Turn back in your Bibles to our
reading there in Acts chapter 10, and I'll take up reading
where we left off, beginning in verse 34. This is after, of
course, Peter has arrived at the house of Cornelius. Then
Peter opened his mouth, and said, Of a truth I perceive that God
is no respecter of persons, but in every nation he that feareth
him and worketh righteousness is accepted with him. The word which God sent unto
the children of Israel preaching peace by Jesus Christ, He is
Lord of all, that word, I say, you know, which was published
throughout all Judea and began from Galilee after the baptism
which John preached, how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with
the Holy Ghost and with power, who went about doing good and
healing all that were oppressed of the devil, for God was with
him. And we are witnesses of all things
which he did both in the land of the Jews and in Jerusalem,
whom they slew and hanged on a tree." Him God raised up the
third day and showed Him openly, not to all the people, but unto
witnesses chosen before of God, even to us who did eat and drink
with Him after He rose from the dead. And He commanded us to
preach unto the people, and to testify that it is he which was
ordained of God to be the judge of quick and dead. To him give
all the prophets witness that through his name whosoever believeth
in him shall receive remission of sins." And while Peter yet
spake these words, the Holy Ghost fell on all them which heard
the word. And they of the circumcision
which believed were astonished, as many as came with Peter, because
that on the Gentiles also was poured out the gift of the Holy
Ghost." for they heard them speak with tongues and magnify God. Then answered Peter, Can any
man forbid water, that these should not be baptized, which
have received the Holy Ghost as well as we? And he commanded
them to be baptized in the name of the Lord. Then prayed they
him to Terry certain days." Now, I've called this message, The
Message from Peter's Mouth. And I take this title because
we have in this text a reminder that the salvation of a sinner
is no accident. If I did not know that to be
the truth, And if I did not believe it this day, I do not believe
that I could stand here. But not long after this, when
there was a meeting being held amongst the brethren at Jerusalem,
this same man, Peter, stood up and he made this statement. Men
and brethren, you know how that a good while ago God made choice
among us that the Gentiles, by my mouth, should hear the word
of the gospel and believe." He says, you know, that God long
before determined that it would be by His mouth that the Gentiles
would first hear the gospel and believe. And this is because God has a
purpose a purpose of grace whereby he will save all his people from
their sins. It will not in any way be by
accident, or happen so, or chance, or fate, or free will, or any
other such false notion. If you look back And I'll read
some of these verses to you. But back in Isaiah chapter 14
and verse 24, this is what he said, "...the Lord of hosts hath
sworn, saying, Surely as I have thought, so shall it come to
pass, and as I have purposed, so shall it stand." Then he goes
on in that same text to say this, "'For the Lord of hosts hath
purposed, and who shall disannul it, And his hand is stretched
out, and who shall turn it back?" And then when he gets to the
New Testament, as so much of that which he has purposed is
being played out in time, brought to pass. You remember how many
times in Scripture it says, "...and it came to pass." And it always
does. The purpose of God. But he writes
to Timothy by the Apostle Paul, and he speaks of God. He speaks of himself. Paul saying,
"...who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not
according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace,
which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began."
Then we read such texts as we find in the book of Romans, in
that 8th chapter. And that 28th verse, where the
Apostle Paul again writes to believers everywhere, and he
says this, And we know that all things work together for good
to them that love God, to them who are the called according
to His His purpose. So everything that
is taking place in our text, all these events, everything
that is done, and most especially what is said or what is preached,
it is all according to the purpose of God. It is God's purpose that
Peter be at this man's house at this time. It is God's purpose
that he speak, and it is a purpose message that he speaks. I love the language of this text. Look back in verse 22. And they
said to Peter, Cornelius the centurion, a just man, and one
that feareth God, and of good report among all the nation of
the Jews, was worn from God by an holy angel to send for thee
into his house, and to hear words of thee." Wasn't just that Peter
come, wasn't just that this happened or that happened, it was that
he hear words from Peter. And then you look back in verse
32, Cornelius himself saying that he was instructed, "...to
send therefore to Joppa, and call hither Simon, whose surname
is Peter. He is lodged in the house of
one Simon, a tanner by the seaside, who when he comes shall speak
unto thee." And then that next verse, verse 33, "...immediately
therefore I sent to thee, and thou hast well done that thou
art come. Now therefore are we all present
here before God to hear all things that are commanded thee of God."
We are gathered by the purpose of God. to hear that message
that He has purpose that we hear from that messenger that He has
purpose that we hear it from. And we know by what we read in
the latter part of this chapter, not only did Peter preach this
message, but the Spirit of God honored and blessed this message. The Spirit of God. revealed the
Lord Jesus Christ to these Gentiles gathered on that occasion, and
they were enabled to believe on Christ to the saving of their
soul. Now, the thing that we naturally
have to ask And the thing that we ought to be interested in
above all other things is what was the message that came from
Peter's mouth. And what we find is that Peter,
just like all the other apostles, as well as every true preacher
of the gospel, he preached the Lord Jesus Christ. As a matter of fact, You could
use the language that Paul uses in another place when he said,
we preach Christ crucified. And as he speaks and writes even
in another place with such resolve as this, I determined to know
nothing among you but Christ, and Him crucify. What does that involve? What is it to preach Christ? What is it to preach Christ crucified? Well, there's one thing that
becomes fairly obvious when we hear in verse 34 that Peter on
that occasion rises and opens his mouth. The first thing he
says is this, "...of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter
of persons." In other words, what that amounts to is a public
proclamation and a very essential and fundamental element of the
gospel being this, God is an absolute sovereign in all things,
especially in salvation. You say, what do you mean by
that? I mean that by saying that he recognizes no man and no woman
in themselves, he remains that God who revealed himself to Moses
in Exodus 33 and declared this, I will be gracious, to whom I
will be gracious, and I will show mercy to whom I will show
mercy." And here he is, on this occasion, demonstrating this,
showing it in such a glorious way, when up to this point, none
of these Gentiles had been sent a messenger of the gospel, had
been sent, as it was on this occasion, in the power of God's
Spirit, one to preach to them the gospel. So he looks at Jew
and Gentile and says that my people are a people that I choose
and save from amongst Jew or Gentile, and whether you think
one way or the other, I will be gracious. to whom I will be
gracious." And when he says here, as this all-seeing sovereign,
that he has respect of no man's person. That means literally
something like this. He does not look at the facade
that is upon every man or woman. He does not look on them based
on who they are in themselves or what they have done. not of
their rank, or their works, or their pedigree, or their religion,
or their race. He has no respect for any of
these things. He honors no man or woman based
on who they are or what they have done. And not only do we
find Him as such, the holy, all-seeing, all-knowing God, saving whom
He will, but He is this One that in verse 35 is the One who requires
righteousness. But in every nation. whether
they be Jew or Gentile. But in every nation, he that
feareth Him and worketh righteousness is accepted with Him." In other
words, He is altogether a different God than the one that is spoken
of in our day, that men and women are called upon to accept. He is rather the God who Himself
must do the accepting, and the only thing or the only ones that
He will and does receive and accept are those who are righteous. And that means that the only
way he could ever accept you or me or any other son or daughter
of Adam is to accept us in that One that Paul speaks of in Ephesians
1, and that is the Lord Jesus Christ where this God has made
us to be accepted in the Beloved. He is the all-sovereign God. And we know, as we hear so often
said, we know, if we know anything, that good people do not go to
hell. How many times do you hear that?
How is it that everybody thinks that? Good people do not go to
hell. Well, that is absolutely true,
but the problem is, as it says in Scripture, there is none righteous,
there is none that doeth good, no, not one. This is what God
requires. He requires righteousness. He requires perfection. And the only people that this
book pronounces blessing on are those people who are righteous,
those people who are absolutely in the sight of God perfect. Here's something else we say,
well, nobody's perfect. I'll tell you this, everybody
that enters into God's presence will be perfect. Everyone who
enters into His holy heaven, they'll be perfect. And the only
one that I could ever, according to this book, pronounce blessing
and give hope to is that person that is absolutely perfect. Because this is what it says.
Mark the perfect man. That's what the psalmist wrote.
Mark the perfect person, and behold the upright, or the righteous,
for the end of that man is peace." Absolute perfection. Absolute righteousness. That is the only one that God
will accept, and at the same time, He does accept a people
of that kind because He has made them to be such. Not ever at
any time based on anything they do or say or anything like that,
but He has made them to be such in Christ. When Paul writes that
last verse in 2 Corinthians 5, he says in just a few words that
statement or statements that sum up the whole of the gospel. Because he begins there with
something that God Himself has done, which is our only hope
of salvation in what He does, not in what we do. He says, "...for
He hath made Him," that is Christ, "...to be sin for us, He who
knew no sin, that we might be made." the righteousness of God
in him." He says this is the message. Verse 36, he says, "...the
word which God sent unto the children of Israel, preaching
peace by Jesus Christ. He is Lord of all." Now, I know
that while we have these words recorded There's no telling how
much more that Peter said, there's no telling how much more exposition
of what he is making in these statements that he did. It says
that he tarried with them. But it boils down to something
like this, that he is the one who is sent of God, he is the
one who made peace, he is the one who is Lord, Overall, everywhere
in religion that I turn, that I listen, that I read, it will
be in some way, telling men what they are to do in order to be
saved, telling them what they are to do or refrain from doing
in order to get to heaven or to receive blessing from God. But the gospel has to do with
what Christ has done. It has to do with what He accomplished. And it says in that 36th verse,
the Word which God has sent to the children of Israel is this
preaching of peace by Jesus Christ. I can remember as a young boy,
riding around, maybe going somewhere on vacation, and you'd see these
signs. There were always a lot of religious
signs, even in that day, that far back. But I can remember
seeing signs like this that said, make peace with God. I can remember
hearing people. You'd still hear this expression. They said, well, before he died,
he made his peace with God. You and I can't make peace with
God. There is not one sinner that
has ever lived on the face of this earth who has at any time
or in any way ever made peace with God." What's this peace
he's talking about? He says, peace by Jesus Christ. Because Paul tells us that he
made peace by the blood of his cross. He's the Prince of Peace. He is the very Peace of God. And not only that, but He's the
One who is at the same time the Lord of all. He's the Lord of
all. You see, being God manifests
in the flesh. He is the Lord of all. He is Jehovah Jesus. And so what Peter is saying is,
in so many words, he's saying this Jesus of Nazareth that you've
heard of, this one that they took and crucified and slew,
He's God. He's the Lord of all. And He's
even Lord of all in a sense that men and women have never even
realized, except they learn it by the gospel. And that is, first
of all, that He must be Lord by divine right. And He must
be Lord by God's decree. But what he's saying here is
he's also Lord by purchase. He bought it all. And he's Lord
by ability. No one else is able to exercise
this Lordship. He's Lord of creation. He's Lord of providence as we
see in all that's going on here. But he's Lord of salvation. He's
the Lord. And then Peter goes on and he
preaches this Jesus of Nazareth. And he says this Jesus of Nazareth,
he's the Anointed One of God. What does that word Christ, or
as it was in the Old Testament, Messiah, what does it basically
mean? It means the Anointed One. Here
is this one who is anointed of God. Verse 38, "...how God anointed
Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power." He's the
anointed one of God. In other words, He turns and
uses that name that men used in speaking of Him with contempt. Jesus of Nazareth." They said,
can any good thing come out of Nazareth? He says, this Jesus
of Nazareth, He's God's anointed. He's the Christ of God. He is
actually the prophet of God. God has anointed him to reveal
himself to men. He is the priest of God, the
anointed priest of God, to represent his people before God. He is
the anointed King of God. When he stood in that synagogue
in Nazareth and he read from the prophet, he said, the Spirit
of the Lord is upon me. because he hath anointed me to
preach the gospel to the poor. He hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted,
to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight
to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach
the acceptable year of the Lord." The apostle Peter, before this
occasion, stood up there in Jerusalem, and he said, "'For of a truth
against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, both
Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of
Israel, were gathered together for to do whatsoever thy hand
and thy counsel determined before to be done.'" The leader says,
forget about all these other man-anointed ones. This one is God's anointed. And then he proclaimed Christ. From his mouth came this declaration. He preached the sinlessness of
Christ. Look down at verse 38 again.
He says, "...who went about doing You remember they came to Christ,
several of the rabbis and teachers, and they said, good master, good
master. You know the scripture says,
woe unto you when all men speak well of you. Good master. He
said, why do you call me good? There's none good but God. In other words, it amounts to
this. If we're not God, we're not good. Oh, they say, well,
he's got some problems, but he's basically a good man. No, he's
not. But this man was. The Scripture
says he knew no sin. It says he was tempted in all
points like as we are, yet without sin. It describes him as a lamb
without blemish and without spot. is proclaimed through the mouth
of his enemies, such as Pilate. I find no fault in him." And
the great summary, the great summary of the perfection and
sinlessness of Christ is expressed in these words. He's holy, harmless,
undefiled, and separate from sinners. Now, why is that essential? Because only a sinless sacrifice,
only a sinless sacrifice can be a sacrifice for sin. Only the Lamb of God can take
away sin. Because all the way back in the
Old Testament, all the way back under the law, It was shown and
demonstrated and plainly stated the necessity for a perfect sacrifice. Moses, when he gave the law,
said, Whosoever offers a sacrifice of peace offerings unto the Lord
to accomplish his vow, or a freewill offering in beefs or sheep, It
shall be perfect to be accepted. There shall be no blemish therein. Now why have we got to be reminded
of that? Because if we have any understanding
as to who we are and what we are, we know by that we don't
have anything to offer God. We're nothing but sin. Everything
we do is polluted with sin. When we talk about total depravity,
we're certainly not talking about every person being as bad or
as wicked as they could be. No, God's restraining grace keeps
us from being that. But we're saying that sin permeates
every act, every thought, every motive, everything about us. And then Peter preached, and
described Him as the Almighty One. He said He went about doing
good and healing all that were oppressed of the devil, for God
was with Him. Now, you've got a lot of so-called
faith healers in our day. And people come to them, I know
some people in such sincerity and need and pain and things
like that, they run to these individuals. And then when they
are not healed, they leave, and all the so-called faith healers
have to say then is, they didn't have enough faith. You talk about
a money-making proposition. If I can't fix your car, just
leave with it, and you'll pay me anyway, but I'll tell you
this is the reason why you didn't have enough faith. What does
it say here? It says, healing all that were
oppressed of the devil. He healed every case that was
brought to him. Nobody died or was left dead
in his presence because he's the true healer. Now, he didn't
go and heal every person that was sick in the day in which
he lived. But he gave all these demonstrations
and all these examples, all these cases which represented a greater
sickness. All these that are blind and
lame and sick and leprous, all these that pictured the state
of men and women in their sin. Because He is the real healer
of the soul. He is the mighty God. He is the mighty healer of man's
greatest sickness. That sickness of sin which all
these things represented. And because Isaiah says, by His
stripes we are healed. And just to make sure, that people
wouldn't do with that just exactly what they've done. Peter is led
by the Spirit in his epistle to say the same thing. "...who
his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that
we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness, by whose
stripes ye were healed." I like that language. Instead of some
faith healer telling me if I've got enough faith I can be healed
of a dread physical disease, I'd rather hear the good news
of the gospel which supersedes all of that and be told, by His
stripes you were. Because if I, by His stripes,
by His suffering, and death. If I am healed of the dread disease
of sin, it won't matter what other diseases I have, even death
itself." And then he preaches Christ as a suffering substitute. Look down at verse 39. He says,
"...and we are all witnesses of all things which he did both
in the land of the Jews and in Jerusalem, whom they slew and
hanged on a tree." He really suffered. He really died. He really was that man hanged
on the tree. He really was that man that was
exposed to that shame and reproach of the tree, of that cross. He really suffered as a man in
the place of man. Peter again in his epistle, "'For
Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust,
that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh,
but quickened by the Spirit.'" He suffered as a man, but he
suffered as God, that is for God and on the behalf of men
to satisfy every claim, every penalty. Can you just imagine
that? That Christ on that cross suffered
such a substitutionary death in our place for our sins, which
were at that hour all future, and sins that we have not yet
even committed. The sinfulness that we are even
in ourselves. And in doing so, He actually
brought us to God. Suffered the just for the unjust
that He might bring us to God. Christ hath redeemed us from
the curse of the law, being made a curse for us, for it is written,
Cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree." In other words, this
suffering was the prelude to His glory. He said, O fools,
and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken,
ought not Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into
His glory? Then he preached Christ the resurrected
One. Verse 40, Him God raised up the
third day and showed Him openly. God raised Him up. in a demonstration
that he had fully and completely satisfied all the claims of divine
justice against his people, and God had accepted his work, his
sacrifice, and it's finished. Finished. All he died for are
justified and declared righteous by God. solely on the basis of
His death. Plus nothing. Plus nothing. Then He preached Him as the God-exalted
One. Verse 42, And He commanded us
to preach unto the people, and to testify that it is He which
was ordained of God to be the judge of quick and dead. He's the judge. He's the righteous
judge. God accepted His obedience unto
death on the cross and exalted Him and gave Him a name that
is above every name. He'll be the judge in eternity
and the judge of all the earth. will certainly do right. John says, "...and the Father
judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son. And
he hath given him authority to execute judgment also, because
he is the Son of Man." A man will be the judge of men, the
righteous judge. And he has appointed a day into
which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man
whom he hath ordained, whereof he hath given assurance unto
all men, in that he raised him from the dead." And of course,
he preached him as the only Savior. Verse 43, "...to him give all
the prophets witness, that through his name Whosoever believeth
in Him shall receive remission of sin." Whosoever believes in
Him, whosoever hungers and thirsts after righteousness, they shall
be filled. Whosoever shall call on the name
of the Lord, they shall be saved. And what? They'll receive remission
of sins. Do you know what remission of
sins is? It's just simply forgiveness
of sins. No, he won't go to a priest on
earth, or a pope, or somebody like that, and receive some kind
of absolution. No. In Christ, and from Christ,
he'll receive forgiveness of sins. Because where the remission
of sin is, There is no more offering for sin. Somebody's sins have
been forgiven. How can you be so sure? Because
there's no more sacrifice for sins. He's that one sacrifice
for sins forever. And while Peter yet spake these
words, the Holy Ghost fell on all them which heard the Word. Was it because Philip was such
a dynamic speaker? He was a fisherman. Was it because he was convincing? Was it because he was an apostle? Was it because he applied pressure? No, it was because the Spirit
of God took the gospel that God purposed. that these he purposed
to save, and he revealed Christ to them. And he enabled them
to believe, and they did, because he had ordained that they should
hear the gospel from Peter's mouth and believe. That's always
the way it is. He's decided the who, the when,
the where, the how, the preacher, everything. And that's why He
gets all the glory. Father, we ask this day that
You would simply honor Your Word, Your Son, that You would glorify
Your own self, that You would save and bless and comfort Your
people, that You would do all these things according to Your
purpose and grace. which was given us in Christ
Jesus before the world began. Lord, we thank you for your mercy. We pray for your quickening spirit,
because as the hymn writer wrote, all is vain unless the spirit
of the Holy One come down. We thank you and we pray in Christ's
name. Amen.