Address—C. Hendricks
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Please turn with me to Romans 14 and verse 1. Romans 14 and verse one him that is weak in the faith receive ye, but not to doubtful disputation. For one believeth that he may eat all things, another who is weak.
Edith urge, Let not him that Edith despise him that eateth not, and let not him which Edith not judge him that eateth. For God hath received him. Who art thou that judges another man's servant to his own master? He standeth or falleth, yeah, he shall beholden up.
For God is able to make him stand. One man esteemeth one day above another. Another esteemeth every day alike.
Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind. He that regardeth the day regardeth it unto the Lord, and he that regardeth not the day to the Lord he does not regard it. He that eateth, eateth to the Lord, for he giveth God thanks, and he that eateth not to the Lord, he eateth not and giveth God thanks. For none of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself. For whether we live, we live unto the Lord, and whether we die, we die.
Unto the Lord, whether we live therefore or die, we are the Lord's. For to this end Christ both died, and rose, and revived, that he might be Lord both of the dead and living.
But why does thou judge thy brother? Or why does thou said it not thy brother? For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ.
For it is written as I live, saith the Lord. Every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God.
Let us not therefore, judge one another anymore.
But judge this rather that no man put a stumbling block or an occasion to fall in his brother's way. I know and am persuaded.
By the Lord Jesus, that there is nothing unclean of itself, but to him that esteemeth anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean. But if thy brother be grieved with thy meat, now walkest thou not charitably?
Destroy not him with thy meat for whom Christ died.
Let not then your good, the evil spoken of, For the Kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. For he that in these things serveth Christ is acceptable to God and approved of men.
Let us therefore follow after the things which make for peace, and things wherewith one may edify another.
For meat destroy not the work of God. All things indeed are pure, but it is evil for that man who eateth with offense.
It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor anything whereby thy brother stumbleth, or is offended, or is made weak. Hast thou faith? Have it to thyself before God. Happy is he that condemneth not himself in that thing which he alloweth, and he that doubteth is damned or judged if he eats, because he eateth not of faith.
For whatsoever is not of faith is sin. We then that are strong, ought to bear the infirmities of the weak.
Cannot to please ourselves. Let everyone of us please his neighbor for his good to edification.
For even Christ pleased not himself, but as it is written, the reproaches of them that reproach thee.
Fell on me.
For whatsoever things were written before time were written for our learning, that we, through patience and comfort of the scriptures, might have hope.
Now the God of patience and consolation grant you to be like minded one toward another.
According to Christ Jesus, that she may with one mind and one mouth, glorify God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Wherefore receive you one another, as Christ also received us to the glory of God.
I read the seven verses in the 15th chapter because they properly belong with the 14th chapter. It's that whole subject. You notice in verse 1 of chapter 14 it says him that is weak in the faith receive ye, and verse 7 of 15 says Wherefore receive ye one another.
As Christ also received us to the glory of God.
Turn back for a moment as background for this chapter so we can understand it.
To Acts 15.
Where the subject came up of men from Judea going.
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Down to.
To the Gentiles and teaching them that except they be circumcised.
And after the manner of Moses, he cannot be saved.
Verse 5 it says there rose up certain and have the sect of the Pharisees which believe, saying that it was necessary needful to circumcise them, and to command them to keep the law of Moses.
And they made a decision and they decided that.
They were not to be put under the law, the Gentiles verse 19 of chapter 15 says, Wherefore my sentence is that we trouble not them, which from among the Gentiles are turned to God.
But that we write unto them, that they abstained from pollutions of idols, and from fornication, and from things strangled.
And from blood.
So the Gentiles were not to be placed under law.
And then if you go to the 21St chapter of Acts.
When Paul was at Jerusalem.
I'll just read a few verses there in verse 17 of Acts 21. And when we were come to Jerusalem, the brethren received us gladly. And the day following Paul went in with us unto James, and all the elders were present. James was the one that made the final pronouncement in Acts 15 not to put the Gentiles under law.
And when he had saluted them, he declared particularly what things God had brought among the Gentiles by his ministry.
Now notice verse 20. And when they heard it, they glorified the Lord, and said unto him, Thou seest brother, how many thousands of Jews there are which believe, and they are all zealous of the law.
And in verse 25 he says as touching the Gentiles, which believe we have written and concluded that they observe no such thing as the law, save only that they keep themselves from things offered to idols, and from blood, and from strangled, and from fornication.
Now the reason I read those passages.
Has background for Romans 14.
Is because they bring before us that after the decision in Acts 15 that the Gentiles were not to be placed under law.
We saw from Acts 21 That the Jews there at Jerusalem were still under the law. They were all zealous of the law.
And.
So what? What did we have? We had a very anomalous state of things in the early church. The early church began with the Jews.
And then the Gentiles were brought in.
And.
We had a Jewish.
The Jewish part of the church which was under law Gentile part of the church which was not.
Now that state of things could not continue. God bore with the Jews for a long while.
But what we have in Romans 14 is.
Instruction on how to handle that kind of a situation. Now we know what it is. Every assembly knows what it is. The the problem that we have of getting along together in peace and unity. And we're all Gentiles. I don't know of any Jews that are here. We're all Gentiles. But think of the problem that they would have in those early days when part of the church would be Jewish.
Under law.
Part of the church, Gentiles not under law. How were they possibly going to get on together?
That's background for this chapter. Now verse one, him that is weak in the faith. Now who is that? Well that was probably the Jew who came to faith in Christ still under the ******* of the law, still under the ceremonial observances of the law still.
One that would not eat certain meats because they were unclean and other meats were, according to the law, acceptable and in the in the Sea World the only.
Fish that the Jew was allowed to eat was one that had fins and scales.
They couldn't eat. They couldn't eat many of the other things that we eat, like shrimp and lobster and crabs and things like that. Those were unclean to the Jew. And then there were many of the fowls that were unclean, others that were clean.
So they had their clean animals and unclean. According to the Jewish system, a clean animal had to divide the hoof and it had to chew the cut those two things, and if it didn't do either one of those, it was unclean.
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So the.
The Jew wouldn't eat pork, wouldn't eat ham.
And other foods that to them were unclean. He is here designated as being weak in the faith. That is, he hasn't come to the full understanding of the liberty of grace. He hasn't come to the full understanding of the liberty that we have now in Christ. Now the apostle Paul was one who was just like that. He says in Philippians 3 touching the righteousness in the law. He was blameless. That is he he kept perfectly.
As far as a human being can keep it, the ceremonial observances of the Law, He kept those things. You remember Peter had to be taught in a vision three times. He saw the sheet and he was up on the housetop praying. In Acts 10, he saw this sheet. God was about to bring the Gentiles in. He was going to use Peter to do it. He had used Peter to bring the Jews in in Acts 2. This is Acts 10, and the Gentiles were going to be brought in. He used him, Peter and John.
8 With the Samaritans to be brought in, which were a mixture of Jews and Gentiles, but now an accident, it's all Gentiles. And Cornelius is communicated with by God, and he's instructed to send for Peter. And while these men were going from Cornelius house to Peter, where Peter was staying, Peter is up on the housetop and he sees this vision, this sheet filled with all kinds of animals. Some were clean and some were unclean to the Jew. And the word was.
Rise, Peter, slay and eat. And he said, not so, Lord, I've never eaten anything common or unclean. And then God says, what God hath cleansed that call not thou common. And this happened three times. He used that to teach Peter that he was going to bring in the unclean Gentile dogs into a place of blessing. And after Acts 10, we don't have time to go through it, but after Acts 10 in Chapter 11 when he went back to Jerusalem.
Peter did, they took him to task and said, Thou wentest into men who were uncircumcised, and it's eat with them. That was forbidden to the Jew, But Peter did that, and he preached the gospel to them in the household, Cornelius. And when he said to him, Give all the prophets, witness that through his name whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins.
As soon as he testified to the forgiveness of sins through faith in Christ, the Holy Spirit was poured out upon these Gentiles and they spoke with tongues.
And the Jews that accompanied with Peter were amazed that on the Gentiles without support out the gift of the Holy Ghost.
So in Acts 21 we have Gentiles in the church sealed with the Holy Spirit, Jews in the church sealed with the Holy Spirit, Gentiles not under law, Jews under law.
Now Paul was one who was a Jew who was under law Saul of Tarsus, but now he's gotten fully delivered from that and he was the chief exponent of the grace of God in the New Testament. He says in verse 14, for instance, of our chapter, Paul says I know and am persuaded by the Lord Jesus that there is nothing unclean of itself. Now he couldn't have said that as Saul of Tarsus because as Saul of Tarsus he regarded certain.
And foods unclean. But now he says in Christianity, I know and am persuaded by the Lord Jesus, there's nothing unclean of itself. While we're on that point, turn to First Timothy chapter 4.
First Timothy, chapter 4.
And I'll read from verse one. Now the spirit speaketh expressly that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils or demons, speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their conscience seared with a hot iron, forbidding to marry and notice, and commanding to abstain from meats.
Which God hath created, to be received with Thanksgiving. Now those that were commanding.
To abstain from meats were the Judaizers. Those were still under the ******* of the Law and the ceremonial law.
And it says God has created these animals to be received with Thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth. This is Christian truth here. For every creature of God is good and nothing to be refused if it be received with Thanksgiving, for it is sanctified by the word of God in prayer. Again, this is the teaching of Paul to Timothy. He's showing that there are no unclean animals in Christianity.
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Different from Judaism.
Very different.
There's the liberty of grace in Galatians 5, he says, Stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free, and be not entangled again in the yoke of *******. But it took these Jewish believers quite a long time before they got delivered from that yoke of ******* of the law.
How were they going to go on together?
When there was that anomalous state of things, Jewish believers under law, still with scruples, still with.
A conscience against eating certain foods and the the gentile who had never been under law at full liberty to eat at all.
And then a liberated Jew like the Apostle Paul at full liberty to eat it all. All things are lawful.
But then he adds, this is in Corinthians, but all things are not profitable that is. And he explains that in this chapter it might be lawful to eat a certain food, but it may not be profitable on a certain occasion because you might be stumbling your weaker brother. So he starts out this chapter, him that is weak in the faith, that is one who has these Jewish inbred scruples against.
Eating certain foods he's called weak in the faith.
And the instruction is receive him, receive ye, but not to doubtful disputations. That is not to getting into arguments over what is a clean food and what is an unclean food, and arguments over what is profitable to eat. There's one verse that I want to read before we get back here and then I'll think we'll stay in this chapter. It's in Hebrews 13. Hebrews was written to the Jewish believers, that is those who professed faith in Christ to deliver.
Them totally, completely from Judaism and from the law, and from the ******* of the law in Romans, in Hebrews 13.
And verse 8, he says Jesus Christ the same yesterday and today and forever. Have you ever noticed there's no verb in that sentence? You have to say Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever. That makes it complete sentence, but the the verb is left out. It's as though that Paul was going to say something more than that. And having said that, he stopped and as it were says there's nothing more to say Jesus Christ.
The same yesterday, today, and forever. He is the sum total of Christian truth.
Everything is found in him. He is the truth himself.
And then he goes on to say verse 9, Be not carried about with diverse and strange doctrines, for it is a good thing.
That the heart be established with grace.
Not with meats.
Which have not profited them that have been occupied therein.
Now going back to Romans 14, he tells these Jewish Christians in Rome in Hebrews 13 there it's a good thing that the heart be established with grace, not meats.
Now what Romans 14 is taking up are what we would call non essential.
Non.
Vital and fundamental issues.
If you took two, if you look to second John, for instance, where the apostle tells this elect lady and her children, if there come anyone unto you, and does not bring the doctrine of Christ, that is the truth of his person. Don't receive him into your house. Don't bid him Godspeed.
For he that did him, Godspeed is a partaker of his evil deeds. Now that's what we call fundamental truth. And there's not to be given any leeway to anyone that doesn't bring the full doctrine of Christ. He's not to be considered given the cordiality of a Christian.
But that's not what this is. This chapter is not about that. This is about things which are non vital and non essential matters. Ceremonial matters.
He says in verse 17 of our chapter, the Kingdom of God is not meat and drink. It does not consist in getting occupied with what we should eat or what we should drink.
But it is moral things, righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. We'll come to that.
So he starts out him that is weak in the faith that is a a legal.
Christian. Maybe he's not even a Jew, maybe he's a Gentile, but he's legal.
And he has his do's and don'ts.
You can't do this and you can't do that. And this is this is Judaism.
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And Christianity is liberty. Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty. Liberty, not *******.
Verse 2 Says for one believeth that he may eat all things. That would be the liberated Christian. He realizes that in grace and under grace we're not under law, we're under grace. All things are pure, all things are clean, and God has given us all things richly to enjoy.
So it says 1 believeth that he may eat all things another who is weak. That's the legalist, that's probably the Jew that still has these Jewish.
Scruples.
He eats herbs because you remember Daniel was a faithful Jew and he would not eat Nebuchadnezzar fair. He would not eat his food because he was serving him meat that was unclean as a Jew. So he agreed with the one that was caring for them, these Hebrew youths, and they ate pulse or vegetables.
And.
That was what they were allowed to eat and not the King's dainties because they were Jews and it would be defiling for a Jew to eat the meat that Nebuchadnezzar was serving. It is not defiling for a Christian to eat the meat that never caneser was serving.
There is nothing unclean in Christianity as far as foods go.
Now, this is not a course in health. I'm not saying that there aren't some foods you can put in your mouth that are not healthy for you. There's nothing to do with health. This has to do with ceremonial defilement.
There is nothing that is not clean. The doctrine in verse 20 is all things indeed are pure. Now that's Christian truth. All things are pure. And as he says in verse 14, there is nothing unclean of itself. That's not what he would have said as a Jew, but he speaks as a Christian, as one whom grace has set free. Well, how are we to conduct ourselves?
When an assembly is composed of Jews and Christians, some that have these Jewish scruples that won't eat certain foods, and we had a fellowship meal together, the food that was present, but probably some of it to the Jew would have been unclean. Maybe not, I'm not sure. I don't know if there was any pork there. If there was pork there, it's unclean, unclean. There was any shrimp there would have been unclean, and so on.
But.
So if you invited someone in these early days and you were a gentile, you were saved and you invited your Jewish brother over brother and sister.
What were you going to serve them? Well, you could force their conscience and say, I'm going to see if they're if they're really liberated by grace and understand what Christianity is. I'll serve, import and see if they'll eat it.
Or you could not do that, you could not force their conscience. And that's the purpose of the teaching of this chapter, not to do that. So it says him that is weak in the faith receive. You just receive them as they are. Every one of us is in a certain stage of growth in the spiritual family of God and we all have different measures of understanding of grace.
And we all have some biases and prejudices that we came along with whatever group we came out of if we were in another Christian group.
We might have been influenced adversely and wrongly and wrongly taught even. Every one of us has a background and we're all different. Amazing that we can walk together in peace. How do we do that? By grace. By grace. It's the only way that we can go on together.
When there are differences and legitimate differences.
And this is what he's taking up. He's taking up in this chapter legitimate differences. And the point is, if you see your liberty in Christ.
Don't despise your legal brother that won't eat this food.
You know you're free to do it, but he's under, He has scruples against it and he won't do it. Don't, don't despise him. And then he says to the legalist, don't you judge your Gentile brother that it's free? How can he, How can he eat that food that's unclean?
That would be your thought if you were a Jew.
And this is the instruction we get.
Verse three. Let not him that eateth that's the liberated Christian, despise him that eateth not, that would be the one that's under the ******* of the law still. And let not him which eateth not the Jew.
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Judge him that eateth, for God hath received him. And there is the principle that is so wonderful.
God has received him, so we are to receive one another on the principle that God has used in receiving us, whether we had a Jewish background or a Gentile background, under law or not under law. God received me. God received me.
Jew, Gentile. And so we are to receive one another on that same principle. That's the way we get along in the things of God. God hath received him. Verse four. And then it says, anticipating that there would be judgments formed. Who art thou that judges another man's servant? To his own master He standeth or folleth.
Yeah, he shall be holding up, for God is able to make him stand.
That verse always reminds me of an incident in my life as a young Christian. I was extremely legal.
Do we have any legalists in the room here this afternoon? I think we might. I was very legal. Now I remember an article I read. I was with the KLC at the time and I read this article put out by the the magazine, their monthly magazine. And I thought that a particular article in the magazine was not a good one. And I wrote to the editor and I told him so.
I told him so in no uncertain terms, but I thought it was how can you do that? How can you put such an article in your paper? I have no idea what the article was about today. I don't remember that. The only thing I remember his his answer to me, and he gave me a scripture. I don't remember anything else he wrote, but I remember his answer. Who art thou that judges another man's servant?
To his own master he standeth or falleth, yeah, he shall beholden up, for God is able to make him stand. I can't ever read that verse without thinking of that incident, because that verse came home to me in such dynamic power that I was thoroughly rebuked.
Now I may have been right in what I was presenting to him, I don't know, but my spirit was not Christ.
I did not deal with that in a Christian spirit at all. It was a very legal, hard kind of thing. And that's the verse he sent me back. He was certainly led of the Lord to send it because it was very powerful.
Now he goes on to say one man esteemeth one day above another. Now he's talking about days and and not just meats and that he's talking about days. Well, just imagine the Jew getting getting along with the Gentile in in Judaism, they had every Sabbath was a holy day. They weren't to work on the Sabbath day. You're a Jewish Christian and you've just gotten saved and come into Christianity and right next door to you is a Gentile Christian.
The same fellowship and so on. And you lookout your window on Saturday, Sabbath day, and he's mowing his lawn.
How can he do that?
This is a holy day. He's not observing the Sabbath.
One man esteemeth one day above another. That's the Jew. They had all the kinds of days, holy days that they observed in Christendom. We also have the observance of days starting at the Roman Catholic Church that has many, many days and going down to the very.
Smallest, you might say, Protestant body. They might just have two days. And he deplored the commercialism of the day and the way it was used in a commercial way and the drunkenness and debauchery and all that. He deplored that, but he really felt that that day was special.
And he observed it as such, and he did it with a good conscience, had learned this, the origin of Christmas, and it was a Pagan holiday and so on. It really isn't the day when Christ was born at all and how that had been taken. This Pagan holiday had been taken over and the Christian veneer had been put over it. And so I didn't observe it.
And I didn't care for the one that did. Well, my spirit was wrong too towards my father-in-law in that case.
Well what he's saying here is be tolerant towards those that may have a different view on some of these non essential things.
You know, most of the problems that we have in our getting along together are over non essential things.
We generally agree with the essential things. We agree on the truth of the person and work of Christ. We agree on all that. We don't give to to to someone that's in the error on that, but it's the nonessential things.
That we have our problems with, and that's what he's dealing with. One man esteemeth one day above another.
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That would be the legalist, the weak brother another esteemeth everyday alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind. That's what he's saying. Give your weak brother room to grow in grace, Peter says. But grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The more we learn of him who was full of grace and truth, the more we'll grow in grace.
He's the one that as we're occupied with him, we grow in grace because he's the man of grace.
For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for our sakes he became poor, that we through his poverty might be rich, the grace that was in him. They marveled at the gracious words that proceeded out of his mouth.
The more we learn of Him and the more we become like Him, we will grow in grace and then these legal things that we once put so much importance to will assume their proper character to us and will realize, well, I was wrong. Verse 6 He that regardeth the day that would be like my father-in-law. He regarded it unto the Lord and he did he did it with a good conscience. He wanted to honor the Lord Jesus and the Lord looks.
Into the heart and sees what the the motive is for why I'm doing what I'm doing.
And he had a good motive and he that regardeth not the day to the Lord, he does not regard it. And when he looked into my heart and I didn't regard it, he saw I had a good motive. I was doing it out of conviction. He was doing it out of conviction. We didn't agree, but you don't have to on these non essential things that is there. There's room for growth and understanding.
And we have to leave that to the Lord to workout in each of our hearts. Middle of verse 6 he that Edith, Edith to the Lord, for he giveth God thanks, and he that eateth not the one that refuses to eat a certain food.
To the Lord, he eateth not and giveth God thanks. See, it's supposing that the one who does what he's doing, whether he's eating or an observing days and or not observing days, and the one who's not eating and observing holy days, he's doing it to the Lord. For none of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself. That is, we're not here just to please ourselves, we're here to please him.
He's the one we're seeking to please. I always think of a chapter Brown used to tell us of a division that came about among a group of Mennonites. I think it was there was the the hook and I Brethren and there were the buttonhole brethren. And for this is real, they had a division. Some used hook and eyes to fasten their clothes together and others used button holes and and they divided over that. That's what Romans 14 is about. It's that kind of thing, something that is not essential at all.
I know a story of two young brothers. I know both of them. They're both with us still. They were back in their 20s. And this one young brother, he wore a bright red tie to the breaking of bread. And they were walking down the street And the one brother said to him, he said that that red tie you are wearing offends me. And the other brother didn't say a word. They were walking along and they came to A to a light pole.
And he took his tie off and he wrapped it around the light pole and went on his way.
In other words, if that offends you, brother, I'll get rid of it. It doesn't matter to me, he could have said.
I don't like those shoes you're wearing either. In other words, he could have responded in kind, but he didn't do that.
He acted in grace, and that's what Paul is teaching us here. None of us live it to himself. No man dieth to himself. You live to the Lord. You do what you do because of a conviction in your own soul that you want to please the Lord.
I remember when Ethel ruled, she told me this personally. Her father was Harry Hayhoe. Some of you know of him.
Gordon's father.
And Ethel is Gordon's sister Shasta daddy.
When she was a young girl, she said, Daddy, how long is long hair?
She didn't want it any longer than she could get away with.
I guess. And she wanted him to say, well, if it's as long as your shoulders, that's OK. That's that's long here.
But he didn't say that, he said. He said that, my dear, is a matter of spiritual discernment. And she said that made me so angry. She wanted to hear something specific.
But Christianity isn't written that way when you talk about women's dress. Now, I don't know of any scriptures too much in the New Testament to speak of how men dress, but the lot speaks of how women dress. It doesn't get into the specific. It doesn't say, for instance.
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Women should not wear pants, but it says, doesn't say that men should not wear skirts either. And there are countries, you know, where men wear skirts. And there are countries where women, well, I let them live in farm country and.
When the sisters workout in the fields, they have.
Loose fitting slacks on it doesn't say doesn't give you the specifics, the Old Testament does.
It gives the specifics, but we're not under law, we're under grace. It says that a woman of deportment should be modest, it should be becoming. It should not be provocative. That is, you should a woman should not. A Christian woman should not dress so as to stir up fleshly lusts in the man.
And in the world, women dressed that way all the time. They dress to.
To entice the man to lust after them. That is not a Christian. Who does that shouldn't be. But it doesn't get into the specifics. It just says modesty.
Modesty and a sister should ask herself, She stands before a mirror and she's dressed and go out. Am I dressed in such a way as not to draw attention to myself?
And not to provoke lust in the opposite sex. That would be a good exercise to have when we shop.
When we buy our clothes.
Whatever we do when we buy the food that we eat.
We have to answer to the Lord for what we do and how we do it. So he says in verse 8, whether we live, we live unto the Lord.
And whether we die, we die unto the Lord. Whether we live therefore or die, we are the Lords.
For to this end Christ both died, and rose and revived, that he might be Lord both of the dead and living.
Then he says in verse 10, Why dost thou judge thy brother?
Or why does thou set it not thy brother? For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ. For it is written as I live, sayeth the Lord, Every knee shall bow to me.
And every tongue shall confess to God, so then everyone of us shall give account of himself.
To God.
That would be a good exercise for each one of us when we go shopping.
Sightseeing it might be. Are we doing it to please ourselves? Are we buying things for ourselves? Or are we doing it as before? The Lord? We're going to give account, each of us, to the Lord. He won't give an account to me. I won't give an account to you, but to the Lord for what we do, for what we allow in our life, what we don't allow in our life. And there might be something that I didn't allow when I was.
Legal that I allow today.
Take for instance, while we come. We'll come to that in a moment. He says in verse 21, It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor anything whereby thy brother stumbleth, or is offended, or is made weak. He comes to the grand principle of.
Not insisting on our rights. We can even use the liberty of grace in a legal way. We can even use I have a right to do this. I have a right to eat this food. I'm going to do it. And in so doing it, I stumble my weak brother.
That's not Christ.
That self.
Well, let's go on.
Everyone of us should give account of himself to God. Verse 13. Let us not therefore judge one another anymore. Now he says, I know you're so prone to judge and we all are. So he says, I'll give you something to judge, but judge this rather that no man put a stumbling block or an occasion to fall in his brother's way. If you want to judge, judge that. Don't stumble your brother, don't stumble your weak brother. Don't flaunt your liberty in Christ, your freedom to eat this food when you know that.
It's going to cause him a problem.
You invite someone over, you're a gentile. You invite a Jew over and you serve and you eat pork in front of him. You don't insist that he eat it. You say you can eat something else, you can eat vegetables or whatever, but.
You are you're causing him a problem and especially if you offer him some and he might feel well I I don't want to say no to my host so I'll eat it. And in so doing he has a bad conscience about it.
So by your your liberty that you have, which is perfectly proper in itself, but to use that in that situation stumbles your weak brother.
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And that's what he says here.
He says I know.
Verse 14 and am persuaded by the Lord Jesus that there is nothing unclean of itself. That is Christian doctrine.
But to him that esteemeth anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean. So I know it's clean. He doesn't. He still has a scruple against it because of the way he was brought up and taught. And I force his conscience and I can damage him. Notice what it says in verse 15. It's unclean to him. But if thy brother be grieved with thy mate, now walk us, thou not charitably, you're not walking as Christ.
Christ didn't please himself. He didn't seek to make a non essential item such as meat or drink a test for fellowship.
Do we ever do that? Yes, we do.
Sometimes we do by we, I'm thinking of the whole family of God, react that way sometimes. But I'd rather be grieved with thy meat. You have liberty to do it. You do it. And he's grieved as he sees you doing that. He has a conscience against it, a sincere conscience. He hasn't grown enough to see that he's freed from that, but you have. And yet you do it in front of him. And that might be damaging. In fact, it says.
The end of verse 15. Destroy not him with thy meat for whom Christ died. That's strong language.
Can you destroy him? I remember when I was a young brother.
I said before I was very legal when it was.
I used to witness to this man at work, this young engineer that worked with me.
And one Monday morning came to work and he sought me out right away and he said I got saved last night. You did wonderful.
You're saved now.
That I made a terrible mistake. Now that you're saved, you can't go to the movies anymore. You can't do this, you can't do that. And he backed off. And every time he saw me after that, he went the other way. I put him under law.
When he hadn't learned anything, he was just a newborn babe and I was telling him what he could do and what he couldn't do way ahead of the time.
Well, thankfully the good part of that story is we did get together after a while and I ministered Christ to Him and not legality.
And then we had good fellowship together. Verse 15 If thy brother be grieved with thy meat now, walkest thou not charitably destroy not him with thy meat for whom Christ died? Let not then your good, that is your liberty, your freedom, the evil spoken of. For the Kingdom of God is not meat and drink. It does not consist in these ceremonial observances, whether you do them or don't do them, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost, they're moral things.
For he that in these things serveth Christ is acceptable to God.
And approved of men.
Let us therefore follow after the things which make for peace.
And things wherewith one may edify another.
For meat destroy not the work of God for non essential things.
Which would be the category of meat.
Whether I'm wearing a red tie or a brown tie or a blue tie or a black tie, don't destroy.
The work of God, he says, all things are pure, indeed are pure, That's Christian truth. But it is evil for that man who eateth with offence. He eateth and he has a bad conscience. He's stumbling over it and it's evil. And so he says, here's the grand principle of grace. It is good neither to eat flesh nor to drink wine, nor anything whereby thy brother stumbles or is offended, or is made weak. I know Christians, many of them that.
Teetotalers. That means they absolutely regard tasting any liquor, any intoxicating beverage, as absolutely evil. And I'm a as a liberated Christian, all things are pure. I may have perfect liberty to drink a glass of wine the privacy of my home, but then when I'm out in a restaurant in public, I refrain from doing it because I don't want to.
Someone may be observing me and I don't want to give the wrong impression.
So I refrain from it.
But I absolutely refuse the teetotaler's doctrine that it's evil because scripture says it's not evil. Scripture says all things are lawful. And Paul would have been guilty of evil when he said to Timothy, take a little wine for thy stomach's sake and thine often infirmities. And even worse than that, the Lord Jesus would have been guilty of evil in John 2 when he turned the water into wine at the feast of Canaan. And this, this was the best wine that they'd had in the whole feast. And if it was evil to to drink wine, it was evil to make it.
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I know that there are those that try to deny that that was intoxicating, that it was just grape juice. But to take a little grape juice for my stomach's sake and then often infirmities, that's not what Paul was saying. No, he wasn't saying that. And you don't get drunk on grape juice. We can be extremists in many things, but he says it is good neither to eat flesh nor to drink wine, nor anything whereby thy brother Stumbleth are as offended.
Or is made weak. It's not to become an issue.
Not something that will divide the brethren, divide the Saints of God. I know one meeting was divided because there was one brother that that objected to passing the the basket or the plate or the box. So you have a box and he wanted it put at the at the door of the meeting room so that when the Saints passed out, they could put their collection in.
And they had problems over that.
Problems over that kind of a thing. These are non essential.
Matters that should never cause be allowed to cause.
A rift among the Saints again. I'll read it. It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor anything whereby thy brother stumbleth, or is offends me past thou faith. You have faith to do it. You have liberty to do it. Have it to thyself before God. Happy is he that condemneth not himself in that thing which he alloweth as a grand principal what you do and allow. Did you have a good conscience about it? Are you doing it before the Lord? Are you doing it in faith? Go ahead.
Are you?
Doing it with a bad conscience and don't do it. And he that doubted is damned or judged if he eat that is, he has a bad conscience about it, and his own conscience condemns him. He eats this and he feels I shouldn't. And he goes ahead and does it anyway, because he eateth not of faith. That would be the one who's still under the ******* of law. For whatsoever is not a faith is sin. Things that you allow, things that you don't allow.
Is it because you have a conviction before God?
For allowing it or not allowing it.
And that's the important thing. And then he goes on with another principle in chapter 15, he says we then that are strong. That is that no, the the place that grace has sent us, the liberty of grace these that has put us into and we ought to bear the infirmities of the weak.
And not to please ourselves, not to insist on our right to do this or that, but to.
Bear the infirmities of the week to help them grow and to lead them on, and to lead them into maturity in the full understanding of Christian grace and liberty.
Let everyone of us please His neighbor for his good to edification. Instead of pleasing ourselves and doing what gratifies us, we are to be thinking of others. That was the path of Christ, wasn't it? For even Christ please not himself, but as it is written, the reproaches of them, that reproach thee fell on me. He took all the reproaches that went against God, and they fell on him.
And he willingly took those for whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning.
That we, through patience and comfort of the scriptures, might have hope.
Now the God of patience and consolation grant you to be like minded one toward another according to Christ Jesus. That is, we're to have the mind of grace in our dealings with one another. That's how we get on together. I bear with you and what I don't agree with and the way you're going on and you bear with me and what you don't agree with and the way I'm going on, because these are non essential things. Notice in verse 6 that she made with one mind.
And one mouth glorify God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Now we have families here with children and different age groups and that so on. Well, certainly the parents know far more than the youngest child or middle-aged child. Even the youths, they don't know as much as the adults. And yet we this morning when we were around the Lord Jesus, we were praising him and worshiping him with one mouth and one mind. We glorified him. We we had different measures of it, measures of understanding and that.
Yes, that's perfectly proper in the family of God as well as in a human family.
Grace enables us to bear with one another and to seek to lead them on and to encourage them to grow in grace. A meeting that is characterized by the atmosphere of grace.
Is characterized by an atmosphere in which all the flowers in that meeting can grow. If it's characterized by an atmosphere of legality, that atmosphere Wilts the flowers, stifles them, hinders their growth in grace, and it's a very unhealthy atmosphere. And what he's promoting here in these two chapters is grace. Verse 7 grand conclusion. Wherefore receive ye one another. How as Christ also received us to the glory of God.
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He received me with all my prejudices and biases and wrong thoughts and errors. He received me, and he'd done the same with you and with you and each one of us. As Christ has received us for the glory of God, so we can receive one another in grace. It doesn't mean we.
Agree to disagree. No, we should all be growing towards the the perfect man, the one that has the full understanding of the mind of Christ. Before I close, I must turn you to Galatians 4. I must cover this because it's a very important point and it shows how differently the apostle views two different aspects of the same thing.
In Galatians 4 he says in verse 8 he says, howbeit then he's writing to these gentile believers when ye knew not God, that would be a Gentile Christian.
He did service unto them, which by nature are no gods, that is, they were idolaters. They worship false gods. But now after that you have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, where until ye again desire, you desire again to be in *******. You observe days and months and times and years. Now here he's fighting.
These Judaizers that were seeking to Judaize these gentile believers and put them under law.
They were trying to introduce an entire system which would subvert Christian truth.
And Christian doctrine, and he opposes it with all the energy of his Apostolic being. He says in the 1St chapter, If there come any unto you, and preach not this gospel, let him be accursed. Accursed. He says in another place I would they would cut themselves off, which throw you into confusion. That is these Judaizers. So here in Galatians, where he is uncompromisingly firm against the observance of days and months and times and years, which is.
And bringing that into the Christian company as though that is Christianity. You know, you hear on the radio, if you listen to any Christian ministry, you hear the constant error. It's it's almost.
Repeated by all the groups the judeo-christian tradition.
Are the judeo-christian religion? Well, Judaism and Christianity are not the same. Christianity is very different from Judaism and you can believe Judaistic principles. Those are not Christian principles. Judaism was ******* to the law. Christianity is the liberty of grace.
We are not Jews, we are Christians and we should walk in the liberty of Christianity. And the observance of days and months and times and years is not Christianity. That's Judaism, Paul says, I'm afraid of you. They were seeking to subvert the enemy was seeking to subvert Christian truth here in Galatians, but then in Romans. He is, he's he's saying on an individual basis.
Bear with your brother that doesn't see the truth.
Of grace correctly yet.
Bear with him, lead him on, don't force his conscience by your superior knowledge of grace. There's a difference between how we deal with one another on an individual basis and allowing a whole system to come in which would overturn and subvert Christianity. That's what he was fighting against in the Epistle to the Galatians. So no matter. So the same, the same line of things is dealt with very differently depending upon.
The situation.
That had to be dealt with.