All right, we're in Acts chapter
9. I'm going to read Acts chapter 9, verse 40 through 43. And basically, I'm going to start
at verse 43 and enter into chapter 10. Lay out some points of consideration
for us tonight. And I want to remind you as we
get ready to deal with this topic that we will be off for two weeks. And then we'll come back the
third week. That means we'll be off next Friday, the 26th. We'll
be off the subsequent Friday, second and will return for Friday
night Bible study on the 9th on the 8th will be our first
women's theology class for the fall and spring as you have it
in your bulletin just to let you the ladies know that will
be an outstanding class you will not want to miss it it's going
to be fabulous and then let's see for those of you who may
be in our marriage class tomorrow is the last Marriage class for
the year. It will be a good class We'll
be going over some germane points that we dealt with over the last
six weeks. It was a seven-week class and
We'll be finishing tomorrow. I Think that's it up the rest
of it will be in the bulletin on Sunday We'll have an outstanding
worship the Lord willing on Sunday bring your friends and relatives
Especially your relatives only come to church twice a year Bring them on out on Sunday they'll
benefit from the message and the ministry. Listen to the words
as we begin to now contemplate how the Lord has chosen to use
Peter for a very, very, very challenging but necessary breakthrough
in the cause and the purpose of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
And I use that word breakthrough in the larger more accurate sense
than the vernacular use of it in our present-day churches.
But Peter put them all forth, kneeled down, and prayed. And
turning him to the body, said, Tabitha, arise. And she opened her eyes. And
when she saw Peter, she sat up. And he gave her his hand and
lifted her up. And when he had called the saints
and widows, presented her alive, and it was known throughout all
Joppa, and many believed in the Lord, And it came to pass that
he tarried many days in Joppa with one Simon Tanner. There was a certain man in Caesarea
called Cornelius, a centurion of the band called the Italian
Band, a devout man, and one that feared God with all of his house,
which gave much alms to the people and had prayed to God always.
He saw in a vision, evidently about the ninth hour of the day,
an angel of God coming into him and saying unto him, Cornelius.
And when he had looked on him, he was afraid and said, what
is it, Lord? And he said unto him, your prayers
and your alms are come up for a memorial before God. And now send men to Joppa and
call for one Simon, whose surname is Peter. He lodged with one
Simon, a tanner, whose house is by the seaside, he shall tell
thee what you must do. When the angel had spoken unto
Cornelius, he departed. He called two of his household
servants and a devout soldier of them that waited on him continually.
And when he had declared all these things unto them, he sent
them to Joppa. On the morrow, as they went on
their journey and drew nigh unto the city, Peter went upon the
housetop to pray about the sixth hour. And he became very hungry,
would have eaten. But while they made ready, he
fell into a trance. And he saw heaven open, and a
certain vessel descending unto him. And as it had been a great
sheet at the four corners, and let down to the earth, wherein
were all manner of four-footed beasts of the earth, and wild
beasts, and creeping things, and fowls of the air, there came
a voice to him, Rise, Peter, kill, and eat. But Peter said,
Not so, Lord, for I have never eaten anything that is common
or unclean. And the voice spake unto him
the second time, What God hath cleansed, that call not thou
common. Now this was done three times,
and the vessel was received up again into heaven. Now while
Peter doubted in himself what this vision which he had seen
should mean, behold, the men which were sent from Cornelius
had made inquiry for Simon's house and stood before the gate
and called and asked whether Simon, which was surnamed Peter,
were lodged there. While Peter thought on the vision,
the spirit said unto him, behold, three men seek thee. Arise, therefore,
and get thee down and go with them, doubting nothing, for I
have sent them. Then Peter went down to the men,
which were sent unto him from Cornelius, and said, Behold,
I am he whom you seek. What is your cause? Wherefore
you are come. And they said, Cornelius, the
centurion, a just man, and one that fears God, of a good report
among all nations of the Jews, was warned from God by a holy
angel to send for thee into his house and to hear words of thee. Then called he them in and lodged
them And on the morrow, Peter went away with them, and certain
brethren from Joppa accompanied him. And the morrow, after he
had entered into Caesarea, Cornelius waited for them, and had called
together his kinsmen and his near friends. And as Peter was
coming in, Cornelius met him and fell down at his feet and
worshipped. But Peter took him up, saying,
stand up. I myself am also a man. And as he talked with him, he
went in and found many that were come together, And he said unto
them, you know how that it is unlawful for a man that is a
Jew to keep company or come in unto one of another nation. But
God has showed me that I should not call any man common or unclean. Therefore came I unto you without
gainsaying as soon as I was sent. For I asked therefore, what intent
you have sent for me? Thus is the reading of God's
word. We're going to stop right there because I could go on and
on and on. But I actually just want to kind of enter into get
our feet wet with this mission and assignment that Peter is
called to. Now, you guys remember what I
said about assignments. If you've been around for a while,
I try to develop concepts and principles that you can take
with you and apply frequently in your life. And I derived them
from the scriptures because they are either explicitly or so clearly
implied that you can't argue with it. I said, you know, when
God is giving you an assignment. Because the assignment is something
that is difficult for you to do. You know, when God is giving
you an assignment. Because the assignment, the assignment
is something difficult for you to do. And also, you know, you have
been given an assignment because it's actually demanding of you
to be counterintuitive. And being counterintuitive is
really what it means to walk in the spirit and not in the
flesh. I'm laying this foundation because
we're going to be segwaying very soon into a very critical topic
that requires maturity on the part of the Christian. So I must
say it again. You and I know when we have an
assignment because that assignment fundamentally has with it a difficult
charge, something that we don't necessarily like. It's going
to cause a level of uncomfortability. In order to actually execute
that, you're going to have to be counterintuitive. You're going
to have to be able to overcome the natural tendencies of your
fallen nature to erect arguments and debates about what you are
call to do. In order to execute the assignment,
you're going to have to know what it means legitimately to
walk in the spirit and not in the flesh, because the flesh
will never ever put itself in harm's way. Not even for God. Do you believe that the flesh,
your fallen nature will never put itself in harm's way? Not even for God. because your
carnal nature, your fallen nature is persistently hostile to God
and to the things of God and to the law of God and to the
word of God. That's why God gives us his what? His spirit. Because without the Spirit of
God, you cannot bring into subjection your fallen nature and your body
and your mind to do that which is spiritual when in your Adamic
nature you are carnal. And carnal means that you and
I live for self. It's what we live for. And without
a greater power dominating and controlling our thinking and
leading us into obedience to Christ, we will never do it.
And remember what? Peter experienced when him and
the other apostles had basically abandoned ship when they did
not understand that Christ had to be crucified and then he would
rise again the third day. And they went back to their old
profession, which was what? Fishing. Remember that? Peter
said, I'm going fishing. I'm done with this. This three
and a half year thing was whatever it was, it's over with now because
Jesus be gone. I'm going back fishing. Remember
what James said? Remember what John said? Remember
what Andrew said? Not James, but John and Andrew,
you know what they said? We going with you. Do you know what that
means? It means momentarily for a moment
God was teaching them What it means to walk in the flesh Help
you now Help you all God has to do is take his hand off of
you And you will imperceptibly do that which naturally tends
to your own desires That's all he has to do is back up And you
will naturally do that which tends to your own desire. It
may not be overtly contrary to the will of God, but it's going
to tend in a direction away from obedience to God, because to
walk in the Spirit requires the Spirit of God. You cannot do
the things of God in the flesh. Am I making some sense? I want
to build that argument, because I want you to appreciate Peter
putting his feet in the water. He's getting ready to put his
feet in the water. He's getting ready to put his feet in the
water of an issue that most of us have not overcome yet. is
going to require us thinking through what's taking place. So God gives us in the assignment
of Peter, a process that we're going to experience and hopefully
appreciate so that we can overcome when God calls us to the same
task. He has just finished modeling
the master in the raising from the dead of one sister Dorcas,
as you and I know, in the ninth chapter, a fabulous, fabulous,
magnificent miracle, which Peter didn't do, but God did it. And
yet God used Peter. Is that true? So this is a mountaintop
experience for Peter. This is how we learn about how
our father works. I'll help you. Our father will
put you in a situation where he blesses you with the extraordinary
grace to do something above and beyond what you could ever imagine
doing. He will use you in a situation
that will be so profoundly blessed that you will think you're at
the next level You get ready to go into the next level and
have a trend of absolute ministerial success or service success or
blessing or what have you. And only to discover this is
how our God works. He'll use you on the mountaintop.
And then he'll quickly take you to the valley. So he can keep
you in perspective. So that you know this is not
about you. He'll use you on the mountaintop. And you'll come
to discover that he used you on the mountaintop with no regard
to who you are. And then he'll take you to the
valley and he'll take you to the valley because you have to
go to the valley because you may say, I'm all right, but God
knows you're not. You and I have an innate, natural ability, uncanny
ability to steal God's glory every time he does something
for us. So when he uses you on the mountaintop in a very public
visible way peter has just been used to raise someone from the
dead That's as good as it gets brothers and sisters. That's
it. That's that's that's the top-notch Assignment you're talking
about mission impossible. That's it That's that's it. You
you you you go into the white house You're getting awards all
that because you you've been used to raise people from the
dead. I thank god for it I actually believe this account to you I
absolutely believe this account. And so while I'm laying this
foundation, I'm actually challenging where your faith is right now.
Cause I know you come in on Friday, wonderful class. Some of y'all
coming from work, some of you coming from school, some of y'all
coming from all kinds of other places. You're not really here
right now. Your body's here, but your mind's not here. You
understand what I'm saying? So I'm challenging you right
now on the blessed privilege of having the word of God expounded
to you on a Friday night. Cause see, God led you here.
Be sure of that if god would have left us to ourself. The
last thing we would have decided to do on friday night is come
to a bible study Let me help you understand that It's only
by grace you and I ever choose to do the right thing Whenever
god takes his hand off of us. All we do is carnal me Be sure
of it be sure of it and so as we are here now getting ready
to look at a foundational truth critical to our 21st century
generation. In fact, an issue is in front
of us as a nation and the world that we're gonna have to revisit
and it's gonna be revisited in fiery trials over the next year
or two, if not more, because we have failed the test over
the last century of achieving the right testimony and witness
around the thing that we're dealing with. So tonight's class is gonna
be germane in this area So if you can overcome the passive
thinking that allows you to sit in your chair and fall asleep
because of how warm and nice it is in here, you might learn
something. But I know, I know how you do
it. You're tired, you're going to get the CD because it's much
better two, three days later. It's like gumbo. It's better
three days later. It's like that home cooked meal.
It's better three days. I agree. It's much better. The
beans are fabulous. Three days later. I understand.
I understand. So, you know, you're here, but
you're not here. All right. So the Lord uses Peter in a magnificent
way around the resurrection of this young lady, which points
to our resurrection on the last day, which points to Christ being
the life that we all need in order to stand before God for
all eternity. And then the narrative says this
in verse 43, 42. And it was known throughout all
Joppa first line. It was known throughout all Joppa
what was the miracle that was performed by Peter of which God
wrought in raising darkness from the dead. Now, here's the outcome.
verse 40 the latter part no go back to verse 42 the latter part
of verse 42 and many what believed in the Lord stop right there
remember what we learned we learned that you have to actually insert
the elliptical truth that is not present in that in that verse
and it was known throughout all Joppa that is a miracle was notably
performed And as a consequence of that, many came to hear the
preaching of the gospel that Peter did. And because of the
preaching of the gospel, many believed on him. You guys got
that? In other words, no one is saved
because of miracles. Miracles are signposts to get
people into the presence of the preaching of the gospel. And
that's what that door opened up for Peter, as it did back
in the previous City as well lit up And when Peter was done
preaching to the brothers and sisters there in litter and in
Joppa Notice what it says and it came to pass that while he
tarried verse 43 many days in Joppa with one home Simon a tanner
okay, so again now when this word of God gives you a person's
name proper name and then gives you his title or his office or
his practice or Frequently, not always, but frequently there
is a significance behind it. Who knows what a tanner is? It's
someone who tans what? Skins, right? Skins, animal skins,
right? In our culture, it could be cloth
and stuff like that. But in this context, he's a tanner. He dries skins and he tans skins
so that they're usable for many different products. Simon the
Tanner. So the first thing I want to
call your attention to, whether you know it or not, is that Peter
has chosen not to hang out with the Christians who had called
him to the opportunity to raise Dworkas from the dead. He didn't
hang out with the believers he knew, who knew the word of God,
and they were already a collective fellowship. Peter has moved all
the way now down to the seashore, right where the Mediterranean
Sea is. And there he hangs out with one
Simon. Now Simon's name is Simon as
Peter's name is Simon. And maybe Simon Peter chose to
just kick it with Simon because they had commonality in their
name. But here's what you can know. Peter was under a compulsion
to stay with Simon because there was something about that relationship
that was essential for him to spend time there. But his spending
time with Simon the tanner indicated that Peter had grown just a little
bit in his understanding of the broad nature of the call of the
gospel. Because the tanner, this is something
that us Gentiles wouldn't have any problem with, hanging around
people that play with dead animals and dead carcasses and stripping
the carcasses and skinning the carcasses and tanning the carcasses,
which means when you're doing that, you're dealing with a lot
of messy, bloody, smelly stuff. It's really a stench ridden environment. And that's why the tanner is
down by the seashore so the wind gusts can blow the scent away. Peter's hanging out with this
dude. Now this was culturally taboo for the Jews. This is culturally
taboo for the Jews, because the Jews held to a notion that it
was not appropriate. It was not kosher to to be around
dead things, dead animals, dead human beings and what have you.
And so for them to exist or live or inhabit an area where there
were animals being slaughtered or killed for the purpose of
making skins for all sorts of use. would have been for them
a very, very serious breach in the law of God. So I have to
actually share with you a few verses now. A careful examination
of the scriptures would have us to know that it really was
not a problem because where God speaks specifically in the law
of God about not touching the dead, he gave specific commandments
about that. And he wasn't speaking about
clean animals. that could have been killed and
skins and stuff used for the purpose of clothing and garments
and things of that nature. But the Jews indiscriminately
dealt with it. So look at Leviticus chapter
11 verse 31. I'm just going to take you through
a couple of passages. that affirms the semi-quasi sort
of convictions that the Jews had around the idea of touching
the dead. Now you guys remember when the
children of Israel came out of Egypt, God had given them laws
and precepts around cleanliness and contamination and disease
that were so fastidious, so acute, so meticulous, so detailed, that
fundamentally, it would actually keep the people of God in an
unclean state. Ceremonially, if they were to
acknowledge every time they inadvertently came across a dead person, or
a dead body, or an unclean animal, or touched something unclean,
or were in a market where unclean things were, Because unclean
things, from a Jewish standpoint, a ceremonial standpoint, are
everywhere. This is why the Pharisees really
struggled with Jesus being touched by Gentiles and being touched
by the common people who, in their eyes, were sinners and
unclean. How could a Pharisee, if Jesus
is a teacher, rather, a master, how could he subject himself
by being touched by the woman with the issue of blood? That
would have contaminated him. on a ceremonial level. You recall,
Jesus gave that profoundly convicting parable of the Jew who came down
from Jerusalem to Jericho, who had fallen among thieves. We
call that the Good Samaritan parable, right? And he had fallen
among thieves, and the thieves beat him up so bad he was a Jewish
cat. Beat him up so bad Jesus is setting up the parable to
open their eyes to the folly and hypocrisy of mere religion
I'm setting the context for where we are that beat the dude up
so bad. He they left him half what did
Now you see why the Levite and the Pharisee went the other way
Because they thought he was what and they were not gonna touch
a dead body. They were not gonna have anything to do with it And
so the scruples around this issue of touching the dead and dealing
with the dead becomes a problem. Leviticus chapter 11 verse 31
says it like this. Well, let me see here. He had
given a list of animals that were clean and unclean, as Leviticus
chapter 11 underscores. As he speaks to the children
of Israel that you might discern between clean and unclean between
that which is holy and unholy And he says over in verse 31.
These are unclean to you among all that creep whosoever doth
touch them When they be dead shall be unclean until the evening
Do you see that and upon whatsoever any of them when they are dead
doth fall on It shall be unclean, whether it be any vessel of wood
or raiment or skin or sack, whatever vessel it be, wherein any work
is done, it must be put in water and shall be unclean until evening,
so it shall be cleansed. In other words, when you go through
the Levitical code, and especially chapters 11 through around chapter
17, you find that God stresses this idea of ceremonial cleanliness
Again, at such a level that it basically condemns Israel, though
they put on a form of obedience to these precepts to justify
their own conscience. And in that context, they actually
sometimes are in overkill mode. Again, go to chapter 21. And
let's look and see what chapter 21 says about this. We're still
in the area of instructions by the Lord around uncleanness.
Things that contaminated in chapter 21 verses 1 through 11 I think
this will help to serve to give us some idea around this and
The Lord spake unto Moses speak unto the priest the sons of Aaron
and saying to them there shall none be defiled For the dead
among his people. Do you see that? there's a rule
right there for why the Levite and the Pharisee bypassed the
dead Jews or what they thought was a dead Jew in the parable
of the Good Samaritan. But for his kin that is near
unto him, that is, for his mother, and for his father, and for his
son, and for his daughter, and for his brother, and for his
sister, a virgin that is nigh unto him, which hath no husband,
for her he may be what? Right. But he shall not defile
himself, being a chief man among his people, to profane himself.
Now, the chief man among the people here is like the high
priest. The common priest could do it. The high priest couldn't.
The high priest was not free to access, avail himself to this
caveat or this qualifying exception as the common people were. The
high priest couldn't do it. And do you know why? Because
this high priest is the type of Jesus Christ. is pointing
to the impeccable righteous standard that Christ was called to sustain
and keep so that he would be a legitimate lamb without spot
and blemish that God might sacrifice. So he couldn't do it. Watch how
the language works. It actually segues into a redemptive picture
around the type of wife that the high priest was to acquire. And that was a virgin the only
kind of wife the high priest could acquire was a virgin And
you see the picture of the church right there if our high priest
is christ The bride that he acquires is a virgin Then that means the
church then is a virgin you guys see that typology, right? So
it goes on Uh verse, uh six verse five They shall not make baldness
upon their head neither shall they shave off the corners of
their beard or make cuttings this gets into Idol worship and
symbols that amount to almost almost what we do in our day
with tattoos They shall be holy unto the Lord their God and pro
and not profane the name of the God of their God for the offering
of the Lord made by fire and the bread of their God they do
offer therefore they shall be holy they shall not take a wife
that is a what or what Neither shall they take a woman put away
from her husband for he is holy unto his God amazing See the
standard of the high priest? It rises above the standard of
the people because the standard of the high priest points to
the one mediator between God and man, and that's the man Christ
Jesus. But do you see as we make our way through this text how
that the covenant of redemption bypasses and excels the covenant
of law in this respect? That whereas this high priest
was exclusively bound to only a virgin, The wife, in fact,
of which the Lord Jesus married was not only a whore, she was
profane. The most notorious sinner for
all that Christ could ever marry are sinners. So you see how grace
prevails over law in that regard? That you and I who are sinners
technically are unqualified to be married to Christ, who is
the only holy person in the world but because of covenant provisions
that are rooted in his own intrinsic nature, he is able to take within
himself our sinfulness and communicate to us his righteousness, thus
nullifying the law of uncleanness. Which says, if he were a mere
human like you and I, the very continence of him touching us
would make him unclean and disqualify him from being our high priest.
But the reverse is true when it comes to Christ. Because of
his divine nature and the impeccableness thereof, and because of his capacity
to purify When we touch Christ or when Christ touches us, our
uncleanness is done away with and his righteousness is communicated
to us so that we become what he is. Him having become what
we are. That's good. That's good. That's a message. and a whole
series of studies in itself. And so you see what we call this
is sort of an anti-type or pictures in the law that point to the
fulfillment of the grace of God in Jesus Christ. And so they
are limited and deficient in their application where the fulfillment
is manifested in the person of Christ. Nevertheless, they serve
to teach us these redemptive truths. What you and I are actually
dealing with is the living touching the dead. You guys got that?
But that's the gospel. Is that not right? That's the
gospel the living touching the dead This is why I'm saying you
got to appreciate Peter because he Peter at least putting his
foot in the water He's scared, but he putting his foot in the
water. He's gonna have to jump in in a minute. He's gonna jump
back out He's gonna jump back out cuz it's tough Yeah, it's
gonna be too much for him as it is with ungrounded Christians
in the 21st century uh, tame Christians whose identity is
rooted more in their culture and in their ethnicity than it
is in the word of God. You guys know where I'm going?
How many of you don't know where I'm going? I said that way I
can keep teaching. Good. I'll give you a few. I'll give you. So,
you know, while we are addressing Simon, Peter hanging out with
Simon, the Tanner, And no coincidence has occurred that Peter is on
the housetop Receiving a revelation that says to him eat that which
Peter knows according to the law. He cannot eat Right, which
means in Peter's mind. He's being called upon to break
the law right well He's already partially breaking the law by
hanging out with Simon and Tana anyway because grace is moving
him into a region of that his master told him he must go into. Remember what we learned back
in John chapter 20, when Peter was restored to his ministry
by Christ, Peter was asked by Christ, Peter, do you love me?
Peter said, I do. And he asked him again, Do you
love me? Peter said, I do. And upon both affirmations, when
Peter said, I love love you, using the Greek term Phileo Phileos,
Christ said to him, feed my sheep. Remember that? Feed my sheep.
And finally, he said, feed my lambs, take care of my lambs,
nurture my lambs. Well, Peter didn't understand
that that would be lambs of all kind. Not just Jewish lambs. And that's where the account
was given when Peter asked, okay, so now what about John? And the
master said, don't worry about John. John's not your business.
You stay in your lane. And then this is what the master
said to Peter, which is going to be germane to where you and
I are. And this will get back to my point about the flesh and
the spirit. The master said, Peter, when
you were young, you went wherever you wanted to go and you did
whatever you wanted to do. What he was saying is when you
were operating in the flesh and your carnal nature under the
law, you did what you wanted to do because you didn't have
a power greater than you guiding you to where you don't want to
go. He says, but when you are older
and he wasn't talking about physically older, he was talking about entering
into the maturity of the new covenant. I'll talk about that
in a second. He says, when you are older, you're going to be
led by someone else and they're going to take you where you would
naturally not want to go. That's what the text says what
Peter was told is that he would be Dominated by the presence
of the Spirit of God and the Spirit of God would take him
through his assignments Remember what we learn our assignments
when they're from God. They are naturally Repugnant
to us. We don't want to do them but
in order to accomplish those assignments, we need the Spirit
of God and So the spirit of God takes us through these assignments
that really require and ultimately result in the killing of our
what flesh That's right So Peter has experienced the killing of
his flesh ever since the Lord Jesus called him out of the boat
from fishing You guys know that And so this miracle that he allows
Peter to do in the raising of the dead of Dorcas jazzes him. And it's enough to motivate him
to follow the spirits leading on down to the seashore where
Simon the Tanner is. But he now is dealing with a
controversial context because the average Jew would not be
here. Right. But Peter is hanging out
with him. And you and I are seen in the
law of God that there are these details about dead things. So let me see here. Where is
the language around that? The reason for which? OK, let
me start back up at verse 18 in chapter 21 so we can go back.
Chapter 21 addresses the qualifications of the high priest and the common
priest and in touching things that are dead verse 18 through
verse 21 For whatsoever man he is that hath a blemish he that
he shall not approach a blind man a lame man He that has a
flat nose or anything superfluous These are all afflictions and
diseases that mankind Have and that the Jews were not to be
involved in our man that has a broken foot or broken hand
or crooked back, or dwarf, or he that has a blemish in his
eye, or scurvy, or scabs, or hath stones broken. I'm going
to tell you what that is. No man that hath the blemish
of the seed of Aaron, the priest, shall come nigh to offer the
offerings of the Lord made by fire. He hath a blemish. He shall
not come nigh to offer the bread of his God. He shall eat the
bread of his God both the most holy and of the holy only he
shall not go in Unto the veil nor come nigh unto the altar
because he hath a blemish that he hath that he profaned not
my sanctuary for I the Lord do sanctify them and Moses told
it unto Aaron and to his sons and to all the children of Israel
chapter 21 I read to you because chapter 21 lays everybody low
It destroys the capacity for any human being to actually achieve
that goal. You see what God was telling
the high priest? That you had to be perfect physically
and in every way. Be flawless in order to be part
of the ministry. And that's these are the rules
that dominated Israel at that time and completely basically
condemned their capacity to To serve God without that law ultimately
saying that you are condemned go to Deuteronomy chapter 14
one more verse Deuteronomy 14 in Deuteronomy chapter 14 God
makes this makes mention of this again Chapter 14 verse 8 So yes, he
gets into the whole division of things here too as well all
of these fastidious details Verse 7 nevertheless these shall you
not eat of them that chew the cud of them that divide the club
and hoof as the camel as the hair that's the rabbit I eat
that I eat camel too and the coney that's the hair I eat that
too for they chew the cub but divide not the hoof Therefore
they are unclean unto you as the divided hoof of swine and
other animals. And the swine, I eat a lot of
that because it divided the hoof. Yet choose not the cut. It is
unclean unto you. You shall not eat of their flesh
nor touch their dead. And so see it was these kinds
of rules that the children of Israel Were highly conscious
of that forbid them even coming near people like Simon the Tanner.
Are you guys following me? Okay, but Peter has done that. So let's go back to our text
and learn a few more things Now, let me just say as a rule I It's not necessarily wrong that
Simon the Tanner is doing what he's doing for a Jewish person
to be around him. But that Jew does not want to,
in his own mind, inadvertently find himself touching something
dead that does not fall into the category of clean. It's just
not culture. You guys understand that. And
we've got kosher stuff going on today. in our societies and
we also got the other thing going on with the Muslims cleaning
their food and people are starting to actually gravitate towards
that sort of preference for purchasing food. Do you know that is a growing,
what's the word for what the Muslims do? What's that word?
Halal, yeah, halal. And then also kosher food because
it appears to be a cleaner, more healthier process of preparing
food. But just know this, just know
this, are you ready? God didn't set that rule up.
So you can think you're becoming holier by that kind of cleaned
up food if you want to, but it's not biblical. So you can still
go to church and shake it, and you can still go down to the
barbecue joint And it's all good with the Holy Ghost. I just want
you to know that, OK? Because I know, you know, you get to
eat the halal food and the kosher food and you think, oh, my body
feels better and I'm going to live longer. No, you ain't going
to live longer. And you're definitely not going
to heaven. And you know what? You know,
the reason why I would say that, because I'm getting ready to
get into some difficult stuff here in a moment, is that here again
is the challenge of the Christian. when grace comes into your life
and you get bored with grace and you start now wanting to
enhance or adorn the freedom of grace with man-made rules. Now you want to build an idol
with which you can influence others, if not control them. You know, over the 20 years that
I've been pastoring grace, I have had to tell people gingerly and
carefully, Don't turn that into a gospel. Pastor, you know what? I'm not eating meat now, and
I done lost 25 pounds. Cool. Don't turn it into a gospel. You know, Pastor, I done learned
now, you gotta get wheat out of your food. You can't eat wheat.
You can't eat wheat. I've been eating wheat all my
life. You can't eat wheat. How come now, after thousands
and thousands of years, we can't eat wheat? Are you guys hearing
what I'm saying? So, you know, you watch how these
people actually they enter into this newfound experience and
it has its initial benefits. We call it novelty. But they
quickly turn it into a gospel and make you bad when you still
eat wheat bread. You hear what I'm saying? And
so don't do that You you you obscure the grace of God you
cause people unnecessary troubles and You actually misrepresent
the freedom that we all have in Christ now we'll get to Romans
14 in about seven months and there we have to treat that subject
as of what we can eat and what we can't eat. And we'll go into
it in detail. And not what we can eat and what
we can't eat, but how we deal with people who choose to hold
to these limited dietary laws. And how you make sure that you
keep the grace of God center and front, front and center,
if you will, as the main thing and not your newfound zeal to
cleanse your body. and cleanse your mind and have
revelations from God because you chose to not eat pork anymore. Give me your pork. I'll take
it. So in our text, in our text, there are a number of points
that I want to call our attention to now. You don't have it. We
don't have a PowerPoint. So I'll just say this off the
top of my head Peter now is for all intents and purposes at the
seashore Working with those who are working with the dead. Is
that a legitimate proposition? Of course working with those
that are working for the day the account actually becomes
for us Sort of an analogy of the larger ministry and I call
these baby steps to freedom baby steps to freedom 1st Timothy
chapter 4 verses 1 through 4 alludes to it now Paul knew about this
as well But here's the rule that he sets down and this rule Again
will affirm what I've just stated about all of that which in the
Old Testament is was forbidden by the Jewish people. And it
was forbidden, not that they would obtain righteousness by
their own works, but that they would be shown that by the works
of the law, no flesh would be justified in God's sight. If
they decide to take that course, they would have to avoid everything
that the law said, of which they could not avoid successfully.
And in all honesty would have to admit that they're guilty
sinners. which is the design of the law anyway. You guys got
that? I remember years ago, and I do this frequently, but I'm
so glad that I haven't had to do it in a long time. Years ago,
maybe the first 10 years of my ministry, I was in a lot of apologetic
debates around law and grace, and all of the arguments around
things like keeping the Sabbath, seven-day Sabbath. You know,
you run across these folks that say, well, you know, The seventh-day
Sabbath is part of the Decalogue. And if you keep the other nine
commandments, you got to keep that one too, right? Have you
ever heard that argument? You got to keep the seventh-day
Sabbath. And they would get so fastidious about, well, if you're
going to obey God as Jehovah, if you're not going to bow down
to idols, and if you're going to, you know, love your mother
and father, what makes you have the right to now abandon the
seventh-day Sabbath? Right? You ever heard that argument?
And then, you know, we would argue and say, we have the right
to abandon the seventh-day Sabbath. because we understand its design
and scope which was limited to the people of God in the Old
Testament as a specific sign for them in the middle of the
Decalogue where Jehovah had given his constitution to them and
said as you obey me here is one dominant signal sign that you
are my people. Sabbath day the rest of the people
of God in the Old Covenant so that the world could see that
you're my people was assigned to Israel alone It wasn't to
the Gentiles per se and so when once we come into the gospel
age You don't have that structure laid upon us By the way, just
in case you haven't heard it The seventh-day Sabbath wasn't
turned to Sunday So that argument is a fallacious argument, too.
So when one says, OK, if it's not Saturday, what day is it?
Right. That's the logic that will follow. We don't worship
on Saturday. What day do we worship on? Well, fundamentally, we worship
a person, which is God through Christ, by the power of the spirit.
That is the central focus of our worship so that the day of
our worship becomes secondary. Our rest is found in a person.
Are you guys following that? This is very important, just
in case you don't know how to argue this point. Our rest is
found in Christ. He is our Sabbath. And because
we are under grace, we are liberated from that with which Israel was
exclusively tied to, which would have its culmination in the death,
burial and resurrection of Christ, which means the church is free
to worship God on any day it wants. It just chose to worship God
on the first day of the week, because that pattern was set
down by the New Testament, brethren. First day of the week being the
day of the what? Resurrection. But there's no
law. It's just a pattern. So what
I tell people frequently is we worship on Sunday because it's
conventional. It's the pattern. It's the precedent. And because God is not the author
of confusion, we don't leave worship open to any day of the
week, because you might not know what day people are going to
be there. Does that make some sense? And so following order
is a dominant evidence of the presence of the spirit of God.
And so we worship, but we're not bound to Sunday. We can worship
Wednesday. We can worship Friday. You can
worship Tuesday. You can even worship Saturday. It's not a
problem. Just don't turn it into a law. Got that? Don't turn it
into a law. Your rest is not found in a day.
It's found in a person, isn't it? Now even for those of us
who worship on Sunday, you would be lying if you call Sunday your
day of rest. Am I telling you the truth? Do
you know how much work we put in on Sunday? The last day we
rested in is on Sunday. Sunday is about the hardest day
of the week. I've been laboring on Sunday
for I don't know how many years now. It's not a day of rest per
se. but it gives us an opportunity
to cease from our own works and to contemplate His work, which
is what we do when we sit under the gospel. But ladies and gentlemen,
we're doing that now. You see what I'm getting at?
We're doing that now. So every time the people of God
gather together, they are ceasing from their own works to observe
His. This is where we get spiritual
nourishment, as we give our hearts and our minds, and we've given
our bodies. You guys drove here tonight. We've given our bodies
to a time of hearing the Word of God. So I'm laying a foundation
here and we got about 25 minutes slowly doing it because I'm going
to go back through the 10th chapter when we come back from break
and we're going to deal with it very succinctly because there's
some wonderful points there. But in 1st Timothy chapter 4,
mark what verses 1 through 5 says. This is your liberty, child of
God, when it comes to food. Now, the Spirit speaks expressly
that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith.
We call that what? Apostasy. Here's the reason for which they
will depart from the faith. Giving heed to seducing spirits,
right? You know what we call those?
False prophets. And then doctrines of devils.
That is, now they have contrived theological constructs, arguments,
suppositions, assumptions, which amount to doctrines and teachings
that Paul says have their origin in demonic influence. We agree
with him. And here he begins to allude to some of that. Here it is in verse two. Speaking
lies in hypocrisy. See that? These are false teachers
and false prophets. Who are hypocrites and pretend
that they have the Word of God and know the Word of God and
have the Spirit of God and thereby have that unction by which they
can communicate biblical truth. Paul says they speak lies in
hypocrisy. In other words, they appear to
be telling you true, but they're lying. And here's the reason
why. Having their conscious what? Seared with a hot iron. Now,
verse two is insightful in its own right. We won't stay there,
but there is a possibility. And we talked about this years
ago at Grace when I gave you the 10 aspects of the conscience. 10 aspects of the conscience.
One of them is a seared conscience. When the conscience is seared,
it no longer can serve as a warning, a legitimate warning to you when
you are crossing lines. It's the same as being ultimately
and irreparably reprobate Sometimes people ask me the question
Pastor don't these false prophets and false teachers whose avarice
and greed and and lust and excess Don't they know what they're
doing? It seems like they don't I say they do The problem is
the consciousness here and when once the conscious is seared,
you can actually do that which is wrong because you have no,
we call it an ethical break. You don't have no break stopping
you. See, moral people have an ethical break. You guys understand
what I mean by an ethical break? The principles of morality within
our framework that says no, it says no loud enough for you to
stop before you do it. That's called an ethical break.
That's an ethical break. I'm not doing that because it's
wrong. But when the conscience is seared
you can cross over and do anything That's why you end up we end
up seeing these guys in scandalous situations in the news Having
done so many horrible things that you just you can't imagine
that they can stand in front of people appear to be an angel
of light But behind closed doors engage in all these abominations
the seared conscience you guys see that Verse 3 forbidding to
what and commanding to abstain from what See, these are the
excesses of a graceless theology that accompany men and women
who don't know God. These are the excesses of a graceless
theology that accompany men and women who don't know God. Now,
follow this. This is describing legalism.
You guys do know that, right? This is describing legalism and
its trend. In other words, when a man or
a woman puts on a front of being godly or holy, and they really
are not, they now have to erect prohibitions to let everyone
know that this is the way you distinguish yourself from the
common people of the world. Well, we don't do this, and we
don't do that, and we don't do this, and we don't do that, and
we don't do this, and we don't go here, and we don't go there,
and we don't listen to this, and we don't listen to that.
What do you do? What do you do? What do you do? Because you're going around talking
about what you don't do. What do you do? So when I challenge
them in debates, I say, OK, so I see the 10 things you don't
do now. Tell me the 10 things you do do. Because once you give
me the list of the things you do do, I'm going to I'm going
to show that you're still a guilty hell bound sinner and you need
the grace of God. It's the 10 things you do do
that's sending you to hell. That's right. That's right, because
see, if they don't eat meat. They glut out on sweets. See there's a counterbalance
to everything when it's not rooted in grace You understand Because it's they're
doing this they're speaking lies in hypocrisy They're speaking
lies in hypocrisy when you're driven by the spirit of legalism
You don't have the freedom to discover What you can and cannot
do based upon the clear Word of God in the leading of the
Spirit of God Notice what he says Forbidding to marry, commanding
to abstain from meats which God hath created to be received with
thanksgiving of them which what? And what? That's right. Now watch
this for every creature of God is what? I just lays low every
legalist. Bring the pork chops back. Bring
the ham hocks back. Save that pig, save that swine,
save that cow, save that donkey, save that camel, save the dog. We eat dogs too. Oh, I know. See, there you go. There go your
holiness right there, right there. I say, see, if you were starving
and you, if you were starving and I, and I let some of my brother
in here who not a cook hook you up, some doorman, You're starving, hook you up
some Doberman Pinscher, or some, some, some, uh, uh, uh, whatever
you want to call it. You eat that meat, you say, boy,
that's good. What is it? We would say it's Pinscher, Pinscher,
or Dobie, Dobie. That's just Dobie. Don't trip,
it's Dobie. Ooh, that's good. Ooh, that's good. Thank you,
Lord. You be good. Thank you, Lord. That was the best meat
I ever had. Because God gave it. We're getting
into the character of God. I got 15 minutes if I'm not boring
you. I'm just laying the foundation.
Getting into the character of God, though. Because that's where
we're going. And I thought about this years ago, because I grew
up in religion. I mean, I grew up from a child, but as an adult,
early on, 18, 19 years old, and I have perused through all kinds
of twisted aberrations of Christian experience, theology, cultures,
and people groups, of which, again, we're getting ready to
nail it down. and exercise our thoughts on it. And all of these
things came up as an issue. And when God began to reveal
to me what the Bible actually says, and see, that's the work
of the Spirit of God. Here's what happens. When you are properly
taught, here's what you are blessed with. You're blessed with what
the Bible actually teaches. That's all. When we're in error,
We're being duped by and persuaded by what man is saying it teaches. When the Spirit of God is operating
and bringing us into the truth of Scripture, we are now seeing
Scripture for what it says. And when you see Scripture for
what it says, you now get to see the character of God in a
proper light. And the character of God in his
proper light is a God of grace, a God of goodness, a God of super
abundance, a God of wisdom and kindness. Watch this now. He
knows we are in a broken world. Adam and Eve have been out of
the garden for a long time. We are in a world that goes through
famines and curses and pestilences and droughts and all kinds of
ups and downs, right? Why would he restrict us from
eating anything necessary in order to survive? See how good
God is? Have you ever eaten cricket?
No. Have you eaten it? It's pretty
good, huh? It's not bad if you do it right up. Dip it in some
chocolate or some cinnamon full of protein. Guess what? Some
people in famished countries, they eat that and that's all
they have and it sustains them. People are suffering being out
in the woods or out in the country and maybe days occur before someone
rescues them and they know how to survive off of worms and maggots. Let me help you, because it may
be coming to America one day. Just watch the food shows. Watch
Zimmerman, the guy that eats the bizarre food. Let him help
you learn how to eat maggots and worms and snakes and crazy
stuff. I bet you, if your life hung
on it, you would. Y'all looking at me all crazy.
Listen. And I believe the spirit of God
will allow your taste buds and say, you know what? This ain't
bad. I think I was 24 years old, and
I was working as a mechanic. I was working as a mechanic for
many years. And I worked for U-Haul. We would build engines
right there off of a seminary at a big U-Haul truck factory. And I had several Filipino friends. And one of my Filipino friends
would bring some meat to work every day. And I forget how.
What's the name of dog in Filipino, Romy? How do you say it? How
do you say dog in Filipino? Aso? What? Aso? I said aso. And you know what's funny? When
you're in different countries and among those people and they
try to tell you how to say something and you say it the best you can,
they laugh at you. They'll go, you know, say, I
saw. And you go, I saw. No, no, no. Say, I saw. You go,
I saw. No, no, no. Say, I saw. I saw. No, no, no. OK, stop. Stop. I'm done. If you didn't hear
me say, I saw, then we're done. But my friend, my Filipino friend,
we were so cool. He would be sitting there with
his meat and his white rice. And he'd sit by me. He'd say,
Jess, you want some, man? You want some? And I said, what
is it? He says, it's also. And it was so dark, you know.
It's also. And then finally he laughed.
He says, it's dog. And I didn't believe him. And then one day
I was curious because he was eating it every week, every month.
I said, man, let me try some of this. Hillary, it was good,
man. Yeah, it was good. All right,
I'm going to leave you alone, saints. See, I'm going to survive. When
it all comes down, I'm surviving. Come to my house. I'm going to
be having German shepherd, rottweiler, pit bull, and collard greens. And collard
greens. I know we can all try to go vegetarian
as long as we can. But when y'all start smelling
that barbecue sauce on those Yeah, on the pigeon. So go with me back to our text. What does I got 10 minutes before
we wrap it up? What what what is really involved
in the first 24 verses that we were reading? What was involved
in that? What was that? What was that
all about? Peter finally said to them, verse
28, and he said unto them, you know how that it is unlawful
for a man that is a Jew to keep company or come unto one of another
nation. And then he finally deals with
it. Peter explains to them that him being in the house of a Gentile,
Jews just don't do that. So he was already conceding to
them that this was a struggle with him. You guys understand
that? If it wasn't a struggle, he wouldn't have even had to
make the mention of it. If it wasn't a challenge in his heart,
in his conscience, he wouldn't have even had to make the mention
of it. But Peter went with them because the Spirit of God told
Peter to go. Remember that? Peter go with
them, doubting nothing. And so he goes, so obviously
Peter only had a partial revelation as to the objective for which
God sent him, right? And God does that too. There
are times when God gives you assignments and does not give
you all the information because the assignment also is a part
of your sanctification on such a level that God is calling you
to obedience step by step. that until you take the first
step in obedience to him, the second one is not necessarily
granted because he's actually wanting you to walk with him,
holding his hand as he brings you into an understanding of
what he is up to. We're actually, again, we're
actually getting ready to look at the character of God in an
area that's really a challenge for us. So in my outline, I have
under this point, and we'll be able to more fully develop that
next week addressing the intrinsic racism that affects us all. Addressing the intrinsic racism
that affects us all. Peter was struggling with racism,
discrimination. You guys can see that? He was
struggling with racism, discrimination. How do we know this? Watch how
the text, unfolds in chapter 10 verse 9 and 10. Here's what
he says, okay? And on the morrow as they went
on their journey and drew nigh unto the city, that is the people
coming from Cornelius, Peter went upon the housetop to pray
about the sixth hour. He became very hungry, would
have eaten, but while they made ready, he fell into a trance.
Verses 11 through 14 is now the object lesson for Peter. He saw
heaven open in a certain vessel descending unto him and it had
a great sheet knit at the four corners and let down to the earth
Wherein were here it is all manner of four-footed beasts of the
earth wild beasts Creeping things fowls of the air and there came
a voice unto him rise Peter killed and what? But Peter said not
so Lord for I have never eaten anything. That is common or unclean
And that's when God came back the second time and says, what
God has cleansed that call not thou common, right? Now going
back to verse 29, the latter part, notice what Peter says
after he says, you know how it is unlawful for a man that is
a Jew to keep company or come into one of another nation. Here's
his answer. But God has showed me, do you
see that? But God has showed me that I
should not call any man what? Right. So between the time of
Peter's pushback on the vision, his rejection of the proposition
to eat and God saying to him, don't call anything clean or
common or unclean between that time and him making it to Cornelius's
house, he struggled through what the vision meant. because now
the vision is taking on material manifestation by virtue of providence. Providence is leading Peter to
the Gentiles house. The Spirit of God says, go to
the Gentiles house. Oh, now the vision is making
sense. Because what God is telling me
is that these Gentiles, whom we Jews call unclean and common,
not set apart to God, not holy, People we do not touch or want
to come in contact with or have any company with they're different
than us We're better than them We're more holy than them We
don't want to associate with them God is saying You're just
like them and they're just like you So associate because your
job is bigger than your own and Comfort zones your own natural
inclinations your own Personal preferences your own desires. Remember we're going back to
the beginning of our study We know that it's an assignment
from God Because God will take us to places that we don't naturally
want to go right do things. We don't naturally want to do
So right now in our country We are struggling with the age-old
issue of racism still. Is that true? I would open the floor for the
question, but I would not want to have to spend the time to
discredit anyone here who would assert or assume that we're not
still dealing with it. And it's fascinating to me, because
I'm just spending these last five minutes talking to you about
how I have analyzed it over the years, particularly being a political,
religious talk show host, right? And I get a chance to really
put my hands on the tangible dynamics of people's views and
opinions about race on the air, which I'm going to do in the
new year, because the new year, this new year, 2015, we're going
to be confronted with it again and again and again at the highest
levels. I'll be involved in some symposiums. I'll talk about that
because the Bay Area, I just learned this tonight, that out
of all the states in the union, California is the most diverse
state in all the unions. out of all the states in the
union. Remarkable. Remarkable. Now, that piece of information
being true, nevertheless, does not suggest or imply that we
don't have a racism problem. We have a massive racism problem. So so so so while I'm milking
these last five minutes, here's what I want to let you know is
possible. And it's important for you and
I as Christians to not avoid this one, because this is unavoidable.
This proceeds from the character of God. What Peter is about to
say to the to the Gentiles, Cornelius and his band, and I'm looking
forward to developing that to. Peter is about to say, God has
taught me See? His theses come from God. His
worldview comes from God. His convictions come from God.
The truth that's going to actually bring into captivity his normal
thinking is from God. God hath taught me, this is what
he says, that he is no respecter of persons. This is what Peter's saying.
Peter's standing in Cornelius' house. It would have never been
done. He was standing in Cornelius's
house and it would have never been done. Look at verse 34.
Are you there? Then Peter opened his mouth and
said, Of a true, I want you to watch this and I'm going to just
talk about this a little bit in close. I perceive that God
is no respecter of persons. Do you see that? So, so, so stay
there for a moment because what Peter is doing is absorbing an
experience that he knows is about to have massive implications
throughout all Jerusalem, Judea and the world. Peter has a key
that was given to him by Christ to open the door to the Gentile. And it's going to cost him some
trouble. Do you understand that? I can see what Peter's doing
right now. In his own mind, you know what he's thinking? How
on earth am I going to go back and tell my KKK brethren what I just did? How am I going to tell them I
just hung out with a bunch of black dudes and ate some barbecue and
talked about Jesus? Right? Because our KKK brethren
was just as Christian as of blacks and Latinos and everybody else,
right? Ostensibly, right? See, so it's like we all have
to just deal with this, you know, just because they had these outrageous
notions about the superiority of the Aryan race doesn't discount
the plausibility that some of them were saved. Did you guys
get that? Who didn't get it? I want to
raise your hand if you didn't get this. I'm going to restate it. OK, good. See
this is where the mirror has to come up watch this now If
you say That a person who is an overt racist Cannot be saved Then you are saying That you
are probably not saved Or maybe Mama, your daddy, your
grandmama, granddaddy. Are you with me so far? Follow
the logic. I talked about this on my program
when we were dealing with that guy who owned the team down in
LA, a Jewish guy who owned the team down in LA. He was overtly
racist. Remember that? Forget his name.
What's that? Stern. And, uh, I got on there
and I said, you guys stop hating on Stern. Stop hating on him.
Everybody wanted to kill him, bury him, you know, burn him
up, send him in a, in a rocket ship off to another planet. Cause
he was, cause he just, you know, he called the black players stallions,
you know, and these are my horses, you know, and I'm making money.
All he was doing was thinking outwardly what a lot of people
think inwardly. And what I had to tell my black
brothers and sisters is your grandmama talk like that. Your
mama talk like that. Your uncles talk like that. See,
in our own quarters, we talk like that. That's true. In our own quarters, our people
talk like that. Is that true? Christian, haven't
you been surprised when the Lord saves you and pours into your
heart the love of God and that love of God bubbles up and liberates
you from unnecessary um, criticism and discrimination towards other
people. And then you go into the midst
of your family for a holiday season and your ears are opened
and you go, wow, listen to how rank racist these folks of mine
are. Right. And now you are so uncomfortable
because either you're going to be a hypocrite and go in with
them and the spirit of God has said, Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey,
a hypocrite. Why don't you just take an opportunity
and preach Christ right here? See what I'm getting at? Because
it's across the board. It's across the board. The truth
of it is that it's across the board. Here's the thing that's
absolutely fascinating to me. The reality is we live with it comfortably. And we utilize that card when
we want to, And we have no compunctious about
calling ourselves a fully saved, concretely born again Christian. You never challenge your Christianity
while you're kicking it with somebody who is less spiritual
than you. And y'all talking about those white folks or those niggers or whatever you might call them.
You never question your Christianity. Am I telling the truth? You never
question your christianity. You might have a little bit of
uneasiness inside because you come to a church like grace where
your pastor is black And he's preaching the gospel and i'm
feeding my soul through his ministry and vice versa wherever we go
I grew up and most of my pastors were caucasian are non-blacks
That it didn't even matter to me in terms of my soul's eternality
and spiritual welfare, didn't matter a bit because the ministry
of the gospel and the person of Christ was so much more important
to me that racial categories became irrelevant, but not eradicated. Irrelevant, but not eradicated.
Irrelevant for people who are mature enough to live out of
the well of grace and not allow their identity to be fixed by
their ethnic categories. Which for me, my biggest conflict
is with my own African-American community. My second biggest
conflict is with my non-African-American community. Because of what we
commonly live with. We live with this undercurrent
of toleration for racial categories where it's comfortable. This
is true. This is very, very true. Here's
how here's how intense it is. Are you ready? You can be sitting
there right there with your wife. You black. She white. And so I'm giving the extremes
because, you know, the color spectrum can flow in and out,
right? Latino, Asian, whatever different ethnic groups. You
can be sitting there as a black man. Your wife is Caucasian. You love her. She loves you,
but y'all both racist. Isn't that wild? I'm telling
the truth. Can I tell a little truth tonight?
This is why I love this church. I really do. I love it because
we can actually go there. I'll break into it. I'll deal
with it. And then I'll take it to the radio Like this year this
year we're gonna be dealing with I'm taking it to the radio No,
no, because like when they started jumping on Stern, I went to his
defense Let that man alone I mean he has a right to believe what
he wants to if freedom of speech and freedom of thinking is part
of our constitutional privilege Don't take his money away, his
lifestyle away. Who now becomes the thought police?
Am I making some sense? A girl recorded him saying something
dumb and stupid, of which all of our relatives say dumb and
stupid things just like that. And he loses his team? They turn
that into a law, you and I are in trouble. Leave that man alone. Do you know how many black people
making good money working for him? See, back in the day, if
we would have made a stink out of it like that, our grandmama
and our uncles and our cousins would all been out of work. Right? Am I making some sense? See,
so you can deal with a thing on a philosophical level, but
if you carry it too far, your hypocrisy is going to undo you. Your hypocrisy is going to undo
you. So you're going to see, because
of the way Providence has put this in our lap again as a country,
that you're going to hear debates and discussions and arguments
and resolutions on the part of the government that are not going
to work with trying to solve this problem. I just stated that
it's as deep as a man being able to be white and marry a black
woman and love her. and her love him. And they both
hate each other's people. Watch it. Watch this. Watch it.
This is what we call cognitive dissonance. The capacity to split
between something being acceptable and something not being acceptable,
being actually in conflict with each other. This is discrimination,
right? And even the two will discover
it over time that their families are so bad at it that it creates
problems in the marriage. And every now and then, they'll
take their daggers and spears and throw it at each other. Two
races married. And here's the issue. I'll let you make a comment in
a moment. Here's the issue, and I don't mind opening the floor.
I'm only sharing this with you so that for the year 2015, I
really want my brothers and sisters to think through the complex
nature of it, how complex it is. Because here's the mistake
that I see happening all the time, and I challenge people
on this openly. The mistake that I see happening
is that on one side of the ledger, particularly with America's history,
of white domination and black slavery, which is a blotch on
our culture. And it's not just whites and
blacks. You know that. There's others in between, including
our Native Americans. You just can't get away from
it. What happens on the side of the
oppressor, post-oppressor, is that they say, get over it, right? And on the side of our oppressed,
What we say is, or they say is, we can't get over it because
the system is not justified yet. Do you follow the logic? We can't
get over it until the system is justified. It's really true. It's really true. So, and every
now and then you have these things occur that demonstrate the lack
of a justified system. And then sometimes our Caucasian
brethren get an epiphany. And they go, oh, I didn't see
that. Because they were under the assumption
that it's isolated events when it's far more systemic than that.
On the part of our black people, they keep making the mistake
of grouping them all together instead of respecting each individual
person as they should. Am I making some sense? Because
at the end of the day, God is no respecter of persons as we're
going to work it through. And for black people, here's
what I would say, that our Christianity hasn't done us any good over
the last 150 years in those areas. And they will argue it with the
scholars and professors will argue with me, push back on Pastor
Jesse. Pastor Jesse, you don't know
what you're talking about. We have to circle the wagons. We have to protect
ourselves. We have to preserve our culture. No, you don't. No,
you don't. You don't have to protect yourself.
You don't have to circle the wagons. You don't have to preserve
your culture. Not if you are Christian first. See, this is the problem that
we're challenged with. We're not Christian first. We're
black, white first, Christian second. That's the problem. See, once we unpack this in the
scriptures, you're going to see that Jesus is in order to follow
me. You got to die. Watch this. Because he did. He walked right into his own
hyper prejudice culture, told them that he was the savior of
the whole world, as the scriptures have plainly stated, and they
hung him high and wide. because he chose to love Gentiles
and Jews equally. This is my problem with my present
day Christianity. And every time I find myself
deeply engaged in dialogue with African-Americans at the highest
level of intellect, they fail to recognize that they have turned
their priorities upside down and subordinated the gospel to
their own black ethnic identity. It's incredible. So until the
black church turns the gospel right side up, and then the white
church recognizes that it needs to deal with history more thoroughly
and fairly and appropriately, the twain will never come together
on a healing level as a nation. Did you guys understand what
I just stated right there? Black church has actually idolatries
the gospel. And white church has covered
over the transgressions that have been committed historically.
When both have to confess their sins and look to Christ as the
transcendent revelation that allows us to rise above both
precious identities that we're holding to. Otherwise, here's
what will happen over the next 50 years. The divide will be
greater and deeper. And we will not see a unified
church. Am I making some sense? I will
close in a second. What were you going to say back
there, Mr. Lawyer? Yeah, but we're not entering
into class elements right now. We're only dealing strictly with
the category of ethnicity. Ebonics and profanities. Only in part I'm completely on
solid grounds with my dealing with it strictly from a social
level in the area of ethnicity Because we could take that same
paradigm that you're sharing and make it intra racial See,
I don't I I accept your argument in its own category You guys
understand what I'm getting at that when we're well, he's talking
class Like, he's talking class racism, and class racism can
be intra-racial. You can have class racism or
discrimination in your own people groups. Indians do it all the
time, you know. It's the caste system. And this
has everything to do with people's perceptions of what's acceptable
and not acceptable, and therefore identifying with or not identifying
with. Because he already affirmed that.
He says some black people are like that. They're, you know,
living a certain class or status of life. have a certain level
of education and don't see what some of our African-Americans
who are living in less privileged circumstances and expressing
themselves in much more of a rude fashion, if you will, they don't
see that as appealing or wanting to have anything to do with it.
And they can also be guilty of the very same discriminatory
principles that I'm talking about here. I fully agree with that
in its own category. So you can't discount my argument
because I'm dealing with one genus of the argument. And the
genus of the argument that I'm dealing with is just a fundamental
innate racist tendencies that we have because we all have the
levels, these levels of insecurity. about differences. Xenophobia
is the fundamental principle here. And they can even be within
the group. Like I talked honestly with a
Caucasian recently who bemoans the fact that white people are
very many, many in general, not all, obviously per capita you'll
get, I've grown up with Caucasian brothers who are so absolutely
cool and so in tune to all of these issues that it's a non-issue. You understand what I'm saying?
And vice versa and across the board. You got people who are
very clear on these things, but then you got people who don't.
And so we have to be very careful to know that there's a legitimate
argument that has to be parsed in the area of ethnicity, that
has to be parsed in the area of class. Certainly it's a class
battle too. You guys know that. That's something
we all have to struggle with. Here we are living first century
modern American Christianity. If we would have to go to the
jungles of New Guinea or go to the deep dark regions of Central
America, we would be struggling with how those people lived too.
Right? These are just the fundamental
discriminatory principles. I raise that up because you guys
are going to be seeing this throughout the course of the years to come.
And I only say it that, I say it for this reason. Alec is that
I would want our people, my Christian brothers and sisters to just
do a better job of understanding so that they can be more obedient
to Christ. Because if we set up constructs
that justify our secret racism, we will not be productive for
the Lord. And all it will do is lead you
back to your cultural camp where you're more comfortable. And
the divisions in the church will sustain. And we will fail to
realize biblical Christianity. Are you guys hearing me? We will
fail to realize it. And no one said that this is
going to be easy. Obviously, we've done 150 years
more, 250 years of not being able to settle the problem in
America. And it seems to be growing, right? And so I was asking my
brothers and sisters, are we finding ourselves having a difficult
time being around other people who are not like us and wondering
what they think because of all the media and stuff that's going
on? I mean, you can have that, right?
Angry black people, angry white people, angry Muslims. Anger is emerging everywhere
because everybody's trying to protect their own. In the midst
of all this that has to be worked out, it's not going to be worked
out overnight. I'll let you talk in a second, Jan, we'll close.
It's not going to be worked out overnight. But we have to be
able to think these things through, have the discussion, and begin
to just kind of try to settle some of these things concretely
on a biblical basis, a rational basis, in a way that allows us
to advance beyond where we were. Otherwise, we will wake up 10
years from now And we will still be very superficial with each
other. When as Christians, we should be able to go deeper.
Don't you think? We should be able to go deeper.
Jan. You got to talk up because they
want to hear you. Right. That's the text that we're
all landing on. And we have to contemplate the
character of God in that text. then translate that character
into our own convictions as we study the word of God and see
them permeate our walk and transform us so that we're more like God
and not like religious folk that we are. That's not easy. God is no respecter of persons
is not an easy task. Because what we are, if we're
honest, recognizing is Yeah, let God be no respecter of person.
But then so far as I'm concerned, I'm going to be a respecter of
person. That's what it's amounting to still by what we see going
on in our culture. One more, George. It's not kept alive by politicians. It's opportunistically utilized
by them. My argument is that politicians
don't have to create racism. All they have to do is take advantage
of it when the clashes occur. Right. And magnify it only in
this sense, that they take advantage of the conflict to channel it
in a way to achieve their own ends. But the inexorable process
to which we are all bound is either politics or war. So I'll say this in close. Politics
is the civil way of working through conflict. You guys got that? Politics is the civil way of
working through conflict. This may not make any sense to
you. I'm glad I'm having this conversation with you. I'm so
glad I'm having this conversation. Yeah, tell them they're too loud
in there. You and I might Rude politics and go fool the politics. But God gave us politics. In
order to actually deal with conflicts in a civil fashion. For society as a whole, because
the only other alternative is war. Do you guys hear me? The only alternative to politics
is war. We have a conflict. People protest,
burn up, blow up things, right? Now the politicians running in
and want to try to solve the problem. Politics confines, it
constrains, put parameters on hostilities between people groups.
And then it implements a process by which we try to solve that.
You guys see that? We even have a political process
in the church. You need to know that. Politics
is not bad in and of itself. But like anything, can be manipulated
and then coerced to its own end. Having said what I said about
this, and I'm glad you guys have been patient, you'd be off for
three weeks. Having said what I said about
this, you know what I still say about America? For me, it's the
greatest country in the world. For me, I say that. I mean, I've
been to other countries and they're cool. But what I love about America
is the process. Like, for instance, just in this
little class, but our church is a multi-ethnic church. You
guys know that. Not multicultural. Don't mix multicultural with
multi-ethnic. Don't go around saying, Grace is a multicultural
church. No, we're not. We're a multi-ethnic church.
We ain't got banners, and pinatas, and sashis, and big strange instruments. No, same culture. Multi-ethnic,
right? And you know why that is? Because
California is multi-ethnic. So so so watch what the gospel
has done for us at grace. The gospel has allowed us to
bring men and women who are already used to levels of diversity that
allow us to coexist under the same roof with a relative comfortability
that you don't have in the South. You don't have it. I go to the
South and preach with my Southern brethren. I let them know before
they ask me. Because they always ask, where
are you from? Before they ask me, I say, man,
I'm from Cali. And I love it. Because Southerners
look at California like Nazareth. Do you understand that? Can't
no good thing come out of California. And I'm proud to stand up for
Cali. I say, I love my diversity. I love my bag of mixed fruit
and nuts and barley. And I love it. I love it. I love it. And many of those
states are bemoaning the fact that they haven't had the level
of diversity to adorn and don their presence as well. They
know that the skin level is irrelevant at the end of the day. We all
know that. You understand? God has allowed
us to demonstrate that every nationality can rise to the level
intellectually, performance-wise, in every level, in every level.
No one ethnic group is better than the other. Now in the NBA,
we got Asians getting down. Who would have thought an Asian
could play some basketball? See, there go my racism. He's
kicking in right there. Asian brothers can't play no
basketball. They play with chopsticks Do my brother and I love them
and I'm just saying the equality is Intrinsic and if you give
people an opportunity, they'll demonstrate that they can rise
to that level Right, and so that's what we have to do is give people
that opportunity. Let's father. Thank you for this time Thank
you for my brothers and sisters who have come out and allowed
me to banter Around things that are really in your own eyes truly
important and May 2015, if we all see it, be a year where we
grow in this area and have the tools to be able to communicate
around these sensitive issues to the benefit of all parties
in view. The history, the conflicts, the
offenses, and then the solutions. We want solutions. But we need
your grace. We need boldness. We need confidence,
humility, sensitivity, empathy, sympathy, all of those virtues
that allow for us to be able to have a productive dialogue,
conversation, debate, especially as the church of the living God,
so that we might be able to honor the God who is the God of all
flesh and the Savior of the whole world. And we pray this in Jesus
name. Amen. God bless you guys.