Okay, I’ll ‘fess up. I know that there is a God and I’m not Him. But, if I were, the Acts 10 chapter certainly wouldn’t be in the Bible. If I were God and had to deal with the people involved, the culture of that day, and religious tradition, I would say that there was too much drama and what I call highly unlikelies. There were just too many things at which I’d be shaking my head.
(NOTE: pull out your Bible and follow along with me) If Billy Burns was God, I wouldn’t…
10:1-6 Approach and dialogue with a Gentile named Cornelius, a person of a race that any God-fearing Jewish person would highly unlikely befriend. (Up to this time, God was a Jewish-people-only God.)
10:9 Speak to and want to use a multi-time disappointer named Peter, a man who was highly unlikely to get the job done to my satisfaction. (You know it’s true. Fail me once, shame on you. Fail me twice, shame on me.)
10:9 Connect with Peter in a highly unlikely place – on a rooftop. (Aren’t God connections restricted to occurring in a church sanctuary?)
10:9-10 Connect with Peter at a highly unlikely time of the day. (Did you notice the time stamp? This visitation wasn’t in the designated Sunday 10-11:15 AM timeslot. It was lunchtime on a non-church-going day.)
10:10 Connect with Peter in a highly unlikely manner. (A trance? This might cause the Twilight Zone theme song to start playing in the background.)
10:11-16 Show and tell Peter a highly unlikely message in this trance. (Read it for yourself. These weren’t words and pictures that the average Jewish man would EVER want to embrace.)
10:17-23 Put together a highly unlikely and improbable plan. (There were too many negative possibilities. Two different people – Cornelius and Peter. Two different locations – Caesarea and Joppa. Two different cultures – Gentile and Jew – AKA oil and water.)
10:24-29 Pull off the highly unlikely feat of nullifying time-honored rules and religious protocol. (To borrow from a phrase that you Trekkies will recognize, God wanted Jewish Peter to go “where no Jewish man has gone before”.)
10:30-33 Reveal this highly unlikely plan through a highly unlikely source to highly unlikely recipients. (I need to check with Las Vegas to see what the odds are for all of these highly unlikelies to take place.)
10:34-43 Speak a highly unlikely powerful, concise, anointed message through a highly unlikely person that others in Acts 4:13 considered to be uneducated and ordinary. (Looks are deceiving, aren’t they!)
10:44-48 Honor this gathering with such a highly unlikely visitation. (In the history of mankind, nothing like this had ever happened to Gentiles. It was the “complete package deal” for all in Cornelius’ house – Salvation – Baptism in the Holy Spirit – Speaking in other tongues – Magnifying God – Water baptism.)
Thankfully, I’m not God. (Vickie is saying a gigantic AMEN!) Here it is almost 2,000 years after God pushed aside tradition, protocol, and prejudices to fulfill His “I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh” promise. On that day, God plowed past the highly unlikelies, bypassed the likelies, and went straight ahead to declare “I will” and did exactly what He had promised. (Get ready to shout!) TODAY, GOD WILL CAST ASIDE ALL OF THE UNLIKELIES AND LIKELIES ABOUT YOU TO FULFILL EVERY PROMISE IN HIS BOOK THAT CONCERNS YOU! Amen? Amen!
