We're going to call it One Message for All. One message for all. All of mankind. The gospel to the nations. And so we're going to begin reading in verse number 1 of chapter 10. And we'll read the first 8 verses to begin with. There was a certain man in Caesarea called Cornelius, a centurion. A centurion was a Roman soldier and Israel is occupied by Rome at this time. And the centurion, the centurions are spoken of pretty well in most of the portions of scripture. And a centurion was a Roman soldier who was in charge of a hundred men and part of a detachment of maybe 600, but they'd have centurions over a hundred each. And he says, a centurion of the band called the Italian band, a devout man and one that feared God with all his house, which gave much alms to the people and prayed to God all way. He saw in a vision, evidently, about the ninth hour of the day. The ninth hour of the day, the Jews began counting from six o'clock, which was roughly sunrise. So six till 12 would be the sixth hour, and then the ninth hour would be about three o'clock in the afternoon. And he said, about the ninth hour of the day, an angel of God coming into him and saying unto him, Cornelius. And when he looked on him, he was afraid and said, what is it, Lord? And he said unto him, Thy prayers and thine alms are come up for a memorial before God. And now send men to Joppa and call for one Simon, whose surname is Peter. He lodgeth with one Simon, a tanner, whose house is by the seaside. He shall tell thee what thou oughtest to do. And when the angel which spake unto Cornelius was departed. He called two of his household servants and a devout soldier of them that waited on him continually. And when he had declared all these things unto them, he sent them to Joppa." Father, we pray that you'd bless us this morning as we open the precious Word of God. Lord, I pray that our hearts would be open. Lord, that our hearts would be tender, that our spirit would be responsive. to whatever you have to speak to us about this day. We pray that you would just undertake for us in a grand and marvelous way. In Jesus' name, amen. So this centurion called Cornelius is seemingly a man who knows something about God. And up until this point, the gospel had been preached to the Jews nearly exclusively. And most of the Jews felt like God's only purpose was to deal with them as the Hebrew nation and God didn't much care about anybody outside that territory. But now we see a Gentile, which would be all the world except for the Jews. Now we see this Roman soldier, a Gentile, who's connecting up with God. He's been praying. He's a giver. He loves the Jewish people. to a Jew giving the gospel to a Gentile at this point, at this point in time, giving the Jew, or the Jew giving a gospel message to the Gentiles would seem unspeakable. That didn't have anything to do with the Gentiles. They thought they were unclean. These people didn't deserve to hear the gospel. And so that's why this is a pivotal shift in the early Christian movement showing that salvation is indeed available to all, to all people of all nations. Every class, every background, every race, every ethnicity, the gospel would come to them. But the Jews didn't see that up until this point and so God is using Peter at this juncture of time, He's using Peter to pave the way into the Gentile nations. Let's begin looking at this event by considering first the praying. Notice in verse 1 and 2 again, it says there was a certain man in Caesarea. When it says a certain man, God has your number. A certain man. He's pointing out one man, Cornelius. And can I just tell you today, whether you're in this room or whether you're watching by way of internet, God knows your address. He knows your heart. He knows your mind. He knows your station in life. He knows your present condition. and he is concerned for you. And here's a man who's praying. Now, the Bible says that he was a devout man. I mean, he was a very pious man. He was interested in God. He's a devout man. And it says that he feared God. Can I also tell you that before anybody comes to Christ and is inducted into his family, there has to first come a fear of God? Now, he had that. And it also says he was a giver. He gave much alms, in the passage we just read, it says he gave much alms to the people around him. He was a compassionate and giving man. And then it says he prayed to God always. Now he's not a saved man, but he's a religious man. And he prays and he gives and he's compassionate on people. And he feared God. But do you know that you can be all those things and not go to heaven? You can be all those things and still need to be born again. But at least he's got his eyes open, he's got his heart in tune to look for God. And so that's where we pick him up. As good as he was, he was not fitted for heaven. Only one thing will do that and that's coming to the Lord Jesus in faith and his death, burial and resurrection. And this man is not there yet. It has been said by some that God won't answer prayers for a lost person. And I think generally God doesn't owe non-Christians anything. But here is a case where God was answering prayer for a lost man. Did you know that? God has answered, and you can find it throughout scripture, where God has answered prayers for a lost man, and that doesn't make him saved, but this man was a seeker after God. had a conviction in his heart that there must be something more that he needs to know about God. He's not connected with God. He's not in the family of God. He's not saved. His sins have not been forgiven. And he realizes that and something inside of him causes him to seek the Lord. Some say that, no man, there is a theology that's spreading far and wide today called Calvinism where they say that you're so completely dead you can't even respond to God. God has to save you before you can even pray a prayer that he'll hear. Well, in this case, this man was not saved, but God was answering his prayer. What was he praying about? He's wanting to know God. And God says, okay, I'm going to tell you what you've got to do. He sends an angel. He says, now I'll tell you what you've got to do. You're going to have to send some men over there to Joppa, and you look for a man by the name of Peter, and Peter's living in a house with Simon the tanner. You send for him, and he's going to give you the rest of the story. Well, as a lost man, I remember I can't equal my experience with the Word of God. Neither should any of us ever say that our experience is equal to the Word of God. But I can tell you my experience before I got saved. I was under conviction and I had some problems going on in my life. Now I'm lost. I'm not going to church. I'm not saved at that time. But I had some problems, some real big problems. And I remember in a motel room, I was a salesman on the road and I was under conviction about these problems rather than being under conviction about my sin. And so I'm looking for answers and so I picked up a Bible, a Gideon's Bible there in the motel room and I opened it up to Genesis and read a little while looking for answers. And of course I didn't have the Holy Spirit in my heart and I didn't have the understanding of Scripture. And so I looked in Genesis for a little while and I said, well, the answer is not there. So I flipped over to the back of the book and looked in Revelation. Boy, the answer's really not there. And I prayed. I said, Lord, I don't understand what the Bible's saying. I believe it's probably right. I just don't know what it's saying. I said, Lord, if you'll get me out of this mess I'm in, I'll put my faith in you and I'll trust you as Savior. Now, I'm a lost man trying to deal with God. Now, He didn't have any obligation to negotiate with me, and He doesn't you either. but I did pray. That's all I knew what to do, was just pray and ask God to help me out. And do you know that God answered that prayer? Or so it seemed to me because that problem got taken care of and then I found myself a few weeks or maybe months later in a church service for the first time in forever, sitting in a church service and the preacher was preaching about the gospel of Christ and how you could come to know Jesus as Savior and have your sins forgiven and be assured of a home in heaven when you die. And I'm under conviction I know the Holy Spirit is speaking to my heart saying, Rick, you need to trust the Lord. But I was resisting. I said, the devil is sitting on this shoulder whispering in my ear saying, Rick, you're young. You've got plenty of time. You can get saved when you're old. You'll be too old to party then. Then you can get saved. Well, I was listening to the devil and then the Lord tapped me on the other shoulder. Now this is not speaking out loud. This is just going on in my heart. The Lord said, Rick, you remember in that motel room when you were looking for answers and a solution to your problem and I solved that problem for you and you told me you'd get saved? I said, yeah, Lord, I remember that. He said, now's the time. Well, after resisting for a little while, I said, okay, Lord, and I trusted Him that day as my Savior. April 13th, 1980, and boy, I'm glad I never looked back. That was 40-something years ago, and man, I have never been sorry that I left the party life, the booze, the drugs, the wild women, the wine women and song. I've never missed it. You know why? Because God took the desire away from me and gave me a new desire. And if we put our faith in Him, He'll give us the desires of our heart because we desire new things. The man that is born again, the woman that is born again, the child that's born again has a brand new set of desires. They look for things and long for things from God. And so you don't miss the wild life, the me life. So I understand what's going on with Cornelius here. He's evidently a lot better man than I was at that point, but both of us were lost. See, it doesn't really matter how good you are or how bad you are. You're lost until you trust Jesus as your Savior. That's what became real for Cornelius. And so he sent for the men like Peter to come and tell him. So there's a pointing that goes on there, not just the one who's doing the praying. Cornelius is praying, but then there's a pointing. Verses 3 through 8, it says in verse number 5, And now send men to Joppa. Who told him that? It was the angel. The angel didn't give Cornelius the gospel. The angel could have told him right then and there, well, here's what you've got to do to be saved. But he didn't. He said, I'm going to tell you how you can find out. You can send over there to a man I've got waiting in the wings and he can come and tell you how to be saved. You see, angels could tell us the story of redemption. But since they have never sinned, and those angels have never, not the angels of heaven, the fallen angels have sinned, but not the ones in heaven. God's servants have never sinned. They don't know what redemption feels like because they have never been saved. They never sinned. And they're not humans. They are angels, created beings. And so God doesn't use them to give out the gospel to other people. They are powerful and they can point people in the right direction. But God has given to you and me, the born-again people of God, those of us who have been redeemed by the precious blood of Jesus, God has given us that ambassadorship. We, because we have looked up at one point in life, we looked up and said, Lord, I'm lost. I agree with the Bible that I am a sinner. The Bible says all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, and I was one of those, and I had to look up and say, God, I'm guilty. But I also recognize that Jesus died on the cross to pay for my sin with His own blood. He suffered vicariously for me and for you. He took our place on the cross and only redeemed human beings can relate that story to others in the way that God wants it given. And so the angel didn't give that story. Cornelius saw this vision in the angel telling him, you send over there to Joppa and I'll have a man come and explain the gospel to you. a man who has poured out his heart to God and already been redeemed, he can tell you with great passion what it means to be lost and then saved. Luke 15, 7 says, I say unto you that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons which need no repentance. You know what? When somebody gets saved, when somebody gets saved, there's a shouting service going on in heaven. I mean, the angels are rejoicing. Why are they rejoicing? They've never experienced redemption. They're rejoicing because God is rejoicing. They're rejoicing because the Holy Spirit is rejoicing. They're rejoicing because the Son of God is rejoicing. And the angels are saying, man, if they can rejoice, I can too. And if all of heaven can rejoice when somebody gets saved, I think you and I should too. It's not a little thing when somebody gets saved. When somebody comes to Christ, boy, we ought to rejoice because that is something big. I mean, they're saved from hell. The flames of hell just lost its hold on the repentant sinner who turns to Christ. Isn't that a great thing? God has appointed humans to communicate the gospel to other people instead of giving that job to angels. Do you know that your job now as a Christian to tell others about Jesus sounds like you've got a privilege that the angels don't even have. You're a pretty important person. You have the job of being an ambassador for heaven and just like that angel pointed Cornelius toward Peter you can point people to Jesus as well. Now what next do we see? Verses 9 through 16 we see a preparing going on. A preparing, a preparation. And Peter sees A great sheet and a vision let down from heaven because, remember, Peter's a Jew. Yes, he's been one of the disciples of the Lord, he's one of the apostles, but Peter's a Jew and he thinks, man, the Jews are the ones that own the gospel. The Jews have the word of God, not those dirty Gentiles, and he needs some preparation. He's going to be the chosen vessel to carry that message over to Cornelius, but at this point Peter needs some preparation. He's not ready yet. Peter is the vessel that God will use to bring Cornelius to Jesus. But Peter has always been a follower of the law and he knows he's not supposed to eat any unclean food. There were a lot of dietary restrictions in the Old Testament. And Peter sees this vision. God's given him this vision of a sheep full of animals. A lot of unclean animals. Now Peter had gone up on the rooftop at this hour. He's hungry and they're preparing food in the house and he goes up the steps. He had a flat roof on most of the buildings in those days. So he goes up the steps to have a little privacy where he can pray. And you and I need privacy where we can talk to the Lord too, don't we? And so Peter's going up there, and as he goes up those steps, perhaps he smelled the aroma of that food. I mean, he smells some food cooking, and he's getting hungrier and hungrier. It's time to eat. And God uses his hunger to get something across to him. God says, well, Peter, if you're hungry, slay and eat of these animals. And Peter does something that you're not guilty of, I know. He argues with the Lord. He said, not so, Lord. I've never eaten anything unclean. Lord, I'm a Jew. I follow the law. As if he needed to tell God all of this, like God didn't already know. He said, Lord, I don't eat anything unclean. After all, I'm a Jew, and I'm straight down the line. I don't do anything like that. Like a Baptist preacher saying, I ain't drinking that whiskey. going up on the roof and he smells the food and he's told by the Lord to slay those animals. And he argues with the Lord three times. The Lord takes that sheep back up into heaven and as long as Peter's arguing with him, he lets the sheep back down again and says, now Peter, here's what I'm saying a second time. You don't want to have to be told by the Lord multiple times. You may get in trouble like Jonah, right? You end up in a whale's belly. And so the third time the sheep comes down This is to produce a new attitude in Peter because he's got the gospel but he doesn't want to give it to those nasty Gentiles. And so God's changing his mind. He needs a new attitude. Regardless of our historical background, our sinful past, our ethnicity, our race, none of those things matter when it comes to the gospel, the ground is level at the foot of the cross. Everybody needs to be saved. Boys, girls, men, women, black, white, yellow, whatever color, whatever ethnicity, whatever background in religion, everybody needs the gospel of Christ. And that's what God's trying to get across to Peter right now. Do you know that there's only one race? The human race is one race. Let me read you a verse that, I don't know if you've read it before or not, in Acts 17, 26. It says of God, And he hath made of one blood all nations of men. Did you get that? One blood of all nations of men. I don't care what color your skin is. I don't care what your ethnicity is. If you cut your veins, it's going to bleed red. We all came from one man, the first man created was Adam. And it says in Romans 5.12, listen to this, if you think you're a pretty good person, listen to this, Romans 5.12, wherefore as by one man sin entered into the world and death by sin. And so death passed upon all men, for all have sinned." Listen, the Bible is saying it doesn't matter who you are, where you came from, or what you have believed in the past. You're born a sinner, and you can't get into heaven with that sin. There's only one way to get into heaven, and that's to have that sin removed. And that only comes by one method. In 1 Corinthians 15-45 it says, And so it is written, the first man Adam was made a living soul, the last Adam, that's Jesus, the last Adam was made a quickening spirit. Look, you are spiritually dead until you trust Christ as Savior and boom, you're born again in the family of God. You're made alive for the first time in your life. You are quickened. I doubt that there's a handful of people in America that still believes that some people, some races, some backgrounds can't get saved. I think nearly every one of us would be on the same page of the book that yeah, everybody can get saved. But by our attitudes and our actions, we group people together and say I'm not going to tell them about the gospel. Not going to tell them We may not believe they can't get saved, but we're just determined that we're not going to give them the gospel. Peter believed the gospel, and he was saved. He preached the gospel, but only to Jews. Now God's saying, I want you to go over there and preach to those Gentiles. You're going to start with Cornelius. Peter's saying, I don't want to do that. God said, do it. I want them saved too. And now many of us may be saved, We're arguing with God when He says that we're supposed to give out the gospel. We're saying, I don't want to. I don't want to do it. I'm not going to give that guy a gospel tract. I'm not going to give her the message of the gospel. I don't even like them. Well, that's the attitude that God's trying to correct in Peter. The Hollywood culture is one that has mocked Christianity incessantly for decades. Hollywood is a for the most part, is a wild and evil culture. And we may say, let them go to hell, good enough for them. But they're part of the human race. They have that same kind of blood. It's sinful blood that needs to be cleansed by the Lord Jesus Christ and His blood. I love the story about what happened back in the 50s. There was a well-known host, comedian, songwriter, singer, and he was in Hollywood. His name was Stuart Hamlin, and he was noted for drinking and carousing and chasing women. In fact, one of his early songs was, I won't go hunting with you, Jake, but I'll go chasing women. I remember that when I was a little boy. One day, along came a young preacher into town, holding a tent crusade and Hamlin had that preacher on his radio show and presumably to poke fun at him as Hollywood normally does and in order to get more material for his show Stewart decided he'd go and hear the preacher preach one night so he'd gather up some more material to make fun of Christianity And early in the service, that preacher announced, there is one man in this audience who is a fake. Now there are probably others in the audience that thought the preacher was talking about them too, but Stuart Hamlin thought, he's nailing me. He's trying to get me. I think we might call that conviction, but not Stuart Hamlin. He didn't want to have anything to do with it. And so, After he heard him preach, he left that tent meeting and went out and got drunk as a skunk. And at 2 o'clock in the morning, he knocked on that preacher's hotel door. Crying drunk and asking this young preacher to pray for him. The young preacher said, this is between you and God, I'm not getting in the middle of it. But he invited him on in. And they talked till about 5 in the morning. And at that time, Stuart Hamlin broke down He got on his knees crying and asked God to save him. Well, that's not the end of the story. Stuart got saved. He quit drinking and chasing women. And he was ultimately pushed out of the Hollywood culture because, well, one thing he did was, since he was a Christian now, he wouldn't let beer commercials appear on his radio show. the rest of the Hollywood producers got mad at him and kicked him out of the Hollywood culture because he wasn't partying with them anymore. He began to lose favor with them. Hard times came upon Stewart. He wrote a couple of Christian songs. One of them was This Old House and it was written for his friend Rosemary Clooney. And as he began to struggle more and more for a long time And then he was speaking to a friend of his by the name of John. And John was asking him, well, you're the one that got saved and started going to church. Do you think it was worth it? And Stuart said, yeah, it was worth it. It's no secret what God can do for me and what God can do for others. And John said, you know, that's a pretty catchy title. You ought to write a song and give it that title. And he did. And that song became history. Some of you might not know it because it's an old song. But he titled it, It Is No Secret. It is no secret what God can do. What He's done for others, He'll do for you. It is no secret that God will welcome you. That friend by the name of John was John Wayne, a young preacher, was a young evangelist by the name of Billy Graham. And from that day forward, Stuart Hamblin turned his heart heavenward and lived for the Lord, writing more gospel songs, gospel hymns, and speaking about the Lord on his radio show. It's no secret what God did for me. If you're saved, it's no secret. And what he did for you and what he did for me, he can do for others as well. And Peter needs to learn the lesson that not just he was the only one that was supposed to get saved. It wasn't just the Jews that were supposed to get saved. The gospel is going worldwide at this point. And he's supposed to take it to the gospels, take it to Cornelius. And then the door is going to be opened to the whole wide world. Are there groups or individuals that we write off as unreachable? There shouldn't be. Addicts, prostitutes, thieves and immoral people are not off limits for the gospel. I've often said that they are all welcome to come in here. As long as they sit down and behave themselves, they can come in. We want them to hear the gospel. We want them to be saved. We want them to become a new creature in Christ. But Peter was a bit of a snob. At this point, he had the gospel, he was saved, but he was kind of snobbish towards those Gentiles. He didn't much want to get involved with that, and God coaxed him. You know, snobbery, snobbery can cause us, maybe not just talking about Gentiles and Jews, but maybe snobbery in our life can turn people away from the gospel. Are you listening? Snobbery, thinking that we are better than somebody else, holier than thou. The only reason you and I are going to heaven is not because we're good. It's because we trusted Jesus, the one who is good. And he put his robe of righteousness on us. It's nothing of our own. It is an imputed righteousness. And when we say, Well, my kind of Christianity is better than yours, or my way is better than yours, my ideas about church are better than yours, and my opinions are better than yours, my car is better than yours, my cooking is better than yours, my family is better than yours, and my ideas are better than yours. And we begin to gossip and complain and set ourselves up in an arrogant manner. It can really turn people off. Pridefulness and arrogance, I've heard it said before and I believe it to be true. That pridefulness in a person makes everybody around him sick except himself. You know what we need is a self-examination every once in a while. Say, Lord, am I a jerk? He'll tell you the truth. I mean, do we say things to kind of lift ourselves up and push others down? That tends to separate people from the gospel more than anything else. Now Christians will get their share of, even if you're doing everything right, a Christian is still going to be criticized. That's the way it is. But we don't need to be justly criticized. If they make up stuff about us, so be it. But we ought not give them reason to say bad stuff about us. You don't want to be like the psychiatrist that you had. A patient came in and the patient was telling him all of his problems and he said, Doctor, I really have an inferiority complex. And the psychiatrist said, Well, after talking to you, I don't think it's just a complex. I think you're really inferior. You know, we don't need that, do we? We limit the gospel with our pride. We limit the gospel when we don't have a heart for missions. We support between 20 and 30 missions as an ongoing basis. And I hope that you have a heart for missions. That's getting the gospel outside our four walls. Hey, we feel secure in here. If we've been saved, we think, man, I've got it made. No, there's still people out there that's lost. There's still people out there on their way to hell. If we don't have a heart for missions, if we don't pray for missions, if we don't give to missions, if we don't promote missions, then we are not doing exactly what God wanted Peter to do in this passage of scripture. We ought to love missions, getting the gospel to those who haven't heard. Well, we limit the gospel by not being a personal witness. I wish you'd do all the witnessing. But I'm supposed to be a witness too. And you ought to say the same thing. Some people think, well, the preacher is supposed to do all the witnessing. No. The preacher's supposed to be stoking the fire in us. Set my soul afire, Lord. Set my soul afire. For those who are still lost and on their way to hell, each one of us has to own the gospel. If we were given the precious gospel that saved our souls, we ought to be willing to gloriously and joyfully and faithfully give out the gospel to other people around us. You can give out a gospel tract when you go through McDonald's drive-thru. You can give out a tract when you're in the grocery store and hand it to the cashier. You can get a tract in the hands of somebody else by sticking it on the gas pump after you've filled up. You can give out the gospel. You can speak to your family. You can speak to your next door neighbor and God expects us to do that. And we limit the gospel when we don't. We limit the gospel by not being in our place of service. If you're saved, you are to be a servant. And if you're not in a place of service where you're actively doing something for God, you're limiting the gospel, you're holding it back. You know, one of the things, just something as simple as showing up at church every service, that encourages those around you. Instead of just dropping in once in a while, why don't we be faithful, faithful to our church, our local church, the place of service. That's what God created the local church for, is a place for you and me to serve. How did God prepare Peter for taking the gospel to Cornelius and the Gentile world? Well, he showed Peter a life-changing vision. How do I get a life-changing vision? I can get it and you can get it from the Word of God. We can read it, we can meditate on it, we can pray about it, we can attend church, Bible studies, and it will increase our vision for the world. In fact, in some places in the Old Testament, it's called, the Word of God is the vision. Where there is no vision, the people perish, says in Proverbs. So God had to prod Peter's heart a little bit to get him to take the gospel over there. This is a turning point, and Peter's been chosen. Peter argues a little bit, but finally he says, okay, Lord, I don't understand all this, but I'll do it. Well, I'd rather see somebody half-heartedly serve God than not serve him at all. I'd rather somebody half-heartedly serve God than to wholeheartedly serve the devil. And so Peter's at least saying, okay, God, I'll do it. Now we see the proceeding in verses 17 through 33, too long of a passage to read, but Peter comes down from the housetop after he sees this vision, he sees the sheet with the unclean animals and God says, don't you call something unclean that I've called clean. And those Gentiles are not any more unclean than anybody else and they need the gospel just the same as everybody in the Jewish nation Peter and so he's come down from the housetop and he's still a little bit puzzled but the Holy Spirit prompts him to go down and at the same time he said there's going to be some men that meet you from the house of a Cornelius that need to talk to you So the servants of Cornelius, they're just showing up. Isn't God's timing something? Just as Peter's going down the stairs from the roof, here come those men through the gate that's looking for him. They said, hey, hey, we hear that a man by the name of Peter is dwelling here. And the tanner said, yeah, yeah, he's here. Hey, Peter, these men want to see you. And so Peter comes down the steps and they recount to him the story of what Cornelius had told them. Cornelius evidently had a lot of impression upon those men and the rest of his family and friends and household and those soldiers. And so they say, look, Cornelius is sending for you. He says that you've got the message that they need to hear. Peter said, okay, boys, they've got supper ready now. Let's eat and get us a nap and we'll get up early in the morning and head for Caesarea. And so he goes with them. About a 33-mile trip. I'm pretty sure they've probably hoofed it on foot all the way. And so they proceed. They're going forward. When God sends you in a certain direction. Now Peter's still a little bum-fuzzled by not knowing exactly what God's doing here, but God told him to go, and so he goes. And God may send you in a certain direction, and you don't really know what He's doing, But if you're sure he's sending you, you better go. When he called Abraham out of Ur of the Chaldees before there was a Jewish race, he called Abraham out of Pagan Ur of the Chaldees. And here's what God told him. He said, pack up your family, pack up your goods, get your herds, and head out up the river. Abraham said, where am I going, Lord? He said, you just go. I'll tell you when you get there. Have you ever followed God's directions that way? God said, I want you to go in a certain direction. I want you to do a certain thing. I want you to believe a certain thing. And you say, why, Lord? Lord says, you leave that up to me. You just go. I'm sure Sarah must have said, where are we going, honey? Abraham said, well, we're going up yonder somewhere. And you don't know where? Nope. God just said, go. She said, well, how will we know when we get there? He said, we're just trusting the Lord to tell us when we arrive. And you and I ought to be the same way. God gives you instruction and direction. You just say, okay, Lord, I wish I knew where I was going and what to expect when I get there. But since I don't know, Lord, I'm trusting you because you know a lot more than I do. His thoughts are higher than our thoughts. His ways are higher than our ways. And so we just got to trust God. And that's what Peter did. The Bible says in John 7, 17, listen to this, John 7, 17, if any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, if any man will do his will. You don't have to know the answer, you just follow his instructions. And some people go to church and say, well I don't know all this business about sinfulness and propitiation that Jesus paid for our sins on the cross. I don't understand all that. Trust Him as your Savior and then He'll let you understand the doctrines as time goes on. John R. Rice used to say, you don't have to know everything about the doctor but you've got to go to the doctor. You don't have to know everything about medicine, but you better trust the doctor. And the doctor for us spiritually is Jesus. And whether you understand his directions or not, you go when he says go. A dad sent his son off to college and gave him a Bible and said, now son, you stay in that Bible. You read it regularly, every day. and God will meet your needs. Well, the boy went off to college and boy, it wasn't long until he ran out of money and he's having a time struggling and he's in desperation and finally he shows up back at home and says, Dad, I'm out of money. There's nothing I can do. They sent me home. He said, have you been reading your Bible, son? He said, well, no, I've been too busy, I guess, to read my Bible. The dad said, let me see your Bible. and so the son handed him that Bible out of his duffel bag and his father started leafing through the pages of the Bible and every few pages there was a hundred dollar bill tucked in there he said you hadn't been reading your Bible if you had been you'd have found your needs met and you know what ladies and gentlemen when we read our Bible when we trust the Bible, when we trust the Lord, trust his word we'll find that he meets our needs It might not be in $100 bills, it might be something more valuable like spiritual truth. When Peter just decided to follow the Lord's instructions, he found out that the doctrine of salvation to all nations is indeed true. Now the perception, verse number 34, we'll read this verse. Then Peter opened his mouth. He's there. He's got to Caesarea. He's come back with the soldiers. He took six of his own Christian friends with him to be witnesses. And so this whole crew shows up at Caesarea. And in verse 34 it says, Then Peter opened his mouth and said, Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons. The keys to the kingdom had been given to Peter back in the Gospels. Peter might not have known what those keys meant and many people today don't know what those keys meant. Roman Catholic Church thinks it's the Pope that's got the keys to the kingdom. You know who's got the keys to the kingdom? Peter here had the keys to the kingdom. and he's going to unlock the gospel message. Those people, the disciples met in the upper room in Acts chapter 1, they're meeting together, and God says, you're to go into, not just let the gospel settle here in Jerusalem, you're taking all Judea into Samaria and under the uttermost part of the earth. Well, they begin to preach the gospel at Jerusalem, then they went into, they got scattered, they got under persecution, so they scattered all over Judea preaching the gospel, people were getting saved, but there's all still the Jews. And so then, as they got scattered further, they ended up in Samaria. Boy, they hated those Samaritan people. They were half-breeds. They didn't much want them to have the gospel, but at God's command, they preached it. And guess what? The Samaritans got saved. The woman at the well, remember her? She got saved. And so did others. Philip, the evangelist, saw people getting saved. And so then the gospel, the keys that God gave to Peter, opened the gospel to the Jews, then opened it to the Samaritans, and now in this passage of Scripture today in Acts chapter 10, we see Peter taking those keys to the kingdom and unlocking the gospel message to the Gentile world. The whole globe is to hear the gospel. So step by step, he's unlocking the gospel for those people. And now let's look quickly at the preaching. In verses 35 through 43, the preaching. Verse 35, And Peter said unto him, Am I in the right place? No, I'm in the wrong chapter. What did I say? 35. If I get in the right chapter, we'll be on the same page of the book, right? It says in verse 35, But in every nation he that feareth him and worketh righteousness is accepted of him. That's not teaching works for salvation, and I'll show you why in just a minute. The word which God sent unto the children of Israel preaching peace by Jesus Christ, He is Lord of all. That word, I say, you know, which was published throughout all Judea and began in Galilee and after the baptism of John preached, how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power, went about doing good and healing all that were oppressed of the devil, for God was with him. And we are witnesses of all these things, all things which he did, both in the land of the Jews and in Jerusalem, whom they slew and hanged on a tree." Now see, he's preaching the gospel. Jesus crucified. And then in verse 40 it says, "...him God raised up the third day and showed him openly." So there's the death, burial and resurrection, the gospel, right there. Verse 41, not to all the people, but unto witnesses chosen before God, even to us who did eat and drink with him after he rose from the dead. And he commanded us to preach unto the people and to testify that it is he which was ordained of God to be the judge of the quick and the dead. Can I just tell you that Peter preached judgment to them, to Cornelius and all of his family and his friends. He's saying, look, there is a gospel that Jesus bled and died and was buried and rose again. for the justification of all people. But those who reject it will face a judgment one day. It's called the White Throne Judgment. And all those whose names are not written in the Lamb's Book of Life, listen to me, if your name is not written in the Lamb's Book of Life, you're lost, you're undone, you're hopeless, and the eternity in hell is without escape. There are no second chances. Once you breathe your last breath, eternity is sealed. And so he's preaching all this to Cornelius in his home. And here's a changed man, Peter, preaching the gospel so that others can be changed as well. Peter's not only preaching to Cornelius but his whole family. Friends, neighbors, they've all come to hear this. They were hungry. They were hungry people. This was every preacher's dream. You know what a preacher dreams about? It's having a crowd who are leaning forward saying, let me have it, preacher. I want the truth. Let me have it. Feed my soul from the Word of God. Oh, Peter's got that dream come true. These people are hungry for the truth, spiritual truth from God. And Peter didn't amuse or entertain Cornelius. You know why a lot of people go to church today? There are church houses that are filled this morning because they go to hear the wild music or because they go to promote their business among their friends. There are people who go because the entertainment atmosphere, the flashing lights, the nightclub atmosphere, But can I tell you that Peter didn't fall for any of that? He gave them the straight word of God, the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus, and the judgment that follows. He didn't try to entertain nor amuse. Cornelius was considered to be a good man by many people. Even the scripture says that he did a lot of good things. But he was lost. And so Peter preached to him. In spite of his good qualities, He needed Jesus and he preached that exact message to him. Romans 10 and verse number 12 says, For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek. For the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. How then shall they call on him whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? Peter was that preacher. You and I can be that preacher. You don't have to have a pulpit and a platform and a church house to proclaim the gospel of the Lord. You can speak it one-on-one. This is the last one, the partaking. Peter preached the message straight and plain and to the point that men are lost They need a Savior. And without going to that Savior, there is no heaven. And so what did Cornelius do? And his friends? They believed. Verse number 44. While Peter yet spake these words, the Holy Ghost fell on all them which heard the word, and of the circumcision which believed were astonished. That's the friends that Peter had brought with him, Christians. as many as came with Peter, because that on the Gentiles also was poured out the gift of the Holy Ghost. For they heard them speak with tongues and magnify God, and then answered Peter, Can any man forbid water, that these should not be baptized, which have received the Holy Ghost as well as we? Now stop right there just for a moment and look up here. For those who believe that you have to be baptized to go to heaven, Among several other instances, can I just point out that this man, Cornelius, and his friends were saved by believing. They already had the Holy Ghost living inside of them. Then Peter says, well, we better go ahead and baptize them, don't you think? Anybody got any objections? And they said, no, man, they show all the evidence of a saved man. Peter said, then let's baptize them. So what's meant? You don't get saved by being baptized. You don't produce good deeds. You don't produce good deeds in order to cause salvation. You produce good deeds because you have experienced salvation. You don't get baptized in order to be saved. You get baptized to show you have been saved. These people were saved and then baptized. You say, how do you know they were saved? Well, duh. If they had the Holy Spirit of God, do you think God would give the Holy Spirit to indwell a lost person? They believed. You know what? Peter's right in the middle of a sermon, and those people trust the Lord. You believe in the heart. With the heart, man believeth unto righteousness. Salvation doesn't come because of what you do, it comes because of what Jesus did. And when you believe in your heart that He paid for your sin. That moment a transaction takes place in your heart. You're born again the moment you believe. I've said often times that when I got saved I was sitting in an area right over here about where Madison is sitting. I was sitting there April 13, 1980 and the preacher preached the gospel. And when I got in a conviction and finally gave in to the Lord, I stood up and started to the altar. I firmly believe that in my heart, I believed on the Lord before I got to the altar. I think somewhere between that seat and the altar, I was saved because I believed in the Lord. Prayer doesn't save you. Jesus saves you. Believing is what connects you up with the Savior. And these people, right in the middle of the sermon, I'm sure Peter must have said, man, sit down. You can't get saved yet. I've got to finish my sermon. They didn't care. They just went in and trusted the Lord. Then when it was all over, then they baptized them. During the 19th century, a famous evangelist by the name of Charles Finney was holding a revival and a prominent businessman heard him preach and came under conviction and he said to himself, well, I guess I should be saved, but I don't want to do it right now. I need to think about this and the implications of it. So instead of being obedient right then and there, when the invitation was given in the revival meeting, he decided to sleep on it overnight. Now, when he got home, though, he couldn't go to sleep. The words of the preacher and the word of God kept piercing his heart. And finally, he could stand it no longer. He couldn't sleep and think about it overnight. He just knelt on his knees and asked the Lord to save him right then and there. I'm glad he did that because he could have ended up like a man in my neighborhood where I grew up. I called him Cussin Reed. Man, he had the most vulgar mouth. I mean, he just said the most awful words in front of women, children, everybody at a little country store where we visited. And he was the most vile-mouthed man I'd ever heard. When I got saved, I had a burden for Reed, and so I went to his house with another man and told Reed about the gospel. And I figured he'd either hit me or throw me out, but he didn't. He sat very reverently and listened to the whole message. When we got to the end of the message, I invited him to trust Christ as Savior. He said, Rick, I know it's true, and I know I need to be saved. He said, and I'm going to, but not right now. He said, I've got a grudge against a man. And he said, in my heart, I want to shoot him and kill him. And he said, I know it wouldn't be right for a Christian to be that way, so I'm going to wait until I get that taken care of, and then I'll get saved. A little bit later, he started dating a woman in our church. He was a widower and she was a widow. And they were both up in their years, probably in their seventies. And she said, Reed, they went out a few times. He asked her to marry him. And she said, Reed, I can't marry you. I'm a Christian. And I should only, according to scripture, only marry another Christian. And she was right. And he said, well, I'll tell you what I'm going to do. He said, I'm going to marry you. And I've been thinking about getting saved anyway. He said, this is Saturday, I'll go to church with you tomorrow morning and I'll get saved. You know what happened? Reed didn't wake up the next morning. Massive heart attack. He died. And unless he called on the Lord sometime during that night that we don't know about, Reed went to hell. And Reed is still there. If he did go to hell, he's still there today. And he'll never find a way out. because someone who gets saved has to do it while this life is still viable. So here's the key. What happened to Cornelius and his band of people is they made the decision right then to trust Christ. An immediate obedience to the gospel. When you and I hear the Word of God, we need to respond while the fire is still hot. because it can cool off. If you're not saved, I want you to know Jesus loves you. He died for you. He's not looking to beat you up or throw you out of the human race. He's not looking for a reason to cast you into hell. If you decide to not trust Jesus as Savior, you will go to hell, but it won't be because Jesus sent you there. It'll be because you received the remedy for your sin. And I'm asking you, Make a decision for Christ right now. Christian, if He's spoken to you about something, make a decision for Him right now. Don't put it off, because you'll cool off and the devil will give you plenty of excuses. Do it now. I'm going to give an invitation in a little while. We still believe in invitations here because it's not that there's anything magic of coming from a seat and kneeling at this altar. There's nothing magic. or scriptural that will save you by doing that but it gives you the opportunity to make a decision and strike while the iron is hot because if you walk out those doors without making your decision you may not ever decide for Christ and that's why it's important to be like Cornelius and his family and friends they decided right now and they were safe I'm asking you, when we stand in just a moment to pray, our heads will be bowed and eyes will be closed. I'm going to ask you, if you're not saved, to make your way down front and we'll pray with you. And you can go into a private place if you need more explained from the Bible. And we'll have somebody to show you from the Bible how to be saved. And you can go out of here a saved person today with a promise of everlasting life. Don't put it off. Please do it today. Let's stand together in one sweeping motion. We're standing, our heads are bowed, and we're going to pray, and then the music will play, and I'm going to invite you to the altar. Father, I pray that you'd bless us as we contemplate what's been said from the scripture. Lord, I pray that you'd bless us with decisions that would be God-honoring decisions. Lord, I pray that you'd bless us with obedience to follow you in everything that we do. Lord, for those who are not saved, I pray that they'd trust you today. for those who are saved and maybe they're being a little hesitant, maybe they're arguing with you, maybe they're putting something off. Lord, I pray that they'd make that decision today.