Conversion to Jesus Christ (9)

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Gods preparation for the sinner (3)

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Well, let's open again to Acts chapter 10, please.
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In our study on conversion for the past two Sundays, we have addressed the work of God preparing the heirs of salvation with view to their conversion to Jesus Christ.
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Even before the new birth, before regeneration, God does a preparatory work to bring his elect, his people, to the point of their conversion when they hear the gospel and they respond in repentance and in faith.
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And so in the previous two Sundays, we've shown how God in preparing a person for salvation reveals to him or her the sinfulness of his sin, that coupled with a sense of helplessness.
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As our catechism question and answer set forth a little bit earlier, that we are incapable in and of ourselves to be able to remedy our condition.
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And so God prepares us, we have to come to see that. So in order for us to look to Jesus Christ and him alone.
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Well, today we want to consider the instrument through which God does his work of preparation unto salvation, even the gospel of Jesus Christ.
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This is the instrument he uses in bringing the person to conversion.
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And so as the gospel of Jesus Christ is proclaimed, God does his work within souls.
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And so it's our responsibility, our privilege to proclaim this gospel, this good news, confident that God will use it as we pray to him that he will, as we trust him that he will.
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And in accordance with his purposes in Christ, God uses the gospel as his instrument.
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This is normally the way he brings salvation. He uses a gospel proclaimed to law centers to bring salvation to them.
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And so if a person is going to be saved, God will see to it that the gospel gets to him one way or another.
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The gospel will get to her and now it's our responsibility. God will see to it that if a person is to be saved, if God is purpose to save him, he will see to it one way or another, that the gospel message will get to him because the gospel is the instrument that God uses to save his people.
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And we see that played out for us in the passage that we have already read, Acts chapter 10, in which
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Cornelius and his household were in need of salvation. Even though this man was a good man in many respects and he believed a certain number of things he needed to hear of Christ in order to be saved.
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And so God would see to it that the gospel got to him. Now this point in Acts, the book of Acts is an important turning point actually.
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Of course the book of Acts records the expansion of apostolic Christianity from its beginning place in Jerusalem, spreading throughout the environs of Judea and Samaria and then into the
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Gentile world, even the Roman world. And of course the book of Acts concludes with the gospel having reached
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Rome through the apostle Paul. The beginning of the book of Acts records this theme directly, this threefold division.
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In fact it's the last words that our Lord Jesus gave to his disciples before he ascended into heaven. He told them, with view to the day of Pentecost, that you should receive power when the
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Holy Spirit has come upon you and you should be witnesses to me. And here is the threefold division in Jerusalem, in all
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Judea and Samaria, that region, and then to the end of the earth, in other words to the world, the
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Roman world. And so this is really, this verse 8 is a preview to the contents of the book of Acts.
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Of course the book of Acts is the second volume of Luke's record of the
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Christian faith. Luke wrote the gospel first, probably on one scroll.
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The book of Acts was the second installment, volume two, of this early work of Christianity.
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In volume one, Luke's gospel, he showed the works of Jesus in his earthly ministry.
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And the book of Acts shows forth the continued works of Jesus as the risen and thrown
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Lord, taking forth his kingdom and spreading it forth into the world.
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Sometimes you'll look at an outline of the book of Acts and it will use this, verse 8, as a scheme to outline the book.
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I think there's a better outline actually, but you'll see this commonly. Acts 1 through 7, you have the gospel proclaimed in Jerusalem.
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And then in verses, or chapters 8 and 9 of the book of Acts, you have the gospel proclaimed in Judea and Samaria.
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And then beginning here with Acts chapter 10, that we read in its entirety, all the way through the end of the book of Acts, you have the gospel proclaimed to the
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Roman world, the Gentile world, the world of Paul's day. And so Acts 10 records the beginning of the expansion of the gospel to the
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Gentile world. And in order for this to take place, really a major adjustment, even a departure from former thinking and former ways, had to take place.
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Jewish apostles and Jewish thinking and practice of the day actually was a stumbling block, prohibitive of them going and taking the gospel to the
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Gentiles, and so something had to change. And so in our passage, not only do we find
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Cornelius being prepared by God for salvation, but we also see God's preparation of Peter, preparing
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Peter to take the gospel to Cornelius. And Peter, of course, was so limited and firm in his worldview at the time that it actually took a vision from God, a great vision, as well as a word from God, an audible word from God, and this vision, and it had to have been repeated three times in order for Peter finally to understand the message that was being conveyed to him.
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But that again suggests to us just how firm this mindset was in Peter's thinking that had to be changed before he would travel and take the gospel to Cornelius and his household.
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Now let's work through the major points of our passage, and we're not going to go verse by verse necessarily, but we want to first address how
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God had chosen the apostle Peter to be his initial spokesman to the Gentiles, because Acts, of course, first opens with Cornelius, and Peter's brought into it later, but we want to address
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Peter first. Peter of course had been a rather narrow -minded Jewish nationalist, as were most devout
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Jewish men of the day. Peter was raised in Palestine, Judea, and was therefore even more convinced of the privilege and position of the
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Jewish people over the Gentile world than, say, Jews who were raised outside of Palestine, Jews who were raised, say, in Rome.
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They were Jewish people, of course, in synagogues all over the Roman Empire, but the Jews who lived in Palestine really had a narrow view of the
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Jewish people, their privilege and position, and they were quite distinct, and they had quite low opinions of the
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Gentiles out there in the world. The Jews who were, say, raised in other parts of the
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Roman Empire had a tendency to adopt many of the Greco -Roman ideas and culture, commonly referred to as the
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Hellenistic culture of the first century, and so many Jews that were outside of Palestine were actually known as Hellenistic Jews.
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They were more broad -minded. They weren't as narrow -minded as, say, the Palestinian Jews.
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And so the Palestinian Jews and all the apostles of this group were more traditional and zealous for the traditions and practices of the rabbis, say, than were the
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Jews that were born and raised outside of Judea. Even the
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Jewish synagogues seemed to be divided over this issue. There were many synagogues in and around Jerusalem.
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Josephus, the Jewish historian who wrote on behalf of the Romans, said there were at least 480 synagogues in Jerusalem in the early first century, and we actually read of this somewhat in the book of Acts of Stephen.
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Stephen, full of faith and power, did great wonders and signs among the people. Then there arose some from what is called the
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Synagogue of the Freedmen, and then in parentheses we have Cyrenians, Alexandrians from Egypt, those from Cilicia, Asia.
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That would have been what's modern -day Turkey, Asia Minor, disputing with Stephen. These would have been Hellenistic Jews, but notice they were from the
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Synagogue of the Freedmen. They would have a tendency to gravitate there. Churches do that too, don't they?
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I remember years ago, my family went to visit our starting point of my, the side of my family
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I kind of identify with. I'm named after my great -grandfather, Lars Larsen, and we drove into the little farming community of Lake Park, Minnesota, about 300 population, and as we drove in, we drove by the
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Lutheran Cemetery, and being a good Swede, he was Lutheran, of course, helped start a church there, and I remember telling
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Mary, that's probably where my great -grandfather is buried, and we went out to my second cousin's house, he farms about a couple thousand acres out there, and I said to him, you know, gee, we,
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David, we probably, you know, we drove by the cemetery. I told my wife, that's probably where my great -grandfather was buried. No, no, no, that's the
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Finnish Lutheran Cemetery. He's buried in the
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Swedish Lutheran Cemetery, and later I went down to the church. It was, looked like it was built last year, but it was well over about the same age as this building, absolutely immaculate, beautiful.
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I remember beautiful portrait stained glass of Martin Luther in the window, and walking outside, there was the graveyard, and it was a strange thing, standing over a plaque,
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St. Lars Larsen, you know, I haven't seen that too often, but there was, but even churches tend to distinguish themselves, don't they, in matters of culture.
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I mentioned last week, I had the privilege of visiting a Romanian Baptist church in Sacramento several weeks ago, and there's nothing wrong with that, by the way, necessarily, you know, unless there's bigotry or racism involved, but people tend to gravitate with one another who have common interests and culture, and apparently these
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Jews did so in synagogues also, and so these freed men, there was a synagogue of the freed men,
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I suppose freed men from all these Jewish men from different countries seemed to gravitate to this synagogue, and they didn't like what
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Stephen was preaching, and so they disputed with him. This would have been a Jewish synagogue comprised primarily of Hellenistic Jews, although Stephen himself was a
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Hellenistic Jew, but he was saying things that they did not accept. This distinction between Palestinian Jews and Hellenistic Jews continued in the newly formed churches of the
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Jews that had embraced Jesus as the Messiah. Yeah, some things don't change. In fact, we read of the disagreement between churches.
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So these are Jewish people who became Christian, and we read in Acts 6 verse 1, now in those days when the number of the disciples was multiplying, there arose a complaint against the
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Hebrews by the Hellenists, there you have the division. The Hebrews would have been the Palestinian Jewish people who were now
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Christian, and the Hellenists, they would have been the Jews from the
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Roman Empire, they were more culturally broad -minded who had become Christians, and these people who, you know, were from outside of Palestine, Christians in their church, felt like their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution of food and goods, and of course we have the account here where the elders or the apostles told the church, basically, you pick out the seven men whom we may appoint over this business, and interestingly, you know, and it's commonly argued these were the first deacons, it doesn't say that, but I think it's legit to assume that.
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It's interesting that these men that were named who were full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, and the persons that are named there, these are all names,
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Greek names, or names that would have probably been those of the Hellenistic Jewish Christians.
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In other words, you know, again, these Hellenistic Jewish Christians thought their widows were being neglected, the apostles appointed seven men from their group to oversee the whole matter.
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It just showed how they went overboard to try and be just in this whole matter, and clear of any blame.
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Now Peter was a Palestinian Jew, and so he was one of these more narrow -minded, fixed in his thought about matters.
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Again, the Hellenists would have perhaps been more readily willing to accept non -Jews into the faith.
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In fact, it wasn't the apostles who first went into Samaria and preached the gospel, but it was a
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Hellenistic Jewish Christian, Stephen Philip, who went and preached the gospel in Samaria, and they were the ones who seemed to take the gospel out, and God blessed them.
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But Peter was a Palestinian Jew. Now even though he was from Galilee, that region had a great deal of Gentile influence due to trade routes through that region.
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In fact, Galilee was known as Galilee of the Gentiles. Peter and the other apostles, nevertheless, were quite narrow in their worldview.
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They thought the Jews were privileged, blessed people of the Lord, and that the Gentiles were excluded from the blessing of God.
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And of course, they were right in a measure, while under the Mosaic covenant. But of course, the cross of Christ changed all that.
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The old covenant was set aside. God had declared Jews as guilty in sin, just as Gentiles, therefore
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God could have mercy upon all. Everything was changing at this point, but it took some time with some difficulty for these
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Jewish apostles, Christians, to come to this realization. All had changed.
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And so now the purpose of God was that the kingdom of God, ruled over by the crucified but risen and thrown son of David, Jesus Christ, the kingdom of God would expand into all the world and also incorporate
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Gentile believers into the kingdom, who would have equal standing with Jewish believers, were all one in Christ.
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And the account that we have in Acts 10 is the working out of the purpose of God to bring
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Gentiles into the churches. However, as we said earlier, even though God had been preparing
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Cornelius for the gospel, God had also been preparing Peter to take the gospel to Cornelius.
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And so even though Peter was of this very narrow persuasion, it's apparent that God had been at work at Peter, that he would assume this role as the one through whom the
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Gentiles hear the word of the gospel and believe, as he himself would later declare in Acts 15 verse 7.
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We read in verse 6 of Acts 10 that Peter was lodging with one Simon, a tanner, whose house is by the sea.
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That itself is quite significant. A tanner was one who dealt with dead animals and their carcasses.
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No devout Jewish man would have lodged there, and yet Peter's lodging there. Things were already changing in Peter's thinking.
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This would have resulted in him becoming ceremonially unclean. Certainly Peter would not have lodged there in earlier years, but here he was staying in a house of a tanner, and the
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Lord would send for Peter there to travel to the house of Cornelius and there proclaim the gospel of Jesus so that Cornelius and his household will be saved from their sin.
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Later, when Peter recounted to the other apostles the events that transpired at the house of Cornelius, he related more detail than what we have here in Acts chapter 10.
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And when Peter was defending himself for going to the Gentiles and going into a Gentile's house, he made direct reference to the proclamation of the gospel and how it was necessary in order to bring salvation to Cornelius.
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And so in Acts 11, 13, we read, and he told us how he had seen an angel,
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Peter referring to Cornelius, he told us how he had seen an angel standing in his house who said to him, send men to Joppa, call for Simon, whose surname is
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Peter, who will tell you words by which you and all your household will be saved.
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Now that's not in Acts 10, that's in Peter's recounting it to the apostles in Acts 11.
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But here, if you're looking at your notes, that bold and italic font specifically states that Cornelius and his household were not converted, were not saved, even though Cornelius in some ways was a man who feared
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God, a man who gave generously to needy people, and a man who prayed all the time.
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And you can have a person who is characteristic of those things and still not have salvation, can't you?
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He needed to be saved, he needed to hear the gospel. And yet before Peter would be willing to travel with Gentiles and enter a
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Gentile house, God would need to teach Peter a great lesson. And so Peter had this vision while on his housetop, they were flat in those days, people would spend a lot of time up there, in his daily prayer routine.
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And this is though God prepared a great picnic feast for Peter, let's have a picnic, Peter. And so this sheep, or something like a sheep, comes down from heaven, and on this sheep, unclean foods that were never permitted to Jewish people to eat under the
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Mosaic law. And the voice, the command came to Peter, rise, Peter, kill and eat.
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And we won't go into detail about the, you know, killing and eating right on the spot that would be processing that meat in a way that wouldn't be approved either by Jewish custom.
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And so it was something that was repugnant to Peter, what, I'm not going to do this.
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I mean, even with a vision and a command, in the eyes of God, I'm not going to do this,
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Lord, I've never done this. Why, even to look upon these things as food was objectionable to him, by no means,
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Lord, I've never eaten anything that is common or unclean. And of course, the
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Old Testament laws stipulated Jews could only eat clean food, not unclean, and yet here they were, all of these unclean foods that were forbidden to Jewish people.
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And yet the voice spoke again, what God has made clean, do not call common. Literally, do not defile or do not reckon to be unclean that which
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God has regarded to be clean. And the vision occurred three times for this belief of distinguishing between clean and unclean food was so ingrained in the apostles' thinking and practice, it took three times to get the point across, to say, you know, this shows you just how rigid his thinking and practice was.
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But even after this, Peter was perplexed. He thought to himself, you know, what in the world does this mean?
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He didn't know yet. But thankfully, the Holy Spirit spoke to him. And so here we have the person of the
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Holy Spirit set forth, right? He's the third person of the Trinity. The Spirit spoke, behold, three men are looking for you, rise, go down and accompany them without hesitation, for I have sent them.
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The Holy Spirit's in charge here, directing things. And so Peter was now prepared to depart and to enter a
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Gentile's home to tell the good news of salvation through Jesus Christ. It took a lot.
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Sometimes it takes a lot to get you or me to take the gospel to someone, doesn't it? It shouldn't, but it does.
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It took a lot for Peter. Let's consider Cornelius, this Gentile God -fearer.
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He's introduced for us in the opening paragraph. He was a Gentile, a Roman soldier, even a centurion, which was a
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Roman officer who was over a band of soldiers, perhaps a hundred strong. We read he was a devout man who feared
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God with all his household. And that's the true God of Israel. He was a godly man, or it would appear.
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He would have his household, including his own family of servants, to be a godly household. He was not a
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Gentile who had become a full Jewish proselyte, but he was what was technically referred to as a
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God -fearer. The centurion in Capernaum was a God -fearer. He had approached, you know, the
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Jewish Pharisees, go ask Jesus to come heal my servant. And of course, the
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Pharisees, the Jewish Pharisees, they didn't want to do that, to be obligated to Jesus, but they went because they had great respect for him.
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And they said to Jesus, you need to come and heal his servant, for he is worthy that you would come to him and heal his servant.
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And of course, then the centurion sent word to Jesus, don't come to my house.
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I'm not worthy to have you in my house. Just say the word, my servant will be healed.
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And Jesus said, I haven't seen such faith in all of Israel. And here is a Gentile man foreshadowing the inclusion of Gentiles into the faith.
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And here we have another Gentile Roman centurion at the outset of this great gospel expansion.
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But he was not a proselyte. And he was a man, as we've already seen, who was not yet saved, but one whom the
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Lord purposed to save from his sins. He was a man whom God had prepared for salvation.
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He was mindful and believed who the true God was. He knew who the true people of God were, but before he would be saved from his sin, in order for that to occur,
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God would bring the gospel to him through the mouth of his apostle Peter. And you can underscore that last line, because that is the normal way in which
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God saves sinners. He wants a person to go to another person with the gospel.
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The angel, you know, informed Cornelius, go send for Peter.
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And then of course, you know, the voice told Peter, you go with those men, you speak to Cornelius.
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You know, the spirit could have just as easily spoken directly to Cornelius, right? Just as easily.
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The spirit of God could have given Cornelius the gospel, but that's not the way God works. God wants one of his people to tell other people the gospel, and God uses that to bring people into the faith.
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There's reasons for that. We won't go into it at this time, but there are purposes in this, but this is the normal way in which people come to salvation.
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And so God would have one of his people bring the message of the gospel to a lost person or people, and God then brings salvation to those people by his grace operating through, using the gospel.
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Salvation, of course, is by God's grace, it's God's doing. But his grace, of course, is applied through faith, and that faith has to be placed in the gospel, the good news of salvation through Jesus Christ.
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And so the gospel must be proclaimed before the unsaved if they are to come to salvation, for they must hear the gospel, they must believe the gospel in order to be saved.
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This is simple. This is ABC, but it needs to be recounted. And so we need to proclaim the gospel fully and faithfully in a way and in a manner so that God will choose to bless it.
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That's very important, and it's not a widely held understanding, because most people today, most churches in evangelicalism believe that you are to present a message that is to be appealing to the lost person and shaped in such a fashion that the lost person will be responsive to it.
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And what happens, naturally, is you end up dumbing down the message and emptying it of content in order for people to be responsive to it, because they're
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Arminian. They think people are saved by their own free will rather than saved by God's will.
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We know where people are saved by God's will, and that he uses this message of the gospel, and so it's our responsibility to make sure we proclaim the message that God would have us accurately and fully proclaim, knowing if we do,
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God, in his own purpose, his time, will use that gospel. And so to dumb down the gospel is very injurious to the kingdom of God, and yet that is very commonly the case in today's evangelical world.
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We of course have this set forth in Romans 10 very clearly. The scripture says, whoever believes on him will not be put to shame, for there's no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same
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Lord over all is rich to all who call upon him. For whoever calls on the name of the
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Lord shall be saved, and I take that to be saved on the day of judgment, ultimately and finally.
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How then shall they call on him, in him whom they have not believed? Well, they can't.
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And how shall they believe in him whom they have never heard? Well, they're not going to. And how shall they hear without a preacher?
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And how shall they preach unless they're sent? And that's not just the calling of a pastor, but it's more, sometimes
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God will call any one of a number of Christians, a brother, a sister in Christ.
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So burdens your heart for the soul of that neighbor, that you just can't be at peace until you go and tell that person about Jesus Christ.
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You're being sent by God, just as real and vividly as God sent Peter to Cordelius.
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How can they, you know, they cannot be a Christian, become a Christian until they hear the gospel, and they're not going to hear the gospel unless they hear it from someone.
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And since you know the gospel, hopefully, you're the one. And if God has burdened you for the souls of someone, one's near you, it's your responsibility.
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And go forth with confidence in God, who's able to use this gospel to save the hardest of sinners.
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Isn't that right? We don't go out, we can't, we're not going out looking for people that are seeking, whatever that is.
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There's none that seeketh after God, are there? We're going out and we're preaching to sinners. And we know that God will raise to life, bring to spiritual life people.
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And sometimes it's amazing who it is that responds. You go to someone who you think is a bright prospect, not, they don't respond whatsoever.
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And you start talking to someone who's a no account, no good, and they get converted.
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God is sovereign in this. And so it's our responsibility and our privilege to disseminate the gospel.
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As a farmer, so see. Boy, it came out while I was in California, sprayed our front yard, it was, it was dead.
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Where's your yard on the block? And then he came up and, you know, he thatched it with glen and they sowed seed, it's coming up.
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He sowed a lot of seed, there's a lot of seed coming up. You know, in the past I've tried to patch it here and there, so some seed out there didn't work too well.
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Well, now it's coming up. And we as a church and we as individuals should try and do what we can to disseminate, to spread as much seed of the gospel as we possibly can.
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And that's a, you know, that's a principle that governs our ministry, doesn't it? And so whatever opportunity, and so we're, you know, we're on three radio stations, probably half a dozen local
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TV access stations. We're on the sermon audio now, which is incredible, you know, seven, 800 downloads a month.
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Whoever imagined YouTube now that they just started a couple of weeks ago and then tracks the internet.
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You know, you do whatever you can using whatever means available to get that gospel out to as many people as many times as we possibly can for the one who sows much is going to reap much.
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Isn't that right? If God is pleased to bless it. And we all ought to be doing it. I would say through track ministry ultimately, that when my friends and I went out and got drunk at night, we only had one station that we could hear in Northern California, the secular station.
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And for some reason they had J. Verna McGee on at seven o 'clock at night. And I vividly hear him declare, you must be bored again as we're out tipping them.
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But what are you going to do? And then the tracks that people would give and I'd find, you know, there was one fellow who owned racines, a hobby store, and for some reason he had a gospel track rack in there and they were disseminated throughout the, our little community.
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And those are what the Lord used to bring me to Christ. It's the word of God and it's like seed, it'll bring forth fruit and we ought to believe it and pray to that end, not just assume it.
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You know, some, some take that verse out of the prophets where God promises that the word that goes forth from his mouth will accomplish the end to whatever he sends it.
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And they assume, Hey, you can just go out and, you know, throw tracks out in the gutter and every one or one of those, because it has a word of God is going to bring forth fruit.
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That's not what the passage says. It's the passage declaring that the word that God purposely sends forth, in other words, what he intends to bless, that is going to accomplish its purpose.
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It will not return void, but rather accomplish the end, the design for which it was sent.
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And it's our responsibility and privilege to spread the gospel wide and far, but at the same time, be earnestly in prayer that God would bless that gospel to the conversion of sinners.
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Otherwise it'll fall upon deaf ears and before blind eyes. Is that not right?
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And so let us all be very prayerful and we're beginning to see some fruit in all of this too.
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We've been sowing a lot of seed for a long time and we're beginning to see some wonderful fruit in these days and thank the
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Lord for that. Well, we need to get back into this in the time that we have.
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The scriptures of course say that God's instrument of salvation is the gospel. The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God, the message of the cross.
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And of course, Paul declared in first Corinthians one, verse 21, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe.
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This is the appointed means that God uses. People will not be saved without the gospel.
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The gospel humbles the pride of men, men and women, and they don't like to be humbled.
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They're proud in nature. I set forth Christ yesterday and it was not a welcome place.
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Believe me, within this funeral setting, I don't know if there was a Christian there. You certainly wouldn't know it by their, you know, as standing at the door and they were leaving, but make
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Christ known. You never know the kind of fruit that might come from that. And you know, a pastor, a preacher, he can, he can scatter a crowd.
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I can come into the midst of a crowd, you know, and then they all go their separate ways. And when you're in a funeral situation like that and you're representing
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Christ, you know, someone might come by and they might whisper, thank you, you know, but they want to make sure they're not seen or heard by anybody when they do it.
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It's a lonely position and place, but it's the privilege we have, isn't it?
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And the responsibility we have and we should do so. I know how fearful it is to take the gospel to others and especially those that are closest to us, but it's our responsibility.
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May the Lord enable us to do so. And so God's purpose and God's will is to bless the human proclamation of the gospel in order to affect the salvation of people.
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Paul made this statement affirming this reality. I'm debtor both to the Greeks and to the barbarians, both to the wise and the unwise.
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And so as much as in me, I'm ready to preach the gospel to you who are in Rome also. For I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ.
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How many of us are ashamed of the gospel? We don't own it. We don't share it.
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We don't proclaim it. Paul said, I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. Why?
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It is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes for the Jew first and also for the great.
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For in it, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith. And so let us not be ashamed of the gospel.
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Of course, the gospel itself means good news. It is the good news of salvation through Jesus Christ.
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But what is the nature of the gospel? And again, there's nothing new here that I haven't, we haven't dealt with before, but I'm thinking in view of perhaps the conference next month that I might have to address, that there are some defective views of the gospel that are so prominent that are among evangelicals.
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For example, there are some who've reduced the meaning of the gospel to the good news of forgiveness of sins through Jesus Christ.
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Well, you look at that, well, gee, that looks pretty good to me. Isn't the gospel the good news of forgiveness of sins through Jesus Christ?
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Well, yes, it certainly is, but that's not all it is. And that's what's so very important. Well intentioned
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Bible believers with the best of intention believe the gospel is the good news of justification by God's grace through faith alone.
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In Christ alone, that's the gospel they declared. I had a reformed pastor say, this was about 10 years ago,
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I heard him say at a NERF meeting, after all, the gospel is justification by grace through faith alone.
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And most gospel tracts, that is the gospel that's being presented. It's been reduced to justification by grace through faith alone.
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Justification, of course, says nothing about changing a sinner into a saint.
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It only has to do with his standing before God. He was guilty, now he's pardoned.
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But justification says nothing about repentance. It says nothing about changing you into a
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Christian or a disciple. Justification is all outside of us. It has to do with God's declaration.
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You were guilty, now you're righteous. And the gospel involves more than just a declaration that you are now forgiven.
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But oftentimes it's reduced to that. And I would argue that's a truncated gospel.
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That's not the gospel that the New Testament proclaims. The gospel proclaims salvation from sin in all of its effects, not just salvation from the penalty of sin.
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We've stressed this in the past. I hope you take it to heart. This is so very important. Salvation, biblical salvation, involves more than deliverance from the penalty of sin.
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That's justification. But salvation and the gospel involves also deliverance from the alienation of sin.
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In other words, reconciliation, adoption. And then salvation also, and the gospel of salvation, involves also ongoing deliverance from the power of sin.
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Sanctification is a part of the gospel. Salvation from sin in all of its effects, all of its forms.
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I spoke to a Reformed pastor, several of the fellows here were with me, and I mentioned this one day at lunch, well, you know, sanctification is part of salvation, part of the gospel.
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And he looked at me clueless because he had it in his mind that no, salvation is justification, forgiveness of sins only.
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As important that is. Justification is essential to the gospel. You don't have the gospel if you don't have justification right.
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But justification is not all of the gospel. It's central to the gospel. It's foundational to the gospel.
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But salvation is salvation from sin. Not just the guilt and punishment of sin, but salvation from the power of sin.
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And ultimately, salvation from the presence of sin in our glorification. Salvation is from sin, and the good news of Jesus Christ, the gospel, is salvation from sin.
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People want to be forgiven of their sins, anybody and everybody out there. You want to be forgiven of your sins?
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Oh yes, pray this prayer. Happy to do so. I want my sins forgiven. But go out and offer them that you can be cleansed from your sin.
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Well, I don't know that I want to be cleansed from my sin. I kind of like my sin. Oh yeah, I want to be forgiven of it.
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I don't want to suffer any penalty or punishment for it in hell, but you know, but no, I don't want to be delivered from it.
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See, they don't want that kind of salvation. But oftentimes the gospel is presented as only the forgiveness of sins.
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And I would argue the problem we have in America and all of the world now with nominal Christianity.
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Everybody thinks they're a Christian, and they can recite justifications. We're saved by grace through faith alone in Jesus Christ alone.
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I'm forgiven of my sins. I'm under the blood, and yet they live like the devil. They're not
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Christians. They've been deceived. And who have been? They've been deceived by well -intentioned, perhaps, evangelicals who have been giving them a truncated gospel.
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Salvation is from sin. Salvation is not forgiveness of sins while living in sin.
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And yet that is, it's a terrible error that affects and infects our whole evangelical world.
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People out there are convinced they have salvation. You can't convince them otherwise. You know, when
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Martin Luther rediscovered that important biblical truth, justification by grace through faith alone, and of course because of the printing press coming into being 50 years before, the teaching of justification was disseminated throughout
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Roman Catholic Europe. And everybody read it. Everybody embraced it.
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And so you had all of those Protestant countries that rejected Rome's teaching that salvation was basically through, you know, grace acquired through the sacraments that Rome bestowed.
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They came to believe the biblical teaching of justification by grace through faith alone. The problem is, is that they were formerly nominal
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Roman Catholic. Now they became nominal Lutherans or nominal Protestants. And for a hundred years, apparently the reformers had a terrible time with their
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Protestant churches with a lawlessness and antinomianism on the part of all these people.
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They all believed in justification. They all thought they were justified through faith alone. People can understand the
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Bible teaching of justification by grace through faith alone. They can believe it. They can believe they themselves are the objects of it and not be.
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And so what happened of course is the Puritans came along in the 17th century and they corrected this problem.
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And what they emphasized, began to emphasize in Europe, was that the sanctification of the believer, in other words, the new life in Christ that is seen through the work of the
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Holy Spirit, transforming a person into Christ is the only true indicator that a person is justified freely by grace through faith alone.
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In other words, you're not justified simply because you prayed a sinner's prayer or you've come to a right understanding and belief in certain truths, but rather, you know that you have a part of that, a share in the truth of the grace of justification because your life has been transformed by new life in Christ.
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And that needs to be recovered today because our churches, our evangelical churches are filled with lost people,
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I fear. So the Lord, the Lord help us. Well, I don't have time to go through that, but you do.
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We talked about these things before, but you might read about that passage about defective views of the gospel.
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And I also think there needs to be recovery of the emphasis of the gospel of the kingdom of God. I might just rehearse this again.
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I'm thinking about this maybe for a theme for next month. You open up the New Testament and there is repeated emphasis of the impending kingdom of God.
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Kingdom of heaven is at hand, kingdom of God is at hand. In fact, the gospel is called frequently the gospel of the kingdom.
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And Jesus Christ, the king, he's coming upon the scene. He is the promised son of David. And therefore you need to respond in repentance and faith and embrace this king.
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And of course, the Jewish people by and large, except for a remnant, rejected him as king.
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But in spite of their rejection, when they crucified him, the Bible tells us his crucifixion actually led to and resulted in his enthronement in heaven.
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You rejected him, but God raised him from the dead and gave him a name above every name so that at the name of Jesus, every knee might bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is
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Lord to the glory of the father. And so the resurrection of Christ is the very day of enthronement of the son of David upon the promised throne that you find throughout the
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Old Testament. And so the kingdom of God was inaugurated. The kingdom of God ascended over all the kingdoms of the earth, the
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Roman empire, all the kingdoms of the earth. Jesus is now Lord of lords and king of kings and in control of history, isn't he?
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People respond. They look out at the world. You say, Jesus is in control of this. He's not doing a very good job.
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Somebody told me a pastor told him that not too long ago, if Jesus is king, if he's in control now because they think he's not going to be in control until the future thousand year millennium.
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If Jesus is controlled now, he's not doing a very good job. We would argue, of course, biblically, he's doing a perfect job in history.
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He's executing justice. Our nation is getting what it deserves right now. And he also is bringing salvation to his people in and through the gospel.
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Jesus is Lord and he is accomplishing the purposes of the father in history. And one day, of course, he's going to return and then every eye will see it.
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Every tongue confess that you and I ought to see it now and confess it now.
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Jesus is Lord. Is that not right? He's king. And that's the good news of the kingdom.
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But an emphasis on justification is void of that message, which is central to the
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New Testament message. In Acts chapter 28, when
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Paul writes the last verses of Acts 28, when Paul is in Rome in his own house, as it were, you know, incarcerated, waiting trial before Caesar, it said he was free to discuss out of the scriptures daily the things concerning the kingdom of God.
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He proclaimed the kingdom throughout his ministry. And I would argue because of our dispensational heritage that is taught that the kingdom was postponed because the
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Jews rejected their king and the kingdom will not begin until the second coming of Christ, that this has resulted in a truncating of our gospel.
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And we're not representing the gospel as it's set forth in the New Testament, rightly and truly.
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The gospel includes Jesus Christ is Lord. He is the exalted risen king.
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In spite of being rejected and crucified, Psalm 2, why do the heathen rage?
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The people imagine a vain thing that they can cast off the bonds over which God has them.
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You reject his son, yet God says, yet I've set my king on my holy hill of Zion. You better kiss the son, okay, unless you perish from the way, but blessed are all those who trust him.
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And that's what we do. And yet that frequently is not included in our gospel presentation.
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And I believe that we are poorer for it. We need to present a gospel that is biblical, one that we know that the blessed
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Holy Spirit will bless in this fallen world because it is not that commonly heard and proclaimed in Lord help us.
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I really got off on this in different ways, but I hope that you'll read through our notes.
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The whole, the bottom line is a God purpose to save Cornelius and his household.
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And he would do so through the instrument of Peter and God has a people out there. He is a people.
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The father is given to the Lord Jesus Christ in eternity, and he has purpose to save them.
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And we are privileged to be used of God in this process. And we therefore have this wonderful gospel and let us therefore pray for God's blessing upon it.
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Let us be aggressive and taking it forth and let us rejoice when we see the fruit of it.
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Amen. And I want to close with just these few thoughts. We'll pray first.
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Let us have the same concern that Cornelius had for family and friends. Cornelius, you know, was told you go get
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Peter. Peter's going to come tell you how to be safe. So what does Cornelius do? He calls all his family and all his friends.
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Peter comes into his house and he sees a whole crowd gathered. May we have the kind of concern that Cornelius had for his family and for his friends.
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And let us attempt to be a God -fearer in all of our ways so that our family and friends may possibly desire and be willing to hear the gospel that has so impacted our lives.
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I wish I could recount an event that happened yesterday, but I shouldn't do it probably. Other than to say that, you know, someone had so alienated himself from the family, he was not permitted to speak.
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You know, may that not be the case with us, but that people would want to welcome the gospel from us because they've seen that it has so impacted us for the good.
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Amen. And third, let us purpose again to scatter the gospel as a farmer scatters his seed while waiting and watching for a harvest of souls.
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The more gospel seed we sow into hearts, the greater harvest we will see one day.
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Psalm 126 verse 6, he who continually goes forth weeping, bearing seed for sowing, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.
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Speaking of an abundant harvest. And then fourthly, let us be in prayer that the Lord would give us opportunity to make the gospel known to others.
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And then let us pray for wisdom and for courage to speak with others, making known to them the blessed gospel that we've come to embrace, the greatest news a person in this fallen world could hear and receive.
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Let's pray. Father, help us, we pray, to take these matters to heart and understand them more clearly and more fully.
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Give us courage, Lord. And we know that courage will be born first out of concern for the lost condition of people about us and their destiny, eternal hell, unless they come to Christ as Lord and Savior.
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And so help us, our Lord, to be faithful ambassadors of Christ, proclaiming this wonderful message to our world in which you've placed us, for we pray in Jesus' name, amen.