WWUTT 1372 Let Us Not Pass Judgment on One Another (Romans 14:13-14)

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There are things in the Bible that are clearly stated as sin, but then there are other things that are matters of conscience, and we must not call sin what the

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Bible has not called sin, when we understand the text. This is

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When We Understand The Text, a daily study in the word of Christ, for the sake of the faith of God's elect and their knowledge of the truth, which accords with godliness.

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Find all our videos and other ministry resources at www .utt .com.

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Here once again is Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. We come back to our study of Romans chapter 14.

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For today's reading, we'll start off looking at verses 13 -19, the apostle Paul wrote to the church in Rome.

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Therefore, let us not pass judgment on one another any longer, but rather decide never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a brother.

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I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself, but it is unclean for anyone who thinks it unclean.

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For if your brother is grieved by what you eat, you are no longer walking in love.

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By what you eat, do not destroy the one for whom Christ died.

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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.

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So we come back to this statement here in verse 13, let us not pass judgment on one another any longer.

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We talked about that yesterday, passing judgment on those who are partaking in things that we disagree with, but it's not a disqualifying sin.

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It's not something that has disqualified a person from entering the kingdom of God. These are tertiary issues, again, that we're talking about here.

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They're non -essential matters. They don't have anything to do with a person's salvation. In this particular case, the one who passes judgment here in the context of Romans 14 is regarded as the person who is weaker in conscience, weaker in faith.

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This goes back to Romans 14, as for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions.

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And the one who abstains from eating certain foods, believing them to be unclean, passes judgment on the one who eats that food, which

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Paul discouraged back in verse 3, starting at the beginning of this chapter. He says, let not the one who abstains from eating those certain foods that they've determined in their conscience are unclean, let them not abstain, or I'm sorry, let them who abstain not pass judgment on the one who eats, for God is welcome to the one who eats.

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By the way, this is like the whole Hebrew roots movement. They have reinstituted the dietary laws in Leviticus chapter 11, and they have said that if you want to be a good

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Christian, then you must keep these laws. Their belief is not that Christ fulfilled the

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Mosaic covenant, but rather that he renewed and expanded it. That is a completely different outlook on what

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Jesus meant when he said in Matthew chapter five, I have not come to abolish the law and the prophets, but to fulfill them.

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And so they've taken that the Hebrew roots movement has taken that to mean that, uh, that we have to do all the dietary laws.

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We have to keep the holy days. And if you want to be a good Christian, then you must do these things for Jesus was a

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Jew and he did them. So to be a good Christian, you must do them as well. So this is one who passes judgment on one who does not partake in these things.

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And by the way, the Hebrew roots movement is heresy. That's problematic enough, but there are other, uh, beliefs within the movement that do reject some essential doctrines.

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There's a, a very popular channel on YouTube called unlearn. It's unlearn the lies it's hosted by Lex Meyer.

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And when I first critiqued that channel, what had more views than unlearn.

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But since my critique of the videos that Lex Meyer puts out, uh, the unlearn the lies channel has since surpassed what with more views, there's a huge following on YouTube, on social media among Hebrew roots guys, and some huge websites that, uh,

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I remember when they were just kind of startups, when people were kind of on the fringes with this kind of stuff.

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And it's a major movement now with the Hebrew roots nonsense. So they sow division. That's what they do.

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And they are the picture of this one who passes judgment on another, uh, now the problems with the movement, as I said, go way deeper than that.

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Just a simple reading of the book of Galatians or the book of Hebrews would easily undo any of the major arguments that are made by the

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Hebrew roots guy. So if you want to be very familiar with how to respond to that stuff, I would tell you to get really familiar with Galatians and Hebrews first, and then you can, uh, then you can respond to some of the particulars of their movement.

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They're passing judgment on others. And Paul says here not to 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.

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Paul says in 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 unclean.

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Now here he's talking about matters of conscience. A person has decided in their conscience, this food is unclean.

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Let's just take pork, for example, and applying this to food, because that's the context that Paul is talking about here.

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So let's just narrow it down to one food. Let's say pork is unclean, so you shouldn't eat pork.

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And he says, this is a matter of conscience. A person has decided in their heart they cannot eat pork because they think it's unclean.

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For the Jew, it was according to the dietary laws in Leviticus 11. For a

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Gentile, it was because he saw the pork being sacrificed to a false God in the temple. So therefore the pork is unclean since it was submitted to a pagan deity, which of course is not really a

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God at all. Therefore, to eat it would be to partake in idolatry, so I can't eat pork. So you have the

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Jew who is weaker in faith and a Gentile who is weaker in faith, who both have decided that they can't eat pork since it would be defiling their conscience.

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This is a personal decision here. Paul approaches this a completely different way when it comes to teachers who teach this.

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Right? So there's a difference between the individual who has decided in their conscience that this is unclean and I cannot partake versus the person who's actually teaching that it's unclean.

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Listen to what he says to Timothy in 1 Timothy 4, starting in verse 1. Now, the spirit expressly says that in later times, some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and the teachings of demons through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared, who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth.

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Do you get that? So it is the it is the teaching of demons to forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth.

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Now that Roman Catholicism does both, by the way, they forbid marriage and they require abstinence from foods.

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You have dietary laws in the Catholic system, plus it is it is forbidden for their priests to marry.

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So there you have in first Peter four, three, a condemnation of two major doctrines that are practiced and imposed by the

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Roman Catholic Church. But anyway, so forbidding marriage, requiring abstinence from foods. And again, this comes from those teachers.

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They devoted themselves to the deceitful spirits and teachings of demons through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared.

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This is a demonic teaching that is coming through a liar with a seared conscience who tells people they tell people and they say this in the name of God.

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But it is a demonic teaching. They will require abstinence from food.

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So if you've got a teacher in the church that is requiring people to abstain from food and requiring it to the level of if you if you eat this food, you're doing something wicked.

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You're doing something sinful. You may even cut yourself off from the faith if you continue this way.

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That may be the insistence behind this particular teaching. That is something demonic,

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Paul says. So notice the distinction between the one who teaches it and the one who personally has decided in their conscience that they cannot eat it.

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It's one thing for a person to decide for themselves that they can't partake. It's something else entirely for a teacher to require abstinence from that food in order to be a good

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Christian or grow in sanctification, whatever the requirement might be, which God does not require.

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There is no requirement in scripture. So you cannot bind the conscience of a person to something that God has not bound the conscience to.

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That's demonic to do that. Be aware of that, because there's some other ways that this will apply as well.

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We're sticking with food for now, because that's the context of what Paul is talking about in Romans 14. But there are other ways where a teacher may bind a person to something that God does not require.

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That is a demonic teaching there. And this is not unusual, by the way. Even if we're talking about the context of food, this is not unusual to find even among Protestants, even within evangelicalism.

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Rick Warren, for example, has taught that a Christian should not eat pork.

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Now, I don't want to take what he has said to the length of saying that Rick Warren has required that you must not eat pork, that a

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Christian cannot eat pork. I don't know that he's gone that far with it, but I know that he said it is not good to eat pork and that pork is like the most unhealthy of meats or something like that.

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It's all in his Daniel diet stuff. That's where he that's where he talks about this. So so it's not good for a

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Christian to eat pork because it's an unclean meat. He doesn't necessarily go the Leviticus 11 route of saying it's a forbidden food and you cannot eat it.

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But I know that he's taught that Joel Osteen, by the way, has said the same thing. And I heard him say this in a sermon, and I wish

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I had kept it because there has been occasions where I've wanted to play that Joel Osteen has stood before his church and said that God has said you cannot eat pork.

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And it's interesting that he doesn't really put a condemnation on many things at all.

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Like you don't hear Joel confront sin. Osteen doesn't do that.

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It's it's all your best life now. God loves your wonderful, beautiful, perfect face. So why do you look at yourself in the mirror and think you're ugly when

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God thinks you're beautiful? You know, that's that's kind of the extent of Osteen sermons. I remember a period of time where I was studying

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Osteen and just like, what's wrong with this guy? Why do so many people slam him? And I listen to like five to seven sermons in a row.

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And I think it was either all on the same day or I did it two days in a row. I want to say I just listen to one sermon after the next.

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And one of the things I noticed about these sermons is they were exactly the same. He may have adjusted terminology and stuff like that from one sermon to the next, but it was all the same stuff.

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There were some phrases he was even using over and over and over again. Never read one of his books.

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I think I went through part of your best life now just because that was so controversial at the time that it came out.

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But I've never read any of the other ones. And and I can't imagine the books are any different either.

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They've got to be all the same book. He's just he's got to put out a new book so that, hey, cash that check, keep that money rolling in, capitalize on that Osteen name.

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So anyway, Joel Osteen does not really confront sin. And you've probably seen the clips of him saying things like, well,

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I don't have to tell people that because they already know they already know they're sinners. They already know what sin is.

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No, the Bible tells us that a man is right in his own eyes. So it is through the hearing of the law that every mouth is stopped, as it says in in Romans 3, 20, 19 and 20, that that the mouth is stopped, that the man cannot praise his own goodness anymore when he hears in the law that he has broken

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God's standards, is a sinner and is worthy of death and judgment and the wrath of God.

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It is through the word of God that we hear that our eyes are open to our own sinful depravity and and God's glory is revealed to us, his holiness and perfection revealed in the face of Jesus Christ, in whom the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.

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Anyway, that's all just to say it's very interesting that Osteen, a guy who doesn't confront sin, has said that you shouldn't eat pork.

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And God has said that you should not eat pork. This is this is demonic to prevent people from eating certain foods when

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God has said they are to be received with Thanksgiving. Paul goes on in first Timothy, four, four to say, for everything created by God is good and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with Thanksgiving, for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer.

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And we know that Jesus said in Mark, chapter seven, he declared all foods clean in the vision that he gave to Peter in Acts, chapter 10, all foods declared clean.

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And you have Paul in Colossians 2, 16 and in other places saying, let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a

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Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.

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Don't let anybody pass judgment on you saying that you cannot eat this food. You must eat this food in order to be a good

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Christian, in order to be holy. Jesus pointed out in Mark, chapter seven, the food that you eat does not make you unclean.

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It goes into the stomach and is expelled. Because the Mosaic law has been fulfilled, the

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Mosaic covenant rather has been fulfilled. Then we go back to you just think about the the

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Noahic covenant that God made in Genesis nine before the Levitical law was ever given.

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And what did God say about food that he was giving to Noah and his family after they left the ark?

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And you have the earth being repopulated following the destruction of the flood. The Lord said this in Genesis nine, starting in verse one, and God blessed

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Noah and his sons and said to them, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.

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The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth and upon every bird of the heavens, upon everything that creeps on the ground and all the fish of the sea into your hand.

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They are delivered. Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you.

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And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything. But you shall not eat flesh with its life.

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That is its blood. And for your lifeblood, I will require a reckoning from every beast.

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I will require it. And from man, from his fellow man, I will require a reckoning for the life of man.

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Whoever sheds the blood of man by man shall his blood be shed for God made man in his own image and you be fruitful and multiply, increase greatly on the earth and multiply in it.

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So notice there and you can hear it within the context. It doesn't need too much explanation to know what

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God is saying. Every single creature that lives, God has given to Noah and his family and their descendants for food.

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The dietary laws did not come about until Leviticus 11. And then they were ceremonial in nature, fulfilled in Christ, who declared all foods clean and said to Peter not to declare any food unclean.

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And then he goes in, preaches to the Gentiles the story of him going to Cornelius's house. They're in Acts chapter 10.

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And then you have several statements from the apostle Paul throughout his epistles talking about let no one pass judgment on you with regards to food and drink that nothing is unclean unless he thinks it is unclean.

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But it is to be received with thanksgiving and because the word of God has said that it is clean.

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So the there was a time where every beast on the earth was food until the

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Levitical law was given. And you had ceremonial laws that were put in place. So how is it that somebody who holds to dietary laws like you have in Leviticus 11, how do they translate something like Genesis nine?

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Well, they say this is what they try to say is that the Noahic covenant was

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God giving to Noah only those foods, only those animals for food that are clarified in Leviticus 11, because they'll say those animals that are unclean are actually not food.

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So where God says, I give you everything for food, it's only those animals that are listed in Leviticus 11.

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But that's absurd because that's not what Genesis nine says. It says that every beast of the earth and every bird of the heavens, everything that creeps on the ground and all the fish of the sea into your hand, they are delivered.

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Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. What about that statement?

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But you shall not eat flesh with its life that is its blood, meaning you cannot eat an animal while it's still alive.

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You must kill the animal and cook it. That's that's what's being said there, because the pagans will eat living animals, believing that they are receiving a life essence from the blood of that animal.

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That's a pagan practice that like I receive the power of this life when I consume it while it is alive.

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That's what God is discouraging. You're not going to have anything to do with what the pagans are going to do with with animals.

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You can cook the animal and you can eat it. And there is nothing that is unclean for you. Again, it wasn't until ceremonial laws were put in place through the

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Mosaic covenant that you had certain foods declared clean and others declared unclean.

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But then Jesus says all foods are clean. And he says that you're not made unclean by anything that you eat.

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It just goes into your stomach and is expelled. And then, of course, that's expounded upon in the epistles that come after that.

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So all of that to say there is no food for us that is unclean and you are not made less holy by what you eat or what you don't eat, nor are you made more holy by what you eat and what you don't eat.

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Our our food is spiritual food. It is the word of Christ that we feed upon and grow as a result of what

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Jesus said, what his prophets and apostles have said and growing in this, in our knowledge of it, in our practice of it, as we commit our bodies unto the

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Lord as holy and living sacrifices. This is our spiritual act of worship.

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Again, back to Romans 12 one. So we do not pass judgment on one another with regards to these things, nor do we put a hindrance in front of a brother.

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We don't flaunt our Christian liberty in front of somebody else. And I'm going to come back to this again tomorrow because we've mainly just focused on do not pass judgment on one another any longer.

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But I want to come back to this tomorrow and and kind of expound a little bit more on do not put a stumbling block or a hindrance in the way of a brother.

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For now, let's conclude with prayer. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your goodness and all the wonderful good things that you have given to us.

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And if there is anything good, anything praiseworthy, let us think about these things which you have said is good.

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You've given all of this to us that we may experience the joy and the blessing of God and help us to receive these things with thanksgiving, not causing divisions with one another over this stuff that that God has given us to be enjoyed.

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The food that we eat and what we drink, it's but a small taste of the glory that awaits us in Christ Jesus, in his eternal kingdom, when we will all partake together in the wedding feast of the

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Lamb and be with God in eternity. Help keep our eyes on those days, focus on eternity and not be so caught up with those things that are transient and are passing away.

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But we rejoice and encourage one another in that which is eternal. It's in Jesus name that we pray.

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Amen. Pastor Gabe keeps a regular blog sharing personal thoughts, alerting readers to false teachers, and offering commentary on the church and social issues.

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You can find a link to the blog through our website, www .utt .com. Thank you for listening and join us again tomorrow as we continue our study in God's Word, when we understand the text.