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A Promise Kept (2): Preparing Peter
(Acts 10:9-23)
May 1, 2022
Read Acts 10:9-23 – Our series is a promise kept – that being God’s promise to Abe way back in Gen 12:3 “in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
That promise was ultimately fulfilled when Jesus as died to save anyone regardless of race, color or creed.
At that moment the promise was paid in full.
But ten years into the church age, there is virtually no outreach to “all the families of the earth” – Gentiles!
But that is about to change as God.
This requires huge changes in attitude.
In Tom Sawyer, Tom informs the outcast Huck Finn he can’t join Tom’s gang.
Huck says, “Now Tom, hain’t you always been friendly to me?
You wouldn’t shet me out, would you, Tom?” Tom replies, “Huck, I wouldn’t want to, and I don’t want to—but what would people say?
Why they’d say, ‘Mph!
Tom Sawyer’s Gang! Pretty low characters in it!’
They’d mean you, Huck.
You wouldn’t like that, and I wouldn’t’” Early Jewish Xns were like that!
They didn’t want any unclean Gentiles in their club.
So God by sending Peter to the Gentile Cornelius.
In Acts 9 we’ve just met Paul who is slated to be the special apostle to the Gentiles.
So why not Paul going to Cornelius; why Peter?
Well, Peter is the earthly leader of the church.
Without his involvement Gentiles would never have been accepted, and even he gets resistance.
Paul will eventually gain huge authority, but right now, he’s a newcomer.
Peter needs to open the door.
But there’s an even more compelling reason.
Jesus once said to Peter in Mt 16: 18 “And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
19 I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”
Many interpretations have been given to the “keys” here – some pretty convoluted and involving the church, in some way, having this extraordinary authority.
I think the simplest interpretation is that Peter alone was given those keys.
When Jesus says, “I will give you the keys”, “you” is singular.
It is said to Peter to the exclusion of anyone else.
I think Jesus was giving Peter the awesome responsibility to ensure the gospel going to all people.
That started at Pentecost when Peter was the first to preach to the Jewish people – those from Jerusalem, and other places who heard the gospel of JC in their languages – symbolic of the Lord’s intention.
Later, as the gospel spread to Samaria – half breeds – the HS didn’t come until Peter and John showed up.
What Peter loosed on earth was loosed in heaven.
And now, tho he doesn’t know it, he is about to use the final key to open the door to the Gentiles.
Jews to half-Jews to Gentiles.
But God had to prepare Peter for that.
Here’s how!
I.
The Perplexing Vision
Houses often had an outside stairway accessing a flat roof for cooler sleeping on hot nights, and privacy and relaxation at other times.
Peter goes up about noon to pray.
As he waited for lunch he fell into a trance.
He saw something like a great sheet was descending from heaven with all kinds of animals on it.
and 13 “And there came a voice to him: “Rise, Peter; kill and eat.”
Peter was horrified.
Why? Bc the animals were a mix of clean and unclean, and Peter had been taught from childhood never to eat an unclean animal.
It was part of God’s Law.
Lev 20:25-26: “You shall therefore separate the clean beast from the unclean, and the unclean bird from the clean.
You shall not make yourselves detestable by beast or by bird or by anything with which the ground crawls, which I have set apart for you to hold unclean.”
That was Peter’s training.
Thus, 17 “Peter was inwardly perplexed as to what the vision that he had seen might mean.”
He can’t figure it out, but he is appalled by the suggestion that he kill and eat.
Hungry as he is, this would not be right.
We know this was an object lesson.
The 4 corners represent the 4 corners of the earth; the animals represent people – both Jews (clean to Peter) and Gentiles (unclean).
We see where this was headed.
Peter didn’t get it at all – but he should have gotten it.
He just hadn’t been paying attention.
Jesus had lifted the OT food restriction.
It was intended by God to teach the toddler nation of Israel that God is holy and His chosen people needed to be holy as well.
The animals were a physical reminder.
With Christ’s coming and a growing knowledge of the ways of God, the need for such picture book training was over.
Jesus taught his disciples it is what is already inside a person that defiles him, not what he eats.
Mark 7:18b: “Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him, 19 since it enters not his heart but his stomach, and is expelled?”
(Thus he declared all foods clean.)
20 And he said, “What comes out of a person is what defiles him.
21 For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, 22 coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness.”
It’s not food that defiles, but what is harbored in the heart.
Peter heard all of this and should have known the restrictions on food had been lifted by Jesus Himself.
He was perplexed because he hadn’t listened.
But it can happen to us as well.
Who is it we wouldn’t touch?
Who would be underserving of our help and love?
I’ll never forget David Platt’s telling in Radical of being with some deacons at a church where he spoke, telling the leaders about his ministry in the inner city of NO where evil is rampant.
One deacon said, "David, I think it’s great you are going to those places.
But if you asked me, I would just as soon God annihilate all those people and send them to hell."
Such an attitude can only come from not hearing what Jesus is saying.
We must not go there.
II.
The Puzzling Response
So, Peter is told “kill and eat.”
His response?
“By no means, Lord.”
I like the KJV: “Not so, Lord.”
It’s polite phraseology.
But the intent is devastating.
As Graham Scroggie wrote: “You can say, ‘Not so’, or you can say, ‘Lord’, but you cannot say, ‘Not so, Lord.’”
Those words are an oxymoron -- like jumbo shrimp or lead balloon or random order.
They can’t go together.
We can either rebel at God’s commands: “Not so.”
Or we can submit: “Lord.”
But you can’t have it both ways, like Peter is trying to do.
His is polite – rebellion!
We might say, “Perhaps Peter doesn’t know it’s God.”
But even he addresses the voice as “Lord!”
Further, the voice says, “What God has made clean, do not call common.”
This clarifies that it is God speaking and further clarifies that He has now declared clean what earlier had been unclean.
Peter had to know God legislated in 2 ways in the OT.
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