Acts 10:25-31 – As Peter entered the house, Cornelius met him, and fell down at his feet in reverence; but Peter made him get up. He said: stand up, for I am only a man. Talking with him, Peter went inside and found a large gathering of people; and he said to them: you are all well aware that it is against our law for a Jew to associate with a Gentile, or to visit him; but God has shown me that I should not call any man impure or unclean, so when I was sent for, I came without raising objection. May I ask why you sent for me?
Cornelius asked: four days ago, I was in my house praying at this hour, at three in the afternoon. Suddenly a man in shining clothes stood before me, and said: “Cornelius, God has heard your prayer - and your generosity to the poor has gone up to Him as a remembrance” - Generosity.
Here's a man who'd proclaimed Caesar as god, and didn't know it wasn't right to worship Peter, and God said: remember him, because of his generosity to the poor.
It was all about greed or generosity to Jesus, and you follow this all the way through from the Old Testament, from Leviticus 19 all the way to Revelation - it's about generosity or greed.
Application questions:
It is not my place to tell you where you are; it's my place to ask, and then you work out your own salvation, with fear and trembling.
1) What have we isolated ourselves from? Where is there hell on earth, that we've chosen not to deal with, even though we could?
2) Who is in our life right now, that we could bring heaven-to-hell for? It could start in your home - maybe your husband needs a little heaven brought to him; or your wife needs a little heaven brought to her. Maybe your children, co-workers, neighbours - and then we could spread out. Who in your life right now could we put first?
3) Who in our life right now do we really think we're better than them? Is there anybody in our life right now - and we think we're better than they are, and we actually think they should serve us?
4) Where in our lives do we have clean outsides, but greedy insides? Only you can examine your heart with that.
5) Who are we oppressing, by our apathy? If I just asked the question: who are we oppressing; people might say: nobody. But who are we oppressing by our apathy?
When was the last time you saw something, and you knew you had the money in the bank to do something about it, but you turned your back, so that you could say to your soul: soul, have peace of mind? You turned your back on it, and therefore, you become the oppressor by apathy?
6) Can we be honest about who is oppressing us? What is our slave driver? What's bringing hell to earth for me?
I have one more application question, but I want to let Jesus ask it - because you can't get mad at Him, because He died for you.
Matthew 26:1-2 – “And Jesus knew the time for His betrayal was at hand”.
Jesus knew that it was His last go, so Matthew 25 is His last public sermon, and after that you’ve got a Passover; a betrayal; a false trial; a real trial; then a beating, a crucifixion, and a resurrection.
So Matthew 25 is His last words, His last go; and if you read Matthew 23, 24, 25, it's like a Gatling gun. It's like, Jesus is under so much pressure, He knows the weight of the world is fixing to be put on Him - and He's trying to get all these words out.
He's like ooh, um - there's like this fig tree; and if you're going to be a fig tree - be one that bears fruit, because a fruitless fig tree gets cut down... And oh - and I'm going to come back on a day, that no man knows the day or the hour of... And oh - at the end of the times there's going to be all these wars, and rumours of wars, and all this stuff...
And oh, there's this guy, and he had talents, and he made more talents for the kingdom of God. He became a wealthy steward and that's great. There's this other guy who had talents and he hoarded it to himself, and he buried it in the sand - and that guy was cast out in outer darkness.