Prayer for All? – Acts 10:1-23
Palm Sunday, 2005
This story about Peter has a couple of major parallels with Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. I want to highlight those and then make some application for us today.
1. Healings and Miracles
Both Peter and Jesus had just had some spectacular healing miracles that had caused great interest among the people. Both had raised someone from the dead. One of the main reasons for the Palm Sunday parade where so many people wanted to get a glimpse of Jesus was the miracle of the raising of Lazarus just a few weeks before. Bethany, where Lazarus lived, was only a few miles from Jerusalem.
And when Jesus entered into Jerusalem, one of the first things he did was to enter the Temple and cleanse it because it was to be a house of prayer for all people. Peter had his own dealings with the Lord about reaching out to all people, and not just his own kind.
Look back at Acts 9:32:
[Read Acts 9:32-35]
Peter said, “Jesus Christ heals you.” The credit is all to Jesus. If you have a gift of healing, or simply pray for the healing of someone and they are healed, is it you who healed them? No. It is Jesus Christ!
[Read Acts 9:36-43]
Peter had been with the Lord, and did what he’d seen the Lord do. Not a bad idea, to follow the Lord’s example! Peter cleared the room just like Jesus did that day in Capernaum. Once he had all of them out of the room, he could concentrate. He knelt down, and turned prayerfully to the Lord, seeking, asking the Lord to reveal His will concerning this situation.
When we find ourselves in a high-pressure situation, when people are looking to us for answers, we need to stop and call upon the Lord. Peter needed to be sure of what the Lord wanted done here. I don’t think anyone would have criticized Peter if had come out of that room and said the Lord had not healed her. Raising the dead is not your ordinary healing; it is a true miracle. But in prayer, Peter got the assurance he needed that the Lord was going to raise this woman.
Gone was the brash fisherman, replaced by this man of prayer and devotion. Prayer is an essential part of any ministry. Prayer is our power source, from which ministry flows. Peter knew whom he got his power from, and he called out to Jesus for the miracle that was about to take place.
Peter uses this miracle as an opportunity to share the gospel once again, as we have seen him do many other times in the book of Acts, and the people respond the same way here. They come to the saving knowledge of Jesus. People want the power of God working in their lives. People want to know that there is some higher authority that is looking out for them, leading them and guiding them.
Recently, many of us saw the DVD testimony of the Nigerian pastor was raised from the dead just a few years ago. This is perhaps the best-documented case I know of. God still performs miracles. One day we will see miracles performed right here.
C. Peter Wagner, in his commentary Acts of the Holy Spirit, lists several things that we learn from seeing the dead raised? I want to read these to you:
“Here we have the first, but not the last, case of a dead person being raised in the book of Acts. Another case will come when Paul ministers in Lystra (see Acts
14). In the biblical narrative, we now switch from Jesus, the Second Person of the Trinity, raising dead people, such as Jairus’s daughter and Lazarus and then being raised from the dead Himself, to a human being, Peter, also serving as God’s instrument to do it. What do we learn from this?
”*Raising the dead is a Christian ministry. It obviously is not part of the normal ministry of an average church, but it is something that pleases God to do through His people from time to time. As I have mentioned, it was part of the commission Jesus gave His disciples when He first sent them out on their own. Among other things, He told the 12 to "raise the dead" (Matt. 10:8).
“*Raising the dead represents only a partial victory over death. For one thing, all those who were raised from the dead, with the exception of Jesus Himself, eventually died again. Secondly, death remains a tragic human phenomenon. No one lives forever physically.
“*The ultimate cause of death is Satan. Satan made it happen first in the Garden of Eden, and since then, all human beings must pay the price for the imputed sin of Adam and Eve. "The wages of sin is death" (Rom. 6:23). We all must die unless we are fortunate enough to be on Earth during the rapture when "we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air" (1 Thess. 4:17).
“*Death is not God’s original intention for humans, nor is death a feature of the
full kingdom of God. Death will one day be cast into the lake of fire (see Rev. 20:14). Paul calls death the "last enemy" (1 Cor. 15:26). In the New Jerusalem, "God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death" (Rev. 21:4).
“*In light of this, raising the dead is a sign of the kingdom of God. When Jesus once listed the signs of the kingdom to reassure John the Baptist that He was the true Messiah, He included the fact that "the dead are raised" (Luke 7:22). This, among many other things, proves that the kingdom of God is among us, although not yet in its fullness. Every dead person raised is a direct insult to Satan. It is a
foretaste of the final victory over the "last enemy." Death may still be with us, but it is on the way out. Meanwhile, the effects of physical death are nullified by eternal life for those who believe in Jesus Christ.
“The underlying purpose of raising the dead, I repeat, is to display a sign of the power of God so that people will be saved: And it became known throughout all Joppa, and many believed on the Lord (Acts 9:42).”
John called healings and miracles, signs and wonders – all pointing to Jesus and eternal life in Him.
Peter then stays in Joppa for a while.
2. Paving the Way for the Gentile Church
When we read about the events in Acts 10, it may be hard visualize how earth shaking the events actually were, but the changes God brought to pass reverberated in the early church for the next 50 or 60 years.
If you had any question about how monumental this event was, you’d at least get a hint about how disturbing it must have been for the New Testament Christians by the way in which God introduced the idea to Peter.
One of the Twelve was needed to witness what God was about to do with the Gentiles. Paul was going to be the great missionary to the Gentiles, but Peter was needed to bring the testimony to the Jerusalem church.
It is hard for us to picture, even less sense, the huge divide between Jewish and Greek culture. The Jews were serious-minded, concerned to obey the law of Moses, and totally committed to eating only the kosher foods (as detailed in Leviticus 11). Romans were committed to the glory of the Roman Empire, and Greeks were easy going, loved lewd performances in their theaters, exercised naked in their gymnasiums and in the Olympics, and loved snails, slugs, eels, octopus, pork, and dozens of other delicacies that were totally forbidden to Jews. How could Peter ever be persuaded to let such people into the Messiah’s worldwide church?
Peter should have remembered a Roman Centurion in Capernaum who asked Jesus to heal his personal servant. Jesus said of him, "Truly I tell you, in no one in Israel have I found such faith. I tell you, many will come from east and west and will eat with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 8:5, 10-11). That was about to begin happening right then.
By the end of the chapter the principle was established that Gentiles could be formed into a congregation of the Holy Spirit without submitting to the Jewish rite of circumcision and other rules from the law of Moses. This was essential if Paul was to go out and plant churches all over the Mediterranean. And without this momentous change a world-wide Christian church among all nations would have been impossible. There would still be the problem of how Jewish Christians could have table fellowship in one church with Greeks who lived by such a totally different set of rules. But this would be settled in the Council of Jerusalem which Luke will describe in chapter 15.
3. Cornelius’ Vision
We are introduced in chapter 10, to a man named Cornelius:
[Read Acts 10:1-8]
Cornelius lived in Caesarea. Caesarea was a city was a city about 30 some miles up the coast, north from Joppa, where Peter was staying with Simon the tanner.
Caesarea was the major Roman city politically in ancient Israel. It was the capital of the Roman province of Judea, and it was where the majority of troops were stationed, and the governor of the land lived. Cornelius was stationed here. He was a member of the Roman army, a centurion. Centurions were men who commanded a unit of 100 other men. The two other times Centurions are mentioned in the scripture, they are spoken of in a favorable sense. This man would be no different.
Cornelius was a man of some authority. He was Italian, unlike many of the other Roman troops, and being such, he was considered one of the most loyal troops to the Empire. As we see here though, Cornelius was a devout man, he feared God. He tried to raise his family to fear God. He was a generous man who prayed to God.
This Army Captain from Italy seems to be one of the many "God-fearers" and "devout persons" who were interested in what was read and taught in the Jewish synagogues (as in 13:16, 26). Some of these became converts to Judaism. Others read the Old Testament in the Greek Septuagint version (LXX), attended the synagogues, and prayed at home but without being converted to Judaism by submitting to circumcision. Cornelius’ faith in God is suggested by the fact that he "prayed constantly" and gave of his income generously to those in need (10:2).
Jesus wanted to have Cornelius and Peter ready for the momentous change that would be demanded of them. Both were praying (10:2, 9). Roman soldiers liked clear-cut orders, and Cornelius received his orders from a messenger (angel) of God (10:30, "a man in dazzling clothes"). Jews paid attention to visions, and Peter was given a threefold vision and a word from their Messiah (10:10-16). And both of these men addressed the one who spoke to them as Lord (10:4, 14).
4. Peter’s Vision
Read with me Acts 10:9-23: [Read Acts 10:9-23]
In these dreams, God was telling Peter – He was going to do something new. And that “new thing” was waiting at the gate.
Now, Peter was a good Jew. He had been raised to obey the Law of Moses, and one very prominent part of that law dealt with what animals you could eat…and what animals you couldn’t. The Christians in the early church were still - very much - good Jews.
From their birth, good Jewish boys and girls were taught that the Gentiles (that’s everybody that wasn’t a Jew) were unclean. Jews referred to non-Jews as "Gentile dogs" (this was not an affectionate term – it was an insult). They wouldn’t sit down to eat with Gentiles. They wouldn’t spend the night in a Gentile home.
Jews would accept Gentiles ONLY on one condition: they had to convert to Judaism. And that meant that the men had to go under the knife and get circumcised.
It is easy to see what this attitude, if carried over into the church, would have done to the spread of the gospel. Large areas of the world would have written off as being beyond the grace of God. All of us as Gentile believers would be without Christ.
But you will recall that Peter has been drawn by the Holy Spirit’s guidance from one human need to another until he ended up in the city of Joppa at the house of Simon the tanner. God had begun to progressively lead Peter away from his man-made legalist attitude. While God was drawing Peter away from his prejudice, He was drawing another man toward Him and ultimately toward Peter.
The vision was of a sheet lowered from heaven in which are various kinds of animals, some clean and some of which are unclean. Have you ever wondered why if Peter was so horrified, at the thought of killing and eating an “unclean” animal that he did not just pick a “clean” animal from among those presented. Why then did this thought horrify him? Because, to Peter the mixing of the “clean” with the “unclean” animals would have rendered all the animals “unclean” in his mind. Therefore Peter refused to kill and eat any of them.
Peter’s response to God’s command to kill and eat was, “Not, so Lord; for I have never eaten anything that was common or unclean” (v. 14). Peter is proud of the fact that he had never done certain things and we today have our own similar form of legalism. We sometimes define ourselves by the things that we do not do. It is not wrong that there are things that we do not do. What is wrong is defining our spirituality based on the things that we refrain from doing. We joke and say, “I don’t drink, I don’t swear. I don’t smoke and I don’t chew and I don’t go with girls who do.” But the truth is that the world is not impressed by that. What non-Christians are looking for is Christian who are able to do, that is live life that is beyond the capabilities of the non-Christian. What impresses non-Christians is to find homes that are filled with loving acceptance of one another, a home that is characterized by warmth, joy and peace in the middle of a world where homes are falling apart on every side.
The Lord’s response to Peter in this vision is, “What God has cleansed you must not call common” (v. 15). It soon becomes obvious to Peter that these words had a far greater implication than simply what he was and was not allowed to eat. Peter was not to regard certain people as unclean and those to be avoided. God is revealing to him that all forgiven sinners are to be accepted including Gentiles.
“We note how perfectly God dovetailed his working Cornelius and in Peter. For while he was praying and seeing his vision, the men from Cornelius were approaching the city (9-16); while Peter was still perplexed about the meaning of what he had seen, they arrived at his house (17-18); while Peter was still thinking about the vision, the Spirit told him that the men were looking for him and that he must not hesitate to go with to go with them (19-20); and when Peter went down and introduced himself to them, they explained to him the purpose of their visit.” [John Stott. The Spirit, The Church and the World: The Message of Acts. (Downers Grove, ILL: InterVarsity Press, 1990) pp. 187-188.]
When Peter introduced himself to the three men, and they gave the purpose of their visit, Peter invited them into the house and gave them food and a bed for the night. It would not be normal practice among Jews to welcome a Gentile to their home, and by taking this step Peter was already sure that the Lord was moving him in this new direction (as he explained in 10:28). The next morning a delegation from the church in Joppa came with Peter to witness this historic occasion.
5. “A house of prayer for all nations”
In this, Peter was learning anew what his Lord had set out before on Palm Sunday.
We read in Matthew 21:12, that after Jesus had processed with his “parade” on Palm Sunday:
[Read Matthew 21:12-16]
And this outraged the leaders further, who soon began plotting his death!
Jesus was quoting from Isaiah 56:
Isa 56:6 And foreigners who bind themselves to the LORD
to serve him, to love the name of the LORD, and to worship him,
all who keep the Sabbath without desecrating it
and who hold fast to my covenant—
Isa 56:7 these I will bring to my holy mountain
and give them joy in my house of prayer.
Their burnt offerings and sacrifices
will be accepted on my altar;
for my house will be called
Isa 56:8 The Sovereign LORD declares—
he who gathers the exiles of Israel:
“I will gather still others to them
besides those already gathered.”
“A house of prayer for all nations.” This was the design of the Lord from the beginning. Those whose tables Jesus overturned in the Temple courtyard had started out providing a needed service – to exchange foreign currency and allow people to buy animals for sacrifice who had not been able to bring one themselves. But it had gotten way out of line. Not only were the rates of exchange exorbitant and charges too much, but they had set up there businesses in the court of the Gentiles, and were discouraging worship by the Gentiles. This infuriated the Lord.
God, both then and now, desires to give “joy in my house of prayer” to all those “who bind themselves to the LORD to serve him, to love the name of the LORD, and to worship him” whatever their background may be.
Therefore we, and every Christian church, are to be a house of prayer for all nations. We want to be a lighthouse here – warning people away from the things that will cause them to wreck their lives, and calling them into the safe harbor of Christ’s love and grace.
I believe God has a plan for us here in this place. I believe that in the next 6-9 months he will be bringing new people into our church who will need to be discipled and loved. We need to be ready for them.
We need to make prayer our priority. Getting in touch with the heart and mind of God; to know and hear His voice with clarity, and thus be able to know His specific will for us with assurance. Even more than we have now. We have our monthly praise and healing service tonight; we have a men’s prayer group on Tuesday’s; a women’s prayer and bible study group on Thursday s; the Carnright Bible study on Mondays. We always have prayer on the Wednesday night program. But we also need to be individuals who pray and know with certainty the heart and mind of God. We will be working on this after Easter.
I believe we will be getting a new youth worker soon. There will be an increasing number of kids in Sunday School. We will need a fully staffed nursery. And more.
And the people God will bring to us will not be people just like us … who are respectable and nice, and have it all together!!! (Laugh) No, they will be messy, full of needs, and needing one on one attention and care. They will need small group ministry. And we will need to train and be equipped for this. It can’t be done by just one person, or a few – it is the calling of the whole church. All of us together.
Now is the time to get ready. This is our calling. Prepare the way for the Lord. Be the house of prayer for all nations.
Reference: C. Peter Wagner, Acts of the Holy Spirit
