Discerning the Truth in a Post - Truth World (Part 2)

Well, thank you again, Mr. McNamee. Once again, good afternoon, everyone. Today we're going to have an opportunity to go through and wrap up the message that we began a little over a month ago with regards to discerning the truth in a post-truth world. We brought this concept out. We considered this particular topic. We dug into this idea of the post-truth world and really what that is and what it means. Post-truth, just for sake of reminder, because it's been a month. Post-truth is a scenario where objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than, say, appeals to emotion, personal belief. Essentially, what that means is that people are more likely to believe their own personal opinions, emotions, and feelings than they are to believe facts. Once again, this largely came about as a result of a disappearance of shared objectives, shared objective standards for truth, that at one point in time, most people had the same moral compass or had a similar enough moral compass. But as time's gone on, it's the gap between people's beliefs and their values and their morals and their worldview has increased. We're at a point now where they're so widely different that one side looks at the other side and goes, how can you possibly be there? How can you possibly have reached that point where this is the conclusion that you've drawn? And this side does the exact same thing to the other. We've reached a point where they're so widely different now that people aren't using the same compass anymore. They're just not using the same compass. Now, as our society put God on the back burner and our long-standing standards of truth were rejected, it created a vacuum. Now, nature abhors a vacuum, so in the absence of that shared standard of right and truth, man instead took the position of, well, I'm going to define it for myself. And then now we reach a point where what is true and what is right has become whatever you make it to be. What is true and what is right has become subjective. It's become dependent on this scenario, which we sometimes call situational ethics. I can do this in this situation because it benefits me. I don't really care about the other person. It benefits me. And so I can say whatever I want to get what I want.

Sometimes that person's motives or their aspirations are involved in that as well. When you have individuals who have very high aspirations and very strong desires to get some places, sometimes they will they will steamroll right over the top of anybody in the way. So what's the result? Well, the result is we're living in a world in which falsehood is passed off as fact in the name of personal gain. Once again, don't have to tell the truth. I want to be successful. I'm going to go ahead and say what I need to say to be successful. The end justifies the means, we sometimes say. We have magazine covers, and I want to mention this because I want you to understand this is not just political. This is not just business. This is not just what we would traditionally consider kind of upper echelons of society here. This is in every facet of our society around us. We have magazine covers that are airbrushed and photoshopped. The people on the front aren't real. They're not real. And what that does is that creates a degree of self-image issues because no one can stand up to that. And how do you compete with that? It's not real.

They're held to this impossible standard. We live in a world, we mentioned this last time, where fact checkers are necessary, but we're not certain that we can even trust our fact checkers. Right? We wonder whether journalistic integrity exists. And in some cases, we're so convinced that it doesn't, we turn into the news station that provides the spin that we agree with.

We have deepfake. We have deepfakes. We have burgeoning AI. And there is a Pandora's box of AI that we're just charging headlong into and not really considering what the ramifications of that are going to be. We live in a world of confusion and a world of conflict, one in which everything is challenged, everything is questioned. Over the past couple of decades, society's been systematically dismantling that which we have known to be biologically and biblically true for millennia. What is marriage? What is family? What is gender? This is nothing new.

This is nothing new. Truth of God's been challenged from the very beginning. Adam and Eve knew the truth. They knew the truth because God told them this is true. This is true. But from that point forward, Satan challenged and questioned the truth of God. God declared something to be true, and Satan says, is that so? Are you sure? What about this? What about that? What about this thing? You know, the modern scenarios we just explored are simply a continuation of a millennia-long battle between truth and falsehood. It's been going on for thousands of years. Now, unfortunately, our human hearts are inclined towards Satan's wavelengths.

Unfortunately, we all too easily question and challenge God as a result of the deceit of our hearts, and it's only through God's Spirit that we can really begin to discern the truth of God from the noise. As we left off with, in the last message, God defines what is true. God defines what is true. It's not man. It's not politicians. It's not the universities. God declares the truth. Now, as we discussed in the first message, in most circumstances in the world around us today, it's pretty easy for us to be able to recognize what is true.

The Bible says this, society says that, not even close. Right? And we can go, no, I'm sorry, that's not the truth. Right? We can do that pretty easily. It's pretty easy when God is abundantly clear in Scripture to be able to see what he says and what the prevailing wisdom of the world is, and realize what truth is. But there are times in which discernment is more difficult.

There are times in which it's not so black and white. Times when it falls into somewhat of a gray area in Scripture, where Scripture itself is largely silent on a specific concept, and we're required to make a judgment call. Or there are varying interpretations of a Scripture, and it can be challenging sometimes to know which one's accurate. Sometimes there's things that are clearly outlined in Scripture, but we recognize are part of the Old Covenant, that are no longer applicable for a New Covenant Christian in the capacity that they were given. Such as, for example, physical circumcision in Acts 15.

What do you do with that? What about something that's cultural as opposed to spiritual? Should it be applied today? If so, how? How should it be applied today? In these circumstances, based upon the interpretation of the Word of God, a person sometimes can develop a very strong position on it as a matter of individual conscience. And we call these things matters of conscience. That's kind of what we colloquially call them, is matters of conscience.

And it's these things that have the potential to create a great deal of conflict between brothers and sisters within the Church of God. It has. It does. And sadly, it will continue. Can you think of any examples in the modern era? Please don't shout them out. But can you think of any examples in the modern era that might fit these sorts of differing of interpretations?

I'll give you a couple. I'll give you some under some basic categories. Health-related matters. Dietary matters. Okay. For a long time, the Church taught no white sugar, no white flour. Right? We ease back on that. It's a good principle. It's an important health principle. But, I mean, so much so that it was like, if you had white flour in your house, you hide it.

Because Church people coming over, don't let them see the white flour. Right? Joking, mostly. But it's one of those things where there was very strong teaching on that for a time. And it's not that it's wrong. I mean, it's a good principle. It's a good principle. We sometimes sort ourselves into things based on organic versus non-organic. You know, oh, you eat non-organic food? It's one way to live your life.

Right? Vaccinations and not vaccinations. You know, we have some in the Church that are perfectly fine with vaccination, others that are not. Gelatin. That was a big thing a few years back. Food additives, various food additives. So that's all kind of health-related stuff. There's questions about Sabbath conduct. Is it appropriate to eat out on a, eat out at a restaurant on the Sabbath or not? Is it appropriate to have the TV on, or not have the TV on? What's acceptable?

There's covenantal issues. You have the Hebrew Roots movement, and some of the things that come along with that. You have circumcision. There's other categories. Home school versus public school. I mean, we can sort ourselves into all kinds of camps depending upon how we feel about a specific topic. Now, there's a lot of things that fall into other categories and other things that are going to ultimately come down to individual choice that we make based on application from our understanding of Scripture. These situations are a situation where a person is expected to examine the instructions that are in the Bible, examine the instructions in Scripture, examine the principles, and ultimately conclude the application for themselves.

The church provides guidance. The church provides instruction.

But it doesn't make the decision for the person.

We're also hesitant to say this is how it's done because individuals need to look at Scripture and make those decisions. Now, why is that? Well, because when it's all said and done, the way that you decide to meet those expectations ultimately comes down to you and your Creator.

That's really what it comes down to. Now, where things get challenging and where things get difficult is when an individual or a group of individuals conclude what is appropriate and begin to tell other individuals why what they're doing is wrong and why they should be doing things differently and doing it the way that they do it.

What happens in these situations more often than not is that Scripture is added to.

Let me give you an example. Let's go over to John 5. Let's go over to John 5. We're going to see an example here in John 5 of this situation of having Scripture added to. John 5, we'll pick the story up in verse 17, but I want to give a little bit of backdrop before we jump in in verse 17.

So John 5 and verse 17. In John 5, we see a location where the Jews here that were gathered were chastised by Christ. And this is a kind of a reoccurring theme throughout a good portion of the Gospels with regards to kind of the way that this occurred more often than not. But John 5, and we'll pick it up in verse 17. Just to kind of bring the context out, at this point, Christ has come to Jerusalem for the spring holy days. He passes by the pool of Bethesda, which means house of kindness in Hebrew.

And he noticed that there was a great number of ill individuals kind of laying around the outside of the pool. Individuals that were blind and lame and some that were paralyzed and some that were dealing with a lot of other issues.

And they were all waiting there because there was this phenomenon that occurred at the pool of Bethesda in which an angel came and stirred the water. And then the first person in the water after the angel stirred the water was healed of their affliction. At least that's what the Scripture states. And so the first one to get down there and bathe in that pool real quickly after the water had been stirred up would be healed of whatever affliction they had.

Now what Scripture doesn't tell us is how many times that happened in a day. We don't know if it's five, six, seven. We don't know if it's once a month. But we really don't know. I mean, we really don't know as to the frequency with which that occurred. I mean, it's an interesting concept to consider.

It seems like a kind of an odd way to go about healing people, but Scripture states this was the method God chose. Now there have been some reasons that people kind of speculate as to why. They say, well, you know, you got Israel who's living in the middle of a Roman occupation. You know, their homeland has been conquered. You know, Jude had been taken captive by Babylon years before Israel's same story.

And now they're living under this Roman occupation. And this is a way for God to show them that he's still working with them. That he's still there. That he's still providing miracles. And that he's present in their lives at that point in time. And is that possible? It's sure. It could be. You know, it could be a lesson in faith for those that are involved in that method of healing.

But regardless, Christ comes across a man who was unable to get down to the water in time, and he'd had this infirmity that he'd been dealing with for 38 years. This person had been dealing with this for 38 years. I turned 40 next year. That's like my entire lifetime that this person had been dealing with this particular infirmity. That's a long time. That's a long time to be dealing with one specific thing, such that he would lay at this pool day in, day out, waiting for that water to get stirred, just hoping that he could manage to roll himself down there or something and get in that water.

Christ comes up to him and he says, do you want to be made well? At least he, you know, it's kind of an interesting question to ask. Maybe he didn't, you know, want to be made well. Man essentially answered in the affirmative and Christ simply commanded him to take up his bed and walk. There was no, you know, there was no chanting and shouting and jumping around and no waving of the arms and making a big deal.

He just said, take up your bed and walk. And so the man was immediately made well. He took up his bed as he was commanded and he walked, healed of his affliction. Now all of this happened on the Sabbath, which incensed the Jews that were present. They informed the man that it's the Sabbath and that it's not lawful for him to carry his bed. Now, never mind the fact that this guy had been suffering for 38 years from this particular infirmity.

He likely had been sitting at the side of this pool for some time. They likely knew the guy. They'd probably seen him, thinking, you know, this is the guy that's been laying there for umpteen years and now here he is walking. He seems fine, but nope! We're gonna focus on the fact that he's carrying his bed. Because he's carrying his bed.

The Pharisees and the religious Jews did get a bit of a bad rap at times. We do want to understand what they did and why they did it in the Gospel accounts. They were earnest in their desire to keep the law. They really were. They were earnest in their desire to keep the law. They were earnest in their desire to serve God. They saw the consequences that came from the breaking of God's law during the captivity. They saw the consequences. They saw, you know, and heard the stories about how their their nation had been conquered. And many of them at this time that were in this area had been living in the Diaspora and had returned home and settled in the region of Galilee as the time towards Messiah's coming drew near. You know, they had the 70 weeks prophecy. They had the scrolls of Daniel. They understood kind of some of these things and the timing of these things. So about the first to second century BC, about a couple hundred years before Christ, there was this mass immigration from the areas of the Diaspora to the region of Galilee. Well, why Galilee? Well, because Isaiah said that's where the Messiah is going to come. In the lands of Zebulun and Naphtali. In the land of Galilee is where he's going to come. And so they settled in this area in anticipation of that. And these folks that settled in that area were ultra, ultra religious Jews. In fact, it's interesting you go back archaeologically and look some of these cities that were around Galilee, Corazin, Bethsaida, Capernaum, you know, Magdala, they didn't exist 200 years before Christ. They were like little settlements of things, but the cities themselves began to be really flourishing when these large amounts of people started coming in in the first and second century. So the Jews that settled in this area were ultra religious. They'd been in the Diaspora. They understood the reasons why they were taken captive and why Judah fell. And they were determined to prevent it from happening again. As a result, and we've talked about this before, they created a fence around the Torah that consisted of 613 commandments. Now, many of these things were aspects of the oral law. Other things were rabbinic interpretation on that which was in Scripture in the law. But one of those things was the carrying of burdens. One of those things, specifically, was the carrying of burdens. And this man was violating that law. He was not to carry his bed. Now, as we see the story progress, they get done talking to this gentleman about his breaking of the Sabbath and decide they're going to go after Christ for his breaking of the Sabbath. Verse 17. We want to pick it up in John 5 and verse 17. We'll pick it up in 16 for the context. It says, For this reason the Jews persecuted Jesus and sought to kill him, because he had done these things on the Sabbath. Verse 17, But Jesus answered that my father's been working until now, and I've been working. Therefore the Jews sought all the more to kill him, because he not only broke the Sabbath, but also said that God was his father, making himself equal to God. Christ makes the point to the Jews the father hasn't stopped working. He's been working, and so have I.

What's he mean by that? You know, if you think about it, presumably these healings that happened at the pool of Besseda—or Besseda, too many cities and towns and things in the same area with similar things at Besseda at the pool—presumably these healings occurred on the Sabbath.

Now, how do we know that? And why do we know that? Well, there were people, a whole bunch of them, gathered around that pool on the Sabbath, waiting for that water to be stirred. If you got to think about it, there's 52 roughly Sabbaths in a year, right? If they went down there every single day, and they realized 30-some Sabbaths in that no one ever got healed on Saturday, then they wouldn't be gathered around the pool. But they're gathered around the pool, which seems to insinuate that God the Father healed on the Sabbath. And so Christ's point to the Jews that are kind of attacking him here is, look, I'm just an agent here. I'm just doing what God is telling me to do. Verse 19, he goes on, verse 19, says, Jen, Jesus answered and said to them, Most assuredly I say to you, the Son can do nothing of himself but what he sees the Father do. For whatever he does, the Son also does in like manner. For the Father loves the Son and shows him all things that he himself does, and he will show him greater works than these that you may marvel. For as the Father raises the dead and gives life to them, even so the Son gives life to whom he will. You know, Christ makes the point that the healing that was provided to this man was sanctioned by the Father. He couldn't have done it on his own. You know, he's an agent, so to speak, of God's will, that he does what he sees the Father do. And not only that, he says, I only do what the Father does.

That he can do nothing of himself and that there is a time coming when even greater things are going to be done, like the raising of the dead. That God has given him and will give him the authority to raise the dead just as he does. Now he goes on through the rest of John 5. We won't go through this, but he goes on in the rest of John 5 to provide four witnesses, essentially, of who he is and who he claims to be. And those witnesses, biblical principles too, he provides four. It's like a legal defense, but he's defending the accusations of his identity.

We see the Jews here accused him of breaking the Sabbath. Scripture tells us, we look at Scripture, Scripture tells us Christ lived without sin. Word of God says this, accusation says this. What's true?

Word of God is true. We know Christ didn't sin. Otherwise, he could not have been our sacrifice. And so in this case, he clearly didn't break the Sabbath. What he broke was their interpretation of the law that these men held to. He broke their interpretation of God's law that they held to. Now, the same thing happened in multiple scenarios in a variety of situations throughout the Gospel accounts. In all of those circumstances, Christ was accused of violating the law, and in all of those circumstances, he did not. He was accused in every one of those circumstances of violating the law, and he did not. Now, even today, we can develop a sort of oral law of our own, so to speak, and when this occurs, we have a tendency to look down upon or judge others that don't do things in the same way that we do. Now, the Church has made a number of administrative decisions on a lot of these questions that have come up over the year. Sometimes those administrative decisions aren't convincing to some, and they continue to hold to their own conviction on that particular topic. Now, the Church's position on that is that, provided those individuals aren't stirring up other people on these points and causing division, that's fine, because ultimately, we recognize that every person answers to God on their own. Now, there's a scriptural precedent for this as well. Let's go over to Acts 15.

Acts 15. In Acts 15, the Jerusalem Council determines that physical circumcision was not a requirement for the new Gentile converts, that they essentially didn't have to be circumcised and keep the whole law, the rabbinical law, or we might say essentially become Jewish in order to become Christian. That decision had to be made and communicated to the churches in Antioch, Syria, and Cecelia, because a number of individuals had troubled the Gentile converts with their words, telling them that they needed to become circumcised and keep the whole law in order to be Christian.

And so, Paul Barnabas, head to Jerusalem to find out what's going on. Acts 15, we'll pick it up in verse 24, we'll just pick it up with the decree. Acts 15 is a really cool passage, because everybody comes together, there's some discussion, there's some different things, and they kind of, you know, they tell what's been going on with the Gentiles, the fantastic miracles and works that God has been doing. You know, Peter talks about the vision that God gave him regarding the Gentiles, and you know, they kind of toss things around a little bit, and then ultimately they come to a decision, and they send out a letter that says this, since we've heard that some who went out from us, speaking of themselves, coming from Jerusalem, have troubled you with words, unsettling your soul, saying you must be circumcised and keep the law, notice what they said, to whom we gave no such commandment. In other words, we didn't send them to come and tell you this. This was done on their own volition. It seemed good to us, being assembled with one accord, to send chosen men to you with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

We've therefore sent Judas and Silas, who will also report the same things by word of mouth, for it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things. Verse 29, that you abstain from things offered to idols, from blood, from things strangled, and from sexual immorality, says if you keep yourselves from these, you will do well, farewell. So we see a discussion, we see ultimately a decision that was made, and instead of upholding what these believers had heard from those that came from their own midst, they determined that it was necessary for them to do these four things. Now, this administrative decision was made by consensus. It was agreed upon by those gathered in Jerusalem, and what it really did was effectively removed the barrier and the separation that was between the Jews and the Gentile converts.

It made them brothers. It made them brothers and sisters. Now, they didn't realize it right away. They struggled with it, but it made them brothers and sisters. Go ahead and start turning over to Galatians 2. It made them brothers and sisters because it removed that one last piece that was really separating them, this concept of circumcision in the rabbinical law. But we'll see, despite that, as we go to Galatians 2, we'll see there were still issues. We'll see there were still issues. It was not an immediate fix. It was not something that was instantaneously taking care of. It took time. It took time for this to be able to be operated within. Galatians 2, we'll go ahead and pick it up in verse 1. What's interesting about Galatians 2 is, Galatians 2 is describing the Acts Conference in Acts 15, which gives us some clues that Galatians was written after the conference that occurred in Acts 15. It post-states the events of Acts 15. Galatians 2, we'll begin in verse 1. Paul says, then after 14 years, speaking here of 14 years after his his calling on the road to Damascus, I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas and also took Titus with me. And I went up by revelation and communicated to them the gospel, which I preach among the Gentiles, but privately to those who were of reputation, lest by any means I might run or had run in vain. So he sought an audience with those that he could discuss this with. But notice this point in verse 3, yet not even Titus, who was with me, being a Greek, was compelled to be circumcised. They didn't force Titus to be circumcised at that point. And this occurred because a false brethren secretly brought in, who came in by stealth to spy out our liberty, which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage, to whom we did not yield submission even for an hour, that the truth of the gospel might continue with you. So Paul, again, he references this conference in Acts 15. He, you know, starts looking at the different divisions here that were present in the congregation. In verse 11, if you jump down to verse 11 of Acts, or I'm sorry, of Galatians 2, Galatians 2 and verse 11, we see that old habits die hard.

It says, now when Peter had come to Antioch, I withstood him to his face, Paul again speaking here, because he was to be blamed. For before certain men came from James, came from Jerusalem, it was widely believed James to be the bishop of Jerusalem, he would eat with the Gentiles.

But when they came, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing those who were of the circumcision.

And the rest of the Jews also played the hypocrite with him, so that even Barnabas was carried away with their hypocrisy. Barnabas, who saw these works and saw these wonders that were occurring in the Gentiles, undeniable evidence that God was working with the Gentile population.

That removal of that circumcision requirement in Acts 15, again, made this group of individuals capable of coming together as brothers and as sisters. And so when you have someone like Peter at this time who normally would go and eat with the Gentiles and have no problem with it at all, right up until the important guys from Jerusalem showed up, and then all of a sudden he wouldn't be caught dead anywhere near a Gentile. And Paul took it right to his face. He challenged him on it.

And I don't think personally, I don't think Paul would have done that to an ordinary brethren. I don't think he would have done that to somebody in the congregation. But Peter knew better. Peter was the chief apostle, you know? He knew better. And it was unacceptable for somebody in a leadership position to be doing that. It was not okay. And so he had a chat with Peter, so to speak, and made him aware of his feelings. There are some commentators that argue in Acts 15 that there were two different administrative decisions. There was one that was theological and salvational versus one that was more sociological. Again, this is what some of the commentators discuss, talking about that if the Gentiles did those four things that were listed, that it would reconcile them more to the Jews and make them more acceptable to the Jewish brethren. That again, if they were not, you know, if they refrained from food that had been sacrificed to idols and from blood and from strangulation of animals, and then from sexual immorality, that it would make them more acceptable to the Jews that were there. This position argues that that sexual immorality that's listed is not referencing all instances of sexual immorality, but instead referencing marriages in a prohibited degree of relationship in Judaism. Now, is that the case? It's impossible to know the exact intent behind things. What we do know for sure, what we do know for sure, is that this was not a decision to throw out everything but these four things. It did not mean that the Gentiles could go forth and break the Sabbath as long as they, you know, stayed away from, you know, things with blood. It's not what this meant because that's not what Paul teaches in the rest of his letters. The law still applied to them, just not the rabbinic law and all of its 613 tenets. Now again, this removal of this separation between the Jews and the Gentiles wasn't immediate. Old habits die hard, but what's being described here in Galatians 2, where Peter is refusing to come near, and even such that Barnabas and the other Jews are getting wrapped up in it, is a problem just waiting to fester.

You know, it's a situation that is just waiting to fester. If you turn over to Romans 14, Apostle Paul outlines the methodology. He outlines the attitude that we should have towards individuals who hold different convictions than we do on certain topics. Romans 14, just to kind of again a little bit of backdrop here, during the time that Paul was serving the Gentile churches, there was this furor that began over the concept of meat sacrifice to idols, or meat offered to idols. It was an issue in Rome. It was an issue in Corinth. It was referenced in other locations as well. So it was a big thing that came up in the church, and frankly, for a few years. And the reason we know it was a few years is that some of Paul's letters are a year or so apart, and he's still writing about it, and he's still bringing it up. And so for a period of, you know, three to five years, right in the middle of the first century, this was a big deal. And this was coming up in the church, and it was here, and it was there, and it was all these other places. And Paul is trying to address it by letter as he's going along. At that time, those in these churches were living in cities that were full of pagan temples. They were living in cities whose calendars were full of feast days, and a feast of this God and that God and this one, and this one, and this ruler, and that ruler. And here's today a festival, and another... you know, we complain that Valentine's Day, you know, comes once a month. Oh, it's almost Valentine's Day! I can't deal with this! I don't want to... I don't want to even hear the advertisements, or, oh, Christmas is coming. These guys sometimes had two and three, you know, crazy festival celebrations a week.

You know, that's one thing the Romans took from the Greeks. They took their love of partying.

You know, they got rid of a lot of other things, but they took their love of partying, and they went ahead and brought that into the Roman Empire. So, according to Exposer's Bible commentary, sometimes these sacrifices that would come in would be divided into thirds. They'd have one third of the sacrifice that was ultimately offered to the God itself. Another third would be given to the priests, reserved back for the priest, and then that final third would go back to the individual who brought it, which is, you know, different in some ways than the way that God instructed his people. But you can imagine a whole bunch of these things, and a lot of these things happening all the time. There is going to be a surplus of sacrificed meat laying around. You're going to have a whole bunch of sacrificed meat laying around that you really don't have a home for, and as a priest, you can only eat so much of it, you know? And so, at some point, the priest started going, look, I'm full. Take it to the market. Go sell it in the market. And so, you'd get this flood of meat that had been sacrificed or offered to idols into the marketplace. But this is a time in the world in which truth and labeling didn't exist. You know, there's not this label on it that says, you know, it's got an idol stamp or something on it that says, this meat was sacrificed to idols. You know, there's no GMO stickers. There's no nutrition facts. There were no labels. And so, there was also no, like, idols are us, you know, store selling only idol-sacrifice meat. It got into the population, along with all the other meat that was there in the various places in the markets.

So sometimes, even the vendor didn't know the source of the meat that they were selling. It just came in, and they turned around and sold it. So if you got to think about the vendor not knowing, the brethren even more so don't know. They're just showing up at the market. And there's meat.

For those who were Gentiles, this was just reality. This was just the way it worked.

And so, we see the instruction in Acts 15 that we read earlier was to abstain from meat offered to idols. It was right there in that decree that went out, in that letter that went out.

But then they've taken a look at that with regards to their reality, which is, I know I'm supposed to abstain from meat offered to idols. I don't know which of this meat that's on this table has been offered to an idol and which one has not. And so, what ended up happening was they began to sort into two camps. There was the don't ask camp, which is, I'll take that one. I'm not gonna ask you whether it was offered to an idol or not, because I don't want to, you know, end up finding out one way or the other. I'll take that one. So, there was the don't ask camp. They knew it was a clean animal. They would be able to purchase it. They didn't have to worry about it, you know, necessarily. They didn't worry necessarily about it being offered to an idol. Then there was a second camp, which was, I'm just going to not eat meat at all. I'll just eat only vegetables from this point forward, because I can't determine for sure what actually has been offered to an idol and what has not. Now, what's interesting is Paul acknowledges both of these positions in Scripture. He acknowledges both of these positions, and he personally advocates for the liberty of believers to kind of operate from the don't ask model, but he also acknowledges and upholds the position of avoiding meat altogether. In fact, so much so that he even advocates for those in the don't ask crowd to be cognizant and respectful of the sensitivities that others might have. Very specifically, look at Romans 14. Again, we'll pick the account up in verse one, and I'm just going to say up front, I'm not a big fan of the use of the word weak in this, and it's the it's the best translation. It really is. The word in Greek is esthenao, which is to more feeble or weaker. It just it's the best thing, but what I don't like about it is the context of it makes a person on one side go, ha, I'm strong and you're weak. That's what I don't like about it. It causes a puffing up of the individual that's on the strong side, quote unquote. So it causes in some ways to that causes a degree of invalidation to the other person's position. Paul didn't invalidate it, he respected it. This is the terminology that's used. Romans 14 verse one says, receive one who is weak in the faith, but not to disputes over doubtful things. In other words, don't argue over things you can't prove 100%. For one believes he may eat all things, but he who is weak eats only vegetables. Let not him who eats despise him who does not eat. Let not him who does not eat judge him who eats. And why? For God has received him. For God has received him.

Paul's point to the Romans is that their response toward one another in all of this is the important part. That there are going to be things that exist through time that we disagree with one another on.

That there are going to be things where two different groups of brethren have two different positions despite the fact we're both reading the same book. One group concludes one thing, one group concludes the other. Sometimes those on one side cannot understand and cannot see how the other side could have come to that conclusion. Sometimes those on the other side become really frustrated when people on this other side don't see that same position. And it can lead to dispute, it can lead to endless debates, and both sides are unwilling to yield in their position. It can lead to encampments, it can lead to division, it can result in brothers who separate from one another as a result of their own interpretation. It doesn't mean God's word is contradictory.

It means that we have different interpretations of Scripture at times.

I'll give you a perfect example for those of you that have been around the block a while.

We used to keep Pentecost on Monday for a lot of years. We did. We kept it on Monday for quite a few years until we reached a point where we understood the counting process more fully.

When we understood the process that we had been counting by was incorrect. Now, unfortunately, that change to Sunday resulted in a split of the church. It resulted in a number of individuals that continued to hold that position down through history. Who's right? It depends on who you ask.

It depends on who you talk to. Both using the same Scriptures. Both are using the same Spirit of God.

But Paul, his point to those in Rome was that this isn't the way. This isn't the way. He goes on in verse 4. He goes on in verse 4 and he says, who are you to judge another servant?

Who are you to judge? You can judge a servant all you want. Who are you to judge another servant? The word here is condemn. Who are you to condemn another servant? To his own master, he stands or falls. Indeed, he will be made to stand for God is able to make him stand. Again, judgment, condemnation of that individual, it's not up to us. It's not up to us. It's between them and God.

In circumstances that are not sinful, that person stands or falls before God just like we do.

They're not our servant. They're God's servant. But the trick is that this sword cuts both ways.

As it outlines in verse 3, and we'll go back and read verse 3 here real quickly, it outlines in verse 3 this sword goes both directions. This cut goes both directions. Let not him who eats despise him who does not eat. Okay, all well and good. Let not him who does not eat judge or condemn him who eats. It wasn't appropriate for those who only ate vegetables to turn around and condemn those that operated under the don't ask principle. Just like it wasn't okay for those on the don't ask to, you know, exert their opinion on the other direction. Let's go over to 1 Corinthians 10. Again, this is a big enough issue that it's mentioned in multiple places.

Each of these places gives us just a little bit more context and a little bit greater understanding of the topic overall. 1 Corinthians 10, and we'll go ahead and pick it up in verse 23.

1 Corinthians 10 and verse 23.

Paul states, all things are lawful for me, but not all things are helpful.

All things are lawful for me, but not all things edify.

Let no one seek his own, but each one the other's well-being.

Eat whatever is sold in the meat market, asking no questions for conscience's sake, for the earth is the Lord's and all its fullness.

Now, it should be noted here. Paul is not advocating for eating unclean meats.

That is not the context of his statements.

He is not giving free reign on anything that is not listed by God as clean. You know, we don't conclude with this and run off and say, all right, Hippo's on the menu.

You know, that's not the context here.

Context, again, in this situation is crucial. Verse 27, if any of you or any of those who do not believe, invites you to dinner and you desire to go, eat whatever is set before you, asking no questions for conscience's sake.

But if anyone says to you, this was offered to idols, do not eat it for the sake of the one who told you and for the conscience's sake, for the earth is the Lord's and all its fullness.

He goes on and he says, conscience, I say, is not your own but that of the other.

For why is my liberty judged by another man's conscience?

Verse 30, but if I partake with thanks, why am I evil spoken of for the food over which I give thanks?

Paul tells those in Corinth, if you're invited to dinner with an unbeliever and you desire to go, eat what's put before you without asking.

Don't ask him if it was offered to idols.

But he says that if somebody leans over to you at that same dinner and whispers, hey, that's offered to idols.

He didn't say reach down and take a big old bite of it, look at him and grin and start eating it.

He said abstain at that point, not for your own conscience, but for the conscience of the person who brought it up to you. Put yourself in that shoes for a minute. You got somebody who's trying to look out for you and you just blow off, blow it all off and just go, nope, I'm good, yeet, here we go.

That's not, again, what Paul was saying. Verse 31, he goes on here in verse 31, Therefore, whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God, give no offense either to the Jews or to the Greeks or to the Church of God, says, just as I also please all men and all things, not seeking my own prophet, but the prophet of many, that they may be saved. The overarching principle here is give offense to no one, regardless of who they are, strive to live your life such that you don't offend. Now, he expands on this concept further a couple passages back here. If you go to 1 Corinthians 8, we'll kind of, again, build the background here before we jump into the Scripture. We're going to pick it up in verse 7. But he's expanding on this concept further in 1 Corinthians 8, and he starts talking about this particular topic and making the point that knowledge can puff up.

Sometimes knowledge can cause us to conclude that we're smarter than others, that we have some greater understanding, and that those that don't feel the same way or understand the same way as we do are just simply less than. Paul says, if anyone thinks he knows anything, he knows nothing yet as he ought to know. That if we think we've reached a point where we have all knowledge, 100%, every single thing, we're in trouble. We're in trouble. We look through a glass darkly. You know, we see what we can see. We understand what we can understand. We do the best we can with what we have. But one thing we have to recognize is that everyone's doing the best they can with what they have. In these situations where you have two different opinions and you have two different possibilities, it's possible that one of the groups is right. It's possible that this group is right. It's possible they're both wrong. It's possible they're both wrong. Why strive and debate and harm one another? Fracturing the body over something that's not 100% clear. Over something that, frankly, brethren, one day Christ will return and set straight.

Absolutely guaranteed that Christ will set straight. Now, I want to be clear. There is objective truth.

God declares that which is true. But when we take things that are not 100% clear in Scripture and we read between the lines and we draw our conclusion and we take a dogmatic stand without acknowledging that we may be wrong, we're doing ourselves and we're doing others a disservice. We need to acknowledge places where we're not 100%. We need to acknowledge places where we speculate. We need to acknowledge those things. He goes on to tell those in Corinth, again, as he's building this background here, that idols are nothing. He says, we know that there's only one God. Not everyone that has that knowledge, or not everyone has that knowledge. They believe the idol has strength. It has power through a consciousness and a conscious understanding, so to speak, of that idol. And so then they consume it as something that's been offered to an idol and their conscience is defiled. We'll pick it up in verse 7 of 1 Corinthians 8 here as we draw things to a close. 1 Corinthians 8 and verse 7 says, 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 idol. And their conscience being weak is defiled.

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. So what's the solution? Verse 9. But beware lest somehow this liberty of yours become a stumbling block to those who are weak. For if anyone sees you who have knowledge eating in an idol's temple, will not the conscience of him who is weak be emboldened to eat those things offered to idols? And because of your knowledge shall the weak brother perish for whom Christ died.

Throws out a scenario here to help kind of understand the concept more fully. What if you were eating at an idol's temple? What if your brother walking by saw you eating at that temple? Wouldn't that have consequences on your brother? Wouldn't that cause issues with them? He's saying, offense is offense. Offense is offense. And this is where this scripture hits us in the action gland.

This is where we go from kind of academically looking at it to what is our follow-through? What is the rubber? And where does the rubber meet the road? Well, it meets the road in verse 13.

Verse 13, we'll go ahead and read 12, says, but when you thus sin against the brethren and wound their weak conscience, I'll read that again, but when you thus sin against the brethren and wound their weak conscience, you sin against Christ. Paul makes no bones about it. You wound a brother's conscience. You defile a brother's conscience. You've sinned. Makes no bones about it. Therefore, if food makes my brother stumble—this is Paul's point—therefore, if food makes my brother stumble, I will never again eat meat, lest I make my brother stumble. Paul said, if it was going to cause a problem for my brother, I'm done. I'll put it away to where it doesn't end up causing a problem with his brother. Now, there are a number of things that we might have in difference with our brother or our sister. Some have sensitivities regarding certain activities that are not appropriate on the Sabbath. Others have sensitivities to certain kinds of food and food additives. Others have sensitivities to covenantal issues. There are still other sensitivities to a variety of things. This is the case today, and it's been the case since the time of the first century church. There is objective truth—that truth is defined by God—and where God is clear in Scripture, brethren, we double and triple and quadruple down in those places where God is true and where God is abundantly clear. But where there's places of uncertainty or doubt, when it's not maybe abundantly clear, we have to recognize that there will be differences of interpretation and there will be differences of opinion. And sometimes, even despite administrative decisions, those convictions will not be changed. We need to recognize that. What is our Christian responsibility in those circumstances? What is our Christian responsibility? To not cause offense to our brother. And again, that goes both ways. But to not cause offense to our brother, to care more for them than we care for ourselves. To not put them in a position where they're caused to stumble.

You know, if you know someone that is, you know, doesn't feel okay with eating in a restaurant on the Sabbath and you're aware of that, don't invite them out to eat on the Sabbath. That's horrible.

Oh, we're all gonna go out. What do you think? Do you want to go? Oh, you don't go? Okay.

Obviously, you're not going to do that. But the point is, don't put them in positions where they would be caused to stumble like that. But likewise, again, that sword cuts both ways. Those that have those sensitivities, you can't beat everybody over the head with them. You can't push them.

You can't drive them because they don't see it the same way that you do. Just like you don't see it the same way that they do. Brethren, we should focus on the things we have in common. The things that we know for certain are true. Where God is 100% clear from Scripture.

The other things will be revealed fully in time. And I hope and I pray that when that time comes, that we all have the humility to accept them when they're revealed. Hope you all have a wonderful Sabbath. Please, once again, keep myself and Mr. Moody in your prayers as we travel this next week. And I'll see you guys here in a few weeks.