of you love everything that you think you’re doing for God? And taking another step, how many of you go back for seconds, see the spirit of God that lives inside of you? That’s what he wants. He provides your freedom for really Nothing. Anyway, verse 21 and 33, we see this submissive will of Cornelius as he obeys the moving of God in his life and salvation is set, set up. The sovereign call happens, the submissive will, and then, whammo. He’s now ripened into God. He has lived up to the light that he has had.

He has obeyed the information God has given him, and God’s about to give him the final information. Now going to verse 34 to the concept of simple presentation now. And the reason I call it that is because that’s exactly what it is. It is a simple gospel message that Peter gives. Matter of fact, God tells you what to tell people when you’re ministering to them and presenting the gospel. Just don’t change it. There aren’t very many sweeping theological grandiose, complex statements, just simple content. Why? Because this guy’s ready. He doesn’t need anything. If God’s doing the preparation, he’s giving you the con, the.

The ability to go talk to them about the gospel. You don’t need to say anything more than what the gospel tells you to say. Why? Because it’s God’s doing his whole thing. This guy is ready. In fact, Peter doesn’t even get his sermon going. Peter later on gives testimony to the Jews in Jerusalem. He says, as I began to speak, all Peter had to do was open his mouth. The Holy Spirit fell on them. God says, I’m so ready to get this done, Peter. Just open your mouth and get out of the way. So what does that mean? That means that God, in effect, was saying, shut up, Peter.

You said enough. They’re already saved. We think we need to get into people’s life to help them solve all of their problems in order for them to be saved. No, you don’t. Don’t be a busybody, because in your busy bodiness, you’re also going to lead to gossip, which is a twofold sinful nature of most out there. Peter goes and tells us to the Jews, as soon as I open mouth, God fell upon them. And in Essence. What God is saying is, Peter, shut up. You said enough. They’re already saying Peter had probably a long way to go.

He thought he only began to talk. And they were saved. The Spirit came in the Lord and by embedded into them and ended the meeting. Why? Because done. God had done the preparation. All they needed was a simple content. And that’s what Peter gave to them. He didn’t give much. He opened his mouth and all of a sudden, boom, it was done. It’s. This is a good illustration of this, friends. It’s. It’s good on the fact that you can have a guy who believes a lot of things, who’s a good man, who is a righteous man all the way down the line, but who doesn’t know Jesus Christ because he hasn’t heard the gospel.

That is you and the world today might not be really good man, but if you’re called, you will be. This man was prepared by God. He was willing in himself. He had all the ingredients, but he still needed to hear the gospel. Why? Because hearing is what we’re told that we have to do in order to be saved. It doesn’t come by osmosis. Are you setting in a transit state trying to figure out how you’re going to elevate your spiritual self to a higher level? And I believe that no man will ever enter into heaven apart from the faith in Jesus.

Why? Because Scripture tells us that. John 7:17. If any man wills to do his will, he shall know of the doctrine. His will is the will of God. Christ said, whether I speak of myself or not. In other words, if a man lives up to what he has, what does he have? A light inside of him. God will always give him more light. Now you don’t have to worry about it. God absolutely knows what he’s doing. That’s the other factor. Oh, I don’t think this is happening because I don’t think. Feel anything. Well, you’re not supposed to feel anything.

Go on. Look, that’s. That’s being emotional. Let God be God. All right, so Peter’s going to begin his sermon, and it’s in a fantastic approach. Peter is a master of introductions. Right. We learned that when we looked at Acts 1, 2 and 3. He can sense the situation. A good orator. Let’s just say you remember back in Acts chapter two, how the Holy Spirit created a citywide illustration for him. He had everybody speaking in languages and the wind and the whole thing is going on and everybody’s in a turmoil and they can’t figure out what’s going on? And Peter stands up and says this.

You men of Judea and Jerusalem, be this known unto you. Hearken unto my words. Guys, settle down. Listen to what I’m fixing to say. Now. I’m going to tell you what you see. And everybody goes riveting on Peter. So he lets the Holy Spirit create the illustration and he just slides in. It’s a great thing. That’s what I try to do. I try to give myself. Every time I come into one of these teachings, I move myself out of the way and I just say, holy Spirit, take complete charge of this. And whatever I’m supposed to be thinking, that is what I’m thinking, because that’s you.

I try. That is the purpose of being able to tell the truth from total Scripture is because the only truth can only come like peace from Christ. And that’s the Holy Spirit. So great way to introduce. And we always learn this in public speaking. Okay? A great way to introduce your message on your speech is to always accommodate a situation that’s going on that everybody is aware of, and that immediately ties you into the scene. You have got to relate to your audience. And you can’t relate to your audience if you come in as the bull in the china closet.

You have to relate to your audience in the. At their point of view. Now, what Peter does is so beautiful here you can just picture the scene daring. Cornelius’s house. Nice house. Probably. He’s probably a wealthy to do man, or at least upper middle class. And the Jews are there and the Gentiles are there. Now, that in itself is a shaky thing. We’ve already talked about that. Because, remember, the Jews and Gentiles didn’t go into the houses. The Jews at the crucifixion of Christ wouldn’t enter the house of Pilate, if you recall, because they would become defiled and couldn’t take the Passover.

Oh, that’s really interesting. What a dichotomy exists. They want Pilate to commit high treason to God in. In condemning his Son to the cross. When it’s the Jews that actually want that. And when they get it, they don’t even go address Pilate as a thank you inside his house, because what they’ve classified his as dirty. He’s defiled. They thought it was a defilement to go in a Gentile’s house, as Jewish tradition was, which we’ve already talked about. So there’s a whole lot of things in that regard that the Gentiles we’ve talked about many, many Times. So Peter can sense that just that stuff in the air.

Jews he brought Jews, the Gentiles, Just the. The entourage. He just sensed the stuff in the air. Just like two feuding parties sitting in the same room. We call it an atmosphere that you could cut it with a knife. And Peter begins his introduction. Now, it’s beautiful to listen to. Then Peter opened his mouth, which is the best way to start, right? If you’ve got something to say, you better open your mouth. And of course, he had to open his mouth to say whatever he was going to say. But if you understand what that means, the term open his mouth is a curriculum in the Greek.

And it means he was going to say a very weighty saying, a very heavy saying. And I mean, he had a saying that was going to shatter centuries of prejudice. And believe me, when you look at Peter’s life, he had some very heavy things to say. So Peter opened his mouth and said, what a zapper this was of a truth. I perceive that God is no respecter of persons. See, there they are, the Jews. What are you going. What are you doing with those crummy Gentiles? His entourage says, we are Gentiles on the other side talking to Cornelius.

What are you doing with these crummy Jews? And what Peter said is, God is no respecter of persons. Oh, what Peter says. Then he says, it doesn’t matter whether you Jew or Gentile, God didn’t respect you that way. What does scripture talk to us? It talks about the spirit. What God was using Peter to say, I do not respect the outward person, this evil figure of a man. I only respect that spirit which is inside of it. Well, can you imagine? There goes the air out of the balloons. Because it was a beautiful introduction, riveted their attention upon Peter, and he cut right through the issue with one statement.

But, hey, guys, we’re here because why God put us together. And oh, by the way, God doesn’t see any separation between Jews and Gentiles. There’s no respecter of persons. Listen to what I have to say, because I’m speaking to your spirit. Guys, there’s another thing I think I need to mention here that oughta. You ought to keep in your mind. Notice that there’s no condensation on Peter’s part. Notice he didn’t say this. Now, we Jews have come to you Gentiles because we care. Oh, wow. Ever talk that way? I come to. I come to you, and I come to you because I care.

Care about you. Wow. The words we choose to use I care about what you think, I care about how you feel. I, you know what, you don’t control any, anything about that. What you should be caring about is, is giving them the word of God and let God do the healing that he’s the only one that can do. You put yourself between God and that person that you’re ministering to by telling I care about you. That’s who’s going to come. You see, you gentiles are needy people. You want self awareness, you want self gratification. Everything’s got to be about you.

But what Peter did is none of that kind of condensation existed. You know, when I was, when I lived in Texas originally. I love black churches. I just tell you right now. I’ve talked. When I, we got together in Dallas, I talked to Ken and Boaz about this. I love black churches. Why? Because I could get in the groove, so to speak. And you know what my best friend in high school was? 66,250something pound black guy that saved my butt in football for years. And I remember talking about this sometime back and we’re talking about effective ministry and in the black church and we began to talk about what makes up an effective ministry.

And what this, what the conversation did is I never thought about it in the manner by which the conversation was led after we got started, he said, the conversation went on. That said, I think what makes a ministry effective is there’s no con descent. In other words, there’s nothing between the group of people in the ministry in a condescending manner that we’re all focused, as we talked last night, a bit about this, we all focused on the joy of being a family within a church. If you walked into church and if you walk into this, the one thing I hope you come into this is the understanding that this is a joyous occasion.

I want you to feel joyous about coming to this group. Why? Because we’re focused on one thing and one thing only. Jesus Christ. And that all should be a joyous event. And the love that he portrays through us should all be a peaceful joyous bit. So Corneas House is good and he’s a leader. And his six Jewish brethren over there who came along with Peter and now you see why it was so important for him to bring them his six Jewish brethren who have come along. They’re followers of Peter’s leadership. And when they see Peter going this way, then he speaks hard to the Jews.

He can turn around and speak hard to the Jews and let the, the Gentiles Reflect on his conversation in a manner that is not condescending. He speaks to them in hard, in a hard way, and they tre then they their tendency would be to follow. So immediately he blast his audience by saying, God is no respecter of persons. Let that thing off the top and out of the way. Just get it off the top and out of the way. God’s not here to pit Jews against Gentiles. We’re not dealing with nationalities, racial prejudice or anything like that.

That is not even an issue at this meeting. Get rid of all that together so God has no respecter of persons, he says. I am beginning to understand that. And that was quite an admission for Peter. All right, I’m going to stop here because I want to go into things four, five and six and I’m just going to wait and do that next time because we’re going to run out of time. And I want to give you a chance to ask any questions or whatever you want me to clarify. So I’ll give it back to you.

Comments, questions, points, you want clarify, anything? Sure. Okay, let’s pray. Father, thank you for this morning. Thank you for heavenly places. And heavenly places can be in our home, can be anywhere that we are where Christ is radiating his light. Because wherever Jesus Christ is, so is heaven. So therefore, thank you for giving us in our hearts the heavenly place of you. And thank you for shining your light through us and allowing us to bear your fruit in this physical world. Father, we ask that you continue to work with us on our sanctification. May we each grow in accordance to what you need for us to do and at the pace as you want us to be.

So, Father, we ask that you just continue to watch over us, continue to heal those that are sick in the manner by which they need to be healed, and continue to reconcile with our minds that will which revelation trying to reveal to us in accordance with the scripture. I want to thank you today. We want to thank you for your love. We want to thank you for your commitment to us individually and as a group called the Church. And we want to give you honor and praise of everything good going on in this world. Father, be with us for the rest of the week as things continue to progress in this world of change.

And may we get the peace and joy of understanding that you’re in 100 control and everything is going to work out on your timing, in your manner and how you want to have it done. Give us peace and joy, not frustration over things that are happening and give us the ability to seek your guidance on those things that are challenging. And we ask our all these things in sunset.
[tr:tra].