Idolatry

In Jeffrey Johnson's sermon titled "Idolatry," he reflects on 1 Corinthians 10, emphasizing that the essence of Christianity is a relational connection with God rather than mere adherence to rules. He highlights the importance of loving and enjoying God's presence, reminding us that God delights in our fellowship. Johnson stresses that the ultimate goal is to know and experience God deeply, with love being the central commandment.

He addresses the issue of idolatry, defining it as anything that diverts our affections from God, and warns against participating in pagan ceremonies. He argues that these ceremonies involve communion with demons, which is incompatible with fellowship with God. Johnson provides four reasons to avoid such practices: they do not represent fleeing idolatry, they involve participation with demons, they create a moral impossibility of simultaneous fellowship with God and demons, and they provoke God's jealousy.

Johnson concludes by applying these principles to contemporary issues, such as attending non-Christian religious services or events that conflict with Christian beliefs. He underscores that Christianity is about a loving relationship with God, and believers should seek communion with Christ and the church while avoiding practices that compromise their faith.

Transcript

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First Corinthians chapter 10. As you turn there, the heart of Christianity, kind of the main essence of our Christian faith, is not a list of rules or a bunch of duties, a lot of regulations, the goal, the objective that God has in saving us is not for us to be robotic in our performances, for us just to do the right things and restrain from doing the wrong things. The end objective is to know the Lord and to have a relationship with Christ. It's relational and sometimes we forget that. We forget how important it is to love God and enjoy His fellowship, enjoy His presence, to seek His presence. And sometimes it's easy for us to realize that we need the enjoy Him and we need the fellowship of God and we know it's beneficiary for us to set in His presence. But it's often hard for us to think because we know how unfaithful we are. We forget sometimes to think that He delights in our presence. He delights in us. Like children, you remember, some of your older people remember, or you remember even your grandkids, how you delight in seeing them and delight in watching them play and it brings you happiness to be around them. And they bring you joy. Well, the Lord finds pleasure in His children. He finds pleasure in you. And we're to have pleasure in God and to want to spend time with the Lord and be in His fellowship. This is the goal of heaven. This is what Christ prayed for in His high priestly prayer in John 17, that we would be made one with God and enter into that inner Trinitarian communion, to be blessed in that love that they have with each other and that we would be in the fullness of God and know God and experience God. And this should be our craving constantly. I want to be in the presence of the living God. I want to know Him more deeply. I love the Lord. And if you think about what love is, the essence of love, yes, love is relational. It's an emotional feeling that causes us to crave or to be captivated by the object that we love. Now, God loves us unconditionally. Thank the Lord. And we need to love Him and be captivated to Him, to be enthralled with Him, to seek Him, to want Him, to crave Him, to long to come to Him. Now, love is expressed in the commandments. The end of the commandments, all the law can be summarized in this, to love God with all your heart, mind and soul. The law is beautiful. It's not just robotic, legalistic rules. It's love God. And this is how we love God. We restrain from lying and stealing and killing. We restrain from idolatry. This is what it means to love God. And so all the commandments is pushing us towards a relationship with God. And sin is what destroys that relationship. Sin takes us away from God. And one of the key words in the New Testament that speaks of our relationship with God is this word "fellowship." And it's one of the most unique words in the Greek language because it has all these nuanced meanings. In fact, the one word that we translate fellowship can be translated "communication." It can be communicated "partnership" or "participation." It's the word that Paul uses that no one contributed or partnered with me in the Gospel. That is, no one supported me financially in the Gospel. What does he mean by that? This word "fellowship" means someone who is sharing their financial goods, financial resources. The word "fellowship" means to share and is to give and to receive, not just your financial resources, but to give your emotions, your heart, your time, your affections. The word can be translated as "communication." The King James would translate this word as "communication." And think about the essence of speaking to one another, listening to one another. You're sharing your ideas. You're sharing your thoughts. You're conversing. This is the essence of a relationship that you become when you get married. You have to talk. You have to converse. That's the main ingredient of marriage, just talking to one another and sharing your life together. By the way, a little marriage tip. You want to keep the doctor away. Have one healthy conversation with your wife every day. Meaningful, not just one of these "where are the kids going to get picked up?" But how's your day and how have you been? How can I pray for you? Those deep, meaningful relationships consist of those meaningful conversations. And think about this relationship with God. It requires prayer and reading the Scriptures, God conversing to us and we conversing back with God. We're having fellowship or communion with God. This is what spiritual fellowship is with one another. It's a means of grace because it's Christ in you being ministered to me. Christ is ministered to me through your conversation. As you speak about spiritual things, I'm built up and edified and I'm ministered to by. And this is why we need Christian friends and we need to converse and have fellowship with one another. And sometimes this word is in our text, it's translated. And fellowship is translated as participation. We see that in verse 16, we'll get into that in a minute. Participation or partaking of something. You see salvation is relational. And the opposite of this is idolatry. It's having a forbidden relationship with something that's not God. It's your affections being drawn to the world away from God to something other than God. And you're to love God with all your heart, all your mind and all your soul. And so we're to flee idolatry. We're to, we were to run from spiritual cheating on God. Now hold all that thought to your side. We're going to come back to the relational idea. But just put that to a side for a second and see that these Corinthians that were getting to this text, these Corinthians were wondering if they should attend pagan ceremonies. If they should continue going to or attending the various ceremonies that they used to attend growing up. And most likely they have friends and family that continue to invite them. And they went as a child and this is what they know. They're living in Corinth, a pagan society. And there are remnant among, you know, there are just a few Christians here. Actually the church of Corinth is pretty large. But nevertheless, they're in the environment of paganism and idolatry. And many of them are going back and attending the old services that they attended when they were a child or what they attended before conversion. And as we think about this, we may be tempted in our day not to go to some pagan worship service, but we may be tempted to go to some Catholic mass or something of that nature or go to a mosque or go to a synagogue or go to a Mormon temple. And we may think to ourselves, well, I can attend these things as an observer. I'm not going to worship with my heart. I'm not going to participate with my, you know, affections. I'm just going to go so I'm not offensive to my family. I'm visiting my family on a vacation and they want me to go to mass with them or they want me to go to the Jewish synagogue. And I can just sit there in the back of the synagogue and just observe. It'd be interesting, by the way, just see what's going on. So we may be tempted to go and observe a pagan worship service, if you would, or to draw it to more of a contemporary concern. You may have a gay relative that invites you to their wedding. Should you go to a gay wedding? What should I do here? Is there a difference between giving a gay child or gay friend a birthday present? Is that the same thing as giving them a wedding present? Well, this text has some bearing on that difficult question. The Corinthians here, as I said, they were free to eat meats offered to idols. We'll see that next week. But some of them thought, well, maybe we're free to even attend the pagan ceremonies. Read with me in verse 14 of chapter 10."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 the 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 pagans 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? Again, as we look at this text, we are not living in the first century Corinth culture where paganism surrounds us. But maybe we are. Paganism is on a rise. And there's all types of foreign deities or false deities being worshipped among us, around us. So we may apply this or consider applying this, or at least taking this text and saying how does this relate or apply to these situations. There were some who say that you can continue to be a Muslim while also being a Christian. There was a missionary named John Travis who come up with this idea of evangelizing Muslims. And he says you need to contextualize the Christian message and even contextualize your appearance, your dress and your behavior so that you can be more compelling to Muslims. You don't want to be offensive to their religious thoughts and practices. So you can go into the mosque and worship Allah with them. You can dress like them, worship like them and even call God Allah and even claim Muhammad is the prophet. You can carry these things on in order to reach them. You can go to their services and in your heart worship Jesus Christ. But use the language of Islam to do so. And when you're converted you don't have to separate from Islam. You don't have to push it all aside and say this is rubbish, this is idolatry, this is paganism, this is demonic. You can continue on as a Muslim and claim Christ in addition to your Islamic faith. But is this biblical? Could the Corinthians continue on in their paganism? Can they continue on in their pagan worship to go to the ceremonies where they're taking sacrifices and offering the meat to these false deities? Can you continue to do that? And of course the objection that you may have and of course I think this is the objections that the Corinthians had. My heart is with God, my body is with my friends. That is I know there's a true God and I know that these idols are nothing. And because they're nothing and the sacrifices are nothing I know it's just make believe. It's just like going to a play. I know it's not real. Therefore I can go and participate. You know I can go to a wedding, a gay wedding and know that I disagree in my heart. I know that I in my heart I know that this is not right. But I can not be offensive to my family and just sit in the in the pews and participate at least watch observe. So this is the reasoning and this is the reasoning of the Corinthians. But Paul gives us four reasons why we cannot and should not continue to go to pagan ceremonies. Why we should avoid participating in their worship services and ceremonies. The first reason he gives us is in verse 14 attending pagan ceremonies is not fleeing idolatry. He tells us in verse 14 that were to blub flee flee run from idolatry not flirt with it. Not entertain it not see how close we can get to it without falling into it. We're to run the opposite direction. You know the heart of idolatry is is known in the scriptures as a spiritual affair. It's a spiritual adultery is an inappropriate relationship. You understand attending pagan ceremonies is not the same thing as going to Walmart or going to the marketplace. He said with the marketplace is full of idolaters is full of unbelievers. You understand you know he's because you were reasonable people. Think about this. He says consider this your reasonable people. He goes on to say you know there's a difference between going to the marketplace where you're surrounded by pagans than actually going to their worship services. It's not the same thing. Pagan worship services and ceremonies is worshipping a false deity. It's flirting with idolatry. It's associating with something other than God. Again the objection might be we all know there we know there's no such thing as God's. You know the God of Islam Allah is just a figment of Muhammad's imagination is make believe. There's no real Muhammad. I mean there's no real Allah. There is a Muhammad but there's no real Allah. It's all play. It's all superstitious. Therefore I can go and know all that and be free from idolatry. You may think but that's not fleeing idolatry. That's the first point. The second point the reason we should not attend pagan ceremonies is pagan ceremonies is having participation or communion with demons. Now verses 15 through 20 he works this out. So this is kind of a long syllogism. So let's work this out with Paul. Let's work through this passage and see how how he built this case that when we go and participate in these pagan ceremonies we're actually participating in associating ourselves and even having communion even if we don't think we are we're having communion with demons. Look at verse 15 first of all he gives us three examples two clarifications and one applications three examples two clarifications and one application. Let's look at the three examples that he gives us. First he gives us an example of the Lord's Supper how partaking of the Lord's Supper gives you put you in participation with Christ. Look at verse 15 and 16 I speak as to sensible people judge for yourself 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 you see partaking of the cup. Now when you go to these pagan ceremonies they're they're taking these animals are sacrificing them and they're passing a bit of the meat around. And so they're eating meat offered to idols not at their home not bought at the marketplace which is suitable but they're doing it at the ceremony. They're entering into the ceremony and partaking of the sacrifices but in the same way when you come to church and you partake of the Lord's Supper when you drink the cup. Paul is saying when you're drinking that cup you're participating in the blood of Christ. You understand that the Lord's Supper is a means of grace. It's more than just a memorial. You know it's not it's not just that the Lord's Supper is not just like you're going a Memorial Day that we're about to have tomorrow and you go to the grave sites and you go oh there's my uncle who fought in World War two and I want to remember him and he was a good man and you go away remembering and thinking about your uncle. But the Lord's Supper is a memorial. We do remember the Lord but it's more than that. It's a it's a participation with the Lord. It's amazing the Lord's Supper carries out or facilitates the very thing that symbolizes. It's kind of like the word. Thank you. Thank you the words the two words. Think you symbolize gratitude. Those words sit stand in the place of your gratitude of your heart. But when you say thank you it's performing the very action of gratitude. And so to the Lord's Supper it symbolizes Christ's death his his blood. It symbolizes the gospel that he died in our place so that we stand right before God through the blood of Christ all by the atoning work of the Lord. Nothing by what we've done. It symbolizes the gospel but it also symbolizes the communion that we have in the participation of God sharing his blood. And this is the essence of salvation. He giving us his righteousness. He's taking on our sins. This is great imputation of him imputing his righteousness to us freely and him taking on our sins and bearing the wrath of God in our place. It's the essence of the gospel and this gospel message is God sharing and participating with us. And when we have communion with Christ when we have a meal together like when you invite someone over for dinner and you're having a meal with them. The meal itself represents your fellowship with your friends. But it also facilitates fellowship with your friends. If you want fellowship with your friends you want to know your friends better and invite them over for dinner. Having a meal together in scriptures represents fellowship and communion and see the Lord's Supper is a meal. It is meant to facilitate communion with Christ Christ communion with us. We're participating with him and he participates with us. It's most wonderful thing that when we have the Lord's Supper we're actually in communion not just symbolize communion. We're in real communion with God and he is with us. He is with us. And you know the means of grace works in this way. Grace doesn't come to us by being zapped into us by osmosis. You know how does God's grace get from heaven into your heart? You don't just wake up one day and you find it in there. There's always a channel or a means or conduit in which it flows into you. How does grace flow into your heart? How do you receive grace? You receive it through the Word of God. The Word of God is the means in which God communicates to us and speaks to us. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. And when you believe the Word of God then the very grace of God through the Word comes into you and transforms your life. And so you're sanctified if you would by the Word. Grace comes through the Word. And how does the Word of God come to you? Well in the church it comes to you through the five means of grace. Through the preaching of the Word, through the reading of the Word, through the singing of the Word, through the ordinance which is seeing the Word and through the fellowship around the Word. So the Word of God is the only means in which God is going to speak to us and minister to us and assist us and have a relationship with us. It's all about having a relationship with God and the Word of God is being given to us. And by the Word of God coming into our heart we are drawn to God and we have fellowship with God and it increases and builds up our love for God. And we experience the love that God has for us. It's a beautiful thing. And the communion is one of the means in which God has said this is the way to communicate the Word of God to us. And so therefore communion is more than just a memorial. It's a participation in Christ. But the second example He gives us is not just the cup but the bread. He goes on to say in verse 18, verse 16, 17 I mean, get it right here,"Because there is one bread we who are many are one body for we all partake of one bread." Again this symbolizes when we have one bread as we pass it out symbolize that we're many but we're brought into union with one another in our union with Jesus Christ. And this is what the bread symbolizes that we have fellowship with Christ Jesus, union with Christ Jesus, and we have union and fellowship with each other. That's why you don't take communion if you're not in fellowship with the church. Why if you're angry with your brother or sister and you're in disharmony, then why would you take the symbol of that which is not a reality in your heart? But Christ has given us the door of unity with one another through His blood and so we can come to one another through Christ. But you see this is what the bread represents and so as we take the bread we are in fellowship if you would with each other. The benefits of the third example is the altar of the Old Covenant. Look at verse 18, "Consider the people of Israel are not those who eat the sacrifices participants in the altar." You see this word participants is the word for fellowship. It's in communion with or partakers of. In other words the benefits of the altar. Now so here you got this altar in the Old Covenant ceremonies and the worship. You had this altar, the sacrifices, the lamb would be brought and they would slay the lamb and the altar is where forgiveness would be found. But how do you get the altar into you? How do you benefit from the altar? Well you don't eat the altar you eat the sacrifice that was slain on the altar. And by eating the sacrifices you're being benefited by the altar, the mercy seat. This is where you find mercy at least it symbolize that. And so Paul is making this illustration this is how the altar gets into you. It's by you partaking of the sacrifices of the altar. Now that's the three illustrations he gives. Now he gives two clarifications. Verse 19 we don't have to think that food is anything. What do I imply then that food offered to idols is anything that is he's going to go on in the next passage to say hey if you're buying meat at the marketplace don't worry about if it has been offered to an idol or not. That's not something you should worry about it's just food. And an idol you go to say idols are nothing. And so you can basically go and buy your food and with a clean conscience eat if you want to eat meat offered to idols. Now you might not want to do that in someone's home that their conscience is weak. Might want to refrain. In fact you need to refrain in certain situations where you can cause a weaker brother to stumble. But you're free to eat meats offered to idols because food is nothing. It doesn't make you better or worse. Jesus says it's not what goes into your body that defiles a person what comes out. And second clarification is that idols are nothing. What do I imply then that food offered to idols is anything or that an idol is anything. It is true that these idols are you know make believe. They're not any real beings but with these clarifications he brings one application and that is this attending pagan ceremonies is communion with demons. Look at verse twenty three verse twenty. No I imply that what pagan sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God behind paganism behind all false worship is demons. We need to recognize that. The Bible talks about doctrines of demons. What is all this false religious ideology come from. Is it just merely from the minds of men or does it come from Satan himself. And when people gather together with their false worship is it merely just men getting together with the social club or they're actually inspired by demonic forces. All as they know these things are not benign. This is not like going to the supermarket when you go into pagan ceremonies and worship services you're entering into the realm of demonic the demonic sphere. This is a realm that demons are behind this. These false gods are inspired by demons pagan ceremonies are inspired by demons pagan ceremonies are a participation with demons. Look at verse twenty. I do not want you to be participants with demons. Now the Corinthians probably because they were influenced by Gnosticism where it doesn't matter what touches the body is what's in the soul that matter. And that led them to be able to go to harlots and prostitutes and say hey I'm not you know I love the Lord Jesus Christ I just got these bodily appetites and it doesn't matter what happens to my body what touches my body doesn't affect my soul. And Paul's already addressed that one said no you have the Holy Spirit in you and you're sinning against your body and you're sitting against the Holy Spirit by participating or entering into these illicit sexual affairs. This is sinful so adult adultery and it's more than adultery it's wrong towards God. And in this sense pagan worship service and the false religious ideas we have today are no better than the ones they had then. Mormonism Jehovah Witnesses Islam all these things come from the mind of Satan. It also I don't want you to participate with demons. I don't want you to have communion or fellowship with demons in the same way when you come to the Lord's table you're having fellowship with God in the same way when you come to the Lord's table you're having fellowship with the saints. Which is appropriate when you go to these pagan ceremonies you're having fellowship with demons. Now this is the second reason we should not attend pagan ceremonies. Here's the third reason communion with demons for Christians is a moral impossibility. Look at verse 21 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. That is you can have fellowship with demons or you can have fellowship with God but you can't have fellowship with them both. It's not a physical impossibility you can go to church on Sunday then go to the mosque on Saturday you can sure do that physically but you're not going to have fellowship with both. It's impossible to have communion with light and darkness at the same time. Matthew 6 24 tells us you cannot serve two masters for either you will hate one and love the other or you will be loyal to one and despise the other. You cannot at the same time worship Jesus and participate with him and participate with demons. You cannot love light and darkness. To have communion with demons is to leave off communion with God. Paul put it this way in 2nd Corinthians chapter 6 and verse 14 do not be unequally yo with unbelievers. Now this doesn't mean don't speak to him at the marketplace. This doesn't mean you can't have some unbelieving friends that you associate with in a casual way. But this means don't have deep fellowship with unbelievers. Don't make your best friends unbelievers especially don't marry unbelievers if you're a Christian. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness or what fellowship has light with darkness. What accord has Christ with Yale or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever. What agreement has the temple of God with idols. For we are the temple of the living God as God said I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them and I'll be their God and they shall be my people. Therefore go out from the mist that is separate yourself from this. Leave this you've been saved out of out of dollar tree. You've been saved out of this lifestyle. Leave it behind and be separate from them says the Lord and touch no unclean theme. Then I will welcome you and I'll be a father to you and you shall be sons and daughters to me says the Lord Almighty. So we must think to ourselves what relationship do we have with idols and paganism. Remember this is why I began with my sermon by saying Christianity is a relationship. It's communion with God. So your objection or my objection could be I can go but I won't worship. I can attend but I won't partake. I can go and not believe but you know I can do these things and in my heart reject it. I can be bodily present that mentally away. Remember he said in verse 15 I speak to you as sensible people judge for yourself. Now think of this men and women think about this husbands. Tell your wife that you can go to dinner with your ex-girlfriend and your heart not be with her. You know it's one thing to run in your ex-girlfriend at the superstore. You know hey how's it going on your way to go. Your wife probably won't be jealous with that. But it's another thing to meet your ex-girlfriend at the superstore and go hey you like to go get lunch. Let's go hang out and I'll get lunch let's catch up. Now you may come back to your spouse and say hey we we just kept lunch that's all I didn't do nothing more. How's your wife going to feel about that. For you to associate. And in your mind you might have been daydreaming about your wife but in the flesh you're sitting in front of your ex-girlfriend. Do you not think eating dinner with her is not having fellowship and communion with her. Is it appropriate for a married man to have communion with other girls. And we're reasonable people think about that. Well this leads me to the last reason. Attending pagan ceremonies provokes the Lord to jealousy. Look at verse 22. Shall we provoke the Lord to jealousy. Are we stronger than He. See this is an encouragement and a warning versus an encouragement. God is a jealous God that means He loves you. You want your wife. Man you want your wife to have a healthy dose of jealousy. You want that. It's it'd be wrong if your wife is know it was never jealous or if a husband was never jealous. One time I went to get a haircut. And it's not really funny but I'm wondering if I even should share it but I went to go to get a haircut and my wife was there with me. She you know she's there and watching me get a haircut and this lady was giving me a haircut. I never I never went there before. I never had at least this lady cut my hair and she was there stroking my hair and giving me a sarge and go oh your hair so thick and you know and my wife is just like. I got uncomfortable like what I mean just get my haircut my hair quit my thoughts and me. You know but my wife's watching this you know and I love my wife that she was jealous. You know that she in fact that's a that's our Lord over you. You know if he didn't care for you if he didn't love you if he didn't treasure your affection is in treasure your attention and treasure your relationship. He wouldn't care. He wouldn't care what you did. But you have a God that loves you dearly. Who's jealous over you. Well listen what James says in James chapter four. You are a daughter of people. And this is that we can apply this for a second not just pagan ceremonies because most of us probably haven't done that lately but we all are tempted towards worthiness. We are tempted to idolatry in many ways we are. And this is what James says you adulterous people do you not know that friendship with the world is an enmity with God. Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the scripture says he yearns. This is God. He yearns jealously over the spirit that he is made to dwell in us. That is God has put his Holy Spirit in you and he loves the Holy Spirit. And you're the temple of the living God. And when you go and flirt are drawn to other women are to adulterous affairs are flirting with the world. Know that that flirtation that you're experiencing is leading the Lord to be jealous over you. That shouldn't that should lead you to love him. That should leave you to to forsake this world. I don't want to flirt. I don't want to be tempted with this world. I don't want to be drawn away. My affection is drawn away to any other thing than God himself. He is sufficient. He is enough for me to be enthralled with the things of this world are nothing but garbage. They're nothing that would lead me to be happy. I've experienced it. In fact, I think for a moment as we who have been born again. We have tasted the world already. Been out with that girl and it left us empty. That girl left us heartbroken. That girl left us in the dumps. That girl left us broken hearted. Why we go back to the world when God loves us so he's been so faithful and is so faithful so good to us. And though we have flirted and unfaithful God will receive us back. And that's the good news that we have today that no matter when we stand no matter how much we wandered away from the Lord. The Lord hasn't wandered away from us. His affections remain steadfast upon you. He loves you. He's jealous over you. He cares for you and he beckons you to come back. Come back to me. Come back to your first law. This is the gospel message. But also there's a warning here. After he tells us that he's jealous over us he says are we stronger than he is? Are we stronger than he? Verse 22. You see God loves us too much to allow us to continue to chase after idols. He loves us too much to allow us to participate in idolatry. We're to flee idolatry. We do not associate with it. We're to distance ourselves from it. From all these pagans worship services. We're to run from that and he and he has the strength when we stray and he will chastise us out of love. He will draw us back because he cares for us. Now let me close with some concluding applications. First of all I think personally that there is a difference between giving a gift for a birthday present to someone who is homosexual. Then attending their wedding and giving them a wedding gift. As there is a difference between going to the supermarket and buying meat that may have been offered to idols and eating that. And then actually participating in the ceremony that celebrates this idolatry. So one thing to give a gift to a human being who's made it the image of God that's a right thing to do. You can affirm love to all God's creatures at the proper time. God is a place for that. I can affirm love to my homosexual friends. That's not the same as entering into the ceremony. You say well I can disagree in my heart and be there in presence. Well being there in presence or in giving a gift is associating with the very ceremony. It's putting your stamp on that. It's identifying with that. Just by being there is entering into that wicked ungodly ceremony. So we're not to participate in that. I think that could be a proper application for this. Two another application is that we should seek to take communion with the saints. We should strive to be at church. You know if we're to flee pagan worship services we should flee to Christian worship services. We should long for the Lord's table and enjoy taking communion with one another and with Christ Jesus. Third remember it's not a list of rules but it's a relationship that God craves. He wants you. He wants your heart. He wants your affections. He wants your time because he cares about you and loves you. And four and in conclusion we should we should avoid pagan ceremonies for four reasons. It's not fleeing idolatry. It's a participation with demons. It's morally impossible and finally it provokes God to jealousy. Amen.[BLANK_AUDIO]