Food Offered To Idols (Part 2)

Thanks for tuning in to No Compromise Radio with pastor and author, Dr. Mike Avendroff. Today on No Compromise Radio, we'll be hearing Pastor Mike open the Word of God in a recent message he preached at Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston, Massachusetts.

Now let's join Pastor Mike in progress as he preaches through the scriptures verse by verse with No Compromise.

Justification, Liberty, and the Problem of Gray Areas

If you would with me, turn to Romans chapter 14 please, Romans chapter 14. This also, with chapter 15 of Romans, deals with the same issue. Little bit different angle, but the same issue. And here's what's happening in the book of Romans.

Romans is a book about the gospel, the righteousness of Christ, and how God's righteousness can be, although we have no righteousness, it can be credited to our account. Like Abraham, when Abraham was justified, God declared him righteous based on the work of Christ Jesus.

And Jesus is declared, Jesus bears our sins, even though he didn't sin at all. And so Paul does this. Paul says, you can't get to liberty, chapter 14 and 15, until you understand justification. Once you get justification down, do you know if you eat something or don't eat something, it doesn't change your justification?

Did you know that? Do you know if you sin or don't sin, it doesn't change your justification? You know if you school at home or private, it doesn't change your justification? Do you know if you say trick or treat or not, it doesn't change your justification?

All these gray areas, Paul says, get justification down, everything else you've got. If you've got it down that based on the work of another, the high priest who was in fact the sacrifice, his work, his will, his priesthood, his saving work, he did it all, you are the recipient of that, you were passive, it happened to you, you didn't do anything except respond with faith that God gave you, God did that all and if he did it all, how are you going to put some kind of soybean in your mouth and affect what God has done?

So Romans is a little bit different because 1 Corinthians asks and answers questions and Paul here in Romans builds up the treatise. So you might want to just say right above Romans 14, don't forget chapter 3, 4 and 5 about justification because liberty only comes through the right knowledge of justification by faith alone.

Love Others by Refusing to Pass Judgment

But I want you to turn to Romans 14 verse 13 to see the same heartbeat of Paul pastorally not just at Corinth but at Rome too so we get along with people who disagree, get along with people who are in progress, in process.

Romans 14, 13, therefore let us not pass judgment on one another any longer but rather decide never to put a stumbling block or a hindrance in the way of a brother. In other words, resolve in your mind, decide ahead of time the next time I meet that person that listens to rock and roll music and I think it's got a satanic back beat, I'm resolved that I'm going to love that person.

I'm going to love that person. I'm not going to pass judgment, I'm not going to say, hey kids we got some family coming over today and here's the game and the game's going to be laugh at this person's judgment about thinking rock and roll music's of Satan and it's called pass judgment game.

Paul has kind of a play on words, that's almost what he's saying. You don't play that game but use your best judgment, use your resolution in your mind to say we're going to love that person and build them up and not put stumbling blocks in front of them.

Verse 14, I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself but it is unclean for anyone who thinks it's unclean. A food's a nothing but if somebody thinks it's unclean then I'm going to love them and work with them.

It doesn't mean you can't help them theologically arrive but you're not going to be judging them and your goal is edification. Verse 15, for if your brother is grieved by what you eat you're no longer walking in love.

You can eat, 1 Timothy chapter 4, you can eat whatever you want to the praise of his glory of his grace. I don't care if you're a gourmet hot dog person or if you love sushi, you just eat it and you think God, to God be the glory, great things he has done.

Isn't that fun to eat? I hope today before you eat you say to yourself, do you know God gave me taste buds? How about the tongue, bitter, sweet, I can taste certain things and then combine that with smell.

This is a banquet. He brought me to his banqueting table and I can just eat to the glory of God. God, I thank you that I'm not even under mosaic law as you gobble down that shrimp in that drenched butter.

You just go, God, I mean we could get so hungry that you'd have to go outside and eat dirt. Right? Or the food could be dirt and we'd just go, we gotta eat. It'd be just like a little slab of soylent green and you just would have to eat it day in and day out.

It's true, but we get the best. We get lemons and limes and oranges and guacamole and all that, well you have to have an avocado, but we get just the best. But imagine some people based on their religious background, and it happens today especially over in the east, this is associated with some kind of idol.

I can imagine if I am coming over from the east and thinking I'm gonna go down to that Chinese restaurant, Choi Lee, and I walk in and there's the cat god right there with a few little oranges and to think, you know, my teriyaki has been devoted to the cat god, do I eat it or not?

I wouldn't do it. But then we go, you know what, cat gods don't exist, hallelujah. And so here's what Paul's saying to the Church of Rome, forget your preoccupation with your liberties. I live in a world, an academic world and friends world, where their big thing is we're gonna have cigar parties, cause it's, you know, we're just gonna sit around and smoke cigars together.

I know of pastors who thankfully have been defrocked, who in California go to their congregants house with like a little card table, folds up, it's almost like a chiropractic table and you fold it out and set it up and it's got all the alcohol there so you can have a little wine tasting party when the pastor comes over.

I don't drink, but alcohol's not the problem. But I'm not gonna come to your house with my alcohol set up because that is doing exactly what Romans chapter 14 is trying to tell you not to do, flaunting liberties, wearing liberties on your sleeve.

The older, weaker, excuse me, older, stronger, wiser brother doesn't do that. It's not a matter of right and wrong, it's a matter of love. Verse 15, Romans 14, for if your brother's greed by what you eat, you're no longer walking in love.

But what you eat, by what you eat, do not destroy the one, and here comes the jugular, for the one for whom Christ died. If Jesus loves unconditionally, without merit, sovereignly, graciously, by his free will, to the fullness of his own death for the sake of these weak, immature, godless sinners, then that's the paradigm for us.

How does Jesus live? Note to self, don't you like it how he brings in theology? If you think the Christian life is, don't do that, and don't do that, then you've missed it. Here's the Christian life. I don't want to do that, and I don't want to do that, and I do want to do that, and I do want to do that, because it's in light of what God has done for me, and it's because, in this particular example, this is the way Christ does things.

This is a true WWJD, what would Jesus do, how did he do it, that is a good model of love. How does Jesus love? That's how I'm going to love other people. This is theology, the one for whom Christ died.

So don't destroy that kind of brother, Jesus saved. That word destroy there, do not destroy, is from where we get the word apollyon, ruin. We're going to ruin somebody that Jesus saves, what's the opposite of saved?

Ruined. It could be translated perished. Jesus saves, we ruin? No. Jump down to chapter 15, verse 1, we'll look at the other verses next week. We who are strong have an obligation. Does grace oblige? Yes it does.

You don't earn grace, but when you receive grace, you're obliged to bear with the failings of the weak. Last week we learned about husbands should please wives, and wives should please husband in light of the gospel, and here not to please ourselves.

I like cigar clubs. I like to drink wine. I'm not saying it's wrong to drink a cigar. I'll go on record, it's wrong to drink a cigar. And look at the same language in verse 2 that we saw in 1 Corinthians 8.

Let each of us please his neighbor for his agape, love says I want to do what's right for you, what's best for you, to build him up. There you go. Same kind of language. Our idea should not be brother, shape up.

And it shouldn't be telling other strong people in the church, well, I guess we got to just put up with them. Put up. Put up with these weak people. People are just newly baptized and don't know what's going on.

No, what does Paul say? Build up. That's what you want to do. Look at verse 2. To his edification. And then it's tied back to the gospel again. Look at how Christ-centered Paul is. This is not moralism.

This is not therapeutic, moralistic deism. This is gospel. Jesus is good for Christians too. The gospel's for Christians too. For Christ did not please himself. But as it is written, the reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me.

Jesus suffered and was persecuted and received all those things, including the wrath of almighty God, the holy wrath of God that we deserved. Jesus intercepted that and stood in our place and he did it for the Father's will.

To please the Father. I always do what's pleasing to him, John 8 says. So, Christians here at BBC. You learn something, you learn it so then you can worship God better and love your neighbor better. How many here were with me in Israel just a few months ago?

Swam in the Dead Sea. Hyper saline. You just float on the top of it and you just take a picture. You're just sitting there on the top of the water like there's some kind of film there. 8 .6 times saltier than the ocean.

A density of 1 .24 kilograms per liter when it comes to salt. WPI, that's for free. Put that in your centrifuge for later. And I always thought about it from when I was a young Christian because I was taught, even back in my Calvary Chapel days, that you know what?

The fresh, nice Jordan. You got the water from Mount Hermon comes down into the Jordan. It moves down the valley and then it goes in the Dead Sea and then the Dead Sea is a lot of things besides full of saline, but it's dead.

Why? Because there's no outlet. And so when you learn, ladies, let me get after you for a second. Not to get after you, but to encourage you, exhort you. When you come to IBS, 50-some ladies. I think the most I can get even after I bribe people is 25 to come to my class, provided there's 50-some.

Boy husbands, we're in for some good loving from these wives. Learning, learning, learning, and they're going to build us up and they're going to serve us and they're going to honor us and they're going to respect us, right?

That sound weird? Ferdie's shaking his head. Ferdie went like this. No, I'm just kidding. No, here's the point. And when the men are in discipleship and meeting with Steve and preaching discipleship, we learn all that so we can think about God properly.

Yes, there is something for us as we worship God, but it's for others. It's either for God as we give him glory or for other people. So all this learning we have, I'm never at BBC going to say cut all the learning.

We just need to love. Because, friends, that's liberalism. That's the social gospel. It's vacuous. It's not Christ-honoring. And it's liberalism to the core. Emergent Church is just liberalism redone with cooler glasses.

But when you've got the indicative, this is what Jesus did, isn't the imperative so much easier? In light of what Jesus did for me, this is what I'll do. Just two days ago I sat there and thought, which is something that you guys should all sit and think about one day soon, I deserve hell, and I'm getting to go to heaven.

I deserve hell. Speaking of lakes, why do you think hell is called the lake of fire? There's no outlet. And I deserve hell for the things that I've said and done. There's a royal, majestic king who created the universe, including me, and he runs the show, and he runs and calls the shots, and he does whatever he pleases.

And I've offended him, and I've dishonored him, and I've not given him thanks. And I deserve by my treason to be banished out of his presence forever. You can just imagine a king saying, take him out of my presence.

And yet, this king that I've dishonored, I should have been thrown in hell by this king. He's saved me. He's delivered me. He's crowned me and said, you're my son. You're my prince. I'll give you everything.

You've got it all. I'll love you as much as I love my son. And he did it not because I earned it, not because I was good, but he earned it. The son earned it. He did it all. And I thought, I'm not going to hell.

And if I'm not going to hell based on the work of Christ, I think I can serve you again today, Lord. It gives you joy. If you say to yourself, you know, I deserve hell. And my mission in life is try to tell everybody else what's wrong with their gray areas.

My mission in life is since God has saved me and built me up, I think I need to have a new ministry. And that ministry is I'm going to try to figure out we've got groups here and we've got differences and we've got some people in this camp and some in that camp.

My job is going to be try to liaise these groups and to bring them together and to make sure that not one homeschooler feels bad with all the public school people and not one public school person feels bad or among the homeschool people.

You say, well, why is the big homeschool thing going on? I don't really think we have a problem with food offered to idols around the church, but maybe we do. I don't even think we have a huge problem with homeschool, public school, private school.

I want to make sure we don't have a problem. How would we like to defame the name of Jesus based on schooling preferences? And you say, but Mike, that's not a preference. Then I'll say to you, assuming that you're correct, your job is to build up people who don't know what you know yet.

Humility, Edification, and Remembering You Have Not Arrived

Gray areas, Christian liberty. One, be humble. Two, build up. Three, remember that you haven't arrived. Let's go back to 1 Corinthians 8. This is a quick one. Remember that you haven't arrived. This is all in the context of Corinthians and eating food offered to idols, and now we can easily see principles.

It doesn't take much abstract thought to say, this is the principle that Paul is trying to teach us through this. 1 Corinthians 8, verse 2, if anyone imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know.

Who here can't learn more about God, about salvation, about Christ, about the Bible? We all can learn more. So the first person that says, you know what? I know everything I need to know. I've mastered God.

Oh, okay. Please. We want to be mastered by God, and then we want to continue to learn. That's one of my favorite things about life on earth, is until my dying breath, I could still learn more about God.

Isn't that good? And then when you get to heaven, you still get to learn more, because in heaven, you're still finite, and God's still infinite. And can you imagine forever learning in heaven? P .S., here's some good news, and you'll never forget one thing that you've learned in heaven.

I like that. The language here with the tense, it's a perfect tense to know. It means, you know what? I'm the kind of person that I've got it all mastered, and I need to know nothing else. I got it down.

We're not trying to be biblically illiterate, but we're trying to say everybody's a learner. Paul was a learner. Paul had not arrived. There's always more to learn about God serving others. When we say we know, we're basically saying, here's the cloud that comes out of our head.

We know all these things. Here's the cloud. I'm ignorant. That's what the cloud says. I don't know anything. And then just a taste, and then I'm going to leave you hanging. Number four, what do we do with gray areas, debatable areas, issues where some Christians disagree, where there are strong Christians and weak Christians, immature Christians, immature?

Be humble. Build up. Remember that you haven't arrived. And number four, don't forget about unconditional election. I'm not joking. Don't forget about unconditional election. You say, what's going on?

What do you mean? How do you get that out of chapter 8, verse 3? If anyone loves God, he is known by God. NES translates it the same way. If anyone loves God, he is known by him. Paul is going to give an indirect answer here.

It's elliptical. He's omitting some information that would just be obvious. And here's what he's saying. Friends, everything that you have, everything that you are, everything that you have learned, you've received it from God.

It's been given to you by divine initiative. You show me somebody that loves God, I'll show you somebody in eternity past that God says, I will know you. This is all divine initiative language. So the person sitting there saying, I know, I know, I know, well, you've really been known by God.

It isn't your, you know, stick-to-itiveness. It's not your goodness. It's not your study habits. It's not your teachers. It's God knew you in eternity past. He knew you. He chose you. And in light of all that, how could any Christian be prideful?

One commentator said, the initiative in salvation comes from God, not from us. It is God who first loves us, God who elects and delivers us from the power of sin and death. Therefore, what counts is not so much our knowledge of God as God's knowledge of us.

The love of God is not predicated on you believing. Your belief is predicated on God first loving you. You say, you know what? Yeah, but God looked down the quarters of time and he saw that I would believe there, he chose me.

Maybe we have some visitors here. I know BBC people know this. Friends, that is, you know what's so wrong with that? Besides Ephesians 1, verse 4, but besides that, think about it intellectually. If God looks down the quarters of time and says, yes, I'll choose you based on what you do, A, that's works, and B, that means God learned something.

In eternity past, God didn't know what you would do. Then in time, you did it. And he said, okay, now I know, therefore I do it. God is immutable. And he's always immutable, if I can say that. He's sovereign.

And when God looks down the quarters of time, he sees sin. He sees lots of men and women who have not fallen too far from the tree of Adam. And so then he has to divinely rescue us, sovereignly rescue us.

He has the triune plan where the father chooses, the son executes that by dying for us, and then the spirit of God makes us alive. And so here's what Paul's saying, and we'll look at this more next week.

If you are a Christian and you know anything, realize that you've received it from God's divine initiative first. And if you've received things, then you're not gonna go around saying, you know what? I've got it going on.

He said it before to the Church of Corinth, what have you, what do you have that you haven't received? In other words, when you read this, if anyone loves God, he is known by God. The point is, you were brought to a knowledge of God.

Who here believed on their own? I just sat there and I just, you know, pros and cons, little, you know, pluses here and minuses here, plus, you know, eternal life, and plus a hope of heaven, and plus, you know, sins forgiven, minus deny self, minus hate self, minus sick of self, minus hate self, minus, let's see, which one shall I do?

Intellectually, we would all go, who wants to go to heaven? Matter of fact, today, who all wants to go to heaven? That's a sorry lot. Better have an altar call. And I don't even do, and there's no altar here.

Who wants to go to heaven today? Wow, that's pretty good. I thought we were going to have some tenderloin afterwards. Intellectually, we say, of course, even when I was an unbeliever, I don't want to go to heaven, but you mean to forsake myself and forsake sin and somehow recreate myself and make myself alive and rebirth myself?

We can't do it. By the way, if we could, shame on God for sending Jesus to die. But election is by divine initiative. Christ's death is by divine initiative. The spirit making you alive is by divine initiative.

And if you at all ever say to yourself, I love God, I know something about you, you've been known by God first. You've been known by God first. This is language that comes almost from, at least it's theologically the same, as Galatians chapter four, the best.

We're going to have to finish here. But now that you have come to know God, and then Paul, under the inspiration of the spirit, but if it wasn't under the inspiration of the spirit, it seemed like he'd have to correct himself.

But now that you have come, you've come to know God, or rather to be known by God. If you've been known by God, then you come to know God. The order is God knows you, then you respond to him. It's never I know first, then God responds.

So here's the deal. When you meet people who are weak and frail, brand new Christians, if you've been known by God, then you'll love them. You're not going to wait for them. It's not up to them. Can you know God without God first knowing you?

So Paul basically says, listen, your problem is not just you don't love one another. That's the problem with ethical, social gospels. The problem in loving other people stems with the right knowledge of God and the right knowledge of Christ, the right knowledge of election.

We'll talk more about that next week. Congregation, we're in session for school, public, private home. Halloween's coming up. Pagan Christmas tree time is coming up. And when you go to somebody's house and they've got a tree and you don't like it,.

Your job is to build them up. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Ebendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life-transforming power of God's Word through verse-by-verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 8 .30 and 11 a .m. and Sunday evenings at 6 p .m. We're right on Route 110 in West Boylston, Massachusetts. You can check us out online at bbcchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

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