Acts 15_pt2 — Bill Gallatin

Freedom from Legalism and the Judaizers

You remember that Paul was being followed by what he termed as Judaizers. He had left, you remember, we looked at it last week, the Jews' religion. He was a Christian now. He was free from the Jews' religion.

And as he began to plant churches, it didn't take long that Satan would send legalists to put some excess baggage on simple faith in Christ for righteousness. You see it in the church today. The modern day Pharisees putting additions and burdens on people other than just simple faith in Christ.

Codes and rules. Different groups who identify by their codes and their rules in the way they operate. And binding people up. Not realizing the freedom that is in Christ. Jesus on the cross said, it is finished.

There's nothing more required for righteousness than acceptance by God and our simple faith in what Jesus Christ has accomplished for us on the cross. Now that was a difficult thing for the Jew to be freed from.

As the church goes on, some 10, 20 years later, new converts coming out of Judaism struggled with it. And so they gathered together in Jerusalem to settle the issue about circumcision. You remember, we looked at it last week, that Judaizers were coming along and saying, yes, we believe in Jesus also for salvation.

He is the Messiah. But you must submit to the Jewish right of circumcision or you cannot be saved. Today people are saying if you don't submit to baptism, you're not saved. You can't be saved. Or some of it's so ridiculous if you don't wear a tie to church.

Or if you don't have the gift of tongues or you're baptized in the Holy Spirit. Some of the ridiculous things that's put upon the church today. And some poor Christians, you know, are caught in those things and try to operate under that heavy yoke, that additional baggage.

It has nothing to do with salvation. And it's so serious, you see. And then they come along and say, now you start with traditions, and then they make the traditions law. And that's what the Judaizers are doing.

Well, let's maintain the Jewish traditions. And then before you know it, you had all the commentaries, the Mishnah and the Gemara, and all the things that the Jews are all burdened with today. Trying to, you know, interpret the Word of God.

And when Jesus came along, they had added so much to the Word of God that they accused Jesus of breaking the law simply by taking some grains of wheat in his hand on the Sabbath day because he was hungry.

And he had to teach them the correct meaning of the law. He healed a man on the Sabbath, and they accused him of work, breaking the Sabbath. When the Sabbath is no longer an issue for a day of worship or rest.

It's every day is a day of rest. Now, we enter into a Sabbath rest because of the finished work of Jesus Christ, meeting all the claims of the law, with the law being buried on Saturday and then rising again on Sunday morning.

He put it to death. He disannulled it with his own life completing it. And now we're under the law and the liberty of Christ. And every day should be a Sabbath rest to the child of God that's filled with the Spirit.

No more strain. No more striving to be perfect or to be holy. It's the work of Christ inside of me. It's the indwelling Holy Spirit. When Paul says in Philippians 2, 12, and 13 that we should work out our own salvation with fear and trembling, he's speaking of that I am walking in such a way in humility, I am poor in spirit, totally depending on the Lord.

And then he goes to the very next verse and he says, For it is the Lord that worketh in you to will and do of his good pleasure. Thank God the Lord works in us. He doesn't. He doesn't lay all kinds of rules and regulations and works upon us for righteousness or to make us a better Christian.

It's an important thing to apprehend that you are complete in Christ and your faith in Jesus Christ. Satan says, Well, you did this this way. You made this mistake. That's right. But my faith is in Jesus Christ.

He went to the cross. He died for my mistake this week. He shed his blood and it covers it. I'm a new creature in Christ. I'm forgiven. I'm justified. It was so serious with Paul, this misapprehension of grace, somebody who would add to grace.

You remember he devoted the whole book of Galatians in a beautiful treatise to show the difference in the purpose of the law versus grace, that it was temporary. And by the works of the law, the keeping of the Sabbath, the holy days, the mosaic law, the dietary laws, all the precepts, by keeping those things, no man is made righteous.

Grace Versus Works in Galatians

Now, it's so serious. Paul was so angry about it. Under the anointing of the Holy Spirit, he said some very interesting things in Galatians 1 to people who profess to be prophets or ministers of God and yet say, You must abide by these extra things or you're not a real Christian.

This legalism. Turn to Galatians 1. I'd like to read it to you, let you see it. It's chapter 1, verses 8 and 9. Now, in 1 Corinthians 16, 22, you remember Paul said that the Lord Jesus Christ is coming, Maranatha.

And he who doesn't believe in the coming of the Lord or believe in Jesus Christ, let him be anathema or accursed. Maranatha, anathema. Now, notice the words here that Paul uses for those who say you must submit to some right.

This is the terrible mistake that Roman Catholicism has foisted upon the church. All the sacraments and the rituals for righteousness and holiness and eternal salvation. Paul says in verse 8. Let's start with verse 6 because he was concerned about the Galatians moving away from simple faith in Christ for righteousness.

He said, I marvel that you are so soon removed from him that called you unto the grace of Christ, unto another gospel, anything other than grace, salvation by grace, the gift of God, apart from any merit on myself or any person could earn.

You are not saved because of any merit or any merit that God might see in you or me after I'm saved. We're saved by grace. Any deserved honor is not grace. That means God owes me. Oh, Bill was good in 1948.

I owe him some salvation. Oh, it worked toward his salvation. Oh, Bill did great. No, Bill never does great. God does great. But there's some time in my life where God says, oh, I owe them some favor.

God will never be indebted to man. We will be eternally indebted to him. It's only the mind of pride. It's only the human being that has not apprehended grace that thinks that God owes them something for their service.

You remember the terrible tragedy of the older brother in the prodigal son story that Jesus told. His sin was worse than the younger son who went out to spend his father's fortune and spent it on harlots and ended up in the pig pen.

He stayed home and did all the right things. And then when the prodigal was brought back by the Spirit of God and his father rejoiced to see the prodigal return, that older son who stayed home and did everything right, his sin was so dire he got self-righteous and indignant and angry because God was showing favor to that son that was lost and came back.

He says, what about me? I've been so faithful all these years. In his self-righteousness, he felt that he deserved more. You see, God can't give anybody something that they deserve other than damnation.

And grace stops that. That's what we deserve. If God gave all of us what we deserve every day, it would be damnation because every one of us break his law every day without knowing it. And an archangel named Lucifer broke his law by a thought, and it got him cast out of heaven.

The archangel didn't commit a deed to get cast out of heaven to become a devil. In his innermost thoughts, he said, I will five times. His will versus the perfect will of God made him a devil. There's not a person here alive tonight because you've been perfect today.

It's grace, and God loves to give grace. God loves to give favor to show how deep and broad and wonderful his love is. Paul said, who's moved you away from that? To think that God would owe something and say, oh, Bill, you've been so good.

I owe you blessings. I owe you salvation. A Christian who doesn't apprehend that will be a miserable Christian. They'll always wonder, why is God blessing that other family and not us? I know they're doing worse things than me.

Why is God showing favor to that person more than me? And they're always walking around angry about it, frustrated about it. Why? I do everything right. There's the prodigal's older brother, self-righteous, thinking they deserved God's blessing, going to earn as he can.

Grace can't be earned. It has to be given out of the depths of God's heart and love. And the thing is, he loves to give it. So Paul said, this other gospel, it's really not good news, which is not another, but there be some that trouble you and would pervert the gospel of Christ.

How? By adding one thing to redemption that you have to do. Believe in Jesus Christ and something else, not so. Now notice what he says, because they're going around saying they had a vision from God.

Or an angel appeared with this new revelation. Yes, you put your faith in Christ, but also there are sacraments, there's a ritual, there's things you have to submit to. You have to go to confession. If you don't go to confession, or mass, or you don't get water baptized, or you don't join our church.

You see, there's one church in God's eyes, the body of Christ. The church is made up of believers all over the world. The church universal. So Paul says, but though we are an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.

Let that false teacher have a curse of God upon his life, be separated from God eternally. Anathema. That's how strong, and that's the Holy Spirit. To the man who apprehended grace, but you see, God hates false teachers because of what it does to the child of God.

And the eternal punishment on a false teacher is severe. Let him be anathema, or cursed from God. And so then, to confirm it, as the Bible says, when God doubles something, he's confirming it, whether it be a dream or the mouth of two or more witnesses.

And then in verse 9, Paul, on the anointing of the Holy Spirit, says it again. As we said before, he's emphatic, so say I now again, if any man preach any other gospel unto you than that you have received, let him be accursed.

Anathema. Cut off. When he ends Galatians in chapter 5, turn to that. Chapter 5. He's saying we should stand fast on our liberty. Some ritual after you've put your faith in Christ is not necessary for redemption ever.

No matter how they disguise, no matter how they doctor it. In verse 6 he says, chapter 5,. For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but faith which worketh by love.

I show my faith in Jesus Christ by the love of Christ that comes through my life, by the love that I have for my wife, my children, my Lord, by my personal actions. Not by the crowds that I draw, or the people that get knocked down, or healings, or what I proclaim, my faith.

The holiness and the decency and the love of Christ are my wife, my children, my brothers and sisters, and most importantly for Jesus Christ, and I prove it by my manner of life. Paul says you did run well.

Who did hinder you that you should not obey the truth? This persuasion cometh not of him that calleth you. This isn't from Jesus Christ. These things you think you have to do besides believing in Jesus.

Submitting to some ritual, or some sacrament, or some dress code. A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump. This false teaching, these things that are like leaven, that these false teachers bring into the church and they begin to swell the ranks, spread out.

I have confidence in you through the Lord that you will be none otherwise minded, but he that troubleth you shall bear his judgment, whosoever he be. And I, brethren, if I yet preach circumcision, why do I yet suffer persecution?

Then is the offense of the cross ceased. You see, if he'd have submitted to these rituals from these false teachers, and joined in with these heretics, and adopted their precepts, he wouldn't have been persecuted.

He was being attacked and persecuted because he was making a stand for pure faith in Christ. And then he says something amazing. I would they were even cut off, which trouble you. Now that's an interesting thing.

Paul uses a play on words there, but he's still under the anointing of the Holy Spirit. Now they are in the region of Galatia, which is Turkey today. The area of the seven churches of the book of Revelation.

Now the principal pagan religion there was the worship of the Virgin Queen of Heaven, Diana, Sibyl, Aphrodite, depending on the region of the Mediterranean of the culture. In this particular area, it was Sibyl.

And the pagan priests, to prove their love for the worship of Sibyl, the Virgin Queen of Heaven in that area, would castrate themselves, make themselves eunuchs to be wed to the Virgin. They would mutilate their bodies.

And Paul uses the very word castration here. He says, these false teachers, I wish they were castrated themselves. If they're going to go as far as circumcision, go all the way, castrate them. They wouldn't be able to reproduce their error.

That's how serious the scriptures treat false teachers. Or someone who would add works or legalism to grace, to make someone serve out of duty rather than love. I've counseled marriages where there's no love.

No one knows it, but they're together just out of duty, out of Christian duty. No real love in the relationship in the home anymore. You can see it by their body language. It's very easy to pick up on a family that doesn't have love anymore.

Everything's being done out of duty. Thinking that, well, that's the Christian witness. I'm going to stick this thing out. That's my duty as a Christian. And there's no love, there's no joy. God doesn't want anybody serving Him out of duty.

It's a love relationship. It's an absolute freedom of choice and love. Jesus said, My yoke is easy and My burden is light. The whole Gospel message is likened to a marriage relationship with Jesus, our wonderful heavenly bridegroom, and we, the bride.

And that's the way He wants to treat you, in love. Even in the Old Testament. God the Father being wed to Israel, His earthly bride. He says through Jeremiah, I've drawn thee with the cords of My love.

Nothing violent about it. So they're going to settle the issue. So they gather together in Jerusalem. And that's where we pick up in Acts chapter 15, verse 19. They gather together. What is this now? These people that are going around, they say they believe in Jesus Christ, but they say you must submit to the Mosaic Law.

The Jerusalem Council and Christian Liberty

Obey the Sabbath. You can't do anything on Saturday. It's just as wrong to say you can't do anything on Sunday in the Christian church. They're not apprehending what rest is. The finished work of Christ, that's the rest that the Bible speaks of.

That the writer in Hebrews chapter 4 speaks of, that rest in Christ. The finished work on Calvary. That I don't have to do anything for my righteousness. It's been imputed to me by God the Father through Jesus Christ.

I put my faith in Jesus Christ. And I have righteousness given to me. And God accepts me. So they gather together. Gentiles getting saved. Not submitting to circumcision. Paul's going around saying you don't have to submit to those things.

You're not under that legal system anymore. And now here's the wonderful thing about the church. There's no such thing as a potentate or a hierarchy where you give an edict and you must obey. Again, here's the beauty of the body of Christ.

It's a body of believers. Like a human body responding. Knowing each position, each strength, each administration. Paul lays it out clearly in the book of Corinthians. And there's no pressure. No threats.

Jesus doesn't intimidate, manipulate, or threaten. We just respond to His love and function under the calling that He's enabled us to serve Him. It's wonderful. Marvelous freedom and joy in serving Jesus Christ.

And so they discuss the issues. And James stands up and he says, Now, that isn't some sort of an edict. Literally, it's I have distinguished or we've come to the conclusion. And our judgment is that we trouble not them which from among the Gentiles are attuned to God.

Now, again, this is what they say. This is what we think we should do. There's no law, though, that says you have to do this even to them. Again, there's that marvelous freedom when you exercise your faith in Jesus Christ.

Now, if I, you know, rebel against the Lord as a child of God, He will chasten me. But there's not some potentate of the church that says you must do this or there's some church authority going to get you.

Servant Leadership and Feeding the Flock

Turn to 1 Peter chapter 5. Look what Peter, and if he's the first pope, what an example. Look at how he says serving the Lord should be. And I pray that here at Calvary Chapel every pastor and every elder treats everyone this way.

I would pray that nobody has been mistreated in this church. Maybe as we've grown and made mistakes learning what it is to serve the Lord. But I pray to God that no one in this church has ever been manipulated or threatened or intimidated.

To perform or as though it's some duty. Look at verse 1. Peter says, The elders which are among you I exhort, who am also an elder. He didn't say I'm some kind of a potentate and I'm the leader. I'm an elder.

Just like the rest of you. And a witness of the sufferings of Christ and also a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed. But yes, elders can see the glory of God if they follow Jesus. Feed the flock of God.

Not tell them what to do. Feed the flock of God. No one would know better than Peter when he was recommissioned, you remember, years earlier. Some 30 years earlier, you remember, when Jesus asked him, Peter, lovest thou me?

Peter, lovest thou me? Peter, lovest thou me? Each time he said, Lord thou knowest I love thee. He said, feed my sheep, feed my sheep, feed my sheep. Actually he said, feed my lambs. Take care of the young people first.

The priority is the young people. Children. Sunday school. Youth ministry. That's your next generation. Then, feed my sheep, my sheep. Then the adults. Not tell them what to do. How much money to give.

How to sing. How to dress. Just feed them. And if you feed them and they're healthy, they just respond automatically. A healthy person just functions automatically the things that God's programmed in their body.

You don't have to tell your kidneys to work. They tell you. Because they're healthy. In fact, you don't even notice them unless they're sick. A healthy body flows and functions so beautifully, you don't notice anything unless there's something wrong.

Just like a human body. You don't notice your lungs unless you're having difficulty breathing. It's amazing some churches put on such shows and spectacles and draw attention, individuals drawing attention to themselves because of their anointing.

You see, if your lungs or your kidneys or your pancreas or your heart did that, you'd be going to the doctor every five minutes. There's something wrong. I'm in pain. Strong attention. When you're healthy, everything's working.

You don't even notice it. A healthy body just functions in a beautiful way. But when there's an organ or a member that's sick, it's always drawing attention to itself. Just like every organ of your body.

It signals and draws attention to itself. There's something wrong. You feed good feeding and there'll be spiritual health. You read your Bibles from Genesis to Revelation on a regular basis, you will be a healthy Christian.

And you'll just find what a delight it is to walk with the Lord. You will be spiritually healthy because you're feeding yourself on a regular basis. Feeding your spirit. The perfect food, the manna. Genesis to Revelation on a regular basis.

Just like you feed your physical body. And people don't feed their physical bodies correctly. Pretty soon start to see the effects of it. Certain portions of the body begin to break down. The immune system.

They're not getting the vitamins. The same thing spiritually. So feed the flock of God which is among you. Taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint. Not because you have to. But willingly. Not for money.

You don't serve for money. But of a ready mind. Because you love to. Neither as being lords over God's heritage. But being examples to the flock. Not lording it over people. So when they gathered together in Jerusalem and made their decision.

And agreed upon what they should tell the Gentiles and what they should do. It wasn't some kind of an edict. You do this or else. This is what we think is best. And yet there's still that freedom for somebody.

I don't care what you say. I'm going my own way. Well, that's their problem. But that's the Christian that will always suffer. The one that goes their own way. You remember in 1 Corinthians chapter 16.

I think it's the end of the chapter. Where Paul was ministering in Corinth. And he says, I greatly desired. Now here's the great apostle Paul. I greatly desired Apollos to come to me. But it wasn't his mind to do so at this time.

He will when he has convenient time. Amazing. And Paul didn't get an attitude. Does he know who I am? I am the apostle Paul. And I told him I want to see him. He didn't feel like doing it. Paul didn't cop some kind of an attitude.

Or get huffy. Like, I'm your superior spiritually. No, he just said, I greatly desired that he'd be here. But he just didn't feel like it at this time. He'll come when it's convenient for him. Praise the Lord.

There's that marvelous freedom and love in Christ. Serving together. Then it's interesting. In 2 Corinthians chapter 1 verse 24. Paul again is speaking about faith. And he makes a statement. Not that we have dominion over your faith.

Jesus Christ has dominion over your faith. And he compels us with his love. Remember he says in the Psalms 110 verse 3. He makes us willing in the day of his love. Not by threatening or manipulating or intimidating.

And so Paul said in 2 Corinthians chapter 1 verse 24. Not that we have dominion over your faith. We love to help you in your faith. We'll make suggestions. We'll share scripture. But you have the choice to either agree with us or not to.

And we're not going to have an attitude towards you, Paul said. You remember Gideon. What a leader he was and an example after God used him for the revival. And to free Israel from the Midianites. And the people were so impressed with his leadership.

With what God did with them. They said, we want you to rule over us. We'll just turn ourselves over to you. You rule over us. And, man, what an opportunity if he had an ego. If he was really into pride.

I'm going to be something for God. I'm going to get my name into papers. And you know what he said? He said, I will not rule over you. The Lord your God will rule over you. So they decide, well, this is what we think is best.

Wherefore, my sentence is that we trouble not them which from among the Gentiles are turned to God. Don't go laying some excess baggage on them. Get haircuts. Change the way you dress on Sunday. You better give a certain amount of money.

Or you better have this happen to you. No. Especially circumcision. But that we write unto them that they abstain from pollutions of idols. Remember, the world was grossly idolatrous. And many of the believers were coming out of idolatrous situations in their culture.

Their parents were idolaters. And so to be very careful to abstain from anything that might look as though they're still associating with idolatry. That it might not stumble anybody. Now, you remember, when they're talking about these things, they're aware that the Jews still have not been set free in the spirit from a lot of the mosaic institutions that they've been steeped in.

It's very difficult to free somebody from some kind of a religious tradition. I watch it every year. I watch people get caught up in religious things that are not even biblical, that the early church never even celebrated.

And when you tell them that the root of it is pagan, they look at you like, what? How could you say that? It's just pagan and it's been Christianized. But they grew up with that tradition. They grew up celebrating some of these things.

So we write unto them that they abstain from pollutions of idols, from fornication. Remember, that was very common. It was a very lewd society. Bisexuality, homosexuality. One of the most dangerous places in the Mediterranean in Paul's day was the gymnasium.

Because there were weightlifters and bodybuilders that loved to get the little boys in the gymnasiums. The Greek and Roman culture, there was so much homosexuality, so much sexuality. So they had to abstain from fornication, from things strangled, and from blood.

The pagans drank the blood, just like the teenagers are doing and young people are doing in America today in the bars, if you recall Sunday service, the things that are showing on television today. In other words, there are still many, many Jews that are just now getting saved and the Spirit of God hasn't enlightened them like the older Christians, that those things are not necessary.

You don't go running up and, you know, do not stumble them with your liberty. Paul devotes a whole chapter in 1 Corinthians 8, if you want to make a note of it, that he has this marvelous liberty. He said, but I will abstain the rest of my life from taking this liberty if it would cast a stumbling block in front of my brother and cause them to fall.

Even though I have the liberty to do certain things, I'll never do it again the rest of my life if it would stumble a weak brother or offend them. It still struggles with it. You remember in Romans 14, Paul devotes another chapter, that the kingdom of God is not meat nor drink, but righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.

Notice it says righteousness, peace, and joy, it doesn't just end there, it says in the Holy Ghost. You have the Holy Ghost. It's imperative that if a person is a true believer, they're aware of the Holy Ghost.

They're filled with the Holy Ghost, or they'll never experience the righteousness, peace, and joy. So make sure you're filled with the Holy Ghost. Make sure you're aware of His movement, His person in your life.

And believe me, you'll have that experience, righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. Then pleased at the apostles and elders with the whole church, to send chosen men of their own company to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas, namely Judas, surnamed Barsabas, and Silas, chief men among the brethren.

So they're sending them from Jerusalem, now they're going back down to the Gentile areas, to Antioch, up in what would be in Syria or Lebanon today. And they wrote letters by them after this manner. The apostles and elders and brethren send greeting unto the brethren, which are of the Gentiles in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia.

Now, notice the first church council as they gathered together, they just signed it, the apostles and elders and brethren. Again, no potentate, not some pontificate. The Apostle Peter, or James the Great, or the Right Reverend Peter, or the Most Holy Peter.

It's just the apostles and the elders. We've gotten together, and see, rather than send it by word of mouth, they wrote it so it would be believable, as they took the epistles with them. And so the apostles and the elders and brethren send greeting unto the brethren, which are of the Gentiles in Antioch, Syria, and Cilicia.

The Jerusalem Decree and Its Restrictions

For as much as we have heard that certain which went out from us have troubled you. Paul touches on this some years later, a few years later in Acts chapter 20. He said that there will be men out of your own midst, they'll rise up out of your own midst, these wolves, and they'll cause disciples to follow after them.

They'll make disciples after themselves. Rather than point people to Jesus Christ, they'll try to get a following of people after their own personality, and they'll form a sect. And they'll begin to dominate and manipulate these people.

And they'll almost make these false teachers their Jesus. That's how you can tell someone's being deceived or starting to follow a man. They begin to quote the man, not Jesus. They know more about the man than they know Jesus Christ.

And they'll be reading the man's books more than their Bible. They're becoming a disciple after a man rather than Jesus Christ. Paul said that would take place, and they would rise up right out of the church, right out of your own midst, and draw disciples after themselves.

Remember, you don't follow a man. You follow Jesus Christ. There's no one more glorious, no greater than Jesus Christ. And you can never go wrong following him, reading his book. Yes, other books are okay, but nothing's better than the Bible.

That's the only thing that's going to change you from the inside. All the books do is confirm something the Bible's already said. All the books are are man's personal revelation, his own personal life to help edify the church in some way, but it's already been revealed in the Bible, or he wouldn't have written the book.

You see, everything that pertains to life is in the Word of God. And the Word of God knows every culture. When God designed the right to Bible, he knew every aspect of the human race that would be in existence, the IQ, whether it's this level, this level, what language all over the world, and he wrote it in such a way that every human being could understand it because the Holy Spirit of God is the one who gives the understanding, whether it's King James or whatever.

If you take the time to read it, the Holy Spirit of God will give you the understanding, always, and actually get you to a point where John says you'll need no man to teach you. You'll begin to teach others.

And so we've heard that certain which went out from among us have troubled you with words subverting your soul, saying you must be circumcised, now notice this, and keep the law. That means Saturday. You have to keep the Sabbath.

That's the law. And remember, that was given to the Jew only, not to the Gentile ever. It was never given to the Gentile race. And even that is set aside. That's part of the law. And he says, subverting your soul, saying you must be circumcised, and keep the law, to whom we gave no such commandment.

It seemed good unto us, being assembled with one accord, to send chosen men unto you with our beloved Barnabas and Paul. Just a sideline here, just look at the Seventh-day Adventists that are deceived, thinking they can only worship on Saturday, and anybody that worships on Sunday, they declare because of a false teacher, a woman who led them astray, says that they've received the mark of the beast, those who worship on Sunday.

Or clearly, right in the Scriptures, Paul says, you don't have to keep the law. We gave no such commandment. And the men they've chosen to send, men that have hazarded their lives, for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

It's difficult for us to comprehend that in our country. But I know one thing, that when you're threatened, the Spirit of God is there and you don't have to worry. We have sent, therefore, Judas and Silas, who shall also tell you the same things by mouth.

For it seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to us to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things, that you abstain from meats offered to idols. There's 1 Corinthians 8 again, Paul gives a tremendous teaching on it.

Remember, the pagans would offer up their animal sacrifices to their false gods. They'd be butchered on their altars. Then the remaining meat would be taken down to the shambles, or the village meat market.

The remainder of the sacrificial animal, and then it would be sold in the meat market. And so Paul's saying, a lot of people were in trouble. Well, I went and got five pounds of hamburger in Corinth. Was this offered to Aphrodite today?

Well, I don't know if I can eat it or not. And so, you see, he says in 1 Corinthians 8 and Romans 14, it's not even an issue. It's nothing for the real born-again believer. Nothing but meat. Because the idol's nothing.

There's demons behind them deceiving the people, he teaches. But for the born-again Christian, it's just meat now. But what about the person who's just coming out of a pagan situation, doesn't know what to do, and they see maybe the stronger brother with the faith, knowing it's nothing, go in and buy the meat.

They think, well, I guess if Paul does it, I'll buy it too. But they're troubled with it, and they can't even enjoy it. Their conscience is troubled. Paul said, you're stumbling your brother. You're hurting your brother with your meat.

He said, rather than do that, I won't even eat meat when I'm in Corinth or around that brother. I'll abstain rather than make it difficult for him. He ends that teaching in Romans 14. He said, don't let your good be evil spoken of.