WHAT ABOUT IDOLS?

WHAT ABOUT IDOLS?

1 Corinthians 8:1-13 (KJV)

Now as touching things offered unto idols, we know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge puffeth up, but charity edifieth.

And if any man think that he knoweth any thing, he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know.

But if any man love God, the same is known of him.

As concerning therefore the eating of those things that are offered in sacrifice unto idols, we know that an idol is nothing in the world, and that there is none other God but one.

For though there be that are called gods, whether in heaven or in earth, (as there be gods many, and lords many,)

But to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him.

Howbeit there is not in every man that knowledge: for some with conscience of the idol unto this hour eat it as a thing offered unto an idol; and their conscience being weak is defiled.

But meat commendeth us not to God: for neither, if we eat, are we the better; neither, if we eat not, are we the worse.

But take heed lest by any means this liberty of yours become a stumblingblock to them that are weak.

For if any man see thee which hast knowledge sit at meat in the idol's temple, shall not the conscience of him which is weak be emboldened to eat those things which are offered to idols;

And through thy knowledge shall the weak brother perish, for whom Christ died?

But when ye sin so against the brethren, and wound their weak conscience, ye sin against Christ.

Wherefore, if meat make my brother to offend, I will eat no flesh while the world standeth, lest I make my brother to offend.

Notice the first word of the chapter, “Now…”

The Apostle Paul here takes up another question asked by the Corinthian believers.

The answer of it takes up the better part of chapters 8-10.

The question has to do with Christian liberty and knowledge.

Since we know that there is only one God, and that idols are nothing, why shouldn't we eat meat that is sacrificed to idols?

In those days, much of the available meat had been first sacrificed to idols. What remained was taken to the market and sold.

Was there anything wrong with eating that meat? For that matter, since we know that idols are nothing, was there anything wrong with eating that meat as a part of the sacrifice?

*I. THE REBUKE

1 Corinthians 8:1-3 (KJV)

Now as touching things offered unto idols, we know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge puffeth up, but charity edifieth.

And if any man think that he knoweth any thing, he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know.

But if any man love God, the same is known of him.

A. We all have knowledge

Paul is probably here rebuking their haughtiness by saying all of us have as much knowledge as these Corinthians do.

They were not the only ones who knew things about the Lord.

The key to having knowledge is not just having it... it is knowing what to do with it once you have it.

B. Knowledge puffeth up, but charity edifieth

Many of the problems our world is facing today can be attributed to the lack of understanding of this passage.

Go to any college campus and you will see the truth of the words "knowledge puffeth up."

People whose lives are given to getting of knowledge are, all too often, conceited and puffed up in there own self worth just because of what they know.

Education is the god of many of them.

Even on Christian college campuses, one of the things that has to be fought is that “knowledge puffeth up.”

The student goes to school and begins to learn great Bible truths. Pretty soon, he gets puffed up about all he knows, and begins judging those he feels doesn't know as much as he.

When I was in college, I saw students who wrote back to their home preachers condemning them for not understanding the truths these preacher students knew.

The fact of the matter was, their pastors knew these same truths. They had just learned as well not to be puffed up by their knowledge but to edify others through love.

C. There is no evidence of ignorance more common than a conceit of knowledge[1]

1 Corinthians 8:2 (KJV)

And if any man think that he knoweth any thing, he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know.

One of the best uses of knowledge is to bring us to the place that we know how much we do not know.

These Corinthians were puffed up in their knowledge and they were using that to the hurt of others.

D. More important than being known for what we know is being known for loving God

1 Corinthians 8:3 (KJV)

But if any man love God, the same is known of him.

Some of the best preachers and men of God in all of history were uneducated men.

But they loved God.

*II. THE FACTS

1 Corinthians 8:4-6 (KJV)

As concerning therefore the eating of those things that are offered in sacrifice unto idols, we know that an idol is nothing in the world, and that there is none other God but one.

For though there be that are called gods, whether in heaven or in earth, (as there be gods many, and lords many,)

But to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him.

A. Idols are nothing

The fact is, there is only one God and that the idols people worship are just wood, stone, or metal.

On the other hand, while there is only one God, there are also many devils.[2]

B. There is one God the Father 

Of Whom are all things.

All that is, is because God the Father willed it.

C. There is one Lord Jesus Christ

By whom are all things

All that is, is because Jesus Christ made it.[3]

This does not mean that God the Father is one God and God the Son is another God.

Always remember to take the whole Bible together.

1 John 5:7 (KJV)

For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.

God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ are together with the Holy Ghost, One God.

I don't understand it. I just know it is true.

*III. THE PRINCIPLE

1 Corinthians 8:7-13 (KJV)

Howbeit there is not in every man that knowledge: for some with conscience of the idol unto this hour eat it as a thing offered unto an idol; and their conscience being weak is defiled.

But meat commendeth us not to God: for neither, if we eat, are we the better; neither, if we eat not, are we the worse.

But take heed lest by any means this liberty of yours become a stumblingblock to them that are weak.

For if any man see thee which hast knowledge sit at meat in the idol's temple, shall not the conscience of him which is weak be emboldened to eat those things which are offered to idols;

And through thy knowledge shall the weak brother perish, for whom Christ died?

But when ye sin so against the brethren, and wound their weak conscience, ye sin against Christ.

Wherefore, if meat make my brother to offend, I will eat no flesh while the world standeth, lest I make my brother to offend.

This knowledge must not be placed above charity.[4]

A. Consider that some Christians are still growing in the Lord.

1 Corinthians 8:7 (KJV)

Howbeit there is not in every man that knowledge: for some with conscience of the idol unto this hour eat it as a thing offered unto an idol; and their conscience being weak is defiled.

They may not yet know that there is no other gods but God.

B. Consider that an offense made to a weaker brother is a sin against the Lord

1 Corinthians 8:12 (KJV)

But when ye sin so against the brethren, and wound their weak conscience, ye sin against Christ.

C. Consider that the same knowledge, which allows you to do some things, also allows you to avoid them for another's good

1 Corinthians 8:13 (KJV)

Wherefore, if meat make my brother to offend, I will eat no flesh while the world standeth, lest I make my brother to offend.

The most mature Christians are those that know they could do things that are questionable, but for love of Christ and of the brethren choose not to.

Knowledge puffs up. It puts the individual where he seeks his own good first.

But the truly mature Christian will not use what he knows to build himself. Instead, in love, he will seek what will best edify others.[5]

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[1]From Matthew Henry's Commentary

[2]1 Corinthians 10:20 (KJV)

But I say, that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils, and not to God: and I would not that ye should have fellowship with devils.

[3]John 1:3 (KJV)

All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.

[4]This may be the biggest problem we have with youthful preachers, still novices in so many ways. They simply have not learned to love well enough to have patience with others.

[5]This may be one of the greatest Christian principles lost in the Baptist embracing of Protestant Theology. We want to get powerful enough to affect our ideals upon people through government.

SING A NEW SONG

SING A NEW SONG

Psalms 149:1-9 (KJV)

Praise ye the LORD. Sing unto the LORD a new song, and his praise in the congregation of saints.

Let Israel rejoice in him that made him: let the children of Zion be joyful in their King.

Let them praise his name in the dance: let them sing praises unto him with the timbrel and harp.

For the LORD taketh pleasure in his people: he will beautify the meek with salvation.

Let the saints be joyful in glory: let them sing aloud upon their beds.

Let the high praises of God be in their mouth, and a twoedged sword in their hand;

To execute vengeance upon the heathen, and punishments upon the people;

To bind their kings with chains, and their nobles with fetters of iron;

To execute upon them the judgment written: this honour have all his saints. Praise ye the LORD.

Do your have a song you like to sing; a “go to” song?

All of us are exposed to influences throughout the day.

I spend about 2 to 2.5 hours every morning, seven days a week, visiting with God, and trying to get a mindset for Christ.

The truth is, sometimes it doesn’t take much to knock down those two hours of work.

·   It might be a phone call

·   It might be something in the mail

·   It might be an incident on the roadways

·   It could be a worldly song I hear on the radio, or in a store

Sometimes I don’t realize my mindset has been torn down for a little bit, but once I do I immediately want to set it back up right.

I can do that one of two ways:

By quoting Scripture

By meditating on the Word of God, and especially on the passage of Scripture I had read that morning.

By singing a hymn

The reason why the hymn works so well is because they can be nearer to the surface of my mind.

If I am in a pickle, if the pressure that toppled my walk with the Lord was intense enough, sudden enough, it might be that I can’t think of the passage quickly enough.

But I have a hymn that is my standard, my “go to.” I can start to sing it almost without thinking about it.

It might not be the song I end with, but it will almost always be the song I begin with.

I heard and old, old story,

How the Saviour came from glory

How He gave is life on Calvary

To save a wretch like me

And then I cried Dear Jesus

Come and heal my broken spirit

And Somehow Jesus came

And brought to me His victory

Oh victory in Jesus

My Saviour forever

He sought me and he bought me

With His redeeming blood

He loved me e’er I knew Him

And all my love is due Him

He plunged me to victory

Beneath the cleansing flood

·   No matter how much stress I am under

·   No matter how suddenly my world has been crushed

I can almost always start singing in my heart “Victory in Jesus.”

The Bible tells me that I am to praise the Lord and implies that I can do that by sing to the Lord.

But did you notice that in this Psalm we are told to sing unto the Lord a new song?

Now there are a few ways a person might think about that:

A new song like – not “Victory in Jesus Again”

I can’t imagine that’s a problem with the Lord. I understand that things can become routine and without heart or feeling. But any hymn sung from the heart, even the same one, I am certain, is pleasing to the Lord.

A new song like, written very recently

I understand that this is just my opinion, but I doubt that this is the case.

The Bible teaches us that, as we get nearer to the last days, evil men will wax worse and worse, there will be an increasing number of false teachers, false Christs and bad spirits to test the believer and that, when Jesus comes there will be very little faith left on earth.

Since that is the case, I can’t imagine that music, even Christian music, will get better and better.

I am for pulling out the old songs and singing them and them alone.

·   I am for ignoring the music houses

·   Putting contemporary Christian music out of business[1]and

·   Rediscovering some of the old Christian songs of the past.

By the way, we don’t need to find new arrangements to the old songs – we just need to find a new appreciation for the old songs.[2]

But I don’t think that is what is referred to here either.

I believe the Word of God is speaking about a song that only a new creature can sing.[3]

I have just three quick thoughts for you.

We must sing unto the Lord a new song

I. FOR THE NEW SALVATION HE GAVE US

Psalms 149:4 (KJV)

For the LORD taketh pleasure in his people: he will beautify the meek with salvation.

The Apostle Paul said that he prayed for believers, 

Ephesians 1:17-18 (KJV)

That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him:

The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints,

If only we could understand the “riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints.”

Maybe we could summarize at least a part of them as:

A. A new salvation wrought 

Ephesians 2:8-10 (KJV)

For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:

Not of works, lest any man should boast.

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.

This salvation by grace through faith and not of works is a concept totally foreign to any other religion most Christian denominations included.

Almost everyone wants to add some bit of work to salvation.

God tells us that what He offers is a gift and that alone.

·   It can’t be worked for

·   It can’t be paid for

·   It can’t be added to 

or else it is not the salvation He promised.

It is a salvation paid for and provided and preserved in us totally by God.

We can sing about that because that means it is a perfect, and permanent salvation.

We can’t lose it because we didn’t do anything to get it.

We have,

B. A new mercy received 

The Bible says His mercies are new every morning.[4]

·   I never wake up but that I am in need of new mercy and

·   I never wake up but that I have new mercy

Think about it.

Are any of you perfect?

Do any of you deserve His grace, His blessing, His pleasure?

Yet every day we can sing praise to the Lord that we have 

·   His mercy, 

·   His grace, 

·   His blessings

We have,

C. A new victory obtained 

The most important of those is victory over sin.

1 Corinthians 15:55-57 (KJV)

O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?

The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law.

But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

That was something we could have never sung about before we got saved.

We must sing unto the Lord a new song

II. FOR THE NEW HOUSE HE GAVE US

Psalms 149:1-2 (KJV)

Praise ye the LORD. Sing unto the LORD a new song, and his praise in the congregation of saints.

Let Israel rejoice in him that made him: let the children of Zion be joyful in their King.

It may have been that, when they first got this Psalm, they could thank God for the new King in Jerusalem.

Maybe it wasSolomon

Maybe it wasUzziah, Hezekiahor Josiah

         

But ultimately the people of God can sing because God has given us King Jesus.

And with Jesus we have received in this church age:

A new place to worship 

1 Timothy 3:15 (KJV)

But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth.

Israel had for a house of God

The tabernacle

A floating place of worship for an unsettled and homeless people.

It was glorious in its own right – made after the pattern of things in heaven.

But it was temporary.

The Temple

The vision of King David and the masterpiece of King Solomon.

But even then it was a solitary place where the children of Israel would only visit a few times a year. For many it would have been a huge burden to get to, and once they got there, they only had access to small bits of it, and then only through the blood of their sacrifice.

The synagogue

Which never was the house of God. It was a man made scheme meant to give the Jews some sense of worship and unity.

At no time does the Bible ever say that God blessed it.

Now we have the New Testament house of God, which is a local church.

·   Blessed of God

·   Beloved of God and

·   Christ gave Himself for it.[5]

We must sing unto the Lord a new song

II. FOR THE NEW HOPE HE GAVE US

Psalms 149:5 (KJV)

Let the saints be joyful in glory: let them sing aloud upon their beds.

In all honesty I am not sure that the original readers of this Psalm would have equated eternity with glory.

But that is a term we find for eternity in the New Testament.

I am of the persuasion that every person of every time has gotten saved exactly the same way, by trusting in the work of the Saviour.

·   In the Old Testament they would have looked forward to that work

·   In the New Testament we look back to that work

But either way, salvation is through that work of the Saviour, the Messiah, Jesus Christ.

But what salvation meant to the Old Testament saint and to the New Testament saint are two different things.

·   They looked forward to a kingdom where one from the house of David would rule the world from Jerusalem.

·   We look forward to heaven, where the Son of God is our light and where we spend all of eternity worshiping Him.

·   They look forward to innocent bodies, similar to Adam and Eve’s before the fall.

·   We look forward to glorified bodies, incorruptible and like Christ’s

I cannot tell you all that glory will be but I can tell you that the appearing of Jesus Christ to take us there is the blessed hope of the believer.[6]

Conclusion

Every day the Christian has a new reason to sing unto the Lord.

So sing, Christian.

·   Sing the hymns of the faith, not the songs of the world.

·   Sing from the spirit, not from the flesh

·   Sing to bless God, not to entertain others

·   Sing as a means to praise God

·   Sing as a plan to uplift your soul

·   Sing because God has made you a new creature

·   Sing because God has given you a new purpose and

·   Sing because God has promised you an eternal home

Psalms 149:1 (KJV)

Praise ye the LORD. Sing unto the LORD a new song, and his praise in the congregation of saints.

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[1]At least around our homes and our church.

[2]I know a pastor in Georgia who brings up the subject of music in almost every message of his I have ever read. While I have always thought of that as being a hobby horse, these days I see his wisdom. The music industry is pumping out their new songs and Christians, even Fundamental Baptist ones buy the stuff without discrimination. Perhaps preachers have to harp on it to at least stem the tide of worldly music creeping in awares into our churches.

[3]2 Corinthians 5:17 (KJV)

Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.

[4]Lamentations 3:22-23 (KJV)

It is of the LORD'S mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.

They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.

[5]Ephesians 5:25 (KJV)

Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;

[6]Titus 2:13 (KJV)

Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ;