But I say that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils, and not to God, and I would not that ye should have fellowship with devils. 1 Corinthians 10:20
As Christians, we know who God is. We are also aware of who the god of this world is. And we certainly know the difference! But for most of the unsaved world around us, this is not nearly as clear. Many will have varying degrees of knowledge of who God is. Very few will know who the god of this world is. And of those, not many will understand or care about the difference. For most of them, it matters very little whether there is a God, and even less whether there is a devil. And yet, for all of those who are not saved, the devil’s authority is a real and powerful thing, and the work of the devil’s minions, the demons, is a daily influence on their lives and destiny. Even most of us who are saved have very little grasp of the power and the presence of those evil spirits that labour so malevolently among us. We do well to know that they are working, and to avoid having anything to do with them.
In our text, Paul is speaking to the Christians at Corinth about whether it is acceptable for them to be eating meat from animals that had been offered to the false gods in their city. For some of them, the false gods were nothing, and the meat was perfectly good to eat. For others, the false gods were evil, and nothing that was sacrificed to them should be touched. Paul takes the approach that there was nothing wrong with thge meat itself, but there was great wrong in having anything to do with the sacrifices to the false gods. He told them to eat the meat with a clear conscience if they did not know where it came from. But if somebody pointed out to them that the meat was from animals offered to the false gods, and dared them to eat it, they should avoid it. Theirs was a situation that does not apply to us today; meat sold in our butcher shops is not offered to false gods. But we do have situations around us today where we need to sort out the evil from the unblemished.
Some of the religious entities around us make much of the unholy backgrounds to such holidays as Christmas and Easter. Certainly as Christians we ought to have nothing to do with those evil things in those backgrounds. We need to be careful that we do not descend into the things associated with the false gods of those holidays. But that should not prevent us from celebrating the birth of Christ, and of recognizing and appreciating His death, even acknowledging the days set aside for those events. There are other false gods about us, however, that are more subtle and dangerous. For example, there is a growing presence of those who worship and serve the false god of Mohammedanism. They will tell us that they worship the same God as us, but they are plainly wrong. The god they recognize is nothing like the God of the Bible, and is therefore a false god, or even worse, the god of this world. For this reason, Christians must distance themselves from any involvement with the religion of the Muslims. That would be having fellowship with demons.
God is holy and good. All other gods are unholy and evil. Let us never insult God by mingling the two. -Jim MacIntosh