WWUTT 2616 Rise Up, Peter, Kill and Eat (Acts 16:9-13)

The Lord Jesus spoke to Peter in a vision, and said, rise up, kill, and eat. And Peter said, by no means, Lord, I've never eaten anything defiled. And Jesus said, what God has cleansed, no longer consider unclean, when we understand the text.

Many of the Bible stories and verses we think we know, we don't. When we understand the text, is committed to teaching sound doctrine and rebuking those who contradict it. Visit our website at www .wutt .com.

Here once again is Pastor Gabe.

Cornelius Sends for Peter

Thank you, Becky. In our study of the book of Acts, we come back to chapter 10, which we started last week, reading of a man named Cornelius, a centurion who lived in Caesarea, and a God-fearing man.

An angel of God appeared to him and said to seek out the apostle Peter. So he has sent some servants to the house where Peter is lodging, that Peter may come with them into the household of Cornelius and share the gospel with them.

Peter’s Vision of the Sheet and the Clean and Unclean Animals

So I'm picking up the narrative there in verse nine. Let's read through verse 23. Hear the word of the Lord. And on the next day, as they were on their way and approaching the city, Peter went up on the housetop about the sixth hour to pray, but he became hungry and was desiring to eat.

And while they were making preparations, he fell into a trance and saw heaven opened up and an object like a great sheet coming down, lowered by four corners to the ground. And there were in it all kinds of four-footed animals and crawling creatures of the earth and birds of the sky.

And a voice came to him, rise up, Peter, slaughter and eat. But Peter said, by no means, Lord, for I have never eaten anything defiled and unclean. Again, a voice came to him a second time, what God has cleansed, no longer considered defiled.

And this happened three times. And immediately the object was taken up into heaven. Now, while Peter was greatly perplexed in mind as to what the vision which he had seen might be, behold, the men who had been sent by Cornelius, having asked directions for Simon's house, appeared at the gate and calling out, they were asking whether Simon, who was also called Peter, was lodging there.

And while Peter was reflecting on the vision, the spirit said to him, behold, three men are looking for you, but rise up, go down and accompany them without taking issue at all, for I have sent them myself.

And Peter went down to the men and said, behold, I am the one you were looking for. What is the reason for which you have come? And they said, Cornelius, a centurion, a righteous and God-fearing man, well-spoken of by the entire nation of the Jews, was directed by a holy angel to summon you to his house and hear a message from you.

So he invited them in and gave them lodging. Last week, when we started in on this chapter, I had joked that this is the bacon chapter. This is the chapter of the Bible that we like to go to, pointing to and saying it is okay for us to eat whatever we may and not to consider any food unclean.

This is in contrast with what is said in the Torah, specifically the dietary laws, especially what we read in Leviticus chapter 11, where God says to Israel, certain animals you may eat and certain animals you may not.

Now, we talked about this previously when we were in the book of Mark. So as we were going through the gospels together, we're in the book of Acts following our study through Luke. But when we were in Mark, it was in chapter seven, where Jesus had declared all foods clean.

We have that parenthetical reference in Mark 7, 19. So I talked about this a little bit there. I said we would come back to it again when we made it to Acts chapter 10. This is talked about in other places like Romans chapter 14, in 1 Timothy chapter four, and I'll bring those up as well.

But why is it that we can use this chapter in Acts chapter 10 to conclude that all foods for us are clean and there are not animals that we need to consider by the law of God to be unclean? It's interesting that as I was preparing for this particular lesson, I had an exchange with a guy online who said that he used to be a Baptist, even used to listen to me and watch my videos, but he's had a change of mind.

And he said, it's good to encourage people to keep God's commandments. But his examples of that were that Saturday is the Sabbath. And so that's therefore the day that we need to worship on. And we need to be telling people that not eating pork is a good thing.

Well, I pointed out to him that 1 Timothy 4, one through five says that forbidding the eating of certain foods is actually the doctrine of demons. And the Bible explicitly says not to argue about days and food.

And I was telling this young man that he's been deceived by false teachers. Well, he went on to say, is the God of the Old Testament different from the New Testament? How can God create a doctrine of demons?

So did he get me with that one? Is God different in the Old Testament than he is in the New Testament? Well, of course not. As said in Hebrews 13, eight, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.

There's still distinctions though between the Old Testament and the New Testament, or more literally the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. And that comes up here even as we read in Acts chapter 10. Well, what about the other statement that he said?

How can God create a doctrine of demons? Would we then consider Leviticus 11, where the dietary laws are listed for Israel, would we call that the doctrine of demons? Of course not, we wouldn't do that either.

But there is a context in which those instructions are given. Do they apply to us today? And in what way would the instructions that are given in Leviticus 11 teach us as Christians today? Let's consider those things as we come to this text.

The Vision’s Meaning for Peter and the Gospel to the Gentiles

Now, what I wanna do first of all, I want to do an exposition of the vision that was given to Peter. It's good for us to read first what we're studying in Acts chapter 10 and understand that. And then as we see the application that's given to Peter, we wanna see the application of Peter first, because that's where the command is given, from God to Peter, what God has cleansed, no longer considered defiled.

What does that mean? How does it apply to Peter? And therefore, what does it mean for us? Now, somewhere in here, we may not get to this today, it may come tomorrow, but we also wanna go to Leviticus 11.

For as we're making a connection here between all these things, what this would have meant to Peter, and therefore how we need to consider it, what were those dietary laws in Leviticus 11, and how do we consider those laws now?

And I'm still gonna bring up, like what the Lord said in Mark chapter seven, what we read in first Timothy four, and some other places as well. So let's do our exposition first of Acts chapter 10, verse nine.

And on the next day, so this is the day after, an angel has appeared to Cornelius, and said to seek out Peter. Now, one of the things that this demonstrates for us too, where it says on the next day, so it's the next day that Peter gets this vision, and it's right as the men that Cornelius sent came to Peter to retrieve him.

So what we see here is that Cornelius' obedience.

Was immediate.

The Lord told him to seek out Peter, and it's not like Cornelius sat down and is like, okay, well, let me look at my schedule here. When is this convenient for me to have Peter come? When can I send out my men to go get him?

I better check with them, make sure it's not conflicting with any other orders that they might receive. It wasn't anything like that. Cornelius immediately obeyed God, and he tells his men to go find Peter, and they go right away.

So Cornelius, being a God-fearing man, desires to know this message that God is going to have preached from Peter, so that these men might bring Peter back into the household of Cornelius. They will hear of the Lord Jesus Christ, and come to faith and be saved.

As we've already read through the entire chapter, well, no, we haven't done that, actually. We've only read through verse 23, but as you might read through the entire chapter, then you know what the conclusion is.

You know exactly what happens with Peter preaching and the people believing and thus are baptized. And it is demonstrated among them, even before they are baptized, that the Holy Spirit has fallen upon them.

So we get to that later on as we continue in Acts 10. But Cornelius' obedience is immediate. That's what we see here, even in verse 9. On the next day, as they were on their way and approaching the city, Peter went up on the housetop about the sixth hour to pray.

Remember, that's about noon. But he became hungry. It's lunchtime. And this is all by the providence of God that while he is in this state of prayer, his body physically also becomes hungry, because in his hunger, the Lord is gonna teach him a lesson.

He became hungry and was desiring to eat. And while they, the people in the house where Peter is staying, while they were making preparations, he fell into a trance. Now, the charismatics will like to use this passage to talk about how we can have trances too, and we can have visions.

And again, as I've said about reading the book of Acts, narrative is not normative. So just because we see it in the narrative doesn't mean that's something that's going to happen to everybody. Peter is an apostle, and the Lord is using Peter, the apostle, to go and preach the gospel to the household of Cornelius.

Now, the Lord could have used anybody to preach this message. The Lord could have sent the angel to Cornelius, and the angel could have given Cornelius the gospel. But it is in God's plan for the way that the gospel is going throughout the world that it would begin with his apostles, that he has sent out to go and be witnesses of Christ to Jerusalem, to Judea, and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth, just like we had read in Acts chapter one.

And we've seen so far in the narrative how the gospel had gone throughout Jerusalem, and that's where the first church was, and it was huge. Thousands of people that were part of this church in Jerusalem.

Then when persecution came upon the Christians, how it went out from there into the rest of Judea, and especially into Samaria. And now what we get to here in Acts 10 is the gospel going even to the ends of the earth, with Peter coming to Gentiles, and being in the household of Gentiles, Gentiles where food would be served that Jews did not eat, but because they were still holding onto the dietary laws.

Peter saying later, hey, I've never eaten anything unclean, and you want me to go into the house of a Gentile? Remember the spirit says, accompany them without taking any issue at all. What God has cleansed, no longer consider defiled.

And so the dietary laws kept the Jews and the Gentiles distinct from one another. They did not visit each other in one another's homes, because they abided by different convictions. The Jews, again, still holding onto the Mosaic law, and what was said to Israel about what was acceptable food, what animals were acceptable to eat, and what animals were not, and therefore defiling.

And so Peter would have not gone into the house of a Gentile. You know, where he's going to Cornelius' home, he would be staying there. He would be in the house of a Gentile family that is welcoming him in and putting food before him.

And so the Lord is telling him in advance, what God has cleansed, don't consider defiled. We are seeing how God is bringing nations to himself through the gospel of Jesus Christ. We have a Jew, an apostle of Jesus Christ specifically, who's going to a Gentile, a Roman centurion, the Romans being that people that were over the Jewish people at this particular time.

And Peter is gonna go into their home and should not feel any hesitation at all with being in that household or even eating what is set before him. And so we continue on with this trance that Peter has, seeing heaven opened up, verse 11, and an object like a great sheet coming down, lowered by four corners to the ground.

Now, in some translations, I think it's the King James in particular, it will say a vessel was coming down, a vessel like a great sheet. So this is something that's holding something else. Now, the word vessel, it's actually kind of a crude word, just to refer to anything common in a household that might hold something else.

Now, a sheet, if a sheet is used like a vessel, you've seen this before, it'll be laid down and then the objects that would be contained in that sheet would be put in the center. And then that sheet would be folded up and the corners, the four corners would be tied together.

And then you might put that sort of makeshift bag on a pole or hang it on a cart or something like that so that it can be carried with ease. That's the image that's going on here, but this object is not tied together.

This is containing the animals, there's animals in it. In it were all kinds of four-footed animals, crawling creatures of the earth and birds of the sky. So it's coming down with all the animals in the center, like you would put objects in the middle of a sheet and tie them up together for easy carrying.

But this is coming down from heaven open, it's not tied together, still being lowered by four corners to the ground. So it's coming down from heaven to the earth. And again, Peter sees in it all different kinds of creatures, four-footed animals, crawling creatures of the earth, birds of the sky.

By the way, when we get to the dietary laws in Leviticus 11, you see them categorized that way. It's not just a random list of animals, they are categorized in these groups. You first have in Leviticus 11 verses three through eight, you have the beasts of the field.

So you have the four-footed animals and you have crawling creatures of the earth and you have the birds of the sky in verses 13 to 19. So just like they are grouped in Leviticus 11, that's what Peter sees being lowered on this sheet.

And a voice comes to him and says, rise up Peter, slaughter and eat. And we know that what Peter sees in this vision are not just clean animals that are on this sheet. How do we know that? Because of the way that Peter replies in verse 14.

But Peter said, by no means Lord, for I have never eaten anything defiled and unclean. So he can identify that there are animals in this grouping that have been said in the law, the people of God are not supposed to eat.

His nation Israel are not supposed to eat these particular animals. And yet a voice from heaven is telling him to rise up. He's hungry, he's ready to eat. And here's this vision that's given to him, being told and commanded, rise up, slaughter and eat.

I mean, it's the voice of God that's coming to Peter. And yet Peter has the audacity to say, I've never eaten anything defiled and unclean. How can I do this? And the Lord replies, again, a voice came to him a second time.

What God has cleansed, no longer consider defiled. And then verse 16 says, and this happened three times and immediately the object was taken up into heaven. Now, what is it that happened three times?

Well, it could be that the sheets come down three times and then the voice in this exchange three times and then the sheet being taken back up. So that whole process happens three times. The sheet comes down, the exchange between Peter and the Lord, the sheet goes up.

It could be that, or it could be that the sheet comes down and Peter and the Lord have that exchange three times and then the sheet goes back up because of what's said in verse 16, this happened three times and immediately the object was taken up into heaven.

Whichever way this would have transpired doesn't really matter that much, except that it occurs three occasions. So why three times? Why would it be that Peter has this exchange with God on three occasions?

Well, that's not unusual. We've seen things like that happen in scripture before. Remember when Pharaoh had a dream in Genesis chapter 41, where he had the vision of the scrawny cows that came up out of the Nile and ate the fat cows and there were the scrawny ears of grain and they ate up the plump ears of grain.

Remember those dreams that Pharaoh had? That happened three times. He saw that three times and then he woke up. And so it could be that same sort of a thing with Peter. Peter is gonna remember this vision and he's gonna know that this wasn't just hunger pains and hunger delusion that he was having.

And suddenly he saw this vision. No, this was the Lord giving him something that he testifies to three times. Remember that Jesus had said, and he's quoting from the law when he says this in Matthew chapter 18, that everything must be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses.

And so Peter has this vision three times. It's like three times this testimony that he knows it has come from the Lord and he is to obey it. Peter has had that tendency before to argue with Jesus, pretty bold of him to do that.

And even after Jesus's resurrection and ascension to heaven, he still kind of has that obstinacy, right? And says, no, Lord, I can't do this. You're telling me to do this, but I can't. I've never eaten anything defiled and unclean.

He thinks he's obeying the Lord, but Jesus is saying to him to rise up and eat. And what God has cleansed, what God has called holy, no longer consider defiled. That's exactly as it said also in Mark chapter seven, where Jesus says, do you not perceive that whatever goes into the man from outside cannot defile him because it goes not into his heart, but into his stomach and goes into the sewer.

Thus he declared all foods clean. In Mark 7 20, and he was saying that which proceeds out of the man, that is what defiles the man. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed the evil thoughts, sexual immoralities, thefts, murders, adulteries, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, and foolishness.

All these evil things proceed from within and defile the man. And Jesus is clearly far more concerned with what is coming out of a man than what it is that he is putting into himself. You know, I've noticed this.

You've probably caught this before too, but many of the cults, some of those distinctive measures of cults have to do with food and sex, don't they? There are certain things that cults will say, you cannot eat.

You can eat this, but you can't eat that. And certain things concerning sexuality as well. You can't have sex or you can't have sex, but only with this person. If you're familiar with the Branch Davidians from back in the nineties, David Koresh, who led that group in Waco, Texas, and he had forbid anybody in the Branch Davidian compound from having sex unless it was with him.

That's a common marker among the cults. There were also certain foods they could eat and certain foods they could not. The New Testament is very clear that certain foods that had previously been called unclean in the law have since been called clean because those distinctive measures that were given in the law were to keep Jew and Gentile separate.

But now since Jew and Gentile are being saved together by the gospel of Jesus Christ, those things that had kept them distinct are no longer necessary. There's still certain things that they do need to follow with in order to be holy.

And Peter even makes that statement in 1 Peter 1 .15, like the holy one who called you, be holy yourselves in all your conduct because it is written, you shall be holy for I am holy. And what is Peter quoting from there when he says that?

Believe it or not, it's Leviticus 11. It's where the dietary laws are. And we're gonna come back to this tomorrow and we're gonna look at those dietary laws. We're gonna understand, we're gonna read exactly what the Lord had said there concerning those foods, which were clean and which were unclean and why he said this and why this is so relevant to Peter here as he is being told by the Savior.

What God has cleansed, no longer considered defiled. And along with that, we'll consider also the meaning of what is said in verse 16. This happened three times, well, we've already considered that part and immediately the object was taken up into heaven.

Why taken up into heaven? What is the relevance of that as well? I think we can find application for us there also. Please come back as we continue our study of Acts 10. Heavenly Father, we thank you for what we have read today and I pray that we understand this call to holiness.

Those things that defile us though are not what we eat and go into our stomach and then expel, but what defiles us is what comes from within. It is those, it's those wicked sinful tendencies that we have.

So help us to put to death what is earthly in us as said in Colossians 3 .5 and live lives of holiness as we are called to in 1 Peter 1 .15. This was not just said to the people of Israel, but even the people of God now who are saved through Jesus Christ are called to live lives of holiness, demonstrating the righteousness that we have been clothed in if we believe in Christ our Savior.

So as said in Psalm 23, lead us in paths of righteousness for your name's sake. It's in Jesus' name we pray, amen.

Thank you for listening to When We Understand The Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. If you'd like to support this ministry, visit our website, www .wutt .com and click on the Give tab in the top right corner of the page.

Join us again tomorrow as we continue our Bible study When We Understand The Text.