55 Acts 10:44-48 THE HOLY SPIRITS APPROVAL OF PREACHING THE GOSPEL TO GENTILES Introduction: In our test last Sunday the Apostle Peter preached the gospel to Gentiles. This was the first time that a Christian had preached the gospel to a Gentile who had not first become a proselyte Jew. Philip had preached the gospel to an “Ethiopian eunuch, but that man had first become a proselyte Jew. In our text today the Holy Spirit demonstrated that He approved of the gospel being preached to Gentiles. In studying this text, as in studying any Scripture, our first task is to seek to understand what this passage says and what it teaches. Then it is our task to seek to apply its teachings to our lives. I. The Holy Spirit falling upon Gentile converts V. 44, “While Peter yet spake these words, the Holy Ghost fell on all them which heard the word.” The word which is spoken about in this verse is the word which Simon Peter had spoken to those who had gathered in the home of Cornelius. Peter had told them that he had learned that God is no respecter of persons. God is just as willing to save Gentiles as He is to save Jews. Peter had told them that God had sent the Savior through the nation of Israel and that Jesus is that Savior. Jesus is the Christ of God. Peter had told them that God the Father had clearly shown by all the great miracles which He had Jesus to do that Jesus is the Christ, the Savior whom He had sent. Yet the nation of Israel had rejected Jesus as the Christ and had brought about His crucifixion. Peter told them that in spite of the rejection and crucifixion of Jesus by the Jews, yet Jesus is the Christ whom God has sent. He said that Jesus was no longer dead --- that Jesus had arisen from the grave. Peter said that God had chosen not to show the risen Jesus to all of Israel, but only to certain of His disciples. Peter named himself as being one of those who had seen Jesus after He had risen and that Jesus had eaten food with him and other disciples. By eating and drinking with them Jesus had shown them that they were not merely seeing a vision. They were actually seeing the resurrected Jesus Christ. Peter had told them that the writings of all of the Old Testament prophets of Israel gave witness that Jesus is the Christ. He said that the prophets declare that whoever will place his faith in Jesus to be his Savior will be saved and that all of his sins will be forgiven. Right after Peter told the Gentiles that if they would place their faith in Jesus to be their Savior that all their sins would be forgiven the Holy Spirit fell upon the Gentiles enabling them to miraculously speak in tongues. In fact Peter was actually still speaking when the Holy Spirit fell on the Gentiles and the Gentiles began speaking in other tongues. I want you to take note of the rapid chain of events. The Apostle told the people that they could be saved by placing their faith in Jesus. Just as soon as those Gentiles heard that message they placed their faith in Jesus and were saved. At that same instant the Holy Spirit produced the new birth within each believing person and that person had Holy Spirit nature born within his soul and the Spirit would continue to abide there. But the new birth within these people would not be seen by the Jewish Christians who had come with Simon Peter from Joppa. Therefore, the Holy Spirit fell upon the newly born again Gentiles and gave them a miraculous gift which the Jewish Christians would be able to observe. That is, these men would at least be able to hear the evidence that the Holy Spirit had enabled those Gentiles to speak in other tongues. II. The gift of tongues given to the Gentiles V. 45-46, “And they of the circumcision which believed were astonished, as many as came with Peter, because that on the Gentiles also was poured out the gift of the Holy Ghost, For they heard them speak with tongues, and magnify God...” The Jewish Christians were astonished. They must have been somewhat aghast at the fact that they, themselves, were in the home of a Gentile. They had never before in all their life been in the home of a Gentile. Neither had they every heard of a Jew being in the home of a Gentile. Furthermore, they had just heard the Apostle Peter tell those Gentile people that they could be saved if they would place their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. It was just as astounding to those Jews as it was to the Gentiles to learn that Jesus would save Gentile people without them first becoming proselyte Jews. Then they were absolutely bowled over by Gentle people being given a miraculous gift from the Holy Spirit of God. We need also to understand that the gift of tongues which was given to those Gentile people was not some kind of jabber which nobody could understand. But rather it was the miracle of being able to miraculously speak in a foreign language without first having to learn that language the natural way. It was suddenly being able to clearly speak a foreign tongue without having to go through the slow process of learning it. This gift of tongues could not have been some unintelligible gibberish and be the same kind of gift of tongues which had been given to the Jerusalem church on the day of Pentecost. On Pentecost there were Jews from fourteen different nation gathered in Jerusalem. When the Christians exercised their miraculous gift of tongues they did not speak in some jabbering that nobody understood. Rather, the people from all those nations understood what they were saying. The miracle of it was that these Christians who had never lived in those foreign lands were suddenly able to clearly speak in the native languages of the foreign lands. So if the gift of tongues at Caesarea was the same as that on Pentecost it could not have been some unintelligent jabber. It was the gift of miraculously speaking in a language which had not been previously known to the speaker. The Christians would not have been so surprised if some of their own group had been given the gift of tongues. They surely had heard about Christians in other places with the gift of tongues. What was so astonishing to them was that God would give this gift to Gentiles. III. The difference between what happened at Caesarea and what happened on Pentecost We have noticed that the gift of tongues at Caesarea was the same as that which took place on Pentecost, but we should also note that not everything that happened with the Gentiles at Caesarea was the same as that which happened on Pentecost. For one thing, on Pentecost the room where the disciples were gathered was filled with a loud sound like a rushing mighty wind. There was no sound as of a rushing mighty wind which filled the room where the Gentiles were gathered. Also on Pentecost there were cloven tongues like unto fire which lit upon each of the Christians. No such cloven tongues like fire lit upon the Gentiles. The gift of tongues was given to the Gentiles at Caesarea just as it had been given to the Christians on Pentecost, but there were no cloven tongues like fire and there was no rushing mighty wind. There was no baptism in the Holy Spirit as there had been on Pentecost. IV. The significance of what did happen The significance of the occasion was this. The Christian Jews had been negligent in preaching the gospel to Gentiles in obedience to the commands of the Lord Jesus Christ. In the Great Commission Jesus had commanded the church at Jerusalem to preach the gospel message to all the world. That included preaching the gospel to Gentiles. In Mark 16:15 Jesus had commanded the Jerusalem church to preach the gospel to every creature. That included Gentiles. But the Christian Jews had no social dealings with Gentiles and, therefore, they had neglected to preach the gospel to Gentiles. Yeah, there was more involved than mere negligence on their part. The Christian Jews had been adamantly opposed to preaching the gospel to Gentiles. They were willing to preach the gospel, but not to Gentiles. They were zealous in preaching the gospel, but not to Gentiles. If God continued to ignore this kind of attitude, this could virtually render The Great Commission meaningless. It would be made null and void. Jesus had commanded His church to preach the gospel to the whole world, but most of the world was made up of Gentiles. If God’s people were to continue to refuse to preach the gospel to Gentiles, that would mean that it would never be preached to most of the world. The Christian Jews were content to ignore the command to preach the gospel to the whole world, but God could not ignore their failure to obey His word. God intended to do something to remedy the situation. He would teach them something. Therefore, God used this occasion at Caesarea to show to the Jewish Christians that He not only approved of them preaching the gospel to Gentiles, but that He required them to preach the gospel to Gentiles. He had given specific command to Simon Peter to go to Caesarea and to preach the gospel to the household of Cornelius. God required him to go there and preach. Simon Peter had been obedient to His command. So God sent the Holy Spirit to give the miraculous gift of tongues to the Gentiles as further proof that He wanted His churches to preach the gospel to all the world just as He had commanded and that included Gentiles. God had been patient with the Jewish Christians. He was still patient with them. But He would not be patient with them indefinitely. The Jewish Christians needed to learn that God wanted them to preach the gospel to Gentiles. V. The matter of baptism V. 46b-48, “...Then answered Peter, Can any man forbid water, that these should be baptized, which have received the Holy Ghost as well as we? And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of the Lord...” Simon Peter recognized that these Gentiles had been saved. The special miraculous gift from the Holy Spirit was sufficient proof to him that these Gentiles had been saved. Simon Peter also knew that it was the will of the Lord for all saved people to be baptized. So he did not wait for them to request baptism. He took it upon himself to bring up the matter to the members of the church of Joppa who had accompanied him to Caesarea. He put the matter to a vote by the members of the church at Joppa. He asked if there were any who opposed baptizing these Gentile Christians. In order to persuade them to be favorable toward the question, he pointed out that God had shown His approval by giving the gift of tongues to these Gentile Christians. The idea is that since God approved, the members of the church at Joppa should also approve of it. There was no opposition and so Simon Peter took that as a vote in favor of baptizing them and he instructed the baptismal service to get underway. VI. Making the application to our own lives In the beginning of this message I pointed out to you that in the study of God’s word we have two primary tasks. Our first task is to try to understand what the Scripture says and what it means. I have already tried to show you what it says and what it means. What we need to do now is to seek to apply what the Scripture teaches to our own lives. I want to point out to you three vital things that we can and should apply to our own lives. First of all, we need to devote our lives to carrying the gospel message to all the world. We need to preach the gospel to all people. This means that our primary objective as an individual and as a church should be to reach lost souls with the gospel of Jesus Christ. Every lost soul needs to be saved. We cannot reach them all, but we can try to reach them all and we can reach some. It should be our objective to carry the gospel to every lost soul that we have opportunity to reach. Secondly, we need to devote our lives to spreading the gospel throughout all nations of the world by supporting missions. Missions is the lifeblood of Christianity. It is the lifeblood of a local church. God is mighty patient in getting His churches to support missions, but in some churches His patience must be wearing mighty thin. Let us as a church continue to be faithful to support missions and trust God to supply the finances so that we can do it. Thirdly, we need to learn that even though baptism does not save anybody, yet baptism does play an important role in Christianity. God wants every lost person to be saved. Then God wants every saved person to follow Jesus in Scriptural baptism. The Apostle Peter considered it important for those new Gentile Christians to get baptized and that without delay. So he did what he could to encourage them to get baptized. I am convinced that in almost every community in our land there are some saved people who have never been Scripturally baptized. Let us pray that more of them will present themselves to God’s New Testament churches and receive Scriptural baptism. The Lord will be pleased.