Open your Bibles to Acts chapter 10. Our text today will be Acts 10 verses 9 through 16. I want to talk to you today about a vision for the salvation of the world. A vision for the salvation of the world. Let us pray. Father, give us ears to hear your Word this morning. Enlighten the eyes of our understanding that we may see and know your truth. Open the heart and mind of each person hearing these words. Give us grace to obey as we submit to your will, as revealed in your holy Word, and by your Holy Spirit mold us and shape us, transform us and conform us to the very image of your dear Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Do this we pray that you, that we would be a people bearing witness to your name for good and for glory in Jesus' name, amen. Acts chapter 10 verses 9 through 16 hear the Word of the Lord. The next day as they went on their journey and drew near the city, Peter went up on the house top to pray about the sixth hour. Then he became very hungry and wanted to eat, but while they made ready, he fell into a trance and saw heaven opened and an object like a great sheet bound at the four corners descending to him and let down on the earth. In there 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, but Peter said, not so Lord, but I have never eaten anything common or unclean. And a voice spoke to him again the second time, what God has cleansed you must not call common. This was done three times and the object was taken up into heaven again. This is the Word of the Lord. Here in Acts chapter 10 verses 9 through 16, we see this vision that Peter had and it truly was a vision for the salvation of the world. The vision God gave Peter was not a vision about food, though we often think of it that way. And it's not that it doesn't have to do with food, but that was not the point of the vision. It was not a vision about what we may or may not now eat, what we can eat now versus what we could not eat before. God used the vision of living creatures related to food to instruct Peter about something much more important. The lesson that God was teaching Peter through all that is recorded for us in Acts chapter 10 is a lesson that is vital for us today. It goes to the very heart of the gospel. It goes to the very heart of the salvation of the world. Verse 9, Luke writes, the next day as they went on their journey and drew near the city Peter went up on the house top to pray about the sixth hour. The next day, from the previous description, we find in verses 7 and 8 of Acts chapter 10. If you remember, the first section of Acts chapter 10 had to do with the vision that God gave to Cornelius, the Gentile, Roman Centurion. Well, from the description in verse 7 and 8, we see Cornelius sinned two household servants with a devout soldier to Japa after the angel had departed and Cornelius had explained the mission to his servants. This indicates this party of three began their journey from Cessaria that same afternoon after the angel had departed. The distance from Cessaria to Japa seemed to have been 30 to 35 miles. We wouldn't think anything of that in a car today, but Peter didn't have a car and neither did Cornelius sin his servants. It would likely take about 10 hours to walk that distance. The next day, as they went on their journey and drew near the city, verse 9 begins with these words indicating that most likely the servants of Cornelius had traveled overnight, rested, and then resumed their journey early the next morning. And they were drawing near to Japa when Peter was where Peter was staying around noon that next day. And Luke gives us the approximate time riding that Peter went up on the house top about the sixth hour. The sixth hour would be noon time, 12 o'clock p.m. You start counting from sunrise or 6 a.m. Riding that Peter went up on the house top about the sixth hour or about noon, this coincides with the amount of time it would take to walk about 30 to 35 miles after resting that first night on the road starting out early the next morning would have them drawing near to Japa just about that time around noon time. Peter went up on the house top to pray. Luke informs us, he tells us why Peter went up on the house top. House tops were flat areas that often served as an extra living area. If you had enough means or enough resources, they would very often put an extra room on the house top. With awnings or trained vegetation, it could be a very pleasant retreat from the heat even at noon time. From Luke's description in verse 11 and verse 16, Peter may have been under the open sky when he has his vision of heaven being opened to him. Go around noon time, Peter is up on the roof and he is praying. Jews traditionally had two times of prayer that corresponded with the morning and the evening sacrifice. So the morning sacrifice was at 9 a.m. in the temple. That was also the morning time of prayer. There was another time of prayer at 3 p.m. or the ninth hour that corresponded with the evening sacrifice at 3 a.m. by the way, this is when Jesus gave up his spirit on the cross, it was exactly at the time of the evening sacrifice. There was a third time of prayer at noon, it was called the midday prayer and it seems that Peter is going up on the house top to pray at noon. The words of David in Psalm 55-17 reference these three times of prayer as he writes, evening and morning and at noon I will pray and cry aloud and he shall hear my voice. We also see in Daniel chapter 6 verses 10 and verse 13 that Daniel prayed to his God three times a day. Though not specifically commanded in Scripture, the mention of daily prayer times in Psalm 55-17 and Daniel 6-10 and 13 helped form the long tradition of praying three times a day. We see the evidence of this in the New Testament. For example, when we looked at Acts chapter 3, we see Peter and John going up to the temple at the hour prayer, it was the ninth hour, it was the evening prayer. That's when they healed the lame man. Peter was continuing to keep the long tradition of daily prayers at the appointed times and this is why he's going up on the house top at noon. Verse 10, then he became very hungry and wanted to eat but while they made ready, he fell into a trance. It was also very common to fast before praying. Then he became very hungry and wanted to eat. Peter was likely fasting when he goes up on the house top to pray. While he is praying, Peter becomes very hungry. He has an intense desire for food. This was not accidental. This was God's designed plan. There is relevant symbolism here. Peter is going up to pray to commune with God while in a state of fasting and I believe he was. I believe he had been fasting more than likely since that morning. When you consider where Peter has been and what has happened with Peter, not a regular day in the life of Peter, he heals the paralytic. Then he raises Tabitha or Dorcas from the dead. Now he is not back in Jerusalem but now he is in Joppa, a coastal city and he is not just in Joppa staying at the holiday and express. He is in Joppa staying at the house of a Tanner. We talked about this. What is the relevance of that? Tanners were considered unclean by the Jews. So Peter is staying in the house of this unclean Jew who is obviously a Christian. He is the man of peace who welcomed Peter in. So you see that God led Peter from Jerusalem to heal a paralytic in Lida. Then he is called to Joppa because a beloved saint has died. He gets to Joppa. He raises Dorcas from the dead. And now he has been invited into the house of a Tanner and I would imagine Peter is praying and seeking God's wisdom and God's direction because these are unusual events. So Peter is here at the house of Cornelius and he finds himself hungry as he is praying up on the house top at noon time. And the relevant symbolism here is that Peter is communing with God while in a time of fasting. Cornelius and Peter were both communing with God when they received visions from the Lord. They were both in prayer. They had both observed the times of prayer. And now they are both receiving visions from the Lord, independent of one another, unknown to one another. And the Lord is instructing them what they are to do next. In Peter's case he goes up on the house top while he is fasting and prays and this is reminiscent of Moses going up to the mountaintop while he is fasting to pray and to commune with God. Peter doesn't go up on a mountaintop but he does go up on a house top. And with both Moses and Peter we have them going up to pray, going up to commune with God while fasting and praying. Moses would receive the law of the old covenant. And like man or Peter while fasting and praying would receive the grace of the new covenant. Moses fasted for 40 days but while Peter was praying he developed a strong desire to eat. God didn't want Peter to keep fasting. God wanted Peter to be hungry and he wanted to offer him a meal though it wasn't a meal that Peter would normally eat and that is exactly what God wanted Peter to see. God did not, God did this to drive home the point of the vision that he would soon give to Peter. So while they made ready he fell into a trance. In other words while Simon the Tanner's family was preparing the meal, Peter's up on the house top hungry but he falls into a trance. The word translated trance here is the Greek word ecstasis. This is where we get our word ecstatic or ecstasy which is synonymous with a mystic or prophetic trance such as the one Peter fell into while he was praying. A trance is defined by fair as a throwing of the mind out of its normal state. Alienation of mind that of a man who by some sudden emotion is transported as it wore out of himself so that in this wrapped condition although he is awake his mind is drawn off from all surrounding objects and wholly fixed on things divine that he sees nothing but the forms and the images lying within and thinks that he perceives with his bodily eyes and ears realities being shown him by God. This trance that Peter fell into was not like the vision that Cornelius had. Cornelius did not fall into a trance. Cornelius had a vision. Peter falls into a trance there are two totally different things. When Cornelius had his vision he was not in a dream nor was he in a trance but he was thoroughly awake with his eyes open and was himself in his normal state of mind. His external senses were not suspended. He was not in an ecstatic state of mind as Peter was in this trance. Albert Barnes describes it this way. The word trance or ecstasy that's actually the word in the Greek denotes a state of mind when the attention is absorbed in a particular train of thought so that the external senses are partially or entirely suspended. That was Peter's condition when he fell into this trance that God took him into in order to show him what he needed to see. God knows what we need. God knows how to get his truth to us in the way in the method that he knows is going to be best for us. When you consider what Peter is being shown, when you consider what God is asking Peter to do, Peter had an experience that he would not be able to argue with. He would not be able to logically explain away. God made it so crystal clear that this was God giving Peter this vision who caused Peter to fall into this trance and was now showing him things that Peter would never have imagined that God would show him. The Lord was going to make sure Peter was not distracted in any way by anything around him so he suspended his natural faculties. When Peter would come out of this trance, there would be no doubt that the Lord had spoken to him and shown him the things that he saw and experienced. Peter's 11 tells us what Peter saw an experience in his trance. Verse 11, Luke writes, Peter saw heaven open and an object like a great sheet bound at the four corners descending to him and let down on the earth. Peter saw heaven opened. This indicates what Peter was seeing was coming down from God himself. This was not from Peter's imagination. It was nothing of man that he was being shown. This was a vision from God. Peter saw heaven open and this sheet or this vessel coming down from God. Peter would be shown with challenge everything he had been taught to believe as a devout Jew. An object, that word object, is also the word vessel. A vessel like a great sheet bound at the four corners was descending to him and being let down to the earth. This object, or literally this vessel, was like a great sheet. It's interesting, the word for sheet here is also the word for sale, like a sale on a boat or a sale on a ship, which I think is very fitting since Peter is a fisherman. So Peter was not just seeing a sheet like a sheet like object, he was seeing a sale. Like on a boat or a ship, just as a sale would be bound at the four corners. So this sheet or this sale was bound at the four corners. It was a site that Peter would quickly, quickly would have recognized. He would have been very familiar with this site. This great sheet or this great sale bound at the four corners, which Peter would have been very familiar with as a fisherman, was coming down from heaven. I mean, if you think about this sale coming down through the blue sky, it would be very reminiscent of a ship. It makes me think of the old him, Christmas Carol. I saw three ships assailing. Notice those three ships speak of the magi and the caravan of camels coming to bring gifts to the Lord Jesus. I hear Peter seeing a different kind of ship bringing something different, something so important that it will literally change the world. Peter would have been familiar as he sees this sale descending from heaven. Remember when Jesus encounters Peter, Peter is a fisherman. He's fished, but Jesus tells him what? Follow me and I will make you a fisher of men. Peter had indeed become exactly that. He was no longer a fisherman. He was now a fisher of men. This vessel, like a great sheet or sale bound at the four corners, was descending to Peter and it was let down to the earth. And once it was let down to the earth, Peter saw what it contained. Verse 12, in it were all kinds of four-footed animals of the earth, wild bees creeping things and birds of the air. In this sheet or sale, in this vessel that had come down from heaven were all varieties of clean and unclean animals. They were all together in one vessel. They weren't separated. They weren't segregated so that it was clear. These are clean and these are unclean. They were all mixed together. As though there was no longer a distinction to be made between them. And Peter's reaction to the voice indicates that Peter's attention was drawn to the unclean animals he saw. It's interesting to consider that in the scripture the Gentiles are always related to the sea. Just as Israel is always related to the land, the Gentiles were considered unclean and some Jews would have no dealings at all with the Gentile. Peter will later affirm this in his dialogue with Cornelius. God though was preparing Peter for the encounter that was coming. For Peter is staying at the house of a Tanner. One who produces leather goods, Tanner's were typically considered unclean by the Jews due to their handling of dead animals. Yet God put Peter with this Christian Tanner as a means to prepare his heart and his mind for what God was about to reveal. While Peter was in the seashore house of this Tanner up on the house top praying at noon, having a vision of a great sale bound at the four corners descending from heaven and filled with all sorts of creatures, God is preparing him for what is getting ready to happen. The symbolism here is unmistakable. God is preparing Peter for the encounter. He is almost immediately going to have with the three Gentiles servants coming from Cornelius sent to bring Peter to the home of this Gentile Roman centurion. As Peter would affirm these actions of going into the house of this Gentile were not lawful. And Peter's vision not only is the imagery of Gentile inclusion unmistakable, but the imagery of altar and sacrifice is also. We see this in the command given to Peter by the Lord when the voice instructs him, rise Peter, kill and eat. In verse 13, Luke records these words of the Lord to Peter, rise Peter, kill and eat. After understood this was the voice of the Lord instructing him to rise up and to kill and eat. Remember, at this point, Peter is very hungry. He desires to eat. And God gave him that desire right at the very moment, God would command him to rise, kill and eat. But Peter's reaction is immediate and consistent with his Jewish upbringing. He resists the urge to kill and eat anything unclean. He knows what the voice is asking him to do. It's interesting that the word translated kill is the Greek word duo. It is the same word used to indicate the slaughter of an animal for sacrifice. In fact, this same word is translated sacrifice in that context to sacrifice slaughter or kill an animal can indicate the offering of a sacrifice to God. It's also the word commonly used to simply describe killing an animal to eat for food. The voice is not specifically commanding Peter to offer a sacrifice using one of the animals in the vision. However, the command to rise up and kill is no doubt connected with sacrifice. The word kill certainly could evoke the images of worship and sacrifice to God. And ultimately, Peter's vision has infinitely more to do with our worship of God and our obedience to the gospel than it has to do with what we eat or dietary rules. Most commentators do not suggest the word translated kill here is implying a sacrifice, but I believe it is unmistakable the connection that should not be ignored here. Animals were given to man by God for both food and sacrifice. God commanded his people to eat and to sacrifice only clean animals. And here God is telling Peter to rise up and to kill and eat animals that are unclean. Jesus is now our once for all sacrifice. These animals represent the peoples of all nations presenting themselves to God as living sacrifices declared clean by God through the blood of the Lamb. The command rise and kill would apply to both applications of the word whether to kill a need or to kill and sacrifice to God. It was a command that challenged Peter to his core. He would need to walk by faith and not by sight in order to obey God here. God is not contradicting himself. He is the creator. He is the law giver. His making clean, what was once unclean, is perfectly consistent with his work of grace, just like the work of grace you and I are. Who once was darkness, but now you are light in the Lord of Ephesians 5.8. Making unclean animals clean, making you who once was darkness, now light in the Lord is like making all the different nations of the world into one holy nation and equal heirs of salvation. This is the total and complete work of God's grace and the good news of a new creation in Jesus Christ. Peter said not so Lord, but I have never eaten anything common or unclean. Peter resisted saying that he had never eaten anything unclean. Peter understood that the Lord was telling him to actually kill and eat unclean or common animals. Peter was resistant to this command as it went against all he had known. He had not yet connected it to anything beyond eating as the Gentile guests that were coming his direction had not yet arrived. He still knew nothing of God's plan, just like you and I know nothing of what God is planning for you that you don't know about right now. But know that God is always working, always planning, God is always working far, far upstream from us, preparing the way for us. There are no accidents, there are no coincidence. God is the sovereign. So here is Peter knowing nothing of God's plan with all that had happened. Think about all that had happened to Peter. Peter surely knew that God was moving in ways unusual to this devout fisherman or fisher of men. Peter had already experienced enough to know that God does indeed, as William Calper pinned in his famous hymn, God does indeed work in mysterious ways. And God purposefully put a variety of animals and birds, even reptiles in this sheet. And the Lord wanted Peter to know that there was no unclean creature that God could not declare to be clean. This truth would not just apply to four-footed animals or creatures, but Peter would soon find out it applies even more so to the Gentiles, to the nations of the world, as God would declare every people, every tribe, every tongue, clean. Verse 15, and a voice spoke to him again the second time, what God has cleansed, you must not call common. Peter still resisting what the voice was telling him to do, required the voice to further instruct him. A second time, the voice came to Peter declaring, what God has cleansed, you must not call common. Imagine how astonished Peter must have been seeing the unclean creatures and hearing the voice telling him to do what he had never done before. Verse 16, this was done three times, and the object was taken up into heaven again. Well here is a familiar pattern in terms of the life of Peter. Three times the voice speaks to him, commanding him, concerning things unclean that are now called clean. This is reminiscent of the three times Jesus had Peter affirm his love while instructing Peter to feed his sheep as recorded in John 21, 15 through 19. Here the voice of the Lord speaks to Peter three times, commanding him, Peter rise, till, need, assuring him that what God cleanses, what God makes clean must not be called unclean or common. Peter is hearing the words of the Lord while speaking or while looking at animals, but God is speaking to Peter with humans in mind. Three times the voice spoke, three times the sheep and all the creatures in it were let down and shown to Peter, and the voice clearly instructing Peter that what God has cleansed you must not call unclean. The fact that God opened the heavens and revealed this to Peter made the message not only authoritative but it made it unmistakable. After the voice spoke three times to Peter, the object was taken up into heaven again. Those unclean animals were taken up into heaven ascending upward to the presence of God. Just as the sacrifice of the ascension offering ascends upward, so those animals, the Lord commanded Peter to kill and eat, were rising up to the Lord like living sacrifices. The symbolism cannot be ignored. Just as the implications of what God was showing Peter could not be ignored, we are the living fruit of Peter's obedience and opening the gospel to the nations. Consider the words of the Apostle Paul. When he wrote in Romans 12, verse 1, I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God that you present your bodies a living sacrifice wholly and acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. Paul is riding to the church at Rome. He's riding to both Gentiles and Jews. He's instructing both Gentiles and Jews to present their bodies a living sacrifice wholly and acceptable to God. Do this, he writes, as your reasonable act of worship to God. The sacrifice and view in Romans 12, verse 1, is the ascension offering or what is commonly called the burnt offering. It was completely consumed by the fire of God. And it completely ascended to the presence of God as a sweet smelling aroma. This is, in fact, what we do each week we assemble here and go through the liturgy of our worship. We, we are being offered up to God as living sacrifices who are crucified to this world, that raised to life in Jesus Christ. God calls us to worship Him and we respond to His call. We confess our sins to God and He cleanses us and gives us His assurance of pardon. Then we are consecrated, set apart and prepared to be placed upon His altar. He makes us ready to ascend in His holy fire as a sweet smelling aroma made holy by the blood of Jesus. It is the two-edged sword of the Word like the sword or the knife, the butcher knife of the priest who prepares the offering, who cuts it and parts it and places it in its proper positions. Then we are brought near to God as a sweet smelling aroma made holy by the blood of Jesus. Then we who have been brought near to God are invited to commune with Him. We come to His table and we eat His bread and drink His wine and we renew the covenant that He has made with us through the body and the blood of Jesus Christ. And then God commissions us and sends us forth to obey His commands and to make disciples of the nations, baptizing them and teaching them to obey all that Christ has commanded us. Now in Christ Gentiles and Jews are no longer distinguished. The distinction of clean and unclean is abolished through the creation of the one new man from the two. And Christ all are made clean, all are counted holy, all are set apart for the Lord. It matters not who you are, it matters not where you come from, it matters not what color skin you have or what you look like, all are now one in Christ, in Christ. In Christ we are one holy nation, one chosen people. The importance of Acts 10 is not about what we may now consume. The importance of Acts chapter 10 is that now in Christ God may now consume us. That is the importance of Acts chapter 10. We may offer ourselves up to God as living sacrifices, confident that we are made clean, that we are made holy and acceptable to God in Jesus Christ through the precious blood of the Lamb. Now for all who are in Christ there are no more who are counted unclean, all are made clean by grace through faith in the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ. He poured out his precious blood and gave up his body for us on the cross. That is indeed good news. And you have been authorized and commanded to go there for and share that good news with the world in desperate need of hope. And Christ is our only hope in this life and in death. So church obey your Lord, go there for and make known his glorious gospel, make known his glorious name and the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Here is your church church. Do not make distinctions that God does not himself make. Don't confuse variety and diversity and differences that should be celebrated with those that we should mark and approach circumspecally. For those who are in Christ saved by his grace through the gift of faith that God has given, we may celebrate various differences. For those who are not saved who continue to reject Christ and live contrary to his word and in rebellion against his spirit, we must not be unequally yoked. We must approach those people wisely in love yet unashamedly and boldly with the gospel. For the gospel is the power of God to salvation to all who believe. It is the gospel they must believe and it is the gospel that must save them or they are not saved. God has made all peoples candidates for his salvation. He has given us the honor and the privilege to go and to make disciples of the nations to make known to them the glorious gospel that men may be saved, whoever they are, wherever they live, wherever they may come from, the gospel is the power of God to salvation to every one who believes. Therefor go and obey your Lord and make disciples. Be a disciple, make a disciple for the glory of God. Amen. Blessing our thanks to God. O League of souls, Amen. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. The Lord be with you. The Lord bless you.