We're going to be in Acts chapter 10. This morning we're going to pick up in verse 24, and so far we're going to read to verse 33. I'm not trying to rush through this chapter, because there's so much drama. There are so many different components to what's going on here. So let's see where the Lord leads us this morning. And Lamar after they entered into Caesarea, and Cornelius waited for them, and had called together his kinsmen and near friends, or in other words, saying, dear friends. And as Peter was coming in, Cornelius met him and fell down at his feet and worshiped him. But Peter took him up saying, stand up, I myself also am a man. And as he talked with him, he went in and found many that were come together. And he said unto them, ye know that it is unlawful thing for a man that is a Jew to keep company or come unto one of another nation. But God hath showed me that I should not call any man common or unclean. Therefore came I unto you without gain, saying, As soon as I was sent forth, I asked therefore for what intent ye have sent for me. And Cornelius said, Four days ago I was fasting until this hour, and at the ninth hour I prayed in my house, and behold, a man stood before me in bright clothing, and said, Cornelius, thy prayer is heard, and thine alms are had in remembrance in the sight of God. Send therefore to Joppa, and call hither Simon, whose surname is Peter. He is lodged in the house of one Simon of Tanner by the seaside, who, when he cometh, shall speak unto thee. Immediately therefore I sent to thee, and thou hast well done that thou art come. Now therefore are we all here present before God to hear all things that are commanded thee of God." The decision is very important here. The question is, are we responsible for our decisions? I think that's a very important question to ask. Here we see Peter sees the vision. And there are men coming to his little Airbnb where he's staying there. He's with Simon the Tanner on the water in Joppa. And this is where he had healed Tabitha. So basically, you know, it's kind of like his little hideaway. And he had lots of friends. Peter knew people all over the place. And so here we see he's lodging with Simon the Tanner. The Holy Spirit has directed Peter. And here we see that the Jewish dietary laws have been abrogated. Or in other words, they've been repealed. And so we started touching on this lightly a couple weeks ago. And what does this mean? Does this mean that since the Lord changes his dietary laws, does this mean that the Lord is fickle? Is his character compromised? Is there a problem with his decision-making? Well, we see in Psalm 119, 54, David gives us a really good lesson about the statutes of God and how the statutes of God were always his standard. They were always his bottom line. He says, thy statutes have been my songs in the house of my pilgrimage. I have remembered thy name, O Lord, in the night and have kept thy law. This I had because I kept thy precepts. And so keeping the Lord's precepts, that's what we're taught here in scripture. Are the Lord's precepts, are they dependable? I think that's very important. I think they're very dependable. And I believe that even though people today hate God's precepts, I believe in their heart they really depend on them. Because if you read the precepts up here, how many families, whether they're liberal or conservative, whether they're pagan, whether they're barbarian, whatever, how many want their families to be killed? I think I see it right up here. Thou shalt not kill. That's a precept. That's a statute. That's a judgment of the Lord. How many marriages, how many people want to get into a marriage and have their marriage end up in a complete disaster where their spouses commit adultery? Well, it's right here. Thou shalt not commit adultery. There's another one right there. And this is a standard for all time. This is a moral standard. And so the question we're answering this morning with Peter and Peter's work with Cornelius, can we depend on the standards of God? Can we depend on his precepts? And once again, as I was saying, as those were coming in, can we depend? Are they a standard that we can count on? And whether pagan, barbarian, no matter what society, I think every one of these commandments, especially, all play into every possible sin that can be committed against us. See, that's where it gets very interesting, and the sensitivity of the problems can really hit home. If someone can sin against you, Do you want that happening to you? And then you have to think, well, what is the standard that keeps someone from coming into my house, tearing everything apart, and slitting my throat, killing my family, and taking all of my money? What is the standard that we always can count on to defend us? Not our Constitution. Definitely not our local laws as much anymore. There are still some good ones left. But ultimately, here is where we have the standard by which we can depend on. So they take the Ten Commandments out of the courthouses. Judge Moore fought that. Other judges fought it across the country. Who has a problem with, thou shalt not bear false witness? Do you want people lying to you? Do you? I mean, basically, if you're taking the Ten Commandments out of your house and you say you hate them and you don't want to have anything to do with God, you're saying, well, then I don't mind if people lie to me. I don't mind if they kill me. I don't mind if they covet what I have and kill me and take what I have. See, the real problem people have are the first four, because they deal with God. That's the ones that they really have a problem with. Because in order to have this, you have got to have this. Those first four commandments dealing with God, you've got to have that because that's where the standard comes from. So the question is, we go back to the inerrancy of scripture and how important it is. And this morning, is Peter responsible for his decision and his reaction towards Cornelius? Of course he is. So the dietary laws have been abrogated. Does that mean this law has been abrogated or repealed? Words changed. Of course not. And so, once again, Psalm 119, 54, David says, "...this I had, because I kept thy precepts." He loved the precepts of the Lord. This brings up a very important objective of systematic theology. Systematic theology is the Bible as a whole and the doctrines teaching us who Jesus Christ is. We go back to creation. We have the miracles. We have prophecy, inerrancy of Scripture, interpretation of God's law from Moses. In the Pentateuch, redemption, salvation, the gospel of Jesus Christ, which we're going to look at how that fits into the story, the Great Commission. And we have the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the hinge point of all of redemption is so important. We're going to look at that too. But this brings up the objective. Who is Lord? What is our standard? Is God immutable? Can He be changed? Of course not. You know, this is no different than with the growth of the church now studying the old covenants and the purpose behind them, and now honoring the new covenant and following our Lord's direction. We honor the new covenant by understanding the old covenant. They go together. That's what John Calvin said, the Old Testament is the New Testament concealed, the New Testament is the Old Testament revealed. They work together. Nothing that God says, none of his word ever gets abrogated to the point where it's just completely archaic, and it's not worth having anymore. And so Peter had doubted the vision initially, and he knew who the object of worship was. And it's very important that the object of worship remains constant, but there were changes in the new Christian church. Peter is now learning this very plainly, and he is concerned. It's very hard to go into a whole complete new worship, a whole complete new way of doing things and letting all these people come in. The Jews detested the Gentiles. They considered them unclean. They considered them extremely dangerous because they would have been thinking, had the Gentiles come in, they're going to ruin the church. They're just going to split it up and they're going to completely ruin it. And so you see the drama unfolding here. In every verse, there's some kind of drama going on here. It's very important. Verse 25, and as Peter was coming in, I think this is one of the most dramatic verses in the whole chapter. And as Peter was coming in, let's just stop there for a minute. Can you blame Cornelius? Let me read it. And as Peter was coming in, Cornelius met and fell down at his feet and worshipped him. I think that's incredible. See, Peter had questioned the Lord. He, being the source of the vision, gave the dominion mandate. Our Lord gave this mandate. And he had questioned the meaning of it, but he didn't question the character of God. See, Peter was in the grip of ambivalence. What does this mean? What does this mean now? After going to the temple, after having the sacrifices of animals, and all that's going on, what does this mean now in the new covenant that all that matters is the blood of Christ, and we don't have the old laws, and now the dietary laws are changing? It's very important. He knows that this is of the Lord. I like this example here. I wrote this a couple weeks ago. He knows this is of the Lord, but what will ever come of this opening to receive the Gentiles in the Christian church? This is not the first time Peter knew the source but could not accept the lesson. This is not the first time. Peter's walking by faith here, and Peter has to wonder, what's going to happen if I go forward? Have you ever been in a situation where you've been trained and you had no idea why you're being trained the way you're being trained, but then you found out later on, you knew what you were being taught, and it really helped you out? You know, I wasn't really, when I was younger and all these movies came out, we weren't permitted to go to the movie theaters when we were kids. But I remember later on, a movie, we could see it, it came on television, I got to see it, so if there were bad parts in it, I really don't know, I don't remember ever seeing it in the movies. But on television, there wasn't any bad parts. And I'll never forget what I loved about The Karate Kid. I loved that movie and I thought it was awesome. Here these five guys jump on Daniel and here you see this little Japanese guy keeping an eye on Daniel having a having a kid that he just he just loved him and he let him he let him sit there and he let he taught him how to clip his little bonsai trees and he went over and he was the maintenance guy at the building where his mom and Daniel his little understudy lived, and basically he would go over and just do nice things for him. Then all of a sudden he sees Daniel getting picked on. Daniel wants to take karate, so he has a book from the YMCA, and his mom has no money to put him in a really nice karate school. And the very karate school he wants to go to is the very place where the guys that were beating up on him at school, that's where they studied karate. So he couldn't go to that karate school. So all of a sudden, Daniel wants to study karate, and he goes over to Mr. Miyagi's house. And Mr. Miyagi is supposed to be teaching him combinations and different moves and showing him how in order to be able to box and do all these different things. Well he's thinking he's getting this great big lesson and all of a sudden Mr. Miyagi says, first thing I want you to do, I want you to wax my cars. And I want you to do this motion. Make sure you do it in a circular motion. And I want you to do it in reverse. And the next thing I want you to do is I want you to go out in my backyard. So he opens up the back door, and it must have been miles and miles. You know how Japanese love wood, and they love bamboo and all. He has miles of this decking in the backyard. It's beautiful. Bonsai trees. He has all this beautiful ornamental grasses, and the landscape was just incredible. And he says, all right, Daniel-san, I want you to go send a floor. So he gives him these two round sanders and he has to sand them like this and he has to go back and forth and back and forth. It takes him days and all of a sudden Daniel starts getting upset. He goes, all you want me to do basically is clean your house for you. I'm not doing anything. He goes, keep your mouth closed and keep doing what I tell you. Then he says, paint the fence. Remember that? Take the brush and he goes up and down. He goes, make sure you keep your wrist like this and keep it like that. Up and down and up and down. He's got enough fence probably from all the way around this whole property and he's got to do the whole fence. So when he's all set, he goes, I'm dead tired. He goes, I can't do this anymore. And all of a sudden he starts teaching him karate. And he goes, hit my hands. And then Daniel's just hitting his hand. He goes, now paint the fence. And he goes like this, like that, and this. And then he goes like this, and he goes like that. All of these motions were teaching him combinations and teaching him how to be a great karate, a great karate like a soldier. And he was so good at it, at the end he wins this great big tournament. And this is the kind of thing I'm talking about. The Lord does that. Mr. Miyagi was basically telling Daniel, have faith in what I'm telling you to do. It's not about me just having my fence painted and my floor sanded and all, which was a nice thing to have done, but it was a great way to learn. This is what's happening here to Peter. He's being taught systematically how, in order to open up the Great Commission, into all the world. Remember what happened, where did we see Peter before Christ went to Golgotha, when there was another issue coming? and that Peter had told the Lord no. We see in John 13, verses 6-9. Let me ask Noah, can you read John 13, verses 6-9? Look that up a while. Here we see that the Lord displayed a wonderful symbol of being the suffering servant of Israel and the suffering servant of Jehovah. And Peter was confused. We also see another example with Thomas and how Thomas had doubted the Lord. And here Peter had a big decision to make. Go ahead, Noah. John 13, verses 6-9. Go ahead, verse 8 and 9, please. So, what was his initial reaction? Anybody? What was Peter's reaction? Never! Thou will never wash my feet. Never! Peter tells the Lord of glory, the great creator and judge of the whole earth, never will you wash my feet. But who had the upper hand? Or who had the upper foot? The Lord said, if I never wash your feet, you will never be part of my kingdom. And so real quick, Peter changed his absolute answer very quick. He goes, wash my hands, wash my feet, whatever you want me to do, Lord. But this is how we are. We're the fickle ones. Now you want to look at perfection? Look at the ministry of Christ and find one portion of any part of his ministry and show me where he was fickle. Show me where he was in the grip of ambivalence and he couldn't make his mind up. Show me that. It's not possible. You know, down through the ages, you'll see every leader, every god that people worship that has gone on and died, whether it be Confucius or Muhammad or even Hitler or Obama and all these guys, they've all been fickle. Many of them can never make their minds up to do the right thing. Never once was our Lord ever fickle. So Peter, the Galilean apostle, finally meets Cornelius, the Roman centurion. Peter thought on the vision. Peter meditated upon it. And that brings up a very, very, very good standard. In Psalm 1 is, "...and he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water." That's those that meditate upon God's law day and night. To meditate is very good. He'll always prosper. Peter is still desiring to find the meaning of this great vision. So he prays, he meditates, he takes steps to get closer to the Lord and to understand what this means. And this is what we need to do in our lives. There are questions, every one of you, no matter what age you are, you have events coming up in the future right now you have no idea what's going to happen and you may be in fear about. It could be health problems with family members. It could be big bills coming up. It could be, you know, a grandchild's on the way, or it could be a child's on the way. I know right now there's so many things that we pray about on Wednesday nights. Do we meditate upon it? In order to really be controlled and protected and to understand God, we need to stay close to Him. We need to read His Word. We need to pray. And I love this about Peter. He meditates upon this. He meditates upon this vision. His duty is to wait upon the Lord and carry out this mission. Peter meditates. We need to meditate upon the Word of the Lord. Psalm 32.6, for this shall everyone that is godly pray unto thee in a time when thou mayest be found. And I'll tell you how dire this is and how utterly vital this is. We only have a short time to meditate upon God's law. We only have a very short time to seek Him while He may be found. In the span of eternity, 70, 80, 90, 100 years is nothing. Once it's over with, it's over with and there's no going back. Once the books are closed and once our fate has been sealed, there's no going back. The Lord said, meditate upon him while he may be found. Here we see the Holy Spirit of the living God guides Peter all the way through this meeting of these three men. Peter will oversee the admission of the Gentiles in this Christian church and they will be reconciled unto the church. And that's not of Peter, that's of the Lord. These Gentiles will not have been circumcised. Oh, what would happen there? All the Pharisees would have a heart attack over this Sitting down and breaking bread with an unclean Gentile that has never been circumcised It would take a Christian Jew in order to be able to get through this. I Without the Lord, they would have never. As you can see, the Sadducees couldn't get past this. The Pharisees couldn't get past this. The Assayans, they couldn't get past this. All these different sects of the Jews. They didn't want the Gentiles anywhere near them. Today it's the same. Today it's the same with many of the sects of Jews. Even over here in Reisterstown, there's many temples. Try to get in there as a Gentile and be part of their faith. It's not easy. Today it's still no different because they don't believe in Jesus Christ. The Pharisee will have a problem with this and they never left the Christian church alone. Never. Because what you're seeing here, this isn't very easy. This isn't very easy what's going on here. You've got a teeny tiny window of peace in the Christian church in the beginning. And then you're going to go banging right into the next couple chapters and James gets beheaded. Peter winds up being crucified upside down, according to Josephus. Some of the other martyrdom of some of the other apostles used to stun. It's unspeakable what they did to them. All out of but one was on the Isle of Patmos. This is what it was like to follow Jesus Christ. And then all down through the ages you see this horrible torment and horrible martyrs of those that love the Lord. Acts 15.5, But there rose up certain of the sect of the Pharisees, which believed, saying that it was needful to circumcise them and to command them to keep the law of Moses. And the apostles and elders came together for to consider of this matter. And when there had been much disputing, Peter rose up and said unto them, Men and brethren, ye know how that a good while ago God made choice among us, that the Gentiles by my mouth should hear the word of the gospel and believe. And God, which knoweth the hearts, bare them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost, even as He did unto us, and put no difference between us, and then purifying their hearts by faith." Peter said it was of the Lord that this would happen. So we see the vision unfolding, that the Holy Spirit had made it clear what Peter should do. These are two very, very important tenets, or very important applications we see here in these verses. that the detail in Acts chapter 10 is impeccable. Dr. Luke writes out the detail, times, places, names, events, and it makes sense that Joppa and Caesarea were not that far from each other. So there Peter goes from Joppa, he goes to Caesarea, and he sees Cornelius. And the Holy Spirit, number one, made it very clear what he should do. And that is very, very important in our Christian lives, is that if we're not close to the Lord, you will not have that unlimited power. That unlimited power doesn't mean you can literally talk and mountains will move, but Christ said if you have faith the grain of a mustard seed, you can move mountains. The unlimited power comes from what the Holy Spirit does in your life and opens up to you and gives you the answers of very difficult decisions. and gives you the decisions to make in order to defend what's right, because it's very easy to be pulled away. The Holy Spirit made it very clear what Peter was to do. Peter knew this was the Holy Spirit. He identified that because Christ had opened his eyes. and directed by Christ from the right hand of God. Christ said it was necessary for the Holy Spirit to come. In John 16, 7 we read, Nevertheless, I tell you the truth, it is expedient for you that I go away. For if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you. But if I depart, I will send him unto you. You know, the Holy Spirit opens our hearts up by studying the Word of God and for us to do fellowship together. I talked to someone this morning who's seeing an old pastor and they said that they're not even having Sunday school classes anymore. Right now, I mean, Sunday school classes are on hold indefinitely because every time a so-called COVID-19 case pops up, they don't want to be responsible for it. It's volunteer. It's not important. to have Sunday school classes, and to have worship services, regular worship services, and to sing. It's better to suppress God and obey the state. That's basically what it comes out to. And I've heard this repeatedly. I don't know, people like to tell me these things. My church, we go in for 20 minutes. We sit outside under a tree. I don't know what they're going to do about three months from now or two months from now. But we sit under a tree, 20 minutes. We're not allowed to go inside. We're not allowed to have fellowship. No Sunday school classes, no outreaches, no Wednesday night prayer meeting, nothing. And this is part of what the Lord wants us to do. But you know, the Holy Spirit was working in Peter's private life. The Holy Spirit works in our private lives. Many think that heaven operates like a theme park. Like Disney World. That you just go into heaven, or you go in, and heaven's here on this earth in a sense because everybody thinks they deserve to go to heaven. You go in, you do whatever you want, you have fun, and whenever you need the staff to help you, you go up to the staff desk and you ask them for help. That's what it's like. When things are going well, you get your tickets, you do your own thing, you get your fast passes to go on all the rides and have your fun, and the staff is there to help you if you need them. On the other hand, when trials come, people, they take for granted that in the instance of sickness, they think that heaven operates like a hospital. You get admitted, you get thrown into like a flex area, you lay there, you get treated like everyone else, then you get your own room, and then you get sent home, and then nobody cares about you anymore. How many times do you hear when you're sick and you've been in the hospital, you get daily phone calls from the doctor? You can't even get them on the phone when you're trying to get them to help you. How many times do you get normal phone calls from a nurse? Then they come over your house, they bring you flowers, or they bring you some kind of like a tray of food, and the nurse comes for the next couple months. Are you okay? How are you guys doing? How's your family? Are you holding together? We're sorry you're sick. When does that happen in a doctor's office or a house? That's what happens with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit loves to take care of you personally and has everything there for you. This is not how heaven operates. Christ, through his precious angels and by the direction of the all-powerful Holy Spirit, gets personal direction and attention. Peter is provided for personally. Look at what Paul the Apostle wrote regarding how Christ personally removes our sins. How can he remove our sins if he doesn't know them? You won't talk to too many people that believe that Christ knows your personal sins. They believe that God sees what you do on the external. Like if you go rob a bank, yeah, God sees that. But what led up to robbing that bank, the Lord can't see that. See, the Lord can see where the very first thought came into someone's head to plan to rob a bank, or plan to kill someone, or plan to do this or do that. He knows every last little thought. And in Colossians 2, verse 13, we see, "...and you, being dead in your sins, and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses." How could Christ forgive all of your trespasses if He doesn't know what they are? Luke repeats much of what we looked at regarding the events. See, back and forth, you're hearing several different times how Peter saw the vision. Three or four different times, Peter talks about it. Cornelius talks about it. And then as we go into chapter 11, it's brought up all over again to the Jewish council and to the Jews. And so I love looking at this back and forth. That's very important that this is continuously brought up because the writer here, Luke, inspired by God, wanted to drill this in for a reason. Here we see that the Holy Spirit teaches Peter that there will be no barriers. There will be no divide between the Jewish and the Christian church. The Romans, the Greeks, the Hellenistic Jews, and other sects of the Jews, Ethiopians, and the rest of the body of believing Gentiles, there are no places in the world that are going to be segregated and not being invited into the Christian church. I think that defies all. I mean, this is sad that we don't hear this today on television. All we're hearing about is the big segregated divide between the blacks, the whites, the Hispanics, and all these other so-called minorities. And some of them aren't even minorities. And there's so much division. But here Christ says heaven is opened up to every person, every nationality. There is nobody that's being left behind. And this is proof of that. This is proof that with the ushering in of the Gentiles, now an Ethiopian can be a Christian. A Roman. The Roman-Greco world was very philosophical, very educated, very dead spiritually. And here you'll see Paul later on writing to Rome and encouraging the Romans because it was so difficult. So here we see Peter meets Cornelius. So what does Cornelius do? Does Peter walk into his house? Cornelius said, come on down and have a little cup of tea. Why don't we sit down and have a nice time together? He drops down and he worships him. I don't know how he worshiped him, but this must have been really interesting. Here Peter takes the men that Cornelius had sent to fetch him, he tells the men what exactly had happened, and then he comes and he goes to Cornelius' house. And here Cornelius thinks that this is a direct link to the Lord. I believe this is what he was thinking. That he believes that Peter is some kind of an angel or some kind of just incredible human being that had been endowed with extreme power by Jesus Christ. I don't blame him. What he did was wrong, but I don't blame him. Why? What had just happened back in chapter nine at the end of chapter nine? Right. He did. There wasn't a whole lot of teaching. Cornelius was kind of on his own. And what he saw around him, just previously, probably is what made him think this way. What did he see? Peter healing Aeneas. Aeneas was sick of the palsy and he got up and he walked away. I think at some point in time, Cornelius being a Roman centurion, being a Roman soldier, had definitely heard of the ruckus that was in Jerusalem when Peter was at the gate beautiful, and he and John had healed that man who had been sitting in front of that gate. That was a focal point. That was a very big, that's like anytime you hear something like this week we've been hearing about the Walter Reed Hospital and of course that's a great big point of interest in the whole world because Donald Trump is there. What about when something happens and there's a ruckus out in front of the White House? The whole world hears about it because it's a big place. That's what it was like with the temple at Jerusalem. And Peter had healed a man who had been sitting out in front of the gate, beautiful. He healed that man and he got up and he walked and he did it in the name of Jesus Christ. And people miss that part. Then he healed Anais, who couldn't walk. Then he heals Tabitha. This is a big one. He raises her from the dead. And she was very popular because she helped a lot of people and she was a seamstress. And back then, that was a pretty big thing she did. She had a beautiful home. Evidently, it was a very big home. You could see she was in the upper room when they laid her out. And Peter grabbed her hand and he raised her from the dead. So here Cornelius is probably thinking, this man is some type of a god. Now, why would you not think that and think along those lines? If you're a Roman soldier, you're living in the Roman-Greco world where philosophy and they believed in Zeus and Apollo and all this kind of stuff. Things like back in Egypt, all these gods. Well, now all of a sudden Peter becomes a god. This creates a real attention getter for us and it's an application that we need to be very careful with because we can see this today is a real problem. This is a real problem with worshipping man. Don't we do that? Boy, Michael Jordan back in the 80s would walk into a mall and people would hunt, thousands of people would line up out in the parking lot just to get a glimpse of him. Lisa. Right. See, we all have a proclivity. We have a propensity. and a propensity for the adulation that can have a great impact on our spiritual lives that revolves around looking on other mortal human beings. Sadly, we see this as a real epidemic, pandemic, in the Catholic Church. They're so busy at looking at other people, my question is, when do they have time to look at Christ? What is church authority? Look at the Roman Catholic Church, look at it. Church authority to them is a whole list of all kinds of images and icons. You have the Vatican. You have the Pope. You have the worship of icons that venerate Mary, that venerate or revere, I should say, venerate, revere the Pope, the Catholic Church itself. It venerates church councils. The icons fuel the Catholic Church. And they're so busy worshiping all of these false idols, there's no time for Christ. Their sacraments, they have seven sacraments. And they worship those sacraments. All of them are part of the veneration of Mary and the saints. Venerating the church. By the time you get done picking out in the Catholic Church who really is the church authority, it's no wonder people are so confused. And they don't even need to put Bibles out on the chairs anymore. People are so confused, they don't care. They trust the priest, they go in, they give their 10-15 minutes on mass on Saturday night, they get their little cards, they go in and they give their confessions, pay their money, and they've just outsourced their souls. Oh, we're fine now. I went in, I had a car wash, my soul's clean, I can go home. They don't care, they don't even ask. Who's church authority? Where does the ultimate standard come in church authority? It's very, very important. And this brings up a very big question here about Cornelius bowing down and worshiping Peter. Now, if Peter was the pope that he's supposed to be, Catholic Church is made out, Peter should have accepted his worship. Shouldn't he? That's fine. I'm the ultimate pope of the Catholic Church. I accept your worship. That wasn't his response, was it? I remember years ago, talk about icons, I remember when I was in my late teens, and I remember driving over to, there was a lawn and garden place, I think it was called Michael's, Michael's Power Equipment, over in Cockeysville, Maryland. And I remember walking into the front desk, and I remember looking out the back door while I was waiting for getting some parts, and there stood Jim Palmer. And Jim Palmer was larger than life. To this day, he's my favorite pitcher in all of baseball. And I saw him. You know how when people see people, they say, well, they're not as tall as I thought they were. They actually were pretty short and all. No, he was taller than I thought. Big, handsome guy. And I'm like, wow. And you see how we can be? You see somebody out in public that's real popular, and you just run into him? You're like, wow. That's what happens. We can really be all kind of googly over images and other people. In the days of the Reformation, to give veneration to the saints and the Virgin Mary and artifacts and items that were touched, that was commonplace. It's not a problem to remember the patriarchs, but we're not to worship them. They are not to become our intercession. See, the Catholic Church believes that Mary is their intercession to Christ. And my question to you this morning, if she is the intercession to Christ, why didn't she resurrect from the dead? And why would she herself be appalled that people think that about her? She said, I need a savior. And if you remember correctly in Luke 2, she went herself to be purified at the temple. If she was perfect, why did she need to be purified? But she's looked at the immaculate conception. Remember the song Fatima back in the 50s? Fatima, whatever you call it. about her, and she would never have accepted this worship. Never. Do we bow to human beings? Can they intercede for us? If you think they can, then you've crossed the line. We need to remember who it is that is our intercessor, and we need to be close to him. Because the Lord himself said, very plainly, it's very easy even for the elect to be deceived by other people. I never forget up here at the Mountain Christian Church, and it's usually used to be pretty packed, now it's not because they're all afraid of this flu and all, it's pretty empty. But I'll never forget some of the big speakers they've had there, and when they were there, I mean, normatively you'd have probably a half-filled parking lot, but when these big speakers would come, you couldn't even, you had to have state troopers out that were basically, you know, kind of like watching the traffic. Kirk Cameron was one. We need to be careful, Kirk Cameron. He's not Christ. But he came, and that was a big venue, and it was packed. We've got to be very, very careful with that. I spoke to people that were there, and they said it was packed. Remember what Paul did with the Philippian jailer? Remember that story? We'll look at that down the road in Acts. Paul directed the Philippian jailer to Christ, if you remember correctly. Look at these verses. Acts 16, verse 27. And the keeper of the prison, awaking out of his sleep and seeing the prison doors open, he drew out his sword and would have killed himself, supposing that the prisoners had been fled. But Paul cried with a loud voice, saying, Do thyself no harm, for we are all here. Remember, Paul and Silas were in jail, and they were chained. And all of a sudden, an earthquake came, and they became loosed. And now the Philippian jailer was scared to death that something was going to happen here. And he was afraid that if they had gotten away, that he would be definitely punished hard, the Philippian jailer. by the guards and all, and so he wanted to kill himself. But Paul cried with a loud voice, saying, Do thyself no harm, for we are all here. Then he called for a light, and sprang in, and came trembling. And what did the Philippians yell? He fell down before Paul and Silas. He fell down on his knees before them, and brought them out, and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? So what did Paul do? Say, Well, look at me. Look at me. Worship me. I'll help you. Follow my ministry. And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved in thy house. No, here Peter, what we're getting into next week, and I'm leaving off here soon, Peter gets into the gospel of Jesus Christ. And we already saw this in Acts chapter 2 verses 24 to 33, I believe it was, where Peter stands up at Pentecost and he directs all the attention to Jesus Christ. When he begins to preach, as you look down in verse 34, he opens his mouth. That is a Greek idiom. That's an idiom that means he began to preach. And the words that came out of his mouth were not directed to Peter. These words were directed to Jesus Christ. And so, I'm going to leave you here with this this morning. It's getting too late, and we're going to go into this next week. about the gospel of Jesus Christ. We're going to talk about how Peter uses and has that as the foundation of his teaching and the foundation of everything that's happening here in this chapter, which are so many things that are going on here. But I want to leave you with this application. Is your mouth open for Jesus Christ? Because you may think that you have all these excuses in the world for it not to be opened. But if it's not open for Jesus Christ, you have made a decision. That is called apathy. And that is called, if you don't open your mouth, that is a decision you've made. But ultimately, if you have not opened your mouth for Jesus Christ, that is, the Lord Jesus Christ has closed your mouth. And so, if that's the case, it's a good time to pray and to beg the Lord to open your mouth for Him. Witness. Be a testimony. Be of a good purport. Know the truth. Your acuity comes from Scripture. Your sharpness, it comes from Iron sharpening iron it comes from discussing scripture, and if you're not doing that you won't be prepared You're not going to be prepared in your life for situations that come up that require a real important answer even especially those that are hurting and here Peter is dealing with a man who is hurting and Everything around Cornelius's life, now you don't read this in every last little letter of Scripture, but if you read the culture of the day, and if you're in your Bibles and you're studying this, you will see that Cornelius is in a very volatile time to be a worshipper of Jesus Christ. And he is hurting. I believe he's hurting. I believe he's hurting because probably everyone around him is against him except those that are in his house. Now all of a sudden he has Peter come in and he encourages him in the gospel of Christ. What could be better? What could be a greater joy? We'll finish with that this morning. I ask Jacob, could you close us this morning with prayer? Thank you.