53 Acts 10:9-23 THE APOSTLE PETER SENT TO CORNELIUS Introduction: In our previous text the Lord gave a vision to Cornelius in Caesaria and told him to send to Joppa for the Apostle Peter who would tell him and his household how to be saved. In our text today the Lord gave a vision to the Apostle Peter and told him to go to Caesaria and tell Cornelius and his household how to be saved. I. Simon Peter’s, hunger V. 9, “On the morrow, as they went on their journey...” In order for the Lord to get Cornelius to send men to Joppa to find the Apostle Peter, all He had to do was to inform Cornelius what He wanted him to do. He did not have to persuade him to send for Peter. Cornelius had the vision in which he was told to send for Peter about the ninth hour of the day and immediately he called three men and almost immediately they got started on their journey to Joppa. Since they started late in the day they did not get to Joppa until about noon the following day. They left on one day and did not arrive around noon the following day. I said that it was not necessary for the Lord to persuade Cornelius to send for Peter. All He had to do was to tell him what to do and he did it. But to get the Apostle Peter to go to Caesarea to witness to Cornelius and his household, that was a different matter. The Lord had to do some persuading in order to get Peter to go, and He set about to persuade Peter to go even before He told him that He wanted him to go. Does it not seem strange to you that the Lord did not have to persuade an unsaved man to do what He told him to do, but He had to persuade the saved man in order to get him to do what He would be told to do? It would seem that it would be the other way around. It would seem that it would be difficult to get the unsaved man to do the will of the Lord, but it would be easy to get the saved man to do the will of the Lord. But this was not the case. You see the Lord was about to send the Apostle Peter to witness to a Gentile man and to his Gentile family, and this was not only something that Simon Peter had never done before, but the whole idea was repulsive to him. In his whole life he had never had anything to do with any Gentile at any time. He most certainly had never been in the home of a Gentile at any time in his whole life. He had been taught from a child that every Gentile was unclean in the eyes of the Lord and that if he associated with a Gentile in any way he would be unclean in the eyes of the Lord. That was the way Simon Peter had been taught by his parents and that was the way all of his forefathers for many generations had been taught. And it was not just his family who felt this way about the Gentiles. All of the Jewish people felt the same way and had no dealings with Gentiles. It would not be an easy task for Simon Peter to yield to the will of the Lord and go to the home of this Gentile family to tell them that they could be saved by trusting Jesus Christ as their Savior. At this point of time it would not be an easy task for any of the Christian Jews to go into the home of a Gentile and tell him that Jesus Christ, the Son of God had died on the cross for him and that he could be saved. Ironically, this was exactly what Jesus in the Great Commission had commanded all of His disciples to do. He had commanded them to go and preach the gospel to every creature. He had commanded them to go and make disciples of all nations. But up to this time not one of the twelve Apostles had witnessed to a Gentile. Up to this time not one of the Jewish Christians in any of the churches were witnessing to the Gentiles. They were very busy spreading the gospel message to the unsaved, but they were going only to the Gentiles with the gospel. If any of the Jewish Christians had taken it upon himself to go into the home of a Gentile family and tell them about Jesus, he would have been blackballed by all of the other Jewish Christians. He would have been considered as a traitor to their Jewish history and a traitor to the Jewish people. Yet that is exactly what God intended for Simon Peter to do. He intended for Simon Peter to go to the home of Cornelius, who was a Gentile, and tell him and his family about Jesus Christ the Savior. (V. 9), “...and drew nigh unto the city, Peter went up upon the housetop to pray about the sixth hour.” Therefore, in our text on the day after the three messengers from Cornelius started out to find Simon Peter, we find them still on the road about the noon hour of the day. At this same time of the day Simon Peter went up on the housetop where he could be alone to pray. I have no way of knowing for sure what Simon Peter said in that prayer. Yet I think it highly possible that he said something like this, “Lord, I want to do your will in my life. Wherever you want me to go and whatever you want me to do, I am willing to do your will.” I also strongly suspect that Simon Peter thought he meant it. I think that whether or not he prayed such a prayer, he thought that he was willing to do anything the Lord wanted him to do. The reason I think that he thought such a thing is that this sounds just like most of us. We say that we surrender our lives over to Jesus to live for Jesus to serve God in any way He wants us to serve Him. But when it comes down to the nitty gritty, we often balk and are not willing to do what the Lord wants us to do. It is so easy for us to pray, “Lord, help me to do your will” and then turn right around and use some flimsy excuse for not doing His will. Oh, I am not just pointing the finger at Simon Peter and I am not just pointing the finger and any of you. What I am saying is that we are all like that. II. Simon Peter’s trance But the Lord had a way of working on the Apostle Peter to persuade him to do what He wanted him to do. You see, when Simon Peter went up on the housetop to pray it was about noon and he was hungry. He was very hungry. V. 10, “And he became very hungry, and would have eaten: but while they made ready, he fell into a trance.” When Simon Peter began to pray he was already hungry. It was about that time of day that it was natural for him to be hungry. But when he thought about his hunger, he got even more hungry. I suppose that it was not long until he was so hungry , as we sometimes express it, that he could eat the bark off the tree. But while he waited for his host to call him to dinner, he fell into a trance. V. 11, “And saw heaven opened, 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.” What Peter saw in the trance looked at first like a vessel, a platter of food, coming down out of heaven to him to serve him dinner. But as the vessel got closer to him he could see that it looked like a large sheet fastened at the four corners. There was something within the sheet and he must have anticipated that whatever it contained was food for his dinner. But when Peter looked at what was within the sheet it was filled with life animals. It was not at all an appetizing sight. V. 12, “Wherein were all manner of fourfooted beasts of the earth, and wild beasts, and creeping things, and fowls of the air.” I really do not know what animals the Apostle Peter saw within that sheet, but whatever they were they were the kind of animals that the Apostle Peter had never eaten before. I recall one time when I was a boy my mother cooked a possum. I had never eaten possum before in my life and I had a hard time making myself take a few bites of it. I did, but it wasn’t easy. I also have a brother who was in the navy in World War II whose ship got low on supplies. When they were in port in one of the far eastern countries, the crew was ordered to eat ashore and he said that ate some cat and he was not talking about catfish. I told him I did not think I could do that and he said, “It sounded better than anything else on the menu.” A lot of people here in the United States eat rattlesnake. But I think I would have an extremely difficult time doing so. Unless I was on the verge of starving to death, I think it would be impossible for me to eat it. V. 13-14, “And there came a voice to him, Rise, Peter; kill, and eat. But Peter said, Not so, Lord; for I have never eaten any thing that is common or unclean.” In the vision, Simon Peter balked. He just refused to eat. The Lord was the One who told him to kill and eat, but in the vision, he told even the Lord, “No.” He had never eaten such animals and he was not ready to start. However, the Lord does not easily take “No” for an answer. V. 15-16, “And the voice [spake] unto him again the second time, What God hath cleansed, [that] call not thou common. This was done thrice: and the vessel was received up again into heaven.” This whole scenario was repeated three times. Three times the sheet containing all manner of unclean animals came down to him. Three times he was instructed to kill and eat. Three times he refused. Three times he was told that what God called “clean” he was not to call common or unclean. III. Simon Peter’s question and answer Then Simon Peter awoke from the trance, but he still remembered all that he had seen and heard in the trance and it bothered him. He seemed to sense that this was somehow a message from God, but if so, just what did it mean? V. 17-18, “Now while Peter doubted in himself what this vision which he had seen should mean, behold, the men which were sent from Cornelius had made enquiry for Simon's house, and stood before the gate, And called, and asked whether Simon, which was surnamed Peter, were lodged there.” The men from Caesarea who were sent by Cornelius arrived on the scene. While Simon Peter was still on the rooftop trying to figure out the meaning of the vision the men arrived at the gate of the home where he was staying and asked for him. Peter would not have to wait long for an answer. While the men were downstairs asking for Simon Peter the Spirit of God spoke to him upstairs and gave him the meaning of the vision. V. 19-20, “While Peter thought on the vision, the Spirit said unto him, Behold, three men seek thee. Arise therefore, and get thee down, and go with them, doubting nothing: for I have sent them.” Peter was told that there were three men looking for him and that he should go with those three men. He would soon be aware that they were Gentile men. They were men that he had never had any association with. They were men that prior to this he would have refused to go with them. But God told him even before he knew that they were Gentiles, that God wanted him to go with these men. He was in the trance when he saw the unclean animals and he had refused to do what the Lord told him to do. But he was not in a trance when the Spirit of God told him to go with these men. This was God’s way of persuading him to go to the home of Gentiles and tell them how to be saved. IV. The seriousness of Peter’s disobedience V. 21-23 “Then Peter went down to the men which were sent unto him from Cornelius; and said, Behold, I am he whom ye seek: what [is] the cause wherefore ye are come? And they said, Cornelius the centurion, a just man, and one that feareth God, and of good report among all the nation of the Jews, was warned from God by an holy angel to send for thee into his house, and to hear words of thee. Then called he them in, and lodged [them]. And on the morrow Peter went away with them, and certain brethren from Joppa accompanied him.” In the vision Simon Peter had said “No” to the Lord, when the Lord told him to kill and eat the unclean animals. But it is to his credit that he did not say “No” to the Lord when he was awake. He was obedient to the Lord even though it meant doing something that went contrary to what he had been taught all his life by his parents. He was obedient to the Lord even though it went contrary to what all of the Jewish Christians back at Jerusalem believed. He was obedient to the Lord even though he knew that it meant that he would almost surely be severely criticized by his fellow apostles and all of the other members of the church at Jerusalem. He was obedient to the Lord even though it went against his own personal preference. He went with those mean ready to tell them about Jesus and His marvelous saving grace. It is also to the credit of some of the Jewish Christians at Gap who went with him. V. The message to us Listen, this vision of the Apostle Peter not only had a message for him, but it has a message for us. There are still a lot of people out in this world around us who are unsaved. In the Great Commission God has already told us to go to them and to give the blessed gospel message. In Acts 1:8 we are told to be witnesses for Jesus and to tell lost souls about His saving grace. This is contrary to what our flesh nature would have us to do. This is contrary to the way we have always lived our life. We have always sought to not intervene in the lives of other people. Let them do whatever they want to do. As long as they do not interfere with us we will not interfere with them. That is the way that most of us have always lived. Some of the people whom the Lord wants us to go to and carry the gospel to are not like us. They do not dress like us. They do not wear their hair like us. They do not talk like us. They do not have he same lifestyle that we have. But, like us, they need the gospel message. Without the gospel message they will go out of this world unprepared to meet God. They will go into a place of fire and torment. God wants us to go to them and tell them the gospel message. God wants people who are saved to go to people who are not saved and to tell them how we got saved. He wants us to tell them how they can get saved. A Christian may be inclined to say “No” to God. One may be inclined to say, “I am not going to do that. Let somebody else go, but I am not going. I never have and I never will.” Let me say to you, “It is a serious thing to say to God, ‘No, I am not going to do what you are trying to get me to do.” God was very patient with Simon Peter even though he and the other Christians were already supposed to be going to the Gentiles and giving them the gospel. God had been very patient with the New Testament church at Jerusalem and all the other churches which had sprung up throughout Judea and Samaria. But it was now time for the Apostle Peter to learn do what God has told him to do. It would soon be time for all of the church at Jerusalem to learn her lesson and carry the gospel to the Gentiles. It is most certainly time for churches of our day to learn the lesson and to carry the gospel to lost and dying men and women. It is time for us to carry the gospel to lost and dying boys and girls. In closing, let me say this, coming to church on a regular basis is a huge part of living the Christian life. But coming to church, giving our tithes and offerings to the Lord and singing Christians is not all there is to living a Christian life. Even living a good clean moral life is not all there is to living a Christian life. Witnessing for Jesus and telling other people how to be saved is one of the most vital parts of Christian living. There is somebody out there whom the Lord wants us to go to. There is somebody who is unsaved that the Lord wants you to go to. The question is: Are we ready and willing to go? Even if you have never done it before --- are you willing to start? Are we willing to go?