This morning we're going to start reading. We're going to be back in Acts 9-36 to verse 8 of Acts 10. And we'll go back and we'll see where the Lord leads us. And we'll do an overview here in a moment. So Acts 9, we start in verse 36. Now, there was a Joppa, a certain disciple, named Tabitha, which by interpretation is called Dorcas. This woman was full of good works and alms seeds, which she did. And it came to pass in those days that she was sick and died, whom when they had washed, they laid her in an upper chamber. And for as much as Leto was nigh to Joppa, and the disciples had heard that Peter was there, they sent unto him two men desiring him that he would not delay to come to them. Then Peter arose and went with them. When he was come, they brought him into the upper chamber, and all the widows stood by him, weeping, and showing the coats and garments which Dorcas made while she was with them. But Peter put them all forth, and kneeled down, and prayed, and turning him to the body, said, Tabitha, arise. And she opened her eyes, and when she saw Peter, she sat up. And he gave her his hand, and lifted her up. And when he had called the saints and widows, presented her alive. And it was known throughout all Joppa, and many believed in the Lord. And it came to pass that he tarried many days in Joppa with one Simon the Tanner." I'm going to pause there just for a minute. So basically what the setting was, we went through this story, we spoke about it, we talked about it, but it really connects the dots with what's going on here. So we see here that Tabitha was in Joppa, and we're going to go forward to the new part of where we left off last May, and we're going to be talking this morning in the first eight verses also. But this all connects together in different ways. And so let's read chapter 10, verses 1 through 8. There was a certain man in Caesarea called Cornelius, 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 the way. He saw in a vision evidently 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. When the angel would speak 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." The scene here is very important. And we can't start this without speaking of Saul of Tarsus. Where is Saul right now? Where is Peter? What's all happening and how is this all coming together? Here the apostles had hastened Saul away to Caesarea. It was the most important trade region and a port on the Mediterranean Sea. And we're going to see a lot of action around the Great Sea here and how important that Joppa becomes in this story. Because this area and this story has a very big impact on us as Christians. Acts chapter 10 is probably one of the most important chapters in the whole Bible of ushering in of the Gentiles. And we see in the Old Testament, if you're paying attention in your Bibles, the word Gentile is in the Old Testament many, many times. And the Lord gave hint after hint after clue after clue that the Gentiles were going to be brought in. But they were still being treated by the Jews as unclean, that they weren't even to be approached. And very seldom do you see the Gentiles being approached at all. You see some become saved and they become part of the Jewish faith or the Judeo-Christian faith, and they come into that. But here is where it all comes together. And then in chapter 11, you'll see them being declared as Christian believers. And for Gentiles, this is massive for us, and we can't miss this. But where is Saul right now? Saul of Tarsus is back in Tarsus. Remember, there was great unrest, and all of a sudden here, we see how he's in Tarsus, Saul was a Roman citizen, and remember, the Grecian Hellenistic Jews had just experienced the death of Stephen. There was a great uproar with the presence of Saul. Saul is converted. The Jews are furious at him. The Romans are furious at him. He's out and he's preaching about, and the Christian church is befuddled and they're wondering, What is this guy doing? What is he doing? After he was persecuting the Christians, going after the church, is he for real? Remember how Ananias was very, very confused. And he said, Lord, what are we going to do? This man killed, this man, he incarcerated our people. What did the Lord said? Does anybody remember chapter 9? What did the Lord say to Ananias? Amen. That's right. He said, no matter what you're thinking, it took great faith for Ananias to do this. Really great faith, because Saul of Tarsus is public enemy number one to the Christian church. And he's saying, you go. Ananias, you go, you take care of Saul. He's a chosen vessel of mine, and I'm going to show him really great things. And so right now, Saul is kind of tucked away at Tarsus, and he's up there on his mission. And then Peter comes into vision here. Peter comes into the story here. But it says here, see, we read plainly that Ananias came to Saul and the Holy Spirit came to Saul. By the direction of the spirit of consolation, Saul will leave Jerusalem safely and he will go to Tarsus and then we will pick up on that towards the end of Acts 11. And here we see in Acts 22, 17, and it came to pass that when I was come again to Jerusalem, Paul, this is regarding Saul. Even while I prayed in the temple, I was in a trance, and Saul, him saying to me, Make haste and get thee quickly out of Jerusalem, for they will not receive thy testimony concerning me. And then back in chapter 9, verse 15, as Lisey just said, For he is a chosen vessel unto me to bear my name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel. So this is where Saul is. And then the story's going to pick up and we're going to follow Paul the Apostle's missionary journey. And he left for Tartarus. So the church now has peace. And we see there's now a watchful government under the authority of Herod Agrippa has now actually began restricting Jewish authority to continue to persecute the church. This was of the Lord. There's a peace that's going around now. And you see, we have to ask the question, is there peace today? Can we find peace and rest in the church today? Overall church, can we find peace and rest? Yeah, there you go. That's the point. Why is it, Beverly? Right. That's a good, that's a great point. And why is there any persecution in the church today when 90% of the church is melding with everybody else? They're doing everything the government tells them to do. And I'm not saying we're to go out and have a church that just goes out and completely defies government all the time. But there are certain things that we stand for the Lord that we don't bend on. And today it's hard to see the church being persecuted here in America because most of it is basically given in. And so if you keep your church doors open, that's where persecution can come. But right now, there's a rest period here at the Christian church. And we see Tabitha. Her Greek name is Dorcas. She's full of good works, charitable deeds, which she did. She loved to make garments and tunics for the widows. She was very talented. She was hardworking, and she died. And it's amazing how here, Peter goes to Joppa. He had already healed Anais. And he was a lame man, and now he comes to heal Tabitha. And I think this is very important to see the compassion that Peter shows Tabitha. I don't want to go spend a lot of time on this because we already went through this, but this is how it connects. We see how Peter comes into the picture. How it connects, let's look at some of this real quick. Peter stood, was the one that stood right at the graveside of Lazarus with Jesus. He saw Lazarus coming out of the tomb. And the Lord gave him power over Tabitha to be able to heal her. And Peter gave all the credit to Jesus Christ. And not only would Peter stand and watch with the kind of personality that he had, he was with Jesus and he would reside with him after the miracles and he would walk with Jesus and he was taught by Jesus. And now Peter is in front and center. Christ gives the power. to Peter, and remember when he gave disciples power, and remember when they failed to use it. Remember that. Matthew 17, verses 19 and 20. Then came the disciples to Jesus apart and said, why could we not cast him out? And Jesus said unto them, because of your unbelief, for verily I say unto you, if you have faith the grain of a mustard seed, you shall say unto this mountain, remove hence to yonder place, and it shall remove, and nothing shall be impossible unto you. Have you ever seen that fail? Jesus says, you have the faith, the grain of a mustard seed, and it moves mountains. Here, Peter and the other disciples, they were questioning him. And so now Jesus is gone, and now Peter heals a lame man, the second lame man. Remember the one who was sitting at the gate, beautiful, earlier on in our lessons? Now he heals another lame man, and now he's actually going to raise someone from the dead. This is incredible. Look at the power that he's been given. Peter was there, and he was front and center with Jesus, trained him, and now he is the one who's going to be the one ushering in the new age of the church with the Gentiles. Peter is the one first employed to admit uncircumcised Gentiles into the Christian church, and this is what's happening. Here, Peter is in Joppa with Tabitha. Peter will be with Cornelius in Joppa. This is where it connects. And look at where he's staying at the very end of the chapter. Peter will go to the Gentiles. He heals Anais. He gets there and there's a large crowd of widows there with Tabitha when he goes to heal her. And this is what really gets really, really tugs on my heart. He goes there. Remember the problem with the Greek speaking widows earlier on in Acts and Acts chapter, I believe it was Acts chapter six. Remember when the elders proposed to deacons and the congregation came out and it shows a very good, the kind of form of government we're supposed to have as a church. And remember how the Greek speaking widows were having problems at the tables and they were crying out and they were saying that the Hebrews, the Israelites, they were getting better treatment. And so what did they do? The apostles, the elders, the appointed deacons, to take care of them. And now here's Peter taking care of one right now. And it shows the compassion that he has. Now, although we will see that Peter's impetuous nature rises up again when the Lord asks him in a vision, and we'll see that, we see a compassion with Peter here. And how Peter reaches out to Dorcas, or Tabitha, She made garments. It was not an easy job. Remember, there was no electricity back then, no sewing machines or modern tools. She made them with her hands and she was known for helping the widows and the elderly and making wonderful, beautiful tapestries and clothes and all for them. Remember, Paul says in Romans 12, Paul calls the Christian members, we're the members of the body of Christ, and we're the arms and the legs. That was her position. That was her part in the church, is taking care of others. She died. James says to take care of the widows. We are to give special concern to the widows. James 1.27 says, "...pure religion and undefiled before God, and the Father is this, to visit the fathers and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world." And here Jesus takes particular compassion. We are to take care of the widows. Can somebody read Psalm 71.9? Read that verse, please. When you get it, just sing out. This is how Peter shows that we are to take care of the elderly. We are to watch over them. We are to make sure we don't let them out of our sight, and we are to encourage one another. And we are to take care as a church. We're to visit them. We're to pray for them. Anyone have that? Lisa. Right. So the psalmist says, forsake me not when my strength faileth. The Christian people are supposed to rally around the elderly and to help them and to pray for them and to encourage them. And this is what Peter does. And I believe all these widows, I believe they rallied around Tabitha and they watched over her when she was dying. And they were there for her. Tabitha had been given a monumental place in history to be remembered and revered in sacred scripture by a record of her ministry. She was a disciple. She was a record. This was the record of her vocation, a very small little cameo appearance by her. She was a sewer, a madiste, a lady's tailor, and she was honored in her death by the widows of the community, and she was very much loved. They brought even the garments when she died. She's laying there, and they brought the garments in honor of her at her funeral. at the end of her hand and being totally dead when she opened her eyes, what does she see? Peter cries out, arise, get up. Remember how Jesus would do that? Get up. Remember when Jesus went into Jairus' daughter, and they were laughing him, and it says, laughing him, I love the King James Bible, always, laughing him to scorn. That's bad laughter. That's just total blasphemy. And he goes in, and he stands there, and he just wipes him out of the way. He says, get out of my way. And he goes in, and he says, because what had he said about Jairus' daughter that made him laugh? She's sleepest. And they were laughing, and I love the fact that they were laughing because what they were doing was they were bringing it all together that she was dead, stone cold dead, dead, dead, brain dead, heart dead, body dead, she was dead. It wasn't like some of these new theologians say, well, she was really sleeping and Jesus just woke her up and they gave her an antidote. No, she was really dead. And they were laughing because she was dead. Because Jesus said, she sleepeth. Oh no, she didn't sleep in that vernacular. She slept as she was dead. And when she was dead, he goes in and he tells her to get up. She coughs and she gets up and walks away. Who has the power to do that? Muhammad? Confucius? Lisi? Right. That's right. Nope. The scorners had to leave. The blasphemers. That's a great point. And so she is there and Jesus says the word and she gets up. Now all of a sudden, Peter's not preaching any funerals. Jesus never preached a funeral. because he was always healing. And now Peter, the very one that denied Christ three times, the one that questioned Christ at Caesarea Philippi when he said, it must be needs go that I go to the cross. And he said, not so, Lord. Now Peter is the one in charge. And the Lord has the Holy Spirit directing him. And this brings him right into chapter 10. He gave her his hand and lifted her up. She wakes up out of a complete, literal dead sleep, and she has a born-again Christian at the end of her hand praying with her. That's why I have a problem with these hospitals and assisted living places right now. If your loved one's dying, you can't sit and pray with them. You can't touch them. You can't hold them. You can't hug them. They just go. I believe that that is extremely important, that the elderly have someone there for them to pray with them. He took care of the widows. The difference between the healing of Aeneas and Tabitha is the compassionate and intimate chivalry given to this weaker vessel. Peter here shows a lovely, lovely compassion for this widow. Lisa. I think it shows, like, I mean, all of us know that Tabitha Right. Right. and especially with the virus, everybody's terrified to deal with it. They don't, I think it just gives them another excuse not to do anything really, but it's such an odd culture today where it was, You know, with life, nobody cares. And for them to say that they care about life, they kill, it's unborn. And then they euthanize, you know, euthanize you. They have an illness, a terminal illness, especially with a young girl that a few years ago showed no result. Right. She had brain disease or brain cancer. And all the way up to the elderly people, they just, you know, do everything they can. Well you can see that discompassion come by this last week when that lady who was basically converted from a Planned Parenthood advocate and moving up saw a little baby struggling for its life and they went and killed it anyway and that was it for her and she left and she went the right to life and she's been helping them ever since. She says these beautiful things, and she was protecting the sanctity of unborn children, and she's had a beautiful testimony about that, and these left-wing liberals ripped into her and said all these horrible things about her, and there's just absolutely, like you said, there's no compassion. For the unborn, there's little compassion for the elderly today. I can't stand that. I can't even imagine that this is even allowed, and I've seen it on so many cars. One billion, no, six billion miracles are enough. Can you imagine how wicked that is? I mean, I can't even... We see the compassion of Peter, and then we go forward. We go forward in chapter 10. Here, Peter's in Joppa, but let's not miss verse 43. Does anybody see something interesting about verse 43? Because this is the lead-in for the next eight verses, in a sense. And it came to pass that he tarried many days in Joppa with one Simon and Tanner. Simon and Tanner had a very interesting vocation. Right now, Peter was still under the old Jewish law, the dietary laws. So does anybody see a problem with this? Go ahead. Right. So the Lord, exactly. There was no coincidence that the Lord had him staying with Simon the tanner. A tanner would take the skins off of the animals, and it would be any type of animal. Most of them were unclean animals. And Peter would be staying in the very house with the man who was touching unclean animals. And so it's amazing how all of a sudden, and we'll be looking at a little bit in the future, not long in the future, is that how Simon, Peter, sees this vision of all of these animals. And so there he is in Joppa, staying with Simon the Tanner. And here we go into one of the most important chapters in the Bible for the expansion of the Christian church to the Gentiles. It is the epoch of redemptive history. And we've seen how Christianity has been presented for quite some time to the Jews. Now we see our Lord opens up to the Gentiles. Peter is the one called, he's welcomed into the uncircumcised Gentiles, and Cornelius and his family are the first to be invited in wonderfully. Remember what Christ told Peter in Matthew chapter 16. He said, And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." What did the Lord tell him? He said, upon this rock I will build my church. What prophecy did Jesus Christ, when he gave it, did he not keep? And here Peter is right in front of us, obeying that prophecy. He's building the church right here. What could possibly be the reason why it was Peter who was chosen to usher in the first Gentiles into the true Christian church? And why would a Gentile even consider being in the Christian church when this man is an Italian Roman? The Lord brought all this together. He brought all this together. And there's so many wonderful, wonderful applications here that we can look at. This is a wonderful picture. Peter was closest to Christ once again, and he was his friend. He's blessed, and he's directed by Christ, who promised that the Gentiles would be grafted in. And Peter was impetuous. He denied Christ, but that did not define him. He loved Christ, and Paul magnifies the apostleship of Cephas, who was Peter, and gives the reason why all should not even blink at the opportunity to have the truth of Jesus Christ in them. Here we see in 1 Corinthians 15, verses 3-9, we see Paul writes, For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again in the third day according to the Scriptures. and that he was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve. After that he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain under this present, but some are fallen asleep. After that he was seen of James, then all of the apostles. And last of all he was seen of me also, as one born out of due time, for I am the least of the apostles, that I did not meet to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. And remember, Paul's now on this mission, and we see how this was quite a mystery to the apostles of coming into the Gentiles. What would happen if Gentiles would be part of the Christian church? Well, that was the great mystery. But it's not a mystery anymore because we can see that it's of God's eternal decrees. God's ways are past finding out. If we even try to think we can understand God, and we can wrap our arms around Him and we've got Him figured out, which most of the world seems to think, He's not the real God. That's not the real God that we worship. His ways are past finding out, and that's why we need an immense and an increased amount of faith, because the Lord knows more than we'll ever even begin to imagine. and He brings all this together. And this is going to propose a big question. Why God will change the dietary laws, He will teach Peter, Peter at first will have an aversion to that, and does this mean, as we're going to learn, does this change the character of God as some say this is the reason why God is not who He says He is and He's not perfect because He changes His mind. Does this change the character of God? What He's about to do? No, it has a greater, more importance, and of course it doesn't. And if you ever hear anything, or think of anything, or read anything, or people tell you anything that questions the character of God, you give God the credit first. Christ is ultimate. He gets the credit. And you don't question Him. This is very important. It was not likely at this point that a Gentile would attempt to enter into a temple or synagogue. They would not enter into the court of priests, but they could have been in the court of the Gentiles. We see here that there's a man named in Caesarea called Cornelius. He's a centurion of a band called the Italian Band. This is fascinating. Dr. Luke gives a detailed overview of Cornelius with wonderful attributes. He was a good man. He was a devout man. He's one that feared God in all his house. What makes this so interesting? He's a Roman centurion. Roman centurion? Wasn't it a Roman soldier that stood there at the cross of Christ? Lise? Right. Right. It could be. Mike? you know, being an Italian, being a Roman centurion, very close to being a Sicilian. Right, right. You know, to be the most unlikable person that you would think that God would choose. Right. And therefore, it's just, again, it's God or the Lord. But, you know, you're talking about, you know, God opens up the church to Gentiles. I think it's important how God used Peter as a Jew in this task to legitimize it because it wasn't, therefore it wasn't something that started out from the Gentiles. And God was very specific about that and knew what he was doing. who would question God changing His mind. You know, God is in charge of all things. You know, He's in charge of, you know, the animals and He's in charge of, you know, what they can do, what they could harm. I mean, He can change anything in the blink of an eye. You see that at the end of Psalm, in Psalm 147, 148, 49, and 50, where the crescendo there says, let all of God's creation cry out and praise his name. And that's a great point. And then, but that brings, what Mike brings up is a really good question that we're going to be answering also. Why was it Peter going to Cornelius? Why wasn't the angel? Why didn't the angel go to Cornelius and direct him all the way through, but he hands him over to Peter? There's a lot of questions here, and we're going to answer some of them, and hopefully we'll learn together as we go forward in the next several weeks. He's a centurion of the band called the Italian Band. He's a devout man. He loves the Lord. And here he is. He's a centurion. Can God place his people pretty much anywhere? Can he? Can he use wicked means in order to bring his name and glorify it? Many times we see that. I mean, look at Paul the Apostle. How's Cornelius much different than Paul the Apostle? Here Paul was a Roman citizen. Here he was the chief of the Pharisees, and he was going after the Christian church. And so Cornelius, in some levels, may have had to go after the Christian church. But we see here that he is a Roman centurion, he's a colonel, he's a captain, a centurion of the Italian band, a band, a cohort, which consisted of about a thousand footmen. He was the chief captain, or it was called a tribune, or a marshal. Again, every hundred men had a captain, and he was more of a colonel, over a thousand. He would have been a graduate-level centurion who was of the elite guard of the Italian regiment, a very high command in Caesar's army, a legion who had, for the most part, five bands. This band was the Italian band because the Romans did choose soldiers oftentimes from amongst those which dwelt in the provinces. but they had great strength of the army out of Italy, therefore Cornelius was Italian-born, he was at Caesarea with his many men to guard the city. And as a Roman centurion, a colonel, he was watched closely by the governor, who was pilot, and he would have been watched heavily By all of the leadership of the Roman army, including Caesar, he had to report to Caesar himself. Now start looking at how hard it was for him to be a Christian. This would not have been a very smart thing to do. You know, later on, not long after, about a century later, there's an inscription in a cave of a Roman soldier finds an inscription in a cave right outside a room on one of the hills. We've talked about this before. It was called Alexa Menos, I believe it was called, and it's a picture of a stick figure of a cross with a jackass hanging on it. And it says, and there's a Roman soldier looking up saying, worships his God. And so that was the very first inscription or representation of the truth and the authenticity of Jesus Christ actually being on a cross. He called Him God. And this was a Roman. And so we see here how dangerous it was in this day and age right now to be a Christian. What kind of man was Cornelius? He was an important man. and could do a great deal of what he wanted to secure the area and make it comfortable for the soldiers. This is what most Roman colonels were like. Listen to this quote here. John Calvin says, "'For at that time, the Italians, when as they were carried into the provinces to live in warfare, ran to and fro like hungry wolves to get some prey. They had, for the most part, no more religion than beasts. They had a great care of innocency as cutthroats, for which cause the virtues of Cornelius deserve the greater commendation, in that leading a soldier's life, which was at the time most corrupt, he served God wholly and lived amongst men without doing any hurt or injury. And this is no small amplification of his praise in that casting away superstition where he was born and brought up, he embraced the pure worship of God. Do you have any idea what that means, what Calvin said? What a beautiful way of putting that. Pastor Olson. Right. All the dots are connected, and somehow they come together. And that's why we have to stop trying to figure that out. Isn't that what our problem is as Christians? We have to figure out, and if we don't like it, then we kind of turn on people, and we kind of think we have an aversion towards His plan. God is going to do what He's going to do. Lisey, it's a good point. Right. You know, that's a great point that Pastor Olson makes and I think it's something we've been trying to bring out in this class for many, many years. You know, you go up through the ranks of churches, and I know I can see many here that have. I know that myself, and I know Pastor Olson has, and Teresa, and many here. And how many times have you seen, in different areas of Christianity, different people, somebody will look at somebody else and say, they don't believe in infant baptism. And so they just cut them off, and they have nothing to do with them anymore. They just cut them off, and they talk behind their back. Or they look at them and they say, you know, they used to believe in free will. Or they went to a Roman Catholic church. Or they did this. Or they did that. You know, I heard a message the other day. I love listening to sermons. I listened to them a couple days ago. And the pastor was talking about how You don't know how the Lord is using that in their life and what stage of their Christianity that they're in. You might be further ahead than someone else, but don't ever think that because Paul says, take ye where ye stand lest ye fall. But you know, when somebody comes in, they have different views, maybe a whole different doctrine. What do you do? You just laugh at them? I remember in the neighborhood, we had a whole bunch of Catholic friends in the neighborhood. We played baseball together, sandlot ball, basketball. And I remember that we would try to witness to them. And I was one to never chase, I tried not to make fun of them or do anything like that. Because I knew that there were things that were wrong in different people's religions, but I tried to be patient. And one day, a guy came who was more older than everybody and he wanted to play football with us. He was a Baptist and he heard that some people were Catholic. He started ripping them and laughing at them and making fun of them and said all these horrible things, I'll never forget that. And they hated him for that. That wasn't bringing them to Christ. You know, sometimes, you know what the Bible says, that when sometimes there are people, when they are old, they will not depart from it. It's our job to be patient. And, you know, Peter here is now facing something that he could have easily have said, I am not dealing with these Gentiles. Are you kidding me? I've heard nothing but my whole life, they are nothing but unclean. And they're wicked. I have seen Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. Peter never believed that. He could have easily played that off and become that kind of person. But no, Peter was keeping his ears open and his mouth shut for now. And we see that Cornelius, with all of his household, loved the Lord. We get a window in this unusual life of a man who where most of the colonels and the captains, Calvin says here, the Roman guard, they were wicked marauders. They did horrible things in their towns. They were murderers. They were rapists. They did all these terrible things. Cornelius would have been different than them. He would have taught his band of soldiers. He would have taught them that prayer is good. that they were to watch what they do when they're out there in the town, that they're not supposed to be harming children and harming women. They're not supposed to be doing these terrible things. He would have had an extremely elite and extremely exclusive and different way of teaching his soldiers. And the Lord had been doing this all along. Little did Cornelius know. He was a devout man, one that feared God, in verse 2, with all his house, which gave much alms to the people and prayed to God always. With all his household, Acts 16.31 says, And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and all thy house, and thy house. We read here, and that came from the Philippian jailer and how Paul said to believe in the true Savior of all and to spread it throughout your house. This is exactly what Cornelius had done. He didn't just remain some closet little Christian by himself. He taught his children, he taught his kinsmen, he taught his family, he taught them and he showed them what was right about Jesus Christ. And then he gave his alms to the Lord. The love of Christ was so embedded in Cornelius that he gave of his prophets with love to help the poor and the needy. James calls this true religion, once again in James 1.27. Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction and to keep himself unspotted from the world. And we see the same application of the Old Testament in Isaiah 58, verse 7. Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? When thou seest the naked, that thou cover him, and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh? And we see what Cornelius not only taught, he not only believed, he worshipped in his house, and he also gave alms. He gave to the poor. He gave from his house, and he gave from his substance to help other people. Right. Right? And it was very dangerous at the same time. But here's where we're going to have to finish up here in a minute. But this is where we're going with this, and that's a great point. We see here now Peter is in Joppa with Simon the Tanner. Paul, Saul of Tarsus, is in Tarsus. He's continuing his ministry. Tabitha has been raised from the dead. Peter is still now talking with Tabitha and Joppa. He's staying with Simon the Tanner, and they're no doubt worshiping together. Now Cornelius comes out of Caesarea, not far from Joppa, and his household, what is he doing in his household? He has a Gentile church. He's having church in his house. So next week what we're going to be learning about is the angel comes to Cornelius and he calls out to Cornelius and immediately a Roman centurion recognizes the voice of the Lord and he says, what do you want me to do? Immediately. He says, what do you want me to do? Isn't that the reaction we are to have when we are approached by Christ? Lisa. What will thou have me to do? And that's the prayer that we should always have in our prayers. Lord, what will thou have me to do? And here's where it gets better. I'm going to give a little window next week. The angel comes to Cornelius. Does anybody know the story? I'll ask you real quick. The angel comes to Cornelius and says to go get Peter. Here's the question. Does Cornelius have to go? Who goes? Who goes for Cornelius? I'm sorry? Yes, excellent. And you better believe we're going to be looking at those soldiers next week. But why? Because the Lord wants Cornelius to stay in his church. He wants him to stay there and worship with his kinsmen, with his wife, with his children. He doesn't want to break that church up. He keeps Cornelius there to continue to preach, and eventually he and Peter will get together, and Peter will come and see him. So we have a visit from the angel to Cornelius, and then we get a visit from the angel to Peter. What could be better? Two visits from an angel in one chapter! I mean, this gets really exciting as we go along. And the angel comes, and next week we're going to talk about why it was that the angel hands over this responsibility to Peter. So let's finish there this morning, and I'll ask Matthew, could you close us with prayer this morning?