Acts 10:9-16 – From Lamb to Ham

Sermon by Pastor Dennis Gleason -- April 22, 2007

Someone once said that when it comes to change the church is often like the snail riding on the back of a turtle (repeat for emphasis)...
…and do you know what a snail does when it rides on the back of the turtle?
It goes: "Whee!"

We don’t like change.

We are comfortable with things just the way they are.

We are pretty sure that we have got it right when it comes to what we believe.

The Jewish people were among the most change resistant people in existence when God came into our world in the person of his Son. Jesus met great resistance to the possibility that God was doing something new to provide forgiveness and salvation for the entire world.

The Jews were intended to be separate from the rest of the world. The purpose of that separation was that the world would have a group of people witnessing to it of the love of God, the fact that God made us along with the rest of the universe, and that God was working out his plan for our salvation.

Part of that separation from the rest of the world was a list of restrictions on how they could live, what they could eat and how they were to worship. They were to be different from everybody else. And part of that difference related to what they could eat. Those regulations have come down to the Jewish people today as relating to what is Kosher. Anything that is Kosher is “lawful”, “fit” or “appropriate” for the Jewish people to eat and maintain that separation.

I’m told of a rabbi who had been leading a congregation for many years, and grew upset by the fact that he was never able to eat pork. So he devised a plan where he flew to a remote tropical island and checked into a hotel. He immediately got himself a table at the finest restaurant and ordered the most expensive pork dish on the menu.

As he eagerly waited for it to be served, he heard his name called from across the restaurant. He looked up to see 10 of his loyal congregants approaching. His luck, they’d chosen the same time to visit the same remote location!

Just at that moment, the waiter came out with a huge silver tray carrying a whole roasted pig with an apple in its mouth. The Rabbi looked up sheepishly at his congregants and said, "Wow - you order an apple in this place and look how it’s served!"

Acts 10:1-23

¹In Caesarea there lived a Roman army officer named Cornelius, who was a captain of the Italian Regiment. ²He was a devout man who feared the God of Israel, as did his entire household. He gave generously to charity and was a man who regularly prayed to God. ³One afternoon about three o’clock, he had a vision in which he saw an angel of God coming toward him. “Cornelius!” the angel said.

⁴Cornelius stared at him in terror. “What is it, sir?” he asked the angel.

And the angel replied, “Your prayers and gifts to the poor have not gone unnoticed by God! ⁵Now send some men down to Joppa to find a man named Simon Peter. ⁶He is staying with Simon, a leatherworker who lives near the shore. Ask him to come and visit you.”

⁷As soon as the angel was gone, Cornelius called two of his household servants and a devout soldier, one of his personal attendants. ⁸He told them what had happened and sent them off to Joppa.

Peter Visits Cornelius

⁹The next day as Cornelius’s messengers were nearing the city, Peter went up to the flat roof to pray. It was about noon, ¹⁰and he was hungry. But while lunch was being prepared, he fell into a trance. ¹¹He saw the sky open, and something like a large sheet was let down by its four corners. ¹²In the sheet were all sorts of animals, reptiles, and birds. ¹³Then a voice said to him, “Get up, Peter; kill and eat them.”

¹⁴“Never, Lord,” Peter declared. “I have never in all my life eaten anything forbidden by our Jewish laws.”

¹⁵The voice spoke again, “If God says something is acceptable, don’t say it isn’t.” ¹⁶The same vision was repeated three times. Then the sheet was pulled up again to heaven.

¹⁷Peter was very perplexed. What could the vision mean? Just then the men sent by Cornelius found the house and stood outside at the gate. ¹⁸They asked if this was the place where Simon Peter was staying. ¹⁹Meanwhile, as Peter was puzzling over the vision, the Holy Spirit said to him, “Three men have come looking for you. ²⁰Go down and go with them without hesitation. All is well, for I have sent them.”

²¹So Peter went down and said, “I’m the man you are looking for. Why have you come?”

²²They said, “We were sent by Cornelius, a Roman officer. He is a devout man who fears the God of Israel and is well respected by all the Jews. A holy angel instructed him to send for you so you can go to his house and give him a message.” ²³So Peter invited the men to be his guests for the night. The next day he went with them, accompanied by some other believers from Joppa.

Cornelius was a man in Caesarea. He was a centurion. That means he was a Roman leader of what was called a Century or 100 men. These soldiers were among the most loyal Roman troops. He is their leader.

We also know this about Cornelius: He was a righteous or devout man who feared God.

He and his household were Gentiles. Even though they were God fearing and devout, they would have still been considered Gentiles by the Jews even though they were obviously proselytes of the gate. They would have been barred from passing beyond the court of the Gentiles in the Temple.

One of the great questions in the early church at this time was whether they way into the Church was only through Judaism and the synagogue or also directly from Gentilism and paganism by faith and baptism alone.

Up to this point, there were only a few outside of Judaism, who had come into the church.

But God’s intention was that these people would reach the whole world for Christ. The whole world outside of the Jews was made up of Gentiles, pagans.

And God through Peter confronts the issue of change that must take place through Cornelius. Cornelius according to our text was a man of alms and a man of prayer. These were two great virtues in the Jewish faith. According to Luke one of the words for prayer here is translated: “begging God”. This is more than the usual prayer of a Jew at the afternoon time of prayer. He needs something from God and he is intently pursuing it.

He is praying on this day and in answer to his prayers God sends an angel to him. He has a vision. He is able to see supernaturally what the Lord intends to reveal to him. And he spoke audibly for Cornelius to hear his voice. God is going to use Cornelius to open the door of the church to the Gentiles.

The message he gets from God is that he is to send men to Joppa and summon a man named Simon Peter. He is to “summon for thyself” Peter. This tells Cornelius that this man has a message for him. He is told where he is living so that the men who are going to find him will know where to go. And he is told that this man, Peter, will tell him what he should do. And on the next day they leave for Joppa.

As these men are on their way down to Joppa, Peter has gone up on the rooftop of his house to pray. It is about noon or the 6^th hour and he is hungry. And he has a vision. It is an ecstasy or a trance. This is a description of “a condition of the mind and the senses in which one is lifted out of their natural surroundings and functions and are enabled to receive supernatural impressions or revelations by means of visions or other divine modes of communication.” Lenski, Interpretation of the Acts of the Apostles, p. 401.

Peter sees Heaven standing open and a vessel coming down that had a great sheet being lowered by the four corners. On that sheet he saw all kinds of animals and creeping things and fowls of the air. He is told to “rise, kill and eat.”

This leads us to three aspects of obedience that we need to understand if we are to be in the position of being obedient to the call of God in our own lives. When the Holy Spirit speaks to us There are three things we must keep in mind:

a. The request of obedience asks us "do we hear what the Spirit is saying?"
b. The response of obedience asks us "are we doing what the Spirit tells us to do?"
c. The result of obedience tells us "if we obey the Spirit’s voice we will experience success."

A Fellow was sitting at a stop light. The lady in front of him was going through papers on the seat of her car, and when the light changed to green she did not obey its command - a green light is a commandment - NOT a suggestion. When the light turned to red, and she had still not moved, He began (with his windows up) screaming and beating on his steering wheel. His expressions of distress were interrupted by a policeman, gun drawn, tapping on his window. Against his protestations of, "You can’t arrest me for hollering in my car," the officer ordered him into the back seat of his patrol car. After about two hours in a holding cell, the arresting officer advised him he was free to go. He said, "I knew you couldn’t arrest me for what I was yelling in my own car. You haven’t heard the last of this." The officer replied, "I didn’t arrest you for shouting in your car. I was directly behind you at the light. I saw you screaming and beating your steering wheel, and I said to myself, "What a jerk. But there is nothing I can do to him for throwing a fit in his own car. Then I noticed the ’Cross’ hanging from your rear view mirror, the Jesus is Coming Soon’ bumper sticker, and the Fish symbol, and I thought you must have stolen the car."

 There are three things we must keep in mind when listening to the voice of the Holy Spirit.
a. The request of obedience asks us "do we hear what the Spirit is saying?"
b. The response of obedience asks us "are we doing what the Spirit tells us to do?"
c. The result of obedience tells us "if we obey the Spirit’s voice we will experience success."

The voice he heard was the voice of the Holy Spirit, but the Spirit was telling him to do something that was again everything that Peter had been taught. This command would be unacceptable for him as a Jew, as some of the animals were not kosher. Therefore, Peter says "No way!" He has never eaten anything unclean and wasn’t about to start now (Bruce, NICNT: The Book of Acts, 206). Keep in mind that Peter is responding the way any good Jew would respond. The hold that these Old Testament regulations have on Peter is deep. He is not prepared to respond to the command.

However, the Holy Spirit says to him and said "What God has cleansed you must not call common." If the world is to be reached for the sake of Christ, the Gentiles must be allowed into the Church. This change is revolutionary even for the Apostles. Change must come and it must begin with Cornelius. And Peter is the man who must go to him so that the Holy Spirit might be poured out upon the Gentiles, too!

What would have happened if Peter had not been obedient that day? The advance of the Gospel would have stopped right there and then. Billions of Gentiles who have claimed the name of Christ since that day would have been excluded from the Church and the Kingdom of God.

For revival to take place, the Holy Spirit will call us out of our comfort zones. Do we hear the voice of the Holy Spirit? That is the question for us.

The response of obedience is next (17-33). Peter is to go with the men who show up while he is praying…”doubting nothing”. He is not prepared to go at first. But eventually he does go. And when he goes, he will understand the reason for the vision he has received.

He goes into the house of a Gentile. This is something that a Jew would never do. It would make him unclean and unable to enter into worship at the Temple.

The result of Peter’s obedience was that the Holy Spirit fell upon the Gentiles in Cornelius’s household. He fell because they truly believed in Jesus.

The word used here for the Holy Spirit falling on them is the same word that is used in Acts 8:16, when the Holy Spirit fell on the Samaritans. Therefore, the falling of the Holy Spirit clearly of the Pentecostal experience of receiving the Holy Spirit in a mighty baptism of power (Horton, 255).

It was the proof for them that they had received the baptism of the Holy Spirit.  It was the proof that God had done something miraculous.

We see Peter using "the keys of the kingdom" for the third and last time. He has opened the door of faith for the Jews (Acts 2) and also for the Samaritans (Acts 8), and now God uses him to bring the Gentiles into the church. God challenges Peter’s prejudices in three ways firstly through a vision, secondly through a personal encounter with Cornelius the Gentile and finally by turning up himself in the person of the Holy Spirit.

As we think about this passage, we recognize that there are times when God gives us a request that we obey him in some manner. For Peter it was to rise, kill and eat. It was a request that Peter just could not bring himself to do. It ran counter to everything he believed.

Peter did respond in obedience. And when he did, God was able to set into motion the great introduction of the Gospel to the Gentiles, that they too might believe and be saved.

The result of his obedience can be seen in your life and mine as we too have become members of the Body of Christ by our faith in Jesus. He is our Lord and Savior too.

When God gives us a request to be obeyed through the Holy Spirit…we should respond as easily and quickly as did Peter. And when we respond, there will be a result in which the Holy Spirit is able to accomplish something significant in our lives, in the lives of those around us and ultimately something significant in the life of the Church too. Change will come. It must. And if we will let the Holy Spirit be the Holy Spirit, it will come much easier than we might imagine.

One last thought, when do we become afraid of change?

It is when we have our eyes on something other than on God. God is a God of change.

We have a great God.
He speaks and it is done.
He commands and it stands fast.
He knows how to show Himself strong on behalf of them that fear him.
You have a great God; and He will bless your ministry.