25 Thy Prayers Come Up to God

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Hymns: RHC 307 Amazing Grace 358 What a Friend We Have In Jesus 115 Constantly Abiding

Acts 10:1-8

1 There was a certain man in Caesarea called Cornelius, a centurion of the band called the Italian band, 2 A devout man, and one that feared God with all his house, which gave much alms to the people, and prayed to God alway. 3 He saw in a vision evidently about the ninth hour of the day an angel of God coming in to him, and saying unto him, Cornelius. 4 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. 5 And now send men to Joppa, and call for one Simon, whose surname is Peter: 6 He lodgeth with one Simon a tanner, whose house is by the sea side: he shall tell thee what thou oughtest to do. 7 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; 8 And when he had declared all these things unto them, he sent them to Joppa.

Thy Prayers Come Up to God

OUTLINE

  • Portrait of a God-Fearer
    • His Piety (v2a & c, 6-7)
    • His Family (v2b)
    • His Charity (v2c)

INTRODUCTION

Thy Prayers Come Up to God – Acts 10:1-8. 

THE STORY OF the hymn AMAZING GRACE is the man John Newton was a slave trader turned Pastor and the writer of the hymn “Amazing Grace”. As a slave trader on board a slave ship, he learned all the evils of the seaman’s life. How could such a sinner as John Newton be saved? John Newton’s conversion is the amazing story of God’s saving grace. God intervened in his life. 

Isaiah 42:16 And I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not; I will lead them in paths that they have not known: I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight. These things will I do unto them, and not forsake them.

Psalm 71:7a I am as a wonder unto many.

These verses were quoted in the book that contained the letters John Newton wrote to Rev Haweis, Rector of Aldwinckle (Northamptonshire), England in the 1760s testifying of God’s workings in his life.

When he was only seven years old, his godly mother was taken from him. But the impact of his mother’s teaching continued in the inner recesses of his heart. He testified:

“My mother (as I have heard from many) was a pious experienced Christian…I was her only child, and as she was of a weak constitution and a retired temper, almost her whole employment was the care of my education. I have some faint remembrance of her care and instruction. At a time when I could not be more than three years of age, she herself taught me English, and with so much success…that when I was four years old, I could read with propriety in any common book that offered. She stored my memory, which was then very retentive, with many valuable pieces, chapters, and portions of Scripture, catechism, hymns and poems. My temper, at that time, seemed suitable to her wishes: I had little inclination to the noisy sports of children, but was best pleased when in her company, and always as willing to learn as she was to teach me.” 

He continued: 

“How far the best education may fall short of reaching the heart, will strongly appear in the sequel of my history: yet, I think, for the encouragement of pious parents to go on in the good way, of doing their part faithfully to form their minds, I may properly propose myself as an instance. Though in the process of time I sinned away all the advantages of these early impressions, yet they were for a great while a restraint upon me; they returned again and again, and it was very long before I could wholly shake them off, and when the Lord at length opened my eyes, I found a great benefit from the recollection of them. Further, my dear mother, besides the pains she took with me, often commended me with many prayers and tears to God; and I doubt not but I reap the fruits of these prayers to this hour.” 

Furthermore, he wrote: 

“My mother observed my early progress with peculiar pleasure, and intended from the first to bring me up with a view to the ministry, if the Lord should so incline my heart… The intended plan of my education broke short. The Lord’s designs were far beyond the views of an earthly parent: He was pleased to reserve me for an unusual proof of His patience, providence, and grace…I was born the 24th of July, 1725, and she died the 11th of that month in 1732.” (Excerpt from An Authentic Narrative of some Remarkable and Interesting Particulars in the Life of John Newton communicated in a series of letters to the Rev. Mr. Haweis. Rector of Aldwinckle, Northamptonshire. Published by Evert Duyckinck, New York, 1806, pages 14-16.) 

This is the sequel to John Newton’s story and his conversion: 

“When a young man he went to sea on board a slave ship with his father and learned all the evil of the seaman’s life. Still later, he was forced into the navy. He deserted, but was caught and stripped and beaten, until the blood flowed from his wounds. He had now become a hardened infidel. He fell in with African slave traders. He went on from bad to worse, until he himself was sold as a slave. He was reduced to utter poverty, starving and sinning and blaspheming.

One day he found a Gospel book on board, and he took it up and read it. He was thus led to ask the question, “What if these things should be true?” The thought terrified him, and he closed the book. He had had a sight of the holiness of God. He went to his hammock that night as usual, having contrived to put the solemn question out of his mind. However, in the dark of the night he was awakened by the dash of waves. A storm had arisen, a terrible sea was sweeping over the vessel, and the cabin was fast filling with water. The cry arose, “The ship is sinking!” All was confusion and terror.

John Newton’s life came up before him as on a screen. He saw himself a guilty sinner in the hands of a holy God. For four solid weeks the vessel was tossed to and fro, he being sometimes at the helm and sometimes at the pumps, wave upon wave breaking over him. In the midst of his danger, he began to cry, “My mother’s God, the God of mercy – have mercy on me!”

That storm was to John Newton what the earthquake was to the jailer at Philippi. It got him to his knees. It brought his sins before him. It brought before him his eternal ruin. It brought him to the Cross where he saw the love of God being poured out in the blood of Christ.” 

The Apostle Paul and Silas said to the jailer at Philippi, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.” (Acts 16:31)

There are those who enter God’s kingdom through much tribulation, but those who enter God’s kingdom must first be a God-fearer!

This is the story of the conversion of Cornelius. 

  • Portrait of a God-Fearer
    • His Piety (v2a & c, 6-7)
    • His Family (v2b)
    • His Charity (v2c)

Proverbs 8:17 I love them that love me; and those that seek me early shall find me.

1 There was a certain man in Caesarea called Cornelius, a centurion of the band called the Italian band, 

The gospel has spread from Jerusalem to Judaea. Caesarea is the capital of the region of Judaea where the Roman governor Herod built a thriving seaport city.

It is 48 km from Joppa from Tuas to Changi. Herod commissioned an army of workers to begin work on the city and the harbour in 23 B.C. and completed the immense undertaking in a decade. He spared no expense in fulfilling his vision of creating a major international port that rivalled Alexandria and Piraeus (the port of Athens). 

In creating the first artificial harbour in the ancient world, Herod’s engineers made use of a new sophisticated technology. Creating immense wood forms, the engineers made much of the habour and breakaway with a type of concrete that hardened underwater.

He patterned the city itself on the style of a Roman provincial capital with all of the amenities (including temples, theatre, market, hippodrome and an amphitheatre (oval shape – 30,000 capacity). 

Herod named the city after Caesar Augustus the reigning emperor. On the rising of the opposite of the harbour mouth stood Caesar’s temple, of exceptional size and beauty, in it a colossal statute of Caesar. Herod dedicated the city to the province, the harbour to those who sailed these seas and the honour of his new creation to Caesar: Caesarea was the name he gave it.

The city had great significance for Christianity not only for the portrayal of the conversion of Cornelieus, but also a place where Origen and Eusebius lived and taught.

For the Jews, painful memories were associated with Caesarea. At the outset of the Jewish war in A.D. 66, the Gentile citizens of the city massacred nearly the entire population of Caesarea Jews.

Legion – 6000, Cohort – 600, Centurion – 100.

Common name, descendants of one of the 10,000 freed slaves by Roman general L. Cornelius Sulla Felix in 82 B.C.

Wealthy man of status living in a beautiful city, professional officer, well-paid (16 times salary of legionary).

2 A devout man, and one that feared God with all his house, which gave much alms to the people, and prayed to God alway. 3 He saw in a vision evidently about the ninth hour of the day an angel of God coming in to him, and saying unto him, Cornelius. 4 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. 5 And now send men to Joppa, and call for one Simon, whose surname is Peter: 6 He lodgeth with one Simon a tanner, whose house is by the sea side: he shall tell thee what thou oughtest to do. 7 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; 8 And when he had declared all these things unto them, he sent them to Joppa.

Here is the extraordinary account a heathen man who sought God, and the miraculous measures God took to see that he heard the Gospel and was saved.

Cornelius was a centurion (or officer), usually captain of a hundred men) in the group of Romans soldiers called the Italian band. He was “devout”: not a Christian, but evidently prayerful, one whom we call “God fearing.” He gave much alms, he prayed continually. He wanted to do right, wanted to know God. To such a man God sent an angel. Cornelius was a righteous man by human standards, trying to do right, trying to please God, trying to help people. And it is evident that his was not simply a matter of outward religious conformity to certain rites and standards, like the Pharisees, but a heartfelt desire for God, and the right. He “prayed to God always.”

And so he had turned “all his house” toward God and there was even “a devout soldier of them that waited on him continually” influenced by his prayerful seeing after God and righteousness.

It is probable that Cornelius knew nothing of the Old Testament. He was not a Jew, not a Jewish proselyte, like the Ethiopian eunuch in chapter 8. He was from Italy, probably spoke the Latin, possibly spoke also to some degree the Aramaic of the people about him. Or he may have spoken the common people’s Greek which had become almost a world language, the language which Paul preached in all his journeys and the language of the New Testament was written. 

He was stationed in Caesarea, not Jerusalem. So probably he had now knowledge of God from the Old Testament Scriptures.

Whence then his morality, his prayerfulness, his God fearing, his devoutness? All men have some of God’s written in their hearts and consciences. 

Romans 2:14-15 (KJV) For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves: 15 Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another;)

So in every heathen heart which does not intentionally stifle and pervert it, the conscience tells right from wrong: he knows it is wrong to steal, to cheat, to blaspheme God. [John Rice – Filled with the Holy Spirit]

The honest, persistently seeking heart finds God! So God was under obligation to give him more light.

God delights to reveal Himself to those who seek Him with honest hearts.

However, there is no salvation without the Gospel. Though it take a miracle and a visit from an angel from Heaven, they must have someone to tell them how to be saved!

So Cornelieus was told where to send for Simon Peter, at the house of Simon the tanner in Joppa! God makes circumstances and revelation work together to save those who want mercy. Those who hunger and thirst after righteousness will be filled.

Cornelieus was not only “a devout man, and one that feared God” (v2), but he had all of his house, his kindred, and evidently the servants and some of the soldiers under him, to fear God and seek to know God and serve Him. For these two household servants seem to understand the matter and the soldier is “a devout soldier.” 

To these three, “he declared all these things unto them,” and they departed for Joppa. Caesarea is now only a ruin, it was on the seacoast, but Joppa is modern Jaffa, immediately adjacent to Tel Aviv. Joppa was a seaport even in Jonah’s way (Jonah 1:3). Caesarea had in the New Testament times an important man-made habour.

The two servants and the soldier must have departed immediately after “the ninth hour” mentioned in v3, that is after midafternoon, after 3pm. They went speedily, for about noon the next day “the sixth hour” (v9), they drew near Joppa. They probably walked that distance in eight or nine hours, spending the night somewhere en route. A team of horses to a farm wagon can walk about thirty-five miles a day; oxen or donkeys would be slower. [John Rice – Filled with the Holy Spirit]