Bible Guys Classics: Acts 11 Part 1

So today Saint Peter gets called into the principal's office.

Oh boy, so he's Chris. I'm Jeff. We're the Bible guys.

So Chris, I totally resonate with getting called into the

principal's office.

Oh me too, you kidding.

I was perpetually in the We were like on a

first name basis, right right.

I'd bring your snacks. You like the sprinkles, don't you.

Hey, it's good to see you again.

That's not true.

For it was for me. Yeah, it really was for me.

Oh yeah, yeah, I believe or not. I caused a

lot of ruckus, but I didn't get to the principle

all that much, although although I have stories, and I'm

sure you did too, but we got to move on, right,

that's right. So a little while back, I think it

was a couple of weeks ago to three weeks ago.

I think it was the first week where we asked

people to if they wanted to to send in questions

to stump the pastor. And so this whole week, actually

we're going to be proposing five of those questions.

And these people got very excited about stumping the pastor,

let me just say.

And they're a great question.

Yes, they're really great questions.

Yeah. So hey, go ahead and do that again.

If you want to send in a great question stump

the pastor kind of question, we'd love to have you

do it. So send it into info at the Bible

guys dot.

Com, the Bible Guys, the Bible guys dot com. That's right,

Info at the Bible Guys dot com.

Right here, put it right here, right there.

All right, very good, so cool. So here is the

first question.

That we're tackling today that we were this could be great.

Somebody said aliens or life beyond earth? Question mark. That's

all that was written, it, says Dan M. Thanks Dan, Yeah,

thanks Dan for that question, which, by the way, most

of the answers to stump the pastors are going to

end with who knows, which is tough ones, which is

no one knows honestly. However, so we'll give our takes

on it, right Yeah. Yeah, So here's here's my contention.

Or do you want to think of first?

Okay, I will uh no, aliens, that's what you say.

That's why I say, yeah, I say probably not.

So. I mean all the things that you see with

Obama coming on late night TV going, well, I will say,

I will say I can't do Obama, And he said,

you know, there's there's things that we have on video

that are unexplainable and they defy anything that we've seen

in terms of speed. Sure, and then all the different

you know, evidences that we've seen. None of that. Yeah.

No, I just think it's I think every technology is

confusing until you figure out how to master it.

Yeah.

So I I don't feel the need personally for aliens

on you know, other life forms.

I think it's cool.

My wife's favorite shows are always the Star Trek shows

that she loves Star Trek, and it's fun to think

about other alien civilizations and things like that. Biblically, there's

not a need for it. As a matter of fact,

I kind of think the Bible says Jesus died once

for all, so if the.

If there are other alien.

Races, they must be perfect because Jesus didn't have to

die for them. So that's it. I don't feel the

need for it. I think that the Bible is very

human centric and very earth centric, and that's okay. That

would mean and the Bible says that God gave all

the stars and all the planets for our benefit, for

us to be able to navigate, for us to know

morning and evening, all those kinds of things, for us

to navigate the planet. So I don't see the need

for it. But I don't think you're a bad person

for you know you're thinking about it.

Yeah, sure, okay, So here's my take. My take is

the Bible leaves room for it. And the reason why

I believe the reason why I believe the Bible leaves

room for it is because this was addressed by my

old Testament professor and Bible college, which, by the way,

understand how conservative a Bible college that I went to.

And so is this the same guy that you quote, No, no, no.

This is different guy. This is that was doctor Hargy.

This is doctor Sewell. So doctor Sewell, says doctor James Soull.

And he said, in Genesis chapter two, it says that

God created the stars and the hosts of them. Right,

So he said, so, right there, it leaves a little

bit of room the hosts of them, So it could

it could mean the hosts of one star, which is

the planet Earth, where it could mean the host of them.

So there's room for it. And so my my feeling

is that he.

Didn't think the hosts just was referring to the huge

number of stars.

Well that's just what it is. No, no, the stars

and the hosts of the stars. So so it is

here's the thing. The answer, of course, is nobody knows,

obviously because we haven't found aliens, and what God would know, Well,

I'm talking about earth beings. People listeners to the podcast,

I know God's listening, but he always.

Is he in think Oh good God? Yeah right, so

it's my favorite podcast.

It's my favorite podcast. So anyway, all that to say this,

so do you want to know the reason why people

uh just absolutely refuse to believe that there's not aliens?

It's really the same thing. It's the same theme and

that is uh, you know, it's the same thing that

Jodie Foster said on that show Contact with Matthew McConaughey.

She goes, well, if there, if there aren't other life forms,

it's sure would be an awfully waste of space. Right,

It's the same thing and and and it's it really

truly is the you know, the arrogance of humanity to

believe that we're the only ones. Why, Because there's an

awfully big universe.

Of sure, I think it's convenient when you don't have

a Bible versus go ahead and quota lined from a movie.

Right, Well, I mean, well, it's logic. People, people don't

look to the Bible for the answers.

I think that's why people believe in it is the

probabilities just seem.

Astronomically low that we're the only ones. So I would

just say this, I would say I heard I heard

something a very long time ago, just like I remember

doctor Seule's you know, leave room for it. I remember

Louis Giglio, which is one of my favorite UH speakers

at one time, at pretty good acquaintance, he actually said,

what if God's What if God's goal was to create

a vast universe to reflect how big he is and

how small we are, Like like, you know, after all,

like God is demonstrating his glory in creation, which means

he's demonstrating himself in creation. So if if what if

we look up at space and it's one big billboard

that says I am and you are not.

Right right, which is a theme throughout the book of Psalms,

for instance, yes that the heavens to declare the glory

of the Lord.

Yes, And so if God wants to remind us of

just absolutely how big he is, then here's a question.

How big should the universe be? You know what? The

answer is infinitees. You know why because God is in.

And it's only been in the last undred couple hundred

years that we've begun to realize how big the universe is. Right, So,

about the same time humanity started getting too big for

their breeches is the same amount of time, is the

same time that we began to realize while we're in

a really big place, right, Right, So when David wrote it,

it was just the stars across the sky, but he

had no concept of distances, no concept of anything, right,

And then the more sophisticated we became, the more God

began to let us see how really, really, really big

this is. So I think it comes down to if

you believe in a special creation that God specifically made humanity,

he did it at a specific time. This wasn't a

gradual thing that just wounded up being the result of

probabilities over billions and billions of billions of years. But

that God said on this day, I'm creating a human

being and they didn't evolve, then it's not hard for

me to also look at the whole rest of the

universe and say it's all about God, it's not about

other creatures. But if you believe that there's a randomization

to the development of humanity and the evolution of humanity,

now you're playing a probabilities game, and then you would go, well,

if it evolved on this planet, maybe, then probably probably

it evolved on some other planet somewhere else. So it

depends on whether or not you believe in a special creation,

which is what I believe, and I believe the Bible

teaches that, or if you believe in a random beginning

to life. If you believe in a random beginning of life,

then then you look at the probabilities of the trillions

of stars and go, well, maybe there's another one.

Yeah yeah, And I tell you one day I look

forward to meeting the Romulans, the Ferengi, the Klingons.

Yeah yeah, yeah, because I don't think there's going to

be any Klingons in heaven.

Well yeah, well you never know.

You never know. Yeah, yeah.

More repented wharf is hard on the outside, but take

that's true.

Okay, we've devolved substantially here. Yeah, so I think that's

a fun question. It's fun to think about. Yeah, but

I I I hope that Dan is that Dan dan

em is happy with our response, which basically is.

We're not sure, right, but here's our take, and neither.

Is anybody else.

Okay, So tomorrow I think we have I'm really excited

about tomorrow's question. This really is another stumped pastor question.

It's gonna be fun. But let's jump into the passage today.

It's Acts chapter eleven, and if you remember, let me

just remind you. Last week we wound up with Peter

having gone and shared the Gospel with Cornelius, who was

the first recorded Christian convert that was a gentile and

not a Jew. And this is shocking to all the

people that are with Peter. Peter was uncomfortable even walking

in the door into this guy's house because of the

cultural stigma of Jewish people being with gentiles. Well, now

he gets yanked into the principal's office, and because they

all the other apostles calling back to Drusom go, hey,

what's going on? So that's what's going on here. So

we're reading from Acts chapter eleven, verse one, and we'll

read Diverse eighteen.

It says.

Soon the news reached the apostles and other believers in

Judea that the Gentiles had received the word of God.

But when Peter arrived back in Jerusalem, the Jewish believers

criticized him. You entered the home of gentiles and even

eight with them, they said. Then Peter told them exactly

what had happened. I was in the town to Joppa,

he said, and while I was praying, I went into

a trance and saw a vision. Something like a large

sheet was let down by its four corners from the sky,

and it came right down to me. When I looked

inside the sheet, I saw all sorts of tame and

wild animals, reptiles and birds. And I heard a voice say,

get up, Peter, kill.

And eat them.

No, Lord, I replied, I've never eaten anything that our

Jewish laws have declared impure unclean. But the voice from

heaven spoke again, do not call something unclean if God

has made a clean. This happened three times before the

sheet and all it contained was pulled back up to Heaven.

Just then, three men who had been sent from cessarea

arrived at the house where I was staying. The Holy

Spirit told me to go with them, and not to

worry that they were gentiles. These six brothers here accompanied me,

and we soon entered the home of the man who

had sent for us. He told us how an angel

had appeared to him in his home and had told

him send messengers to Jappa and summoned a man named

Simon Peter. He'll tell you how you and everyone in

your household.

Can be saved.

As I began to speak, Peter continued, the Holy Spirit

fell on them, just as he fell on us at

the beginning. And then I thought of the Lord's words

when he said, John baptized with water, but you will

be baptized with.

The Holy Spirit.

And since God gave these gentiles the same gift he

gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ,

who was I to stand in God's way. When the

others heard this, they stopped objecting and began praising God,

and they said, we can see that God has also

given the gentiles the privilege of repenting of their sins

and receiving eternal life. Now, on one hand, this can

kind of feel like, hey, this feels like a rehearsal,

a re rehearsal of what had happened in the past.

This is a significant moment for every Christian in all

of history that wasn't Jewish. And so that's why we're

kind of hanging on this for just a minute, because

the Bible does, yes, takes a few chapters to cover this.

Yeah, And so really Peter is just recalling what we've

already read in previous podcasts. So it's not a lot

of new information. But however, what is new is the

interaction that Peter has with those who are criticizing him.

So he goes back and he gets criticized, and they're like, hey,

and you know, I received this two ways, both like

negative because I think of the negative Christians you judge.

But then also you think of it as like innocence,

like for instance, right like like for instance, like my well,

I don't want to get into that. I just had

a thought, but it's just too much. There are a

lot of things that we grow up. Oh, I'll give

you a good example. There was a gentleman in the

lobby of our church on Sunday and he came up

to me and he was asking me about communion and

I had said, well, the Bible never talks about frequency,

never asks you know, it never commands us to.

Take community every week, just as often as you do this.

As often as you do this, do this and remembrance

of me. And I was trying to explain to him,

you know that, hey, we just took communion. We're taking

it like another four weeks, and we do it periodically.

And he's like, well when, And I was trying to

explain to him, well, just periodically. That's that we just

don't have a system, and we do when we think

it's best. And he was trying to explain to me

it has to be every week, And I said, well,

why why do you believe this? He said, because that's

the way I was raised Right. So that's a great example.

Because and he wasn't raised wrong.

It wasn't raised wrong.

That's not a wrong thing that, that's not a wrong

thing in every week.

But the point is is that he was made to

believe that that was the only way. And so so

in that sense, it's pretty innocent where you know, like,

you know, you want to get mad at these uh,

you know, these Jewish believers who are critician, you know,

who are criticizing Peter and said, we can't believe you

ate with that scum, the gentiles, the unclean people. But

in a way, you can't blame a person for the

way they were raised. You can't blame them for, you know,

things getting passed down to them that they were told

and taught that these are the right ways to think.

And they're very devout to their religion, and they're very

devout to their cultural upbringing right, and there's nothing wrong

with that in and of itself. It reminds me of

I heard it wound up being a true story. I've

heard illustrations like this before, but I had a lady

come and tell me this actually happened to her that

when she would make a roast, she made a roast,

she'd always cut off the two sides and kind of

make it longer on one end and narrower on the sides,

and for years and years and years, and her daughter asked,

why do you do that? She said, oh, that's way

my mom did this when my grandmother did it. So

when the granddaughter was with the grandmother, she said, grandma,

why do you always cut the sides of this roast off?

And she said, because that's the sizes of the pan

that I had, right. So her mom had no idea,

She just saw. She just saw her mother, the grandmother

cut off the ends, so that's what she did. She

just thought those ends were bad or something that's supposed

to use them, and it wasn't. It was just the

size of the pan. Sometimes we tend to believe that

the traditions around us are the rules or the law,

and that's just not true. So these guys, they're devout.

They're strongly legalistic, right, which is the Jewish religion at

that time in Jesus Day and the Apostles day was

very rules oriented, so very legalistic, these Jewish believers, and

they intend to rebuke Peter.

Peter, what are you doing? Right?

What kind of Christian hangs out with gentiles?

Right?

And Peter goes, hey, guys, let me just tell you

what happened. And by the way, I have six witnesses

with me.

Right, we heard what you did on the Mission Street.

That's right. And this is going to go in your file, right, right,

hr Yang, your permanent record, that's right.

And so they were about ready to put Peter on

a p IP, a personal improvement plan, and put it

in this permanent file, and Peter goes, well, hang on,

let me just explain what happened. I was only doing.

And Peter had nothing to fear, really, because he was

only doing God told him to do. And then not

only that, he mentions that the Holy Spirit fell on him,

and so all of that by himself hit by his

own testimony. Okay, it's just whether or not the other

apostles believe Peter. But Peter goes, hey, when the Holy

Spirit fell him, these other six guys, he has the

six witnesses with him. There's a lot of wisdom in

explaining your story, explaining what happened. And then if there

are witnesses, to bring witnesses along when there's a confusion

about your behavior, when you know that you did what

was right, you did what you were supposed to do.

It's also good.

It's beneficial to also be able to bring witnesses. And

they saw it too, right, and that's what happened here.

And I also love at the end of this story

when Peter gives the whole thing. You know, again we've

already read and been through this, so he goes all

the way through it and he says and then they

receive the same gift as us. And then I love

how at the very end of the story, it says

when the others heard this, they stopped objecting and began

praising God, and they said, we can see God has

also given the gentiles the privilege of repenting of their

sins and receiving internal life. And I thought to myself,

that is unbelievable, because Peter's posture was he says, who

am I to stand of the way of God?

Right?

Right? And what he's saying is like, you're trying to

yell at me, right. I had sort of the same

objections as you, But God did this. I'm not standing

in the way of God. And so they have no

choice but to say, well, of course we're not going

to be either. But they didn't object. They didn't they

didn't push back, they weren't skeptical. And so here's what

that means. That means that Peter was a trustworthy person

to your point, right, And so they didn't object anymore

because they believed him. And so it's also a treasure

to be able to be in relationship with someone and

especially in leadership, that when they speak, you just believe them,

you know, It reminds me of a good friend of

mine who actually said that he saw an angel and

he was actually he'd actually there was a car wreck

and he pulled up behind the car wreck. It had

just happened, and he ran over to the driver's side

and he was looking and this woman was laying there

and she she got cut and she was bleeding. And

then he looked across the car and there was a

person there, and the person said, hey, grab your fingers

and put it, put it on his put put it

on her neck and pushed down to stop the bleeding.

And then and then my friend did this, and then

he then they said no, no, no, up up to

the right, to the right, okay there, push hard, and

then it stopped bleeding. And then he was sitting there

holding the blood pressure, you know, first stop bleeding. And

then all of a sudden, the ambulance eventually finally came.

And the entire time he's talking with this person, the

ambulance pulls up. He looks back and the ambulance comes

up and the person was gone. And then they said, well,

you saved this woman's life. And he said, well, where

did that that man go? And he said, there was

there was nobody. He said, what do you mean there

was nobody? He said, he was there when you pulled up,

and then all of a sudden he was gone. And

he said, no, the ambulance pulled up and there was nobody.

You're the only one outside the window. Now that is crazy, right,

I mean like literally crazy. And you would think because

because my friend would have no way of knowing where

to put his fingers, you know, on somebody's neck to

stop the bleeding. But the thing is, when you hear

this person tell the story, you consider the entire life

of the person and think, either he's lying, or he's crazy,

or he's telling the truth.

Yeah, those are the only three options.

Those the only three options. And you say, well, I

believe this person and who he is. Yeah, and just

the measure of who he is and the character of

who he is, there is no way and I'm not

even kid when I say this, there's no way for

a second that I chose to not to believe him.

Yeah.

Well, the Bible says in Hebrews that we entertain angels unaware, right,

sometimes right, So angels do interact with humanity, and you know,

most of the time we're just not aware of it.

So that's pretty extraordinary. So the Peter appeals to the

witness of the Holy Spirit in this situation and he goes, hey, listen,

it wasn't just my preaching to them. They got this

Holy Spirit just like we did. And so the evidence

of whether or not this was a legitimate interaction was

the fact that the Holy Spirit came and these men's life.

And by the way, Peter says, just like we did

at Pentecost, that's what you're referring to. It's interesting all

that this is years years after Pentecost and Peter has

to go we said back in the beginning, that's right,

So Peter has to go all the way back to

Pentecost to reference the last time there was this extravagant

pouring out of the Holy Spirit because Paul didn't have this.

And what is that probably nine years, eight.

Years, Yeah, it's it's several years, many many years, probably

close to a decade. And so while some people do

have these really extraordinary extravagant experiences with the Holy Spirit,

there were lots of other people who became Christians that

that wasn't the evidence of it. That there was speaking

in tongues and all these miraculous moments. It's just you

receive the Holy Spirit at salvation, and Peter has to

go all the way back to when they received the

spirit in order to prove that this was legit here.

That's why God did that with Coordinelius as well. And

then I think lastly we have to wrap up with this.

Warren Weersby in his Study Bible for verse eighteen when

it says the others heard this and they stopped objecting

began praising God. It says Christians are to receive one

another and not dispute over cultural differences or minor matters

of personal conviction. Some of the Jewish Christians in the

early Church wanted the gentiles to become Jews, and some

of the Gentile believers one of the Jews to stop

being Jews become Gentiles. This attitude can create serious division

in the Church even today. So it's important that we

follow the example of Acts eleven eighteen. Instead of rejecting

other cultures, we need to embrace the cultural differences. Now

that doesn't mean that we embrace the sinful elements of

other cultures, but people do things in different ways. I

was just in Nepal and the worship of the Nepalese

people is very different than my worship, right, but man Alibing,

see the genuine joy of the Lord in these Christians,

these few Christians in Nepal, and say, okay, I can

respect their culture and the hats, the clothes, the makeup

they gave me, these little things to wear on my neck.

All this kind of stuff is very very different from

my culture. But I didn't need them to stop being

Nepali and start being American in order to honor God.

We can celebrate their cultural differences. And what we see

then is is the whole world coming to faith in Christ,

just like Jesus had promised.

What happened.

So it's pretty neat.

That's great. Yeah, well, that's probably a great place to end,

and we're gonna pick up tomorrow where we're going to

talk about how they were first called Christians and Antioch.

So it's gonna be a good.

Day, yeah yeah.

And also this is where Barnabas helps a brother out, yes, yeah, yeah, yeah,

So that's what we're talking about tomorrow.

It's gonna be great.