Audio file
N205_HIH_061124.mp3
Transcript
00:00:05 Colin Cook
There were Christians in Pauls Day who would naturally go to the food market to buy their meat and vegetables for the dinner that evening or the week, and they'd buy a good cut of meat without a second thought.
00:00:20 Colin Cook
And to go home and cook dinner. Then there were others who went to the market and they had second thoughts because they thought, well, wait a minute. What if this food, this meat here, has been offered to an idol because, you see, they would.
00:00:36 Colin Cook
Offer these choices of meat on the to the idols in Rome, and then they would sell those. Put those meats on the market to sell, and some Christians would be very concerned that those of meat might have been offered to idols.
00:00:56 Colin Cook
And therefore, would that contaminate contaminate?
00:00:59 Colin Cook
A Christians walk with God a Christian's faith. Well, that is what this chapter 14 at the beginning of it anyway, is all about. When Paul says receive one who is weak in faith but not to dispute over doubtful things, for one believes he may eat all things.
00:01:21 Colin Cook
But he who is weak eats only vegetables. Not let not him who eats despise him, who does not eat, and let not him who does not eat, judge him who eats, for God has received them.
00:01:37 Colin Cook
So you see, this is about the different conscience levels of people who have faith in Jesus. Some know that because Christ has taken away the burden of all our sins by taking our condemnation, our judgment upon himself on the cross, we are freed from all.
00:01:57 Colin Cook
Condemnation and the issue of whether a piece of meat has been offered to an idle or not is simply moot. It's irrelevant. It doesn't matter because we are freed from condemnation, but there were others who were not quite sure how far that freedom from condemnation.
00:02:14 Colin Cook
Went and so when they went to uh to buy the meat they uh had to ask is this offered to an idol or not or how do I handle this and they were unsure and then maybe they'd bring some food, some meat home and feel guilty about it and worried about it.
00:02:34 Colin Cook
For many days late.
00:02:38 Colin Cook
This is an issue you see of how we deal with our conscience, and there is a passage in in First Corinthians Chapter 8 where Paul talks about this in more detail. Let's read it and let's note some very interesting things about it.
00:02:56 Colin Cook
He says now concerning things offered to idols.
00:03:02 Colin Cook
We know that we all have knowledge.
00:03:05 Colin Cook
Knowledge puffs up, but love edifies. And if anyone thinks that he knows anything, he knows nothing yet, as he ought to know. But if any one loves God, this one is known by him. Therefore, concerning the eating of things offered to idols, we know that an idol is nothing in the world.
00:03:27 Colin Cook
And that there is no other God but.
00:03:29 Colin Cook
On even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth, as there are many gods and many Lords, yet for us there is one God, the father of whom are all things, and we for him and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom all.
00:03:49 Colin Cook
Are all things and through whom we live.
00:03:53 Colin Cook
However, there is not in everyone that knowledge for some with consciousness of the idol until now eat it as a thing offered to an idle and their conscience being weak is defiled.
00:04:10 Colin Cook
But food does not commend us to God, for neither if we eat are we the better, nor if we do not eat, are we the worse.
00:04:21 Colin Cook
But beware, lest somehow this liberty of yours becomes a stumbling block to those who are weak. For if any one sees you who have knowledge eating in an idle's temple will not the conscience of him who is weak be emboldened to eat those things offered to idols?
00:04:41 Colin Cook
And because of your knowledge, shall the weak brother perish for whom Christ died? But when you thus sin against the brethren, and would we? And would the and wound their faith? I'm sorry, and wound their conscience. You sin against Christ. Therefore, if food makes my brother.
00:05:02 Colin Cook
Stumble. I will never eat any.
00:05:04
Eat.
00:05:05 Colin Cook
Lest I make my brother stumble very, very interesting, uh reasoning here and how we relate to the issues of the world in regard to things that have may ritualistically.
00:05:25 Colin Cook
Condemn us.
00:05:27 Colin Cook
Or make us unclean.
00:05:30 Colin Cook
The whole issue revolves around this fact. There is one God.
00:05:37 Colin Cook
The six, the father of whom are all things, and we for him and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and through whom we live.
00:05:49 Colin Cook
And therefore, because of that one God.
00:05:52 Colin Cook
And because of what Jesus Christ, our one Lord has done for us on the cross, no one is contaminated.
00:06:00 Colin Cook
Did.
00:06:01 Colin Cook
By.
00:06:02 Colin Cook
Meat that is offered to an idol and this I would certainly consider includes the unclean meats that are referred to in the Book of Leviticus versus the Clean Meats. There is no no more now no more any uncleanness in those things because.
00:06:22 Colin Cook
Christ has atoned for all the sins of the world, and in him we are counted as innocent and pure and free and righteous.
00:06:32 Colin Cook
But you see.
00:06:34 Colin Cook
He points out that many do not have that knowledge. That is, they don't have a clear view of what Christ has done for them. There are many, many Christians throughout the United States and Europe who have a very, very much of 1/2 knowledge of the atoning work of Christ. They don't.
00:06:55 Colin Cook
Understand the book of Romans. They don't understand what Christ has done in accounting us righteous even when we're Sinner.
00:07:03 Colin Cook
In justifying us when we are ungodly in, that is Romans 4, verse five in reconciling us to the father, even while we are enemies that Romans 5, verse 10, these truths are simply not sufficiently embedded in their faith.
00:07:21 Colin Cook
Partly because they haven't been taught well, and partly because there is so much emphasis on morality in Christian preaching that one forgets what Christ has done for the immoral life.
00:07:36 Colin Cook
Of all of us.
00:07:38 Colin Cook
And so, because there is that limited knowledge, Paul says we have to be thoughtful and aware of what the weak Christian. That's what he would call the weak Christian does what the weak, weak Christian will feel based upon what we do, I should say.
00:08:00 Colin Cook
There aren't many parallels that I can find in modern Christian situations. This one that I'm about to give may seem a little silly or absurd, but anyway, let's try it. There are certain Christians who are very much offended by Christmas.
00:08:20 Colin Cook
By the buying of a Christmas tree, the buying of ornaments, the celebrating of July of December 25 as Christo's birthday, when we all know it wasn't, and that the Christmas tree was a Pagan symbol in the ancient times.
00:08:37 Colin Cook
And so they will have nothing to do with Christmas or Easter, for that matter.
00:08:43 Colin Cook
But there are other Christians who believe that celebrating Jesus on December 25, there's no harm in it whatsoever, and there's no harm in in rejoicing and and having a lovely Christmas dinner around a Christmas tree, and that there's simply no harm in.
00:09:01 Colin Cook
The ones who believe there's no harm in it. Perhaps we could say, though not necessarily, that they may be solid Christians who believe in the atoning work of Christ, and that a, a, a festival that has that once belonged to paganism but now is celebrated as a Christian.
00:09:21 Colin Cook
Holiday as a celebration of Christ's birth. There's nothing harmful about that, because Christ has atone for the sins of the world and for our sins. And there's no harm.
00:09:33 Colin Cook
But there are others, and they may be considered weak in the faith, who are not convinced of this, and they will not go anywhere near the idea of a Christmas celebration on December 25 or the purchase of a Christmas tree.
00:09:48 Colin Cook
And they are very offended by people by Christians who celebrate the Christmas. So what do we do about that? And quite honest.
00:10:01 Colin Cook
Each man and woman has to decide on his own. If you're a Christian, and if you are, you celebrate December 25 and all your family.
00:10:15 Colin Cook
You may be aware of other family members or friends of yours who don't celebrate Christmas and are deeply offended by it. And So what do you do not celebrate Christmas? Or do you celebrate it more privately? Umm, again, we cannot lay down a rule.
00:10:35 Colin Cook
By ourselves for everybody else.
00:10:38 Colin Cook
Now that's made very, very clear in this passage in Romans Chapter 14.
00:10:45 Colin Cook
For Paul says a little later, one person esteems one day above another another esteems every day alike. Let each be fully convinced in his own mind.
00:10:59 Colin Cook
And that, I think, is really where the truth lies. Let each be fully convinced in his own mind. If you celebrate Christmas but feel guilty in doing so, then you're on the wrong track. You are harming your conscience. But if you feel.
00:11:18 Colin Cook
Quite innocent and free to celebrate Christmas on December 25 and that there's no harm in this purchase of a Christmas tree and recognising the day as a memorial for the birth of Jesus.
00:11:33 Colin Cook
If you do that, feeling free.
00:11:36 Colin Cook
To do so, you're innocent. If you do it.
00:11:40 Colin Cook
Knowing that it's something that you shouldn't do, but you do, then you have become guilty.
00:11:48 Colin Cook
For there you see the principle comes in verse 23 of this chapter, but he who doubts is condemned if he eats now, going back to referring to the idle food.
00:12:02 Colin Cook
But he who doubts is condemned if he eats because he does not eat from faith for whatever is not from faith is sin. Now there is the general principle. You cannot determine these things by the ritual, by whether the ritual is right or wrong, by whether eating a food.
00:12:22 Colin Cook
A certain food is right or wrong, or purchasing food offered to an idol is right or wrong. You cannot determine that by its intrinsic nature. You determine it by the conscience, whether the conscience is free or not.
00:12:38 Colin Cook
And this says a lot, doesn't it? About what our faith is about? What has faith done for us? Of course, faith in Jesus has brought us the knowledge that we are atoned for and we are saved. That's the most important thing. But remember, though, an important passage in Hebrews chapter 10.
00:12:58 Colin Cook
Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. So Paul's talking about an evil.
00:13:13 Colin Cook
Are you still struggling with an evil conscience because and feeling that there's guilt everywhere around you in all you do because you have not yet received Christ's full atoning sacrifice?
00:13:27 Colin Cook
So receive that sacrifice. You are counted as righteous in him, and in that is the sprinkling of your conscience so that you no longer have an evil conscience and you can cast off those accusations of guilt.
00:13:48 Colin Cook
Well, thanks for listening today. This is Colin Cook and this is a program called how it happens. You can hear it on your smartphone anytime of the day or night. Simply download a free app soundcloud.com or podbean.com and key in how it happens with Colin Cook when you get there.
00:14:05 Colin Cook
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00:14:08 Colin Cook
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00:14:28 Colin Cook
Thanks. See you next time. Cheerio and God bless.
