Good morning and welcome in everybody. Today, we are going to take a look at a passage of scripture, but before we do that I wanted to tell you a little story.
When I was about 12 years old I was heavily addicted to tobacco. It was beyond the point of doing something casually, because I needed it every single day. I knew that it was a huge problem, and there were many times that I attempted to completely give it up cold turkey. There was one such time that I got over 6 months without any nicotine at all, but when I was at a new job site in a different city, a man spent a few days constantly tempting me to have some tobacco. I repetitively told him that I had quit already, but he wouldn’t stop confronting me on the matter. I couldn’t understand why he was tempting me so much, so I decided to have some for the purpose of getting him to be quiet, but that’s all it really took, because by the next morning I went right back to using the same amount of tobacco that I had used before I had decided to quit.
This reminds me of the Christian Life.
Some people might smoke occasionally, while other people can’t do it at all. Some people drink occasionally, but others have given it up completely. Each man has their own specific weakness according to the flesh, but we must recognize what they are, and must never do things in their presence that would lead them into a place of temptation.
Romans 14:21 (KJB) It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor any thing whereby thy brother stumbleth, or is offended, or is made weak.
First of all, the Apostle teaches it’s good not to do ANYTHING, that would cause your brother to go against his own personal convictions, or tempt them into sin. That means when they say something about it, don’t push it! When people become a Christian, some of them have had serious problems with alcohol and drugs, and they don’t want to be around that stuff anymore. I’m not saying that alcohol is bad in and of itself, but some people have completely given it up because of their own personal convictions. Sometimes when people have alcohol in front of them, it only reminds them of the past lifestyle that they are attempting to escape from. Now, instead of drinking alcohol, they drink soda pop instead.
I’ve known many people who have had a great problem with coffee, and have given up all forms of caffeine in their life. So for the sake of those people, we want to make sure that we leave the coffee pots at home and bring plenty of non-caffeinated drinks to the church cookout!
One time I took some high schoolers out on a lake to go fishing, and one of the girls started crying. I asked her what was wrong, and she told me that she was a vegetarian and it was very hard to see the fish getting hooked in the mouth. Although the fishing was very good at our spot, I immediately drove her all the way back to the campground to drop her off. She knew that she needed to do something else for the time that we were out there.
But all of us have to know our own weaknesses, and it’s best to tell them to others so they don’t do something that might tempt you to sin. Some men I know have quit smoking, but they love beef jerky. So whenever you see them, you reach into your jacket pocket and pull out a nice spicy stick of meat for them! The Apostle teaches us that nothing is unclean of itself, but if you personally cannot handle alcohol, you cannot condemn others who use it moderately. If you have given up caffeine, you can’t judge others who have a cup each morning. Everybody is different and has different convictions, but you need to work with each other so that you can help each other keep away from the things they feel are wrong, while at the same time allowing others to participate in the things that they feel are right.
Romans 14:13-15 (KJB) Let us not therefore judge one another any more: but judge this rather, that no man put a stumblingblock 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 any thing 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.
I can remember many years ago when Andrew turned 21, that my wife continually coaxed me to take him out to the bar to drink. As someone who had worked in bars in the past, I told her absolutely not! I couldn’t understand why anyone would encourage someone to get involved in drinking when they had never expressed any interest for it in the past. That’s like offering somebody a cigarette who has never smoked before. We should never encourage others to do things that many people have become enslaved to during their lives, and alcohol and tobacco are definitely two such items. I’m not condemning the usage of these things, but not everybody can have them. Some men might have Brandy and cigars after supper, but they don’t partake of them during the rest of the day. We must have moderation in everything that we do, and those who cannot do that must renounce those items completely.
If your child is a sweet tooth, won’t you try to give them things that taste good but are lower in sugar? If your husband likes to eat, won’t you try to find the things that he really enjoys that are low in calories? One of my huge weaknesses is to eat and drink things incredibly fast, something that I learned growing up at our supper table. I needed to learn to slow down with whatever foods or drinks that I might enjoy. But that’s just me, because all of us are different.
So once again, our study passage deals with more than just food intake, because the Apostle mentions doing anything in your life that might cause your brother to become tempted because of their own weaknesses in the flesh. You never want to encourage others to do things that are wrong according to their own conscience, just like that little devil who preyed upon my weakness, and made great efforts to seduce and lead me,…..
……Into Temptation
Let’s think about these things for right now. We can be found on your web browser by searching, tlkjbc where you can find our diaries distributed through various platforms. We are not associated, nor affiliated with any other religious groups. You can get our entire podcast feeds directly, along with transcripts at tlkjbc.com or I suppose that you could find us somewhere up here, in the Great Northern Minnesota woods. Peace to you all, and Lord willing, we will talk with you some more tomorrow. Till then, bye bye everybody.
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