898 - Les Feldick Bible Study - Lesson 3 Part 2 Book 75 - Connecting the Dots of Scripture - Part 22

https://lesfeldickbiblestudy.com Through the Bible with Les Feldick LESSON 3 * PART 2 * BOOK 75 CONNECTING THE DOTS OF SCRIPTURE – PART 2 Genesis - Revelation For those of you in television, in case this is your first time, and you’re just clicking through the channels, and you wonder what in the world—we’re just an informal Bible study. That blackboard is what gets people’s attention, not me thankfully. It’s the blackboard, and then they come back and have to see what it’s all about. We’re glad you’re with us. Again, we always like to thank you for your letters. My, how we enjoy our mail time! All right, Iris wants me to keep plugging our one and only book, because we don’t want them to sit out there in the warehouse. The book is eighty-eight questions and the answers from past programs. Everybody seems to enjoy it, especially the younger people. We want to keep reminding you of that. They make wonderful gifts. And it will be the best $11 dollars you will spend. Many people have found salvation by reading this little book. All right, we’re going to keep right on going where we left off with what we’ve been calling connecting the dots of Scripture. We didn’t mention it in the last program, but we just sort of decided to start at Genesis and just as they like to say lately, you just connect the dots and see how everything in Scripture fits from cover to cover. Sometimes there are changes in the program. We’re covering that now as we come to the Apostle Paul, but it all fits so beautifully. After Paul’s conversion and after he spent the three years in the desert, as we saw in our last moments of the last half hour, he came back to Jerusalem, and he only spent a couple weeks with Peter and a few of the others. Then his life was threatened again, as usual, so he fled up to his home town of Tarsus, up there in what is presently southwestern Turkey. But now we’re going to pick up back in Jerusalem once again, or at least Joppa, with Peter. The whole thing is so providential, but most people miss it. Because, you see, Peter is still the Jews’ Jew. He has no time for Gentiles, which was appropriate at that time. How shall I put it? Yet God had to let Peter know that something different was taking place. God was going to go to the Gentiles, Peter or no Peter. This is what we’re going to pick up now in chapter 10. God has to show Peter that He is now going to offer salvation to the Gentile world. Now you’ve got to know your Old Testament to realize that Israel was never instructed to proselytize or evangelize the Gentile world. They were to keep it to themselves. They alone were under the covenants. They would have their opportunity at some time in the future to bring Gentiles in but certainly not yet. So this whole idea of Acts chapter 10 with Cornelius, now, is primarily not just to save those few Gentile Romans, which is appropriate, but more importantly to show Peter that now God was going to do something totally different. And I maintain had Peter not had this experience, when they came together in the Jerusalem counsel in A.D. 51, which would probably be about twelve years later, I’m afraid Peter would have never agreed to let Paul and Barnabas go back to their Gentile ministry. They would have squashed it right there in Jerusalem. So, as we look at this event now with Peter and Cornelius, keep that uppermost in your mind—that this is God’s way of showing Peter that He was now going to do something totally different. All right, Acts chapter 10, we’ll start reading in verse 1. Acts 10:1-2 “There was a certain man in Caesarea (just up the coast from Jerusalem) called Cornelius, a centurion (or an officer) of the band called the Italian band. 2. A devout man, (In other words, he was religious, contrary to most Romans who were pagan, but he was a devout man.) and one who feared God with all his house, which gave much alms to the people, (He was certainly, what’s the word I’m looking for? A philanthropist, he gave to those that need it.) and prayed to God always.” Now most people think that makes him a believer. No, that’s most of the human race. And still he’s as lost as a goose, is the way I usually put it. And, consequently, he was in need of salvation. This is where God is going to start now so far as the Gentile world is concerned. “He saw in a vision evidently about the ninth hour of the day (Which would be 3 o’clock in the afternoon.) an angel of God coming in to him, and saying unto him, Cornelius. 4. And when he looked on him, he was afraid, and said, What is it, Lord? (Not recognizing that it was an angel, but whatever.) And he said unto him, Thy prayers and thine alms are come up for a memorial before God. 5. And now send men to Joppa,…” We’re down at that southern end of the eastern shore, the Mediterranean, a little further south of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem today, to Joppa. #LesFeldick #BibleStudy #Bible