The Big Difference! ~ Kay Arthur

Life In The Spirit - part eight

The Big Difference!

Is there a hunger within you, a longing to know God? You.ve looked at Christians, you.ve seen them in a group, you.ve see the joy, you.ve seen the love and you want to be part of it. Or maybe you.ve looked at another individual and you.ve thought O, I want what that person has. I want to be just like them. Oh, Precious One, just know this that God is about to fulfill that longing of your heart.

The death, the burial and the resurrection of Jesus Christ was what wrought our salvation, but that wasn.t the end. That was simply the beginning, because from the beginning of time, God has had mankind on His heart. And so when Jesus finished His work and He ascended into heaven then what He did was He sent His Spirit down to indwell men so that men might carry on His work.

Because it.s not by might and it.s not by power, but God says it.s by My Spirit, says the Lord. This is the way that we do the work of God. And what we have to realize is that if we.re going to do the work of God, we.ve got to do it where God tells us to do it and that.s in the world. That.s why Jesus said to His disciples, “Pray to the Lord of the harvest that He might thrust more laborers into His fields because the fields are white unto harvest.”

There are people out there that are watching you, there are people out there that are standing on the edges of the sidelines. There are people that are coming into church that don.t know Jesus Christ, but there.s a longing, there.s a desire, there.s a hunger within them to know God. There.s a recognition of the fact that there is a God of heaven and that God of heaven, or that God, wherever He is, is God, that there has to be a Supreme Being and they want to know Him. And so how are they going to find out? They.re going to find out through you.

You know I witnessed to someone in the store the other day and I was up in Minneapolis and I went to the store because I, I had taken a new pair of pajamas and they didn.t fit. And so I had to run out and I ran to Marshall.s. I.ve never been in Marshall.s before. And so I was talking to the woman as I was checking out and God just laid on my heart that I was to share Christ with her, but you know, she was a Christian. You know, she was just like this. And as I walked out with my friend, I turned to Jeananne, and I said, “You know Jeananne, I don.t really believe that she.s a Christian. I believe that she has a religion, but not a relationship because when you really are a believer and somebody witnesses to you, you want to just throw your arms around them. You want to grab „em; you want to kiss „em on both cheeks. And you wanna say to them, „hey, I am so proud of you..”

We.re about the Lord.s business, aren.t we? We.re in those fields that are white unto harvest. Thank you for witnessing. Thank you for sharing. Thank you for doing the job that God has called you to do. So you don.t take offense when somebody witnesses to you if you really know the Lord, because this is what life in the Spirit is all about.

Go back to Acts, chapter 1. We.ve looked at Pentecost, but let.s look at what Jesus said was going to happen when the Holy Spirit came upon them. In Acts, chapter 1 Jesus told „em to wait for the promise of the Father. And He says in verse 8, “But you shall receive power.” Remember power is the engine under the hood that makes the car go. Okay, so power is Christ in you who enables you to do and to be what God wants you to be.

And so He says, “You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. You shall receive power and you shall be My witnesses;” now watch what He says, “in Jerusalem and in Judea, and to the uttermost parts of the earth.”

Now was it just to reach the Jews that God had scattered because of their disobedience when he took them captive in 586 B.C. and destroyed Jerusalem and when He destroyed it again in 70 A.D. because of their disobedience? No, no. Let me take you to what happens 8 years after Pentecost. Let.s go to Acts, chapter 10.

Now the Jews have been doing what God has told them to do. They.ve been witnessing in Jerusalem. They.ve been witnessing in Judea. Persecution starts in Acts, chapter 8, by the way, in Acts, chapter 9 you find out who one of the persecutors is; it.s the apostle Paul. And he gets saved in Acts, chapter 9. But now we come to Acts, chapter 10 and I.m going to take you through the chapter because I want you to see how God moves, because as we look at the truth, as we look at these words of truth; these are the very words of God. Holy men of God wrote, they spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit and the Old Testament was God.s prophecies, the Laws and the prophets and the Psalms that all spoke about the first coming of Jesus Christ and the second coming of Jesus Christ and the promise of the Holy Spirit.

Now in the book of Acts, we have the early church moving, but God is going to begin to move upon Paul to write epistles, Peter to write epistles and others to write for Him as His scribes and put down truth. So when Luke wrote this book of Acts, he was under the divine inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

In Acts, chapter 10, verse 1: “Now there was a certain man at Caesarea.” Caesarea is the way that they pronounce it over in Israel. And it says, “There was a certain man in Caesarea named Cornelius, a centurion of what was called the Italian cohort.” So Cornelius had come over from Italy, and he was ruling over the Jews under Rome.

Now this is so important. Rome ruled the world. And if Rome ruled the world, Rome ruled Israel because they had taken Israel. They had conquered this land. And yet it was the policy of the Romans to let the people that they conquered rule underneath them, so that they didn.t deal directly with the people. Rather, they just dealt with the leaders of the people over whom they ruled. Now it says, “That he is a devout man, one who feared God with all of his household and gave many alms to the Jewish people and prayed to God continually.”

Now one of the things that I would do is I would mark prayer. Whenever I come across any reference to prayer I mark it in my Bible because I want to learn everything that I can. So it says, “And they prayed to God continually. About the ninth hour of the day he saw in a vision an angel of God who had just come into him and said to him, „Cornelius.. And fixing his gaze on him and being much alarmed he said, „What is it, Lord?.”

Now Lord there is a term of, it.s like saying what is it sir? It.s a term of respect. It.s a term of honor that you give to someone that is superior to you. So he says, “What is it Lord? And he, the angel said to him, „Your prayers and alms have ascended as a memorial before God..” Listen, Precious One, you may not know Him, but if you are moving toward God, if you are seeking God, if you are longing to know God, then God is seeing that, God is hearing, God is listening.

Here was a man that was sensitive; here was a man that was longing. The woman in the store, when I talked to her in Marshall.s about Jesus Christ, I mean she wasn.t interested. God wasn.t moving on her heart. God wasn.t dealing with her. So if there.s a longing Precious One, in your heart to know God, if there.s a longing to belong to the family of God, to have that sense of belonging, to have that sense of purpose, to be at peace with God, you can know that God is drawing you to Himself. You.re being drawn by God. And when God draws you, He doesn.t draw you and get you up to the point of here it is, now you can.t have it. He.s not going to withdraw that from you.

And so with Cornelius, he knew that Cornelius was seeking God. “And the angel said, „Now dispatch some men to Joppa and send for a man named Simon who is also caller Peter..” And watch now, what I want you to see is I want you to see what happens when the Holy Spirit is within us or when we.re longing for God.

And so we see the longing for God in Cornelius. We see Peter, who we know is filled with the Spirit, because Peter was there on the day of Pentecost. The Spirit came upon him and now he has the promise that God had promised and the Spirit is indwelling him, never to leave again. Its eight years after Pentecost. Peter is in Joppa, he was staying with a certain tanner by the name of Simon, whose house is by the sea. So he had a great view. Verse 7: “And when the angel who was speaking to him had departed,” and this is what God is telling Cornelius through the angel. I just want you to see this. He.s saying okay, you go, you dispatch some men to Joppa. “Send for a man named Simon who.s called Peter. He.s staying at a certain house, at the house of Simon the tanner and it.s by the sea.”

So he knows, Cornelius knows exactly where to send his men. I mean they weren.t metropolitan cities like we have today. So he could go into the city and he could say hey, do you know where Simon the tanner is? I know he.s by the sea. Oh yeah, yeah, that.s his house. All right, and it says, “after he had explained everything. And when this angel who was speaking to him,” verse 7, “had departed, he summoned, Cornelius summoned two of his servants and a devout soldier of those who were in constant attendance upon him. And after he had explained everything to him, he sent him to Joppa.” And what happened when he got there? Well, we.ll look at it right after this important announcement.

Welcome back, my friend. Do you know what I wish I could do? I wish I could just stand up, put my arms around you, and say, “I.m so thankful for you. I.m so thankful that you have a hunger for the Word of God.” And I.d just say, “Sit down, and let.s study together. Let.s study together.” Well this is as good as I can get in this way, so let.s go on.

“And on the next day, as they were on their way approaching the city, Peter went up to the house top about the sixth hour to pray.” So watch now. Here.s life in the Spirit. Here.s Peter who.s this apostle. Here.s Peter who is getting the Word of God out. Here is Peter who is being faithful to the Jews. And Peter, now staying with Simon, has gone up to pray. It.s the Spirit that leads us to pray. “And as he.s up on the rooftop he becomes hungry and desiring to eat. But while they were making preparations he fell into a trance and beheld the sky was opened and a certain object, like a great sheet was coming down lowered by four corners right to the ground.”

And so this great sheet is coming down and he looks at this great sheet and it.s full of unclean animals. It says, “There were in it all kinds of four-footed animals and crawling creatures of the earth and birds of the air. And a voice came to him, „Arise Peter, kill and eat.. But Peter said, „By no means Lord. I have never eaten anything unholy or unclean..” I.m a good Jew, God. I.ve kept the Law. I can.t eat those animals. They.re four-footed, they.re crawling creatures. They.re birds that You have forbidden us to eat. I can.t do that.

“And then a voice came to him a second time, „What God has cleansed, no longer call unholy..” God.s cleansed those. The law, that part of the law is over. Don.t call it unholy. But as he tells him that he.s telling him something more that Peter is about to understand in a few minutes. Now it says, “And this happened three times.”

Now, when it happens three times it means get the point. Listen. I.ve done it three times and three times I.m telling you don.t consider what I have cleansed unholy. Know this, if I.ve cleansed it, it.s holy. It.s okay. “Now while Peter was greatly perplexed in mind, as to what the vision he had seen might be, behold the men who had been sent by Cornelius having asked directions for Simon.s home appeared at the gate.”

Oh, talk about timing. I mean, man it.s perfect timing. When you.re walking in the Spirit, when you.re seeking God, when you are even hungering for God you will know that God is ordaining your steps. The Bible says that “The steps of a righteous man are ordained by the Lord. A man.s goings are of the Lord. How then can a man understand his way?”

And so they arrive. And it says, “While Peter was greatly perplexed in mind as to what the vision might be, the men who had been sent by Cornelius, having asked directions for Simon.s house, appeared at the gate and calling out they were asking whether Simon, who was called Peter was staying there. And while Peter was reflecting on the vision;” remember he.s on the housetop, “the Spirit said to him, „Behold, three men are seeking you.. The Spirit said to him and he was able to hear the voice of the Spirit.” He was in prayer. He was seeking God. “And the Spirit said, „Arise, go downstairs and accompany them without misgivings; for I have sent them Myself..” “The Spirit said, „Go follow them. Don.t have any misgivings; for I have sent them Myself.”

Now what have you just learned? Those men from Cornelius that have come have been sent by the Holy Spirit. Here are men who do not know God and yet God is able to move them. God.s able to do anything. And here is Peter having this vision and God gets him downstairs with this Goyim and he says go with him and don.t have any misgivings. Now what does he mean don.t have any misgivings? Well the Jews had separated themselves from the Gentiles. And the Jews didn.t hang around the Goyim because they didn.t want to become unclean. And they.re about to go into a Gentile.s house. It says, “And Peter went with the men and said, „Behold, I am the one you.re looking for. What is this reason for which you have come?. And they said, „Cornelius, a centurion, a righteous and God-fearing man, well spoken of by the entire nation of the Jews was divinely directed by a holy angel to send for you to come to his house and have a message, and hear a message from you..”

Now listen, Peter was already prepared by the Spirit. Have you ever had the Spirit of God lead you in such a way that you knew when you got there or you knew that when you were about to do something that you had been led by God? There have been times when I have spoken and people have come up to me and they have said that.s what I needed to hear. That.s what I was crying out to God about. And I find out, hey, I was led by the Spirit. This is life in the Spirit. And it.s exciting.

And it says, “And so he invited them in and gave them lodging. On the next day he arose and went with them and some of the brethren from Joppa accompanied him. And on the following day he entered Caesarea. Now Cornelius was waiting for them and had called together his relatives and his close friends. And when it came about that Peter entered, Cornelius met him, and fell at his feet and worshiped him. But Peter raised him up, saying, „Stand up; I too am just a man..”

Boy, how people that are being used of the Spirit need to remember it.s not by might, it.s not by power, it.s by His Spirit and God will not share His glory with any man. We never need to be treated special because we are God.s ambassadors for Jesus Christ. And it says, “And as he talked with him, he entered, and found many people assembled. And he said to them, „You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a man who is a Jew to associate with a foreigner or visit him; and yet God has shown me I should not call any man unholy or unclean..”

How did He show him? He showed him that by the Holy Spirit. When you read the Word of God, God shows you truth by the Holy Spirit even as He did the same for Peter. He says, “„That.s why I came without even raising any objection when I was sent for. And so I asked for what reason you have sent me?. And Cornelius said, „Four days ago this hour I was praying in my house during the ninth hour and behold a man stood before me in shining garments and he said, Cornelius, your prayer has been heard and your alms have been remembered before God..”

Precious One, have you been praying? Have you been longing to know God, to be part of the family of God? Then all you have to do is say, “„God, I.m dying to everything that I used to be, everything that I used to be. I.m dying to every dream and hope and ambition. All I want is You. I want You with all my heart.. And God says, „Good, because when you seek Me and you search for Me with all your heart, I will be found by you..

And what would He have you to do? He would have you just to sit down, read through the gospel of John, mark every time it says believe and then you say, „God, this is truth, I will believe; I will believe that Jesus is the Christ, that He.s Your promised One, that He.s Your Son and I.m a sinner and that He.s my only means for salvation. And I want Him right now. I want to receive Jesus. I.m like Cornelius, I am hungry for You.

Will You give me Your Son? Will You give me Your Spirit? Will You give me eternal life? Will You let me be part of the family?” And you know what God will say? “O yes, My child, yes, My child. I.ve been drawing you to Me and I want you to be born of the Spirit and that.s what.s happening.