Fleeing from Idolatry

Our reading this morning comes from one Corinthians chapter 10, and we're going to read from verses 14 to chapter 11 verse 1. Without stealing any of Ben's thunder, I had a look at this. And in this Bible, it says "Warning against idolatry" at the head of the chapter. And our reading begins with the word "therefore". And immediately, I thought, why, therefore?

So I went back, and I had a look. And Paul starts this chapter with recalling some incidents in the life and history of Israel where they did things that displeased God, and they were punished, once with an infestation of poisonous snakes and on another occasion with a plague, which caused death in the camp. And so we come now to Paul saying, therefore, and he says, "Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry. I speak as to sensible people. Judge for yourselves what I say."

The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread. Consider the people of Israel. Are not those who eat the sacrifices participants in the altar?

What do I imply then? That food offered to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything? No. I imply that what pagan sacrifice they offer is to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be participants with demons.

You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons. Shall we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than He? All things are lawful, but not all things are helpful.

All things are lawful, but not all things build up. Let no one seek his own good, but the good of his neighbour. Eat whatever is sold in the market without raising any question on the ground of conscience. For the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof. If one of the unbelievers invites you to dinner and you are disposed to go, eat whatever is set before you without raising any question on the ground of conscience.

But if someone says to you, "This has been offered in sacrifice," then do not eat it for the sake of the one who informed you and for the sake of conscience. I do not mean your conscience, but his. For why should my liberty be determined by someone else's conscience? If I partake with thankfulness, why am I denounced because of that for which I give thanks? So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.

Give no offence to Jews or to Greeks or to the church of God, just as I try to please everyone in everything. I do not seek my own advantage, but that of many, that they may be saved. Be imitators of me as I am of Christ. May God add His blessing to this reading. Dear Lord and heavenly Father, I just pray that You would use these imperfect words I've written to apply Your perfect Word to the hearts of Your people.

Amen. Yeah. It's a interesting passage, isn't it? I was quite grateful for my pastor for giving this one to me to preach. Thanks, Jono.

I wrote it back in 2023, and when I wrote it, I could see that I was living two quite distinct personalities. I was working in an office. So Monday to Friday was for office boy Ben, who was semi respectable and professional. But I was also still serving in my youth ministry at church. And so once Friday afternoon hit, I would arrive at Forge, which is the name of our youth group.

I'd change my clothes and disengage the office boy life. The serious, logical, legal attitude was completely replaced with general silliness. Youth leader Ben would be lucky to string a coherent sentence together, let alone draft a legal letter. And this meant that what the youth saw on a Friday night was almost completely incompatible with the idea that I could work in a serious capacity. I even had one time where I rocked up in my, you know, tie and whatever, and this girl looked at me and she said, "Why are you wearing that?"

And I was like, well, I work in an office. And she went, yeah, right? And so, yeah, what the youth saw was incompatible with what I actually did, and Paul is dealing with a similar idea in our text today. In the same way that the youth kids thought that my general attitude at Forge was inconsistent with the lifestyle of a lawyer, it is true that a life lived for your own benefit or in service of idols is incompatible with the life of someone who follows Christ.

Paul is saying in this passage that our lives should be so transformed by the gospel that we give up our idols to the glory of God alone. And in opening up the first part of our text in verse 14, Paul starts by simply commanding, "Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry." And now I want to define some key terms that I'll use throughout this sermon. Idolatry is simply to worship something other than God. God is so gloriously good that it's wrong for us to give ourselves to any other end goal.

And this is what part of what God reveals to us in the first two commandments, that we shall not worship or bow down to any other idols. He gives this commandment because He is jealous for His own glory in the sense that He is worthy of glory, but also in the sense that He has a commitment to helping us see His glory. Much of our sin and misery in life are a result of ignoring God and chasing after worthless things, and that is idolatry. And I want to explain the idea of worship as well because I think it directly relates to the theme of idolatry. Worship is the means by which we ascribe worth to our idols.

Worship is to continuously pour out all that I do and all that I can ever become in pursuit of something. And that means that we all worship. All of our lives continuously outpour to something. If you don't choose God, it will be something else. Anything you give your time to, learning about, loving, serving is what you worship.

And this definition aligns with much of what the scriptures say about worship, and in particular, Romans 12. Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God. This is your true and proper worship. And as John said, the chunk of text that I'm preaching from, it launches off the back of Paul's warning against idolatry. Paul says that Israel had a view of God's mercy in Exodus.

Right? He takes them through the Red Sea, takes them out of Egypt. They had a view of His mercy in Exodus, yet they turned and worshipped food and drink and foreign gods more than the one true God. And it would seem strange then that after speaking of God's judgment against idolatry, that Paul begins to write to the Corinthians about the Lord's Supper. Hopefully, I can demonstrate to you this morning his reasoning and reveal something about the nature of our idolatry.

So after he says "Flee from idolatry," he begins by asking the question, "The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread." And so why does Paul bring up the Lord's Supper? I'm going to argue that it's because the Lord's Supper is worship, and it stirs us to worship.

In Luke 22:19 to 20, it says that Jesus took bread, gave thanks, and broke it, and gave it to them saying, "This is my body given for you. Do this in remembrance of me." In the same way, after the supper, he took the cup saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you." And the implications of Jesus' words are numerous. I don't intend to give a full summary of what the Lord's Supper means, but of particular importance is that He tells us to remember Him, to remember His works, to remember His body given for us, to remember His blood poured out for the forgiveness of sins.

It's to put His mercy in view. That's what we're doing partly at the Lord's Supper. But it's more than just remembering, you see. The remembering should lead to life transformation. Later on in one Corinthians 11 verse 26, Paul says, "Whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until He comes."

Taking the Lord's Supper says something about your day to day life and who you serve. And that's what John Piper says about this text as well. He says it's not nearly as much about what to do at the Lord's table as much as it is about what you do when you're not at the Lord's table. Participation in the Lord's Supper does not end with the eating and drinking of the bread and wine. It is a commitment to a lifestyle of proclaiming the Lord's death until He comes.

That's a commitment to worship. The Lord's death for our sin carries such weightiness that our lives should be a proclamation that we can no longer live in sinful idolatry, but instead, we must turn to worship the one true God with our lives. And I think that's why Paul brings up the Lord's Supper, and I think that lines up with what he's saying when he says that we are participants in the body and blood of Christ. And to be a participant in the Greek means to have deep fellowship with. And so you're not merely taking the bread and wine at the Lord's Supper.

You are deeply associating with it at such a level that you proclaim your allegiance to Christ and your disassociation with the idolatry that hung Him on the cross. It's to put something in your hands and in your mouth which reminds you that Christ is real and idols are nothing. It's an act of worship directly relating to Romans 12, that our true and proper worship is to have His mercy in view and offer ourselves as living sacrifices. And Paul goes further, and he talks about the one bread. We who are one body all partake of the one bread.

And so that has an effect as well. When you look at your fellow believers partaking in the Lord's Supper, your fellow believers who are the body of Christ, partaking in the one bread, you are witnessing a group of people who have seen God's mercy on their sinful idolatry and with one voice are actively turning away from it, towards God's glory. Isn't that special? That when you come to the Lord's Supper, you're witnessing that group of people who are throwing away their idolatry and moving towards God. And having drawn our attention to the Lord's Supper, Paul then turns to the pagan alternative to make a distinction. He turns to the pagan alternative, which is food sacrificed to idols.

And Paul's going to make a comparison here now. He says, if eating the Lord's Supper is an active deep participation and fellowship in the body and blood of Christ, then eating food at a feast in sacrifice to idols is to participate with demons, to have fellowship with beings that are anti God. He says in verses 19 and 20, "What do I imply then? That food offered to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything? No.

I imply that what pagan sacrifice they offer is to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be participants with demons." And just in starting with verse 19, it seems to me that Paul just wants to clarify that his prohibition on participating in sacrificial meals is not because idols are powerful or have any significance. He wants us to see that God is the one true God, which means idols really have no true existence. They have no power. Engaging in meals sacrifice to idols is not wrong because God has some power struggle with idols.

Paul is saying that it's wrong because it brings us into participation and fellowship with demons, spiritual beings that are anti God and pro idolatry, and that's the issue that he's taking here. And I know that when we mention the word demons, our ears prick and we're like, "Oh, what's going on here?" And I think it's important to just touch on that. Paul takes serious issue here with the idolatry because there is a link between idolatry and the work that Satan does through demons in blinding us to the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ. That's what two Corinthians 4 says. And even you look at the way that Jesus was tempted.

Satan says to Him, "If you worship me rather than God, I'll give you all this stuff. I'll give you all the kingdoms of the world and their glory." You see, the core work of Satan and His demons revolves around deceiving us in the direction of our worship. Worship. This is why Paul has great concern, and it works.

It works on us. But you see that when it comes to idolatry and worship, we're not just looking to gain stuff generally. We're desperately hungry for glory. We have an inner being that is hungry and craving a need to find our worth. And so Satan and His demons lie and tell us that if we were just prettier, if we just worship our image, we'd feel worthy.

If you just had that house, you'd feel worthy. If you could just get that job promotion, you'd feel worthy. He wants us to think that we can find our worth in anything other than God, and this is why Paul has such a great concern with this participation with idolatry. And perhaps idolatry is one of the greatest works of Satan and His demons in the West in the twenty first century. So we have to ask now, what is this sacrifice of pagans that Paul forbids?

Paul is talking here about the participation in the worship of pagan gods or idols. And now this could specifically mean participation in a meal that is sacrificed to gods and idols, but I think Paul's also referring generally to social events that were not so obviously for the purpose of idol worship. And so in Corinthian times, taking part in social events would have likely meant being roped in to participate in subtle idol sacrifice. For instance, if you were invited to a social meal at a temple, there's a high likelihood that certain gods or idols were honoured by the event and were perceived as present at the event. And so when Paul makes reference to the sacrifice of pagans, it seems to me that his target is broad.

So involving yourself directly with a pagan sacrifice to idols is obviously wrong. There is no other God but one. But involving yourself indirectly with a society and culture bent on idol worship is also really dangerous. I think that's what he's getting at here. And you might be thinking that this isn't a problem in our culture, but, of course, it is.

You see, the idols that the Corinthian church were intermingled with were worshipped because they were the gods of beauty and wealth and fertility and food and revelry and sport and music, etcetera. The list goes on. Although our culture may not slaughter animals in honour of these things or worship them in prayer or song, our culture certainly shows love for them by devoting time, energy, and money to them, which is worship. That is the equivalent to the sacrifice of pagans that Paul is talking about. The sacrifice of pagans is to consciously or unconsciously participate in activities that blind us to the glory of God.

They are activities that give Satan a foothold in lying to us about where we'll find our worth. And this is why he issues such a serious warning in this text to the believers in verse 21 and 22. He says, "You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons. Shall we provoke the Lord to jealousy?

Are we stronger than He?" And why is Paul issuing such a serious warning? Because you cannot be someone who participates in the Lord's Supper and all it represents, Christ's blood and body on that cross. You cannot be that person and also someone who engages in idolatry, who's actively pursuing worship of other gods. They are inconsistent and incompatible lifestyles.

Paul is proposing a danger to us here. And here it is. You can spend one hour at church on Sunday morning, partake in the Lord's Supper and all that it represents, and spend the rest of your week engaging in an idolatrous culture. Of course, that is going to provoke God's jealousy because the things of this earth are not what we were redeemed for in the body and blood of Christ. The gospel, the work of Jesus on the cross is not for us to feel good once a week.

The gospel is clearly represented in Romans 1 that it's designed to redeem us from being a people who exchange the glory and truth of God for a lie and worship and serve created things rather than the Creator who is forever praised. Amen. The gospel is designed to transform us to glorify God alone and find our worth and satisfaction in His glory alone. And this is what Paul is warning us against, lifestyles and freedoms that perpetuate the worship of anything other than God. Lifestyles and freedoms which show that you have exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worship and serve created things.

And in helping you process what that might look like in your life, I'll ask the question, is there something in your life that if God was to take away from you, would leave you completely depressed, loathsome, and defeated? Holidays, having children, music, money, house, the beach lifestyle, a job, a man, a woman, health, ministry success. If you truly worship those idols with your time, energy, money, and strength, not only will you live a terribly dissatisfied life, but you will provoke God to jealousy. And I will say along with Paul, flee from that. So now that Paul has warned us about this idolatry, he continues to warn us about idolatry, but he starts by talking about our freedoms, which is quite exciting. He warns believers to not use their freedom to associate with or participate in activities that would perpetuate the unbelievers' idolatry.

But he first starts by talking about our freedoms. So he starts by reminding the Corinthian church of their freedom. Unlike our current culture where we know our rights and our freedoms a little bit too well, in the Corinthian church, there were Christians who were from Jewish or pagan backgrounds, and this meant that Christians would often trouble themselves about eating certain foods, especially those sacrificed to idols. So they're coming out of a culture, as pagans, of, you know, eating this meat after it's been sacrificed to a false god, and their conscience is concerned about doing that now that they're believers. But Paul says that when it comes to eating this food sacrificed to idols, Christians are free to eat.

They're free to eat anything. Back in chapter 8 verses 8, Paul says, "Food will not commend us to God. We are no worse if we do not eat, and we're no better off if we do." And he reminds us of the same in a slightly different way in chapter 10 verse 25, that we're in. He says, "Eat whatever is sold in the meat market without raising any question on the ground of conscience. For the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof."

Well, the NIV says the earth is the Lord's and everything in it. Verse 30 goes on to say, "If I partake with thankfulness, why am I denounced because of that for which I give thanks?" So, yeah, there's this food from the meat market that was potentially meat that had been sacrificed to idols. And so Paul is saying here, you shouldn't be troubled by this in your own conscience. You're free to eat so long as you recognise that the food you eat is a good gift from God.

Your conscience will be clear to enjoy the good gifts of creation when you worship God alone and recognise that the good gifts come from Him. That's what he's telling these Corinthian believers. And I think this is the encouragement to us. This is the way that we ought to enjoy many freedoms as Christians, many freedoms that religions would tout as evil. Alcohol, sex, certain foods, parties, etcetera.

If you can look at those things, so long as they're not sinning, if you can look at those things and say the earth is the Lord's and everything in it, then you should enjoy them. That's the number one way to stop those things from becoming idols as well is to recognise the giver more than the gift. That's how we enjoy our freedoms as Christians. But now that he's explained that we have freedoms, Paul raises a specific situation about when our freedom should be restricted. In verses 27 to 29, he says this.

If one of the unbelievers invites you to a dinner party dinner story. If one of the unbelievers invites you to dinner and you are disposed to go, eat whatever is set before you without raising any question on the ground of conscience. But if someone says to you, "This has been offered in sacrifice," then don't eat it for the sake of the one who informed you and for the sake of conscience. I do not mean your conscience, but his. And so Paul has concern here about how our freedoms affect someone else's conscience.

And admittedly, it is hard to know whose conscience he is talking about here. But it does seem to me though, looking at the text, that he's talking about the conscience of the unbeliever. And there are a few reasons I think this is the case, but the two main reasons are that Paul has already addressed the need to be careful about exercising freedom for the sake of the believer, and that was back in chapter 8. So he's already told the Corinthian believers, watch what your freedoms are for the sake of your brothers and sisters. And then secondly, he says at the end of our text, he's got all this inclusive language about who he's doing this for.

He says, "Do not cause anyone to stumble, whether Jews or Greeks or the church of God, just as I try to please everyone in every way, for I'm not seeking my own good, but the good of many so that they may be saved." And so he's using incredibly inclusive language here, such as anyone and everyone and many. And so we can be sure that his point is not just limited to believers here. And this is why it seems to me that Paul's concern is about the conscience of the unbeliever. And so we have to ask the question, why does Paul tell us after giving us this quote about freedom, why does he tell us to restrict our freedom to eat meat for the sake of the unbeliever? Perhaps he is worried about what effect the believer's association with the meat will have on the unbeliever's relationship with idolatry.

If the unbeliever sees a Christian consenting to eat food that has been sacrificed to idols, what would that be saying? It may be taken as a condoning of idolatry, or it may be taken to suggest that the Christian feels idol worship is insignificant or unimportant. And Paul wants the believer to be incredibly discerning for this reason. You don't know how the unbeliever will respond to your freedom. If your freedom causes the unbeliever to fall further into idolatry, then you've not acted in their best interests, and you've not sought their good as Paul calls us to.

And this is why Paul starts these verses by saying that although you may have the right to do anything, not everything is beneficial or constructive. This is a discernment issue. This is why Paul ends his argument with the famous line, "So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God." When considering the unbeliever, we must do what is constructive for their salvation, and we must do so in a way that brings glory to God, even if it comes at the cost of our freedom. And in doing this, we need to see what part idolatry has in blinding the unbeliever to God's goodness.

C.S. Lewis says that when the human heart is carefully wrapped in hobbies and little luxuries and a coffin of selfishness, then the heart starts to become unbreakable and penitent and irredeemable. And we must not partake in this promotion of idolatry, things that blind the unbeliever to God's glory. And this too is part of how we know that we have an unhealthy relationship with idols.

If we can't give up something we're free to enjoy for the sake of the unbeliever. And this requires discernment. You won't find hard and fast rules about every situation from me or from the text, but there is often a crossover point where the things you are free to enjoy begin to encourage the idolatry of unbelievers, leading them further away from God. In applying this, I'm going to admit a failing for your admonishment. When I was in my late teens and working at the golf club, I would often end up being invited to events where drinking was compulsory or at the very least expected.

And I would get invited, but the people would often say things like, "Why are you inviting Ben? He's a Christian. He doesn't drink." To which I would respond with disdain, of course, explaining that that isn't true Christianity. It isn't about following a set of rules, and I had the freedom to drink as a Christian.

And I thought, yeah. I clearly understood part of what Paul was saying here. And so to prove them wrong, in some sense, I would drink with them at their homes, at staff parties, after work, in the clubhouse, and it didn't always feel like a problem to me at the time. But what message did it send across to them? Because to them, drinking was a lifestyle.

It was an idol to be worshipped. Why wake up in the morning and go to work? Because at the end of the day, you can have six cold ones and forget your problems. And in knowing this, I should have made a conscious decision to only have one drink on the odd occasion or not any at all, in the hope that they might see my life as a declaration that I don't serve alcohol, alcohol does not serve as my hope, and that hope lies in God. And yet being an 18 year old with a lack of discernment, I chose to drink with them, and it didn't convict them of their alcohol idolatry.

It actually further confirmed it, and I repent of that. And I actually had another situation recently where I was talking to an unbelieving friend, and he was saying, "Oh, I've got this mate who is a Christian, but, you know, he's out partying all the time, and he doesn't really look like he's living the life of the Christian. And that's why I don't believe in Christianity, because they're hypocrites." And I, you know, I responded to that and I went, "Well, you know, maybe he's just lacking the discernment so far, but that's what it does. The unbeliever sees that participation with idolatry in our culture, and it affects them.

That can't be the true God if they're living like that." And now I want to clarify as well. Paul says it is good to want to be all things to all people so that they might be saved through the gospel. And this might mean that in order to get on someone's level, you have to buy them a beer. And praise God that we have the freedom to do that.

But you have to be discerning about it. You have to strike a balance in all areas of life. The point I want to get across is there is a crossover point where the things you are free to enjoy encourage the idolatry of unbelievers. And so the question is, where is the crossover point in your life? Where is the intersection where your life stops demonstrating satisfaction and worship of God and starts looking more like love for the world.

And you just need to show some discernment in your actions. Again, I can't give hard and fast rules about every situation. This is about doing what is in the best interests of those around us for the sake of their salvation and for the glory of God. That's what Paul is getting at. And this has been a bit of a "don't do this, don't do that" kind of sermon.

Check yourself. And that's hard because we don't always know how or what to do with that, and we can leave disheartened. But I think what Paul does is really special. Chapter 11 verses 1 in particular, he universally gives us something to look to to give us this discernment to live as good worshippers of God. He says, "Follow my example as I follow the example of Christ."

You see, the only thing that will teach us to have the discernment is to better understand the example of Christ. And the example of Christ is this in Philippians 2. Let me read it to us. Philippians 2. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though He was in the form of God, did not count equality with God something to be grasped, but emptied Himself by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of man. And being found in human form, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. You see, Christ, in very nature God, having all the glory and riches of heaven, doesn't count that as something to be grasped at, doesn't count that as something to find worth in on this earth. He empties Himself in submission to the Father's will and sacrifices His freedoms for our salvation. You see, the reason you are no longer living in the hopelessness of idolatry is because Christ sacrificed His freedoms for you.

Your salvation is dependent on the Son of God who gave up the riches of heaven to redeem you. You want to get good at what Paul is talking about in one Corinthians 10? You want to get good at doing what is in the best interest of unbelievers around you, you've got to remember that when you are an unbeliever, Christ did what was in your best interests. Follow His example. That's what Paul calls us to.

He needs to be our vision. Be thou my vision, oh Lord of my heart. All else but naught to me save that thou art. Thou my best thought by the day and by the night, waking and sleeping, thy presence my light. Let's pray together.

Dear Lord God, we bring before you our struggles with idolatry. Lord, each one of us has something in our lives that we often cherish more than You, that we give our time and energy and worship to more than You. And, Lord, we ask that Your Word would convict us this morning to turn to You. Lord, that the Spirit would open our eyes to see You for Your glory. Lord, that we might see the gospel of the glory of Christ, as Paul mentions in two Corinthians.

Lord, let us not look to these silly, worthless idols to find our worth, but may our worth only ever be in You. And, Lord, as we seek to live a life that demonstrates that, Lord, we ask that Your Son, the Lord Jesus, would be our example, that He would be our vision, that He would be our light to guide our way. Lord, that we would look to His sacrifice on the cross and see a man who gave it all up for us, suffered the punishment for us. When we couldn't see, when we were blind to sin, He gave it all up for us. And so I pray that You would work this in us by Your mighty power.

We pray in Your name. Amen.