please do turn to Romans chapter 14. And this morning, I mentioned and I'll repeat that the elders of Kawater Baptist Church are continuing to consult to see when it will be possible for us to commence our services here in terms of the congregation being here and so we encourage the members to be tuned in through all forms of media, through email, through WhatsApp and so on. Just keep your eyes there because we'll keep updating, especially with the news that came from the state president that restrictions are being reduced on churches meeting and a few other commercial activities. So I hope you are there with me now. Romans chapter 14. I commence reading from the 20th verse. 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, rather for whatever does not proceed from faith is sin. Well brethren, you will notice from this passage of scripture that we are looking at that we're still dealing with the whole subject of Christian unity and more specifically with respect to qualms and scruples that we ourselves have as individuals and seeking to see how we can navigate those waters without destroying the Church of God. We have been seeing that some people can be categorized as having a strong faith. And what that simply means is that they are able to enjoy their Christian liberty in a context where others may not be able to. And it's at a very practical level. In fact, the Apostle Paul in this chapter uses two examples primarily, the area of diet and the area of days. In other words, being able to eat some things that others are unable to eat primarily because of their religious backgrounds. In other words, they have certain connotations and understandings around those meals, such food, such diets that others just don't have. And those who don't have are able to enjoy themselves, even give thanks to God for those meals where others cannot. And then it applies the same in the context of days, holy days, Sabbaths, and so on. Well, the point that is being dealt with here is that one way in which this matter would be easily resolved is to simply split the church. Let those who believe one area start a church on the left side of the road and those who believe a little differently plant a church on the right side of the road. That appears to be a solution, but it is not. It is not, first of all, simply because the church is one as a body, and consequently we ought to have bigger reasons why we should split up. Let the doctrines be about the nature of God, the salvation of God, and certainly not about diets and not about days. That's the first reason why. But the second is that when you are simply splitting and splitting and splitting, you are weakening the church. Instead of you concentrating on the task of the church, which is the Great Commission, salvaging the world from the destruction that it is going through, you are spending all your time and energy on infighting, imploding the church instead of being outward and fulfilling the responsibility that Jesus has given you. And so really, it is this that makes this subject so very important. We keep saying that we are going through extraordinary days. We're going through a period of the coronavirus, and it's quite easy for the church to spend all its energies fighting within so that the world out there is not benefiting from the ministry of the church. Instead of the church ministering to the hungry, ministering to the sick, ministering to the dying, ministering to the fearful, and so on, sharing the only good news that is there in the world, the church can easily be splitting, going into splinters, being disaffected towards one another, and therefore missing the golden opportunity for ministry. And so this chapter is relevant, very relevant to us today. We need to search our hearts seriously and ask ourselves the question, aren't we supposed to be joining hands, joining arms in order to minister to the world instead of fighting over some of the things we are fighting over? Very quickly, this second part of the chapter is primarily addressing those who are strong in the faith. And it is saying, as we saw in verse 20, do not for the sake of food destroy the work of God. Verse 21, it is not good to eat meat or drink wine or do anything that causes your brother to stumble. Okay, so he's addressing those who are in the category of the strong and he is saying, don't demand your freedom and your right at the expense of the unity of believers. Don't do that. Or, as he puts it at the beginning of chapter 15, he says there, We who are strong, there it is. We who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves. So those are the ones that Paul is primarily categorically addressing so that they hold back their freedoms. Now, those of you who were with us last week will recall that the Apostle Paul in verse 22 was basically saying that those of us who are strong, in other words, we've got certain beliefs with respect to diets and days and whatever else that enable us to enjoy these things with real freedom, he is saying that we should hold back our belief. Instead of fighting all the time, arguing out why it is our Christian liberty to do what we are doing, he is saying, just keep it to yourself. Keep your big mouth shut, he's saying. That's all. and you will find that there will be harmony in the church, you'll be able to go forward together. Now, the Apostle Paul is now dealing still with the strong as we come into verse 23, but it's a parallel statement with verse 22. In other words, in verse 22 he was saying, you see if you keep insisting and you end up injuring those who are weak, you will condemn yourself. You remember that phrase, condemning yourself, verse 22. Blessed is the one who has no reason to pass judgment on himself, who has no reason to condemn himself for what he approves. So that's one area. But in this verse that we are looking at now, He is primarily concerned with the same strong individual now thinking in terms of what is happening with those who are weak if he insists on having his own way. And the main point there is that he will cause the weaker brethren to do something without faith. And if they do something without faith, for them it will be sin. Let me say that again. He will cause those who are the weak to do something without faith. And if they do something without faith, it is sin. That's essentially what we read in verse 23. 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. So let's look at this verse quickly together and see what we can learn. Again, all I want you to do with me is keep verse 22 and verse 23 next to each other in parallel. In verse 22, we're being told that the faith that you have, in other words, each one of us, with respect to qualms and scruples, we believe something. We do. Which we are keeping to ourselves, but we really believe. Now, what we are learning in verse 23 is that where are some believe, some doubt. while some believe, some doubt. So verse 22 said, the faith that you have. Verse 23 says, but whoever has doubts. Whoever has doubts. So the two are being held in contrast. The point here is that those who have doubts are individuals who cannot participate in the kind of activities that those who are strong are able to participate in without injuring themselves. Because of their background, their religious backgrounds, and even just the background they're coming from, they consider whatever this thing is as wrong and consequently as sinful. We gave a few examples last time. We talked about, for instance, activities that we do during the Lord's Day. We spoke about alcoholic beverages. We spoke about musical instruments in worship, etc., etc. You will find that, whereas, depending on your background, you are able to do a lot of things in all these three areas, there will be those individuals who just can't. Again, it's genuine. It's sincere. We better believe it. Just as much as for you, there is no problem whatsoever. No problem whatsoever. for that brother, for that sister, there is every problem with respect to this area of practice. Again, it's not about the gospel. It's not about the nature of God. It is about the intricacies, the finer details of Christian practice. Now what the Apostle Paul is saying here is that it is wiser for those of us who are the stronger, it is wiser not to expose our weaker brethren to practices that we ourselves are able to engage in because we will make them sin. Yes, it's not sin for us, but we will cause them to sin. Let's go back to our text. It says there, for whoever has doubts is condemned if he eats because the eating is not from faith. The person is condemned. What does that mean? It's referring to the fact that he injures his conscience. He injures his conscience. Let's quickly peep at the illustration we've kept going back to in 1 Corinthians and chapter 8. 1 Corinthians chapter 8. And I just want us to quickly look at verse 9. 1 Corinthians 8 verse 9. Perhaps let's begin from verse 7. He says, however, not all possess this knowledge. but some through former associations with idols. There it is, the religious background, the way they were understanding things even before they came into the Christian faith. They eat food as really offered to an idol. And here's the point, and their conscience being weak is And that's the condemnation being referred to here. It is defiled. In other words, they really, really get injured spiritually. It goes on to say in verse 9, but take care that this right of yours, that is those of you who are strong in the faith, does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak. For if anyone sees you who have knowledge eating in an idol's temple, will he not be encouraged, if his conscience is weak, to eat food offered to idols? He will. He will say, ah, look, if he can do it, if she can do it, then it must be okay. Let me also do it. Despite the struggle that might already be taking place in the soul of that believer, then they go ahead. Listen to this, verse 11, and so by your knowledge this weak person is destroyed, is destroyed. You allow the person, you encourage them by your example and in the process they injure themselves. And Paul goes on to say here, thus sinning rather the brother for whom Christ died. The brother for whom Christ died. Brethren, let's face it. That saints whose faith is weak cannot bribe their consciences overnight. They just can't do that. You see, our faith is not like the gear stick that we have in cars, where you can, as you're going up, you can easily just change from gear four to gear three, and immediately your car has the strength and continues uphill. Faith is not like that. Faith is what you really, really, really believe. And consequently, being in an immediate context, you are visiting brethren, perhaps from Western countries, and they have wine at the table, and they offer it to you, and you begin to think, well, before I look like I'm a villager, let me just say, yeah, why not? And the moment you drink, what are you saying in your heart? Lord, I have sinned. Please forgive me. Why are you doing that? It is because for you, it is sin. It really is. As I was saying last week, for you, it's one of the things you repented of when you were getting converted. And therefore, for the cause of your name among the other brethren, you were willing to go that extra mile, but you have now injured yourself. You get back home, you try to pray. As you go to sleep, you can't. You start asking for forgiveness. Lord, I've destroyed my testimony. I've spoiled my relationship with you. And on and on and on and on you are going. Why? Well, it's what the Bible says here, but whoever has doubts is condemned if he eats because the eating is not from faith. The eating is not from faith. Our belief system is deep-seated. It cannot just change in the moment you are seeing other people expressing their liberties. It can't. And therefore, the one who is strong needs to realize that. That there's no way that my brothers and sisters will change overnight. This is the way they have understood the limits of their own faith. And consequently, I should be the one to hold back. Perhaps with years of teaching and instruction and fellowship, they begin to see things differently, perhaps at that time. But one has to bear in mind that they may never change. They may never change. It may not be a change in one generation. And that's the reason why the Apostle Paul here is not joining one group or the other, saying this group is right or this group is right. He's saying no. At the level we are dealing with, it is important that the weak stop condemning the strong and the strong stop riding roughshod over the consciences of the weak. Both sides must stop. Now quickly, one more point. The reason why, for them, this would be sin is because whatever is not from faith is sin. Whatever is not from faith is sin. That's the way our text ends. For whatever does not proceed from faith is sin. Now, the point here is that this is supposed to be an overarching principle. In other words, we who are strong should sympathize with the weak because it's a genuine weakness. If they were to act, it would be seen. because what you believe really matters. Let me try and illustrate it this way very quickly. The use of first names in the West in contrast to phrases of respect for us here in Africa, that's just an example that I'm trying to use here that we might appreciate. In the West, individuals call each other very easily by first names. It doesn't matter whether someone is the parent or the grandparent. It doesn't matter whether they are age mates with grandparents. If a person's name is John, they call them John quite easily. For us, that's very difficult. In fact, you can't. You always have an older person has this extra designation. They become in Bemba, Va-someone, Va-John. That's the way you start calling them because they are older than you. And the moment they get married, you even lose their first name because they become Muka-so-and-so. That's just the way you call them. I mean, just this afternoon, I was going through the family Bible that I inherited from my parents and I noticed that as they were writing the genealogy and going back two or three generations, as they were going further, names disappeared. It now became, you know, she, so and so. Those became their names as they were going backwards. Why? Because by the time whoever it was was telling them the names, they no longer knew what their first names were. So they just said, well, you know, the father of so-and-so, simple. He was she, so-and-so. That's what we used to call them. That's what we used to call them. That's just the way it is. were still, when they become grandparents, that's what you begin to call them now. It's now Shikulu so-and-so and Nakulu so-and-so. Those become their title. You can never, at that point now, say John. The whole building would collapse on your head. A friend of mine. illustrated it this way. He was talking about having gone to school and while they were at school, the teacher wanted them to mention the names of their mothers. And to his utter shock, for the first time in his life, he discovered he did not know his mother's first name. At school, So he was given homework that when he goes home, he should go and find out his mother's name and then come and share with everybody else, which he did. He went home and he asked the mother and the mother told him her first name. So he was glad that for the first time he now knew his mother's first name. Well, he came to school and then the teacher said, aha, did you find out your mother's name? And he said, yes. What is it? He said, I couldn't produce it. I just couldn't say it. It felt like sacrilege for me to mention my mother's first name. Well, after quite a bit of persuasion, he finally said it. And then he said this, that I felt so convicted that I had degraded my mother. I felt so bad that I had degraded my mother. In other words, to everybody else, especially to the Western teacher, now we know his mother is Linda. We now know. But to him, the fact that he said it, he had always known her as a my Jeff. That's the way he knew her all along. Now to produce Linda, or whatever the name was, he felt deeply Now that's a typical illustration, a bit of an extreme, but any African will be able to understand that. That's meant to just help us understand what it means when we're speaking about whatever is not from faith, which is not proceeding out of a real conviction. It's sin. That's what it is. A person feels condemned, feels convicted, because this is not coming out of the way he normally relates to that higher authority. And consequently, the going down on one's knees to say, I am. Now you can imagine, we're just talking, giving an example there of normal life and living between ourselves as Africans. What more is soul and God? That's the reason why the Jews lost all the vowels in God's name, because they could never get themselves to say it. So we don't know whether we should really be saying Jehovah or Yahweh or whatever. We lost the vowels over generations because the Jews could not say it. It would have been a sin for them to do it. That's the way they would have felt. They would have gone in under extreme conviction it would not be of faith. So when it says here, whatever does not proceed from faith, all it is saying is whatever violates a person's conviction, whatever violates a person's conviction, whatever that is, it is sin. And so we can begin to understand what Paul is saying here. He's saying, for the strong, blessed are you if you don't condemn yourself by what you cause other people to go through. Blessed are you. Verse 22, blessed is the one who has no reason to pass judgment or condemnation on himself by what he approves. because of insisting on having his own way. You are blessed. You have got a clear conscience. As you keep things to yourself, and as you relate to everybody else, there is the joy, there is the peace, there is the unity among the people of God, and you have got a clear conscience before God. On the other hand, if you carelessly overlook that. What you are doing to the one who doubts is that you are causing them to undergo condemnation, self-condemnation, and indeed, in the end, they are sinning. You are causing them to sin. And that's the reason why, as we already saw in chapter 15, verse 1, it goes on to say, we who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak. And I notice it when our western friends come as missionaries, they try to join us in using our phrases, don't they? And it sounds very awkward when they start calling you by something. You can tell they're just putting up an act because to them it's not really very much part of their culture. For us, it is. And consequently, we see no problem in doing that. Well, President, how can we apply this as we quickly hurry on to close? Well, first of all, let's remember, this is about church unity. It's about church unity. And the Apostle Paul is making the appeal that we need to learn to keep to ourselves our beliefs about debatable practices. keeping them to ourselves and is giving the reason why we should do so. It's because we want to avoid destroying other people and consequently destroying the church, making it implode on the inside so that it fails to function on the outside. The question is, are you willing to do that? Are you? Are you willing to so sympathize with those that we would consider weaker? Are you? That out of genuine love and sympathy, you are willing to say, the things I believe in this area is between me and God. Because I want my brothers and sisters to thoroughly enjoy the context of the church. Are you willing to do so? So that, as we saw last week, again I emphasize, so that the church can not just be united, but to be a united force in the world. A united force in the world. Are we willing to do so? Let me try and find a quick area of application. Very soon, as a nation, by the look of things, we will start coming back to church. We will. Let me assure you, some will come back earlier than others. They're strong. They will come back earlier than others, because to them, wow. You know, God will look after us, man. This whole thing is over. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. We need to worship him. There'll be others who are still seeing viruses. At the moment, anybody coughs viruses. What should we do? Should those who come to church start condemning those who are not there? Should that be the case? Should we ride roughshod over the consciences of those who are weaker in this respect, who are fearful? Or should those who are fearful come to church and then fail to worship? completely failed to wash it. Because where they are sitting, this virus is everywhere. If we fail to understand that difference, that there is such a thing as the weaker and the stronger, we will be having infighting and in fighting, and in fighting instead of love and unity. And in the end, instead of ministering together in a fallen world, in a world full of death and fear and unbelief, we will be so fighting among ourselves that the coming back to church itself will be a cause of splits. A matter like this is one that all of us need to learn maturity in. In other words, let's assume your belief is that the Lord should look after all of us, therefore we should all come, or listen to Keep it to yourself. Don't start blogging about it the next day. Don't start tweeting about it everywhere. Don't start sending messages to those who could not, saying you have betrayed the cause or whatever. Don't. Keep it to yourself so that there is a unity among believers that will enable us to continue ministering to the Lord. A time will come when those that we can consider to be weak in the faith will induce us to also come out and with an appropriate conscience worship the Lord like everybody else. That's an area of application. an important area of application. Because as a Christian church, we often split over nothing, over nothing. A presidential announcement and the church is falling apart. People are red with their clothes upon each other. When all we need to do is to be able to understand that there will be the weak, and they will be the strong. And the strong should not force on the weak to do something, because whatever is not from faith is sin. Force them to come if you want, and they will come. But when they come, they will be failing to worship they will be sinning against God, indeed sinning against their brothers and sisters in the church. Oh brethren, that we may learn the importance of those who are strong in the faith, bearing with those who are weak, bearing with those who are weak. In fact, in many ways, all of us are weak compared to Jesus Christ. Strictly speaking, all of us should be able, doesn't matter which area it might be, we should be able to say, I am weak but thou alone are strong. Jesus keep me from all wrong. And those of us who are strong In the faith, often that's our very weakness. Our failure to handle brothers and sisters with patience. That's where we are weak. We get all agitated. We become impatient with others. And that becomes our own sin. So all of us need to pray to Jesus I am weak, but thou art strong. Jesus, keep me from all wrong. When we have that attitude, all of us, whether strong in faith or weak in faith, I want to assure you, the church will be united at the foot of the cross. And from there, we will all march out to seek to win the world for Christ. For those who are weak, whatever is not of faith is sin. And therefore, don't pretend. Don't pretend. Admit your weakness, but go to Christ. Go to Christ and say to him, Lord, in this area I'm struggling. Help my unbelief. Help my unbelief, Jesus, so that I might be able to live my life to your glory out there. May all of us, therefore, go to Christ in that way. Amen.