Peter Barnes | Romans 14:3-4
SERMON NOTES
THE LORD MAKES US TO STAND
(Romans 14:3-4)
– three issues – food (14:2), days (14:5-6), and wine (14:21)
1. The strong must not be contemptuous of the weak.
– 14:3a; 1 Cor.8:1
– Acts 21:17-29. J. Gresham Machen appeared on fundamentalist platforms, and he went along with Billy Sunday preaching a mission at Princeton Seminary, but he refused to join William Bell Riley’s World Christian Fundamentals Association (WCFA) because of its premillennial dispensationalism.
2. The weak must not be censorious of the strong.
– 14:3b; see Acts 10:13-14; Gal.2:11-14.
– Machen opposed Prohibition, and so was often unfairly portrayed as a drunkard or a friend of drunkards. He was nothing of the kind.
3. It is the Lord who makes us to stand.
– 14:4; John 10:28; 1 Cor.1:8.
– Paul is not saying, ‘Do not judge at all’ e.g. 1 Cor.6:9-10.
– C. S. Lewis is not totally right, without being totally wrong, in applying this approach to the differences between those who adhere to High Church traditions and those who adhere to a Low Church view of things in the Anglican Church in Screwtape, Letter XVI:
– Always ask yourself first: Is this person in the kingdom of Christ?