Acts chapter 10 verses 1 through 33. At Caesarea there was a man named Cornelius, a centurion of what was known as the Italian cohort. A devout man who feared God with all of his household, gave alms generously to the people and prayed continually to God. About the ninth hour of the day, he saw clearly in a vision an angel of God come in and say to him, Cornelius. And he stared at him in terror and said, what is it, Lord? And he said to him, your prayers and your alms have ascended as a memorial to God. And now send men to Joppa and bring one Simon who is called Peter. He is lodging with one Simon, a tanner, whose house is by the sea. When the angel who spoke to him had departed, he called two of his servants and a devout soldier from among those who attended him, and having related everything to them, he sent them to Joppa. The next day, as they were on their journey and approaching the city, Peter went up on the housetop about the sixth hour to pray. And he became hungry and wanted something to eat. But while they were preparing it, he fell into a trance and saw the heavens opened and something like a great sheet descending, being let down by its four corners upon the earth. In it were all kinds of animals and reptiles and birds of the air. And there came a voice to him. Rise, Peter, kill and eat. But Peter said, by no means, Lord, for I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean. And the voice came to him again a second time, what God has made clean do not call common. This happened the three times, and the thing was taken up at once to heaven. Now while Peter was inwardly perplexed as to what the vision that he had seen might mean, behold, the men who were sent by Cornelius, having made inquiry for Simon's house, stood at the gate and called out to ask whether Simon, who was called Peter, was lodging there. And while Peter was pondering the vision, the spirit said to him, behold, three men are looking for you. Rise and go down and accompany them without hesitation, for I have sent them. And Peter went down to the men and said, I am the one you were looking for. What is your reason for coming? And they said, Cornelius, a centurion, an upright and God-fearing man who was well spoken of by the whole Jewish nation, was directed by a holy angel to send for you to come to his house and to hear what you have to say. So he invited them in to be his guests. The next day he rose and went away with them and some of the brothers from Joppa accompanied him. And on the following day they entered Caesarea. Cornelius was expecting them and had called together his relatives and close friends. When Peter entered, Cornelius met him and fell down at his feet and worshiped him. But Peter lifted him up saying, stand up for I too am a man. And as he talked with him, he went in and found many persons gathered. And he said to them, you yourselves know how unlawful it is for a Jew to associate with or to visit any one of another nation. But God has shown me that I should not call any person common or unclean. So when I was sent for, I came without objection. I asked then, why you sent for me? And 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 a bright clothing and said, Cornelius, your prayer has been heard and your alms have been remembered before God. Send therefore to Joppa and ask for Simon, who is called Peter. He is lodging in the house of Simon at Tanner by the sea. So I sent for you at once, and you have been kind enough to come. Now therefore, we are all here in the presence of God to hear all that you have been commanded by the Lord. Here ends the reading of God's holy and inspired word. Please be seated. September 11th, 2001. November the 22nd, 1963. December 7th, 1941. Those dates to Americans should stand out to us. Turning points in American history. God in his providence brings turning points into our lives. Things that in his providence happen that occur that change our lives dramatically, that affect a great many of people, We even remember where we were. They stand out so much. I still remember November 22nd, 1963. I can still see it in my mind, the television and the news. And people often ask, well, where were you on September 11th? And I can remember that. I don't remember December 7th, 1941. That's before my time. But there may be other dates in your life, but you get the point. Dramatic things, turning points, things that change perhaps the course of your life or that affect it in such a way and a trajectory that affect you deeply. This text is one of those momentous events. It is a turning point in redemptive history, and of the church in particular. The fact of the gospel going to the Gentiles is emphasized by this turning point because, again, it gets repeated in the next chapter in Acts 11, and it forms the basis of the development of the church that we would see in Acts 15. There's something dramatic that God is doing. And the Lord Jesus, by His Spirit, used extraordinary events to confirm each step along the way, beginning in verse 28 of our chapter, chapter 10, and also in other, the next chapters that follow. A turning point occurred in Cornelius' life, we're told, and the life of Peter. And I'd like to ask you the question in the background. Has God brought about a turning point in your life? A meeting with Jesus? Because that's what's going on here. Remember, the book of Acts is all about the continuing acts of the resurrected and glorified Christ. And he's directing these events and we see this happening. So I wanna look at how we're told that the Lord guides his church as he directs the lives of these particular individuals and what it will mean for the church. And the fact that we must believe that God is directing and Christ is the Lord of his church and we must obey that direction. We do it in a couple of different ways. The call of Cornelius as we find in the first eight verses. We'll look at the call to Peter that follows and then look at the purpose of this call as what we're being told here is the foundation as to what the call really is all about. It's ready to hear. Their preparation to hear the gospel. And so the stage is set for us in these 33 verses. First of all then, the call to Cornelius. We're told that Cornelius is a fearer of God. The Jewish way you would say that was he's a God-fearer, but I wanna do the alliteration with F, so I put fear first, but there it is. He's a God-fearer. He was, in other words, a non-circumcised Gentile. A proselyte was one who would be a non-Jewish person who adopts the Jewish religion as his own and becomes circumcised, and a member of the covenant community. A God-fear is one who adopts the religion of the Jewish people in somewhat varying degrees, but most of it, but however is not circumcised. This is Cornelius. He believes in the God of the Old Testament and he follows the Old Testament law. He has adopted the God of the Bible as his God. He believes in the truth of God's scriptures and so follows him. He had experienced, therefore, God's grace in his life and given faith to believe in God. And he had abandoned the pagan idolatry of the Romans, of which he had probably been brought up in and was serving under as a centurion in the Roman army. His devotion extended to direct the spiritual and physical state of his household. were told he had gathered people together, that they listened to him, that he had servants who were faithful, who believed and devout, so that it wasn't just a personal religion for him, but he was directing his household. He was covenantal in his thinking. He wasn't an individualist, but rather he understood his position as the head of the house to direct the life, the spiritual life of his household and called others to believe and practice that belief with him. He kept also both tables of the law. He worshiped God, and he loved his neighbor. We're told that he had works of charity and prayer. He was praying, and we're told that he was praying at the third hour of the second hour of prayer, or of the day. So, he was a God-fearer, and God was about to bless him. and grant an increase in his faith. So that's the second point under the call of Cornelius, it's faith encouraged. He, as we're told, was praying. We're told about the ninth hour of the day. Now that doesn't make a lot of sense to us. Your Bible probably has a note about that ninth hour, gives you what time it is, about 3 p.m. He obviously was praying to God. The point of that basically is this. He was observing the Jewish tradition of the daily three hours of prayer. They happened at certain intervals. They happened in the first hour, which would be the beginning of the day. They happened at the ninth hour, which was the afternoon, which we'd think of as three o'clock in the afternoon. So think of how the Jewish day begins. It starts roughly sun up, right? And it's six o'clock. And you count from there, so if you count nine hours, you get to three. Three p.m. our time, all right? And then the third hour of prayer would be the evening prayer. And so it is the middle of the afternoon in which he is praying. and he has a vision. God visits him through a messenger, an angel. So again, God doesn't just visit everybody. We tend to read the Bible and say, oh, God appeared to this person, God spoke to that person, as if God does it all the time. God doesn't do it all the time. He selects certain individuals at certain points in redemptive history. It's not common. It seems common to us when we read the Bible, but you have to think about the time frame and all. God interrupts history and he comes in and sends people visions or visits them through an angelic personage or even indirectly through a vision or a dream or something like that. So Cornelius is blessed. He has a vision of an angel, an angel representative. It's interesting, though, the angel does not deliver the gospel message. But Peter, who is Christ's representative as an apostle, is to be sent for. So instructions are given that he might hear what Peter has to say, and we can fill in the blanks. We know that that's the gospel. Cornelius was encouraged to exercise his faith by obedience in that his faith would be more firmly established and perfected by Jesus Christ. That's how God works in us. He calls us in his word to do certain things, to live a certain way. And we don't exercise our faith, strengthen it, if we don't obey. We stay as weak and baby Christians. And so the Lord's Day comes every week as an instance, and we are tempted, I've got this to do, I've got that to do, he has responsibilities. Are you gonna exercise your faith and obey God and say, no, this is important? Because you and I all know that we always do what we want to do. We do always what's important to us. Now, I understand that there are certain things that we cannot control that are outside of our abilities. I mean, I grew up with a father who was a firefighter and buildings burned on Sundays. My mother was a nurse and people got sick on Sundays. And I don't mean the law in that sense, but I'm using that as an example. Do we obey God and his word and those principles? Or do we say, well, not today. I don't feel like it. Or it's too hard or something. is when we exercise faith by being obedient that God then blesses that faith and causes us even to grow more. And this is the case of Cornelius. Here he gets this vision and the angel says, go find this Jewish guy who's living in Joppa. So Cornelius' works did not earn him God's favor, but they're remembered by God. God knows what we do. God knows those things that we endeavor. They don't earn us anything before God, but he does remember them, and he understood that Cornelius had a faith and had given that faith to him, and so his works were a proof of God's grace, and God was about to enlarge that grace by bringing the gospel into his life. We could say, therefore, by all these things that Cornelius was an elect of God. It was demonstrated in God's choice to reveal himself to him, just as he did to the Jewish forefathers in many other ways. The call of God to Cornelius is obedience by revelation. was a turning point in Cornelius' life. You get the sense from the text that Cornelius gave alms and prayed regularly. He was faithful. He did these things day in and day out. This is what he did. This is who he was. He was well-known. And on this particular day, bang! God interrupts the cycle. God interrupts his life with a vision and a turning point in his life happens and it begins to unfold. That's the call to Cornelius. What about you? Has God interrupted your life? Sometimes we don't really see it. We think it's sort of normal or we don't really recognize it. But we hear that sermon or we read that text of scripture, or we have a conversation with somebody that there is something that catches our attention, that awakens a longing for us, a desire for God, a knowledge of Him, or we recognize we don't have it. Sometimes it's subtle. It doesn't take an angelic messenger to do it. You are here this morning, not simply because you decided to come, but like everything else in your life, as you exercise your free will, God is controlling those events. There's reasons why you chose to come this morning. There's reasons. And the reasons are God's plans and his purposes. And it could be a turning point. the call to Peter, verses 9 to 23. We find in this call the Lord's revelation, first of all. Jesus' lordship is expressed in the circumstances of Peter's call. Now, Peter's already been called in as apostle. What I'm suggesting here is that Peter is called to do something. He's called to go and visit Cornelius, but he has to be prepared for that. And so, Jesus and the Spirit use the sixth hour. So back at the clock up, Cornelius is praying at the ninth hour, which would be three o'clock the day prior. Then the day that the guys get to Joppa, it's the sixth hour. What's that? That's noon, right? For whatever reason, I mean, the Jewish tradition was that you would pray three times a day, but you know, Wasn't like that was the only times you could pray. And so Peter, as we're told, went to pray at the sixth hour, which would be about noon. And it explains why he's hungry. How many times a week does your stomach begin to growl when you know what time lunch is? It's amazing, sometimes even when you're not even thinking about it, your stomach seems to know, right? You're busy doing something, all of a sudden, gurgle, gurgle, wow, wow, and you're like, oh, I guess it's lunchtime. And sure enough, it is, because you're used to it. And so there's Peter, you know, he's praying, and he gets hungry. And isn't it interesting, even hunger, lunch, something as mundane as that, God uses it. Do you catch it? He went up to pray on that particular day because there was something God was going to show him and he was going to use the means of lunch to do it. And he uses the timing of the near arrival of the men. They're traveling and so the vision of Cornelius precedes that vision of Peter in the appropriate time frame so that the men are almost at the door. They're on their way when Peter has this vision, right? Nothing ever happens by accident. There are no coincidences in life. God has them planned out. We sometimes are oblivious to them. We don't always see them, but they are there. And when we look back, we say, man, that was important. And look how this led to that and that to that. And if it's all, I see now a pattern and I see a purpose. Sometimes we don't see it, but there it is. And so at that moment of his hunger, as he was again in prayer, so a receptive, he was a spiritual man, receptive to the voice of God. He has this vision, this famous vision of the sheet as it's often called being let down from heaven and the animals being upon it. And what do we learn from this? What we learn is that God is abrogating the Old Testament dietary laws and their applicable restrictions in verse 28. God is saying it's no more. The ceremonial law. We talk about the moral law of God and the Ten Commandments summarized therein. We can talk about the ceremonial law which is all about the sacrifices and the worship of God in the Old Testament. We can talk about the judicial law or civil law as well. We sometimes break it up that way. But it is particularly, I mean Jesus satisfies all of it. But particularly the ceremonial law passes away because Christ fulfills it. He is the sacrifice. He is the one who is the meal that we need. And he makes us clean. And we don't have to have outward signs of being cleansed or keeping ourselves clean because Jesus makes us clean. The reality is in Christ. So Peter was commanded to eat without concern of whether the animals were clean or unclean. And you hear his first response, I've never eaten anything unclean or common. But God has cleansed all things by the work of Christ, as we're told in Romans 14 and 2 Corinthians 5. That thing is not unclean in and of itself, and that Christ has brought together everything in him. And so confirmed by a triple occurrence, it happens three times. God is declaring, emphasizing, fulfilling the fact that this law is now passé. It's no longer applicable, Peter. Don't call unclean what I have cleansed. And the new revelation alters the previous revelation. So we see it emphasized. Bottom line from this, as we think about it as believers today, is that there are no Old Testament dietary laws in force upon believers any longer. That's the first lesson you get from this. Those Old Testament ceremonial laws and unclean and clean and all those things, what you eat, don't eat, how you dress, they're gone. Jesus has fulfilled all that. We are clean in Christ. We are set apart in Christ. Now there may be reasons you need a particular diet, but it's not this. It's not to be righteous before God or cleanse before God. But we also see the Lord's providence in working this out. That is, Peter was instructed thereby to accompany the men sent by Cornelius, who now arrived on the scene. He has the vision. It happens. He hears the lesson. He's pondering it, thinking about, what does this mean? How do I apply it? What's God telling me? And then the Spirit says, I've sent these men. Now let me just make that little sidebar comment here that I often do, because it's hard to cover everything in a text, things you can draw out of a text, right? And so, and you're in verse 19, while Peter was pondering the vision, the Spirit said to him, behold, three men are looking for you. Rise and go down and accompany them without hesitation, for I have sent them. I want to make just two quick points. One, the Spirit spoke. For my Sunday School lesson, again, we're reminded that it is God who speaks. God is intelligent. God uses language. The Spirit here spoke to Peter. It wasn't a feeling. It wasn't an inclination. He spoke to him. And we have the words, they were specific directions. And note also the second point, I have sent to him. Someone who speaks and who identifies himself as a person is not a force. The Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity. He's very God, a very God. And so that's clear from the text. The Spirit is not a feeling, the Spirit is not a force, the Spirit is a person, just like Jesus is a person, just like the Father is a person. Now, it bends our minds to understand the Trinity, but here's one of those texts, because it's very clear the person of the Holy Spirit is engaged with Peter in these directions. So Peter's instructed to accompany these men. Peter, as a Jew, could offer Jewish hospitality. As you read on, you see that they've come, and in verse 23, he invites them in. A Jew could invite Gentiles into his home because he can control the circumstances of that fellowship. But a Jew could not go into a Gentile's house and have their hospitality given to him because he couldn't control the circumstances. In other words, unclean food could be presented, he'd be obligated to partake, et cetera, that kind of a thing. So he could not partake of, as a Jew under the Old Testament law, Gentile hospitality, lest he become ceremonially unclean. And so divine revelation is needed to overturn that Old Testament ceremonial law, which is why the raising of the sheep and lowering and raising for three times in the statement, clearly by the Holy Spirit, by God himself. And Peter's getting the message. It's not just about animals. It's not just about dietary laws. It has a broader application. And so the meaning of the vision, the directive of the Holy Spirit, the testimony of the men concerning Cornelius' vision and why they were there, and another three-fold confirmation of God's will in Jesus brings it together for Peter. The call of God through the men was a turning point in Peter's ministry. God was doing things in him and calling him now also to minister to Gentiles. You see what God is doing. He's emphasizing, clearly marking out the fact that the gospel goes into all the world and breaks down all those barriers. You and I are recipients of the gospel because God has done amazing things. As Paul writes, we who are without hope outside of the commonwealth of Israel have now been brought near. Because God's direct work and act and love to thus, you and me who are outsiders. So we've seen the call to Cornelius. We've seen the call to Peter. What's the purpose of the call at the end of this section? Well, for Peter, he obeys the call and he goes to the Gentiles. He gets the point. I'm supposed to go. As he's wandering with them, you can think he's putting all these things together. And so by God's abrogation of the Old Testament dietary law, Peter comes to understand that in Jesus, God had removed the dividing wall between Jews and Gentiles. as he explains it in the text. You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a Jew to associate with or to visit anyone of another nation, but God has shown me that I should not call any person common or unclean. You see the transition he makes. This was the turning point in the gospel. This is what Paul talks about the mystery of the ages in the book of Ephesians. That the gospel was known to go out to all the world, but that God was breaking down the dividing wall between Jew and Gentile and bringing them into one people in Jesus Christ. For Cornelius, in verse 33, He sent for Simon, who he would know by the name that he was a Jew. He knew that Peter was really a Jew. And he and his whole household had gathered to hear the message of Peter. Note how he says this. Now, therefore, we are all here in the presence of God. God is present. He understands that the angel has set this all up, God's at work, we're in the presence of God for what? To hear all that you have been commanded by the Lord. Another sidebar, when you go to church, we're not just meeting together in this room. This isn't a horizontal relationship between you and me. I'm not here to entertain you, to tell jokes and make you feel good. We are gathered in the presence of God. And we should, therefore, expect God to speak to us through his word. Do you come with an expectation? That's what Cornelius did. You see, the applications are manifold here. Do you expect to meet with God? Not because I'm such a holy person, as we keep learning from the news that pastors are not holy holy, are they? They're sinners. Doesn't excuse their sin, but they're not completely holy. They're in the process of being sanctified. It is the word of God that separates this from any other meeting. And so Cornelius and his household have gathered to hear in the presence of God what Peter is to say. This was a turning point for Cornelius. He was prepared to hear the message, the message of God through Peter. In fact, he'd made the mistake of worshiping Peter, thinking that somehow Peter was on a higher level. And Peter put that down pretty quickly. Once again, that has application to Romanism. Peter is an apostle to be sure, but he's not a higher apostle than anybody else, nor is he to be worshipped. God had done a new thing. He is calling all the world to himself in Jesus Christ. So for us, the gospel has been confirmed. You see what's going on as you read this and you see these amazing things in the scriptures. The gospel has been confirmed by these signs and these direct acts of God. These are not just the writings of men about historical events. These bear the very witness and confirmatory signs of God himself. And so by faith in Christ, Jesus, we are accepted into his covenant people. We, the church, are not a new people where, as Paul writes in Galatians 3, in Christ we are Abraham's offspring. The tree, the olive tree that Paul writes about in Romans. It's the same tree. Certain branches are broken off and other branches are added to, but it's the same tree. You and I are brought into the people of God. Cornelius is being brought into. He who was on the outside is now being brought into. That's momentous. By faith in Jesus, the Old Testament ceremonial law was fulfilled. We only need Jesus to be cleansed. He is fulfilled at all. In other words, no matter what your conscience tells you, you can be clean in Jesus. It isn't because God just winks at your sin and says, I know, everybody does it. Nope. That doesn't cut it. You're still guilty. It's because Jesus pays for it if you're trusting in Christ alone. That's the power of the gospel, that you and I can stand cleansed before God, cleansed of sin and all of its stain. I was painting my house yesterday. I was trying to get it done. I was on a timeframe. And if you remember my house, it's orange. I'm slapping that paint and it's flying everywhere because I'm rolling it and I'm trying to get it done and that paint's... I'm like, oh shoot. I got paint everywhere. I had paint on the windows. And I'm trying to wipe it off and smear, orange smear. I'm like, oh man. Even though it's latex, it's the color. So I had to work hard. We're stained by sin. But Jesus makes us clean. We can try to cover it up. But we can't. And by faith in Jesus, we are called and enabled to live holy and godly lives, not because we can do it, but because Christ does it in us. The Holy Spirit works in us. In other words, folks, God brings us to a turning point in meeting the Lord Jesus in his word. And you have met him this morning. What's God telling you? Is it the first time that it's finally clicked to you? Clicked as I mean it makes sense that you need a savior, that you know of Jesus but have never really known Jesus. Is this the first time that this covenant concept makes sense that you're part of God's people? You see what God is doing. That's why I don't mean to harp But it grieves me when we let Sundays go easily instead of being in church because you don't know when God will choose a turning point in your life. It's when you are obedient and doing what you're supposed to do that God breaks in. And when we ignore those regular things, we are basically saying, that's okay God, don't come into my life, not today, I'm too busy. For whatever reason. And that's why it should grieve us when we come to church and people are out there doing their things because they're gonna merrily go on to hell on the broad way. But thanks be to God that he does call. in the marvelous ways he brings us. But let me ask you, have you experienced that turning point in your life? And if you have, remember it, give thanks for it, and live your life upon it. Not the experience, but in Christ, who has revealed himself to you as the Christ. Because God does marvelous things. May He do them in us. May He use us in the lives of others. Let's pray.