Just a little louder. Okay, let's take our Bible, or our hymnals now, and we will turn to hymn number 640. 640 now, praise the Lord. I like what Al said, he says, almost like Judy is here. Well, I think she's listening to us this morning, praise the Lord. She had a successful surgery. And, other than getting up about every two to three hours every night and getting snatches of sleep. Now, if I start, I was telling someone today, if I start mumbling this morning, it might be because my brain went dead after the way I've had to sleep this past week. I'm not talking in tongues and I'm not in a trance, I'm just tired. But we'll have a good time together. Page number six, every day with Jesus, 640. Every day with Jesus is sweeter than the day before. Every day with Jesus, I'll love Him more and more. Jesus saves and keeps me, and He's the one I'm waiting for. Every day with Jesus is sweeter than the day before. And then we will turn back to hymn number 495, 495. Now. When upon life's billows you are tempest-tossed, When you are discouraged, thinking all is lost, and it will surprise you what the Lord hath done. Count your blessings, name them one by one. Count your blessings, see what God hath done. Count your blessings, name them one by one. Count your many blessings, see what God hath done. Are you ever burdened with the load of care? Does the cross seem difficult to bear? God's many blessings will flood And you will be singing as the days go by Culture, blessings, name them one by one Count your blessings, see what God hath done. Count your blessings, name them one by one. Count your many blessings, see what God hath done. She's gonna stop there so we can stand and we'll sing the last stanza together, then we'll turn around and greet each other. Can we? So amid the conflict, whether great or small, Do not be discouraged, God is over all. Count your many blessings, angels will attend, Help and comfort give you to the journey's end. ♪ Culture, blessings, name them one by one ♪ ♪ Culture, blessings, see what God hath done ♪ ♪ Culture, blessings, name them one by one ♪ ♪ Culture, many blessings, see what God hath done ♪ Okay, turn around and shake hands with one another. The Baptist handshake, or the COVID handshake, I guess. Good to see each other. Okay, can you play that just repeat? We'll sing one passage. Okay, well, we're not good enough at that yet. We'll get all this technology down so that we can play the course. I just sprung that on her. We'll practice that later on. But I really appreciate Evelyn taking this now. If Judy's not here next week and the way she's improving, who knows, but I'm not going to push her. And of course, it's very dangerous with the type of operation she's had. But if not, then we'll be singing a lot of the other songs because she only put about 10 songs on our hymn. So if we sing some of the ones over and over again, I hope she's not out for a month. But if she does, we'll thoroughly know about 10 songs. But so good to have you with us. It's kind of interesting. All of our people this week are here. This has been just a couple of months now where we're counting usually our average crowd. And back when we had that evangelist here, and this always happens to a pastor when he gets embarrassed, we had two thirds of our people out either sick or gone. and about half of them are gone this week, or today, so you never know what's gonna happen, but I've said it doesn't take a crowd to have fun with the Lord, because he's with us, and it only takes two or three, and what does he say? He's right here in the middle of us, and I'm glad we have more than three, but God has been good to us. We do want to appreciate your continued prayer for Judy. Now, tomorrow is my big day. Pray that I will be sick tomorrow night. Now you say, pastor, you want to pray? Yeah, because if I'm sick tomorrow night, that means that I don't have cancer. They're at six month checkup and they will be giving me the immunotherapy, which makes me sick. Now, if I do have cancer, then they'll take a biopsy and let me know or whatever. God's been good. This cancer that I have is at the extremely early stages. It's stage one. I have just found out a former church member of mine down in Mobile, Alabama has stage four of the same stuff. But mine is just something they can clip out. but it's fast moving. And so that means that if it's there, they'll take a biopsy and tell me that it's fast moving, and then that's the third time through, and I'm not sure what they wanna do after that. So it keeps, my problem is it keeps coming back. And so let's pray that this immunotherapy makes me immune to the cancer. So I appreciate your prayer there. Dan is, let's pray for Carol, as he's gotta make the, care and so forth. And Dave and Gail, they've been up and down. Gail was wanting to be here so badly. She was here Wednesday night. But they are just day to day. Pray for Dave especially. He can't quit coughing. And I'm hoping that they will get to a an allergy or something is happening. But for over a year now, he has had just, he says, I don't want to come to church. And even though he lives in, we call it Dave's man cave back here because he can't be in light. But he says, I don't want people to hear me coughing all the time. So I'm hoping they're listening to us or watching us on this morning. And I praise the Lord for you who do that when you're not here. But let's go to the Lord in prayer. Father, we do thank you for your goodness. Thank you for what you've done in meeting the needs of our people. We thank you for this great country in which you allowed us to live. And now, Father, we pray that you would just work in our lives, draw us close to you, but Lord, work through us. We pray that that power, the cleansing, and the presence of the Holy Spirit will work through us to the working and the lives of others. Lord, that as we would lift you up, that you would draw people to yourself. And oh, Father, we pray for Belvidere and the Boone County and the surrounding areas. Oh, how we pray, Father, that you would make us an influence or that your word would be an influence through this church, that this town can be affected and boys and girls and families brought together and marriages solved or brought together. Lord, that you can meet the needs socially of this city as you would meet the needs spiritually. We realize, Lord, that the reason our country is falling apart is because your spirit, the blessings of God, is being withdrawn from us because of our iniquity, which is abounding. So Father, how we pray that you would bring revival to the hearts and lives of your church first. If your people were called by your name, as we would humble ourselves and pray and seek your face and turn from our wicked ways, that you would let us hear from heaven and heal our land. Lord, we need that so badly. Oh, how we pray, Father, that you would, churches across this land, we realize, Lord, and we hear every week, it seems like some church is falling into all kinds of perversions and sin and it's preaching stuff that is totally unbiblical. But oh, Father, how we pray that you would raise up that remnant, those people who mean business for you, that you would draw them out of the wicked churches, and Lord, that you would bring them into Bible-believing churches that would serve you. Lord, turn this country back to yourself. And Father, we pray for our president, members of Congress, we think of the elections that are coming up, and Lord, we realize now that there are politicians that are wanting to mutilate our children, abort our babies, all kinds of things, and they want to legislate perversion. After all the years, we heard that we can't legislate righteousness, and yet they are legislating unrighteousness. We pray, Father, that you would raise up godly men and women who will stand for you, those people who will turn our hearts to the right. Oh, Lord, we pray for your blessings upon us. We think now, Lord, of the burdens of our people, and we've mentioned those that we're praying for and how we pray that you would meet their needs, Lord, this morning. Oh, Father, we pray. We love them. We miss them. We pray that you'll bring them back with us very soon. And thank you again for your blessings upon us. We're looking forward to hearing from you this morning. In Jesus' name, amen. And you may be seated. And let's take our hymnals now, and we will turn to hymn number 63. This is an interesting song. When kids hear this, and this is something of young people, teenagers love this song. Again, it's one of the oldest songs. It's an old Scotch-Irish song. So let's sing it together, 63. Oh, amen. Okay. Immortal, invisible, God only wise. Enlightened, accessible, hid from our eyes. Most blessed, most glorious, the Ancient of Days. Almighty, victorious, thy great name we praise. and silent as night, no wanting, no wasting, thou rulest alike. Thy justice like mountains, thy soaring above, thy clouds which are fountains of goodness and love, to all life thou givest to both In all life thou lit us, thou bring back of all. We blossom and flourish as leaves on a tree. and wither and perish, but God changes thee. Great Father of glory, pure Father of light, thine angels adore thee, all veiling their sight. All praise we would render, O help us to see, Actually, it's the next song we sing. Be Thou My Vision is the one I was thinking about that young people like. But if you have a bulletin, you'll see that we will be having the Lord's Table next week. You say, well, why do you call it the Lord's Table? Because that's one of the terms that churches use. I can't call it the Lord's Supper because I'm a southern boy. And we have breakfast, dinner, and supper down there. So, you know, we don't have Sunday dinner at five o'clock. Dinner is noon, you know. So it's kind of hard to have the Lord's supper at noon. So it's the Lord's table. And so we'll have that next week. Now, next week also is what? We get an extra hour of sleep, right? So that means that we'll be turning back the clocks and unfortunately it'll be dark around here by 3.30 by December. How sad that is, but that's the way they have it. And so we're gonna rejoice in it and rejoice and be glad in it. And so let's pray that God will get us through this winter now. Many of you are concerned and I am concerned about heating bills. We need to pray for our country at this time. I mean, we might not have anything if the diesel fuel runs out. You might not talk about shortages. It'll be more than toilet paper this time around. And so we need to pray that what does God wants to do during these times. And so, but there again, I'm just determined that I'm gonna praise God. You know, in all things give thanks for this is the will of God and Christ Jesus concerning you. Now I'm not gonna praise him for it, and I'm gonna have to, now Lord, what are you doing? There are times we do that, but Lord, I don't understand what you're doing, but I'm gonna trust you. I'm gonna hang on for dear life, Lord. Like one lady said one time, Pastor, I'm holding on by my toenails. And I said, hold on, lady. And so that's what we gotta do at times. And so, but then again, this is the day the Lord's made, and we're going to, Rejoice and be glad in it. Now, one of the songs you know I like to sing in the wintertime is, I just forgot it, is I look out the door, and when morning gills the sky, well, bye, it doesn't get morning till late, so you can get up, and my kitchen window looks out to the east, and when that sun starts coming up, I can start singing that song. May Jesus Christ be, And so start off in the morning praising God. We'll probably sing that song several times during the coming months. Now tonight we won't have service. It shows you the lack of influence that Christianity has in our country. And plus so many churches are not having evening services. But they're going to have the Halloween parade out here. And it starts at seven, which means that there'll be people congregating out where we park. And we have done this before. In fact, one time we decided we're gonna have a combination, passing out candy as well as a church service. We just had a couple of people outside, but we had dozens of, or wait, not a dozen, but we had several people coming in right in the middle of point number two, and I'm up here really going, waxing eloquent. Where's the bathroom? So we just won't have a church service tonight. But we'll be, stay tuned, we'll be back next week, Lord willing. But I think that's all, we do need to be praying for our church. These have been some very difficult, this has been a difficult year. The Daudelaires are missionaries to France. He's retiring and he was asking when he could come through. He'll be here on January 29th. But I didn't get back with him because of all the things that were going on and he was concerned. And I tried to make excuses. and now I feel bad about it because I said, well, I've had some cancer treatment. My wife just, and I said, I'm sorry I didn't get back with you. And he said, oh, I didn't know. I made it sound like I was half dead, you know, so I'm not dead or whatever. So I really, boy, this has been kind of an interesting year for me and so many of our people. My secretary passed away, all these different things that has happened, and yet God's still on the throne, isn't he? And we can trust him, and I'm looking forward You know, tribulation work is experience, and experience, hope. And in the ministry, after you've been in for so many years, you start saying, you've been through some of these things before. And so what is, but hope makes not ashamed. I'm looking forward to what God's gonna do here. I don't think God's through with us here yet, do you? And so I'm looking forward to the coming year. I'm looking forward to the end of this year, what God's gonna do. I really praise the Lord. I tell people we have more people on the internet watching us than we do sometimes in the services, but we're having people telling us that they're watching us. How many times? 20, 30 people sometimes that are tuning in to us every week. We have people in the Philistines, they're still watching us regularly. We gotta figure out who they are. You can't figure out who the people are, but we got a group of people over in the Philippines that are watching us all the time. So praise the Lord for that. And hi, y'all. I hope that we're a blessing to you. Okay, let's take our hymnals and we'll turn back to hymn number 374, 374. Be Thou my vision, O Lord of my heart. Naught be all else to me safe that thou art, Thou my best thought by day or by night, Walking or sleeping, Thy presence my light. Be thou my wisdom, and thou my true word. I ever with thee, and thou with me, Lord, Thou my great Father, and I thy true Son, Thou in me dwelling, and I with thee one. Riches I heed not, nor man's empty praise, Thou mine inheritance now and always, Thou and Thou only. May I reach heaven's joys, O bright heaven's sun. Okay, we have people who have to do multiple things around here. I've never had an usherette in the church service yet. Rob, would you be able to take the offering this morning? I tell you what, we're going to have an usherette this morning. Is that all right? Oh, sorry. No, I think usherettes are a whole lot prettier than ushers. OK, if you don't mind. This lady is, I mean, I just, I just, God is so good to send us the people He sent us. And I really appreciate it, Ana and Evelyn. This is the first time you've ever been in an usherette, right? Praise the Lord. And who knows, their offerings might improve. Okay, let's have a word of prayer. Father, we do thank you for your goodness to us, and we pray your blessings upon the gift and the giver. And Lord, just thank you for how, over the years now, you've sustained this church in ways that just seemed impossible. You've always raised up the right people at the right time to do the right things. And we pray now, Lord, that not only will this church survive these difficult days, but we want to prosper. We want to see, Lord, we're not praying for money. We're praying, Lord, for the excitement of seeing people turn from darkness to light, from fresh people getting saved and excited about you. And so, Father, we pray your blessings upon us now as we would seek your face. Bless the offerings, Lord, may every penny be used for your glory. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Thank you, sweetheart, if she's watching us this morning. But you'll notice that sometimes I have trouble keeping up with the beat because it's a whole lot different leading singing and her following me than having to have her lead me on the piano. So that's one reason you'll find me skipping phrases at times because I'm trying to get back into the beat. Okay, let's take our Bibles and we'll turn to the book of Acts chapter 10, Acts chapter 10, which is one of the pivotal chapters in the history of the church. We see now that Peter, in fact, if you turn to Acts chapter 10, then I want you to turn back to, just keep your finger there, and turn back to Matthew chapter 16. And we will see, you hear today so much about if people die, they're gonna meet, St. Peter's gonna meet them at the gate, right? And he's got the key. He's gonna either turn them away or whatever. I like that old story that, that, church that got the citizen of the year or whatever. And she invited Judy and I when we were first married to go down. And the mayor of Mobile, Alabama told a story. This is back during all the time of the radio preachers and everything. But he said that Oral Roberts and Billy Graham and Jerry Falwell were all in the same plane and they crashed. And they all went to heaven. And when they got there, St. Peter, Met him at the gate and he said, no, you guys, you guys are just too good for this place. We need to send you down to purgatory for a while and let Satan, you know, take care of you. And so he went, they were sent to heaven or sent to purgatory or whatever. And Satan calls St. Peter later on and says, you got to get these guys out of this place. And he said, why? And he said, because Oral Roberts is going around healing everybody. Jerry Falwell is going around saving everybody. And excuse me. Boy, I'm going to mess up my punch line. But Oral Roberts is going around healing everybody. Billy Graham is going around saving everybody. And Jerry Falwell has already raised $25 million in air conditioning in this place. So of course, I'm. So everybody makes reference to, we're gonna meet St. Peter one day. Well, you won't find St. Peter at the pearly gates. In fact, that's not even pearly gates, that's a gate of pearl, one solid pearl that all the money in the world couldn't buy one of them, let alone 12 of them. And so the imagery that we have that people have given us over the years is totally wrong. But the whole idea of the keys to the kingdom, What do we mean by that? And that's what we will look at this morning. Notice what God says in Matthew, well, this is what we call Peter's great confession. Who do you say, what does the world say that I am? Well, some people say you're this, and some people say you're that. Okay, Peter, and the rest of you disciples, what do you say, or who do you say that I am? And this is where Peter had to either cut bait or, you know, go fishing or cut bait or whatever. In other words, was he going to be a true disciple? Did he really believe this or not? And so this is a turning point in his life. But notice now in chapter 16 of Matthew, chapter 16, verse, 14, he says, so they said, some say John the Baptist, and others say you're Elijah, and others say you're Jeremiah, or one of the prophets. And he said, but whom do you say that I am? And Simon Peter answered and said, you are the Christ, the Messiah, the son of the living God. And then answered, Jesus answered and said to him, blessed are you, Simon Bartholomew, For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I say to you that you are Peter, that is little rock. And upon this rock, big rock, I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven. and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. Aha, so Peter is the one that lets people in. Is that what it means? No, if we turn to the book of Acts then, we see that Peter was one who introduced the world to the gospel. And Peter, as we have seen all the way through these chapters now, is at the forefront. At the day of Pentecost, who was the person who introduced the gospel to the people there at the temple? It was Peter, Jesus Christ and him crucified. When at Samaria, even though Stephen went up to, not Stephen, but Philip went up to preach in Samaria, even with that, who confirmed the fact and what happened with the signs and wonders what confirmed to the people there that the gospel was true and so forth. Remember Simon the sorcerer and others were up there, but Peter went up and confirmed it and went up and the people started talking in tongues. So you have two places there talking in tongues, and it was a verification. If you turn over to 1 Corinthians chapter 14, the Bible tells us that tongues were assigned to the Jew of what God was doing in the church. And we see that every place in the book of Acts, and we'll see that in this passage, in this chapter, Every place that tongues were, we see in the Bible, there were always Jews that were present. So it was a sign to the Jews. So if we're gonna talk in tongues here, first of all, is any Jews here this morning? I wish there was, but I don't see any hands. But we've had visitors and so forth from, and I would like to get two or three Jewish Christians in this church. I'd like to get all races here. You know how that Hispanics, I love to get together. I love ethnic groups. I love differences in people and why people think certain ways and why are certain phrases what they are and all that. Why is a hood a bonnet? You know, we open up our hood and our car, but it's a bonnet over it. Why is all, you know, all those type things. I love etymology, looking at words and why people do things like that. But, so here we see that, that every, that a Jew, that this was a sign to the Jew. And you know, we will, you can see that in 1 Corinthians chapter 14. So first of all, we need, we would need some Jews here. Secondly, they would need to, if I started talking in another language, then if I had a German Jew here, guess what? I would probably be talking in German. If we have a Hispanic Jew here, we would probably, if we had an Ethiopian Jew, there's Jews all over the world, Chinese Jews, Japanese Jews, it's amazing how God spread them all over the world. But wherever they are, if I was gonna speak in tongues, then it would be intelligible to what? An interpreter. And the interpreter would be that, oh, that Jew, that's what he's talking about. And he can't speak my language, but God has given me this, God has given him this miracle to talk to me. And so we'll see, so you'll see every place in the book of Acts, tongues were assigned, or foreign languages were assigned the Jews. And so here we see, though, that Peter, after he went up to Samaria and the Holy Spirit came upon them, remember one reason that it didn't come immediately to them is because, again, God didn't want two different churches. The Samarians had their own temple and everything, and Peter had to go up there and say, no, there's only one God, one temple. And of course that temple of course was gonna be destroyed and now we're the temple of God. But that was all things that were gonna be developed. But there's only one church, one body of Christ. There's not the Samaritan Christian and the, no we're all Christian or we're not Christian, one or the other. And so we see that he went there and now we'll see in the book of Acts, again, that of course we see what we saw in chapter nine, how that the Lord went down and confirmed what Philip was preaching up and down Judea. Remember, Jerusalem, Judea, Judea. or Samaria, and Judea, and to the outermost parts of the world. We're gonna see now, this is that pivotal time, and you see it's one of the largest sections in the Bible, chapters 10 and 11 in the book of Acts, the transition now from the age of the Jew, or as far as the institution, to the Gentile church. I mentioned in Sunday school this morning, it's developmental. One thing you have not seen yet in the book of Acts is an office called the pastor. And you won't see that until later on when Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles, tells us that the church was, God revealed that to him in the book of Ephesians. We call the book of Ephesians the church epistle. And so all those developments came, but so we see that the word of God is progressive, not politically, but as you go through it, you should know more about the Lord Jesus Christ in the book of Isaiah than you do in the book of Genesis. although the seed is planted in Genesis. But you should know more about the Lord Jesus Christ in the book of Matthew than you did Isaiah. But you need to know a whole lot more about the Lord Jesus Christ by the book of Revelation than you do in Matthew. Why? Because it's progressive. I just, I found some old, Syllabuses, one of my professors, Dr. Stuart Custer, loved the man. He loved the Word of God and he preached the Word of God, or he taught the Word of God with a passion, which is rare for theologians, but he wasn't cold at all. But I found a syllabus he made and he wrote every passage in the New Testament in how many pages? I don't know, 25, 50, 50, back and forth, but it's an old syllabus. And I bought it for 75 cents. So that tells you how old it is. Back in the 70s, I told Patrice, she loves that kind of stuff, so I said, I know who's, I'm gonna give one of these to. And I told Patrice this morning, this thing was probably written when you were in diapers, you know, so there again, it's, but he's gone through and he's put all the developmental, every reference to eschatology, the doctrine of last things from Matthew to Revelation in that syllabus. and he talks about the different people, the different viewpoints and so forth of each passage and so forth. It's very detailed and very technical, and you really have to be interested to look at it, but it's amazing what God has done in developing the scripture. But here is one of those major turning points, because where did the church begin? It began in the temple. By the end of the book of Acts, where is it? In Rome. And so we see that it has gone totally, and we know that the temple is gonna be destroyed during the writings, or by the time that John writes the book of Revelation, the temple is already destroyed. And it won't be rebuilt until the Lord, until the tribulation period. And I like Dominic, I hope Dominic's listening down in Florida this morning, that rascal. And he'll write me back and he'll say, yes, 80 degrees under your pastor or whatever, you know, but he keeps, he loves that about the temple and how they're gathering all that. So it's interesting how our people have a inclination, they want to know what's happening. But yeah, the temple, if the Lord's gonna build it during the tribulation, then that means that the stuff's gonna have to be there, just like David had it ready for Solomon to build the temple. And so it's all the materials are getting there. But here we see now in chapter 10, how that Peter has to be prepared And Peter is gonna open the keys, and it's so interesting to see the story in Luke. He is the one who opens the key, or he get the keys to the Gentiles, but then Paul takes over, and all the way to the end of the book, the major character is Paul, who is the apostle to the Gentiles. And people all look at the Bible, just look at what Peter did or what Luke did. He just put a lot of newspaper clippings in there and it doesn't make a bit of sense. No, if you notice what he's doing, if you understand the works of the Holy Spirit, not the acts of the apostle, but the acts of the Holy Spirit, as he is now taking the gospel to a lost and dying world. And so now we see in the book of Acts chapter 10, We'll notice in verse one, and I hope we can, this is a long chapter. In fact, we won't even get into chapter 11 because it's just too much, but in chapter 11, they verify to the Jews again what happened, and he defends what he did with the Gentiles to the Jews in Jerusalem in chapter 11. So this is pivotal. This is a big change in the history of the church, and we will see the gospel goes to the Gentiles, and then Luke spends most of the rest of the book on the Gentiles in the book of Acts. And so we see in verse 10, or chapter 10, verse one, he says, there was a certain man in Caesarea named Cornelius. Now there were a lot of soldiers named Cornelius because there was a general by the name of Sulla who had a few years before had freed about 10,000 slaves. And then a lot of those slaves even joined the army because of the respect for him. And so Cornelius became a very popular name because Sulla's, one of his middle names was Cornelius. And so a lot of people took that on and he says he was Cornelius, a centurion. You'll notice that every centurion in the New Testament is always a good man. Even the guy who was in charge of putting the Lord on the cross, the centurion, I believe, and here again, remember what he did? The first person saved at the cross was the thief. The second person on the cross was the very man in charge of putting him there, remember? He said, Lord, they know not what they do. You remember the centurion, he fell down at the foot of the cross and said, surely this is the son of God. So I think the second person ever born or ever saved at the cross was the centurion. But here we see this was a centurion, but he was a part of a very elite group. He was Italian. It's Gentile. He was of the Italian band or cohort. A cohort was about a thousand men. A centurion was a non-commissioned officer over about a hundred men. We'd like to say the chief in the Navy, Chief Petty Officer, non-commissioned, is the backbone of the Navy. In fact, officers would say, when you're junior officers, you go and say, Chief, this is what I'd like to do. How do we do it? So it's one of those things where they knew that they were the backbone. The staff sergeant or whoever, any of you Army guys, you know what I'm talking about. You know who the sergeant is. Maybe it's a buck sergeant at times, but most of the time, it's going to be that E6 or E7 that's going to know what's going on. and they're the backbone of the army or the navy. Well, here we have the backbone of the Roman army. And does he have connections? Yes, he's part of the elite. He's part of the rangers or whatever. He's right up there, one of Caesar's generals. Caesar's best, of the Italian cohort or band, or as King James says, regiment, a devout man. Now notice, devout man and one who feared God. He was God fearer. Now what would happen if a Gentile converted or they proclaimed God as their savior, Jehovah as their God, then they could go to the synagogue or to the temple, but because, and we'll see the customs here in just a moment, even Peter wouldn't go and stay with a Gentile until God told him to, but the Gentile, if you went to a synagogue today, they wouldn't let you in like where you're sitting now. You could sit in the back. because yes, you can worship with us, but you are Gentile and you are not to be brought into the congregation. And so there was that wall between, and that's where Paul tells us in Ephesians chapter four, again, doctrine to the church, that wall has been destroyed. And there's no difference now in the body of Christ between Jew and Gentile. We all come to the Lord, Savior, Lord, and we come to salvation through our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. And that wall has been broken. And of course, or that curtain has been broken. And that, of course, anybody had been to a synagogue, they knew exactly what's on that wall, just like the, like the curtain, the veil of the temple was split in two. Now it's been destroyed. But now, now this was before that happened. We see that he went, he was a good God-fearing man. And the Jews today, if you've done a lot for Israel, they would call you a God-fearer. or a righteous man. There are Gentiles buried in places of honor in Jerusalem today, or in Israel today, that did Israel, that they're honored by the Israelites, but they are not Jews. They may not be welcome into a synagogue as far as in the congregation, but they sure are welcome to come and watch what's going on. And so that's the divide. Then you can think about the food. Remember all the dietary things and all that, and the customs. I've been to Birmingham, Michigan, which is right outside of Detroit, and they got a whole suburb of Jews there. And I've been able to talk to a couple of the families there. I never will forget the family. I think I've told you about it. That man was doing some repair work for my church down there. And I went down there with him. And he was collecting his money, but the people wouldn't pay him until the rabbi came over. I must have been in a hurry that day. He didn't have his little kepi. So he came over with his kepi on his head like this and was looking over the work before he would pay. And I'm going, this is strange. But I started talking to him and he was just astounded that a Gentile could know so much about the Old Testament. He just started trying to, I told him I was a pastor. and so forth, and he started challenging me, and he would mention something in the Old Testament, and I would talk to him back, and he'd kind of look at me like, you know that? So that was a lot of fun, but I wish I could have led him to the Lord. But we see that there is a big difference, and we see that it is being broken here, and we see that he, so we see that he tells us that he feared God and all of his household, And they gave alms, they were givers. They blessed even the Jewish people. And the people, and they prayed to God always. Can't ask for much more than that, can you? About the ninth hour of the day, it's about three o'clock in the afternoon, he saw clearly a vision of an angel. Now every time you see an angel appearing to a person in the Bible, God's about ready to do something great. And so if you remember Manoah, the Samson's father, we see God was about ready to do something. When God was about ready to do something with Abraham, Moses, whenever you saw that angel, he was about ready to change things. Daniel, you name the, look at Mary, Zacharias, You look at him, the angel was about ready to do something. Now here he's coming to a Gentile. This is the first time we see in scripture, well, one of the first, one of the rare times in scripture where we see an angel coming and talking to a Gentile. And we see that in a vision, an angel coming to him and saying, Cornelius. And when he observed him, he was afraid and said, what is it, Lord Jehovah? And so he, I said to him, your prayers and your alms have come up from a memorial before God. And so I've been, we've been hearing your prayer. And by the way, every person you see in the Bible who seeks the Lord finds him. Every person who looked for Jesus found him. They that seek me shall find me. If they look for me with all their heart, seeking you shall find, knocking shall be opened unto you. So we see that if you're a true seeker of God, we'll find him. Now, if you're just wanting to compare Jesus with other people, that's not seeking him with all your heart. But if you're really seeking the truth, you'll find God. And so we see that this is what happened. And now he said, send men, and we won't have time to go through all this, but we'll get started on this morning. But he said, now send men to Joppa and send for Simon, whose name is Peter, he is lodging with Simon the Tanner, whose house is by the sea, in Joppa, a member of Seaport Town, that's where Jonah had been. He will tell you what you must do. And when the angel spoke to him, he departed. Cornelius called to his household servants and a devout soldier from among those who waited on him continually. As a centurion, he knew how to take orders and he knew how to receive orders and he knew how to give orders. So notice he gets one of his primary men and a group of people around him and he says, go. And so they, he says, and they waited on him. So when he had explained all these things to them, they sent to Joppa. So that'd be a three-day journey down, probably 90 miles down the coastline from Caesarea. Caesarea was a town built by Herod the Great and named after Caesar. And it was, in fact, the very synagogue lately, back several years ago, I think back in the 90s, they found the synagogue that probably Cornelius And so we see that now in verse nine. Now the next day as they went on their journey and drew near the city. So notice God is working on this here and he's working on the soul winner. And folks, that's what God does with us. Before we pray that God will save someone, then God is already working in their heart and they're ready to receive it when we give it. But we are not, you say, well, my, I don't know when that is. Neither do I. That's the reason God just says, go. I'll take care of the rest. If they reject you, they're just rejecting me. But when their hearts are right, that word, that seed that you've planted is going to come to fruition. My word will not return void. And so we see that we are to take, but notice what God has to do with this, with Peter. In verse nine, then the next day, as they went on their journey and drew near to the city, Caesarea, Peter went up on the housetop to pray. Now those houses were built and they were built with a roof on the top where people could go up, that was their air conditioning, go up on the roof and put a dawning or shade over it, and especially the heat of the day. And Peter, this was about noon that he was there, about the sixth hour. Then Peter became very hungry and wanted something to eat. So he probably told, remember Simon the Tanner, the unclean Tanner? He worked with dead animals and yet Peter is there, knows how God's bringing him into a whole new way of living. And so I guess the ladies are fixing food or whoever it is fixing food. He goes up and he says, okay, I'll take this time to pray. and he fell into a trance and saw heaven opened and an object like a great sheet, or some people believe it looked like a sail because he's there in Joppa, which is a sailing town, probably like a big sail, a great sheet bound on four corners, descending to him and let down to earth. as it were, all kinds of four-footed animals on earth, all kinds of pigs and all kinds of rabbits. What else, what are some of you guys, roadkill? So what is all this? Anything from a lamb to, what's some of the things they have on those, some of those shows about the challenge of people eating, but gophers or whatever, but you know, clean and unclean. Something that a Jew would never even think about eating, especially him. And how many times has that been, we see in our culture today where people, cultural appropriation and all this stuff, and they get angry if you serve certain things. But it says, in it there were all kinds of four-footed animals and wild beasts and creeping things. Was that an insect? Anybody like frog legs? Shrimp. Shrimp is a delicacy down in Mobile, Alabama, but it's very unclean. It's a bottom dweller, you know? And you look at those little tentacles coming down before you clean the shrimp, a Jew would not even look at it, let alone eat it. And yet that's, you know, you pay 10 extra dollars if you have shrimp in your salad up here. So again, we see all these things that he saw. And a voice came to him, said, rise, Peter. Note it, if you have a red letter Bible, you see that that is in red. Rise, Peter, kill and eat. Now, Peter would know that voice. And what voice was that? the Lord Jesus talking to him. So here we have an angel talking to one man, Jesus talking to another, God's preparing them both. But Peter said, not so Lord, no capital L here. He says, for I have never eaten anything common or unclean. Now the word common is like we said koine in the Greek, unclean. I've not eaten anything that's kosher. I don't understand exactly what that word means, but I've talked to a Jew, Jews from that background, and I'll say, okay, this is not, he says, and I'll say, is this unkosher? He says, there's no such word, either it's kosher or not. and they'll go into, and I'm still not exactly sure what they mean by that, other than the fact that it's got to be approved. I know there's a vlasic pickle plant in Emily City, Michigan, where my last ministry, and if you got kosher pickles, the rabbi would come in and bless those pickles before they were shipped out. So if you eat kosher pickles, the rabbi's been by. So here we see, and of course he inspects them to make sure that they're done just right and all that stuff too. And so we see that, but Peter said, not so Lord, for I have never eaten anything that is unclean. And a voice spoke to him again and said, what God has cleansed "'You must not call common.'" Now again, we see the Lord talking to him, and this was done three times. Well, Peter had trouble with three times, didn't he? Peter, before the cock crows, you're gonna deny me three times? You see how many times that Peter had to get through his thick head what God was doing. But three times, Peter argued with God, and the object was taken up into heaven again. And so now we see in the next section in verses 17 through 23, we see that these people come down and they verify. Now, while Peter wondered within himself this vision, he said, man alive, God's doing this. God wants me to eat pigs. He wants me to eat ham. He wants me to eat shrimp. He wants me to eat rabbit. I mean, really? He said, behold, the man who had sent him to Cornelius to inquire Simon's house and stood at the gate. And they called and asked whether Simon, whose surname was Peter, was lodging there. And while Peter thought about the vision, the Spirit said to him, behold, three men. So notice, just like with Samuel, when he anointed David and also saw the spirit talk to him about what was happening. Here we see that Peter, that the Lord talked to him and told him that these three men would be coming. And he rose therefore and go down with them, doubting nothing for I have sent them. Then Peter went down to the men and they sent to him from Cornelius and said, yes, I am whom you speak. For what reason have you come? In verse 22, notice what these men say about their commander. They said, Cornelius the centurion, a just man. One who fears God and a good reputation among all the nation of the Jews was divinely instructed. Notice how that they even considered him a good man. And it's nothing, it's one thing to have in the Navy, it was a blessing to have a chief that liked you. And I had a couple that really liked me. It is not a blessing to have one who doesn't like you. You don't want to get on the bad side of a chief. But here, this guy, His men loved him and they were willing to obey him. But notice verse 23, then he invited them and they, here, they lodged with him. Gentiles lodged with this guy? Well, why not? If I have to stay with a guy who kills dead animals and let the Gentiles in too. Cultural, we'll see in just a moment. He says, you know, he'll tell Cornelius in just a moment, you know, it's not lawful for me to even be here. But here he lets these guys in and they're staying with Simon. Now I wonder what Simon, the other was a Jew, what he thought about that. But he said, well, Peter, take it over my house, I guess. But notice they lodged. And the next day they went away with them. And some of the brethren from Joppa accompanied them. So here we have now an entourage that's going down or going up to Caesarea. And the following day, They entered Caesarea. Now Cornelius was waiting for them and called together his relatives and close friends as Peter was coming in. And Cornelius met him and fell down at his feet and worshiped him. Now notice what Peter does. But Peter lifted him up saying, stand up, I myself, I'm also a man. Now you'll notice that every place in the Bible, John did this with an angel in the book of Revelation. They always say, stand up, don't worship me. any man who will take the worship of others and let them kiss his ring or his toe or whatever else, avoid them. I don't care what throne they're in, if it's in Rome or Ethiopia, it's totally sacrilege. And so we see that, don't ever worship me. You know, don't ever come and sit at my feet. I know one pastor who, well, he got into a pastor's conference out at a campground and some of the younger boys would come and sit at his feet as if, you know, he was, well, because he had heard about Gamaliel and all that. And the guy didn't tell him to get up. And boy, did the Lord take care of that so-called good picture. He died in infamy. He lost a lot of respect even among his own family. God will never share his glory with another. And so we see that Peter said, get up, stand. I myself, I am also a man. And he talked with them and he went in and found many who'd come together. Oh boy, Cornelius had a lot of people. And they said, you know that it is unlawful for a Jewish man to keep company with or go to one of another nation. You know I'm not supposed to be here. I'm not supposed to be in your house. But God has shown me that I should not call any man common or unclean. God has told me now that Gentiles are welcome into the kingdom of God. So here we see, and we'll see as you go on, and boy, we're running out of time. I knew that chapter 10 is so technical and so long, we won't get to it all tonight, but you see the change now. Peter is taking direct orders from God, and he is not only staying with the Gentiles, but now he is going into the house of a Gentile and talking with this man and proclaiming to him what God has told him. He says, therefore, I come without objection. As soon as I was sent for, I asked then for what reason have you sent me? So Cornelius said four days ago, and he says, you know, you and I had similar visions. Only I saw an angel. And he told me where you were and told me how to get to you. And so we went and got you. So in chapter 34, or verse 34, I mean, of chapter 10, we see that Peter opened his mouth and said, it is truth I perceive that God shows no partiality, but in every nation, whoever, the whosoever, the King James, and you'll see that word, the whosoever will may come. But we see in every nation, Whosoever, whoever fears him and works righteousness is accepted by him. The word which God sent to the children of Israel, preaching peace through Jesus Christ. If you want a great passage of that, turn over to Ephesians chapter four, and that's where you'll see Paul tells that God has broken down the wall between the Jew and the Gentile. But we see preaching the peace through Jesus Christ. He is Lord of all. The word you know, which was proclaimed throughout all of Judea, and it goes through the history of him knowing the Lord Jesus as his savior. And notice what is the gospel in verse 39. And we are witnesses of all these things, both in the land of the Jews and Jerusalem, how that they killed the Lord Jesus. So here we have the crucifixion on a tree. He was raised up. So here you have the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Folks, if you don't have that in your gospel, there's no gospel. the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ on the third day, him openly, not to all people, but to the witnesses chosen before God, even to us. And we ate and drank with him. We were personal with him. Now, the one thing in the Bible, if the Lord comes and eats with you, that means that you have been accepted by him. What does the Lord tell us over in the book of Revelation? He says, here's my voice, I will enter in and I will sup with them. So here we see, God is having communion with us. And what is communion all about? Well, we're gonna be eating and drinking next week when we have communion. That is saying, God, we are communing with God. And so we see now there's no different table. The Lord says in John chapter eight, many shall come from the east and west and sit at my table in the kingdom of heaven. Well, to the Jew and the Egyptian, if you remember Joseph, he wouldn't eat as long as he was identified as an Egyptian or they thought he was an Egyptian, he wouldn't eat with the Jews. whenever Sadat shook hands with Menachem Begin, just a handshake and that shook the world, let alone eating together. And so you see how those divisions are still there, except through the gospel. And so we see that they killed by hanging on a tree and not all the people, well, let's go. He says, they ate and drank with him and they arose from the dead. And he commanded us to preach to the people and to testify of these things. So this is the key. This is where he is now opening it up. And to him, all the prophets witnessed that his name, whosoever believes in him will receive remission of sins. Whosoever will may come. And verse 44, now as Peter was speaking these words, the Holy Spirit, notice now this identification again, like it was in Samaria, but now notice the Holy Spirit fell upon all the people like it was in Jerusalem. And all they heard the word, and those of the circumcision, now who are those of the circumcision? The Jews. the Jews who believed, the Christian Jews, they were astonished, as many as came with Peter, because the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out on the Gentiles, for they heard them speak with tongues and magnify God. There it is. Every time that Peter opened the keys, or used the keys of heaven, somebody spoke in tongues. and there were Jews there to listen. And so it was a verification, it was a sign to the Jew that yes, Gentiles are being accepted in without going through all the rituals of the temple and all the different things, all the dietary laws, all those now are gonna be done away with. That was a distinctive Jewish culture that now God is doing away with. In the Old Testament, God created the Jew as the oracle of God. We know that if you read Ezekiel or Daniel, they preached to the Jew as well as to the Gentile. because Israel was the oracle of God to a lost and dying world. Today, the ordained institution that God uses as his oracle is the church. Why? Because, and we'll see how God raises us up, but do we see that he says, for they heard them speak with tongues and magnify God. And Peter said, can anyone forbid water? And of course, then he baptized these people. Now again, we'll see that this is developing doctrine because Peter and the apostles and deacons baptized, but later on, we're gonna see in the book of Ephesians, how that there is now one office of the church that has not been created yet. And that's, we saw it in Sunday school, you missed it, but the office of a pastor for the church, but the church has not developed far enough for that yet. And so we see how that God is still using the apostles. He's using evangelists. He's using the apostles here to witness the lost and hanged world, but he's gonna open it up now through Paul. And it's gonna be magnified in the ministry as he goes first to the Jew, the Jew first and also to the Gentile. But Paul begins, every place he went in his early days, he would go to the Jewish church first, pull a lot of people out there and start a church. So here we see how that God is ready now to work. But really, the basics are still there. And that is God prepares our hearts. And when God lays someone on your heart, then that means that God is probably working in the person to whom you're thinking about. And so, yes, you might be angry. They might be saying all kinds of mean things about you. But then if God's laid that person on your heart, God is working in their heart. And our job is, Lord, give me wisdom to know how, and give me the keys to open the door. Lord, you open the door. Of course, he owns the keys. But he said, Lord, I want to be, As Paul later on says, pray that God will give me a door of utterance to the Gentiles. And so here again, if God is laying someone on your heart, then God is working in the heart of that person to whom you're thinking. So let's pray that God will give us. Oh Lord, lay some soul upon my heart and love that soul through me. And may I humbly do my part to win that soul to thee. Let's pray, Father. We thank you for your word. We thank you for what it can mean to our lives. Lord, give us a passion for souls. May you change this church through opening doors to the change of the gospel as we watch people change before our very eyes. as they would turn from darkness to light, from the power of Satan unto yourself, that they would turn to you from idols and serve a living and true God. Oh, Lord, we pray for Belvedere. We pray, Lord, that you would prepare hearts and that you would prepare our hearts to reach them with your gospel. We pray in Jesus' name, amen. Let's take our hymnals now, and we will turn to hymn number 159. $159,000 in closing. Tell me the story of Jesus, write on my heart every word. Tell me the story most precious, sweetest that ever was heard. Tell me of Jesus, tell me of Jesus, Tell me of Jesus. Tell me the story again. And the last stanza. Tell me the story so tender. Tell me so clearly I see. How Jesus came for a sinner. Love paid the ransom for me. ♪ Tell me of Jesus ♪ ♪ Tell me again ♪ ♪ Tell me of Jesus ♪ ♪ Tell me the story again ♪ Father, we pray that you would dismiss us with your blessings, but Lord, with a burden for those around us and with a keen, understanding that you as the Holy Spirit working in our lives, that you are leading us to others. Prepare the hearts, go before us, Lord, and we pray that others will be saved as a result of the message that you've placed in our hearts. We pray in Jesus' name, amen.