An Angel or a Coincidence?”

Acts 10:1-8

Dr. Larry D. Thorson

September 11, 2005

Today is an historic day, September 11, 2005. It marks the fourth anniversary of the most tragic terrorist attack on American soil since Pearl Harbor dragged us into World War II. I have a good pastor friend who was at Pearl Harbor on that fateful day in 1941 and he has told me great stories of how God was there with the victims as God was there in New York City and Washington and God is there today in so many ways in Louisiana. This morning as we continue our sermon series “Ordinary People With Extra Ordinary Experiences” I want to show how God communicates to ordinary people and strategically plants them to be his eyes and ears to care for those suffering loss.

We begin with a man named Cornelius, a very ordinary man. We read in Acts 10:3 “One day at about three in the afternoon he had a vision. Three in the afternoon was the Jewish hour of prayer. While Cornelius was not a Jew nor was he a Christian, he worshipped as a devout Jew and each day at 3:00 he’d go into prayer.

Verse three continues…He distinctly saw an angel of God, who came to him and said, ‘Cornelius!’” Rather than encountering a real angel, Cornelius had a vision with an angel in it.

Visions are different than dreams. Dreams occur all the time when we’re asleep. Visions occur when we’re awake but in a prayer trance. I consider myself a very ordinary guy and had no idea what visions were until I went to my last church which itself was a very ordinary church. As part of my job as associate pastor of pastoral care I committed to praying for each of my members and their children every Thursday or Friday morning in the sanctuary. It was there that I would get totally swallowed up in the prayer. I am told that people could be in the room where I was praying and I wouldn’t know it. I would simply call out a member’s name and sit there picturing them. Lots of times I would get minor visions about people. Their faces would somehow stand out and not going away. I would then find out later that they were going through some difficult time in their life. Visions are not the norm for me but I’m coming more and more to expect them.

We read in v.4 about Cornelius and the angel… “Cornelius stared at him in fear.” I want you to notice that seeing an angel in a vision was not the norm for Cornelius either because it obviously scared him. Cornelius was an ordinary guy having an extraordinary experience. “What is it, Lord?” he asked. The angel answered, “Your prayers and gifts to the poor have come up as a memorial offering before God. There is an important lesson here. Cornelius’ prayers and his offerings for the poor weren’t done in order to get an extraordinary experience with God. Cornelius prayed because he loved God and it was the right thing to do.

What we’ve seen in this sermon series in previous week is that part of having an extraordinary experience with God involves God giving you a task to do with no explanation as to why you are to do it. I call that a “Faith Task”. God told me to go to Hemet but he didn’t’ tell me why. When you’re given a faith task you do it by faith knowing that someday you’ll understand why. In verse 5 we read what Cornelius’ faith task was… “Now send men to Joppa to bring back a man named Simon who is called Peter. He is staying with Simon the tanner, whose house is by the sea.”

Faith tasks are rarely easy. If they were easy it wouldn’t take faith to do them. This faith task involved a 30 mile walk. That’s just a little farther than walking from Hemet to Temecula. It probably took most of a good work day to get there. Then you’d have to convince this stranger Simon Peter to walk back with you without giving him any reason for doing it. Get this straight: you’re going to have to ask a perfect stranger to walk 30 miles out of his way for some unknown reason. That’s a faith task.

In 10:7-8 we read Cornelius’ response…When the angel who spoke to him had gone, Cornelius called two of his servants and a devout soldier who was one of his attendants. ^{Ac 10:8} He told them everything that had happened and sent them to Joppa.

What I’ve learned about faith tasks is that whenever you’re asked to do them God works behind the scenes unbeknownst to us to help us fulfill it. In Acts 10:9 we read About noon the following day as they were on their journey and approaching the city, Peter went up on the roof to pray. ^{Ac 10:10} He became hungry and wanted something to eat, and while the meal was being prepared, he fell into a trance.

This is kind of like what happens at the second service every Sunday. You become hungry, I keep talking and everybody falls into a trance.

In 10:11 we read “He saw heaven opened and something like a large sheet being let down to earth by its four corners. ^{Ac 10:12} It contained all kinds of four-footed animals, as well as reptiles of the earth and birds of the air.

^{Ac 10:13} Then a voice told him, “Get up, Peter. Kill and eat.”

^{Ac 10:14} “Surely not, Lord!” Peter replied. “I have never eaten anything impure or unclean.” ^{Ac 10:15} The voice spoke to him a second time, “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.” ^{Ac 10:16} This happened three times, and immediately the sheet was taken back to heaven.

This is what happens in prayer. Peter goes on the roof to pray where from his vantage point sees sails on the sailboats which look like big sheets. He’s hungry and wishes that he could dig his teeth into a big juicy steak or have some roasted duck. Then he fell into a prayer trance and the things his eyes saw and his stomach felt before he fell into the trance God used to communicate with him a new message but that message wasn’t clear yet.

That’s how prayer trances are, they’re not always real clear or at least we don’t fully understand them. One day I got a call that the first and only grandson of two of my members who was 18 months old was awaiting a heart transplant. The problem was that he was being kept alive by artificial means and he was fading quickly. God called me to the sanctuary that day to pray for little Jacob Holliday. While in prayer the words kept repeating in my mind “He’s ok, I’ve taken care of him.” I left the sanctuary that day relieved and wanted so badly to call his grandparents and say he was going to receive a new heart and he would be fine but I wasn’t certain if “He s’ ok” meant he was going to get a new heart or he was going to die and go to heaven. All I knew was that he’d be ok.

Sometime in those few days far away in Florida a little boy was playing baseball and the ball hit him in the chest and in a freak way killed him. His heart was salvaged, flown to Vanderbilt Hospital in Nashville, transplanted in Jacob and today he is a healthy five year old boy playing baseball himself. The vision was right. He was ok.

I do not believe that God caused that little boy to die in Florida so that Jacob could live. Accidents happen. Hurricanes occur. I also don’t believe that my prayers healed Jacob. My point is that sometimes in prayer we don’t always understand what’s communicated with us and that’s ok.

^{Ac 10:17} While Peter was wondering about the meaning of the vision, the men sent by Cornelius found out where Simon’s house was and stopped at the gate. ^{Ac 10:18} They called out, asking if Simon who was known as Peter was staying there.

Was this a coincidence that just when Simon Peter was coming out of a trance where God had told him that nothing he made should be considered unclean including Gentiles that Cornelius’ Gentile men show up at his door? You decide.

You can read the rest of the story in Acts 10 but as a result of Cornelius’ vision of an angel and Peter’s vision in a trance Peter went to Caesarea and introduced Cornelius to Jesus Christ as his savior. God heard the prayers of Cornelius even before he understood that he needed Christ his savior.

Some of you may remember a story that came out of a Seattle suburb last October.

On October 2, 2004, 17-year-old Laura Hatch left a party in a Seattle suburb, and that was the last time she was seen for more than a week. No one knew why she didn't return home later that night. No one knew she'd lost control of her car and careened down a steep forested ravine.

Laura's parents contacted the police and a search began. When a week went by without any leads, the Hatches organized a search team of 200 volunteers including members of Creekside Covenant Church in Redmond, Washington where the family attends.

When the extensive search failed to produce any results, family members began to assume the worst. "We had already given her up and let her be dead in our hearts," Laura's mother told the media.

Sha Nohr's daughter was one of Laura's friends. Norh, a Creekside Covenant Church member, told her distraught daughter that all they could do was pray. But Nohr had trouble sleeping that night. She kept having a recurring dream of a wooded area and heard the message, ''Keep going, keep going.'' The following morning, Sunday October 10, Nohr and her daughter drove to the area where the crash occurred, praying along the way.

''I just thought, 'Let her speak out to us,''' Nohr told the Seattle Times.

Nohr said something drew her to stop and clamber over a concrete barrier and more than 100 feet down a steep, densely vegetated embankment where she barely managed to discern the crumpled 1996 Toyota Camry. Nohr discovered Laura in the backseat, conscious, but seriously injured.

When the paramedics arrived, Laura was taken to Harborview Medical Center where she was treated for severe dehydration, a blood clot in her brain, broken ribs, a broken leg and facial lacerations. Amazingly, she had not had anything to eat or drink for eight days.

The miraculous rescue was announced later that night at Creekside Covenant Church, where more than 100 family and friends had gathered for a prayer vigil. The prayer service turned into a joyous celebration of praise when Nohr told the congregation how she had been led to the missing girl and that the lost had been found.

Citation: Greg Asimakoupoulos, Naperville, Illinois; sources: Associated Press (10-11-04), The Seattle Times (10-11-04)

The Covenant Church of which their church was affiliated is not one of those way out, fire breathing Pentecostal churches. It was founded by some Swedish fishermen in the late 1880’s. It’s very similar to the Presbyterian church, doing things quietly, decently and with order. This particular church, Creekside is a new church development started in 1999 and meets for worship in a high school. It is an ordinary church that had an extra ordinary experience.

We can expect that out of the tragedy of Katrina we are going to hear story after story of how God spoke to someone to go help victims. We’re going to hear story after story from victims of how someone was in the right place at the right time.

Last Monday I got a call from elder Bob Browning. I could tell that something was pulling hard on him. He suggested that at the very least we consider using our Family Center to temporarily house refugees from New Orleans. At the Growth Ministry meeting on Tuesday I walked in just as they were discussing the possibility of housing refugees. Dick McAlister, a relatively new member, felt strongly the same thing that Bob Browning had felt and began looking into it. We don’t know if that’s what God wants us to do or not and Session will have to consider it. We don’t even know whether Louisiana families even want to come this far west but what’s important is to have an openness and a willingness to say yes to God.

At the same time last week the elders at my former church in Texas were voting to open up the house behind their parking lot for refugees and then almost overnight all the furnishings for that house showed up in various trucks from various members. Where did that come from?

Coincidence or an angel? God works through ordinary people. That’s why I answered the call to this church. I can’t even imagine what God has in store for this place.

In this series I have not asked you whether you want an extraordinary experience. Don’t seek it from God. If you want one I recommend buying a motorcycle instead. What I recommend is that you seek God not for the experience but because he’s good and worshipping him is the right thing to do.

Maybe you’re like Cornelius and you pray a lot. I want you to know that God hears those prayers regardless of whether you’re a follower of Jesus Christ or not. But what God wants to do is what he did for Cornelius, he wants to introduce you to his son Jesus Christ. This Christ is the one who took our sins for us. He took our punishment so that we could have an extraordinary experience with God for eternity.

Maybe you don’t pray very much and don’t have a lot of drive to do so. That’s ok, you can drop the guilt about what you should be doing. Instead pray this little prayer “Lord Jesus by faith I believe in you but I don’t feel you. I want to know you but I don’t know how. Show me my faith task and I will do it. Amen.”