Only a God-fearing Man

[00:00:00] Acts, chapter ten. Continuing, continuing in our study in the Book of Acts. [00:00:12] We'll start in verse number one. [00:00:16] This is the account, as far as we know, in the. In recorded Scripture. This is the very first pure Gentile to ever believe on Christ. [00:00:34] The Bible says in verse one that, I'll read it in a second. But it says that Cornelius was a centurion. Now we know in the life of Christ, when he was upon the earth, he did come across some centurions. In fact, one of them was given by the Lord, I think one of the highest compliments of almost anyone that the Lord met, probably even more than his own disciples, because he constantly chided them for their lack of faith, their failure of faith. But this centurion that came and he brought his, I believe it was his servant, and he actually sent someone to meet with Jesus to go meet Jesus and wanted the servant who was sick to be healed. [00:01:23] Anyhow, Jesus was going to go with him. And the Centurion said, I'm not worthy that you should come under my roof. Only say the word. My servant will be healed. And I'm paraphrasing, of course. And Jesus said he was stunned. The Lord was stunned by the man's faith. He said, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel. And he was a Gentile. [00:01:48] So as far as we know, this is the first time that a Gentile has come to Christ. And so, as I've said in previous messages, this is a turning point in the Book of Acts. So we'll read verses one through eight and then verse 34 through 48. The Bible says there was a certain man in Caesarea called Cornelius, a centurion of the band, called the Italian Band, a devout man and one that feared God with all his house, which gave much alms to the people and prayed to God always. He saw in a vision, evidently about the 9th hour of the day. So that would be about 03:00 p.m. An angel of God coming in unto him, coming into him and saying unto him, Cornelius. And when he looked on him, he was afraid and said, what is it, Lord? And he said unto him, thy prayers and thine alms are come up for a memorial before God. [00:02:40] And now send men to Joppa and call for one Simon, whose surname is Peter. He lodgeth with one Simon, a tanner, whose house is by the seaside. He shall tell thee what thou oughtest to do. And when the angel which spake unto Cornelius was departed, he called two of his household servants and a devout soldier of them that waited on him. Continually. And when he had declared all these things unto him, he sent them to Joppa. Of course, we know. We'll skip this part, but we know that the men met with Peter, and Peter went back to Caesarea with them. Verse 34. The Bible says, then Peter opened his mouth and said of a truth, I perceive that God is no respecter of persons, but in every nation, he that feareth him and worketh righteousness is accepted with him. The word which God sent unto the children of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ. He is Lord of all. That word I say, ye know. Which was published throughout all Judea and began from Galilee after the baptism which John preached, how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power, who went about doing good and healing all that were oppressed of the devil. For God was with him, 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. Him. God raised up the third day and showed him openly, not to all the people, but unto witnesses chosen before of God, even to us who did eat and drink with him after he rose from the dead. And he commanded us to preach unto the people and to testify that it is he which was ordained of God to be the judge of quick and dead. To him. Give all the prophets witness that through his name whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins. [00:04:35] While Peter yet spake these words, the Holy Ghost fell on all them which heard the word. And they of the circumcision which believed were astonished as many as came with Peter, because that on the Gentiles also was poured out the gift of the Holy Ghost. [00:04:52] Now, this gift was just as a pause here. This gift of the Spirit of God being poured out upon these people was not so that they would believe, but because they had believed. Okay. [00:05:05] Those of you that have been right along consistent with us in our study of acts. This is acts, chapter two, right here. This is acts, chapter two, verse 46. For they heard them speak with tongues and magnify God. Then answered Peter, can any man forbid water that these should not be baptized which have received the Holy Ghost as well as we? Then he and he commanded them to be baptized in the name of the Lord. Then prayed they him to tarry certain days. All right, let's pray together. [00:05:34] Our father, first of all, thank you for your word. Thank you for the testimony and grace that you've given to Brother Mike. [00:05:44] Lord, thank you for sustaining him. Please direct him to know and to do the perfect will of God, Lord, please help him, Lord, as we look at this passage of Scripture about Cornelius, thank you for recording it in your word. Lord, this is your word. Not our word, not man's word, but the word of God. And I pray that the truths of Scripture would just be laid out, evident before each and every one of our eyes. Please help me, Lord, to say the things that you want your people to hear. [00:06:17] I pray that you would, Lord, just make the truth clear to us, and we commit this time to you. We entrust it to you, that you would use it in whatever way you see fit. Lord, we trust you with it. In Jesus name. Amen. [00:06:35] So this man, Cornelius, as I said, was a centurion. That is, as the word indicates, he was a man that was over a Roman. That was over approximately 100 Roman soldiers. So he was a man of some means and power, as you can see in verse number two, he was a devout man, one that feared God with all his house, which gave much alms to the people and prayed to God always. So this was what we might call a God fearing man. Now, I have no idea. I thought about why would this man in Caesarea, which was in the area of Israel, why would a gentile show such honor and devotion to a God that wasn't his own? In Other words, what had Cornelius seen, experienced, heard about the God of Israel? Remember, he is a soldier based in Caesarea, which is on the coast of Israel, which Caesarea, as the name indicates, Caesar is the base of that word. And it was a city built for the Roman emperor Caesar. [00:07:46] So he's based in Israel. But it just startled me. It just struck me, why would this Roman worship the God of Israel? Why he gave alms to the A. As far as we can tell, he's not a proselyte. That is, a proselyte is someone who is a Gentile. But like, for instance, the Ethiopian eunuch, was most likely a proselyte. We read about him not too long ago. He was a man who was a Gentile, but he had basically joined Judaism. He had become a Jew, right? And that goes along with circumcision and keeping all the laws and all the ordinances and commandments. This is not what we find here. [00:08:26] We find a man who is a God fearing man. He heard of and knew of the true God, the God of Israel. [00:08:36] And it was just a curious thought. Now, we know that the Bible does teach that in Romans chapter one. The Bible says plainly that even those who do not have access to the Scripture yet through God's created work, create the creation. There are certain things that any person, no matter where they are on earth, no matter what their language is, there are certain things that any person can know about God. You can know that God is not a man, that he is a way, far and above a man. That's what Romans chapter one says. And you can know that God. This is just looking at the stars and the things God has created. You can know that God has infinite power. Infinite power. That's what you can know. So there is a great deal that a man, in this case, a man who is. How could he live in Caesarea? Jesus went to Caesarea. How can he live in Caesarea and not have known about Jesus? Maybe he's a late arrival. Maybe he was just recently stationed in Caesarea and he came from Rome. Who knows? But it's obvious that he had not heard about Jesus. But I call him a God fearing man. Now, I know when we say, well, that's a God fearing woman, or that's a God fearing man, we mean it in a positive light. And really it is a positive. [00:09:55] But this is in the purest sense of the word. Cornelius was a God fearing man, but he was not a Christian. He was not a Christian. He was not a child of God. He was not born again. He was not saved. Cornelius was a God fearing man, but he was not saved. Now look at Cornelius'life. In verse number two. [00:10:20] First it says, the Bible says he was a devout man. That simply means the word devout comes from the word devote devotions. That is, he was a man who practiced divine worship or service. He was pious. He was religious. In other words, he had, at certain times, he went to certain places and he gave worship and he gave homage to God, and obviously not the false gods, or that obviously would have been noted. This is talking about the true God. So in whatever way he did, as a non Jew, he performed some sort of worship of God in his own way. [00:10:59] All right, he was a man who also feared God. [00:11:03] In other words, he was not someone who flagrantly rebelled against what he knew to be right and knew what he understood to be the will of God. He was a man who trembled and who had on reverence for God. Those of you that have been on our Sunday school class know we've talked about the fear of the Lord and what that entails. How many of you remember the fear of the Lord is the what? The beginning. The beginning. That's a key principle here. He was a man who feared God, what he knew of God he was not someone who was an overt and obvious rebel against God. He trembled at God. [00:11:41] But not only that, he was a man who led his home, his wife, his children. They're not mentioned, but it does say his house. [00:11:49] So not only did he fear God, he also taught his family to fear God. [00:11:54] I mean, he's doing pretty good, right? I mean, he's doing better than some believers in Christ, right? [00:12:03] But he's not saved. [00:12:05] He's a God fearing man, but not saved. Not only that. What does it say? He feared God with all his house and gave alms, much alms to the people. [00:12:17] So he was a giver. And to the people is a reference to Israel. Okay. [00:12:21] He gave money. In other words, he sacrificed his means. [00:12:26] And what's funny is, usually at the point of money is where is usually what divides people. It really shows a certain amount of sincerity, because money has such a hold on people's hearts that sometimes money is what determines whether they're serious or whether they're not serious, whether they love or whether they don't love. But this man gave his money. He gave alms, which is, of course, we know, is giving, especially to the poor. So in the poor people in Caesarea, he gave money, and he did so generously. He was a man who would. You would think of as he was a do gooder, in other words, and I mean that in the best possible light, he was a man who did. [00:13:06] Did. We just studied about Tabitha, right? Dorcas in chapter nine, she was a do gooder. She was known for her good works. That's what he's doing here. That's what he's doing. [00:13:21] And then it says, he prayed to God always. [00:13:26] He was constant in prayer. Always. [00:13:32] And then if you look at chapter ten, verse 30, look at that. Something else comes up. [00:13:43] This is when Cornelius is speaking to Peter. He says, Cornelius said, four days ago, I was fasting until this hour, and at the 9th hour, I prayed in my house. And behold, a man stood before me in bright clothing. The psalm of the angel. [00:13:58] So not only did Cornelius pray all the time, he was constant in prayer. He was also a man who fasted. Now, if you were to look at Cornelius from the outside, you see a man who has it together. He is not out doing wickedness and immorality. He is a man who seems to tremble at God. In other words, when the name of the Lord, the name of God, is mentioned in Cornelius's presence, a hush comes over him. He takes it seriously. He is not flippant with God. He is not flippant with his creator. Again, we don't know where that came from. [00:14:40] He taught his family the word of God, or taught his family, rather, about God. And they also feared with him. He had devotions of some kind. [00:14:50] He revered the God and recognized the God of Israel in his devotion and religion, religious services. Even though it wasn't his own God, he was a Gentile. Remember I said this a few weeks ago about the principle of racism that's in here? It's palpable. These Jews hated the Gentiles. I mean, it was like Jim Crow, to put it in context. That's the way it was. Like, they hated the Gentiles. [00:15:26] And yet this man who is a Gentile is giving honor to God. [00:15:31] Something's going on. [00:15:35] So the point I'm trying to drive home to you is that Cornelius was a God fearing man. He was, in some way, much like many people around us, a God fearing man. You know what I'm talking about? I'm talking about the people that maybe they go to know. They love their family. [00:16:00] Brother Lester invited a man to the airsoft thing yesterday, and I had the chance to talk to him for, I don't know, maybe 20 minutes or so. I mean, the man, you hear him talk, he's from. He's from Brooklyn. Brooklyn. And to hear him talk, and I don't have any reason to disbelieve him. He sounds like a man who loves his family, who fears God. [00:16:27] He goes to church with his wife. He wants to have a good relationship with his wife and with his kids. [00:16:34] In other words, a lot of those things I saw, and there's a lot of people like this that are God fearing people. You see them, they're moral. They don't run around on their wives. They're not addicted to drugs or drink. They don't gamble. They live an upright kind of life. They go to church. They do things with their family. They pray. [00:16:57] They might even read the Bible. [00:17:00] They give their money. They help charities and things like that. They are God fearing people. [00:17:08] Now look back in chapter ten. Look down at verse number. [00:17:15] Chapter ten. We already read verse two. Look at verse number 22. [00:17:20] Now, I didn't read this part, but in this case, Cornelius sends his servants out to go find Peter at Joppa. So Peter's at Joppa. They come to Peter, and in verse 22, they said, cornelius the Centurion, a just man and one that feareth God. Notice how they'rE describing him. Now, this is not. In verse Two, is the Scriptures. God's description of Cornelius in 22 is the servant, the servants of Cornelius. How they describe him? Now, Listen, these men are describing their master, their owner, their lord. Right? Now, they could have said whatever they wanted to say. [00:18:05] Even in the personal life of Cornelius, you don't see someone who is a hypocrite. You don't see someone who just has it on the outside and then closed doors is wicked and ungodly. No, this is a man who, behind closed doors with his family, is upright. And outside of his family, is upright. This is a man who was religious in private, who is religious in public, who is praying in private. Here he is fasting in private. Right? That's what it says in verse number 34 days ago, is fasting until this hour. He's praying. He's fasting in private. His servant said, this is his servant's testimony. He's a good man. [00:18:43] He's a God fearing man. [00:18:47] Verse 22. A just man and one that feareth God and of good report among all the nation of the Jews. So the Jews, contrary to their tendency to hate Gentiles, they liked him. [00:19:03] That's probably because he gave honor and reverence to their God and to their ways and gave money. Well, probably the last part is the most relevant. He gave alms to the people. [00:19:14] I think, in one place, I can't recall it for certain, but there was one place in the Gospels in which the A, I think it was the centurion who had either his daughter, I think it was his daughter was sick. And the Jews came to Jesus and said, you need to help this man. He hath built us a synagogue. He's a good guy, even though he's a Gentile. So there were some exceptions to that. [00:19:40] And Cornelius is one of them. [00:19:43] It says, of good report among the nation of the Jews, was warned from God by an holy angel to send for thee into his house and to hear words of thee. [00:19:54] So the servants say, this man is a good man. The servants say, the Jews say, this man, he's of good report. That means the Jews say, this man, he's a real deal. He's a good guy. [00:20:08] Now, I just have four points I want to make about from Cornelius. I just want to introduce you to Cornelius, the kind of man he is, because he represents a God fearing person. [00:20:21] NOw, WE'Ve LOOKED at SAul of TaRsus. Saul of Tarsus is a wicked persecutor. Right. You look at other people in the scripture that represent people who have been influenced by the devil. You look at other people in Scripture who represent someone who maybe lived a life of sin, like the Mary Magdalenes who come to Jesus, and they represent the people who have been involved in immorality. You see, people that are formerly drunkards and things like that who have an encounter with Christ, but this man represents the God fearing man. That's why I want you to understand and get a full picture of who Cornelius is, because there's a few points we can see about Cornelius. Now, we know that Cornelius gets saved. He trusts in Christ at the end of the chapter, verse 44, as shown by the fact that they received the Spirit of God, which only happened with believers. So we know that he does get saved, but he's not there yet. He's a God fearing man, but he's not there yet. [00:21:33] Now, the first point I want us to see from this is based upon what the Jews said in verse number 22. [00:21:41] The Jews said, the servant said, the Jews. He has a good report among all the nation of the Jews, and that's a pretty high bar, knowing all their religious laws and such. [00:21:54] You know, what others think of you is not what others might think of you is not what God thinks of you. [00:22:05] You see, the JEws. Now Pause here a second. [00:22:09] Think about who's saying that. ThE JEWs Say, this man, he's a real deal. Hold on. Now. I believe that. I believe he was a moral, upright, God fearing, family loving man, right? [00:22:22] But the Jews are the same ones that, of late have thrown large boulders to bash the skull in of Stephen. [00:22:31] The Jews of late are the ones participating in a large. The Bible says, great persecution against the church, which is at Jerusalem, right? [00:22:42] SO the JEws Are not. TheIR hands are not clean. But these Jews are saying, hey, this man, he's a good guy. So you got to consider the source a little bit. [00:22:53] But speaking in truth, these Jews thought he was a good man. These Jews thought he was a God fearing man, and he was a God fearing man. But what they thought didn't really matter, right? [00:23:08] In other words, what someone thinks of you and what someone thinks of me. If they think you are a God fearing person, if they think I'm a God fearing person, if they think I'm a moral and upright person, that does not mean that's what God thinks of us. [00:23:27] You see, we would look at somebody like Cornelius and we would say, this is a man who maybe, like brother Coop said, he runs a business, he pays his taxes. He's on time, he pays his workers. He does right by everybody. You know, these terminologies down here in the south, we use. Right? We use this Southern lingo. To describe a good guy. This guy's a good guy. He does right by everybody. [00:23:58] But you know what? What everybody else thinks about me and thinks about you don't matter. And that does not equal what God thinks of us. [00:24:08] We look at in our common parlance again, we see a man like that, and we say, or lady like that, and we say, that's a good lady. That's a good man. Whoa. Okay. Well, as we might compare it among each other, which is what it is, in a group this size, however many are in here, we see this guy, and we might don't do this, by the way, but just speaking generally, we compare people and we say, all right, well, this guy is honest and loves his family, and he's upright and he pays his taxes, and he's not dishonest and all those things. And we say, that's a good man because we are comparing him in the crowd. And you know what? [00:24:44] He might stand out. In the crowd, he might stand out. He might be the guy who's unlike other people who are running around and partying and bar hopping and all the wickedness that goes on. He might not do all that. And compared to them, he looks good. But in an absolute sense, Cornelius is not good. [00:25:07] He is not good. [00:25:10] Some people get offended at that, but he's noT. The Bible says plainly, I don't need anything more than this one word. [00:25:19] There is none. Righteous. [00:25:25] No, not one. Cornelius is not righteous. [00:25:30] He was called righteous. In verse 22, he says, a just man. That means righteous. The same word as righteous. [00:25:40] See, none of the. Now, in verse number again, verse number two is not the servant's description. Verse number two is the divine description. All right. He's devout, feared God, gave alms, prayed. All right. [00:25:53] It doesn't say he's good. [00:25:56] Right? It doesn't say he's good. [00:25:58] And none of that in verse two is intended to make us think that somehow he is somehow in God's sight. He is righteous. [00:26:07] God's already told us many times in Scripture that nobody has, that Jesus Christ himself was the only one who was righteous, who was good. This man is a sinner just like anyone else. But the difference is this, and this is an important difference to understand about Cornelius. His disposition to God was different. [00:26:28] His heart and the way God saw his heart was different than other people. Now, that doesn't mean he was a good person. No, he was still a sinner. [00:26:37] He still was in need of salvation, as he trusted in Christ later, obviously. But his disposition toward God was not as others. It wasn't hostile toward God. And, in fact, Cornelius was actually rather an ignorant person. Now, he's not going to stay ignorant long, but let me hasten. Okay? I just want you to understand this man. Other people thought he was good. Other people thought he was a God fearing man. But that's not what you must base it on. [00:27:05] Listen, many people are content to only be considered good by other people, and they give no thought to what God thinks of them. Amen. Come on. They don't think. Where am I? With God, in fact. Amen. Because what other people think of you and other people think of me makes no difference when our life is over. Amen. It makes no difference. [00:27:28] None at all. [00:27:30] Because God is the ruler of heaven, our relationship to God is the only one that matters. I'm telling you, there are many people, most people, I would say 95 out of 100, that are content to be considered a God fearing person by others. Period. [00:27:54] Their concern does not exceed that point. [00:27:58] But what others think of you and me is not the same as what God thinks of us. [00:28:03] Second thing I want you to see is this, and I hinted at it a little bit earlier, so we'll hasten here. [00:28:10] Being a God fearing person, as Cornelius was, is better than being a God rejecting person. [00:28:17] Right. Did not God respond to his devotions? [00:28:22] Right. Did not God pay attention to what Cornelius had been doing and his heart's disposition toward God? Absolutely. [00:28:32] Even Paul. We already talked about this when Saul of Tarsus at his conversion. Saul of Tarsus in two Timothy, chapter. I think it's chapter three. He says God had mercy on him because he did all those terrible things ignorantly and an unbelief. He didn't do it knowingly. He did it ignorantly. And that affected the way God dealt with him. [00:28:54] And here you have a man who is ignorant, who fears God, and he's doing all these things. It's just startling. He doesn't know God. He knows of God, but he doesn't know God. He doesn't know Christ at all. He don't know anything about Christ, but he doesn't know God. He doing all these religious services, but God pays attention. [00:29:15] God responds. He says in verse four, thy prayers and thine alms are come up for a memorial before God. God's paying attention. God sees this man's heart, and it gets his attention. So it is good to be a God fearing man. The fear of the Lord, again, is the beginning of knowledge and of wisdom. [00:29:39] He is in a good place. This is a good place to be almost always before a person actually comes to know Christ and actually trusts in Christ and gets saved. They usually, in many cases, rather someone who is an adult, okay? [00:29:56] They live a life of just sin. They throw themselves at sin. They love sin to various degrees, right? And this is probably true of a lot of you. And then somehow they get intercepted and interrupted by maybe a Christian friend or whatever. Maybe they go to church, and all of a sudden, the fear of God starts to come upon them. And that which they didn't care about before, they start to care about that which did not bother them starts to bother them. That's conviction. You know what? It's intermingling with the fear of God. That's the start. The beginning, right? Proverbs one seven. And then that leads them until they finally get saved. So that's a good place to be in when someone is at a place where they're running full speed ahead, away from God and cursing God and all those things. Sometimes God arrests those people like it's Saul of Tarsus. But oftentimes, that disposition against God. The Bible says that the wicked, the Lord is far from the wicked. Does it not? Does it not say that? Yes. So that wicked, that person who sets themselves against God, actually drives themselves away from God, unlike Cornelius. So it is good to be God fearing. That's a whole lot better than being a God rejector. That's number two. Number three, being God fearing is not enough. [00:31:18] Despite the fact that Cornelius was a God fearing man and a moral man who had religious devotions, who prayed he wasn't saved, I read a commentator that said, can you believe this? [00:31:34] I read a commentator that said that in chapter ten, verse one, Cornelius was already born again. [00:31:42] Now, I can prove you. It's provable that that's not the case, because he hasn't even heard from Peter, from Peter yet. And Peter is the one who gives him the message by which he and his house shall be saved. The word is not, he was not saved. Now, listen. Now, it is possible for a man, for a woman to have all of these qualities, devout, religious, moral, upright. And I'm not talking about an atheist who is devoid of God. I'm talking about someone who fears the Lord, who trembles at God and gives reverence to God and comes to church. It is absolutely possible to be a man like Cornelius and have all the qualities Cornelius had and still be yet unconverted, and still be on the road to hell, still be, as the Scripture says in Ephesians, without hope and without God in The world. You say, but I honor God. And reverence God. But that is the state that God describes us in. [00:32:49] Again, it doesn't matter what you think or I think or anybody else thinks of you. [00:32:54] It's what God says. Amen. [00:32:58] It is possible for a person to be that, be God fearing and all of that and still not be truly not, have eternal life and not have salvation. To be God fearing, as good as it is, is not equal to being saved. Look at chapter eleven, verse 14. [00:33:19] This is what I was talking about earlier. Peter is talking to the church now in Judea, and he's relaying what had happened with Cornelius, and we'll cover this later, but he says, verse 13. And he showed us how he had seen an angel in his house, which stood and said unto him, send men to Joppa and call for Simon, whose surname is Peter, who shall tell thee words whereby thou and all thy house shall be saved? That's how we know Cornelius wasn't saved, because Peter brought that message. [00:33:55] Listen, now, I said a minute ago, most people are content to be considered by others to be a God fearing person. I love the Lord. I love my family. I go to church. I don't run around. [00:34:14] People know the way I am. It's not good enough. [00:34:21] It's not good enough. [00:34:27] Last thing I want you to see is this. [00:34:33] Cornelius was ignorant. [00:34:37] You see, he lived in a state of ignorance. [00:34:40] For whatever reason, he had never heard of Christ. He did not know of what Christ had done. [00:34:48] And so God graciously responded to his ignorant seeking of him. [00:34:55] God is so good to do that. He does that on mission fields when these people are just in darkness. You have to understand that the darkness of the mission field is thick. It's multilayered. It's not just the darkness of the human heart. A lot of times, there is multiple layers of a religion whose darkness covers them even more, makes it even harder for the light to get in. [00:35:20] But yet there are people. It's not real common. I'll be honest with you. It's not super common. But there are people that still seek the Lord. [00:35:27] The lady who had taught us Khmer before we ever went to Cambodia. ThiS has been in 2004, three, four, five, something like that. [00:35:38] In fact, the Muxlows have met her pastor. It's funny. It's funny. It came full circle because the place who does like caregiving for Mrs. Muxlow has a chaplain. The chaplain is the pastor of the church in Spartanburg, where we met this lady. And so we've kind of gotten reacquainted with them a little bit. But this lady told us that when she was in the King's family and when she was fleeing Cambodia and getting, literally, people were shooting, trying to kill her as she was fleeing during the Khmer Rouge time, that she actually cried out to the living God. And she told us, she said, I wasn't talking about Buddha. [00:36:17] I was talking about the true God. That's what she said. Now, look, I mean, missionaries can make up mean, but I'm telling you, Allison, is that not what she said? That's what she said. [00:36:29] God responded to Cornelius's ignorance even though he was ignorantly seeking him. [00:36:37] But here's the problem. Listen, please. [00:36:40] It's not good enough. I said, it's not good enough to be a good old boy that comes to church and does right by his family and is honest and pays his taxes and works hard every day. It is not good enough. It will not get you to heaven. It will not take you there. [00:37:00] Being a God fearing person will not save you. That's right. [00:37:07] But here's the difference. [00:37:11] Cornelius was ignorant, but the God fearing people that I'm referring to around here aren't Cornelius's. They are not like Cornelius. You know why? Because they know the truth. They know Jesus came and died for sinners. They know that Jesus took upon his own body our sin and died in our place. They've heard the gospel. They have probably heard a Christian or a preacher in church, perhaps. Tell them and appeal to them that they need to come to Christ, and they need to acknowledge that they're sinful and they're wicked and that God says there is none that doeth good. But listen, everybody knows that I'm a good guy. I take care of my. No, it doesn't matter what everybody else says. It's what God says. YOu see, most people are not like Cornelius because they're not ignorant, especially here in the South. [00:38:09] They think of themselves. Listen, now. They think of themselves like Cornelius. They think of themselves as a God fearing man. Others think of them as a God fearing man, but they neglect or reject the clear truth of Christ. [00:38:29] Listen, now, here's the reality. [00:38:32] They love their sin, and they want to continue it. Continue in it. But as long as people continue to consider them to be God fearing, they're happy. [00:38:48] But at that point, they have ceased to be God fearing. [00:38:52] Listen to this. Verse one. John, chapter five, verse twelve. How many of you know this verse? [00:39:03] He that hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life has nothing to do with being God fearing. [00:39:19] Moral, loving your family, paying your taxes. [00:39:22] You either have Jesus or you don't. You're either born again or you're not. You're either lost or you're saved. [00:39:29] You're either in or you're out. None of that other stuff. None of that other stuff makes a difference. Here's the danger. Please listen. Here's the danger. I'm done. Here's the danger. At the moment that you understand that truth, you are accountable for that truth. [00:39:46] You can no longer just sit back and say, well, I'm a God fearing person. No. At that moment, the Lord puts you in a fork in the road, and you and I must choose. Amen. And the moment you or I make the wrong choice, it is at that moment we become the God rejector. [00:40:04] So being a God fearing person can have a lot of benefits, like it did Cornelius, and lead us in that trembling heart to the Lord and where we honor him. And it brings us closer to the truth. [00:40:18] But at some point, because God is good, and he that hath son hath life, and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. That hangs in the balance. And at some point, God's going to confront you and going to confront me with that truth, and we are going to have to choose whether we will receive that, like Cornelius or not. [00:40:43] So my question is, have you received that truth, or are you content to be just a God fearing person? It's not enough. [00:40:54] It's not enough. Let's pray.