Prayers of Acts (Acts 10:9)
God Speaks to Peter During His Prayer Time.
Prepared and preached by Pastor Steve Rhodes for and at Bethel Friends Church in Poland, OH, on Sunday, May 17, 2026
I remember being in high school and listening to a sermon. The pastor shared that he was in prayer when the phone rang. He shared, “That phone is not more important than God.” That is true, but maybe sometimes the phone call is God’s answer to our prayers. Several years later, in the summer of 2004, while Meagan was spending time in prayer, her phone rang. She answered the call and received a job offer. I don’t know if she was praying for a job at that time, but the job was an answer to prayer.
Have you ever been convicted to change your prayer life? Has God ever answered your prayers in different ways?
We are in a year-long focus on prayer. Recently, we have been looking at prayers in the book of Acts.
My theme: God speaks to Peter during his prayer time.
- What is happening in Acts 10?
- Our focus will be on one verse: Acts 10:9. But we must talk about the context.
- What is the context?
- In Acts 10:1-9, God instructs a Gentile man on how to find Peter. This was a gentile centurion, who was a God-fearer. This means that he was non-Jewish but interested in Jewish matters. He prayed and gave gifts to the poor (Acts 10:2).
- Cornelius was a centurion, a commander of 100 men, and a member of the Italian Cohort. (A “cohort” consisted of 600 men under the command of six centurions, but with auxiliary forces in remote areas such as Judea a “cohort” might have as many as 1,000 men.) Ten cohorts formed a “legion.” Centurions were paid very well (as much as five times the pay of an ordinary soldier), so Cornelius would have been socially prominent and wealthy.[1]
- In Acts 10:7-8, he had sent servants to Joppa to find Peter.
- Cornelius is a man of prayer. We see this in Acts 10:2. God says that his prayers and alms have been heard (Acts 10:4). Now, we see Peter praying.
- Acts 10:9–12 (ESV)
- 9 The next day, as they were on their journey and approaching the city, Peter went up on the housetop about the sixth hour to pray. 10 And he became hungry and wanted something to eat, but while they were preparing it, he fell into a trance 11 and saw the heavens opened and something like a great sheet descending, being let down by its four corners upon the earth. 12 In it were all kinds of animals and reptiles and birds of the air.
- The servants are on their journey, and Peter goes up on the housetop to pray.
- This is about the sixth hour.
- Houses in Judea typically had flat roofs accessible by ladders or stairs.[2]
- This would have been about noon.[3]
- Noon was not a regular hour of prayer (3:1), so Peter prays in addition to the traditional hours followed by many of his contemporaries.[4]
- In Acts 10:10, we see that Peter is hungry.
- Peter is not hungry from any special fast; noon was the normal time for a meal in Rome and may have been in Joppa as well. Philo described the state here attributed to Peter as “divine intoxication,” when the soul is so filled with God that one loses touch with one’s surroundings; but in contrast to Philo and apocalyptists who sought mystical experiences, Peter has done nothing intentionally to bring it about.[5]
- He falls into a trance.
- In verse 11, he sees the heavens opened…
- What was this like?
- The “heavens” likely refers to the sky opening. Though it could refer to another dimension opening.
- In Acts 10:12, we see the description of what he saw.
- IVP BBC NT: Even Palestinian Jews most lenient in other regards kept kosher. Thus this vision would present a horrifying situation for any first-century Palestinian Jew (and the vast majority of foreign Jews as well): God commands Peter to eat all these unclean, forbidden creatures. Hungry he may be (10:10), but he is not that hungry![6]
- ESV SB: Jewish law forbade the consumption of unclean animals (see Lev. 11:2–47).[7]
- See Mark 7:19, in which Jesus made all foods clean.
- The command (10:13–16)
- Acts 10:13–16 (ESV)
- 13 And there came a voice to him: “Rise, Peter; kill and eat.” 14 But Peter said, “By no means, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean.” 15 And the voice came to him again a second time, “What God has made clean, do not call common.” 16 This happened three times, and the thing was taken up at once to heaven.
- God’s order (Acts 10:13): “Kill and eat them.”
- Peter’s objection (Acts 10:14): “Never, Lord, I have never in all my life eaten anything forbidden by our Jewish laws.”
- God’s overrule (Acts 10:15–16): “If God says something is acceptable, don’t say it isn’t.”
- The confusion (10:17-18): Peter wonders what all this means.
- Without the vision it is unlikely that Peter would have met with the messengers from Cornelius and gone with them to Caesarea. In a vision that lasted only minutes Peter determined to obey God even if it was contrary to many of the biases he had held for a lifetime.[8]
- I read the following:
- I recently heard about a missionary in a dangerous part of the Middle East who started an underground church. Locals tried to discover the location of that assembly in order to persecute the believers there, but they could never find it. Late one night, however, the missionary heard a knock on the door of the secret church. He cautiously opened it to see a tribesman standing there. The man explained that he had walked for days in order to find the missionary. He said, “I had a vision three days ago that there would be a man standing at this address who would tell me how to get to heaven. Sir, are you this man?” That tribesman, like Cornelius, was given a vision leading him to an evangelist who would teach him how to cross from spiritual death to abundant life.
- An old classmate was recently ministering to Muslims in Washington, DC. One day a Muslim man approached him and asked, “Who is ‘I Am’? I keep seeing ‘I Am’ in my dreams.” After giving a summary explanation, he gave the seeker a Bible and encouraged him to read the Gospel of John. It wasn’t long until he led the man to faith in Jesus, and at that point the convert confessed, “Many of the ‘I am’ statements I read in John I heard first in my dreams!” This story, too, reminds us that even when God uses visions to nudge people toward faith in Christ, evangelists must still do the exciting work of explaining the gospel to them that they might understand and embrace it with confidence.[9]
- In the next few verses, we see Cornelius’s servants arrive.
- Application:
- Pray, pray, and pray.
- In this passage, Peter is praying, but it is not a normal prayer time.
- That is not the key point of the passage, but I do find it interesting that Peter and Cornelius are both men of prayer.
- I think it is important to have regular prayer times and to pray whenever we are led.
- For some reason, Peter felt compelled to pray, and God gave him a vision.
- Do our devotions ever get stuck?
- Do we ever feel like we are praying the same way, all the time?
- Do we need to change something?
- Try a different way to mix up your spiritual disciplines.
- The sexton [custodian] of a metropolitan church noticed scraps of paper in a certain pew in the sanctuary after each Sunday service. One day he made bold to examine the crumpled pieces of paper. He found such notes as: “Mary—ill; Bob, needs job; her rent due; my needs …” After a few weeks of this, the faithful custodian shared the mystery with the pastor, who alerted several members who sat in the area where messages were found to please identify, if possible, the person who was leaving tidbits of information each Sunday. The quiet plan succeeded. In due time, the minister adroitly engaged the lady in conversation in his study about the intriguing practice of leaving notes addressed to various people in her pew.
- Smiling, the gentle lady declared that the bits of paper had deep meaning for her. “You will think it silly, but sometime ago I read, ‘Take your troubles to church with you.’ So I write down my concerns, burdens, and needs on little pieces of paper, take them to church, pray about them, and leave them there. I feel God is taking care of them!”[10]
- Maybe some of us need to be like Peter and pray at noon for a few days.
- Maybe we need to write our prayers, or try praying scripture, or ask the Lord to increase our faith.
- Maybe a few of us need to pray and watch. Watch for the Lord to answer in various ways.
- Maybe we need to be reminded to consistently pray.
- We must keep praying, don’t give up.
- There are needs, and all of our needs go back to the Lord. We need His help.
Jim Cymbala writes: (footnote below)
All my talking about prayer faced a severe test several years ago when Carol and I went through the darkest two-and-a-half-year tunnel we could imagine.
Our oldest daughter, Chrissy, had been a model child growing up. But around age sixteen she started to stray. I admit I was slow to notice this—I was too occupied with the church, starting branch congregations, overseeing projects, and all the rest that ministry entails.
Meanwhile, Chrissy not only drew away from us, but also away from God. In time, she even left our home. There were many nights when we had no idea where she was.
As the situation grew more serious, I tried everything. I begged, I pleaded, I scolded, I argued, I tried to control her with money. Looking back, I recognize the foolishness of my actions. Nothing worked; she just hardened more and more. Her boyfriend was everything we did not want for our child.
How I kept functioning through that period I don’t know. Many a Sunday morning I would put on my suit, get into the car to drive to the Tabernacle early, ahead of Carol . . . and cry for the next twenty-five minutes, all the way to the church door. “God, how am I going to get through three meetings today? I don’t want to make myself the center of attention. The people have problems of their own—they’re coming for help and encouragement. But what about me? I’m hanging by a thread. Oh, God, please . . . my firstborn, my Chrissy.”
Somehow God would pull my nerves together enough for me to function through another long Sunday. There were moments, however, as we were worshiping God and singing, that my spirit would almost seem to run away from the meeting to intercede for Chrissy. I had to control myself to stay focused on the people and their needs.
While this was going on, we learned that Carol needed an operation—a hysterectomy. As she tried to adjust afterward, the devil took the opportunity to come after her and say, You might have this big choir, and you’re making albums and doing outreaches at Radio City Music Hall and all the rest. Fine, you and your husband can go ahead to reach the world for Christ—but I’m going to have your children. I’ve already got the first one. I’m coming for the next two.
Like any mother who loves her children, Carol was smitten with tremendous fear and distress. Her family meant more to her than a choir. One day she said to me, “Listen, we need to leave New York. I’m serious. This atmosphere has already swallowed up our daughter. We can’t keep raising kids here. If you want to stay, you can—but I’m getting our other children out.” She wasn’t kidding.
I said, “Carol, we just can’t do that. We can’t unilaterally take off without knowing what God wants us to do.”
Carol wasn’t being rebellious; she was just depressed after the surgery. She elected not to pack up and run after all. And it was at that low point that she went to the piano one day, and God gave her a song that has touched more people than perhaps anything else she has written:
In my moments of fear,
Through every pain, every tear,
There’s a God who’s been faithful to me.
When my strength was all gone,
When my heart had no song,
Still in love he’s proved faithful to me.
Every word he’s promised is true;
What I thought was impossible, I see my God do.
He’s been faithful, faithful to me,
Looking back, his love and mercy I see.
Though in my heart I have questioned,
Even failed to believe,
Yet he’s been faithful, faithful to me.
When my heart looked away,
The many times I could not pray,
Still my God, he was faithful to me.
The days I spent so selfishly,
Reaching out for what pleased me;
Even then God was faithful to me
Every time I come back to him,
He is waiting with open arms,
And I see once again.
He’s been faithful, faithful to me. . . .
Were we calling on the Lord through all of this? In a sense we were. But I couldn’t help jumping in to take action on my own too. I was still, to some degree, the point guard wanting to grab the basketball, push it down the floor, make something happen, press through any hole in the defense I could find. But the more I pressed, the worse Chrissy got.
Then one November, I was alone in Florida when I received a call from a minister whom I had persuaded Chrissy to talk to. “Jim,” he said, “I love you and your wife, but the truth of the matter is, Chrissy’s going to do what Chrissy’s going to do. You don’t really have much choice, now that she’s eighteen. She’s determined. You’re going to have to accept whatever she decides.”
I hung up the phone. Something very deep within me began to cry out. “Never! I will never accept Chrissy being away from you, Lord!” I knew that if she continued on the present path, there would be nothing but destruction awaiting her.
Once again, as back in 1972, there came a divine showdown. God strongly impressed me to stop crying, screaming, or talking to anyone else about Chrissy. I was to converse with no one but God. In fact, I knew I should have no further contact with Chrissy—until God acted! I was just to believe and obey what I had preached so often—
Call upon me in the day of trouble, and I will answer you.
I dissolved in a flood of tears. I knew I had to let go of this situation.
Back home in New York, I began to pray with an intensity and growing faith as never before. Whatever bad news I would receive about Chrissy, I kept interceding and actually began praising God for what I knew he would do soon. I made no attempts to see her. Carol and I endured the Christmas season with real sadness. I was pathetic, sitting around trying to open presents with our other two children, without Chrissy.
February came. One cold Tuesday night during the prayer meeting, I talked from Acts 4 about the church boldly calling on God in the face of persecution. We entered into a time of prayer, everyone reaching out to the Lord simultaneously.
An usher handed me a note. A young woman whom I felt to be spiritually sensitive had written: “Pastor Cymbala, I feel impressed that we should stop the meeting and all pray for your daughter.”
I hesitated. Was it right to change the flow of the service and focus on my personal need?
Yet something in the note seemed to ring true. In a few minutes I picked up a microphone and told the congregation what had just happened. “The truth of the matter,” I said, “although I haven’t talked much about it, is that my daughter is very far from God these days. She thinks up is down, and down is up; dark is light, and light is dark. But I know God can break through to her, and so I’m going to ask Pastor Boekstaaf to lead us in praying for Chrissy. Let’s all join hands across the sanctuary.”
As my associate began to lead the people, I stood behind him with my hand on his back. My tear ducts had run dry, but I prayed as best I knew.
To describe what happened in the next minutes, I can only employ a metaphor: The church turned into a labor room. The sounds of women giving birth are not pleasant, but the results are wonderful. Paul knew this when he wrote, “My dear children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you . . .” (Gal. 4:19).
There arose a groaning, a sense of desperate determination, as if to say, “Satan, you will not have this girl. Take your hands off her—she’s coming back!” I was overwhelmed. The force of that vast throng calling on God almost literally knocked me over.
When I got home that night, Carol was waiting up for me. We sat at the kitchen table drinking coffee, and I said, “It’s over.”
“What’s over?” she wondered.
“It’s over with Chrissy. You would have had to be in the prayer meeting tonight. I tell you, if there’s a God in heaven, this whole nightmare is finally over.” I described what had taken place.
BACK FROM THE ABYSS
Thirty-two hours later, on Thursday morning, as I was shaving, Carol suddenly burst through the door, her eyes wide. “Go downstairs!” she blurted. “Chrissy’s here.”
“Chrissy’s here?”
“Yes! Go down!”
“But Carol—I—”
“Just go down,” she urged. “It’s you she wants to see.”
I wiped off the shaving foam and headed down the stairs, my heart pounding. As I came around the corner, I saw my daughter on the kitchen floor, rocking on her hands and knees, sobbing. Cautiously I spoke her name:
“Chrissy?”
She grabbed my pant leg and began pouring out her anguish. “Daddy—Daddy—I’ve sinned against God. I’ve sinned against myself. I’ve sinned against you and Mommy. Please forgive me—”
My vision was as clouded by tears as hers. I pulled her up from the floor and held her close as we cried together.
Suddenly she drew back. “Daddy,” she said with a start, “who was praying for me? Who was praying for me?” Her voice was like that of a cross-examining attorney.
“What do you mean, Chrissy?”
“On Tuesday night, Daddy—who was praying for me?” I didn’t say anything, so she continued:
“In the middle of the night, God woke me and showed me I was heading toward this abyss. There was no bottom to it—it scared me to death. I was so frightened. I realized how hard I’ve been, how wrong, how rebellious.
“But at the same time, it was like God wrapped his arms around me and held me tight. He kept me from sliding any farther as he said, ‘I still love you.’
“Daddy, tell me the truth—who was praying for me Tuesday night?”
I looked into her bloodshot eyes, and once again I recognized the daughter we had raised.
Chrissy’s return to the Lord became evident immediately. By that fall, God had opened a miraculous door for her to enroll at a Bible college, where she not only undertook studies but soon began directing music groups and a large choir, just like her mother. Today she is a pastor’s wife in the Midwest with three wonderful children. Through all this, Carol and I learned as never before that persistent calling upon the Lord breaks through every stronghold of the devil, for nothing is impossible with God.
For Christians in these troubled times, there is simply no other way.[1]
[1] Jim Cymbala and Dean Merrill, Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire: What Happens When God’s Spirit Invades the Hearts of His People (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2018), 61–68.
Legend has it that a man was lost in the desert, just dying for a drink of water. He stumbled upon an old shack—a ramshackled, windowless, roofless, weatherbeaten old shack. He looked about this place and found a little shade from the heat of the desert sun. As he glanced around he saw a pump about fifteen feet away—an old, rusty water pump. He stumbled over to it, grabbed the handle, and began to pump up and down, up and down. Nothing came out.
Disappointed, he staggered back. He noticed off to the side an old jug. He looked at it, wiped away the dirt and dust, and read a message that said, “You have to prime the pump with all the water in this jug, my friend. P.S.: Be sure you fill the jug again before you leave.”
He popped the cork out of the jug and sure enough, it was almost full of water! Suddenly, he was faced with a decision. If he drank the water, he could live. Ah, but if he poured all the water in the old rusty pump, maybe it would yield fresh, cool water from down deep in the well, all the water he wanted.
He studied the possibility of both options. What should he do, pour it into the old pump and take a chance on fresh, cool water or drink what was in the old jug and ignore its message? Should he waste all the water on the hopes of those flimsy instructions written, no telling how long ago?
Reluctantly he poured all the water into the pump. Then he grabbed the handle and began to pump, squeak, squeak, squeak. Still nothing came out! Squeak, squeak, squeak. A little bit began to dribble out, then a small stream, and finally it gushed! To his relief fresh, cool water poured out of the rusty pump. Eagerly, he filled the jug and drank from it. He filled it another time and once again drank its refreshing contents.
Then he filled the jug for the next traveler. He filled it to the top, popped the cork back on, and added this little note: “Believe me, it really works. You have to give it all away before you can get anything back.”[11]
Keep praying and ask the Lord to increase your faith.
Pray
[1] Crossway Bibles, The ESV Study Bible (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2008), 2102–2103.
[2] Crossway Bibles, The ESV Study Bible (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2008), 2103.
[3] Stanley E. Porter, “Acts,” in CSB Study Bible: Notes, ed. Edwin A. Blum and Trevin Wax (Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers, 2017), 1735.
[4] Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1993), Ac 10:9.
[5] Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1993), Ac 10:10.
[6] Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1993), Ac 10:11–13.
[7] Crossway Bibles, The ESV Study Bible (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2008), 2103.
[8] William H. Marty, “Acts,” in The Moody Bible Commentary, ed. Michael A. Rydelnik and Michael Vanlaningham (Chicago, IL: Moody Publishers, 2014), 1695.
[9] Tony Merida, Exalting Jesus in Acts (Nashville, TN: Holman Reference, 2017), 148.
[10] G. Curtis Jones, 1000 Illustrations for Preaching and Teaching (Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1986), 296–297.
[11] Charles R. Swindoll, The Tale of the Tardy Oxcart and 1501 Other Stories (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2016), 197.