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That's connectwithskip.com. Now, let's get into today's teaching from Pastor Skip Heitzig. The Book of Acts, you could look at it as Luke Part 2, because Luke goes through the life of Jesus in the Gospel of Luke. Then he writes about the early church in the Book of Acts that we're studying. By the way, we're in chapter 10 if you want to get ready on your tablet or phone or real Bible. And he opens up the Book of Acts by saying, The former treatise which I wrote to you, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began to do and teach until the day in which he was taken up.
The implication of that opening verse of the Book of Acts is that in the Gospel of Luke, I told you about the beginning of what Jesus did and said. Now I am switching gears and showing you the continuation of what Jesus is doing through the lives of those that he saved and that followed him on this earth. Jesus was taken up, as Luke said, into heaven. So Luke is the continuation of Jesus moving. I remember being a part of what's called the Jesus movement. And a lot of people say, Yeah, do you remember the Jesus movement, man? You were a part of the Jesus movement. Jesus is still moving now. He didn't stop. It wasn't like an era that lasted a decade and then the Jesus movement is over. Jesus is now not moving. He's moving more powerfully than ever. And you're a part of it. And so we are in the Book of Acts.
We're in chapter 10. And what I love about Jesus moving is that he reaches people. And here's part of the narrative now of the Book of Acts.
He reaches people that some would think are beyond reach. I mean, who could ever reach out to the Samaritans in a meaningful way and have them convert in mass to believe in the Jewish Messiah, given the rivalry that has existed all the way throughout the Old Testament history. And so a persecution in Chapter 8, verse 1, occurred in Jerusalem, forcing many of the believers to go up to Samaria. One of them was a deacon in Jerusalem named Philip. And the Lord gave this volunteer servant of the Lord in Jerusalem the power to preach the gospel articulately, clearly, compellingly, and to do signs and wonders so that people en masse in Samaria turn to the Lord. Unreachable people, the Lord reached them.
You could continue and say, well, how could the Lord ever reach the Ethiopian Kingdom and the African nations after Jesus, the Jewish Messiah, came? So a diplomat, an Ethiopian eunuch, goes up to Jerusalem, and on his way back he stops his chariot, he pulls his convertible over. He's reading a Bible, just happened to be reading Isaiah Chapter 53. Philip is there again, and the Lord sort of taps him on the heart and says, go join yourself to that chariot, sit down next to that guy. So he sits there and goes, hey, do you mind if I jump in your Camaro and we can talk?
And the guy said, come on in. He said, well, what are you reading? And he started showing him Isaiah 53, and then he said, look, I'm reading it, but who's he talking about?
And so Philip was able to say, well, it's funny that you ask that. And beginning at that scripture, he preached Jesus to him. So now you have a government official in the Ethiopian administration who comes to faith in Christ, is baptized, goes back down into that continent of Africa, that area that we call Ethiopia, and the gospel spreads. Then the quintessential example of reaching the unreachable is a guy by the name of Saul of Tarsus, a super Jew, Hebrew of the Hebrews. Concerning the law, he said blameless. Somebody who was vehemently opposed, vitriolic against the Christian church, the Lord reaches out through this incredible vision on the Damascus Road and saves him, and he is radically converted.
And I love reading the stories of those who are the unlikely ones to be saved. So I remember years ago when I was a kid, picking up on the news stories around 19, I think, 76, when a guy named David Berkowitz was a serial killer in New York. They named him the Son of Sam, and the story is that he thought he heard Jesus talking to him through a dog and inspiring him to kill people. So he killed several people. He was a serial murderer. He was convicted.
He was sent to prison in the Poughkeepsie area of New York. And I get a phone call one day because I was planning a visit to New York to do an outreach, and a lady was on the other end of the line. She said, I'm a chaplain at the Sullivan Correctional Institute in New York, and we have a prisoner named David Berkowitz. I said, I'm familiar with him. She said, well, apparently he listens to your radio broadcast every day, and he would love the chance to meet with you.
And I'm going, gosh, I don't know if I want to do that. But I said, well, tell me more about him. And she said, let me tell you, I've spent hours and hours and weeks and months with him. He has given his life to Christ. It's genuine.
It's real. I mean, he is a converted man. And yeah, I'm glad that one of you is excited about that.
I was very excited about that. So I went and I spent the day with him, just talking to him, interviewing, hearing his heart, hearing his testimony. And he told me, he goes, look, I don't want out. I don't deserve to get out. When he came up for parole, he told the judge, I'm not getting out.
Don't even consider me. After what I've done, I deserve to be here, and there are people in this prison that the Lord will use my testimony for. Those are the very people I need to be around. So he knows he's in for life, but I've corresponded with him since. And he feels like in an odd way, even though he said, admittedly, I was a Satan worshiper and an unbeliever, I now follow Christ. And I'm convinced I'm going to see him in heaven. Then a few years ago when I was in Israel, I saw this guy. I recognized him. I didn't know who he was, but I recognized his face. And somebody goes, oh, that's Brian Head Welch. That's the guitar player in Korn, that radical metal band. I would call it a radical metal band.
Maybe some of you would think that's sort of orchestral. But anyway, he gave his life to Christ, and I watched him the day he was baptized in the Jordan River. And just being able to hear his testimony of how he came to faith and what he's doing following Jesus.
And I love to hear these unreachable people or places that the Lord gets a hold of. History is filled with people like C.S. Lewis and many others. You are probably people that your high school friends or college friends said, no way. I was of that sort.
When I showed up at one of my high school reunions, that's where they, no way. I said, way. I mean, way, way. But isn't it great that the Lord has a plan, and one of the things we see here in the salvation of another unlikely person, a Roman centurion by the name of Cornelius, is the providence of God. And we see that God had been preparing Cornelius for many years for this intersection of a meeting between Cornelius the centurion and Peter the apostle.
And I love how the Lord orchestrates not only the fact that he saves people, but the means by which they come to him in his sovereign grace. So in Acts chapter 10, that's what we're going to look at, we have the story of the conversion of Cornelius, a Roman military man, a centurion. But be careful and watch out for this because you're going to find out not one conversion, but two conversions in this chapter. The conversion of Cornelius the centurion and the conversion of Peter the apostle. You say, wait a minute, Peter's already saved, yes he is, but he needs a conversion from legalism to grace. He still has a little bit of hesitancy, he's reticent to accept complete non-Jewish people. You know, at least Samaritans are sort of related historically to the Jewish faith, but to have somebody who's a complete Gentile come to faith in Christ, Peter wasn't quite ready for that, but the Lord readies him through it. So it's a pivotal chapter, it's the first Gentile conversion in Scripture. And remember, Jesus told his disciples, go into all the world and preach the gospel. You know, there's sometimes we read things in the Bible or we hear the Lord say things and we go, yeah, yeah, okay, I get it, I get it, yeah, yeah. But when it's really what he means, no, I mean like all the world.
I mean, I love all the world. I will save anyone who will call upon me. When it came down to it, Peter was a little hesitant, as we'll see. So Acts chapter 10, verse 1, now there was a certain man in Caesarea called Cornelius, a centurion of what was called the Italian regiment or the Italian cohort. The Roman army was comprised of legions and a Roman legion had between 5,000 and 6,000 men. Legions were then comprised of cohorts or the word here is regiments. And in the cohorts, 600 men per cohort, you had centurions who were officers who were in charge of 100 men. So there were 60 centurions in every legion of the Roman army. And according to history, it was the Roman centurion that really was the backbone of Roman discipline in the army and the success of the Roman army. Some of the reports of centurions is that they were adventuresome go-getters, fearless, unafraid. At the same time, they had a very steady character. They didn't get riled easily. And so they were very, very stable in their personalities.
They were trained that way so they could face a variety of subjects. You're listening to Connect with Skip Heitzig. Before we get back to Skip's teaching, we want to help you learn more about God's radical love for all people by sending you four booklets by Skip Heitzig that will encourage you in God's abounding love and challenge you to love even the unlovable, just like Jesus did. This resource is our thanks for your gift of at least $50 today to help share solid biblical teaching with more people around the world through Connect with Skip Heitzig.
Go to connectwithskip.com slash offer or call 800-922-1888 and request your copies when you give at least $50 today to reach people around the world through Connect with Skip Heitzig. Now, let's continue with today's teaching from Pastor Skip. And so there was a ruler of 100 men, a centurion of what is called the Italian regiment or the Italian cohort. Something else interesting about centurions in the New Testament. It seems that whenever you read in the New Testament about a centurion, they are cast in favorable light.
They seem to be amenable toward the things of faith or the people of God. Example, there was a centurion in the city of Capernaum. You know what Capernaum is. It was the headquarters where Jesus headquartered his ministry for three and a half years by the Sea of Galilee. The Bible tells us that the synagogue in Capernaum was built through the financial means of a centurion in that city.
So when you go to Israel and we show you the remains of the synagogue, it is built upon the remains of the synagogue before that at the time of Christ or the synagogue that that centurion built, paid for to get built. It was that centurion, when Jesus was going into Capernaum one day, who approached Jesus and said, Would you come to my house? Or he said, I have a...
He didn't say, Would you come to my house? He just said, At my house, I have a servant who is very ill, paralyzed with a fever and close unto death. And Jesus said, I will come and heal him. And the centurion looked at Jesus and said, Well, don't bother coming.
I'm not worried that you should come into my house. Just say the word right here. Just speak the word and I know my servant will be healed. And Jesus looked at that centurion, that Gentile Roman officer, and said out loud in the hearing of all the Jewish people, He said, I haven't found so great a faith even in Israel. So Jesus commended a Roman centurion for having more faith than the Jewish people of that town. Then there's the centurion at the cross, who at the crucifixion realized this is innocent blood and said, truly, this man is the Son of God.
So let's read a little bit more about Cornelius. He was in Caesarea. He says, He is a devout man, verse 2. So again, it speaks favorably of this centurion. And one who feared God with all of his household, unusual. Who gave alms generously to the people, that would be to the Jewish people, no doubt.
And he prayed to God always. First of all, a word about Caesarea. And I give a word for it because whenever I take a tour to Israel, we start in the city of Caesarea. But then a few days later, we take them way up north to a city called Caesarea.
And they go, wait a minute. I thought we were in Caesarea. You were. This is another one. So the one here is the one on the Mediterranean known as Caesarea Maritima. And the one up north is Caesarea Philippi. You have two places named after Caesar Augustus by a couple of different builders, a couple of different people, that's all.
So they named them like that in honor of Caesar Augustus. Caesarea is one of my favorite places. When I lived in Israel, in the old days, out even by the ruins, there were guys who would rent surfboards right there on the beach. And I was young and single and living out of kibbutz, and I just thought, I've died and gone to heaven. I can surf at Caesarea, you know, where Paul the Apostle spent two years of his life, where Pontius Pilate had his headquarters and Herod Agrippa was and Felix and Festus in the book of Acts.
So it was a cool couple days. Anyway, it was one of the rulers, the emperors of Judea, one of the Herods, decided that he wanted to build a port, a harbor at Caesarea. So if you go there today, you can see this outlying of a rock outcropping underneath the ocean on two different sides where they built this break wall, this breakwater. One of them goes in a semi-circle about 2,000 feet out into the ocean. And the tour guide will tell you that underneath there are massive stones held together by mortar. And everyone always asks, well, how do you hold something together under salt water with waves pounding with mortar?
And then they give you the explanation, which I found amazing. Over 2,000 years ago, the Romans discovered a way to pour cement that would harden under salt water. And so the harbor was built with these massive ashlirs, these massive stones, held together by concrete, and some of that concrete is still in place today, and they did it 2,000 years ago. So it was a massive endeavor to build this harbor and to attach this incredible city that is still being excavated to this day. So at Caesarea, it had quite a population.
That's where Punch's pilot, as I mentioned, the governor and all the governors after him, would have their headquarters. Then they would go to Jerusalem for the festivals just to make sure that order was kept in the city. So this centurion was stationed at one of the coolest places with some good waves, and that is at Caesarea. It says he is devout, and he feared God with all of his household. He gave alms generously to the people and prayed to God always.
Here's what's amazing about the centurion. He was a man of influence, a man of authority, and at the same time, he hungered for God. His position, his status, his wealth, his power wasn't enough to satisfy his soul. So interestingly, it says he feared God. Now, it could mean he was just religious in general, but it probably means he was a God-fearer. That's a technical term. A God-fearer was called in Judaism a proselyte of the gate, and a proselyte of the gate was somebody who believes in the God of Israel and aligns himself with that covenant, but not completely.
Let me explain. He would pray to the God of Israel. That is, he's now monotheistic, does not believe in all the pagan deities and entities of the Roman pantheon and belief system. He believes in the monotheistic God of the Jews, number one. He's allowed to not only pray but attend the synagogue. He cannot attend temple sacrifices, and that is because though he can pray and he's generally accepted as one of them, he hasn't gone through the ritual of circumcision. You can imagine that many Gentiles who were adults said, no, I'll pray to God, but I'm not going through that ritual because I'm not eight days old.
You know, I'm now 30-some years of age, and that's going to hurt, so no thanks. So they were called proselytes of the gate as opposed to proselytes of righteousness. They went through the entire ritual. So he is drawing near to God, and he's a regular prayer warrior, and he gave his alms, he gave substance, he gave generously to support the poor in the area.
Now watch this. About the ninth hour of the day, that's three in the afternoon. In Judaism, that was one of the hours of prayer, so no doubt that was his typical time like Jews would do to pray, so it was the hour of prayer. Ninth hour in the day, he saw clearly in a vision an angel of God coming in and saying to him, Cornelius, what would that make you feel like? Make you scared, that's why angels always, they're first words out of their mouth, fear not. Because duh, you see an angel, you get pretty scared. And when he observed him, he was afraid.
So here you have a seasoned soldier trained not to be afraid, but hey, when you see an angel, all bets are off. And he said, what is it, Lord? So he said to him, your prayers and your alms have come up for a memorial before God. Now send men to Joppa, and send for Simon whose surname is Peter. He is lodging with Simon a tanner, we left off with Simon the tanner in Joppa in our last study, whose house is by the sea.
He will tell you what you must do. And when the angel who spoke to him had departed, Cornelius called two of his household servants and a devout soldier from among those who waited on him continually. So when he had explained all these things to them, he sent them to Joppa. The next day, as they went on their journey and drew near the city, Peter went up on the housetop to pray, about the sixth hour.
So if the ninth hour is three, the sixth hour is noon, lunchtime. Then he became very hungry, and he wanted to eat. But while he made ready, he fell into a trance and saw heaven opened, and an object like a gray sheet bound at the four corners descending to him and let down to the earth.
In it were all kinds of four-footed animals of the earth, wild beasts, creeping things, and birds of the air. And a voice came to him, rise, Peter, kill, and eat. Now back to Cornelius for a moment. What you are seeing is God unfolding a very elaborate plan to get somebody who has an interest in spiritual things, he has a deep interest in the things of God, he's a prayer warrior and alms giver, he's seeking God, only to discover that God has been seeking him all along. And the plan is to get Peter in front of him to share the gospel with him.
That's what you're gonna see. All of this elaborate orchestration is to get Peter, who is 35 miles away, up to Caesarea to have an audience with him to share the gospel. We're glad you listened today, and hope you've been strengthened in your walk with Jesus. Before we let you go, we want to remind you about this month's resource, the Jesus Loves Them Bundle, which comes as thanks for your support of Connect with Skip Heitzig today. Request your bundle when you call and give, 800-922-1888.
That's 800-922-1888. Or visit connectwithskip.com slash donate. We'll see you next time for more verse-by-verse teaching of God's word here on Connect with Skip Heitzig. Have a great day. Make a connection Make a connection At the foot of the crossing Cast your burdens on his word Make a connection Connection Connect with Skip Heitzig is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's never changing truth in ever-changing times.
