Impure In Birth

We begin with a reminder of our Scripture text. Right then three men who had been sent to me from Caesarea stopped at the house where I was staying. Acts 11: 11.

That three men came looking for Peter was no big thing. The problem arose with whom those three men were. That three people have come looking for you is not a problem. However, it becomes most alarming and totally worrisome, if those three men are seasoned criminals, hit-men, sent to take you out. In Peter’s case, the problem is a grave one for any law abiding Jew, as the three men are Gentiles. According to Jews, Gentiles are unclean for these and other named reasons.

They are people who do not live the sanctified, sacred lives of the worshippers of the One True God.

They are people, for example, who have no qualms about Sabbath Laws and such like.

They are people who are not Jews from birth, people who have not been raised on a diet of Hebrew Laws.

They are the ‘unclean of the earth’, people who will cause you to be defiled, if you have any dealings with them.

Peter was changed, not just in his thinking and accepting, but in his walking.

Let us take a closer look at those three men. They are, by every Jewish standard, law and understanding, unclean men. We shall look at each of the following separately and make ourselves a three-section devotion.

Three men, impure in their BIRTH, came to the door for Peter.
Three men, impure in their BREEDING, came to the door for Peter.
Three men, impure in their BEHAVIOUR, came to the door for Peter.

We shall take each separately and see how only God could have made life-changes in His faithful servant, Peter. By faith, let us also seek the same life-changes, believing that the same God will do His miracle-working work in each of us also.

How did these people know Peter, to come and ask for him by name? It is so easy to think that they must have had some relationship with Peter, some contact with him. How did they know just where to find him? And the wagging tongues could go on and on. This could indeed get rather tricky and sticky for Peter. Was Peter being secret friends with Gentiles and now they have come to let the secret out of the bag, as it were?

PEOPLE, IMPURE IN THEIR BIRTH

They were not born of the same family as Peter. Many people are not born again and so they are not of the same birth as we are. Many have not been born of water and the spirit. John 3: 5b. Too many see them as those outside the fold, outside the kingdom, for Jesus Himself said that no one can enter the kingdom, if he or she has the ‘wrong’ birth. This is a question of the Spirit, not of the flesh. This is a Spiritual birth, not an earthly birth. This is not that one is born directly into royalty and another directly into poverty, and so no person of royalty will have the poor coming to their holiday home, asking for them and calling them by first name. That is unheard of. This is not that one is born a Hindu, and a Moslem is there at the door asking for the Hindu, and calling that one by name. No! It is not an earthly experience, but it is of the Spirit.

You see, Peter was living the life of the Master, yet he was lacking in this area, and his Master had to fix it. Peter was looking at human birth to inform spiritual action. When the unclean animals were offered to him in that vision, they were offered to him, not to touch, or play with; not to talk with, but to kill and eat. Yes, to eat. It was one thing to touch those animals, but another thing to eat them. To eat, signified an inner contamination, which couldn’t be washed off, or got rid of. To eat, made one tainted. To eat, meant a perfect surrender to the harmful elements of those unclean animals.

For any Jew to have such deep contact with a Gentile, was to have, not just outer, but inner contamination. This had to be a most embarrassing moment for Peter, as those people of ‘wrong’ birth, came for him, as though they were very close friends. Are you with me here?

What are we hearing from Peter? He is telling us that to mix the earthly with the heavenly, the carnal with the Spiritual, is NOT the Lord’s way. Spirit is Spirit and Flesh is Flesh.

Right then, three men of wrong birth came to Peter. He did not call these men impure, for he knew that God Himself had made them clean.