Stephen was preaching a gospel message to an hostile crowd, but he got interrupted.
As he neared the part of his message where he planned to make his application,
And ran upon him with one accord, and cast him out of the city, and stoned him.”
But we need to remind ourselves that God’s word does not return unto Him void, it accomplishes what He intends and prospers in the thing whereto He sends it.
In the case of Stephen’s sermon to the Sanhedrin, at the very least, one of those men was saved, in part, through that message.
On this occasion another important message was interrupted, but this time by the Lord Himself.
Just think about the way that this chapter begins in comparison to the strange way that it ends.
Cornelius was commanded by God to find and invite Peter to come and preach to him.
Then Peter was commanded by God to ignore the racial differences and to preach to this Roman.
Perhaps it wasn’t so much a sermon, as it was other things that Peter was to tell these people over the next few days.
Nevertheless, the Spirit of God fell on that little assembly of people, and demonstrated His great power once again.
This short scripture has been called “The Pentecost of the Gentiles,”
Because in Peter’s explanation to the church in Jerusalem he said, “The Holy Ghost fell on them, as on us at the beginning” (Acts 11:15).
I have repeated that idea that because good men have repeated it to me.
But I am not really sure how much of this actually parallels Acts 2.
Let’s think about four things related to the Holy Spirit this evening:
The Holy Spirit and the Truth; the Holy Spirit and power;
The Holy Spirit and His effects; and the Holy Spirit and obedience.
He may have had a four hour outline.
I can preach a 30 minute message, and you can learn something new,
But Peter couldn’t assume anything with this congregation.
And he could have been 45 minutes into his introduction when the Holy Spirit was poured out.
In Acts 11:15 he told the Jerusalem church “as I BEGAN to speak, the Holy Ghost fell on them.”
I have pointed out a couple of times over the last few months that God loves and has ordained to use preaching to accomplish His work.
It has pleased God that by the “foolishness” of preaching to save them that believe.
We are commanded to “preach the word; be instant in season, out of season.
And it’s not that He won’t bless the presentation of His Word through other means,
But He has definitely declared His love for the forceful and excited declaration of His word through preaching.
At some point, which I am not able to pin-point, the Lord regenerated most, if not all, of these people.
I don’t hear Peter giving them an invitation and exhorting them to come to the front of the auditorium.
I don’t Cornelius them running forward with tears running down his face.
I don’t read of any outward expression of mortification and repentance.
But Biblical consistency forces me to think that either at the time that the Holy Spirit was poured out upon them, or prior to that time, God saved the souls of those Roman gentiles.
And it was while God’s Word, the Truth, was being preached.
During a celebrated evangelistic campaign in Las Vegas, Billy Graham went into a topless club to witness to the women and their patrons.
I’ll let the Lord determine if he should have done that,
When you first heard about Billy’s incursion into the Devil’s country that day,
Did you also hear that the Lord poured out his Holy Spirit on that place or on that visit?
Did the Lord pour His Spirit on the council chamber while Stephen was preaching to the Sanhedrin?
I realize there have not been many occasions when this dramatic demonstration has occurred, but when it has, it has been during a time of preaching the truth, in a situation where truth prevailed.
It was during the preaching of the truth that Cornelius and his friends were saved.
It was during the preaching of the truth that the Holy Spirit fell upon that congregation.
Would you say that I was being foolish or simplistic if I said,
And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment:
Of sin, because they believe not on me;
Of righteousness, because I go to my Father, and ye see me no more;
Of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged.
I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now.
Howbeit when he, the spirit of TRUTH, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come.”
John 15:26 – “But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me.”
The only exception to that rule might be where the Holy Spirit judges someone for their lies and their hatred of the truth.
There would have been no “Gentile Pentecost” if the Word of God had been neglected or abused.
On the Gentiles also was poured out the gift of the Holy Ghost.
For they heard them speak with tongues, and magnify God.”
As I’ve said, Peter’s statement in Acts 11:15-17 has been used to suggest that what happened on Pentecost took place again in Caesarea at the house of Cornelius.
“And as I began to speak, the Holy Ghost fell on them, as on us at the beginning.
Then remembered I the word of the Lord, how that he said, John indeed baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost.
Forasmuch then as God gave them the like gift as he did unto us, who believed on the Lord Jesus Christ; what was I, that I could withstand God?”
Does it matter that Peter mis-quoted the Lord Jesus just a bit?
He said He said, “John indeed baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost.”
But what the Lord actually said was, “For John truly baptized with water; but YE shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost NOT MANY DAYS HENCE.”
Can we dogmatically say that the Saviour’s promise applied to this meeting as well as to Pentecost?
One of the commentaries that I read said that Luke neglected to mention that ….
And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them.”
Certainly Luke had the opportunity to tell us if these phenomenon occurred, but he didn’t.
All we have is Peter’s statement.
The speaking in tongues was the same because Luke tells us.
And the praise and magnification of the Lord was probably the same.
But to dogmatically declare that this was a duplication of the Pentecostal baptism of the Spirit might be stepping just a bit too far.
I know that I have said that in the past, but has always been with a tiny bit of doubt.
What did the power of the Spirit accomplish that afternoon?
The Gentiles spoke in tongues and magnified God.
Despite what some of the scholars say without a shred of evidence,
And just as the tongues on the Day of Pentecost, which were the languages of the visitors in Jerusalem,
I believe that Cornelius and his friends began miraculously speaking in languages which they had not had an opportunity to learn.
And I wouldn’t be a bit surprised to learn that they were speaking in Hebrew, which was not the common language of Israel at that time.
The Romans occupying Israel, were under no obligation to speak anything but Latin, and if they wanted to converse with the average Jew, they would have done so in Aramaic, not ancient Hebrew.
But there were undoubtedly many Hebrew scholars left in the land, and there may have been some present with Peter that day.
When those men started speaking in tongues, especially if it was in Hebrew, the witnesses that came from Joppa with Peter, would have been duly impressed that this was from God.
Their pre-conceived notions were already being dashed.
But when the Holy Spirit empowered them to magnify God in Hebrew, they were astounded.
Like all the rest of us, they wanted to keep God in the little box that they had built for him.
But as the Lord has said, “My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
It appears to me that the Lord delights in doing the audacious.
For example, who would have ever thought that God would save the likes of Saul of Tarsus.
Who among the Apostles a few months earlier would have thought that God would save Cornelius.
That it was necessary that the Gentiles had to be baptized with the Spirit
As I meditate on the subject, I just don’t see the necessity.
This demonstration of God’s power may have made their jaws drop, it but was actually designed to shut their mouths.
And as Peter later said, “Forasmuch then as God gave them the like gift as he did unto us, who believed on the Lord Jesus Christ; what was I, that I could withstand God?”
The effect of God’s miraculous power was reverence for the Lord, & acceptance of these Gentile believers.
That didn’t mean that from that point on they were free to be and do what every they chose.
They were now free to obey the Lord.
There are so many people who get themselves into trouble and then turning to the Lord they plead with Him to forgive them.
For a little while they run about the country telling people that they have been born again,
They have new joys, new hopes, new allegiances; they have a new King.
When Peter couldn’t argue against their conversion, he couldn’t argue against their baptism.
And they obeyed the Lord by being baptized.
The spectacular nature of this Gentile conversion, and the miracles which followed it,
Didn’t preclude or eliminate their responsibility to obey the Lord in other things.
None of us have any reasonable arguments NOT to obey the commands of the Lord.
Let me conclude our study of this chapter with one final question: who baptized them?
Peter brought with him six members of the church in Joppa.
All of the scholars whom I consulted agreed that Peter commanded that the people from Joppa baptize Cornelius and his kindred and friends.
So it appears that the Romans then became members of the church in Joppa.
I’m sure that a mission was started in Caesarea and eventually a church.
Was this the same church of which Philip the Evangelist was a member?
But it had the honor of being the first church with Gentile members.
And where would WE be if the Lord had not been so gracious?