Once again we take up the thread this
morning, looking at the transformation of Simon into
Peter, and our particular theme is the Holy
Spirit and a man's prejudice.
The Holy Spirit and a man's prejudice.
The Apostle Paul insisted in writing to the
Corinthians that if any man be in Christ
Jesus, there is a new creature.
A new creature.
And the whole of the biblical revelation assures
us that there are simply no exceptions to
that rule.
As sure as a man is rightly related
to God in Jesus Christ, that very moment
he is born a second time, and he
or she becomes a new creation.
Old things are passed away, and behold, everything
begins to be new.
Now, we have been looking at the life
of the rugged fisherman Simon Peter, and it
has been thrilling, at least I have found
it so, to be examining the records again,
and seeing what a great change God has
wrought in the life of this man.
I find myself constantly having to stop in
my studies and say, praise be to God.
Here is one of the roughest and most
rugged of human diamonds, so transformed that he
is glistening with grace and with glory.
The man is transformed out of all recognition
from the man that he was when we
first encountered him in the gospel records.
Such is the grace of God.
He makes men new.
Even so, there are still many hangovers from
the old pre-Christian life.
Still there, in the life of this man
Simon Peter, as there will be in all
our lives.
In Acts chapters 10 and 11, chapter 10
as a whole and the beginning of chapter
11, what we have is the record of
how God steps into the life of Simon
Peter in order to deal particularly with one
of these hangovers from the old life.
And that is the hangover of prejudice.
Now, prejudice is an ugly word.
Well, it has to be because it represents
an ugly phenomenon.
Prejudice only appears attractive when we glamorize it
in ourselves or excuse it.
In ourselves.
But whenever we come to look at this
wretched thing in sheer objectivity, it is one
of the ugliest things in God's world.
I would go further.
It is one of the ugliest things in
Satan's territory.
Even the devil cannot produce anything that is
much uglier than prejudice.
The dictionary defines it as a judgment or
opinion formed beforehand or without thoughtful examination of
the pertinent facts, issues or arguments, especially an
unfavorable, irrational opinion.
You see, it is a pre-judgment.
This is what prejudice is.
It is a pre-judgment.
The issue has been decided before we consider
the matters concerned.
And because the issue has been decided before
we've given due consideration to the matters involved,
it is based on a bias.
And a result based on a bias is
essentially ugly because it is a lie.
Even so, there are times when prejudice can
appear in a fairly innocuous garb.
It doesn't appear to be quite as hurtful
as it does at other times.
For example, there are times when it arises
from over-familiarity with someone or with something.
A prophet is not without honor except in
his own country.
Why does he not receive honor in his
own country?
Well, because everybody knows him, just as they
knew Jesus.
Do you remember what they said?
He's the son of Joseph.
Don't we know his brothers and his sisters?
Are they not all with us?
We know these people.
There can be nothing exceptional about him.
We know his pedigree, we know his family,
we know all the details about his upbringing.
Prejudice.
Now, there was no necessary barb there.
But it was prejudice, perhaps of the more
innocuous kind, but prejudice.
At other times, it is the product of
a social or of another kind of pride.
Let's take another New Testament illustration.
Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?
Nazareth?
Nazareth has never produced a prophet.
Nazareth will certainly not produce the Messiah.
It's impossible.
But the judgment, the assessment of the issue
was entirely prejudicial.
It was without due consideration to the Scriptures
of God and ultimately to the facts of
the case.
It was prejudice.
The thing was prejudged.
It was judged on the basis of a
bias.
But yet again, prejudice can be the dagger
point that expresses hatred, jealousy, envy, anger, and
all the hideous things that Satan can produce
in the heart of a sinner.
It can be one of the most terrifying
things which refuses to see truth where it
is.
Goodness when it's present.
It has determined beforehand there can be no
truth there.
There can be no goodness there.
And because it has determined it beforehand, it's
not prepared to see it.
Like Lord Nelson.
There's a blind eye and it looks at
the telescope with a blind eye and sees
nothing.
The Duchess of Dabrante once said in her
quaint way, Prejudice squints when it looks and
it lies when it talks.
It's a quaint way of putting it but
you know it's exactly true.
Prejudice squints when it looks.
It doesn't see you straight in the eye.
It sees what it wants to see and
it lies when it talks.
Or as another perhaps not so polished writer
has put it, Prejudices are like rats.
Men's minds are like traps, rat traps.
Prejudice gets into the trap easily but rarely
gets out.
Have you a rat in the trap this
morning?
There is nothing so nauseating as a stinking
rat in the trap.
And Peter was still suffering from this.
He's a changed man.
He's a new man.
God has begun a good work in him.
He's not the man he was but still
at this stage in his life there's a
rat in the trap.
And it is spiritually not only unwanted but
condemned by God.
Now let's look at the way that God
deals with this and we're going to divide
the whole of the narrative into two main
threads, two main thoughts.
We're going to look in turn at Peter's
lingering prejudice and at God's liberating power.
How else could we divide it?
Peter's lingering prejudice, God's liberating power.
Peter's prejudice.
Despite Peter's understanding of the Scriptures, now I
want to summarize this.
Let me put it in summary form and
each word could demand some exposition.
Despite Peter's understanding of the Scriptures, we've considered
this, it's profound.
Despite Peter's confession of the Christ, which was
singular.
Despite Peter's knowledge of the God of Abraham,
which was almost unrivaled.
Despite Peter's experience of the Holy Spirit of
Pentecost and subsequently.
I say despite all that there was a
rat in the trap, prejudice in the mind.
At this stage it is not only normally
nauseating to God but it threatens the whole
purpose of God for evangelism and the outreach
of the church.
Because Peter is meant to open the kingdom
of God to the Gentiles even as he's
opened the kingdom of God to the Jews
on the day of Pentecost.
And Peter has a prejudice against the Gentiles
and therefore God has got to overcome his
prejudice before he will willingly embrace men and
women from every nation under the sun who
come with repentance and faith to the feet
of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And before God's purposes can be fulfilled Peter's
prejudice has got to be expunged.
I want to say a word here and
it has only to be a word about
national, Jewish national exclusiveness.
Because to be fair to Peter we have
to say that he's inherited this.
He was nursed on it.
And it is all a by-product of
the Jewish national exclusiveness that was so characteristic
of the Jews of his day.
We all know, if we are familiar with
the biblical record that the Jewish nation owed
its origin and its continuance in history, past
and present to the sovereign omnipotence of God.
You can neither explain the origin of this
people nor its continuance save in terms of
an omnipotent God who in sheer grace chose
an unworthy man, Abraham, when he was a
worshipper of idols and sovereignly out of his
own heart's affection and love and grace decided
to make of this man a people.
Apart from the continuing care of God the
nation would have languished a long time ago
if not in Egypt then in the wilderness.
If not in the wilderness then in Canaan.
God guarded this nation spiritually as well as
otherwise sent not only a lawgiver to give
the law but prophets to apply the law
and the word of God as it related
to every day.
But now, all this is beyond reasonable doubt.
Yet, rather than see this as the action
of God in order to prepare the nation
for a mission beyond herself for a mission
to the nations of the world for a
mission to future generations the Jewish nation turned
in upon herself and thought of herself not
as a means to an end in the
purposes of God but as the very end
and the very terminus of God's doings and
God's deeds.
And the whole movement turned sour and the
people turned sulky.
Let me repeat.
The nation failed to see that God was
preparing her to bring forth the Messiah in
the fullness of the times and from that
one seed to bring forth the fruit from
every kindred and tribe and people and nation
that should be washed in the blood of
Messiah saved from a fallen world glorified into
a holy heaven.
They failed to see that God had a
purpose beyond themselves and so they turned in
upon themselves and they said, My, we're a
wonderful people.
We are the people of God.
We are the end and the terminus and
the goal of all God's doings.
Everybody is inferior to us.
And so the Jew would gather his skirts
around him as he went on the street
in case he touched a Gentile.
Enclidah!
Peter inherited this.
I've been refreshing my mind and my memory
again over this past week and preparing for
this morning.
And you know, it is sad.
It is sad to realize that there was
such a bitterness and such a superiority complex,
such arrogance, such prejudice in Jewish minds that
they talked like this.
And I quote, Midwives should not help a
Gentile mother at childbirth however great the pain,
however great the anguish because at best she'll
only bring forth another Gentile dog.
Such is the sheer prejudice that a Gentile
was looked upon almost as an animal and
less than a human despite everything that the
word of God thunders from beginning to end,
despite the word to Abram right at the
beginning that God was blessing him in order
that all the nations of the earth, all
the families of the earth should be blessed
through him.
They turned in upon themselves, saw themselves as
the end and not the means and became
arrogant and proud so that they did not
need a Messiah and certainly would not welcome
him.
Peter was heir to that.
Despite the prophetic forecasts of Messiah's mission to
the Gentiles, read the latter half of Isaiah
for example, despite our Lord Jesus Christ, albeit
he said that he had come first and
foremost to the tribes of Israel, he received
a Syrophoenician woman.
He welcomed and gave the water that was
not in the well to a Samaritan outcast.
Despite the fact that the spirit of Pentecost
had come down upon Samaritans and an Ethiopian
Chancellor of the Exchequer, dark pagan man, had
been saved by the Messiah of the Old
Testament, despite all this Peter had these prejudices
in his mind.
Now you see it coming out in a
number of ways in Peter's personal life.
Can I just give one illustration to pass
on?
I can only refer to this.
His attitude to other nations is reflected in
his words to Cornelius.
Cornelius was a Roman, a Gentile, but a
God-fearer.
I can't tell you because the Bible doesn't
tell us how God met this man, how
he revealed himself in some measure to him.
But this dark pagan man somehow, somehow had
come to the place where, even though he
didn't know all that the Jews knew about
God, he feared him and he honored him
and he prayed to him.
And when Peter at last comes to Cornelius,
Peter says this, he says this to Cornelius,
you yourselves, Cornelius and his family, you yourselves
know how unlawful it is for a Jew
to associate with or to visit one of
another nation.
Chapter 10 and verse 28.
With such words does Peter explain how difficult
it had been for him to come to
Cornelius' house.
The invitation had been simple.
Cornelius had sent messengers to say, God has
spoken to me and God has given me
your temporary address and he's told me your
name and he's told me to send for
you.
Now I'm sending for you.
Come to me.
But Peter said, it's very difficult for a
man who is a Jew to come to
the house of another man.
It's not the done thing because you're unclean.
But I've come nevertheless.
He came carrying his prejudice in his soul.
He came not unquestioningly.
He came because of the compulsion of God
upon him.
But the prejudice was still there.
Now that observation must suffice to indicate the
immense problem involved if Peter is to be
the servant of God in welcoming the Gentiles
into the fold of the Savior.
His heart must be changed.
His prejudice must be dealt with.
You see, it would be the same in
this church.
Assuming that the members of Knox, assuming that
there was someone here this morning who said,
Ah well, we like our friends so very
much.
We don't want to see newcomers coming in
here and sitting in our seats.
Now you don't say that, bless you, and
I'm not charging anyone.
There's no veiled accusation here.
But assuming that you were to say that,
we don't want to see outsiders coming in.
We don't want to see people sitting in
our pews that we don't know.
We don't want strangers.
But you see, it would be useless preaching
the gospel.
You can tell the minister to quit.
He might as well go.
Unless there is a heart of compassion.
Unless there is a welcoming grace.
Unless there is a knowledge that God is
seeking the lost.
And every man and every woman, every boy
and every girl he sends among us is
sent for a purpose.
They might as well quit shop.
So with Peter, what's the use of preaching
the name of Jesus and then not being
prepared to welcome the Gentiles in?
God's liberating power is the next part of
our message.
We turn from Peter's lingering prejudice, though we've
only scarcely touched upon it, to God's liberating
power.
Let's be sure, my friends, that God never
begins a work but that he finishes it.
I think this is one of the most
comforting, one of the most precious truths in
the Bible.
Our God never begins a work if it
is not wise to finish it.
Our God never begins a work but that
he is able to finish it.
And if his wisdom prescribes it as desirable,
his power makes it possible.
When he started the creation, he will see
it through.
And not until this entire created universe and
every galaxy has served its purpose will the
end come.
God will see it through.
Do you know the same is precisely the
case with every Christian man.
He who begun in you, Christian, a good
work, will continue it until the day of
Christ when it will be complete.
You know, this is a great encouragement here.
The God who began a work in Simon
Peter will not let him go.
You know, Francis Thompson was right.
We might not have chosen his words.
I would not.
But when he speaks of the hound of
heaven, you know he was right.
God never gives up.
Christians may rebel and they may kick the
pricks and they may sin and they may
go their way and dishonor their Lord, but
the hound of heaven will be after them
and if necessary he will bite their heel
to get them to their knees.
Whom he loves he chastises, so here.
God is determined to get Peter into the
center of his purposes and it's the determination
of grace that we are to look at.
Now, how does he do it?
What a question.
How do you deal with this kind of
prejudice in the heart of a man?
How does God do it?
I have three things to say.
In the first place, there is the challenge
of coincidences.
The challenge of coincidences.
God knows how to speak my language and
he knows how to speak your language.
What persuades one man does not necessarily persuade
another.
Now, there was one thing that would be
very telling to a man of Peter's upbringing
and of Peter's understanding of providence and of
God and that was such a series of
almost unbelievable coincidences as we have here.
Now, to start off with, have you noticed
where Peter was when this vision came to
him?
This is unexplained in scripture but it's very
important.
Where was he?
You know, he was lodging in the house
of a tanner.
Have you ever thought that one through?
Peter the Jew was lodging in the house
of a tanner, if you please.
You say, what's funny about that?
Well, this, a tanner was a man who
dealt with skins and made leather and because
he dealt with dead bodies all the time,
he was perpetually unclean to the Jews so
that the last thing that a Jew would
be expected to do would be to get
near to a tanner.
You know, a tanner had to build his
house at least 50 cubits outside the city
boundary because his work was dirty work, it
was unclean.
Now, I don't know how it happened.
You know, God's ways are remarkable.
But when this incident of Cornelius sending his
friends along to invite Peter to him happened,
it happened when Peter was already involved in
wrestling with some of his prejudices and he's
already lodging in the house of a tanner.
But now look what happened.
Look next at these two counterpart providences or
these two complementary visions that we have here.
One, the first took place in Caesarea.
That's 30 or 35 miles from Joppa.
I don't know, somewhere in there somewhere, between
30 and 35.
Caesarea.
Peter, Cornelius is there.
That's where he is with his battalion.
A Roman, a good man, but a Roman
and a Gentile.
And when he's praying, he has a vision.
Now forget the issue of visions for the
moment.
Just let's take this at its face value.
He has a vision and in the vision
God comes to him and says, Look here,
Cornelius, you've been a God-fearing man for
a long time and all your prayers have
suddenly come before me, as it were, for
a memorial.
I remember all your prayers.
I'm taking stock of them, says God, and
I realize that you've been really seeking after
me and you've been honoring every speck of
light that you have concerning me.
Now look, I'm going to honor you.
You must find the full flooded light of
the gospel.
So, Cornelius, you send men to Joppa, 30
miles away, and you ask for a man
named Simon, whose surname is Peter, and his
temporary address is he's staying in the house
of Simon Atamor, whose house is by the
seaside.
You send for him, he'll tell you what
to do in order to know the full
gospel light of the grace of God and
to come from the shadows in which you
are into the light of the knowledge of
God.
Now that's in Caesarea.
Cornelius gathers three men around him and he
sends them and dispatches them to Joppa, where
Peter was.
Whilst they are on the way, Peter gets
hungry.
Now we all get hungry from time to
time, but may I suggest that there was
more to this hunger than the normal.
This was divinely arranged, this.
And Peter up on the housetop is praying,
but before he prays he's hungry and he
orders a meal from the people downstairs.
And a little bit long bringing the meal,
Peter goes on with his prayers on the
roof of the house, where there was privacy,
and suddenly Peter gets a vision.
And in his vision what Peter sees is
this.
He sees something like a massive sheet coming
down by four corners let down from heaven.
And in this sheet there were all kinds
of reptiles and beasts and fishes.
And Peter discerns the voice of God saying
to him, Peter, you're hungry, are you?
Well, just rise and kill and eat.
And true to Peter, you know, Peter said,
not on your life, Lord, not me.
You know my record, don't you?
Not once in my life have I ever
eaten anything that is unclean.
But the Lord says, look, Peter, what I
have cleansed, don't you call that unclean.
But three times Peter said, typical of him,
three times he does so many things, three
times over, three times he says, no, no,
no, Lord, it's wrong.
You're asking me to do something that's wrong,
eating the unclean.
It was because of a prejudiced understanding of
Scripture, you see.
Now, when the battle's over, the Holy Spirit
says to Peter, Peter, look, go downstairs, there
are three men asking for you.
And Peter goes downstairs and lo and behold
at the gate there are three men.
And Peter announces himself to them and he
says, I'm the man you're looking for.
The Spirit has told me.
Now, if you're not a Christian, you may
be tempted to think that these things are
too good to be true.
If you are a Christian, you'll be predisposed
to believing.
Because this is the kind of thing that
our God does.
To crown such complementary visions, just as the
man below were asking for Peter, Peter says,
I'm the man.
Complementary visions, counterpart providences, can you not see
them, how God fits the one cog into
the other cog and makes the machinery of
his sovereign grace work as a sovereign hand
of the controls here.
This is not haphazard.
Peter recognized that.
That's the first thing.
But the next thing is on a deeper
level.
The next thing that God uses to deal
with his prejudice is on a deeper level.
It's the perception of truth.
Now we're right in the intellectual realm.
Following upon all this and Peter's eventual journey
to Cornelius' home in Caesarea, Peter tells Cornelius
something which is very significant.
Peter's gone now to Cornelius' house.
He's traveled 30 miles and he gets there.
Then Cornelius tells him again what the messengers
have told him, but he receives it now
from Cornelius' own lips.
And the marvel of it dawns upon Peter.
And suddenly he sees the significance of the
vision he had on the housetop, unclean and
clean, clean and unclean.
What God has cleansed, don't you call unclean.
And here before the very face of Cornelius
the Gentile, Peter says this, 1034, truly he
says, I perceive that God is no respecter
of persons.
Now you may say that doesn't mean hardly
anything to me because I recognize that.
I've recognized it from the time I was
a tiny tot.
But let me tell you to this prejudiced
man it was something exceptionally big.
And let me tell you if Peter had
not recognized this and grasped it you and
I might not be here this morning as
Gentiles worshiping the God of Abraham.
I perceive.
Now this word is a special word.
You remember how Paul once writing to the
Philippians spoke of his conversion.
He says, Oh he says that I might
apprehend that for which I was apprehended.
Apprehended.
The word is to grasp.
If you are a criminal and the policeman
comes up behind you, guard or someone comes
up behind you and he puts his hand
on your shoulder and he says, fella I
got you.
Now that's the word.
Grasp.
Arrested.
And what Peter says is this, I grasp
it.
I've got it.
I see the pieces fitting.
I see the cogs in the machinery and
the providences.
I see the Word of God.
I see everything fitting together.
And the truth makes sense.
God is no respecter of persons.
He cleanses men in every nation and whom
he cleanses fear God and do righteousness.
You can't fear God and you can't do
righteousness until you are cleansed.
Sin is impurity.
Sin is impurity in the heart and the
heart makes it impossible for us to fear
God with a reverent fear.
A fear of a child and the reverence
of a child.
Sin makes it impossible.
Sin makes it impossible for us to do
righteousness manward.
But when the heart is cleansed, we fear
God, we honor men and respect them and
do righteousness.
Now says Peter, I suddenly see it.
God is prepared to cleanse men among every
nation to make them God-fearers and do
righteousness.
Oh, that was a mighty lesson to grasp.
The counterpart providences, the comprehension of truth, and
lastly, the confirmation of Peter's apprehension of God's
will by the downpouring of the Spirit.
Peter proceeded now to open his heart and
to tell out all the gospel story to
Cornelius and his people.
What a wonderful congregation.
Do you remember how Cornelius greeted Peter?
He said, Here we are.
He said, We're all present before you to
hear everything that God has given you to
tell us.
What a marvelous opportunity.
And Peter started.
And my, I bet you that when Peter
started, he had a long sermon in his
soul to preach.
But he didn't get very far.
You know what Peter says, describing it later
on to the Jerusalem critics, in chapter 11
and verse 15, he said, As I began
to speak, he's only just got into his
sermon, the Holy Spirit fell on them just
as on us at the beginning.
And I had to stop.
That's the implication.
He doesn't say that.
That's the implication.
In other words, what he's saying is this,
As I was about to tell them all
about the Lord Jesus Christ and His grace
and His mercy and His cross and His
resurrection and ascension and His glory and His
capacity to save the lost, as I began
to tell them about the Lord Jesus, I
was only just getting into it when the
mighty Spirit of Pentecost came right down upon
these just as He did upon us at
Pentecost.
Therefore, here you have a Gentile Pentecost that
is a counterpart of the Jewish Pentecost recorded
in Acts chapter 2.
In other words, God makes it clear that
these are not second-class citizens of the
kingdom, but He's giving them His all just
as He gave His all to the Jews
who believed at Pentecost.
Just as well Peter took six men with
him from Joppa to witness these things.
He didn't know what was going to happen.
Do you know, in Jewish law and in
Egyptian law, if you can produce seven witnesses,
you don't need any more.
The case is proved.
And here are six men with Simon Peter.
Six men and himself makes seven.
A perfect number bearing the perfect witness.
Here it is.
You can't deny it.
They're speaking in tongues and the Spirit is
evidently upon them and they believe in Jesus.
So Peter says, If God gave them the
same gift, not an inferior one, the same
gift as He gave to us when we
believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was
I that I could withstand God?
No, no, says Peter.
I wasn't wrestling with flesh and blood now.
I knew that God was marching down history
claiming these Gentiles for His own.
And when I saw that He was giving
all the treasures of grace to these men
just as He gave the treasures of grace
to us on the first day of Pentecost,
my mouth was shut.
I couldn't argue.
And I won't argue, he says.
On the contrary, I'm with Him.
I will move with the Almighty God in
the ways of His providence and of His
grace and I must be with Him.
God welcomes Gentiles.
Once or twice that wretched thing, that prejudice,
tried to raise its head again.
But it had little success because its backbone
had been broken.
But it did try.
Prejudice is a very hard plant to kill.
But it was slain here.
My friend, that's Peter's prejudice.
What's yours?
What's mine?
I don't know what's yours.
You'll be a strange phenomenon if you haven't
got one.
As we close this morning, one thing I
want you to see is this.
Just as God could not go on with
His purposes until Peter's prejudice was dealt with,
so too it may be this morning.
If you are to be involved in the
fulfillment of the divine purpose, your prejudice has
got to be dealt with.
Got to be.
And if it isn't, then there's only one
thing for it.
If God is going on with His purposes
of grace, He's got to put you on
the sidelines and bypass you, put you on
one side.
Because with the poison of prejudice, He can
have no truck.
As I read the gospel narratives, I say
to myself, my, isn't it wonderful that a
man like Peter was prepared to have himself
purged and cleansed.
What a loss to the church if this
man had rebelled against the Word of God
that day, against the providences of God, against
the truth of God, against the significance of
it all.
What a tragedy.
What a loss to the church.
Think of his epistles.
Think of his ministry in the book of
the Acts.
Think what the church would have lost.
I don't know what your gifts may be,
but they may well be lost to successive
generations of Christians and non-Christians alike unless
you can yield to the same Lord as
the one to whom Peter yielded and let
the cathartic processes of grace purge out the
old leaven and renew a right spirit within
us all for in the grace of our
altogether gracious Lord we may be not only
His servants, but His witnesses, God granted, for
His namesake.