if you would turn to Romans 14. Romans 14, that's page 948 if you're using a pew Bible. We'll be reading 14.1 through 15.7. Hear now the word of God. As for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him. but not to quarrel over opinions. One person believes he may eat anything, while the weak person eats only vegetables. Let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains, and let not the one who abstains pass judgment on the one who eats, for God has welcomed him. Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls, and he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand. One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. The one who observes the day observes it in honor of the Lord, The one who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God, while the one who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord and give thanks to God. For none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself. For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's. For to this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be both Lord of the dead and of the living. Why do you pass judgment on your brother? Or you, why do you despise your brother? For we all stand before the judgment seat of God. For it is written, as I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me and every tongue shall confess to God. so that each of us will give an account of himself to God. Therefore, let us not pass judgment on one another any longer, but rather decide never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a brother. I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in and of itself, but it is unclean for anyone who thinks it is unclean. For if your brother is grieved by what you eat, you are no longer walking in love. But what you eat, by what you eat, do not destroy the one for whom Christ died. So do not let what you regard as good be spoken of as evil. For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. Whoever thus serves Christ is acceptable to God and approved by men. So then, let us pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding. Do not, for the sake of food, destroy the work of God. Everything is indeed clean, but it is wrong for anyone to make another stumble by what he eats. It is good not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything that causes your brother to stumble. The faith that you have, keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the one who has no reason to pass judgment on himself for what he approves. But whoever has doubts is condemned if he eats, because the eating is not from faith. For whatever does not proceed from faith is sin. We who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves. Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to build him up, for Christ did not please himself. But as it is written, the reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me. For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the scriptures we might have hope. May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, that together you may, with one voice, glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you for the glory of God. The word of God. Amen. It was a church split that continues to this day. It divided the church in half. If you were like me and you tend to run late in the morning, you would want to be on the more modern side. The amazing part about it is that the split occurred in 1927 and has yet to be healed. You see, the Weaverland Old Order Mennonite Church split in two over the use of the automobile. One half of the church became the Grothdale Mennonite Church. It is the largest Old Order Mennonite group to still use horse-drawn carriages for transportation. Both groups still use the same church building and Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. On one side, there are carriage stalls for horses, and on the other side, there is a parking lot for automobiles. Along with the automobile, the Groffdale Group rejects modern conveniences while still allowing electricity in their homes and steel-wheeled tractors to till the fields. The black carriages are distinguished from the Amish who used gray ones. The denomination now has 10,000 people in it in eight states. The Weaverland group, the one that is held to the automobile, is also known as black bumper Mennonites. For their early custom of painting over chrome, on their cars for modesty. Though today, this custom is mandatory only for ministers. Early in the 16th century, several groups of European Christians broke away from the Catholic Church. The Anabaptists, or re-baptizers, eventually became known as Mennonites in honor of its leader, early leader, Menno Simons. Early on, the Mennonites established written rules, known in German as the Ordnung, to guide both daily life and religious practices. A person who fails to follow the scruples of the Ordnung could be shunned by family and friends. Beyond social isolation, this also kept the person from economic participation in the community. When that person would repent, he would be restored to full fellowship. Now, parents will agree that there's no better sound to hear your children laughing and playing together. But there's no sound more grating than two of your kids arguing, fighting, and tattling on one another You're not alone if sometimes you feel more like a referee than a parent, especially when it comes to disputes with your children. Likely, you've been accused of taking sides, of favoring one and not favoring the other. Our Heavenly Father must be displeased with disputes among his children. Church unity must be worked at and prayed for, although sometimes we do get weary of the friction. One Scottish church member penned a famous four-line poem, then threw it in the trash, only to be rescued and recovered by the church janitor who made it famous. To dwell above with the saints in love, that will be glory, but to dwell below with the saints I know, that's another story. The way that Christians treat other Christians in the church is important to God. Unity is a huge issue. David wrote this in Psalm 133. How good and pleasant it is when brothers live together in unity. It is like precious oil poured on the head, running down on the beard, running down Aaron's beard, down the collar of his robes. It's as if the dew of Hermon were falling on Mount Zion, for there the Lord bestows his blessing, even life. evermore. Jesus is in his high priestly prayer just hours before his crucifixion. And one of the major things that he prayed for was our unity. Not the church then only, but our unity. the unity of Mission Street Congregational Church. He says in his prayer, recorded in John, my prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one. Father, just as you are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you sent me. The promulgation of the gospel of Christ is bound up with the degree of unity we display to the world. Our unity is of the utmost importance to God and to the salvation of people who are lost and dying daily. At the same time, there's diversity in a Christian community, right? Sincere Christians can have diverse scruples. This does not mean that we have an ability to accept or reject Bible teaching, but that we put our own moral, get this, extra biblical code on top of biblical principles to discipline ourselves, you see. You see that? You'll see it in a minute. is there, but it doesn't make for unity most often. It makes for disunity because we have a tendency, listen, we have a tendency to judge those who don't conform to our customs or our standards. The unity of Christ's church is often imperiled by diversity as church history repeatedly records. True Christians are sincere people, and their hearts are open toward one another, right? We love each other. We must love and respect each other and be mature and be wise. Spiritual pride can come in like a fog and deceive us to think that our scruples are the scruples for everyone. Everyone should think like us. Everyone should have the same opinion. The result is that we pass judgment on other people over extra biblical scruples, but we usually do so with a biblical argument. How are people with tender consciences to be treated in the church? How are the strong to use their Christian liberty? The Bible gives us the answer. As for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions or argue over scruples. Now, Paul's not really thinking of any particular action specifically. He's throwing out some suggestions, but rather he's being quite general. To use a common expression, the problem is that Christians are always putting other Christians down. Instead of getting on with living their own lives as best as they can do to the glory of God, and living so as to win unbelievers to Christ, we waste time trying to find fault with each other. We don't trust what God is doing in another Christian, and we can't do that, you see. We need to grapple with issues. There are many issues today that are facing believers. It may sound silly, but it's true. Playing cards. Eating carbs. Sometimes if you eat carbs, you feel like a sinner. Dancing. Can a Christian dance? Smoking. Can a Christian smoke a cigar? Going to movies. Can a Christian go to the movies or have cable TV? How about the length of a guy's hair? Does it have to be a certain length? How about the length of a woman's skirt? Does it have to be below the knee? I remember the Catholic girls and the skirt was below the knee. It had to be below the D knee. So what did they do? They took their skirt and they rolled it up up here and it was a mini skirt when they were done. They're walking around in cardigan mini skirts because they rolled their skirt up from the top and put their shirt over it. It didn't work, did it? How about women wearing pants? Do you realize in some churches that that's a big deal? Oh, you need to wear a dress when you go to church? Can you wear pants? Ma'am, are you a cross-dresser because you're wearing pants? I once knew one, a cross-dresser, and he said, it's completely normal. Women do it all the time. They wear pants. I'm like, what? I don't know. I still don't know what that means. We must agree that our culture is a lawless, liberal, all-accepting generation. And except for a few narrow circles, most of us have little or no contact with most Christians who are all too accepting of what is really worldliness, right? We don't care what other people do, but that's not the point here. The point here is this. When people have scruples about things that are not matters of ethical significance, we run into problems. See? When Christians go through difficult periods, for instance, their fellow believers should rally around them, support them, and encourage them, and help them financially. Sometimes when a man loses a job, we look at them and say, oh, well, it's worse than an unbeliever. Because it's worse for an unbeliever not to provide for his family. But do you know their circumstances? Do you know what's going on? Or how about someone who has a sickness? And we might look at them and judge them and say, well, God's trying to tell you something through that. We become like Job's friends, right? When Job said, oh, what miserable comforters you are. But a second place where we continue to judge one another is personal piety. We judge other Christians by whether they measure up to us, forgetting that we're probably not very good models in every area, and also forgetting some of the godliness of saints of previous errors, right? And that other Christians may be excelling in areas where we do not. Donald Gray Barnhouse was a minister of a church in Philadelphia, and he told about being at a luncheon with a group of ministers where someone spoke disparagingly about the clergy in another denomination. They didn't seem to accomplish anything, he said. Barnhouse ended the conversation by telling about one of those ministers whom he had known personally. The man had gone through seminary and had been ordained, but he didn't preach often. He never went to prayer meetings, and he often failed to attend church for weeks at a time. Worse than that, he spent all his time in the library and indulged in habits that others felt were intemperate and unchristian. And he lived this way for many years. The ministers concluded that the man was no credit to the ministry and perhaps was not even a Christian. Later in the luncheon, Barnhouse turned the conversation to the subject of Bible study hopes and asked what they thought was the best Bible concordance. And they all said, without exception, that Strong's exhaustive concordance, which contains both Hebrew and Greek words and lists, was the best by far. Barnhouse then pointed out that the minister they had described earlier, of whom they had all disapproved, was none other than James Strong, the author of this invaluable volume. Point was obvious. God has given his servants diverse talents and he uses them in ways that please him. How we feel about them is irrelevant since they answer to God rather than answer to us. One part is to accept these others as fellow believers and support them and pray for them in their work. What about personality differences? Does every Christian have to be grim like an undertaker? Good morning, Mrs. Brown. Come and sit in church. Oh, he's really holy, see him? Maybe that's the minister you're looking for. You want some guy, you know, if you will turn to the second chapter. Or what if your preacher is always smiling like a stand-up comedian? Can a preacher be too funny? Well, Charles Spurgeon was accused of being too funny. When one woman objected to the humor he inserted into his sermons, Spurgeon told her, Madam, you would think a great deal better of me if you knew the funny things I kept out. Spurgeon was a character. A young man asked what he should do about a box of cigars he had been given. Spurgeon solved his problem. Give them to me and I'll smoke them to the glory of God. On another occasion, Spurgeon was criticized for traveling to meetings in first class railway carriage. A person came up to him in his church and said, Mr. Spurgeon, what are you doing up here? I'm riding back there in third class taking care of the Lord's money. Spurgeon said, and I'm up here in first class taking care of the Lord's servant. So we need to stop dumping on one another. Amen. And let's allow God to deal with each of his servants how, when, and as kindly as he will. And while we're at it, let's be thankful that he's dealt as kindly as he has with us. If he had not, we would all be in deep weeds. Francis Schaefer said this. He used to talk about the chasm. But the chasm is not between believer and believer. The chasm is between believer and unbeliever. Right? That's where the chasm is. Not between Christian and Christian. One person believes he may eat anything, while the weak person eats only vegetables. The Bible does not command vegetarianism. Although many people argue, well, your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. Do what is right for your body. Therefore, only eat vegetables. And they make it a command. It's an extra biblical scruple. For you, maybe, be a vegetarian. But if you see me tear into a prime rib, don't judge me. Right? Because it's not about food. It's not about food. Back then at this time, they wrote this because some Jews were saying, well, we don't know if this meat's kosher or not. Here we are in Rome, right? So they said, you know what? Just because we don't want to offend and eat non-kosher meat, we're not going to eat any meat. And so that's what happened. They formed an anti-meat-eating, law-observing segment in the Church of Rome. But the majority in the church were meat eaters. As Paul writes to Rome, these parties were given labels. The law-observing Jewish Christians are called weak, and the liberated Gentile Christians are called strong. You see why? It's because they're strong because they had faith to believe they had the freedom to eat it. And the others were weak because they didn't have the faith to believe they had the freedom to eat it. You see? Weak and strong. Can you imagine a Gentile brother just returning from the market? He's got a bunch of ribs and T-bones, you know, pork. He says, hey, brother, we're going to a barbecue tonight. Why don't you come? Bring the kids. Bring your wife. Got some, you know, New York strips and T-bones. It's going to be real good. And the Jewish brother just looks at him and goes, and just leaves without speaking. And the gentler brother is taken aback, saying, wow, I feel like he's just judged me for eating meat. The easy solution would be to form two churches. the first church of the vegetarians and the first church of the carnivores, right? What do you like, meat or, oh, you go to that church, you go to that church, right? But that's not what Paul is saying. He's saying that there is a diversity of opinion on extra biblical scruples in the church, and you have to work together. You have to be unified for the sake of Christ. Right? This should not be our attitude. Are you ready? Believe as I believe, no more, no less, that I am right and no one else confess. Feel as I feel. Think only as I think. Eat what I eat and drink what I drink. Look as I look. Do always as I do. Then and only then will I fellowship with you. As for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions. Accept him whose faith is weak without passing judgment on disputable matters." So, but do you understand, this isn't about biblical matters like the Ten Commandments, things like that. This isn't like things that are clear, the moral precepts of the Bible. That's not what we're talking about. But we're talking about scruples that people put in place so that helps them obey the Bible. And so the classic example, classic, classic example is beer. And I remember back in the day, playing polkas up in Gardner when I was still a heathen, playing that song. In heaven, there is no beer. That's why we drink it here. Beer. What about beer? Do you know that the Trappist monks over there in Spencer have not doing the honey anymore. They're making beer. Some people say, don't drink beer. Not a drop. Or don't drink wine. Not a drop. But did you see the study that it's good for your heart? I don't care. Jesus didn't drink wine. What do you mean he didn't drink wine? Then they go to all kinds of mental gymnastics to say at Cana, when he turned water into wine, that that wasn't really wine. It was grape juice. My kids went to a school where they were told that. And I had to rid it out of them. No, it was wine. That's why we have grape juice during communion. Because there was a whole wing of the church that said drinking any alcohol is bad because there's yeast in it, and yeast is leaven, and leaven is sin. And Jesus would never do that. And so Thomas Welch, the dentist, said, what are we going to do? And he said, I know what. We'll find a grape juice that's not fermented, and we'll sell it to Christians. And the Christians said, great, we'll take it. It's wine, but it's not really wine. It was Jesus-like wine. That's what he used, right? Not true. But anyway, and that happened in the 1860s and still continues to this day. So there are some people who think that taking a drop of alcohol is a sin. And there are other people who say, no, you have freedom to drink beer, freedom to drink wine, right? The issue is whether or not you become intoxicated. The sin is intoxication. Because you're supposed to be in control of yourself, you see. Self-control is the fruit of the Spirit. The Lord wants you not to be uninhibited and do all kinds of crazy things, you know, dancing around with a lampshade in your head on Mission Street. Isn't that Pastor David? You know, the Lord doesn't want that. He wants you to be in control, the Spirit to be in control. That's why I call them spirits, by the way. He doesn't want other spirits, small s, to be in control. to Him, the Lord of glory. And let me tell you something, then your life will become beautiful. Not drugged, boozed, right? We all know that, we should. So you see, but some people will come up with a scruple and say, you know what? I have a standard in my life. It's called zero tolerance policy. I don't drink anything. Now, if I'm going to go out, and I'm going to go to Duguay's and eat a piece of fried chicken that just came out of the friolator, and put a bunch of salt on it, I'm not going to order a beer, right? But that's me. I pastor a church. And there might be tender consciences walking in when I'm eating my tender chicken. And I don't want people to say, oh, Pastor David's a drunk. He's drinking beer. By the same token, I won't go out to a package store and, you know, somebody says, hey, could you pick up a six pack of Sam Adams? I'm like, no thank you. I don't go to those places. I don't want you to see me walking in there. If you have a weaker conscience, you might say, I can't believe what he did. And then you call somebody, I can't believe it. And what happens, it goes through the entire church, you see. Right? And people are looking up here thinking, you know, he's up there preaching the gospel or whatever. And they're like, what a hypocrite. He drinks beer. How about going to the movies? The movies. Will you go to the movies? I don't know. Some people say, you can't go to the movies. They have really bad stuff there. Or you can't have a TV in your house. Do you realize what sewage is coming into your living room? That's true. But can you have a TV? Is there a Bible, is there a commandment that says, thou shalt not have a TV. You know that there isn't, but you know what? You might be so scrupulous in your obedience to God, you might have a besetting sin of lust. you might be looking way too long at the Patriots cheerleaders. Whatever it might be, right? Sir, ma'am, right? You know, whatever your problem is. Let's say you're a spendaholic, and you're watching, what's it called? QVC, like with a vengeance. And you're purchasing all kinds of things, and your husband's going, what are you doing? You're killing me! And he's working overtime feeding the machine, and he can't keep up with it. Well, there aren't necessarily biblical rules about not watching TV, or not going to a movie, or not drinking any alcohol whatsoever, right? Or just eating vegetables. You may have a scruple that you put in place. That's okay. It's an extra biblical scruple. But don't judge someone who doesn't have that scruple. You see? That's the issue. You know, it may be wisdom. It may be wisdom not to do this, right? If you're an alcoholic or a person that has a besetting sin of drinking, oh yeah, you want to have probably have a zero tolerance policy. That's probably very wise. But don't look down on a person for having a beer, you know? So, or how about this? You know, some woman would never wear pants in church. Oh, you know, the argument might be, well, how do we know you're a woman if you're wearing pants? Well, I think people, you know, we're beyond that point where a dress, you know, what do you do in Scotland when the guy comes into the kilt? Nobody guesses. He's got a beard. He's a guy, right? But the issue isn't. The issue isn't, there isn't a Bible rule that says, wear a dress, woman. We're not to be effeminate, we're not to do that, but wearing pants does not make you effeminate, right? The issue, the biblical issue, I dare say, is modesty, right? But you can be immodest in a dress. Just ask a guy, he'll tell you. You can have a tight dress and be a modest and you can be modest in pants, right? It's just a question of modesty. And your conscience may say, you know what? I always wear a dress in the house of the Lord. That's fine. We're not going to, we're not going to disturb you, but don't disturb the person that is free in their own mind to wear a dress or pants in the house of the Lord. Amen. So, if you're an abstainer, you can't judge a participator. And if you're a participator, you can't disdain the abstainer. You dig? Now, this isn't a call for us to become a bunch of snowflakes. We're not talking, again, don't come to me and say, well, what about this? We are not talking about biblical doctrines such as sin, the deity of Christ, salvation by faith through grace, clear scriptural commandments against idolatry, adultery, lying, stealing. We're talking about non-essentials. But the connection is where you cause the scruple so that you can better hit. the essential, you see? That's basically what the deal is. People will put in extra stuff to kind of discipline themselves from going over, just like the person who has a besetting trouble with alcohol will impose a policy on himself that I don't drink at all. Just like me imposing a policy as a minister, I won't play cards. I won't, you know, go to package stores. I won't drink in public, right? Because I want to make sure that the gospel is not maligned. But I'm not imposing that rule on you, because it's not biblical for me to do so. That's what I'm saying. And you know what? It says in the Bible, think it's a sin, for you, it's a sin. If you can't drink a glass of wine, don't. Don't violate your conscience. But don't look at the other person who has a strong enough conscience to drink a glass of wine and go, what a sinner, right? Do not judge that person. Paul says this and he says, you know what? Basically, They're weak and strong and opposing viewpoints on non-essentials is something that we all have to live with in the church that we can't judge each other. Back in Spurgeon's day, there were two very famous ministers, Charles Spurgeon and Joseph Parker. Both of them were mighty preachers of the gospel. Early in their ministries, they fellowshiped. They even exchanged pulpits. Hey, come preach in my church. Hey, come preach in my church. You know you're really close with someone when you let them preach in your church, right? Most ministers say, hey, you ain't coming to my church to preach. I know what you're going to do, right? But early in their ministry, they had a disagreement, and the report got to the newspapers. Spurgeon accused Parker of being unspiritual because he attended the theater. Interestingly enough, Spurgeon smoked cigars for most of his life, a practice many believers would condemn. In fact, on one occasion, someone asked Spurgeon about his cigars, and he said he did not smoke to excess. And when asked what he meant by excess, he answered, no more than two at a time. Who was right? Perhaps neither. Perhaps both. Better yet would be to realize that two could disagree and not be out of the will of God, right? But if the Lord convicts you that something is wrong in your life, don't do it. All right? Even if other Christians are doing it. There's a diversity of opinion. Don't be God to somebody else. But if it's a matter of biblical import, then speak the truth in love, right? So one of the reasons one of the inducements not to judge a Christian is because God is going to judge us. Do you realize God is going to judge every one of us and maybe you know your scruples not a big deal. But judging your brother or sister may be a big deal. So you got to be careful of that, right? God wants us to have a spirit of unity in the church. So with one voice, we glorify God. Can you imagine if there was an unbeliever came in? And we said, Okay, everybody, tell him the gospel. And there was all these cacophony of voices, and the person would be like, I don't even know what they're saying. But if we, with one voice, glorified God, they'd get the message. Right? There's disunity everywhere. The miracle is unity. If they see unity in us, they'll be like, whoa, what's going on there? Right? Now the other part of it is don't hinder another or cause them to stumble. If you have a strong conscience, sometimes you have to voluntarily withhold that and not do things, right? Don't cause your brother to stumble. I told you before about my friend who's a Seventh-day Adventist. I believe he's truly saved and would go out to dinner, go out to lunch, and he doesn't eat meat. He eats pasta. Actually, I guess it's primavera. It's pasta with vegetables on top. Every time, lunch, that's what it is. It's like, boy. And he's as skinny as a rail, too. So I probably should adopt his diet. But can you imagine me going to the Salem Cross Inn with him, right? You walk in and they got the old colonial fireplaces, the brick, it's beautiful, right? You can smell the beef cooking and roasting. It's fall, leaves are flowing. Waitress brings over some bread and some pecan rolls dripping with syrup, you know? You look over to the fireplace, and there's a colonial jack. It's like a colonial rotisserie. Yeah, our colonial rotisserie is from the 1700s. You're like, oh, I'm feeling so New England, so colonial. I'm like, I'm channeling into the, you know, George Whitefield right now. Beef fat, that's what we need right now. My skin's kind of dry, it'd be good. So, you know what prime rib's like. How do you want it, sir? I'll take it rare. Or I'll take it medium or whatever, but you know it's going to bleed like a sieve. Now, can you imagine me sitting down with my buddy? He's got his primavera, the poor soul. Yeah, he'll live longer, but so what? I'll die with a smile on my face. And as my secretary says to me, you're going to be dead a long time, so you might as well do it. But anyway, don't use that as a principle in your life, OK? You're going to be dead a long time. Might as well have the prime rib. But anyway, can you imagine eating the prime rib and the blood is just going down my beard like I'm a caveman or something? Can you imagine the offense he would take? He'd probably keel over, have a heart attack right there. So in order not to injure his weaker conscience, I'm going to have the primavera too, or maybe a chicken dish that's kind of, you know, right? But I'm going to do it voluntarily. I'm not going to impose a rule on people. Thou shall not eat prime rib in view of a vegetarian. Martin Luther said this. A Christian man is a most free lord of all, subject to none. A Christian man is the most dutiful servant of all, subject to all. See that? We're free in Christ, but our bondage is to the bond of love for other believers. I'm not going to do anything that is going to injure my brother or sister's faith because I love them, right? Donald Gray Barnhouse, again, was talking to some woman at a conference, some young ladies. This is back in 1928. And there was some woman over there, a Christian woman, apparently, not wearing any stockings. And they said, Pastor Barnhouse, rebuke those women. They're not wearing stockings. And Pastor Barnhouse said, the Virgin Mary didn't wear stockings. What? That's a true story. What? Yeah. The first stockings were worn by prostitutes in Italy in the 15th century. The next summer, 1929, women were not wearing stockings. But you see what I'm saying? He never went over there and said anything. But there's nothing you can wear them or not wear them. You're free. And if it's your conviction to have them on or not have them on, then go with your conviction. But don't make it a rule for your sister, right? You've got terrible varicose veins. Put on your socks. Paul is not saying that. And I'll get this now. Just because the strong will say, hey, I'm not going to do this, it doesn't mean that the weaker ones can tyrannize the church, right? Well, I don't like meat. So that means we all have to eat the primavera, right? No, no, they can't tyrannize the church either. Because remember, the Jewish Christians are becoming Christians and they say, hey, these Gentiles, they need to get circumcised before they become Christians. And Paul was like, oh, yeah, sure, fine. Do you want to be circumcised? Sure, I'd like to be circumcised. I don't know what grown male says that, but they were doing it. And then when the Jewish Christians wanted to make it a rule, that you had to be circumcised to be a Christian, because the church was all Jewish at that time, then they met the first council of the church, Acts 15, and they said, no, you do not need to do that. They didn't let the Judaizers tyrannize the church. So the primary issue in church is matters, not of externals, but eternals. Not externals, eternals. Righteousness, peace, and joy, and the Holy Spirit. Right? The weak shrivels his Christianity by seeing the externals as a road to righteousness. The strong trivializes his faith by insisting on his right to the externals. If we flaunt our freedom, we are far less emancipated than we imagine," says James Montgomery Boyce. John Donne was an English preacher and a poet of the 1600s. One period of his life he was on his sickbed and he was meditating about life. He heard a church bell ringing in the distance, a death toll. Do you know what a death toll is? A lot of churches have two bells. One is a regular bell and one is the funeral bell. and it's a single bell, and it basically, it just gives it a kind of a straight, direct hit. And so it'll just ring, ding, ding. We have it actually here. You see, you could sit there in your bed, or you could be walking down the street and say, oh, that poor sucker, some, they're tolling the bell for some poor soul that died. And Don came to the conclusion that that bell, told for everyone. Why? Because we're all in the same boat and we're all going to die. And that's why he wrote, no man is an island entire of itself. Every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manner of thy friends or of thine own were. Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind. And therefore, never send to know for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee." So we do as Jesus did. for God's glory through unity, and we realize that what we do affects others. Amen. so the stronger ones will withhold their rights so that they will not disturb the weaker ones. Charles Spurgeon, even after all his cigar smoking at the height of his fame, was walking down the street and saw a sign which read this, we sell the cigars that Charles Spurgeon smokes. Spurgeon then gave up the habit. He came to see that what was for him freedom might cause others to stumble. Blessed is the man who does not condemn himself by what he approves. Now, conscience is not an infallible guide, but it is wrong to go against one's conscience. Well, in these last few moments, the Pharisees did this, you see. What they did is they developed laws that were extra biblical. They didn't do it out of a terrible intent. They did it in order to put a fence around the law, to help them obey the law. So they had a system of 613 laws, 365 negative commands, and 248 positive laws. But by the time Christ had come, it produced a heartless, cold, arrogant brand of righteousness. You see? They tried to obey, and they became self-righteous. It had at least 10 tragic flaws. One, new laws continually need to be invented for new situations. Number two, accountability to God is replaced by accountability to men. Three, it reduces a person's ability to personally discern. Four, it creates a judgmental spirit. Five, the Pharisees confused personal preferences with divine law. Six, it produces inconsistencies. Seven, it created a false standard of righteousness. Eight, it became a burden to the Jews. Nine, it was strictly external. Number 10, it was rejected by Christ. Spurgeon observed this, I found in my own spiritual life that the more rules I lay down for myself, the more sins I commit. The habit of regular morning and evening prayer is one which is indispensable to a believer's life. But this prescribing the length of the prayer and the constrained remembrance of so many persons and subjects may gender into bondage and strangle prayer rather than assist it The story was told some years ago of a pastor who found the roads blocked one Sunday morning and was forced to skate on the river to go to church, and that he did. And when he arrived, the elders of the church were horrified that the preacher had skated on the Lord's Day. After the service, they held a meeting where the pastor explained that it was either skate to church or not go at all. Finally, one elder asked, did you enjoy it? And when the preacher answered, no, the board decided it was all right. The great confession of faith from 1689 says this, God alone is the Lord of the conscience. And he has left it free from the doctrines and commandments of men, which are in anything contrary to his word or not contained in it. Has it ever occurred to you that 100 pianos all tuned to the same fourth? are automatically tuned to one another. So if we're all obeying God's word, the Bible, that unity will be there, won't it? Because that's our only standard, the Bible. We're not saying that you need to be light on biblical obedience. Not at all. You hear me? Don't come to me and say that, you know, we're becoming a lip. No, no, no, no. No, we need to obey the Lord, and don't forget, two sermons ago, His preceptive will is His will for us, and we need to obey it. But as for those extra biblical scruples, don't pass judgment on another person. May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another in accord with Christ Jesus, that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you for the glory of God. Amen. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your word contained right here in Romans. Father, help us to ponder these things. Help us to obey them. Give us your grace and strength, we pray, and bless your people. In Christ's name, everybody said, amen.