Thank you, Dave. Acts chapter 10, we pick up with verse 1. We're going to read all the way through. We're actually going to pick up with verse 3 and read through verse 12. And this is picking up with Cornelius, who's Cornelius, a centurion of the Italian band. 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. And when the angel which spake unto Cornelius was departed, he called two of his household servants, and a devout soldier of them, and waited on them continually. And when he had declared all things unto them, he sent them to Joppa. On the morrow, as they went on their journey and drew nigh unto the city, Peter went up upon the housetop to pray about the sixth hour. And he became very hungry, and would have eaten. And while they made ready, he fell into a trance, and saw heaven open, and a certain vessel descending unto him, as it had been a great sheet knit at the four corners, and let down to the earth, wherein were all manner of four-footed beasts of the earth, and wild beasts, and creeping things and fowls of the air. This is really strange. All of a sudden, something is happening very incredible here. And we're going to look at why, how God speaks to us. And you know what? Sometimes it's not always easy to do this, but it's wonderful to try to imagine what God is thinking and why he goes the way that he does. This is quite a mystery to the apostles. What would happen if Gentiles would be part of the Christian church? Well, we have to answer this today. What would it be like if Gentiles weren't part of the Christian church today? We'd have a really hard time worshiping. Remember, the Jews considered the Gentiles ceremonially polluted, and that's the way they were treated. Well, we have to thank the Lord that we have a God that loves all of His people. Great is the mystery of our Lord's eternal decrees. Right now, I want to read you a verse, but consider this. We have a God that is mysterious. His ways are past finding out. Psalm 8. How excellent are thy ways. We can't figure Him out. Once again, we've talked about this many times. If you can wrap yourself around God and you have Him figured out, you're not worshiping the true and living God. God does things out of nowhere that are for our benefit, that even we fight that. We pray. We pray for a loved one to be healed. We pray for a job to come. We pray for a girlfriend to marry or a boyfriend to marry. We pray for money. We pray for all these things. And a lot of things God doesn't give to us. And then it's an amazing... One of the secrets... Secrets, but one of the most amazing, wonderful blessings of the Lord is when He doesn't give us something that we want so bad it hurts. Later on in life we look back and find out that would have destroyed us. And that happens an awful lot. You know, we can see that in our lives. The Lord doesn't give us everything we want. Most of the time when we pray to Him, a lot of times He doesn't give us what we really want. But He has a reason for that. And one of the most wonderful parts of Christianity is honoring those dots that He's connecting. And the doors that He's opening and closing. Every pastor in our presbytery, I have catchphrases from them that I always hide in my heart because I can remember them preaching and certain things that they said. I remember them from Carl McIntyre, I remember them from my father, from R.C. Sproul, from Pastor Burr, many pastors. Pastor Coleman, who will be here this morning, he's the one that always talks about the dots being connected and the doors being open and shut. That is a catchphrase for him and I love that. But it's so important to honor those dots because some of those dots being connected are a little hard for us to understand. And right now this is where Peter is. Why the Gentiles? Why me? Why am I called to go to them? I think we're going to answer some of those questions. I think it's going to be very fascinating to find out because Peter is a big reason why you're here this morning in the Christian church and why you love the gospel of Jesus Christ. He doesn't save you, of course, but his teaching and his work as a missionary is a reason, a big reason, why we have these books and why we're here. Right. Amen. Right. Right. Amen. Right? And they work for God and we honor the Lord because of them. They always don't work the way we think they're supposed to work. And here we see Peter once again. Peter's impetuosity now here is being tested once again. And it's amazing how it's Peter that's on the firing line here. 1 Timothy 3.16. And without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness. God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into the glory. That's mysterious. We can all sit here as Christian brothers and sisters in Christ and we can imagine this because we've been taught it. We've been ingrained in it. But you go outside of this church, you go outside of those doors, this is a mystery to most people. They have no idea what this means. You young people, I was right there five minutes ago. You guys, I was 15 minutes, five minutes ago. We went by that quick. And I look back on how many people taught me this and drove this into my head, and I'm so thankful, about the mysteries of God and how we trust in the Lord with all of our heart and lean not onto our own understanding. And it's really sad because when I was younger, I would sit there and I would pay attention, I wouldn't pay attention, I would pay attention. Sometimes I didn't feel like being in church. I didn't feel like sitting in these chairs and listening to these pastors. We'd go to these Bible conferences till 11 o'clock at night. I'd miss sporting events and stuff, and I'd be like, oh, why didn't I? Now I know the Lord wanted me to be there. And these things, they penetrate your mind, and when they're in there, they're a blessing. It's not unlikely that at this point a Gentile will attempt to enter in a temple or synagogue. They could never enter into the court of the priests, but they could have been in the court of the Gentiles, as all were welcome to trade and participate in the events during the feast. Pharisees and Sadducees loved money, and they loved gains. And at this point, up to our study in Acts, we saw an Ethiopian eunuch converted. He was not a Gentile. He was a Greek-speaking Jew. This Cornelius would be the first Gentile baptized and welcomed into the early Christian church, which was a foundation laid by the gospel of Jesus Christ for our benefit. So at this point, if a Gentile was a Christian, a Gentile could go to the court of the Gentiles at the temple, but could not worship as a Jew. There was a big difference between animal sacrifices and a big difference between having private ceremonies or private church at your house. And right now, we're reading how it's amazing. You have to think about this, what we read last week. Cornelius offered up alms to the Lord. Now, he had been doing this, obviously, before Christ had been crucified. Why were his alms accepted to the Lord when it was before Christ was resurrected, it was a very important law that animal sacrifices were still in part of the covenant? Why were his alms accepted? Because the Lord accepts our worship. He loves our worship. And the Lord knew what was going to happen with the Gentiles. Today, we're not worshipping animals, are we? I mean, sacrificing animals for worship, are we? Gentiles don't do that. Because of Christ's resurrection, because he's the ultimate example, the ultimate unblemished lamb, we are not obligated to sacrifice animals. That was a pretty tough thing to do. Can you imagine coming here on Sunday morning? Can you imagine bringing in an unblemished lamb and Mike, myself, Pastor Coleman getting together and having to cut that animal up into quarters and bleed it all over the altar? Ladies, think you have a tough job in the kitchen right now? Try cleaning that mess up. Dave, Right. Some of them are. Over in Samaria, they still only believe the first five books of the Bible, and they still have animal sacrifices. Many of them do. But many of them have basically created their own theology, where now they're under a new covenant, but Jesus is not the Messiah. They're still waiting for the Messiah to come, even though He was right there in front of their eyes. And it's a real mess. That's a good question, because the best way to answer that is when you hit the intertestamental period between Malachi and Matthew, 400 years, everything just went crazy. There's so many different religions, and there was the Assyrians, there was the Sadducees, the Pharisees. They all came out of nowhere, and they all had different ways of worshiping. Some of them still sacrifice animals, some of them don't. You have Messianic Jews, you have non-Messianic Jews. It's a real confusing mess. Yesterday, we have a fellow we do business with, and we are not allowed to text him, call him, or do anything on Saturday, because that's his day of worship still on Saturday. He's still under the old law, they still worship on Saturday. Sunday means nothing to him. Today he's working, he's out working, no problem at all. And so, but that's a good question, but it's just a real variety. Cornelius is a Roman soldier. He's a colonel. He is a captain of the Italian band, 1,000 footmen. We talked about that last week. Sometimes they were captains over 100, sometimes over 1,000. I seem to think he was a high-level centurion colonel. He was over 1,000. He had a lot of men under him and he had a lot of authority and power. He was... Roman soldiers oftentimes, they dwelt in provinces. They had strength in their armies. And in the Italian band, many of these colonels were bad news. They were really... they could do anything they want. I mean, look what happened with Jesus. Look how they treated Him. Remember back in John chapter 8. You think about this. Remember how the Jews came to Jesus. And I love this saying. I was reading this yesterday, and I kept thinking to myself, I am actually reading the words of Jesus Christ. I am reading what He actually said. And I kept thinking to myself, that is incredible. And the high priest came to him in John 18 and said, we want to question you about your doctrine. And Jesus stands there, as He always does, and says in short, plain form, He says, Jesus answered him. I speak openly to the world. I ever taught in the synagogue and in the temple whither the Jews always resort. And in secret have I hid nothing. He goes, why askest thou me? Ask those that heard me what I said to them. Behold, they know what I said. That's what he said word for word. Behold, they know what I said. Do we know what he said? I think that's a big question. Do we really know what he said? Because we are required of that. Do we really know? When he said that, an Italian soldier smashed him right in his teeth. And I mean grabbed his fist and hit him as hard as he could in his face. And probably he was bleeding right at that point. He didn't just smack him, he hit him hard. And then after that, when he went into the court with Herod and Pilate, had their little bromance going back and forth, they started taking their hands, the bottoms of their hands, and sort of beating him in the face as hard as they could. Because he spoke openly, and he said, I'm not a liar. And he told the Jewish council, you know that I was there teaching you. You know that you heard my words. And the very words that he was saying, Peter comes right back and says them right at the end of Acts chapter 11. And gives the whole gospel and brings it all together. That is the kind of way that the Italian soldiers treated Christians. They killed them. They crucified them. They used different forms of crucifying to either do it long or do it short. They'd break legs, they'd break bones, and they'd do all these things. This is the power they had, and this was the kind of people they were. So my question is, how did Cornelius get by? How did he do this? He was a centurion. He was a colonel. He wasn't some little teeny tiny soldier in the corner being some little closet Christian. He literally would train his men to honor the Lord. It shows the miracle how the Lord can take somebody and he can do this. Calvin says, I think that's incredible. With all his household he served. Remember, we talked about the Philippian jailer last week and how when he was approached, we see in Acts 16.31, just a few chapters down, we read, and they said, You know, if you're the only one in your house that's saved, your family benefits from that. And the Lord says, don't you leave them. You stay there with them. And they will benefit from your prayers. And his whole house was devout. Cornelius' house. He had a little church there. Lisey. Yes. Right. What didn't he bless with Joseph? Look at what happened when Joseph's present. He blessed Potiphar's house. He blessed the whole jail. And then he blessed the whole kingdom. And here's this putrefying little Hebrew shepherd, which the Egyptians hated, become second in command and all over in Egypt. What didn't he bless? The whole house he blessed. Not only did he bless that house, he blessed Jacob and all the sons, and they came all the way down from Canaan and got their own little land of Goshen with a hedge around it. Specy. Right. Right. You had to bring up Mike Pence, didn't you? I'm glad you did. Thank you. The worst jeers, sneers, filth, and curse words have not come out against Donald Trump. They've come out against Mike Pence. Pence loves the Lord. His wife teaches a little Christian school, Emanuel Christian School in Northern Virginia. We've talked about that. They're after him. But he loves the Lord. And that's very important. You mentioned the name of Jesus Christ, and He does. That's where the swarm comes in. It's very sad, and that's a very good point. The Lord speaks in a vision. Let's talk about that. Let's finish up talking about Cornelius' alms. The love of Christ was so embedded in Cornelius that he gave of his prophets with love to help the poor and needy. James calls this true religion, 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 in the Old Testament, where Isaiah calls out to the Christians to forsake the flesh and give to those who are in need. We really need to do that as Christians. We need to have time to visit. We need to have time to give. Isaiah 58, 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? The Jew would offer a sacrificial animal to the Lord, and the smoke that would rise up toward heaven would be considered sweet to the Lord, and God would be satisfied with the offering of the animal to him. Cornelius is not a Jew, and the Lord says, thy prayers and thine alms are come up for a memorial. He didn't sacrifice animals. Smoke didn't go up to the heavens. He gave of his own wealth. He gave of his own paycheck. And the Lord accepted that also. This is a good proof that the Lord loved the worship, and he loves the worship of Gentiles. Once again, we're not sacrificing animals. We give of our tithes and our offerings of our time, and that's very important. The Lord accepted that, and I love how it says in that verse, he offers it up and the Lord accept that as a memorial. Don't we have a real problem here in the United States today with memorials? We love memorials, don't we? The Lord says this is a memorial. I think that the application of a memorial is extremely important. Remove not the ancient landmarks and what's happening in our country right now. George Washington is being treated like a piece of trash. Roosevelt. Some of the other statues, Lee and Jackson. And everybody is so hush-hush about Lee and Jackson because they have no idea who Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson were. They loved the Lord Jesus Christ. Probably two of the best forefathers in our country that loved the Lord taught their children Taught their little white children taught the little black children There's a school right in southern Maryland where they had 200 of them in an excess Every Sunday morning that they literally had to shut the doors because it was so full with them teaching That's how they taught them how to read and write and they gave them the Bible They loved them and so they're taking down all their memorials. I And these new memorials that are put up are just absolute godless marauders. That's basically all they are. We need to hold on to our forefathers. We read that this morning in one of the verses. Forefathers. Memorials. We need to be very careful with that. Our memorials to this nation are very important to our history and for our children. Thy prayers and thine alms are come up for a memorial. Cornelius had not offered sacrifices in the temple. The Lord honored his sacrifice at home. He was a Gentile and not a Jew. Here we see the vision. We're to make it very clear about visions, that this was evident that it was from God, had he had done so many times in oracular form, manifesting himself in a vision. This could not be missed or confused with sorcery. And I just want to talk about this now, and we're going to talk about it again next week, because I think it's exciting. Why did the Lord speak to Cornelius in a vision? I'm going to lay it on the floor. If you all have been reading, I've asked you to read this. If you've been reading and studying this, you should have at least a half of a decent answer or an inkling on why. This is a good question. Why did the Lord speak to Cornelius in a vision, a Gentile? Why did he then speak to Peter in a vision with an angel? I think there's a lot of answers. There's a lot of good answers. So there's not any really one answer. Let's talk about that for a minute. Anybody have any idea? Mike? Right. Excellent and that goes back to the Old Testament the Lord made it very clear through prophets and through that was the Really the office of a prophet was basically to deliver bad news. That's what they normally did There was some oracles of woe oracles of wheel but for the most part the Lord had the prophets delivering his Word and giving his wrath and showing that he meant business many times it was the it was the office of a prophet to deliver a the unvarnished, perfect Word of God. It wasn't their job to reinterpret it and turn it into something it wasn't, like today. Like there's so many pastors today that like to take it. No, there's things that you see out there, it just blows the mind. Lisa? I'm sorry, I thought you had your hand up. But one of the ways that the Lord spoke, he spoke through miracles, he spoke through prophets, he spoke through visions, Today he speaks to us through his word, which is wonderful. There's all kinds of ways the Lord speaks. So why Cornelius? Think about that. Think about his surroundings. Think about what he was up against, the culture of the day, and how bloody and how horrible what a culture he lived in right now. Who would Cornelius have ever listened to at this point? If someone came up to him and told him to go see Peter, a Jew, who knows the Jewish council, and who was there with Jesus, and who knew Jesus, would Cornelius would have listened to a mere mortal man? Well, God didn't think so. In fact, God didn't think at all. He knew. And he sent an angel, a vision, to Cornelius to make it very clear and concise that this was a message from heaven. You go take your soldiers and you go find Peter. He's the man that I've appointed. Whatever you think, whatever you know about him, just like the whole thing with Ananias. Remember, Ananias was like, no, no, no, no, no. I'm not going to Saul. This man is public enemy number one. Are you kidding me? This man can look inside of our houses, turn us into the Jewish council and the Romans, and we could all be hanging off of crosses next week. But the Lord said to Ananias, you go, you do what I told you. And he listened. And I think that's amazing because that was a very fearful time and a very bloody time, of course. So right now, here we have Cornelius now, who now sees this vision. And he is spoken to by the Lord. This could not be missed. You know, it's amazing how the greatest form that is amazing today is the supernatural. Especially if you look at movies and television with these cheap, phony impersonations of God's miracles. You see healing, tongues, ghosts, angels, and look at how the movies have profited off these phony impersonations. Remember in Indiana Jones 3 when Indiana Jones' dad is laying there dying, he's got a bullet in him, and all of a sudden Indiana Jones takes the little cup and he pours the holy water on him and it heals up. Oh, people thought that was great. That movie made millions and millions and millions and millions of dollars. Remember that? We see all these movies with healing. Tongues? Oh, on television. Look at all the millions of dollars made in these big, mega churches where people stand on the chairs and they're blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and they're saying all this stuff and you can't understand them. And what does Paul come back and say in 2 Corinthians? They're speaking in vain babblings. It's just not absolute smoke blowing in the wind. Nobody can understand it. What about, let's see, we have healing tongues, what about ghosts? Can anybody think of any real heavy-hitting ghost movies that have made plenty of money? Dealing with the supernatural and twisting the whole idea. Lisa? Ghost! Can't miss that one. Excellent. Right? Ghost. That's a big one. The Exorcist. The Omen. Beverly? I forgot about that. That is a good one. Ghostbusters. That made millions. I totally forgot about that. That came out, what, in the late 80s, early 90s, and that thing just went... You pull anything out of the supernatural, and most of the time, well, just about all the time, it comes out of the Bible. Because that's where it all started. Ghosts. What about these movies, these haunted mansions now? The highest ratings of some of the reality shows out there, these two morons that go through these old haunted mansions and they got the smoke and mirrors, you know, the little, you got so many ways of making real good representations of a ghost through social media and they act like it's real. A guy walks in and there's an apparition of some old lady standing there and you're all sitting there, ooh, yeah, they make tons of money off of that kind of stuff. Ghosts. See that? Angels. Oh, that's a big one. How about some movies with angels? Anybody know any of those? Remember those? There's a lot of big ones. Lisa? I forgot about that one, too. Yeah. Oh God. And then the real, real respectful one with John Denver, the next one, Oh God, You Devil. That's what it was called. Touched by an Angel. Yes. Noah. Yes. Beverly. Right. I like that show. I'm sorry. But I thought Michael Landon did a great job on that. Mike. Yes. That's a good one. That is like a staple, a Christmas staple. Right. But yeah, that was a good one. Yes. Right. Remember that was on in 1971, and everybody tried to stop it because Linus, they went to Schultz and they told Linus, not told Linus, told Schultz not to have Linus read that passage. And he went ahead and did it, and it was the biggest hit of that year. That was massive. Angels what about that stupid movie? I've never seen it, but I saw a bit of a John Travolta Michael Can you imagine John Travolta playing Michael the angel? Made millions it made millions We're talking about the supernatural here What about Alex Kendrick? I'm not here to pick on him because I think some of the things that he's put in his movies are wonderful No, he didn't make any Oscar Awards or any Emmys or anything like that But he takes Facing the Giants. Football team puts God in there. The football team's down. He's going broke. His wife can't have any kids. He kneels out in the middle of the woods and all this big sunbeam comes down on him. He's praying. He's reading his Bible. Then all of a sudden he prays. Somebody gives him money for a vehicle. His wife all of a sudden starts getting pregnant. And he's got this little short guy named David who does a backflip kicking a 55-year-old field goal to win a football game. And it was all predicated on the Bible. That man made $85 million off of that little movie. And then he came back with another one, Fireproof. And all this was based on the Bible. But this is what the amazement is. Visions, miracles, people are fascinated with them. So can you imagine how this got Cornelius's attention when the vision came? It's amazing how mankind, even those who hate God, love to copy his miraculous means of communication through the supernatural. And boy, has Hollywood made a fortune off of it. It's a mystery. The revelation of God's unveiling of what He has held back and then revealed is amazing. Through the ministry of Christ, the revelation of the Gentiles to be welcomed into the household of faith, to worship with Jews, was just unfounded. It would blow the Jews' mind. They were unclean. They were thought to be without hope. And the barriers are now being broken down. You don't see racism with Crod. You don't see it. I don't care what the color is or what the religion. You don't see racism with the Lord. The gospel stays the same through everyone. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. This was a visit with the angel. And here's what I love about this. It's in detail. Dr. Luke doesn't miss a whole lot here. He puts it in detail. Read the verses. Where? Caesarea. When? The ninth hour of the day, which is 3 p.m. During the normative prayer time in the temple of the Jew. The Christian church too would have set this time aside for prayer. So Cornelius saw the vision by an angel during his prayer time. And why is it so significant to have such detail? You don't get this kind of detail in sorcery. You don't get this one. Satan is masking a miracle. You don't get too much detail out of it. You know, it's kind of like right now the progressive party right now. I'm going to pick on Joe Biden just for a minute. There's so many generalized statements Joe Biden makes about Mike Pence and Donald Trump. He's a liar. He's a liar. He's a liar. He says all these things, but he has no documented proof of it. Last week, Donald Trump bad-mouthed the soldiers. There's not one piece of documented proof. And actually, one of the colonels or captains, that's actually a Democrat, said that never did Donald Trump say that about the soldiers, and the reason he didn't visit the cemetery over there in England or whatever, it's because the weather was horrible, and that democratic whatever captain he was told him not to go. It was dangerous. This is the kind of thing you see. It's all of this smoke and mirrors. There's no detail. There's no hinge point. There's no documentation. Here Luke makes it very clear. Why is that important for us? Why is it important for us that he does that? Because we need to study it so that we burn it into our brains and in our minds and never forget it, that this is truth. There's no questioning this. The detail here is incredible. You read the verses, look at it. We see here, And when he looked on him, he was afraid. 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, here we see the correspondence. And when he looked on him, he was afraid. Here we see the reaction. We see all the players. We see the time of day. We see the location. What is left out of this? The detail here is impeccable. He speaks to the Lord. He was afraid. And he said unto him, Thy prayers and thine alms are come up for a memorial before God. The very actual words that were said are documented here. So we can see this is all true. There's no doubt about it. This vision is from God and it is real. So we can't go back and say, well, the Bible is just a historical reference and it's a lot of fairy tales, which people say. That's not the way it is. This is real. I think that's important for us to imagine because, you know, I think even Christians have a real problem questioning the Word of God and really applying it to their lives. If you can't believe it's real, then don't expect to use it to apply it to your life to be a consolation when you have hard times. If you're questioning it, because Satan is the one that wants you to question it. Half God said, half he said, he even questioned Christ in the wilderness. Can't you turn that stone into bread? Can't you do it? Christ's miracles produce nothing but perfect goodness. Satan's miracles... They are called miracles, by the way, what Satan does. They are called miracles in the Bible. Satan's miracles, they're smoke and they're mere deceptions. 2 Thessalonians 2.7 says, "...for the mystery of iniquity doth already work. Only he who now letteth will let until he be taken out of the way." And then shall the wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming. Even him whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders. And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish, because they receive not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion that they should believe a lie. that they all might be damned who believe not the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness." When you don't believe the Bible, this is where you're headed. You're headed in unrighteousness and being damnable. Satan's miracles are translated differently. They are works, meat for deception. Here's where it's called miracles. Revelation 13, verse 14. "...and deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast, saying to them that dwell on the earth that they should make an image to the beast which had the wound by a sword and did live." These are called miracles. These horrible sorceries. They're smoke and mirrors. And isn't it amazing how people fall for them hook, line, and sinker? Talk about the amazing supernatural things that happen on television. What about the Long Island Medium? Here you have Christ's word over here, and here you have the Long Island Medium over here, and there is a gulf between both of them. There's no melding between this wickedness that's out there. And this is just one of many type of psychic... Stay away from astrology. Don't read that stuff. That stuff is all demonic. All the little symbols and all, it's all demonic. All that stuff is to take away the eternal decrees of God and to turn Him into nothing. Because we live in a real society of monophysites. That's what our problem is today. What is a monophysite? Does anybody know? What's a monophysite? You need to know this, because this is why the progressive liberals are so good at what they do. And I'll base my whole, everything that I've ever been taught, I base it all on that. Monophysite religion is one that declares his human nature as deity. Anybody that can declare their human nature as deity, nothing, nothing can be wrong with them. Even their worship. And even when they do wicked things, they're deity. They deify their own acts, like the Egyptians. Lisa? Right. That's right. A monophysite thinks that they can do no wrong in any way, shape, or form. Lise? Yes, yes. That's it. That's it. That's what it is. What would happen to you if you did not say... Now this is the day and age now. We live in a Monophysite era now. What do you think it was like back then? If you did not say, or your creed was not, Caesar Curios, or Caesar as king, who he believed he was a god, The Circus Maximus was lit up. The dinner theaters with Christians. They would sit there and eat dinner while Christians were being burned at the stake to illumine the gardens. Because they declared, Hesu so curious that Jesus is king. That's Monophysite. Caesar thought that nothing he did was wrong. And look at all the filthy, wicked things that happen in and out of the room in the Circus Maximus and in the palace there. Anything that was pleasurable is good because you're a god. You're deified. Lisa. Right. Exactly. That's a perfect point. The governors say it's okay. Oh, but it's just petty protesting. You burn down a courthouse. Oh, that's just petty. A poor, a dear man who was on the police force and retired for 40 years, David Dorn, gets shot, shot, and then they filmed it and put it on YouTube. Oh, that was just petty protesting. These people are liars. And all of their lies, they try to make it look like truth. And you sit there and you laugh at it. Well, fine. But you know how close this man is to getting elected? This is how close it is. People believe this stuff. They believe it. If you have a society with a monophysite philosophy, then where does God fit in? He doesn't fit in anymore. All he does is become one of the little pawns. That's your religion. Jesus is okay if you believe in it, but I didn't, so I'm okay. Remember, there's only one truth. Sanctify me through my truth, for my word is truth. And here's Cornelius, precious, precious man, loves the Lord Jesus Christ, devout house, his wife, his kinsmen, they're all there. They love the Lord, they're worshiping, and I love this, when the Lord sends the vision, he doesn't tell Cornelius to leave. Why? Why isn't Cornelius supposed to leave? He says, take your best soldiers, and I believe these were devout soldiers, I believe these were men of God. I believe that the Lord loved them so much that he trained them and they were on their way, they were going to go get Peter. But why does Cornelius stay home? Lise? That's right. That's right. That was a house of God, and his objective was to honor the Sabbath day and keep it holy. He was to keep his worship going until Peter came and got him. And so the Lord wanted him to stay faithful to his church. I think we've learned a lot about that here at Pilgrim. We need to stay faithful to our church. We must be so utterly thankful that Acts 10 exists. As Gentiles, this is for our understanding. What was Cornelius' reaction? I go back to Isaiah chapter 6 verse 5. What was Isaiah's reaction when he saw the Lord? Then said I, woe is me, for I am undone, because I am a man of unclean lips. And I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips, for mine eyes have seen the king, the Lord of hosts. He didn't question who was calling him. Let me tell you something, when the Lord is on the other end of that conversation, you're not going to miss him. I love this Luke. Remember, the very first people that were blessed to see the heavenly host of angels, the shepherds, what was their reaction? Isn't it amazing? The shepherds were the most hated people in the Old Testament by the Egyptians and all the pagan nations. They were hated. The Hebrew shepherds, they were the first one to see the absolute heavenly hosts. Isn't that amazing? Right. That's right. Yep. Many times they were elevated to great position. I mean, Joseph would have been considered a very low minority in the day. And he was elevated to a great position. That's a very good point. Luke 2, 9, And lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone around about them. And I love the King James Version. And they were sore afraid. They had no doubt. They didn't sit there and say, well, you know, we better check our iPhones and make sure if this is real or not and check to see what the heavenly host is. They knew immediately. And that's the point. Cornelius knows immediately what happens here. And so the soldiers are sent out. Cornelius stays back. So now the next question for next week. How's Peter going to react to this? This we could literally talk about for months. Peter's reaction. What is Peter thinking, who Peter is a Jew, who loves the old law, he loves the Mosaic law, walked with Jesus, yes, he denied Jesus, comes back and he's an apostle, preached, he just healed two lame men, healed Tabitha, healed Anais, and now he's really, really going forward as an apostle. And all of a sudden, his whole life changes and the Lord shows to him in a vision Well, let's get a little window for next week. Why does Peter have to have a vision? Instead of Paul calling him up from Tarsus, hey Peter, by the way, Cornelius is coming to go see you. And make sure that you start eating some of that bad food we weren't able to eat all those years. You know, go ahead and eat some pork, go ahead and eat some of this and that. And Peter would tell him, what are you, crazy? Peter was very strong-willed. He was impetuous. Right. That's right. Amen. But then, isn't it amazing how the angel tells Peter to go and the angel doesn't go himself? It's Peter who is that mere mortal man who is going to be preaching. Remember the question, how can they hear without a preacher? I don't think Peter would have listened to any mortal man about this if somebody would have came to him. Right. Right. Right. Exactly. I mean, who else would Peter have listened to? Well, let me ask you this question. What if we were worshipping here today? Pastor Coleman's in the middle of preaching. We're all worshipping together. Somebody walks in, completely interrupts the service and says, there's a new law now. There was a new covenant back in the Old Testament, one in the New Covenant, but there's a new law sent from God. that we all have to go back to the old law, you're not allowed to eat any pork anymore, you're not allowed to eat any more of these animals, we have to go back and start going back and sacrificing animals again. Think about that. Whoever walked through that door, you'd think he needs to be sent down to Shepard Pratt for some evaluations, right? I mean, that's kind of what Peter was up against. I mean, right now, that's how big this was. Peter's thinking to himself, These people are ceremonially polluted. And then we're going to see next week... Lisa. Right. Right. People couldn't believe that conversion. It's like Saul's conversion. People, the Christians were like, what? I mean, this man was horrible. So we're going to answer next week, Peter, we're going to be regarding the vision. What was his reaction? And I want you to think about this during the week and get in there and read. Read. Why not? Read what his reaction was and try to compare it to some of the other reactions when the Lord spoke. Because Peter's reaction was very typical of Peter. So we'll finish there. Dave. Right at that point he was thinking he would be polluted to eat barbecue. But I think after he finally got to start eating and he probably really liked it. So let's finish with prayer. Could I ask Jacob, could you close us with prayer? Thank you.