Today's Word Radio

Brett Meador: In the Old Testament, how were you saved? Faith. Saved by believing. Remember Abraham believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness. But in the New Testament, because all that was foreshadowed in the Old Testament about Jesus, the whole Old Testament points forward to Jesus in the New Testament.

Guest (Male): Pastor Brett Meador and the gospel offered to whosoever believes.

Brett Meador: But as Abraham believed looking forward to the Messiah, we believe looking backward to the Messiah. You and I, we are required to accept and believe Jesus Christ.

Guest (Male): Before ascending to heaven, Jesus tasked his followers to go and make disciples of all nations. But it wasn't until receiving a divine vision that Peter understood the message of the gospel truly applied to all people. Pastor Brett Meador reflects in today's word how Peter's obedience to the call of God led to the spreading of the gospel to the Jews and Gentiles alike.

Brett Meador: Have you ever felt left out? When I was a kid, it was common in P.E. the teacher would choose the two most athletic kids in the class and then they would get up in front of everybody and then one by one they'd do the playground selection. It was always the most athletic and the most popular that would be picked and then slowly we'd get down to the nerdiest, most out of shape. They'd just be standing there and everybody's like, "Yeah, okay." It was kind of brutal on all the kids. Fortunately, they don't do that as much anymore because that can be painful.

In a way, being left out or feeling like you're not with the in-crowd, that is something that happens all through life, not just on the playground when you're a kid. That's part of life. That's part of the deal. But one of the things that we're seeing here is a major shift in God's plan because really in the Old Testament, the Jews were God's chosen people. God chose them. It seems that the Gentiles would be sort of left out. At least from the Jewish worldview, Gentiles—the only reason they existed, according to the Mishnah, was to be fuel to fire hell. So it wasn't that great for the Gentiles.

When Jesus died on the cross, he didn't just die for the Jews, he died for the sins of the whole world. This is where God is introducing to the early Christian church, the Jews, that Gentiles would be part of the faith. Paul the Apostle would be sort of the one preaching that more than anyone and that's why I want to read Ephesians 2:7-15 because this is really important to understand. In the world today, you might say what groups of people are there and it's funny how we create all these artificial divisions. We have racial and ethnic divisions that we put in people groups. We like to draw lines, we like to say you're part of our team or you're not part of that team.

From God's perspective, there are three groups that are talked about in the Bible and the question is which one are you a part of? I'll just give you the punchline before we read this. There are Jews and there are Gentiles and then there's the church of Jesus Christ, one new man. I'll show you what I mean here. It's Ephesians chapter 2 verse 7. Paul talks about that in the ages to come, He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. For by grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works lest any man should boast.

For we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. Wherefore, remember that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called uncircumcision by that which is called the circumcision in the flesh made by hands. Now Paul is saying you people from Ephesus, you were a bunch of Gentiles and the Jews called you uncircumcised Gentiles. That idea of the circumcision is the Jews, the uncircumcision is the Gentiles. At that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, without God in the world.

But now in Christ Jesus, you who were sometimes far off have been made near by the blood of Christ. For He is our peace who hath made both one—Jews and Gentiles, both one—and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us. When I read this verse 14, I'm reminded of the middle wall that was placed between the court of the Gentiles and the place of worship for the Jews. Remember that wall Herod the Great had placards placed upon that wall that said any Gentile who crosses this wall of separation has only himself to blame for his ensuing death.

Gentiles were not allowed in. There was a wall of separation, literally a wall of separation. So here Paul's playing on that saying there's no longer this, the Lord has broken down that middle wall, verse 14, of separation. Verse 15, having abolished in His flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in the ordinances, for to make in Himself of twain, two, one new man, so making peace, and that He might be the reconciled both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby. This is Paul the Apostle saying, yeah, you thought there were two—Jews and Gentiles—guess what? There's one new man, Jews and Gentiles put together, tearing down the wall of separation by the blood of Jesus Christ.

This really sums it up. This is the joining that really makes the church. The church is made up of anyone, Jew or Gentile, who believes in Jesus Christ, saved by grace through faith. Ephesians 2:8, we just read, not of yourselves, it's a gift from God. This is a huge thing. By the way, one of the things we have to be careful about in Christianity is to not make that division, put that back into place. There are these churches that some of them are really pretty good churches, some of them are pretty wacko churches, so you have to be careful. I use this term, it's a broad term, Messianic Jews or Messianic churches. Some of them are great, some of them are not so great.

The thing is if they're still trying to put a wall of separation, if they're still trying to divide Jew and Gentile or Judaism out from Christianity. We have to remember there's one new man and that is Christianity, the church of Jesus Christ. If you're trying to keep those artificial barriers between Judaism—this happens with a lot of the Jewish Messianic type churches where they try to put this wall of separation still. Sometimes they'll try to make Gentiles more Jewish. You'll see Gentiles walking around with little prayer tassels hanging out from under their coat and it's like, "Oh, yeah, look at my little prayer tassel. I'm kind of a Jew, really, but I'm a Christian."

We're no longer under that stuff, the Old Testament law. You can read not just here in Ephesians, but in Galatians it tells us what the law served as and we've covered that of course in previous studies. Because of this, this was a tough thing to figure out. For millennia, the Jews were like, "Gentiles are out. Fuel for the fires of hell." It was the commentator Barclay who writes about historically where the Jewish men would pray, "I thank God that I'm not a dog, a woman, or a Gentile." They'd pray that. That was part of their prayer life and that's the way they viewed it.

Here in Acts chapter 10, this is where God is doing that work in Peter's heart to prepare him for something they hadn't heard of: that the Gentiles were part of God's plan. Peter's got to hear that, so the Lord starts stirring up a drama. This drama is kind of fun because it really comes up in sort of five acts of a play, of a theater drama. First there's preparation in verses 1 through 22, we'll see. Then confirmation, verses 20 through 22. Explanation of what's going on, 23 through 33. Proclamation in 34 through 43 and then substantiation in verses 44 through 48. I'll cover that again as we go.

First the Lord has to prepare the scene, preparation number one. He has to prepare the scene and we begin right here in Acts chapter 10 verse 1. It says there was a certain man in Caesarea called Cornelius, a centurion of the band called the Italian band. They spent their evenings doing gigs at the Old Spaghetti Factory. No, the word "band" in your King James Bible is in italics because it's not really there, but they're trying to help us with that. In the King James 1611, a "band" was sort of a group of military soldiers, but your newer translations, some of them put the word "cohort" there. That's probably the better translation because that's what's being referred to.

This guy Cornelius, who is this guy? He's a Roman centurion. So he's a Gentile. That's something you should note, a major part of the story here. The word "centurion" is an interesting one because it defines sort of a rank of a Roman soldier, an officer. Cornelius is a Roman name and it means "of a horn." Does anybody remember in Bible times, but even ancient times, what was the horn a symbol of? Power. Right. So this was kind of a name of power, Cornelius. This guy Cornelius was probably a powerful individual in many ways because he was a centurion, something like a master sergeant today, but he would be in control of somewhere around 80 to 100 soldiers.

That would be a centurion. But the band or the cohort would be made up of six cohorts would become sort of the band, the cohort. That'd be six centuria or six groups of 80 to 100. There'd be six groups of 80 to 100, each one of those six groups led by one centurion. Six centurions, six groups of 80, minimally 480 total. It'd be a large group of Roman soldiers called a cohort, about 480 soldiers all together. By the way, each of the cohorts, kind of interesting within each cohort they were ranked group one through six based on the sixth group would be sort of the less or the junior and then the fifth would be a little better.

By the time you got to the first part of the group, then you've got the Navy SEAL Team Six guys. They were the top of the line. This is kind of interesting, the Romans had quite a set of rules the way it worked, but the centurion, the guy that was part of the top group in the number one group, he would be sort of in charge of the whole thing. He'd be called the pilus prior centurion and he'd be in charge of all six of the groups technically. These guys were known for their brains but also their brawn. They weren't the kind of soldiers that would command at a distance and tell their men to run into battle.

The centurion would be leading the battle into the conflict. He was one who was usually already well-seasoned in battle. He had the brawn, but they also were known for brains. These guys were the smartest of the group as well. Known to be wise. If you wanted to be a centurion, you'd have to sign up for a 25-year service. The reason I camped out on the centurion thing is I think it's interesting because Romans in the Bible tend to be kind of a bad topic. If you talk about a Roman, usually you're talking about mean people that enslaved Jews, that did bad stuff. The Romans were a bunch of sinners, pagan-worshipping.

When the Bible brings up this topic of the centurions, did you notice in the Bible you never meet a bad centurion? In the Bible, shockingly, all the centurions that are mentioned are actually pretty squared away and sometimes extraordinary individuals. I think that's kind of interesting. Cornelius here that lives in Caesarea Maritima and then you have in Acts chapter 27 we're going to meet another one named Julius who was a centurion. Good guy. Centurion of Capernaum, he was the one in Matthew chapter 8 verses 5 through 13 sought aid for his servant and where Jesus marveled, "I've never seen so much faith in all of Israel," when he saw this centurion's faith.

Another good example of a centurion. And then of course there's that most famous centurion that was at the foot of the cross that said, "Truly this was the Son of God." Whenever you read about centurions, I think it's kind of interesting that they're all the guys that seem to turn and believe and accept and even demonstrate profound levels of faith. So that's the deal. We've got a centurion named Cornelius, a Gentile. Verse 2: "A devout man, and one that feared God with all of his house, which gave much alms to the people, and prayed to God alway." Is this guy a Christian?

It's interesting. This is an interesting time in history because we know that when Jesus came and died on the cross, was buried, and then rose from the grave, really that was the beginning of a new dispensation of time. It was a new time where you're saved by faith through Christ. There's no other name under heaven by which men can be saved than that of Jesus. In the Old Testament, how were you saved? Faith. Saved by believing. Remember Abraham believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness. But in the New Testament, because Jesus, all that was foreshadowed in the Old Testament about Jesus—the whole Old Testament points forward to Jesus in the New Testament.

What's required is faith. But once Jesus died, rose again, ascended into heaven, now there must be confession of faith. If you want to be saved, you've got to confess with your mouth and believe in your heart Jesus that he died and that he rose again and then it says you will be saved. The book of Romans squares us out with Abraham and says really we're saved the same way Abraham was, by faith in believing. But as Abraham believed looking forward to the Messiah, we believe looking backward to the Messiah in history. But because it's happened, you and I, we are required to accept and believe Jesus Christ.

So this guy's not a Christian yet. You can't really say that. He doesn't really believe in Christ yet. But he is sort of that Old Testament version of a person of faith. That's what it's saying here: he was a devout man, one that feared God with all of his house. By the way, did you notice there's four main things about this guy that are noteworthy? Devout, fearing God—that's number one—and his whole house was squared away. It seems like his wife and perhaps children were all fearing God. He gave much alms to people. He was a benevolent, big-hearted, gracious giver. He also prayed to God always.

What a model of a guy, but not a Christian yet. He wasn't a proselyte of Judaism. He wasn't a Christian necessarily, but the best way to explain this guy was a guy who was seeking truth, taking what he knew and he was pressing forward with what he knew and we're going to see later this centurion gets saved himself. Now, this raises a funny question because some people say, "What about people that lived during that time period that never really heard the gospel of Jesus? But they were like this centurion. They were faithful, they feared God, but they never heard the gospel."

After Jesus died and rose again, it took centuries for the gospel to reach really the rest of the world. It reached much of the world, the known world, even by the time of Paul the Apostle, reached all the way to Rome. What about those people that never got the memo? That raises an interesting question and I don't know the full answer other than this. The Bible does teach sort of this idea and you've got to be careful with this one because people might use this as an excuse to not want to believe in Christ. But I do believe to whom much is given, much is required.

The Bible teaches sort of this notion that the Lord's going to hold you accountable for what you know. It's hard today for us to even imagine anybody around the world who's never heard the gospel. People always like to, "What about the Pygmies?" There's places in the South Pacific, that's one of the reasons we have a mission base in South Pacific is because we wanted to be a part of bringing the gospel to the last people on the globe that have never heard the gospel and that's one of the things we get to do. In Papua New Guinea, there's still little Pygmies in the jungle that have never heard the gospel.

What I do know is God knows their hearts and the Bible says even those guys will be without excuse because even creation speaks of His glory. If a person sees the sunrise in the morning, they're already on the hook a little bit to know there must be something greater than myself and you start to understand there must be a true God. Creation speaks of God. That Pygmy that saw the sunrise, he's going to be held accountable for that. That's kind of the way I think I see it in the scripture. When it comes to that Pygmy dying not knowing Jesus Christ—there's a story I read years ago of missionaries that finally went into this dangerous area of the jungle and found this group of people that had zero contact with the outside world, ever.

They'd never met white men. But the missionaries came in and they ended up coming and they saw that there was a little nakamal, which is like a little hut in a community hut. In their community hut in the middle of the hut, they had this cross in their hut. The missionaries lived there, translated the Bible, spent years there. They said, finally when they could speak the language and they talked with each other, they said, "Hey, who brought the gospel message to you guys before us? Like before we even got here, you guys had a cross. Who told you about that?"

They said, "Somebody in our tribe had a vision of this symbol and when we didn't know what it meant, we had the impression that we were to put it up and someday someone tell us what that was." The missionaries were stunned because they knew there was no evidence of any outside interference of that one. I think that there's going to be people held accountable for whatever they've been given and I think one bit of good news is the Lord's mercy endures for how long? Forever. I'm convinced that there's going to be a lot of people that are saved in heaven based on what they've been given.

As soon as you hear the gospel message, that's when you really are held accountable for that as well. We're told to go out and preach that to all the world, to make disciples. The Bible says that when we get close to the last days, everyone in the world will have heard the gospel and boy, you can really make that argument today. I wouldn't be surprised if the Lord says, "Check that box." I hiked across an island in the South Pacific to a place called Bunlap. Bunlap, Vanuatu. It's on the other side of a volcano. It's the only way to get there: hike over a volcano.

When I got there—bones in the nose, spears, naked people running around—the chief said something to me and I didn't know what he said, but he grabbed my arm and said something and everybody laughed. Then my translator said, "Yeah, he said you look like you'd be good to eat." I'm like, "Yeah, everybody's a comedian. Funny man." I've been to some pretty remote places in my time and man, even the gospel has reached there. I remember going into their little muddy hut village with naked people running around. It was total jungle, native kind of thing.

Behind one of the huts was a satellite dish. Technology, communication, it's even there in the middle of the jungle. The last time a white person went to that jungle was two years earlier when I was there. They said two years ago, and it was actually a friend of mine that hiked there two years earlier. That was the last time they saw a white guy there. The gospel has reached really all over the world. So with that said, once Jesus, the gospel message gets out, we are held—you have to understand there's no other name under heaven by which men can be saved than that of Jesus Christ.

You say, "Well, does that mean the Pygmy has to say 'Jesus' and believe in him?" That Pygmy could be saved by Jesus even as Abraham didn't know Jesus, but he was still saved by the cross of Jesus. That's what the Apostle Paul says. We're accountable. That's why we preach the gospel, that you must be born again, you must accept Jesus Christ as your savior. If you're in modern-day America, that is the requirement for us because we all have heard. Hopefully, people have heard. We should be all about the preaching of the gospel just for that reason alone.

Anyway, just because today people know about Jesus or about religions doesn't make them saved. That's important to know. But good news: those that seek the Lord, they will find him. That's the category I put this centurion in. He's a guy who's curious and he's seeking. When it says he's a devout man, one that feared God with all of his house, that says a lot about this guy. He's seeking after what is true. This reminds me of Jeremiah chapter 29 verse 13: "You shall seek me, and find me, when you shall search for me with all of your heart." I love that.

It's a good reminder. Anybody who's truly seeking, I believe the Bible promises that they will find. Anybody who's truly seeking. There's some people who say, "Yeah, yeah, I seek God all the time. I seek with my third eye of understanding as I contemplate my navel." No, that's not honest seeking. When you search for truth and when you search for God with all your heart, you will find him. That's what the Bible promises. So with all that said, if someone's seeking the truth, the Lord can reveal the truth to them in various ways. This centurion was a seeker and the Lord was steering him and now because he's a seeker, God's going to say, "I'm going to show him Jesus and he's going to be a receiver of Christ." Cornelius the centurion. Love this.

Guest (Male): Pastor Brett Meador illustrating with Cornelius the centurion the promise in today's word that those who seek the Lord truly will find him. In our verse-by-verse study of Acts chapter 10 will continue next time and in just a moment, Pastor Brett will join me to answer a very common question that many people ask. But first, Today's Word is the radio ministry of Athey Creek Church, just south of Portland, Oregon, where Pastor Brett Meador is the senior pastor. If you've missed any portion of this study, you'll find all of Pastor Brett's messages online at todayswordradio.com.

Well, Pastor Brett is with me now. You know, when it comes to people who have doubts about God and His character, it seems like the one hang-up that they often say is, "Well, if God is good, then why does He allow bad things to happen to good people?" Brett, can you respond to someone who wonders that?

Brett Meador: Sure, you bet, Kurt. You know, it's really a problem with the question itself and I would say this lovingly, but there is no one good. The Bible says, Romans 3 says, "No one is righteous, no, not even one." So we have to remember we live in a fallen world. We are sinners. Because of that, we've been affected by sin and it brings suffering, sickness, injustice, death. That wasn't God's original design, but it's the reality of a broken creation. Now, it really doesn't make it easier if you're going through hard things. Christians hurt. We grieve, we lose loved ones, we face all kinds of tragedy.

The Bible never says God is absent in that suffering. Psalm 34 says the Lord is near to them that are of a broken heart. One of the greatest comforts is bad things happen to good and bad people, if you would, saved and unsaved. I'd just rather go through those bad things with Christ right there with me. One of the greatest comforts is that God himself entered into suffering through pain, through Jesus Christ on the cross. Jesus understands our human pain. God allows the hardship to shape us, deepen our faith, draw us closer, but we also ultimately just have to know that it's because of the fall of man.

That's why. God is good and He does get us through that. The cross reminds us that God can bring eternal good out of even humanity's darkest sinful moments. That's the way I look at that question.

Guest (Male): Yeah, when you start with the reality that there is no one good, then that's why we do indeed see so much suffering. And then to also see God come to earth to suffer for us, He really does understand our suffering and that's a comfort. Thank you, Pastor Brett. Well, I want to mention again that if you'd like more information about Pastor Brett Meador or Today's Word, just go to todayswordradio.com. Well, next time, Pastor Brett will show us how God orchestrated an extraordinary scenario leading to the salvation of Gentiles and their inclusion into the church. Today's Word with Pastor Brett Meador is an outreach of Athey Creek Church in West Linn, Oregon.