You Have Got to Choose

Last week Paul brought in the issue of Israel’s past sin and this week he is applying the example of their idolatry specifically.

In this passage Paul goes beyond the initial discussion about meat sacrificed to idols by speaking to actually participating in pagan festivals, feasts and idol worship …

1 Corinthians 10:14–22 (CSB)

14 So then, my dear friends, flee from idolatry. 15 I am speaking as to sensible people. Judge for yourselves what I am saying. 16 The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a sharing in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a sharing in the body of Christ? 17 Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, since all of us share the one bread. 18 Consider the people of Israel. Do not those who eat the sacrifices participate in the altar? 19 What am I saying then? That food sacrificed to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything? 20 No, but I do say that what they sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be participants with demons! 21 You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot share in the Lord’s table and the table of demons. 22 Or are we provoking the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than he?

Flee from idolatry

An idol is a god-substitute.

John Robert Walmsley Stott (English Preacher)

It is always idolatry when divine honors are bestowed upon an idol, under whatever pretext this is done.

John Calvin (French Reformer)

It sounds easy to determine but sometimes we have difficulty identifying things we have turned in to idols.

For most of us the reality is that we do not actively worship something or someone other than God, in other words, we haven’t called on the name of some pagan god or forged an image of to worship.

We often inadvertently elevate things and people to idol status.

Paul is speaking about participating in pagan things so we must guard our actions which we will dig into a little more in our next point.

Every day things can be turned into idols - job, sports, money, hobbies, etc.

The hard part is that not everything we idolize are in and of themselves bad but it is about position.

We even take church things that are supposed to be God focused and turn them into idols.

Two of the biggest idols in the church are tradition and leaders.

Tradition - we’ve never done it that way before, we used to do this, committing resources to programs that no longer work, etc.

Leaders - the last guy did this or that, I will not go to another group because I like my teacher, I expect them to do or act a certain way, they are not meeting my needs (which usually means desires), etc.

We cannot sit on the fence, we must choose a side.

Because we are united with Christ through His death and resurrection we should be incompatible with the world and the ways of the enemy.

We should not partake of the things of God and still try to partake of the things of the enemy.

If we do not choose we tempt the wrath of God.