We're turning tonight to the book of Romans chapter fourteen. Romans chapter fourteen. We're continuing our study in conscience and we're dealing with what is known as a weak conscience. And if you read the portions of the Word of God where you find the expression the weak conscience, first Corinthians chapter eight and chapter ten, you find that in the early church it had to do with the observance of days and the eating of certain foods. And this is a very tricky thing because the difference between the weak and the strong conscience is very important because connected with it is the liberty that God has brought us through the salvation that's in Christ Jesus. And for that reason, we're dealing out of Romans chapter fourteen, because I believe Romans fourteen and the opening verses of Romans chapter fifteen are the most complete that's found in the New Testament on the subject of the weak believer and the strong believer. And the weak believer here does not mean he's weak physically, and it basically doesn't mean he's weak spiritually. It just means that he's entangled with his conscience over a lot of do's and do nots, do's and don'ts. So we begin at verse ten of chapter fourteen tonight. Last week we read the whole of the fourteenth chapter down to the sixth verse of chapter fifteen. Tonight we're just going to read a few verses beginning at verse ten of Romans fourteen. where God asks the question, But why dost thou judge thy brother? Or why dost thou seteth not thy brother? For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ. For it is written, As I live saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God. So that every one of us shall give account of himself to God. Let us not therefore judge one another any more. but judge this rather, that no man put a stumbling block or an occasion to fall in his brother's way. I know and am persuaded by the Lord Jesus that there is nothing unclean of itself, but to him that esteemeth anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean. But if thy brother be grieved with thy meat, now walkest thou not charitably, Destroy not him with thy meat for whom Christ died. Let not then your good be evil spoken of. And may the Lord bless the reading of his word. Let us again look to him in prayer. Our Father, we thank you and praise you tonight for the liberty that you've given us through the salvation that's in Christ Jesus. And our liberty is such. that we can enjoy all things that you have created and all things that you have made. But we pray our God that in our liberty and in our use of liberty, that we may not wound the man with a weak conscience and that we may not put a stumbling block in the pathway of anyone else because of the liberty that we possess in Christ. Give us wisdom, our God, in order that the words of our mouth and the meditation of our heart will be acceptable in thy sight continuously, day by day, as thy people. For the Lord Jesus' sake, amen. With the discussion of the week and the strong believer that you have in Romans, fourteen and fifteen, It enters into that area known as Christian liberty. Many believers are not aware of the complete liberty that God has provided for his people through the redemptive work of our Lord Jesus Christ. Relationship with him brings us into liberty, and we should extend that liberty to other believers as well. Now, in our text that we've read tonight, God calls every believer to keep from passing judgment on other believers, but rather to pass severe judgment on himself. We should not be afraid to examine ourselves and to judge ourselves. And we must allah other believers, the same liberty. that we ourselves enjoy as believers in Christ. Now, how is Christian liberty to be used? That is a good question to ask ourselves as the people of God. Now, we as believers are to live in the light of the Word of God as it is illuminated to us by the Holy Spirit. Now someone else may say, I have the right to live according to my conscience, and I have to answer only to God. And that sounds like a strong believer. I have to answer only to God. Well, that's true. Every one of us is going to have to answer to God. But God does not grant liberty of conscience to the unbeliever, to the man who does not believe. We've got to keep in mind that the whole of the New Testament. In Galatia there were Judaizing legalists that we talked about this morning who had taught that you have to be circumcised according to the law of Moses in order to be saved. In other words, they were men who propagated salvation by works. Now Paul didn't say to them, let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind. He never said that. He said in chapter one in verse eight and again in verse nine, if I or an angel from heaven preach any other gospel unto you than that which you have received, let him be anathema. Let the curse of God be upon him. That's what he said. And that is some of the strongest language of the New Testament. The unsaved man is not at liberty to decide how he will be saved. Oh no. But the believer is at liberty to decide how he will live in relation to those that are round about him. And that's what Romans fourteen is about. How am I going to live in the community where God placed me? And this always entails the child of God to careful watching of his own life toward the world. toward a man with a weak conscience in the Christian community and toward babes in Christ, that we don't place a stumbling block in their way. And it causes us to keep Acts chapter four and verse twelve before us. Because as far as the unbelievers are concerned, the word of God says, Neither is there salvation in any other. For there is none under the name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved. And we have to keep that before us. And for the believer, we have to remember the great work of John Bunyan. For in his great allegory of the pilgrim, in Pilgrim's progress, from the cross to the throne of God, there are many roads. There's only one road to the cross. But God leads his people over many different paths. from the cross to the throne of God. I hope by the grace of God I don't have to go through everything Pilgrim did in Pilgrim's progress to get to the city of God. Now while it's delightful reading and while it's the pathway that many take, it was certainly a rough path for he had many disappointments along the way and he was continuously learning the grace of God. Now when you set up legal principles for another person, you become that person's conscience. And that person then begins to live to please you rather than to please the Lord. In other words, we must submit our thoughts to the ways and to the Word of God. And we must subject ourselves. and be willing to judge ourselves before the Lord so that we do not wound another believer. Now, we are to no longer judge others. Because in judging others, we do something that God has not given us the privilege of doing. We sit in judgment on another person's motives. We try to figure out why people did what they did, why they said what they said. And when we do that, we judge other people's motives. And God reserves that judgment for himself. In First Corinthians chapter four, verse five, God says, Judge nothing before the time until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the heart. And then shall every man have praise of God. We have to wait till the Lord returns. God has never gotten off the throne and put me on to judge somebody else. And He's never gotten off the throne and put you on to judge anybody else either. We are not to judge others. We are to observe narrowly our own conduct, our own choices, our own ways in order that the weaker brother will not fall because of us. The Word of God warns us about putting a stumbling block in the way of someone else. And that word stumbling block occurs six times in the New Testament. And it really means an obstacle or a hindrance in the way of another. And then we have the expression, or an occasion to fall before thy brother. And that occasion to fall is the Greek word scandalon from which we get our word. scandal. Don't put an occasion to fall. And that occasion to fall many times is the use of the tongue. And with our tongues we can call others to fall. We are to be neither a hindrance nor a snare to another believer. Now it is morally wrong to brand an innocent and innocent thing sinful. Paul says, I am persuaded, he says, that nothing is unclean of itself. So he says in verse fourteen. But it's spiritually wrong. Well, it's morally wrong to brand an innocent thing sinful. It's scripturally wrong to do something that may be innocent but would cause somebody else to stumble. That's what Romans chapter fourteen is teaching us. People who are stumbled by the conduct of other believers sometimes must be stumbled themselves. And they who cause stumbling blocks many times fall themselves. Now our example in godly and righteous living and not to put a stumbling block before others is our blessed Lord. He could associate with publicans, with sinners, with harlots, and he was yet harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners. Usually we can't win people by exhibiting horror when we see something that they do. I was a young Christian at the time when most believers thought it was wrong for a woman or a young lady to wear makeup, especially when it was worn in such a way that it was noticeable. And I remember a dear old brother. There's a young, our two young ladies sang a duet together one Sunday night. And this woman immediately protested because these women had lipstick on. And this dear old brother, his name is Eli Hershey. I'll never forget him. He said, you know, I think we'd be much better off if we spent time praying for our young people rather than criticizing them. My, that man had a heart. God used that man. It's so easy to criticize. It's so easy to say something that would in one way or another stumble someone else. We must kindly help people, friends, out of the rut of non-biblical legalism. and there's nothing biblical about wearing or not wearing lipstick and it's so easy to fall into these ruts and I was reared in that situation and I could say a lot of things but I'm not going to I just used that as an illustration to show What kind of a mind we have to have in order to use our Christian liberty or right in order that we don't stumble somebody else. This morning at the Lord's Supper when we read, when our brother read from the first psalm, Blessed is a man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor siteth in the seat of the scornful. but his delight is in the law of the Lord. And in his law doth he meditate day and night. And if we're meditating in the law of the Lord day and night, the mind of the child of God will so be absorbed with the things of God that we'll know how to answer and answer in a loving way and in a kind way toward other people. But you dwell. and you look at others in areas where you can find fault and cut them instead of helping them, you can set up all kinds of standards apart from Scripture. And you can rob the people of their liberty. Now, notice verse fourteen. The apostle says, I know and am persuaded by the Lord Jesus. that there is nothing unclean of itself, but to him that esteemeth anything to be unclean. To him it is unclean. I want you to notice something in this verse. Knowledge comes before persuasion. That is so important. He says, I know and am persuaded. It is the centrality of truth that is in Christ Jesus that makes a believer steadfast in true knowledge. And at the basis of true knowledge is the fact of that salvation is by grace. A person who doesn't wear lipstick is no more accepted before God than a person who does. God accepts us on the basis of grace. It is God's free grace that saves any of us. Let me change the wording a bit. The person who doesn't smoke cigarettes is no more accepted before God than the person who does. Now, I personally don't smoke. I tried it as a kid. I got whipped for it. I tried it again anyway. But I thank God I never liked it. I just thank God for that. He spared me that. But you see I grew up in an area where it was wrong if anybody smoked. You see. Smoking cigarettes was taboo. Going to the movies was taboo. Playing cards was taboo. Drinking wine was taboo. And I could go down the list of a lot of things that were taboo. They were the taboos of that part of the country, you see. The blessing came when I learned that I was saved by grace apart from works. and that I'm not accepted on the basis of anything that I do or don't do. I am accepted because Christ has saved me by grace and by grace alone. Now, this is so important. And unless we see the truth of salvation by grace, our conscience will never really be strong. and will never truly enjoy the liberties that we have in Christ. We never will. That doesn't mean that we have a license and we'll deal with license in a moment. The liberty that we have in Christ does not give us a license. It rather curbs us in order that we live righteously and godly in this present age. You see, What does Paul say? I know and am persuaded by the Lord Jesus that there is nothing unclean of itself. I know. You see, the demons believe and tremble. So we read in James chapter two and verse nineteen. A person's faith may be better than his understanding of his faith. And there's a good illustration of that in John chapter nine, the blind man of John chapter nine. His faith was a lot better than an understanding of his faith. He didn't understand what happened to him. He says, But one thing I know, whereas I was blind, now I see. Now think of who wrote this. Romans fourteen is written by the Apostle Paul. And I want you to consider All the things he had to overcome in order to write what he wrote. And in order to take the stand against Peter that he took in Galatians chapter two. Paul had to overcome far more to write about Christian liberty as he does than any of us will ever have to face. Number one, he was a member of the narrowest sect that Judaism produced. He was a Pharisee. More than that, his clothing was dictated for him. Somebody else decided what he was going to wear. The way he took his food and his drink was more important than what his food and drink was. That gets a little funny, doesn't it? The way he took it, was more important than what it was. Reminds me of Red Skelton when he was, you know, he's a man with a many faces and as he was put it, he was illustrating drinking a cup of tea, the proper way to drink tea and only he could do it. And he said the pinky always has to be sticking out. You can't drink tea with a pinky in, you have to have the pinky out. And only Red could do that. the Talmudic writings of the rabbis. The one tried to outdo the other in putting rules and regulations for others to follow. And it was this that Saul of Tarsus had in his background. Furthermore, the ceremonial washings which were only gestures were more important than deeds of kindness. And that's what our Lord says in the twenty-third chapter of Matthew, when he says, pronounces woes upon the scribes and the Pharisees, and he called them hypocrites. Everything that could possibly go into his mouth was classified in one way or another as either clean or unclean. How would you like to live in that kind of a situation? Everything was classified for him. either clean or unclean. And now what does he say in Romans chapter fourteen? He said, I know and am persuaded by the Lord Jesus that there is nothing unclean of itself. This brother has come a long way. Now he knows Christ. and he has a knowledge that is real. He now knows what grace has brought him in that great salvation. Nothing is unclean of itself. The only factor that enters in is, what do I think about the things that I eat? For you'll notice the end of the verse. But to him that esteemeth anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean. In other words, if you think it's unclean, then you have a weak conscience and it's unclean to you. If you think that eating shrimp is unclean, then it's unclean to you. And if I think it's unclean, I have to abstain from it as a child of God. I have to learn what Christ has done in cleansing, not only in providing redemption, but in delivering us from the law of Moses. Now I want you to notice verse fifteen, the weak brother's conscience. For here we really get into the issue of the conscience. For he says, But if thy brother be grieved with thy meat, now walkest thou not charitably, destroy not him with thy meat, for whom Christ died. Two things might happen to the weak brother. He could be injured, he could be grieved, or he could even be destroyed. Now we're going to deal with that word destroyed in a minute. That doesn't mean he can be lost. We're not talking about eternal salvation here. Destroy not thy brethren. I have an obligation toward all men, but especially toward those who are in Christ, who might be classified as babies, who do not know all the liberties and the truths of the liberty that is ours in Christ. A few things we need to consider concerning verse fifteen. Number one, our text concerns believers only. He's not talking about the unsaved. He's talking about believers. Our text, secondly here, does not deal and it doesn't contradict the results of justification by faith. For the results of justification by faith are eternal. Being justified by faith We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. The believer is in Christ. He is justified. He is born of God. But a believer, friends, can be hurt and he can be grieved. Now, the hurt of one's feelings is an indication of injured pride. When our feelings are hurt, It's because our pride has been injured. It is to hurt the conscience of another that he's talking about in our text. He's not talking about hurting somebody's pride. He's talking about hurting their conscience. And it is this that we must be very careful not to do. The conscience of another must not be forced. But the conscience of another must not be relaxed either. And that's where the tricky part comes in concerning the weak conscience. And somewhere along the line, all of us have a weak conscience at one part in our Christian life or another. And if we're going to move on, we have to keep in mind what I want to deal with in two weeks. What you have in verse seventeen. What the kingdom of God is and what the kingdom of God is not. Ultimately... It all boils down to one thing, what I believe, concerning salvation by grace. The kingdom of God is not meat and drink. It is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. I'd like to ask a question. In the New Testament, what are the conditions for church fellowship? And sooner or later you have to think this through. What are the conditions in the New Testament for church fellowship? And they all have to do, friends, with your belief concerning the person of our Lord Jesus Christ. Who he is and what he's done. Is it necessary for a believer to sign a card to uphold certain practices? Did we find that in the New Testament? You see, the conscience of a young believer is weakened when it's held up by such props. There's a man in the Christian community, followed by the name of Don Loney. I don't know if any of you have ever listened to any of these tapes, but he spoke a lot to high school, in high schools and on college campuses. I know someone who went to Wheaton College when he was there. She happened to be a girl. And I'm pretty sure that he dated this girl. I'm pretty sure that, although I couldn't be totally sure, because she seemed to know quite a bit. And when you entered Wheaton College, you have to sign a pledge that one of the things you won't do is go to a movie and you won't do a number of things. I don't know if this still holds at Wheaton, but it did in those days. And Don Loney would ask a girl for a date, specifically telling her that he was willing to take her to a movie. She had knowledge of where they were going. and when she accepted they would go to the movie theater and he would walk up to the place where you'd buy the ticket and then publicly he would tell this girl she had a bad conscience because she had signed a card that she would not attend the movies and he would give her a lecture there in front of the person who was selling the ticket and He was quite a speaker to high schoolers. He was able to communicate with them on their level. If you ever can get any of the records by Don Loney, I don't know if they're put into tape or not. They're worth listening to. But that's how it is. We can hold up young believers with a lot of props. We can put them under and we can be the result of giving them a weak conscience. On the other hand, our example must also be not to give somebody else a license. You see, if Don Loney would have taken that girl in the movie theater, he would have given her a license. She could have said, well, Don Loney goes to the movies, why can't I? You see, we as believers may not wound the conscience of another, but we also may not give them a license. It's like a man in Florida who was a Christian who loved horse racing. He loved it. And he would go to the racetrack just to see the horses run. He didn't put, I understand, he didn't bet money or anything like that. He just enjoyed watching the horses run. And there was a man sitting next to him who took the name of the Lord in vain, and he told him about it. And he said, well, what does that bother you? He said, yes, I'm a child of God. I'm a Christian. And he said to him, and what are you doing here? License. License. And you see, here's the tricky thing about the weak conscience. and the strong believer. We have liberty in Christ to watch the horses run, but I don't have liberty to put a stumbling block before somebody else. And that must be the mode of our lives. Not a word destroy in this passage. Destroy not him for whom Christ died. The word destroy is to cause to ruin or to cause a loss. And we're dealing with a subject from verse ten of the judgment seat of Christ. And when we're going to either receive a reward at the judgment seat of Christ or we're going to suffer a loss. For Matthew chapter ten and verse forty two, our Lord Jesus said, He who gives a cup of cold water shall not lose his reward. In second John verse eight, the apostle writing to the elect ladies said to her look to yourselves that you may not lose what you have worked for but may win a full reward and we can lose our reward by foolish acting and not really caring for another brother now If your brother is hurt by what you eat, you are no longer, he says, walking in love. We don't relax our brother's conscience to the point where he does something just because we do it. A lot of people do things just because somebody else does it. And we don't relax somebody else's conscience that way. And that person's conscience may even tell him not to do it. In other words, don't cause your brother to lose his reward at the judgment seat of Christ. And that's what verse ten says. When you go back to verse ten. He says to us, but why dost thou judge thy brother? Or why dost thou seteth not thy brother? For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ. We're going to stand before God. Our Lord Jesus is the judge. And the subject of whether we're saved or lost is not the issue at the judgment seat of Christ. The issue at the judgment seat of Christ is either losing a reward or being rewarded by the Lord. Would be an awful thing to lose a reward when you stand before God Just because you were determined to exercise your Christian liberty irrespective of another brother's conscience. It would be an awful thing to lose your reward at the judge's seat of Christ if you exercised your liberty and put a stumbling block before another or gave them a license to sin. May God enable us to so live before the Lord that we will take this passage seriously. And realize that our blessed Lord has brought us into a position of liberty in Christ. God is not against us. God is for us. And he is so for us that he's given us complete liberty. But he asks us to use that liberty in such a way that we don't wound another believer's conscience. Preachers get asked a lot of questions. One of the questions that young people often ask is, is it all right for me to dance? Now, how do you answer that? Is it all right for me to dance? I answer that like this. It's all right for me, but it's wrong for you. That's how I answer it. For when you get to the end of Romans. It says, Blessed is the man who condemns not himself in the thing that he allows. And the fact that they ask the question is, they're not sure of themselves. They have a conscience about it. and they'd like me to be their conscience. It's all right for me, but it would be wrong for you. Now, I'm not going to go dancing. A number of reasons for that. And we won't go into the numerous reasons why I wouldn't go dancing, but nevertheless, it would be all right. I have no conscience about it. But the moment you do, it says whatsoever is not a faith is sin. That's the last verse of Romans fourteen. And you see, we have to come to this conclusion. And we have to put a believer at liberty so that the decisions they make, they make them before the Lord. And decisions made before the Lord are far better than any you make before your peers. The decisions you make before your peers can bring a snare. But decisions you make before the Lord bring peace and liberty of conscience. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for the liberties that are ours in Christ Jesus. And we ask you that we may so teach that we give others liberty. to walk before thee as the Spirit of God would lead them, and not seek to be the conscience of another. And oh, we pray, our God, that the words of our mouth and the meditation of our heart and the activity of our lives will be well pleasing unto thee. Help us, our Father, to realize that we don't live unto ourselves and that we are not to judge one another and set up standards