Christ or Demons
Scheduled for April 13
(1 Cor 10:21 NIV) You cannot drink the cup of
the Lord and the cup of demons too; you cannot have a part in both the Lord's
table and the table of demons.
Paul, when he was writing this, was concerned
with a church which lived in a world of idols. There were temples to all kinds
of gods and goddesses, and the fact is that many of them involved prostitution
(of all kinds). His specific reference is to eating meat which had been
sacrificed to idols, a problem we have not had in, say, 1500 years.
The principle, however, remains. You may think
it has no application to you, but I must ask you to think again. Let me give
you a specific example: where were you Saturday night?
Some of you -- no, I don’t keep track of you,
God knows, so do you and that’s sufficient -- were out at the party Saturday
night. The party itself was not the problem; the problem is with your
attitude. For last Saturday you were a man of the world. You laughed at all
the dirty jokes, especially the ones which made fun of all those weird people
who would stay faithful to their wives. The “stick in the mud” types are
always good as the butt of the joke. You leered knowingly as the other men
described this or that woman.
You also put in your speech about how well
things are going for you. After all, you must keep up with the Joneses,
right? And the new Mercedes is lovely. One must have a taste for the finer
things in life.
But mostly you strutted. You told stories of
how great a shot you made at golf, or how you put one over on your boss, or
your customer. You are a man of the world.
Indeed, you’re better than that. The folks you
saw Saturday night can’t hold a candle to you. While they’re hung over in bed,
you dragged yourself out to church. You’re the spiritual type -- something
they could just never understand. Of course, the people you meet on Sunday
morning wouldn’t understand your friends on Saturday night, either; they are,
after all, rather naive. So you see yourself as the perfectly rounded man --
worldly on Saturday night, spiritual on Sunday morning.
Let me be perfectly honest. You are a double
hypocrite.
If this essay seems strange to you, well and
good. I most certainly hope that your reaction is, “Who is he talking about?”
But if it sounds just like you, then you have the hard choice. The Lord knows
both of you. You must choose which you shall be, and there is no profit in
delaying the choice. To try to have both the world and Christ will ultimately
bring you neither. Be one person, not two: choose you this day whom you would
serve.
