“The Spirit Speaks to the World” Acts 10:34-48

Dreams can be funny things. It’s not unusual for someone to awaken from a night’s sleep and relate a strange dream they had that had nothing to do with real life, but still left a vivid impression.

God used dreams to speak to His people throughout the Bible, both in the Old and the New Testaments. It was through dreams that God directed Joseph regarding Mary and the flight into Egypt. He used a dream of a Macedonian man to tell Paul to travel to Greece and begin churches there.

In today’s passage, God uses dreams to speak to both Cornelius and Peter. The result further transformed the Church and its understanding of how God can work to save the world.

Background

Continuing Jesus’ promise that the apostles and His followers would share the Gospel to the ends of the earth, we have seen God use the Spirit to spread the Good News throughout Jerusalem. He allowed the persecution of the church to spread the Gospel to the rest of Judea and Samaria. The Church witnessed the Spirit filling the Samaritans. Today’s passage has the message going to a Gentile community, and the messenger is Peter himself.

From the conversion of Saul (soon to be Paul), we read that Saul began to preach in Damascus. That must have been a major puzzle to both the Church and the Jewish community. Saul, who had been sent by the religious leaders of Jerusalem to arrest Christians, was instead telling others of his encounter with Jesus on the road and how he was saved.

Peter has been ministering to others, healing a lame man and raised a dead woman in Joppa. Amazing things were happening, but only more amazing things were about to occur.

As we begin Acts 10, we read of a Roman centurion who was devoted to God and a practitioner of good deeds and compassion. He prayed regularly to God and, as a result, God sent him an angel in a dream. This dream was very specific—Cornelius was to send for Peter in Joppa. Without hesitation, upon awakening from the dream, Cornelius sent messengers to Peter.

Meanwhile, in Joppa, God was using dreams to speak to Peter.

Peter was a devout Jew. He had been raised Jewish and apparently still practiced much of his childhood faith. Though he followed Jesus, apparently Peter still clung to the dietary laws of the Old Testament. Peter went up on the roof of the house where he was staying. While he waited for a meal to be prepared, he fell asleep and had a dream.

In the dream, Peter was presented with a sheet filled with all sorts of unclean animals. Peter was commanded to kill and eat the animals, but he refused outright. A second time, Peter has the vision and the same conversation. And a third time it happens again.

At the end of the third time, Peter awoke and wondered what the strange dream meant. While Peter was pondering on the roof, there was a knock on the door. Three men were there, looking for Peter. God used the Spirit to tell Peter to go with the three men. Peter met the men at the door, asked why they wanted him, and invited them to be his guest for the night.

The next day, Peter went with the men to Cornelius’ house. The Bible says that when Peter got to the house, there was a large crowd present. Peter’s first words to them was, “You are well aware that it is against our law for a Jew to associate with a Gentile or visit him. But God has shown me that I should not call any man impure or unclean. So when I was sent for, I came without raising any objection” (Acts 10:28-29). He then asked them what he could do for them.

Cornelius related to Peter the dream he had had four days prior, and that the dream specifically told him to send for Peter. “Now we are all here in the presence of God to listen to everything the Lord has commanded you to tell us” (v.33b).

I don’t know about you, but I imagine the room was filled with anticipation from everyone in the room, even Peter and Cornelius. This was no door knock evangelism. This was the hand of God directing His servant to share the message that the household needed to hear.

Central Truth: The Holy Spirit gives salvation to any who earnestly seek God.

The Spirit saved Cornelius through:

Peter’s testimony (34-43)

Do you remember Peter? He was the guy who stepped out of a boat in the middle of a raging storm in order to walk on water simply because Jesus told him to. He was the guy who was quick to insist that he would fight to the death for Jesus, and tried to before Jesus made him put his sword away. This Peter was prone to do sometimes rash things in his faith in Jesus. This must have seemed like such a time to him now. He sat in a room, surrounded by Gentiles, each eager to hear what he had to say. They believed he had been sent by God, and Peter must have believed it to.

Peter’s testimony continued from his introductory remarks. God had shown Peter through the dream that he was not to judge things based upon the old way of doing things. He was to be open to the Spirit’s leadership. Peter began by reminding his audience of Jesus and His ministry. He told them that God has specifically sent Jesus and how God worked through Jesus.

Then Peter makes the message personal, relating now only what he had personally heard and observed. He told them of the crucifixion and of the resurrection. He told them how Jesus had shown Himself to them because of their faith in Him. And he told them of Jesus’ command to share the Gospel. Peter summarizes his message with, “All the prophets testify about Him that everyone who believes in Him receives forgiveness of sins through His name” (v. 43).

Cornelius’ response (44-46a)

At first, I imagine the room where Peter was speaking was absolutely silent but for the sound of Peter’s voice. So rapt was the attention of every person in the room, that it would not have been surprising if they had to be reminded to breathe.

But as Peter continued his words, something began to stir among the listeners. Something peculiar was happening. They could sense it, they could feel it, but they probably couldn’t explain it. The more Peter spoke, the stronger the feeling, the stronger the sense of something wonderful happening.

Suddenly, someone in the room is no longer able to remain silent, and he or she burst into tongues. Others soon follow, and soon the room is filled with men and women, boys and girls being filled with the Holy Spirit and reacting just as those who had first received the Spirit in that house in Jerusalem had experienced the Spirit.

The Bible says “The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astonished that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even to Gentiles” (v. 45). The evidence was the way the Gentiles were acting—speaking in tongues and praising God.

There is a turnabout at this point. Cornelius had invited Peter to come because God had told him to. He didn’t know what Peter would say or do, nor did he know what God was going to do. Peter had come as a result of a series of dreams and the direction of the Spirit. I have no doubt that both men, indeed, everyone at the house that day, sensed God was preparing to do an amazing thing that day. They just didn’t know what.

They didn’t know that God would give the same Holy Spirit to Gentiles accepting Him, just as God had done with Jews and with Samaritans. It was nothing short of an eye-opening miracle for both Cornelius and his guests and for Peter and his entourage.

Confirmation of salvation (46b-48)

I don’t know if Peter was a Baptist, but his reaction to what was happening was typical of a Baptist. He saw they had been saved—they had already received the Spirit. What else was left to be done but to baptize them?

The Bible says that’s exactly what was done and that Peter stayed on a few days more to give them further instruction.

There are those who use Acts 2 to prove that speaking in tongues is evidence of the Holy Spirit and suggest that only truly spiritual people speak in tongues. There are those who use Acts 2 to stress that baptism is as much a part of salvation as the faith commitment to Christ. These few verses refute both ideas.

In the early days of the Church, God used the Holy Spirit to spread the Gospel to a lost and dying world, just as He does today. But in those early days of the Church, God had to let each ethnic group experience the same characteristics of the presence of the Holy Spirit as the initial group meeting in the house referred to in Acts 2. Had the Samaritans not received the Spirit in the same way, there would inevitably be a movement of trying to make the Samaritans second-class Christians. The same is true of the Gentiles. By allowing both groups to experience the same things as the Jews in Jerusalem, God was destroying the walls that could have divided the family of God.

And the same is true of baptism. The Samaritans had received baptism without receiving the Spirit because they had only been baptized in Jesus’ name, not in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The Gentiles, on the other hand, received the Spirit prior to baptism. The Bible is very clear that the Spirit will not enter the unsaved. If the Spirit was already in the Gentiles prior to their baptism, then baptism is not a necessary part of salvation.

Conclusion

“You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and you will be My witnesses in Jerusalem, and in Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” This was Jesus’ last words before His ascension into heaven. With the events of Acts 10, we see that God has opened to doors for all the world to receive the Good News that Jesus saves.

So what about us?

There are those who say that the events recorded in the New Testament—Acts specifically—were unique because the New Testament hadn’t been written. These people say that God doesn’t use miracles or signs or dreams or special gifts anymore because we don’t need them.

I disagree. I believe that God still uses His same Spirit to work in His people to continue to share the same message—Jesus saves. It is His message; it must be our message, too. As Peter shows us, we tell what we know, what we have seen and heard, and we trust the Spirit to move.

Because God isn’t through writing His message in our world, and He’s using us to do it.