The Letter to the Romans: Message #8 – Chapter 14

Why, brother, do you judge another brother? Dear friend, let it drop. Dear friend, let it go. We’re down here in verse 13: Therefore, let us not judge one another, but rather determine this: not to put an obstacle or a stumbling block in another’s way. Do nothing that will cause your brother to stumble. Now it shifts not from my high standard but to my compassion for someone else. You are free to do all things. Can you follow me? Brothers and sisters, every one of you should have a terribly critical, judgmental eye. To whom should you turn that eye? On yourself, and to no one else. But what criticism is there? That this is sin, that that is sin, that the other is sin, that this is wrong, that I should do this because it’s right. I am now giving you the heart of a Christian standard. Listen to it very carefully: I am free to do all things. There is nothing that is unlawful for me, the believer, but I will keep a critical eye on my entire life for the sake of those around me, and for no other reason. That is, and always has been, and always shall be, the only criterion for Christian conduct.

Can you follow that? I have found that most Christians cannot even understand what I’m saying. Whenever you’re in any situation, ask yourself, “Am I about to become a stumbling block to someone else? Or even if it’s ten years from now, will this be a stumbling block to someone else?” The whole question is: will this cause someone weaker than me to stumble? I want you to know something, saints, that puts me, Gene Edwards, in a very responsible situation. Can you appreciate that? I am aware that there are people who can really understand, and that I am imitated on the most immature level, and I try to address that and say to people, and I’m going to say it right now: don’t imitate me, because the law of imitation is we always imitate a person’s eccentricities and his weaknesses. We cannot imitate his spirituality. Each of us has our own spirituality. Gene speaks with a southern accent. I’m going to speak with a southern accent. He mispronounced F-A-R-M, so I’m going to mispronounce F-A-R-M. See, how do you pronounce that word? Well, I can’t say it right. You see, where I come from, they’re “forms,” not “farms.” Uh-huh, well, yeah, I know, but it breaks my jaw. I can’t—I have to lip-read it to get it out.

Saints, I have to be careful. On the other hand, sometimes I terrify people with my liberty. I hope when I do that, I don’t cause anyone to stumble. I hope, when I choose that path, I’m setting people free, not causing them to stumble. But there are times, and in the Lord’s part of my life, I have to live under the scrutiny of other eyes, and I accept that as part of my calling. And I walk that way as much as God has given me that strength.

Now, I’m telling you that you are free from all things, and there is no law, and there’s only one standard for you if you’re looking for one, and that is to so conduct yourself that you won’t cause someone else to stumble, but that ought never, and cannot, be taken as a legalistic thing. That’s something for you to do; that’s not for you to convince somebody else to do. See, if I say, “Well, this will cause someone to stumble, therefore you ought not to do it,” I have moved completely out of my area of responsibility into yours. You must decide for yourself what will cause someone else to stumble.

The kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, right? Okay. If it is not eating and drinking, let me go to the second two: it is peace and joy. Have you ever seen a legalist who had peace? A legalist cannot possibly have peace. As long as anyone on this earth is doing something that he feels is wrong, he is miserable. And does he have joy? I think so, from time to time—when someone does what he thinks they ought to do. He is very joyful, I think, at times when he’s got the whole group under his total control. He can rub his hands and praise God, “Look what I did, Lord,” or “Look what we got done—us two.” I think every once in a while, he’s joyful, but I think the bent of his life is misery. Misery, He is an unhappy person.

Then we come back to righteousness, and brothers and sisters, the righteousness is His, not ours. It is not mine but His: the righteousness that is His. And because I have His righteousness, I have His peace, and I have His joy, and eating and drinking ain’t got nothing to do with none of that, do you understand? Ain’t got nothing to do with any of that.

Now then, I have preached on this before. Now I’m going to tell a story I really don’t want to tell, especially since it’ll be forever recorded. I once went through, with the Lord’s people, a situation of real church life. I went through Galatians, and boy, there were so many people getting set free from all sorts of things, it was unbelievable. We had one brother in that place who was just an out-and-out stinker. He was one of those people who felt he had to always come in with a minority opinion, and we had a lot of Seventh-day Adventists among us, and they were getting set free. They didn’t know how legalistically bound up they were, and they were laying aside their legalism. I have found that preaching and declaring your freedom in Christ does not make you sinful; it makes you love Him more, which always works out for the better.

Now, he went out and got a puzzle in his freedom, and it was pornography, and he laid it out, I think, on the living room floor of this single brother’s house, and he was putting this puzzle together in his freedom in Christ. The single brothers came to me and they said, essentially, “Give us permission to kill him.” I want you to know it was hard for me to figure out what to do. I said, “Leave him alone and let him make the thing. It may be that he is testing you as to whether or not you will receive him. It may not be—but it may be.” And so, they left him alone. I cannot tell you the end of that, and I frankly never heard about it again, as far as I know, but I can tell you that he was consistently so unstable, and several years later it fell to me to confront him—and I did. And when I confront people, I try to confront people in the presence of someone as old or older than I am. That’s going to get harder and harder to do, who has a totally objective view of this thing, and when I finally confronted him about a lifelong trouble-making attitude within the church, hat messed up his little playpen. He finally had his number drawn, packed his bags, and left, which is what almost always happens to people who are having all sorts of fun making everyone else’s life miserable and getting away with it, because they’re in the house of God. He was confronted, and he denied it all. He turned on all the accusations and all the people, then got up and left.

My point is, when liberty is preached to you, and it has been preached to you tonight, it definitely tests your character.  And I really mean this, brothers and sisters: you ought to be free in Christ, and I mean totally, absolutely, completely free. After you have been totally, absolutely, completely free, you need to ask yourself what those things are that would cause someone else to stumble for their sake. I will walk in such and such a way. Isn’t that simple? But don’t be in bondage. You do that out of love and compassion. By the way, we have gotten all the way down through chapter 15. All of this was about vegetarians. I want to close on this one statement. Your personal convictions are between you and God, even your convictions about not being a stumbling block. They are, too.