All right, Hebrews chapter 2 verse 1 says that, therefore, we must pay close attention to the things we have heard, lest we let them drift away. Has anything ever drifted away because you take it for granted? I know it's really easy in marriages to take the love of your spouse for granted, and eventually couples just kind of drift away. We need not ever take that for granted. but also the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Today we're looking at what you might call the watershed moment when the gospel went to the Gentiles for the first time. And as you look at your text of scripture before you, the very last scripture that we'll look at is chapter 11, verse 18, when it says, to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life. That's you and me. That's a blessing, now God has blessed us now to go to the ends of the earth, even to the Gentiles. Now, in the scriptures you'll find other Gentiles from time to time that are mentioned that have been blessed with faith. I'm thinking of Job, I'm thinking of Ruth, or think of Rahab, also maybe the woman at Canaan that Jesus touched her daughter. and a host of others, but this is the Holy Spirit marking the time, the official beginning of the, you might call it the floodgates of inclusion into the world of covenant blessings to the Gentiles. Now here's a warning as we open this. Paul made this warning in the book of Romans chapter 11, says, don't be arrogant. Don't be arrogant. You are a recipient of the gospel, but don't you be arrogant and look down on other people. Because we need to take it as a blessing from God. And if it's a blessing from God, we want to hold it tight, and hold it and review it, and appreciate the gospel. So I'm looking at three things here. Chapter 10, verse 24 through 33, we're looking at the gospel preliminaries. Peter is going to Cornelius' house. We looked at the last time, and we'll review a little bit of that, when God spoke to Peter and said, that which is common to be unclean." He said, for whatever God has cleansed, he says it's called not common or unclean. Then we're going to look at the power of the gospel in chapter 10, verse 34 through 48. And then Peter has to make a defense of the gospel in chapter 11, verses 1 through 18, because he got called on the carpet for going to see Cornelius. It's so typical of how things happen. People don't like what happens. It's a little bit different, so they start making accusations. Rather than read the entire one, I'm just going to break it down point by point as we go through here. So the first section we're looking at is Gospel Preliminaries, verses 24 through 33 of chapter 10. The first thing we consider is the zeal of faith in verse 24, and actually I want to read 23 and 24, where it says in 23, he invited the men. That's the guests that came. Those are the men from Cornelius that came to where Peter was staying at the house of Simon the Tanner, as we looked at last week. So he invited them in to be his guests, which is a miracle in itself. He brought them in to his house, which was a no-no, right? Now he goes with them, and so he goes in verse 24, or latter part of verse 23, and so the next day he rose and went with them, and some of the brothers from Joppa accompanied him, and on the following day he entered Caesarea, and Cornelius was expecting him. Before we get to any more on that, let me just point this out. I call this Peter's zeal of faith, because you have to be zealous in order to follow this. Now, Peter had received this vision from the Lord to call not common or unclean, but I have cleansed, and then he told him that there's men here, I want you to go with them. So that's the orders he received from God. What did that involve? Let's put it in perspective. Caesarea, he has to go to Caesarea to go to Cornelius's house. Caesarea is 32 miles away from Joppa. Now, put that in perspective. If you're a pretty decent walker, you run, you walk a 15 minute pace. Okay, that's kind of a brisk pace, right? So if you're going 32 miles, that means you're doing 4 miles an hour. That means it's going to be Eight hours of walking. Would you walk eight hours to share the gospel with somebody? Hmm. We love our comfort. Peter is walking eight hours with these men. All right? So probably more like 10 hours because I'm sure they stopped and got McDonald's along the way or something, right? And they'd have to. They were by the seaside, so probably went to a fish market. Maybe he had a fillet of fish. I don't know. Anyway, here we go. The other thing I've noticed about Peter's act of faith was he took six brothers with him. Now we know that it says right here in chapter 10 that he took men from Joppa with him, those who were believers. Now in chapter 11 he says he brought six people with him. So why is this important? Because I believe what Peter was doing was anticipating the fact he was going to go into a Gentile home, and he was going to be called in question about that, and so I need some witnesses here. Okay, so very smart. Peter's acting in faith, and so here we go. All right, the next thing we note, I call this misguided zeal in verses 25 and 26, when it says that as he followed that next day in verse 24, he entered into Caesarea, Cornelius was expecting him and had called together his relatives and close friends. When Peter entered, Cornelius met him and fell down at his feet and worshipped him. But Peter lifted him up, saying, Stand up, I too am a man." Now, I call this misguided zeal, simply because you know what happens to Christians, well, before they're Christians, when people, well, let me back up. Let me say this, that we don't know exactly when the Spirit of God touches a person. Sometimes the Spirit of God does it while the preaching is going on. And we thank the Lord for those moments. But there are other times when the Spirit of God is beginning to woo that person, and sometimes God gives them an insight in the fact of their sinfulness, and what's the first reaction? The default reaction is to try to make up for their sin with good works. That was Cornelius. He had the testimony that he gave alms. Now, I believe it was misguided because he hadn't heard the gospel yet. Now, God was going to provide the gospel to bring in the good news is it's not based on what you're doing or going to do, it's based on what is done for you by the Lord Jesus Christ. So, the first thing is he's misguided. In fact, he's trying to do alms. Now, it's a good thing because God recognizes that but also brings him the gospel so he's out of that mode. The second thing is to exalt the preacher. Now, he was told, you call for Peter, he'll tell you what to do, and in chapter 11 it says, he will bring you the news of salvation. Alright. So the first thing is, when he sees Peter, he just bows down to Peter. Thankfully, Peter picked him up. I put on my notes, I said, woe be to the preachers who allow that to happen. Because there are plenty of them. It's so easy to manipulate people. You know, if you exalt yourself among the people, it feels really good to just get a little extra accolades. I mean, I even hate it when they say, here's the parking space for the pastor. Because we're just a bunch of worms just like everybody else, right? Who are we, right? I believe that's one of the things Jesus was referring to when he pronounced a woe. W-O-E, not W-H-O-A. Okay? I always like to point that out because every time I hear woe, I think of Yosemite Sam when he says, I've woe, I was means woe when I says woe, okay? Well, Jesus said woe, that's W-O-E, and that is basically saying condemnation. He said woe to the person that draws attention to himself and causes one of the little ones to be And sometimes that happens. I was preaching at a church that was just torn up one time years ago in Greenville, South Carolina, because the pastor was making visits to women in the church during the day. And there were several children in that church body born of that relationship. It was pitiful. It's pitiful to see because the people lost trust in the ministry. Jesus said this, or excuse me, Isaiah said this is, well, Lord Jesus Christ's word anyway, my glory I will not give to another. All right, then so Peter responds with a zealous understanding, Cornelius has a misguided zeal, he wants to exalt Peter, but Peter now understands some things, and he says this in verses 27 through 29, when he says, he says, as he talked with him, he says he entered in, walked in, found many persons gathered, must have been encouraging to Peter, And he said to them, you yourselves know how unlawful it is for a Jew to associate with or visit anyone of another nation. But God has shown me that I should not call any person common or unclaimed. So when I was sent for, I came without objection. And I ask you then, why did you send for me? Pretty good question, right? Now, you see, as many people gather, he makes known his Jewish custom. We read from Ephesians chapter 2 about the middle wall partition that was in the temple. The Jews and Gentiles were separated. Even in Isaiah, it says, depart out of here, touch no unclean thing. In Matthew chapter 10, Jesus first sent his disciples out and said, don't go to the Gentiles. Don't go to the Gentiles. Go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. But Peter makes it known, he says, but God has shown me. In my sermon notes, I have this. Rabbit chase. All right, stand by, I need to chase this rabbit for a second. Because God's people sometimes will say this all the time. God spoke to me. God told me this. How does God speak to us today? We have to be very careful because this is the apostolic age that we're talking about in Acts. And God spoke because they didn't have the Word of God to back up things. They didn't have a lot of things, and so God spoke by prophets and by the apostles while the scriptures were being recorded. And so just like in the days of the transition in Elijah's day, God spoke directly to the prophet. So this is what's going on here. God made it known to Peter. Do we look for these things today? We have the Word of God today. We have the Holy Spirit given to us today. Now, I want you to notice a couple of scriptures. First of all, in 1 John, Elijah says, this is exciting stuff. You have to understand, you know, the Betancourt children, they have spiritual insight because Nick preaches to them all the time. So, they're just kind of, yeah, this is time to say amen, right? All right, so here we go. In the book of 1 John, it says, do not believe every spirit, but try the spirit to see whether they are of God. We need to try the spirit. Does it match up with this book? If it doesn't, it's not of God. All right, next thing we know. Ephesians 5, verse 18 says, do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the spirit. Speak to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. It says, "...giving thanks always, and submitting to one another in the reverence of Christ." So in other words, you're filled with the Spirit, just like if a person was intoxicated with wine, they would be under control. God says, you need to be under control by the Spirit this way, And how do we know there? Well, the Word of God has a place in your mind, in your heart, and your words, and you're submitting out of the reverence for Christ, and there's a gratitude that flows from your life. So it's interesting, in the book of Colossians 3, he says two things, let the peace of Christ rule in your heart, and in verse 16, let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly, and it's interesting, the same The same things happen. The Word of God, giving thanks, and submission come as a result. All right, what's that say? So say you're looking for God to give you direction in life, and you're praying, and you're seeking God in His Word, and you're seeking to be close to God. God will impress upon you some things. You need to try the Spirit to see whether it's of God, and then back off and say, is this God giving me wisdom about this, or is this me? Or is it the pizza I ate last night? Okay. And we come back to it and say, does it match the word of God? And is there peace about it? There's a text of scripture in James chapter three when it says, the wisdom that is from above is first of all, pure, peaceful, gentle, and easy to be, to reason and full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. All right, let's dig into this then. We go on now with Cornelius. In verse 30 then, we're looking at Cornelius, verses 30 through 33. Cornelius, Peter has said, so why did you send for me? Here's Cornelius with his recitation of what happened. Cornelius said, four days ago, about this hour, I was praying in my house at the ninth hour, and behold, a man stood before me in bright clothing and said, Cornelius, your prayer has been heard. And your alms have come up as a remembrance before God. Send, therefore, to Joppa and ask for Simon, who is called Peter. He is lodging in the house of Simon a tanner by the sea. So I sent for you at once, and you have been kind enough to come. And now, therefore, we are all here in the presence of God to hear all that you have been commanded by our Lord. by the Lord. Okay, so first of all, we just notice this. He's very obedient to what God spoke to him. Secondly, he's obedient in waiting for Peter. And third, he's obedient in preparing for Peter, because he brings all his friends and family. He's got a house full of people to hear Peter. That's easy for me to say. All right. Now, you might say this, considering Peter's going to start preaching here, The pump is primed, okay? God has been doing a work in Peter and in Cornelius. Now, I want you to put this together in your own mind. The first time you heard the gospel, it wasn't an accident. God was working on the preacher, whoever he was, and God was working on your heart, and he was bringing it together. Some of you say, but I wouldn't follow that preacher today That doesn't matter. He brought you word about Jesus Christ, right? You might have grown beyond that, but now you understand that day when you first heard the gospel, God had prepared, you had prepared that person. By the way, when you speak about that other person, you say, well, they're often false doctrine now. Consider the fact in the Old Testament, in the book of Numbers, there was a guy by the name of Balaam. Who spoke to Balaam? His donkey. Okay, now if God can cause the word of truth to speak through a donkey's mouth, well, you get the picture. Let's go on. All right. So the pump is primed, and now the gospel is going to come. First of all, let's look at 34 and 35, this foundational truth that Peter opens his mouth and says, truly I understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation, everyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. This is a very important truth. Because he's not saying, can be accepted to God, he says, when you see the evidence of God doing a work, you understand this person is one of the elect. Huh? Yes! Remember John 3, verse 8, Jesus says this, the wind blows where it listeth, or where it's going, And you hear the sound, but you can't see the wind. You see the effects of the wind, right? You can't tell where it's coming or where it's going. So as everyone who is born of the Spirit, you see some evidence of God working in their life. And if God is working in their life, that is an evidence that God is sovereign and He has chosen them. 1 Thessalonians 1, Paul says this, he says, knowing that you're the elect of God. I know that you're the elect of God. Wouldn't it be wonderful to have that stamped on you? I'm the elect of God. Well, listen to this. Our gospel came not to you in word only, but in power and in the Holy Spirit with much assurance. For you know what manner of men we were among you. Has the gospel ever come to you in word? Yeah, okay, but it is not just in word, but in power. You sensed it in your very being, and you sensed that the preacher was preaching to you. And you heard about Jesus Christ, how he died for our sins, and you say, yeah, that's what I believe. That's the Spirit of God that's worked in you. So, Peter says, here's a truth out of every religion. This is like, ding, ding, ding, ding, Peter sees the light. Jew and Gentile, he that fears God and is working righteousness is accepted with God. Oh, he needs truth to follow, right? But the mark of the Spirit is upon his life. Now, Jesus said something very similar in John chapter 5. Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes in him that sent me has eternal life. Not you're gonna get it, you have it. When you hear the word of Jesus Christ, you're able to hear it with not just the audible ears, but just hear it in your soul, and you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, you have eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but is past, past tense, from death into life. Whoever believes the Son of God, chapter 3, verse 36, whoever believes in the Son has eternal life. Whoever does not obey the Son does not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him. Alright, so Peter starts out with this marvelous thing, it's like, I just can't believe this. This is a wonderful truth. Wouldn't you like to have been there? The light goes on. Man, this is good stuff. God is no respecter of persons. Out of every nation. See, he was taught that, no, this is just Israel. No, out of every nation. He that fears God and works righteousness is accepted with Him. Alright, we're getting in the foundational gospel then in verses 36 through 43, and I'm just going to go point by point. I want you to notice the difference in the preaching to the Gentiles versus the Jews. Notice how he begins in verse 36. He says, for as the Word that he sent to Israel preaching good news of peace through Jesus Christ. He is Lord of all, and you yourselves know what happened throughout all Judea. All right, before we get to any more of that, let's just notice, when he preached to Jews, like on the day of Pentecost, he went through the historical values. He brought on the Old Testament from Joel and through Psalms and different reference points, and he came down to the conclusion in Acts 2 when he says that, when he brought it down, he says that, let all the house of Israel know that Jesus, whom you have crucified, is both Lord and Christ. All right, so that's where he, all those testimony that he's given up to that point was to bring it down to this one point, that Jesus Christ is Lord. Now, to the Gentiles, he starts there. Interesting. He starts and says, I brought to you this word of peace, This word of peace is about Jesus Christ, and by the way, he is Lord of all. That's an important point, because he's going to build on that here, but let's go on. In verse 37, then he brings up John the Baptist when he says, you yourselves know what happened throughout all Judea, beginning from Galilee after the baptism that John proclaimed. Evidently, he was under the assumption that these people knew something about the baptism of John, but he didn't stop there. Notice he just kind of, okay, let's go on, and then go to the next point. How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, and He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him. You can't deny the fact that Jesus went about doing good. Remember when John the Baptist is locked up, and he says, Are you the Christ, or should we look for another? Go tell John again was the word of Jesus. What you have seen and heard, the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lumpers cleanse, the deaf hear, and the dead are raised, and the poor have the gospel preached to them. Or as John writes at the end of his book, he says, these things we have written, we could have written a lot more, but these things are written that you might believe in the name of the Son of God, and believing that you may have life. Okay, so, foundational principle. Yes, Jesus is the Lord of all. Secondly, John the Baptist was here, but Jesus went about doing good, and he didn't elaborate on the miracles at all, just pointed them out. And then in verse 39, he goes on and says, and they put him to death by hanging him on a tree. Not a whole lot of detail there, is there? But God raised Him from the dead on the third day and made Him appear. Again, not a whole lot of details, but then it goes on to say, "...not to all the people, but to us, who have been chosen by God as witnesses, who ate and drank with Him after He rose from the dead." Give the credibility to the fact that Jesus did rise, we ate and drank with Him. But notice this in verse 42. He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one appointed by God to be judge of the living and the dead. Ah, put this together now. He is Lord and he is the judge of the living and the dead. Paul made that reference in Acts chapter 17 when in fact he's appointed a day when He will judge the entire world in righteousness by the one He's appointed to this, and we know that He is the judge because God raised Him from the dead. Watch this now. He's the one who's going to judge the living and the dead. Is there any good news in that so far? Maybe not. Okay, you Gentiles, listen. Jesus Christ is Lord of all, and He's the one who's going to judge the living and the dead. It's an important point that we're talking about. We're not talking about Jesus the prophet or somebody nice. No, this is someone who's loyal, and he's going to judge the living and the dead. In the next words, he says, verse 43, "...to him all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name." Ah, this is what you've been waiting for, Cornelius. You've been waiting to hear how you can be relieved of that sin debt. Yes, Jesus is Lord of all. Yes, He is the judge of the living and the dead. But I've got this sin problem. He's the one in whom we have forgiveness of sins. Quoting from the book of Joel, probably, but nevertheless, as Peter said in Acts 4, verse 12, And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. Pure and simple, the gospel, right? Jesus is Lord, He's also the judge, but the free offer of the gospel says, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and what? Find salvation. Find comfort. Find grace. And the gospel went to the Gentiles. Notice what happened in verse 44. While Peter was still saying these things, the Holy Spirit fell on them who heard the word. Notice it wasn't Peter's preaching, it was the Holy Spirit. And the believers from all among the circumcised who had come with Peter were amazed. Can't you just see them with their mouth open? Wow. All right, what's going on? Because the gift of the Holy Spirit was poured out even on the Gentiles. They remembered what happened on the day of Pentecost when people were speaking in other tongues, right? And that's what was happening for they were hearing them speaking in tongues extolling God. They weren't just gibberish out here. They weren't just babbling things. They were extolling God. And there was a recognition of what they were saying. Okay? They couldn't hold back. Why? Because the spirit of God was there. Again, it was a testimony during this apostolic age of God doing mighty, mighty works and changing people and setting a new precedence and doing new things. So Peter says he commanded them to be baptized in the name of Jesus and then asked them, and they asked him to remain for further days, some days after that. Before I get to anything more, let me just point out. What do you think happened? Further days. He stayed there for several days. I know, I got a weird mind. I was thinking about that. I wonder what he did. I wonder how long he stayed. I mean, I don't think Peter said, he's going to pack it up and go back the next day. He had just walked 32 miles. Right? I don't think he's wanting to get back to Simon and Tanner and go fishing. He's staying there several days. How long, we don't know. All right? I would say 30, 40 days, maybe. Seemed logical. What was he thinking he were doing? Well, first of all, according to Acts 2.42, I believe he was teaching them doctrine. In Acts 2.42, when those 3,000 were saved on the day of Pentecost, they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and in prayer and in the giving of... and the Lord's Supper, breaking of bread and prayers. So, let me point out several scriptures here. Something about Caesarea. I just kind of did a word search on Caesarea. Well, first of all, Philip, we know that when Philip preached in Samaria, and then God took him down to meet the Ethiopian eunuch, and then he preached in Azotos, and then he went up to Caesarea. And according to Acts chapter 21, he landed there. He stayed there. He's ministering in Caesarea. When the brothers learned that Paul was being tormented in Jerusalem, they took him up to Caesarea and sent him over to Tarsus. Caesarea, something special going on in Caesarea. In Acts 12, we're going to find that Peter, when Herod is after him in Jerusalem, and he escapes by the release in jail by the angel, he goes over to Caesarea. It's not just around the corner either. But here's the good news. Listen to this. Acts 18, verse 22. When Paul had landed in Caesarea, he spent time there and greeted the church. There's a church in Caesarea. Now what am I saying to this? Cornelius and his family and all this gathering, they received the gospel of Jesus Christ. They need to be taught. But they also need the connectivity of being part of a local church. I believe what Peter was doing was saying, okay, you people here on the south side of Caesarea and the people up in the north side where Philip are, we need to get y'all together. Because this is God doing a marvelous work here. So I know I'm reading a lot into it, but it just makes sense because that's what pastors do. We don't just love them and leave them. The gospel is not just to preach the gospel. It's go to make disciples of every nation. So they need to be disciples. All right, the last section here is defending the gospel. Let's look at the, and this is in chapter 11. This is the accusation, verses one through three. The apostles and the brothers who were throughout Judea heard that the Gentiles had received the word of God, and so when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcision party criticized him, saying, you went to the uncircumcised men and ate with them. I say there's two different types of accounts here. Number one, there are people that, Hey, they've got Gentiles. Yes! And there are other people who said, and you ate with Gentiles. You low-down snake in the grass. This is interesting. 1 Corinthians 13 says that love bears all things, believes all things, and hopes all things, and endures all things. Would you say that those guys that accused Peter were loving? bearing and believing. Even Jesus says you don't receive an accusation against a brother by just one witness, right? You go to that person to restore them personally, and then you take two or three witnesses to restore them, then you take it to the church to restore that person, right? That's Matthew 18. What did they do? They brought it to the church. They didn't even go personally. Well, they came to Peter personally, but they had already made a decision. He was wrong. Well, let's notice something. His motive is defended in verse 4. Peter began to explain to them in order. And I want you to follow this because this is Peter actually rehearsing before them how God had changed his attitude because he was wrong. Isn't that interesting? Oh, by the way, I was wrong about some things, and God changed my attitude. Here's how he did it. He says, I was in the city of Joppa praying, and in the trance I saw a vision, something like a great sheet descending, being brought down from heaven by its four corners, and it came down to me. Looking at it closely, I observed animals and beasts of prey and reptiles and birds of the air, and I heard a voice saying to me, Rise, Peter, kill and eat. But I said, By no means, Lord, for nothing common or unclean has ever entered my mouth. But the voice answered a second time from heaven, What God has made clean, do not call common. And this happened three times. And it was drawn up again into heaven. And behold, at that very moment, three men arrived in the house in which we were sent to me from Caesarea. And the Spirit told me to go with them, making no distinction. These six brothers also accompanied me, entered into the man's house. And he told us how he had seen the angel stand by his house and say, send a Joppa and bring Simon, who is called Peter. He will declare to you the message by which you will be saved. you and your household. As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell on them just as He had at the beginning, and I remembered the word of the Lord, and He said, John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit. If then God gave the same gift to them as He gave to us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to stand in God's way?" What a great testimony. Look what God did to me. Look how God was working on the other end. Look how when we went there, look what happened. It was God. It was a God moment. And he said, and what was I to do? Was I to deny God in this manner? Who are you to deny this? You know what he's really doing? He's kind of giving the jab. Who are you to deny this? But he's clever because he says, who was I to deny what God was doing. Well, it was effective because notice what happened. It says, when they heard these things, they fell silent. Done. And they glorified God saying, then to the Gentiles also God granted repentance that leads to life. The middle wall of partition has been broken down. Brothers and sisters, may we never forget, may we never, never take the gospel for granted and let the value just slip through our hands. God has blessed us with a gospel. Even that he brings us under the sound of the gospel, may we be thankful for it.