I hesitate to ask if any of you have read the best-selling book “The Da Vinci Code.”
I’m afraid to ask because I am afraid of the answer, or perhaps the attitude in the answer.
“The Da Vinci Code” was for several months at the end of last year, the best selling novel in America.
I have not read it, so I can’t speak with authority,
The murder was designed to cover up the greatest secret in human history.
And the theology behind the story involve something called the “Royal Bloodline Theory.”
The “Royal Bloodline” Theology teaches that Jesus was a descendent of David, but not God.
He did not die on the cross, because someone took his place, probably Simon of Cyrene.
He married Mary Magdalene, moved to France, fathered several children, and started a family which ought to sit upon all the royal thrones of Europe.
These people believe that Jesus is the father of Hapsburg and Stuart royal families.
The false teachers of this theory say that orthodox Christianity is a huge cover-up, beginning with Paul and pushed along by the Roman Catholics and the Council of Nicea in the 4th century.
One of the intriguing aspects of this idea is that the art of Leonardo Da Vinci and other famous artists contain hints and clues about the truth about Jesus.
And, they say, the only true hope for peace on earth is for one of the true descendants of Jesus to unite the religions and kingdoms of the world.
I am not going to tell you that this will be the means by which the Anti-Christ brings together his unholy alliance, but neither can I tell that it is not.
This is not an insignificant waste of paper and hot air.
This is a real and dangerous heresy which has been documented by serious writers for a long time.
And there are people in Europe who claim even today to be the descendants of the Lord Jesus.
But whether or not this pack of lies ever produces any significant poisonous fruit of itself,
It is definitely a part of a much larger problem and Satanic conspiracy.
Satan doesn’t care what people believe so long as it isn’t the truth, especially the truth about Christ.
The purpose of all the false prophets and teachers is to confuse people about the identity and nature of Christ as God and Saviour.
If this book contributes to that, even in some small way, then the Devil has been served.
Getting back to Acts 10, the Roman Centurion, Cornelius, was either ignorant or confused about Christ.
He had never read “The Da Vinci Code,” but he had his own spiritual problems.
And that is still the critical need of people today.
After Peter made the 30-mile trip to Caesarea and approached the home of the Roman Centurion, Cornelius came met him in the court-yard and fell to ground in a worshipful manner.
I can’t fault this poor man for assuming too much about Peter,
When they got inside, the apostle was surprised to see that Cornelius had gathered a relatively large group of his friends and relatives to hear what the man of God had to say.
Peter began his address by saying:
“Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons:
There several different ways to approach a study of Christ:
For example, we could study His person, looking at both his humanity and his deity,
Or we could look at His personality, and the way that lived His earthly life.
We could study Him eternally and prophetically,
Or as we will today, we could examine the various offices of the Christ.
I don’t know that Peter was trying to follow any one particular approach, but I’d like to use his words to point you to the three primary offices of the Lord Jesus Christ.
He has, and in some ways, still does wear three distinct hats:
One is that of a PROPHET; the second is that of a PRIEST, and the third is that of a KING.
Peter touches on these three things, and so shall we this morning.
On that afternoon when the Lord healed the lame man at the Beautiful Gate of the Temple, Peter was given an opportunity to preach the gospel.
He said to the assembling throng, “Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord;
Whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began.
For Moses truly said unto the fathers, A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me; him shall ye hear in all things whatsoever he shall say unto you.
Unto you first God, having raised up his Son Jesus, sent him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from his iniquities.”
Most people have a very limited definition of the word “prophet,”
Thinking that the word only applies to people who talk about the future.
They think that prophets are prognosticators, seeing things that haven’t ocurred as yet.
But true Biblical prophets not only tell the future, they even retell the past, and comment on present.
True Biblical prophets are spokesmen for God, repeating whatever God’s message is for that day.
That means that every gospel preacher is a kind of prophet of God,
Because most people mistake its to say that I can see into the future.
As Peter began talking to this gentile audience he referred to “preaching peace.”
“The word which God sent unto the children of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ: (he is Lord of all:)
After the baptism which John preached.”
He then commissioned his disciples and church to preach, or prophesy, that same message.
I can’t tell you what was in Cornelius’ mind when he first heart that word “peace,” but I can guess.
He was a soldier, whose field of service was the very volatile country of Israel.
He was undoubtedly hated by the citizens of Israel as a foreign invader.
He was a soldier whose ultimate business was peace.
And when Peter said, “peace” he may have been thinking of political and cultural peace.
They would immediately think about ceasefires and fewer funerals.
The Bible is filled with references to the war between the righteous God and sinful men.
And it refers to a peace treaty as well, through the person of the Lord Jesus.
Hear Psalm 85: “Turn us, O God of our salvation, and cause thine anger toward us to cease.
Wilt thou not revive us again: that thy people may rejoice in thee?
Shew us thy mercy, O LORD, and grant us thy salvation.
I will hear what God the LORD will speak: for he will speak peace unto his people, and to his saints: but let them not turn again to folly.
Surely his salvation is nigh them that fear him; that glory may dwell in our land.
Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other.”
Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.”
What has the birth of this baby got to do with peace?
For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us; Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace;
And that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby:
And came and preached peace to you which were afar off, and to them that were nigh.
For through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father.“
For it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell;
And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven. And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled
In the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight.”
But Jesus himself, the prophet like unto Moses, preached peace.
And then Peter and the other disciples began preaching the same message.
And God’s churches today are doing the same.
There is the availability of peace with God through the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus on the cross.
As Peter said to Cornelius, “To him give all the prophets witness, that through his name whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins.”
Jesus’ first office was that of a prophet,
But His second office of the Saviour comes even more into the heart of this peace:
We could talk about the various kinds of priests, from Aaron to Melchizedek, and how they related to the Lord Jesus.
We could talk about high priests and low priests.
We could talk about their dress and their duties.
The Book of Hebrews is filled with information and interpretation of these things for us.
But let’s confine our thoughts this morning to what Peter briefly says here:
And we are witnesses of all things which he did both in the land of the Jews, and in Jerusalem; whom they slew and hanged on a tree.”
That was the only way in which peace could be established between God and sinners like us.
In this sense this peace was in fact a “reconciliation.”
Through the sacrifice and the ministry of the priest God and sinners could be brought together or “reconciled.”
For example, there was a day in Israel’s past when king Hezekiah realized that the problems of his nation were due to the people’s sin against God
The nation had been alienated by sin and, so he took steps to remedy the situation.
This is recorded for us in II Chronicles 29:
And they brought seven bullocks, and seven rams, and seven lambs, and seven he goats, for a sin offering for the kingdom, and for the sanctuary, and for Judah. And he commanded the priests the sons of Aaron to offer them on the altar of the LORD.
So they killed the bullocks, and the priests received the blood, and sprinkled it on the altar: likewise, when they had killed the rams, they sprinkled the blood upon the altar: they killed also the lambs, and they sprinkled the blood upon the altar.
And they brought forth the he goats for the sin offering before the king and the congregation; and they laid their hands upon them:
And the priests killed them, and they made reconciliation with their blood upon the altar, to make an atonement for all Israel: for the king commanded that the burnt offering and the sin offering should be made for all Israel.”
Those offerings were being made by faith, trusting the Lord to receive them.
It wasn’t until the Apostle Paul came along that the Lord clearly explained that it is not possible that the blood of bulls, goats, sheep and doves can actually remove the stains of sin.
The Lord was temporarily receiving those sacrifices in lieu of the great sacrifice to be made on Calvary.
To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation.”
And when John the Baptist first saw the Lord Jesus, as He began his ministry, John said, “Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world.”
Christ Jesus was a priest in that he offered up a sacrifice to God and presented it’s blood on the altar.
He “gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil world, according to the will of God and our Father.”
He “gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity.”
“Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree.”
The tree that Paul refers to in several of these verses was the wooden cross.
Cornelius was a Roman, but that didn’t make him any more or less an enemy of God than the Jews.
He needed to be reconciled to the Lord just as Peter had needed it, and just as Americans need it.
It wasn’t until chapter 10 that Peter realized that the Lord was offering peace to people outside of Israel.
Wow, “Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons.”
So Peter pointed Cornelius to the Lord Jesus in His office of priest:
Earlier he had said that Jesus was delivered up “by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God,” and by wicked hands He was crucified and slain as the only means to peace with God.
But it was also true that Jesus “gave Himself a ransom for many.”
We are all in need of a priest who can represent us before the holiness of God.
For the last 2,000 years, Jesus Christ is the only priest that is accepted in that office.
John 3:16 is a great scripture:
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
I hope that everyone understands that the word “perish” is referring to death.
But obviously the death referred to in John 3:16 is not the physical kind, because that kind of death is common to everyone.
John 3:16 is referring to eternal death, the ultimate end of the warfare and enmity between God and the sinner.
It is talking about the second death.
“But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.”
The reason that Revelation 21:8 refers to these various kinds of people, is because these are characteristics of people who are still living in rebellion against God.
They are still at war with the Lord.
When the Lord Jesus grew to manhood and began His earthly ministry He served His father as a prophet.
Peter says that “he went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil.”
And He warned sinners to flee from the wrath to come.
He reiterated the laws of God, which helped people to understand God’s holiness.
And when His three year ministry was over, He presented Himself to God as the sacrifice necessary to establish peace with God.
Now for 2,000 years the disciples and their successors have been preaching the message of the Gospel.
“Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God.”
And why is this so important?
Because God holds the sinner accountable, not only for his sins, but also for receiving or rejecting the sacrifice that Christ has made on the cross.
This is the way that the Lord Jesus put it:
“For the Father loveth the Son, and sheweth him all things that himself doeth: and he will shew him greater works than these, that ye may marvel.
For as the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them; even so the Son quickeneth whom he will.
For the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son:
That all men should honour the Son, even as they honour the Father. He that honoureth not the Son honoureth not the Father which hath sent him.
Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.
Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live.
For as the Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself;
And hath given him authority to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of man.”
There is a great day of judgment coming, when all the children of men will stand before God.
It will be Jesus Christ that we see sitting on that throne.
And He will divide all the peoples of the earth based upon one factor: their relationship to Him and to His sacrifice.
Those who have humbly accepted Him by faith; and those who have not.
We all have the same need as Cornelius – we are sinners.
We have the need of hearing the same Gospel.
We have need of the same Saviour.
“To him give all the prophets witness, that through his name whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins.”
Is your faith resting in the Lord Jesus and Jesus alone?