If you would stand for the reading of God's word. And while you're doing that, open to open your Bible for First Corinthians, Chapter 10. First Corinthians, Chapter 10. We'll be reading from verses 14 through 22 this morning. Hear the word of the Lord. Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry. Speak as I speak as the 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 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? Let us pray. Father, we. Come to you today and we stand before your word and we ask that you would send a spirit to change us. We ask that you would mold us, that you would shape us through your text, through your words. That you have you have given to us and preserve for us all these many years. Oh, father, we ask that you would you would chip off the rough edges, that you would break our desires to have idols in our hearts, that you would help us to see the danger of worshiping anything other than you. And father, we ask that as we leave here today, we would be more like the Lord Jesus. Oh, Father, please move us down the path of sanctification. Help us to see the idols in our lives. And we ask that you would give us the ability to walk away, to flee from them. And Father, we pray all of these things in the name of our Lord Jesus, the one who is gone before us and made the sacrifice on our behalf. We pray all these things in his name. Amen. May be seated. Let me ask you, have you ever been given a long and drawn out explanation to a question that you have asked, even to a question that you really just expected a yes or no answer to? Or maybe someone has asked you a question and you have given a long and drawn out answer. And maybe like me, you enjoy giving these long and drawn out explanations. Most likely we've been on both sides of this conversation before. You've asked a question and you've gotten a long explanation back or possibly someone has asked you a simple question and you've done the same. You've given a long drawn out answer. As we get back into first Corinthians, the Corinthian church has asked Paul a question and they might have expected a much shorter answer. But Paul has given a much longer and in-depth question dealing with this topic of idols. It's a question that starts all the way back in chapter eight. But the good news for us is he is drawing to a close to his answer. And in fact, today we get to the main part of his answer. We get to the meat of what he's been leading up to. If you look all the way back in chapter eight, we see that Paul says now concerning food offered to idols, they've written this question and want to know about participation in meals of food that has been offered to an idol. And he spends the rest of chapter eight after that, not on that question specifically, but on the underlying issues of loving other brothers. And then we see that Paul has pointed out that their supposed freedom has actually caused the faith of other Christians to be destroyed or hindered. And that is actually sinning against Christ himself. And then we've seen Paul say, I've laid all of these rights to the side. And then he says, in fact, like a athlete that that disciplines his body, I, too, have disciplined my body in these ways and and I am working in the Christian life not to be disqualified, implying that they should be doing the same thing. And then we see in chapter 10. That Paul explains, using Israel as an example, that there are those who see. There are those who. Have tasted. The Lord's goodness to them. And they have sinned and they have worshipped idols and they've been destroyed in the wilderness. The last two weeks, we've looked at those things, we've looked at at Paul's example of this cautionary tale of Israel, and then Tom has helped us look through and see the outcome of that, of the sin that comes from what they've done. And now Paul, building off of that, is going to give a logical answer to not just what he's just Immediately said that to the whole text. Flee from idolatry. And so in this passage, what we're first going to see is his main point to this whole question, what do we do about idols? He's going to give a very clear and concise. Prohibition of the worship of idols. So we're going to see that first. And then secondly, we're going to see him give a couple of explanations to help people understand why he's saying this more or better. He's going to give a couple of analogies. The first analogy is that we identify, we participate with Christ through the Lord's Supper. So we have Paul saying, don't Don't be with idols, flee from them. And here's why. The second point is because we participate with Christ in the Lord's Supper. And thirdly, that others don't do that. Others participate with demons when they participate in these mills. And then lastly, I want us to see how this might affect us here today, because you read this text and often go or I would often I often have gone. This doesn't apply to me. But I think it does apply to us. There's much to be learned about this worship of idols for us and much warning for us. And so let's look at the text today. We get to the main point of this question, the main point of his answer. I mean, he's answering the question, what do we do about this food offered to idols? And he says this in verse 14. My beloved, I found this to be very pastoral, very loving and kind. Unlike how he could have approached this, he says, my beloved, my dear brothers and sisters in Christ, flee from idolatry. Flee from this idolatry. In his loving, caring way, he gives a strong answer and a strong warning to flee. To flee, to run away, remove yourselves from all parts of idol worship. Don't allow yourself to be a part of it in any way. Even if you think you have this freedom, you don't flee from it. This is a a natural conclusion to the previous paragraphs, this warning from Israel, and it's also a natural conclusion to their question. Instead of this long drawn out, what we have marked is two chapters of text. Paul simply might have said now concerning food offered to idols, flee from them. But he doesn't do that. He helps them see the dangers of not fleeing from the idols. But now he gets to the main point and he says, flee from them. Brothers and sisters, this is our warning to us today. Flee from idols. And some of you are looking around and going, Dirk, I don't see any idols in my house. I have no carved images that I offer incense to or or eat meals in front of. But as we'll see, I think we, too, do have idols. Tom mentioned in his prayer earlier idols of our heart and things that we do, in fact, worship. And Paul's warning. Flee from these things, flee from them. And then he helps us understand it through a couple of explanations or analogies, and we get to the first one. So we've seen this concise answer to flee, and now he says. Essentially, let me explain why you see in these mills, this food worship to idols, they were They were they were they were slaughtering animals or food or whatever it was. And they were sitting and eating a meal together in form of fellowship. And Paul says now the cup of blessing that we bless, is it not participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not 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. Paul is saying when we participate in the Lord's Supper, We are participating in a fellowship meal. We need to look at this carefully to fully understand what he's saying, what he is not saying is that the Lord in the Lord's Supper, we are actually eating and drinking the physical and actual flesh and blood of Christ. That is not what he's saying. That is that is not how Paul is relating this. The food is not the Lord himself. In fact, if you if you if you carefully read this, the language, the grammar, the example of Israel he's about to use, nor also the examples of the pagan meals he's going to use, allow for such a meaning that the Lord suffers the actual intake of the flesh and the blood of Christ. It's not how any of any of the context around this works, nor anywhere else in the New Testament. The participation that we read of in the ESV, you might also translate it or understand it to be the fellowship, meaning the fellowship that is in the common life that we have in Christ as believers in the Lord Jesus. When we come together, we are when we celebrate the Lord's Supper, as we will later, we are we are proclaiming and we are fellowshipping around each other in this common life that we have in the work of the Lord Jesus. Not just as physical life, but this spiritual life that we now have. And when we do this, there's this unique relationship between believers and with each other and also with the Lord Jesus. One commentator said this. Speaking of the Corinthians, they did not consider their table to be an altar where sacrifice was taking place. but a fellowship mill where in the presence of the Spirit they were by faith looking back to a singular sacrifice that had been made and were thus realizing again its benefits in their lives. In this way they shared in the blood of Christ. Being thus joined together in Christ through his blood makes it impossible to join pagan mills where the focus is equally on the deity involved. Quote unquote deity. Although Paul must go on to explain that the non-existent deity is, in fact, a demon. Oftentimes, we in different traditions than our own, we call the Lord's Supper communion because it demonstrates our fellowship with each other. We commune together around the gospel of Jesus and his work on our behalf. And when we do this and we will later do that here today. What we are proclaiming is that we have an unbreakable fellowship with the suffering of our master. We are proclaiming the blessings we have with him by his propitiation, which means his appeasing of the father's wrath and the expiation of our sins. We are proclaiming all of which all of those things result in the subsequent imputation or the giving of his righteousness to us, resulting in our peace with God. And when we have the Lord suffer, we show and proclaim our bond of unification with him and each other in his church. And Paul is saying because of the nature of this meal, we cannot participate in others like it. Because if we do, we are saying all these things that I've just listed off about Christ's work aren't true. If we say there is one salvation through the Lord Jesus, we cannot go somewhere else and say something completely opposite. Therefore, Paul says we should flee from idols. You should flee from this, even this meal, this meal that has been prepared in the worship of an idol. And he said earlier, I know there's no there's no substance of these idols, but you cannot participate in that because you participate in the Lord's Supper. When we come together and bless the blood and we break the bread, we are proclaiming Jesus. You cannot do that and then go proclaim another way to salvation. Your allegiance has now been moved somewhere else, and it is, in fact, worship of an idol. Therefore, we should flee, we should flee. Paul goes on and he gives a second analogy to help explain this better. So we've seen his main point, flee from the idols and the participation in these mills, because we already participate in the mill because of Christ's work for us. And then he says the second analogy that others don't do that, they participate with demons. We pick up in verse 18. He says, consider the people of Israel are not those who eat the sacrifices participants in the altar. And again, I love this model that Paul sets up. He looks back to Israel. and then applies it moving forward for us. He looks back in Scripture and the truth of Scripture before and then he applies it moving forward. Now, I think it's easy for us in our context today, because last time I checked, none of us are living in the Old Testament times as Israelites. It's easy for us to pass over the statement and to not know what Paul is saying. We shouldn't do that. Paul is referring back to something very important and very specific in the Old Testament. We read in Deuteronomy 14, we start in verse 22, read through 27, we read this. You shall, and this is written to Israel, you shall tithe all of the yield of your seed that comes from the field year by year. And before the Lord your God in the place that he will choose to make his name dwell there, you shall eat the tithe of your grain, of your wine and of your oil in the firstborn of your herd of the flock that you may learn to fear the Lord your God always. And if the way is too long for you so that you are not able to carry the tithe and the Lord your God blesses you because the place is too far from you, which the Lord your God chooses to set his name there, then you shall turn it into money and bind up the money in your hand and go to the place of the Lord your God chooses and spend the money for whatever you desire. Oxen or sheep or wine or strong drink, whatever your appetite craves. And you shall eat there before the Lord, your God, and rejoice you and your household. And you shall not neglect the Levite who is with you within your towns, for he has no portion or an inheritance with you. Paul says, Didn't Israel do this same thing? They would go take their tithes, sacrifice it at the temple and then take that food and have a meal, a fellowship meal, a participation in the actual sacrifice that is going on as an act of worship. They're worshiping that the Lord has given them so much. Paul said, then even Israel do that. When you when you participate in these meals, you are participating in worship. Therefore, If you participate in the food that has been worshipped to these idols, you are participating and showing fellowship with those idols and with the people who worship them. This is a very dangerous place to be. In fact, Paul has already told us the dangers of this, if we look back at Israel. In verse seven of chapter 10 that we saw two weeks ago, Paul says, do not be idolaters, as some of them were, as it is written, the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play. He's not talking about Saturday night meal where you have with your family and you send your kids outside to have a good time like we did last night. That is not what he's doing. He is quoting Exodus 32, specifically verse six. where Israel sat down before a golden calf and ate a sacrificial meal, thus worshiping an idol, and they became idolaters. And if you know that story, it did not end well for them. Likewise, Paul is saying that when the Corinthians, who think they have the freedom to do this, participate in these meals of idols, they are becoming idolaters like Israel. If you've been in our Deuteronomy study, you know that this ends poorly every time for the Israel. When they obey the words of the Lord, things go well. When they do what's right in their own eyes, things go bad. Paul is pointing that out. He's trying to make the connection for them. You are doing this very thing that Israel has done. It ended well. It ended poorly for them. This is a dangerous road to go down, flee from The idols. Paul's anticipating their question based on this last analogy. He's anticipating and saying, so what you're saying is that these idols actually have some substance if we're if it's causing us to if it's causing us to be in poor standing with God, and he's going to say no in verse 20. No, actually, verse 19. What do I imply then? He knows they're asking. That food offered to idols is anything or that an idol is anything? No, I imply that what pagan sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God. You see, these meals that people offer to the idols, they're not a divine deity, there's only one God. But Paul is saying they are being offered up to demons, masquerading around as a God. And he goes on and he says, you cannot drink the cup of the of the Lord and the cup of demons. You can't partake in a table, the Lord and the table of demons. The end of verse 20 says, I do not want you to be participants with those demons. He's being loving to them, you can't do both. You can't do both. There is only one way to salvation, allegiance to one, and that is the Lord Jesus. If you have allegiance to anything else, it leads to your destruction. Flee from this, Paul is saying. The mills are showing their allegiance, they connect people to those who are also partakers of the mill and they connect to whatever is being worshiped. And you cannot be connected to Christ and to a false God. You cannot do it. There is only one way we are saved, and that is through the one sacrifice of Jesus. There are big implications for aligning yourself with anything other than Christ for your salvation. Paul goes on and he says, Shall we provoke the Lord to jealousy? This is not the kind of jealousy that you and I speak of in our culture. The kind of jealousy that you see children have for their siblings, new birthday gifts, the kind of jealousy that you see a co-worker have for your new car. The jealousy that you may have felt when someone else gets the promotion that you deserve. This is not the jealousy that we are speaking of here. This is an Old Testament phrasing that we see. The term is related to God's self-revelation in the Old Testament. It's related to his holiness, his power and all of his attributes that set him apart as being God. He is without equal and he will tolerate no rivals to his holiness. He tells us this in Isaiah, chapter 42, starting in verse five. Thus says God, the Lord who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and what comes from it, who gives breath to the people on it and spirit to those who walk in it. I am the Lord. I have called you in righteousness. I take you by the hand and keep you. I give you as a covenant for the people, a light for the nations to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison, those who sit in darkness. I am the Lord. That is my name, my glory. I give to no other nor praise to carve idols. God is different than any other idol that is to be worshipped. He has given, nor would He ever give glory or praise to any other carved idol or demon. It is Him and Him alone that deserves the worship. So when we see this idea of jealousy, we are referring to God's holiness. that he has given no praise to any other created being. It is he and he alone that is holy. And by going to these mills, the Corinthians are fellowshipping with those who are trying or who are worshipping a demon that is trying to rival the one and true living God. You see Paul's rhetorical question at the end. to really drive home the point, are we stronger than he? Think back to Isaiah, the God who has created the heavens and expanded it out and everything that has come out for it. Are we stronger than he? The only one to be worshipped is him. And if you want to worship something other than the God that created the heavens and the earth, you better find one that is stronger than he. And I submit to you, you will never do it. These idols, these demons that are masquerading around, they will never, ever be able to provide salvation. There's only one who has done that. You see, ever since the fall, we've seen that there is a incredibly sinful mankind. This stands in opposition to this holy God that has created everything. And there is only one sacrifice, the Lord Jesus coming on our behalf, living a perfect life, being fully God and fully man, able to be in our place on the cross and at the same time take the full punishment of a holy God. To be dead, buried, as we saw last week, resurrected, come alive again and through faith in him, all his people will be saved. There is no other way to salvation. So Paul says, flee from idolatry. We've seen this call, we've seen his arguments, the one of the Lord's Supper, we can't participate in both. We've seen his argument of the fellowship meal that Israel participated in and how that relates to what they are doing. And we look around in Houston today and we go, I don't see this idol worship happening. My neighbor in Kingwood or wherever, Itasca Cedar, wherever you may live in Houston, my neighbor next door most likely doesn't have an altar set up in their house. They're not inviting me over to participate in these meals. How does this apply to me? Well, I would say first, I would disagree a little bit to say this doesn't apply exactly like Paul is applying it in our in our context today. I want to tell you that we have to look a little bit outside of our area here, our context, and see that there is a an ever growing number of people of other religions that are pouring into Houston, pouring in. In the last two weeks, I've seen several statistics. One of them is that in Houston last year, we averaged 3000 people a week moving in. Three thousand people a week. That's a large number of people. A very recent study in 2012, actually, just a few years old, and studies is fairly recent, Rice University released a study that showed that Houston was the or the Houston area, not just the city, the greater Houston area was the most diverse city metroplex in the nation. A quick look. And you'll find a very recent Pew report that shows that 7% of the Houston population identifies as a non-Christian faith. They identify with something that's not, and they added Christian as evangelical, Roman Catholic, and LDS Mormon. That's how they put those in. Alright, now we would quibble with that, but that's how they put it together. 7% of the population is something other than that. Claims to be active participants of something other. That's around 400,000 people. There are street signs in our city, if you've been in other parts of the town, there are bilingual street signs. Multiple places. So to say that this doesn't directly apply to us here, it does. Many of you know folks from other cultures. I have met some of your friends from other places. They're everywhere. And so just because it hasn't happened doesn't mean that it won't. And many people look at these statistics and freak out a little bit, and I say we should rejoice. We should rejoice that the Lord is putting the nations in our backyard. We have a massive opportunity to go and tell people the difference between what they are worshiping and the one true and living God and salvation through the Lord Jesus. So don't think that this specific situation will never happen to you in Houston. It very well may. Or when you travel to go on mission trips or maybe you have friends that are missionaries and this is a struggle where they are. You can be able to encourage them and you can you can say you need to flee from these this idolatry. Don't be partakers of it. And for some of us, as we meet people at work and other places that move in, we need to remember that we are to flee from idolatry. But there's also. I think a lot, a lot closer to home application for all of us right now. And that some of the idols that we worship are not physical idols that we have carved out, that we're laying down before. But nevertheless, they are things that we do worship. This election cycle has baffled me. I should not be surprised by this, but I have seen more and more people who claim to be Christians. that lay their allegiance down to a political party or a candidate, first and foremost, before they claim to be Christian. Brothers and sisters, that is an idol. That is fellowshipping. If you claim that first and foremost, that is the same as fellowshipping with a carved idol. Do not let this election season be an idol for you. Be involved. But don't jump all in to whichever party you're associated with. Be a Christian. Evaluate everything through the lens of the gospel. How does this affect the world from a Christian perspective? And don't think that your person in the White House or Senate or House of Representatives seat or governor seat is going to be the salvation of this country. Salvation comes from the Lord Jesus alone. Also, oftentimes, as I am out and about and studying out or I have conversations with people, I see there are many folks that have an allegiance to their job in the American dream. And I'm not saying you shouldn't work hard, you should. You should be a good, hard worker, because that is what the Lord has called us to do, to be good citizens and to be part of that. Let me ask you, are you letting go of certain Christian things and putting them first so that you can advance your career? Has that become more important to you than your salvation? Because when we start doing that, our greed and our love of money and our career becomes an idol that we worship and we put everything in our life Underneath that. Make sure that you don't allow that to happen, don't let money, success and greed. Be your savior, because when you walk out those doors and you turn on the radio, you turn on the television, you listen to a political candidate, this is exactly what they're telling you. that they will make you rich and healthy and happy in this world. They'll fix your health care problems. They'll you'll have your school debts paid off. You'll have better and your your job and your businesses will be doing better and they will be your savior. They are not your savior. There are many other things, Tom listed some of those out for us earlier, these desires of our heart that we have that that we put first and I can never cover all of them ever do it. But examine yourselves. What are those things? What are those things that that that tug on you, that want you to flirt with it, to to eventually pull you into allegiance to that thing that you have put first and foremost in your life? Brothers and sisters, flee from those idols. I want to close today. With a quote by John Christopherson, I did the same last week. I love reading his stuff. He was called the golden tongue preacher. He was in the fourth century and he had very good things to say from his sermon on this text. He writes this as his warning to the people, and this is how I'll close. Let us, therefore, wake ourselves up. Be filled with horror and let us shoot forth a reverence far beyond that of the barbarians that we may not, by random and careless approaches, heat fire upon our own heads. May we be diligent not to worship the idols of this world. Let us pray. Father, we we come to you now, we ask that you would. You would tear our hearts apart and remove idols that we have there. Father, make us uncomfortable in our current situations where we have placed something above and beyond our worship of you, where we have looked to it as our salvation, where we look to it as the thing that gives us most pleasure and joy in this world. Father, we ask that you would help us to see that we participate in a fellowship with you as we proclaim this coming Lord's Supper. We ask that you would help us to always remember the example of Israel and that they, too, fell into this trap. Oh, Father, please take this out of fellowship with these idols, remove our allegiance from them where they show up and to put us squarely in allegiance with you. Father, we ask that you would do this mighty work among us. And we pray these things in the name of our Lord Jesus, the one who has made the acceptable sacrifice on our behalf. Amen.