Soli Deo Gloria (Part 1)

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Thanks for tuning in to No Compromise Radio with pastor and author, Dr. Mike Avendrock. Today on No Compromise Radio, we'll be hearing

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Pastor Mike open the Word of God in a recent message he preached at Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston, Massachusetts.

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

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Well turn your Bibles to 1 Corinthians chapter 10 this morning. We are going to cover 12 verses at breakneck speed this morning.

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Last week 9 verses, this week 12 verses. When I return from California, 15 verses.

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I can feel the momentum. We're working through the book of 1 Corinthians, just taking section by section, chapter by chapter.

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As you're looking for the book 1 Corinthians and coming to chapter 10, I have a quiz for you. Here's the thing. Here's the quiz.

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You can even say them out loud if you'd like. What are the five solas? What are the five solas of the

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Reformation? Sola meaning alone or only. If you had to guess one of the solas, what would you guess?

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Anyone? Sola Scriptura. That's actually the first one. Very good.

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Secondly, did someone just say sola gratias? I don't think.

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But coming from the same root, by the way, second in order is sola

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Christus, third in order, sola gratia, fourthly, sola fide, and finally, sola deo gloria.

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What are those? Why are they important? From where do they come? Sola Scriptura means scripture alone.

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That is to say we get our source of God's revelation, not in traditions, not from men, not a magisterium, from no one else, from nothing else except scripture alone.

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Sola Christus, Christ alone. No one else saves but Christ, the mediator.

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The church can't save, staff can't save, leaders can't save.

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You can't save yourself, Christ alone must save. Thirdly, sola gratia, grace alone.

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Only by grace have we been saved, and you can think of verses for all these, of course. Grace alone working, not grace with us, partnership, cooperating, synergistically, no, but grace alone, monergistically,

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God alone saves. Sola fide, number four, faith alone.

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Faith does not cause your salvation. God does not save you because you believe, but faith is the instrument.

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Faith is a result of salvation. You must believe, but faith doesn't save, and it's not faith plus baptism, faith plus a sacrament, faith plus anything.

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Sola fide. And then lastly, sola deo gloria, to God alone be the glory.

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Because of all these things, because salvation is accomplished by God's will and God's will alone, who gets the glory?

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We don't get any glory. If we contributed to our salvation, then there might be a time for us to receive glory, but since it's

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God alone working through his word, through Christ, we get no glory.

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Our part of salvation is simple, sin, rebellion, transgression, trespass.

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And God's part of salvation is grace, mercy, forgiveness, found in the eternal son of God, Christ Jesus, our

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Lord. The king who reconciles, redeems, who raised himself from the dead.

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Luther was battling during this time of the Reformation, people that had something called the theology of glory.

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Luther was pushing the theology of the cross, but others were pushing the theology of glory.

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You get your salvation partly to Christ, by Christ's work, partly by the saints' work, partly by your own work, the theology of glory.

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And Luther said, no, it's the theology of the cross, and all the glory goes, not to the sinner, but to Christ alone.

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He said, no, the only true gospel is that which gives all glory to God alone, as is taught in the scriptures.

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But here's the question. The verse that we use for this doctrine, Soli Deo Gloria, where is it found?

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What is the context? And it's kind of amazing that it's found in the middle of a context of Christian liberty.

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It's not found in the context of Romans 3, doctrine of justification. It's found in the context of Christian liberty.

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The motto for your Christian liberty, if you've been saved by God, and you can't get him to love you more, you can't sin and have him love you less, you can't become one iota more justified or less justified based on your performance, based on your sacraments, based on if you go to the shepherd's conference or not.

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Based on that, you have freedom to do all kinds of things. And you have Christian liberty, Romans 14,

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Romans 15, 1 Corinthians 8, 9, and 10. But your motto shouldn't be for Christian liberty, bottoms up.

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Your motto for Christian liberty shouldn't be cheers. Your motto for Christian liberty should be

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Soli Deo Gloria. And we're going to see in chapter 10, verses 23 through 11, one bad chapter break there, that the motto for Christian liberty that you have in Christ Jesus has some parameters, and the parameter is life is not about you.

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Your job isn't primarily about you. Your family's not primarily about you. The church is not primarily about you.

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You're not primarily about you. Your neighborhood, you're not primarily the one who's the center.

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You exist to glorify God, and everything's about his glory. So when we say to ourselves, we have liberty to do this, or we have liberty to do that, that is true, but it's hemmed in by, is this going to give the king glory, or is it not?

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And that's exactly what we're going to see in 1 Corinthians chapter 10. So I have all kinds of friends that they push their liberties.

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But at the end of the day, here's what we'll see in 1 Corinthians 10, 23 through 11, one. Those kind of people that push their liberties,

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I want to see them push the glory of God even more. That's what I'm after. If you've got a motto for your liberty, it's not, let's go to the bar, let's go to the hookah pipe place, let's go to the movies, however you express your

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Christian liberties. It should be, I have a motto, and that is soli deo gloria.

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Handel used to write this at the end of his manuscripts. This is a motto, soli deo gloria, for Luther College, Dort College, the chapel choir at Capital University.

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And it's even the motto for the American Guild of Organists. But primarily, essentially, it should be your governing principle for how do

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I extend my Christian liberty, and can I in Christ do this? Should I?

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If all of my life is to be lived to the glory of God, if man's chief end is to glorify

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God and to enjoy Him forever, how does that affect what I do, what I eat, what I don't eat, what I listen to, where do

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I go? When I think of glory, I think of praise and honor and worship to God, acknowledging

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Him for who He is, affirming and consenting with Scripture that He's great and holy.

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So let's take a look at our passage here in 1 Corinthians chapter 10, verses 23 and following. I'm going to read the section so you see the larger context, 12 verses.

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And the point is, I'm saying it again, maybe now for the fourth time, that there's something more important than your liberties, and that is

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God's glory. You're made to give Him glory. All things are lawful, 1

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Corinthians 10, 23, I'm reading from the ESV, but not all things are helpful. All things are lawful, but not all things build up.

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Let no one seek his own good, but the good of his neighbor. Eat whatever is sold in the meat market without raising any question on the ground of conscience.

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For the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof. If one of the unbelievers invites you to dinner and you are disposed to go, eat whatever is set before you without raising any question on the ground of conscience.

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But if someone says to you, this has been offered in sacrifice, then do not eat it for the sake of the one who informed you, for the sake of conscience.

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I do not mean your conscience, verse 29, but his. For why should my liberty be determined by someone else's conscience?

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If I, Paul, partake with thankfulness, why am I denounced because of that for which

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I give thanks? So, whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.

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Give no offense to Jews or to Greeks or to the Church of God, just as I try to please everyone in everything

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I do. Not seeking my own advantage, but that of many, that they may be saved.

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Chapter 11, which should be the end of chapter, chapter 11, should be the end of chapter 10, really, be imitators of me as I am of Christ.

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Seeking the glory of God more than your Christian liberty. Let me give you the outline for this morning.

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It's super simple. Let me give you four laws for Christian liberty. Laws, liberty, get it?

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Four laws for Christian liberty. Maybe I could call this the prison of Christian liberty.

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Christian liberty, I got one, it just came to me. God just told me. Christian liberty incarcerated by the glory of God and for the good of other people.

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The first law for Christian liberty that we even can learn from, you can see the special context back in the idolatrous meat markets and all that stuff, but there are still principles for us.

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The first law is your freedom in Christ should build up others. This is the first restriction.

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Your liberty must be limited as you seek the good of others, not your own good. You have the freedom, in other words, to build up other people.

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That's the freedom that you have. Take a look at chapter 10, verses 23 and following. You can see the slogans in the

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ESV have parentheses, or not parentheses, but quotation marks around them. And they love to say this all the time.

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If it feels good, do it, is our society's slogan. They had a slogan, too. All things are lawful, but not all things are helpful.

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All things are lawful, but not all things edify or build up. Let no one seek his own good, but the good of his neighbor.

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Chapter 8, liberty. Chapter 9, liberty. Chapter 10, liberty. You have the liberty to do all kinds of things because if Jesus paid for your sins, past, present, and future, you can't do anything to undo what

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God did. Can somebody lose their salvation? That's a wrong question. Can Christ lose a

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Christian? The answer is no. So if I can't lose my salvation, then maybe I can dabble in whatever

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I want. Well, as you do your dabbling, and as you do your thinking that way, you ought to be thinking differently.

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Like, will this be good for other people? Will this build them up? You have the freedom to deny yourself, in other words.

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In chapter 6, Paul had said the same thing. You guys have all this lawful quotes, quotations, and mottos, all things are lawful.

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In chapter 6, when it comes to sexual license, Paul said, I'm not gonna be dominated by sexual license.

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And now social issues, I don't wanna be dominated by those as well. Listen to Romans 14, it's gonna sound very familiar to you.

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So do not let what you regard as good be spoken of as evil. For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness and peace and joy in the

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Holy Spirit. Whoever thus serves Christ is acceptable to God and approved by men.

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So then let us pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding. What do you do if you're a

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Christian? You want other people to mature and to grow and to be edified. And so what

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I do is limited by other people, even though I have liberty in Christ. I'm trying to act in not my own best interest, but in yours.

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He says it clearly in verse 24, let no one seek his own good but the good of his neighbor. Kind of sounds to me like love your neighbor as yourself type of thing, doesn't it?

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Obviously, it does. Hey, I'm not my brother's keeper. Yes, you are in one sense.

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You are your brother's keeper. More so, you're your brother's edifier. So you say, well, I have the liberty to do all these things.

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Will it build that other person up? My enjoyment, my liberty ends when

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I can't build the other person up. Listen to Romans 15, each one should please his neighbor for his good to build him up.

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We live in a culture, here's the culture, two worlds. World one, self, pleasure, me.

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World two, sacrifice. That's the paradigm of the world. Selfishness, our sacrifice.

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And this is who we were. This is who Jesus is and what he's done. And now we're children of the light.

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And now instead of selfishly consuming ourselves like Oscar Wilde, come here for a moment and let me tell you about myself theology.

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G Gordon Liddy kind of theology. I have faith, I have a strong faith, I have a pure faith, and that faith is in G Gordon Liddy, and he has never failed me once ever.

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This whole deal here, selfishness. And now Paul says, but remember, we have a savior who gives.

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For God so loved the world, he gave. The giving God now has children called by the spirit of God, who should be saying,

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I should be giving for others too. The me sentiment, me first sentiment, is out.

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I know people who grab this idea. I can't lose my salvation. I can't be more justified.

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I can't be more loved by God. Jesus is loved by the Father to the same degree that I'm loved by the

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Father. And therefore, it's wild chaos, liberty driven. I'm preoccupied by what

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I now can do in Christ Jesus. And Paul is saying your preoccupation should first be, what about the good of others?

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And he gives an application. This is specific to the Corinthians, but it's kind of interesting. Take a look at verses 25 and 26.

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This is the application of that very principle. And you know all the meat market issues back in those days, some of the meat offered to idols.

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So what do you do? You gotta go shopping. It's like I go to Hannaford today, and I wanna get some steak.

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Hey, it's Sunday night, I need a Ben and Jerry's Chubby Hubby. That's obvious. And I need,

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I like a filet, some tenderloin. And I walk over, and I happen to know the butcher there.

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And I'm really looking for a nice piece of meat, not too much fat. I'm gonna have it extra raw.

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I don't even really wanna cook it tonight. I'm gonna eat it how meat should be eaten, raw.

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Tartare is the word of the day. But you know what? I like the price, I like the cut.

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Has it been offered to idols? Because if it has, and so here's what

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Paul's gonna say. If you're a Christian and you're back in those days, don't even ask. You don't need to know.

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You don't need to be caught up in all the machinations of, was this sold or was it not? Because here's what you need to know if you're a

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Christian. Even if you live in Lancaster and worship on Saturday, the whole

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Earth is God's. And before it was an idol's, it was God's. And you know what?

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God wants you with just good conscience to pick up that piece of tenderloin, raw to the bone, blood coming out of it.

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Just eating it and say, this is the Lord's. Take a look at the passage. I'll prove it. It's in the

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Greek. Eat whatever is sold in the meat market without raising any question on the ground of conscience.

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Why? He gives the reason that you don't have to be a USDA meat inspector, finding out if there's an idol in the meat, if it's been offered to an idol, or if there's a demon in the meat, some kind of demon busters kind of thing.

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What's the reason? For the Earth is the Lord's and all it contains. It's not, well, what you don't know won't hurt you.

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It's who needs to even know? It's nothing, an idol's nothing. Pagans are nothing.

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It's indifferent. I don't have to get caught up in all that. For the Earth is the Lord and all it contains. That's verse 26, right from Psalm 24.

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That's a great psalm. You should read Psalm 24 sometime. That is where the Jews got, we should pray and thank

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God and exalt him before we eat. Psalm 24,

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God's the Lord of creation. It was God's first. Nothing is unclean in itself.

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Time out for a second. What would this be like for a Jew? Jews need to know. Think about Jews today.

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Is it kosher? Is it not? This would be like a Hindu, veg or non -veg.

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I've got to have this all figured out. And now the Christian can walk into a Gentile meat market and just say, you know what, whatever.

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Show me a Jew who can walk into a Gentile meat market and say, I'll eat whatever. And I'll show you somebody who hasn't thought

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New Testamently yet. This is revolutionary. No inquires need to be made.

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It's like a rabbi today going on a cruise line and having some hot dogs served and some pork tenderloin and just saying, okay, is this pork?

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Is this the new white meat? Do I need to know what this is? Don't even ask.

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No need to know. Side note, if anybody comes along to you and says, you can't eat these certain foods and be a

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Christian. You have to go on this certain kind of diet and all these other foods are bad and they want to draw you back to mosaic law for food regulations.

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You remember this verse, you remember this context. There are many more, but you don't get defiled by what you eat.

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You're defiled by who you are and what comes out, right? So when people say you can't eat that, you ought not to eat that, you need to give that up for lent, you need to do this, that or the other.

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To me, when people talk that way, I just, my stomach juices start flowing because I just think this is the bounty of God.

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God gave me his greatest gift, Christ Jesus as savior and Lord, and he died for me. And then he says, everything else, just enjoy it.

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Acknowledge me and enjoy it. Don't let anyone put you under some kind of food laws.

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Well, another situation pops up. Look at verse 27. This is kind of the meat market situation.

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Now we move into someone's home. We move into their dining room. And of course this isn't necessarily applicational to us, but you'll see the bigger principle.

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And that principle is looking out for other people. That is Christians. Verse 27, if one of the unbelievers invites you to dinner, you're disposed to go.

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You don't have to go. Sometimes unbelievers invite me over to dinner and I want to go and I say yes. Sometimes I don't want to go.

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I say no. Mainly, I don't get invited. Eat whatever is set before you.

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That'd be a good take, good verse to take out of context to make your kids eat the peas. Eat whatever is set before you without raising any question on the ground of conscience.

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They face this all the time. If you went to a Jewish person's house, you wouldn't have to raise a question, but now the scene is no longer the temple, but a dining room and probably of a

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Gentile. You probably know what they did. Don't ask.

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Just be quiet. Jews didn't think this way. I'm telling you, Rabbi Shimeon Ben Eliezer said

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Israelites outside the land worship idols in purity. How? If a non -Jew prepared a wedding feast for his son and sent out to invite all

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Jews in his town, even if they have food and drink of their own and have their own servant waiting for them, they worship idols.

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If a Gentile asks you to eat, don't go. Paul is now saying go.

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It's food. If you want to go, go. But there's an interesting twist here. More details come up.

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Verse 28. But if someone says to you, a believer who's at this meal says to you, they're a weak

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Christian, this has been offered, then do not eat it for the sake of the one who informed you, for the sake of conscience.

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I don't mean your conscience, but his, the weak Christian who said, I think this is offered idols. For why should my liberty be determined by someone else's conscience?

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We know the answer because we want to love them. So somebody invites you over for dinner.

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You don't ask anything about it. Is it offered to Diana or not? You just are eating. The guy nudges you when the host stands up,

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I think this is offered to Diana. Then don't eat it. And it'd be better for you to offend the host than offend a fellow brother.

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Because if the host is offended, he'll be less offended by you offending him than you offending somebody in your own family, the

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Christian family. So Paul is working through these issues, but the big picture is, as he's anticipating the objections, other people's welfare is more important than your freedom.

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Paul says in verse 30, if I partake with thankfulness, my friend has just said to me, it's offered to idols.

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I eat anyway. And I'm thanking God, 24th chapter of Psalms, verse one,

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God, you're great. You're the creator. Why am I denounced? Because of what, because of that for which

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I give thanks. How am I going to say, God, thank you for this food, simultaneously hurting the conscience of this brother.

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It's hard to pray that prayer. And so Paul's working through this issue with Christian liberty, and he's saying, it's for other people.

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It's not for you. Second law, second law of Christian liberty, not just limiting your liberty to seek the good of others, but number two, your liberty must be limited by the glory of God.

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In other words, seek God's glory more than your own liberties. I mentioned this earlier in my introduction, and here we get to the bigger point.

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We've had the horizontal issue. Now we come to the vertical issue. So whether you eat or drink, whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.

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How many people memorize that verse? It's a great verse to memorize, but where is it? It's right here in the middle of Christian liberties.

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So here's how sometimes people will preach it. Well, even in mundane things in life that you have to do on a regular basis, how often do you have to eat a day?

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How often do you have to drink a day? In regular routine, mundane things, you should be giving glory to God. Is that a true statement?

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That's a true statement, but it has nothing to do with this passage. It's a theological verity, but the passage here is whether you eat or whether you drink regarding Christian liberty, things that's offered to pagan sacrifices are things that you even do now, limited by the glory of God.

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One man said, God, get this, God becomes the hermeneutical litmus test for gauging whether things are right or wrong.

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This is not mundane activity. The point is related to food and drink, overriding concern should be

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God's glory. Does this glorify God? So I could ask you, if you think alcohol, you're able to drink alcohol with Christian liberty, you say, is this for God's glory?

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The answer could be yes, the answer could be no. Smoking tobacco, going to movies.

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I don't know what they're things, shooting guns. I don't know what people struggle with these days. Does this give

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God glory? No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Ebendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

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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.

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Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 8 .30 and 11am and Sunday evenings at 6pm.

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We're right on Route 110 in West Boylston, Massachusetts. You can check us out online at bbcchurch .org

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or by phone at 508 -835 -3400. The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff or management.