Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / July 16, 2017 | Really? - Let Your Conscience Be Your Guide

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July 16, 2017 | Really? - Let Your Conscience Be Your Guide · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Good morning.
0:01
SPEAKER_00: How are you?
0:02
SPEAKER_00: It's good to see you this morning.
0:05
SPEAKER_00: It's good to be back.
0:06
SPEAKER_00: I've been gone this week at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, gone down the Colorado River in a couple of uh 14 passenger boats with Arizona River Runners, and uh uh what a trip.
0:20
SPEAKER_00: It's a unique vacation.
0:21
SPEAKER_00: If you can ever do that, you should.
0:23
SPEAKER_00: The rapids, I've done rapids all my life, but these were really fun and amazing.
0:28
SPEAKER_00: Night before last, underneath the stars.
0:30
SPEAKER_00: It's incredible to see the stars at night from the bottom of the Grand Canyon.
0:36
SPEAKER_00: But the purpose of the trip, it's called a Christian leader's tour.
0:39
SPEAKER_00: There were 28 of us, uh, five of whom were geologists and uh young earth creationists.
0:46
SPEAKER_00: The whole purpose was to invite uh, it was mostly seminary professors, there were maybe a half a dozen of us who are pastors, and uh, and to make an argument from the strata in the Grand Canyon that uh the canyon was a result of a lot of water in a brief period of time rather than a little bit of water over 300 million years.
1:06
SPEAKER_00: So, and I'll share what I learned there, and uh we'll discuss that in a month or so.
1:12
SPEAKER_00: September 3rd, I think I'll schedule it for on a Sunday night.
1:16
SPEAKER_00: So um, got back last night.
1:20
SPEAKER_00: It's great to be back.
1:21
SPEAKER_00: We're in the series uh Dumb Things Smart Christians Believe.
1:25
SPEAKER_00: If you're wondering, we've done six of them.
1:26
SPEAKER_00: I hear that uh Abe Maynard did a great job last week.
1:30
SPEAKER_00: That uh on the one uh the best Christians are the busiest Christians, or something like that.
1:36
SPEAKER_00: I'm so excited.
1:36
SPEAKER_00: Looking forward to watching that online.
1:39
SPEAKER_00: This morning, uh I get to touch on uh let your conscience be your guide.
1:47
SPEAKER_00: I was so surprised.
1:48
SPEAKER_00: Yesterday morning I was uh we were about ready to leave the canyon, and uh a guy asked me, he said, Are you actually preaching tomorrow?
1:56
SPEAKER_00: I said, Yeah, Lord willing.
1:57
SPEAKER_00: And he said, What are you preaching on?
1:59
SPEAKER_00: I told him, and he said, Oh, Pinocchio.
2:01
SPEAKER_00: He said, Jiminy Cricket, that's the song, you know, always.
2:04
SPEAKER_00: And I said, I can't believe you remember that.
2:07
SPEAKER_00: But for those of you who remember that movie, I don't know, 1950 or 1960.
2:13
SPEAKER_00: It uh it uh what's that?
2:16
SPEAKER_00: Actually, somebody actually remembers that.
2:18
SPEAKER_00: But anyway, it was the song that Jiminy Cricket sang and became a theme of that movie.
2:22
SPEAKER_00: And it is a theme of people ever since.
2:24
SPEAKER_00: And so I want to talk to you about why that's uh sort of a dumb thing that a lot of smart Christians believe, why we shouldn't believe that.
2:32
SPEAKER_00: But I came across a cartoon I thought was funny of a of a mother whose conscience was beginning to smite her.
2:39
SPEAKER_00: Sylvia, she said to her daughter, something has been on my conscience, and I need to get it off my chest.
2:44
SPEAKER_00: Oh, what is it, mom?
2:46
SPEAKER_00: Well, you know how I write LOL whenever you post something funny on Facebook?
2:51
SPEAKER_00: Yeah?
2:52
SPEAKER_00: Most of the time, I didn't really laugh out loud.
2:57
SPEAKER_00: So, um, so this, let this be a lesson to you.
3:01
SPEAKER_00: If you're posting L-O-L, hey, your conscience.
3:05
SPEAKER_00: Actually, our conscience uh affects us more or more often with questions like these.
3:11
SPEAKER_00: It sort of tweaks us and says, after we've just left a conversation with someone we were trying to impress, your conscience goes, Did you just exaggerate again?
3:25
SPEAKER_00: Or on a Sunday, I hope that your conscience sometimes says to you, shouldn't you go over and say hi?
3:33
SPEAKER_00: And who which of us haven't uh had our conscience say, is that tax deduction really honest?
3:40
SPEAKER_00: Or have you had a devotional time today?
3:43
SPEAKER_00: Or are you doing your fair share of the work?
3:47
SPEAKER_00: I threw that in because I knew the wives wanted me to.
3:51
SPEAKER_00: Or you know you shouldn't look at that.
3:53
SPEAKER_00: Or are you being generous or stingy?
3:56
SPEAKER_00: You know, so you know what the conscience is like, right?
3:58
SPEAKER_00: So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna do a QA today, ask three or four questions and answer them with a conscience.
4:03
SPEAKER_00: Going to try to get real practical, end with a story uh uh basically from yesterday, and then and then we'll we'll try to apply this to our lives because I think conscience is a pretty important thing.
4:13
SPEAKER_00: And the first question is what exactly is my conscience?
4:17
SPEAKER_00: What exactly is my conscience?
4:19
SPEAKER_00: Well, the answer is that your conscience is that part of you that holds you accountable to your own moral law.
4:27
SPEAKER_00: You might have thought up till this moment it holds you accountable to God's law, but that's not true.
4:31
SPEAKER_00: Your conscience holds you accountable to what you believe, right or wrong, to your own moral law.
4:40
SPEAKER_00: The word conscience is used something like 34 times in the New Testament.
4:44
SPEAKER_00: All of those times are after the Gospels.
4:46
SPEAKER_00: Up until the through the Gospels, Old Testament Gospels, the word is always heart.
4:51
SPEAKER_00: You know, uh that somebody's heart, you know, hit, smoked them or something.
4:55
SPEAKER_00: And then you get 34 times conscience.
4:57
SPEAKER_00: And the word conscience, by the way, as you can tell in English, con means with, and science means knowledge.
5:02
SPEAKER_00: So you have a partnership of knowledge between you and this moral law that you have developed over the years.
5:11
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
5:12
SPEAKER_00: When you're young, and that moral law comes from dad and mom, your conscience is probably real accurate.
5:17
SPEAKER_00: It's pretty good.
5:18
SPEAKER_00: But later on, sometimes it can get warped.
5:20
SPEAKER_00: Uh by the way, the word in Greek is exactly the same.
5:23
SPEAKER_00: It's the word in Greek is soon aidesis, and and soon means with, like con, and aidesis means knowledge.
5:30
SPEAKER_00: So it's there's a partnership going on where two things are in, and when those things are in sync, as the old American proverb goes, a good conscience is a saw is the softest pillows you can have.
5:41
SPEAKER_00: So when those when they're in sync, you feel good about yourself, and when they're not in sync, your moral law is saying, you know, you broke the rules, then then you're not doing well.
5:52
SPEAKER_00: And you can see that that this definition uh is true from a couple verses in the scripture.
5:58
SPEAKER_00: In Romans chapter 2, Paul is describing how God will judge certain people on the final day.
6:05
SPEAKER_00: Uh uh, the Jews and other people who got the Ten Commandments and stuff, he'll judge them based upon the law that he gave them, because they know it.
6:12
SPEAKER_00: But there's gonna be a lot of people, he calls them Gentiles in Romans 2, who he says didn't get the law.
6:17
SPEAKER_00: So to be fair, God says, Well, I'll judge you based upon your own moral law.
6:23
SPEAKER_00: And so he says, uh, because everyone around the globe shows the work of the law written in their conscience, bearing witness, and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them, as C.S.
6:36
SPEAKER_00: Lewis wrote in one of his books.
6:38
SPEAKER_00: And there's a natural law, and every uh civilization on earth agrees that certain things are right and certain things are wrong.
6:46
SPEAKER_00: It's wrong, it's wrong to steal stuff.
6:49
SPEAKER_00: Even civilizations that think it's okay for me to steal your stuff, they're not happy when you steal my wife or my husband or my stuff.
6:57
SPEAKER_00: So uh God says, you know, I'm gonna judge you based upon your own moral law on that day, even if you don't have the Bible, if you don't have other moral.
7:06
SPEAKER_00: And you know what?
7:07
SPEAKER_00: No one will make it.
7:09
SPEAKER_00: Everyone has broken their own moral law.
7:11
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
7:12
SPEAKER_00: So here's but my point right here is that your conscience, therefore, is the is something that holds you accountable to your own moral law.
7:21
SPEAKER_00: Or another way of putting it is that your conscience is like carrying around a courtroom in your head.
7:26
SPEAKER_00: It's a courtroom in your own head, and almost all of the actors in the courtroom are part of your conscience.
7:32
SPEAKER_00: For instance, the witness in the courtroom in your head is called conscience.
7:37
SPEAKER_00: Like it says here, they're conscience bearing witness and their thoughts accusing them.
7:42
SPEAKER_00: Or a verse that was my theme verse back when I was dating.
7:45
SPEAKER_00: I needed it, and everybody who's dating who's single needs to know this first.
7:49
SPEAKER_00: 2 Corinthians 1, 12, for our boast is this the testimony.
7:55
SPEAKER_00: Your conscience is a witness, it's a testimony in the courtroom, and the testimony should be that we behaved in the world with simplicity and godly sincerity, not by earthly wisdom, but by the grace of God, and supremely so toward you.
8:10
SPEAKER_00: You need to behave toward people so that you do not defraud them, so you don't do not rot, so you're honest with them, so that you're sincere, so that you don't lead if you're dating, so that you don't lead them on unfairly.
8:22
SPEAKER_00: And so, and so Paul says, this is the way I have acted in the world toward all my churches with simplicity and sincerity.
8:29
SPEAKER_00: So the conscience there is a witness.
8:31
SPEAKER_00: It's saying, Yeah, yes, you've acted with sincerity or no, you know, you've you've overstepped the line.
8:37
SPEAKER_00: And the interesting thing is, though, the conscience then leaves the the witness uh uh see and steps up into the judge's seat.
8:46
SPEAKER_00: The name of the judge is also conscious.
8:48
SPEAKER_00: The judge who who says, this is right or this is wrong, yea or nay.
8:53
SPEAKER_00: For instance, Romans 14 sees the conscience as the portable judge inside you when Paul says, whoever has doubts is condemned if he eats, because the eating is not from faith, for whatever doesn't proceed from faith is sin.
9:09
SPEAKER_00: And what he's saying there is in those gray areas of life, back then it was eating meat that had been offered to idols, and overscrupulous Christians were saying, you can't do that, that's sinful, it's been offered to idols, and so it's yeah, you can buy the meat cheaper, you know, at high V if it's been offered to idols, but can't eat that stuff's been offered to idols.
9:32
SPEAKER_00: And Paul says that's not not really true.
9:35
SPEAKER_00: All food, God's food, he made it all, it doesn't matter.
9:39
SPEAKER_00: However, if your conscience is bugging you about it, then what?
9:44
SPEAKER_00: Then for you, it's it's a sin because you can't do that.
9:48
SPEAKER_00: You can't eat that without feeling guilty.
9:50
SPEAKER_00: Your conscience smites you and says that's wrong.
9:53
SPEAKER_00: And even if your conscience is inaccurate, you can't do it.
9:56
SPEAKER_00: Now, by the way, most of the time, uh most of the time the issues are not like, well, for example, my mother, wonderful mother, she never could to the end of her life put on a swimsuit when there were men around.
10:12
SPEAKER_00: She couldn't, she called it mixed bathing.
10:14
SPEAKER_00: She grew up in Atlanta, Georgia, very conservative, Baptist, and so forth.
10:17
SPEAKER_00: And and even when my sister was young, no swimming around guys, because they called it not mixed swimming, but mixed bathing.
10:26
SPEAKER_00: Bathing, which sounds like you're in the bathtub together.
10:29
SPEAKER_00: But so, so my mother could not do that, even though she acknowledged later on in life that the Bible didn't speak against men and women or boys and girls swimming in the same swimming pool or in the same ocean, she couldn't do it.
10:41
SPEAKER_00: And this verse says, fine, she shouldn't do it.
10:44
SPEAKER_00: Because a conscience would smile, and she couldn't ever cut her hair short.
10:47
SPEAKER_00: She because her conscience told her that was wrong.
10:50
SPEAKER_00: She couldn't ever wear anything but a dress to church.
10:53
SPEAKER_00: And you know what?
10:54
SPEAKER_00: If your conscience says that, this verse says, then don't do it, because whatever doesn't proceed from faith is sin.
11:01
SPEAKER_00: That's when your conscience as a judge says that's right or that's wrong.
11:04
SPEAKER_00: Now, most of the time today, our issues are not whether women ought to cut their hair short or something, they are really legit.
11:10
SPEAKER_00: They're issues like, should I go to that movie, should I drink this wine, should I dance with that person, you know, things like this.
11:18
SPEAKER_00: And so and so I I would just tell you from my own experience that you know that something doesn't proceed from faith.
11:26
SPEAKER_00: How do you know when something doesn't proceed from faith or not in your heart?
11:30
SPEAKER_00: Well, you know that it doesn't proceed from faith, that is, confidence that this is okay, if you have to sneak to do it, or if you have to lie to cover it up, or if you have to delete it to avoid it being seen.
11:45
SPEAKER_00: That's when, by the way, you say, you know what?
11:48
SPEAKER_00: That's evidence.
11:49
SPEAKER_00: Don't give me any talk that this is okay to you.
11:53
SPEAKER_00: It isn't, obviously.
11:54
SPEAKER_00: So that's why you get that significant verse, conscience being a judge saying yay or nay, in 1 John 3, where John says, this is how we set our hearts at rest in his presence whenever our hearts condemn us.
12:06
SPEAKER_00: He's saying, sometimes your hearts condemn you and say, You're wrong, you're guilty, but you're wrong, but you're not guilty.
12:12
SPEAKER_00: And so he says, Well, sometimes we need to set our hearts at rest, for God's greater than our hearts, and God knows everything.
12:18
SPEAKER_00: I'll come back to that.
12:19
SPEAKER_00: The other thing, uh, as you carry around your porta court, your your your courtroom in your head, your conscience is not only a witness, not only a judge, it's actually the enforcer of the verdict.
12:31
SPEAKER_00: And you find that, let's say, in David's life, when after, you know, killing Bathsheba's husband after sleeping with her, and then he he hid it, and he says, When I refuse to confess my sin for nearly a year, my body wasted away, and I groaned all day long.
12:47
SPEAKER_00: That's what a conscience sometimes will do to you, that it will keep you up at night, that you'll lose sleep.
12:54
SPEAKER_00: And it enforces the verdict.
12:57
SPEAKER_00: It's the executioner later on in Paul's life, his heart struck him.
13:01
SPEAKER_00: Notice the word heart or conscience struck him after he had he'd numbered the people.
13:06
SPEAKER_00: It was an act of arrogance on his part that God didn't want him to do.
13:09
SPEAKER_00: And David said to the Lord, I've sinned greatly.
13:12
SPEAKER_00: His conscience struck him or smote him.
13:16
SPEAKER_00: So these are times so far when it sounds like the conscience is a really good thing.
13:20
SPEAKER_00: And after all, let me share with you that Paul oftentimes speaks well of the conscience.
13:25
SPEAKER_00: I always take pains, he says, to have a clear conscience before God and men.
13:29
SPEAKER_00: He he said that to people who put him on trial.
13:33
SPEAKER_00: And then in what are called the pastoral epistles, 12 Timothy and Titus, on and on, as he's he's discipling Timothy, he talks positively about the conscience.
13:43
SPEAKER_00: The goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.
13:49
SPEAKER_00: 1 Timothy 1 5.
13:50
SPEAKER_00: 1 Timothy 3 9, he says, when you're mentoring people, Timothy, let them know they have to keep hold of the deep truths of the faith with a clear conscience.
14:03
SPEAKER_00: It's really important to have a clear conscience.
14:07
SPEAKER_00: You can't have a good prayer life without a clear conscience.
14:11
SPEAKER_00: And he also says on 1 Timothy, cling to your faith in Christ and keep your conscience clear, for some people have deliberately violated their conscience as a result.
14:19
SPEAKER_00: Their faith has been shipwrecked.
14:23
SPEAKER_00: So at this point you're saying to me, okay, divine conscience for me.
14:27
SPEAKER_00: You know, I understand that, you know, what happened with Adam and Eve after they sinned, their conscience was a judge.
14:32
SPEAKER_00: It said they did wrong, so they went and hid after Cain killed Abel, you know, his conscience struck him.
14:39
SPEAKER_00: I mean, on and on.
14:40
SPEAKER_00: You have stories.
14:41
SPEAKER_00: The rooster crowed, you know, which is sort of like the conscience being a judge, you know, after Peterson.
14:47
SPEAKER_00: So why are you saying that we shouldn't let our conscience be our God?
14:53
SPEAKER_00: I mean, really?
14:54
SPEAKER_00: So, I mean, because it sounds that my conscience then is something from God that's a reliable God, right?
15:01
SPEAKER_00: And my answer is not at all.
15:03
SPEAKER_00: That's not right.
15:05
SPEAKER_00: Why?
15:06
SPEAKER_00: Because your conscience is only as reliable as your convictions.
15:12
SPEAKER_00: We have a similar uh saying that comes from Shakespeare, a similar saying to let your conscience be your guide.
15:19
SPEAKER_00: That saying is to thine own self, be true to your own heart.
15:26
SPEAKER_00: People will act in astounding ways.
15:28
SPEAKER_00: You have a friend who'll do something.
15:30
SPEAKER_00: A guy who will be cheating on his wife or something says, Well, you know, how can it be wrong when it feels so right?
15:35
SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean by that?
15:37
SPEAKER_00: And you realize that feelings and conscience are related, and therefore there's a real weakness and unreliability in them.
15:47
SPEAKER_00: And when you think about that, step back and you think about that, you realize that it's a little bit like a baseball field, that you know that your conscience is like the umpire, but the foul lines and the rule book, those are your convictions.
16:03
SPEAKER_00: And the umpire is only as good as the foul lines and as the rule book in the NFL is uh you know one of the one of the things that happens every year.
16:13
SPEAKER_00: People are upset.
16:13
SPEAKER_00: Right now, people are upset over the fact that you can seem to catch a pass in the in National Football League, and it can seem to be a good catch, and you take a step down and so forth, but then you go to the ground, and if the ball moves in your arms, the referee will say, it's no good.
16:29
SPEAKER_00: I find myself screaming at the television.
16:34
SPEAKER_00: But you know, the fact of the matter is there's nothing wrong with ref.
16:40
SPEAKER_00: The problem is is with that rule, and they know they need to change it, they haven't figured out how to do that yet.
16:44
SPEAKER_00: So the problem is with the rule book, and the problem is with the foul lines, the problem is with sometimes with your convictions.
16:52
SPEAKER_00: And the problem is that sometimes your conscience can cry fair when God cries foul.
17:02
SPEAKER_00: And your conscience can cry fair when God cries foul for a variety of reasons.
17:07
SPEAKER_00: For one thing, your sin nature.
17:09
SPEAKER_00: After the fall of man, everything inside you, your feelings, your your conscience, everything's been sort of twisted, it's been sort of warped.
17:15
SPEAKER_00: They're a blind spot.
17:16
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you'll talk to somebody who you so admire in so many areas of their life, and in in their parenting and in their Bible knowledge, and in their generosity, and in their kindness and so forth, but they have this blind spot.
17:34
SPEAKER_00: And you go, excuse me, you think it's really okay to look at porn?
17:39
SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, everybody does.
17:42
SPEAKER_00: And you go, and you're going, I'm wow, but I mean you sometimes teach Sunday school, you do this, you do that, and so forth.
17:49
SPEAKER_00: You're a better husband than I am, and yet and you and then you realize there's a fall of man, there's blind spots, and so as a result, our consciences can get can get twisted.
18:01
SPEAKER_00: Or sometimes there's bad programming, and bad programming can go one of two ways.
18:05
SPEAKER_00: In Proverbs 1, it can uh it's the Oliver twist way.
18:09
SPEAKER_00: You fall in with the wrong gang, and as a result, after a while you think that pickpocketing is okay.
18:14
SPEAKER_00: On the other hand, bad programming can come if you grow up in an overscrupulous environment.
18:20
SPEAKER_00: You go to a certain church or go to a certain home where where card playing is as bad as lying, you know, or or or or or tattoos or earrings or something are on the same level as adultery or something.
18:40
SPEAKER_00: And you realize there's there's overscrupulous, there are numbers of rules that have been added to the Bible.
18:47
SPEAKER_00: And so you can be programmed the wrong way there.
18:50
SPEAKER_00: And then there's a callused heart.
18:52
SPEAKER_00: The Bible speaks about a cow calluses are wonderful in certain areas, but but not when it comes to your heart.
18:56
SPEAKER_00: Or there's a seared conscience.
19:03
SPEAKER_00: Some years ago, and and uh this brother is gone now, so it's it's and he would want me to tell his story.
19:10
SPEAKER_00: He gave me a call and he said, and he said, Would you meet me for lunch down at uh Burger King?
19:16
SPEAKER_00: So anyway, we met and and and he started tearing up.
19:20
SPEAKER_00: I said, What's wrong?
19:21
SPEAKER_00: This guy's a friend, this guy's a what I consider to be a mature Christian here in the church, uh recognized as sort of a leader.
19:28
SPEAKER_00: He said, Jim, you're gonna hear about this.
19:30
SPEAKER_00: It might be in the paper and so forth.
19:31
SPEAKER_00: He said, Seven years ago I decided to stop paying taxes.
19:35
SPEAKER_00: I said, You what?
19:38
SPEAKER_00: He said, I decided to stop paying taxes.
19:40
SPEAKER_00: I said, Why?
19:41
SPEAKER_00: He said, Well, they were they were taking too much, you know.
19:44
SPEAKER_00: For one thing, it just seemed ridiculous how high they were.
19:46
SPEAKER_00: And then he said, you know, I was listening to these these uh these these broadcasts, you know, about how taxes are wrong and and the and the Constitution says they have no right to take taxes, and if you just don't pay your taxes, then and if enough of us don't do that, then you know, has anybody ever heard any of that?
19:59
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you haven't heard that?
20:01
SPEAKER_00: Okay, let's all stop paying taxes.
20:03
SPEAKER_00: I'll just now you've heard it from me.
20:04
SPEAKER_00: Taxes are really wrong in and of themselves.
20:06
SPEAKER_00: So so he said, I I I stopped paying, and and he said, and I said, You felt okay about that, even though Jesus, you know, paid taxes, even though it was to the Roman Empire, and Paul said you're supposed to pay taxes even though it was to really, you know, a bad government.
20:19
SPEAKER_00: I mean, even though they said that, well, yeah, he said, I can't explain it, but I felt just fine.
20:24
SPEAKER_00: And he said it worked out great for a year and then two years and three years and four years and five years and six years.
20:30
SPEAKER_00: But he said, after seven years last year, he said, they've come down on me hard.
20:34
SPEAKER_00: I'm in my business.
20:35
SPEAKER_00: This business I've worked my whole life.
20:38
SPEAKER_00: They pretty much own it.
20:40
SPEAKER_00: They own my house, they they own everything.
20:42
SPEAKER_00: I I'm I'm completely ruined.
20:50
SPEAKER_00: And you realize at that point that here's a guy who I admire as much as anybody I know, and yet there's this blind spot.
20:57
SPEAKER_00: There's this, and somehow his conscience cried fair when God cried foul.
21:07
SPEAKER_00: The prisons today are full of people, right?
21:12
SPEAKER_00: Ted Bundy, someone's telling me between services, you know, this knew the psychologist who'd interviewed Ted Bundy who came back and said, Ted Bundy's a good guy in so many ways, but he has absolutely no conscience.
21:23
SPEAKER_00: And of course, all you have to do is look at these terrorists.
21:27
SPEAKER_00: How can you blow up a school full of children, shout Allahu Akbar, and feel absolutely nothing in your heart?
21:34
SPEAKER_00: There's something wrong with that.
21:36
SPEAKER_00: And the and what's wrong with that is you've got to realize your conscience is not a reliable indicator.
21:41
SPEAKER_00: Your conscience can cry fair when God cries foul.
21:44
SPEAKER_00: The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith, follow deceiving spirits.
21:50
SPEAKER_00: Such teachings come through liars whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron.
21:55
SPEAKER_00: If you if you get seared, you know, you can hit, you can stab yourself in the knife.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: Feel anything because there's no there's no pain sensors there, nerve sensors there anymore.
22:06
SPEAKER_00: And some people you talk to will shock you, right?
22:10
SPEAKER_00: Because they'll have this one area of their life, whether it's porn or whether it's with something else.
22:17
SPEAKER_00: And you go, in so many areas of their life, they are you're superior to me, but in this one area of your life, I'm blown away.
22:25
SPEAKER_00: And this is why, you know, one of the most shocking verses about conscience in the New Testament?
22:29
SPEAKER_00: 1 Corinthians 4, 4, where Paul, this is Paul, this is the most Christ-like person who's ever lived since Jesus Christ.
22:36
SPEAKER_00: And it's the guy who's written half of the New Testament.
22:40
SPEAKER_00: If anyone would ever have a reliable conscience, it would certainly be the Apostle Paul.
22:46
SPEAKER_00: But he says, My conscience is clear, but that doesn't make me innocent.
22:51
SPEAKER_00: It's the Lord who judges me.
22:54
SPEAKER_00: He's acknowledging that his conscience is unreliable, that his conscience might cry fair when God has cried foul.
23:04
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, the other is true as well.
23:07
SPEAKER_00: Your conscience can cry foul when God cries fair.
23:14
SPEAKER_00: You say, well, that's no big deal.
23:16
SPEAKER_00: It's better, you know, to feel guilty a lot more rather than less.
23:20
SPEAKER_00: You know what?
23:21
SPEAKER_00: It can ruin your spiritual life.
23:24
SPEAKER_00: First John's a book about assurance of salvation, and there's a verse in here that I think addresses all people, many people who, like I, and like many young people who, though they have trusted Christ alone for salvation, begin to question their salvation, seriously question it.
23:45
SPEAKER_00: And yeah, and it's not a terrible thing to question your salvation in a little bit, but I mean, you know what happens is in a world where works are often backloaded back into the gospel, as we look at other people and how much better they are than us, we can start thinking, I must not be a Christian after all.
24:04
SPEAKER_00: And you go, well, hold it.
24:05
SPEAKER_00: Do you trust Jesus alone for salvation?
24:08
SPEAKER_00: Did he die for your sins?
24:09
SPEAKER_00: He forgives you your sins, it's not you.
24:11
SPEAKER_00: Well, yeah, I believe that, but well, John addresses that in this verse, 1 John 3.
24:17
SPEAKER_00: This is how we set our hearts at rest in his presence whenever our hearts condemn us, for God's greater than our hearts, and God knows everything.
24:26
SPEAKER_00: There are times when your heart will cry foul and it'll mess you up because God's crying fair.
24:35
SPEAKER_00: You you're one of my children.
24:37
SPEAKER_00: Why would you doubt that?
24:38
SPEAKER_00: And there's another uh major time where that happens, and that again is in this area where churches divide about gray areas, about about the debatable areas like dancing and drinking and movies and so forth.
24:50
SPEAKER_00: And and I'm not saying these are always right, or card playing or wearing dresses rather than pants.
24:55
SPEAKER_00: You know, we can go on and on.
24:57
SPEAKER_00: And Paul has this these chapters in the New Testament and 1 Corinthians.
25:02
SPEAKER_00: Here's a verse from 1 Corinthians 8.
25:04
SPEAKER_00: Not all possess this knowledge, that is, that everything is all kinds of food are okay.
25:10
SPEAKER_00: God's made them all.
25:12
SPEAKER_00: Doesn't matter if the it if if the food was offered to Vishnu or, you know, or Kali, the god of viola, you know, whatever.
25:20
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't matter, you can eat it.
25:22
SPEAKER_00: But he says, not all possess this knowledge, this clear conscience, but some, though through former association with idols, eat food as if it was really offered to an idol, and their conscience being weak, notice, is defiled.
25:37
SPEAKER_00: Some people will come to you and they'll tell you, you shouldn't do that, you shouldn't play cards, they'll say, because that's wrong.
25:46
SPEAKER_00: And you look at them and you go, is their conscience weak?
25:50
SPEAKER_00: No, they're just overscrupulous.
25:53
SPEAKER_00: And so in this area, Paul says, weak faith people are people who add lots of rules onto the rules of the Bible.
26:02
SPEAKER_00: Food will not commend you to God.
26:04
SPEAKER_00: We're no worse off if we do not eat, and no better off if we do.
26:09
SPEAKER_00: Don't go away from here and say, Jim says you can do anything you want to at any time.
26:13
SPEAKER_00: Okay, not saying that.
26:14
SPEAKER_00: I'm just saying that sometimes your conscience can cry foul when God is saying fair.
26:20
SPEAKER_00: So, how do we uh let me give you some applications and then tell you a story and let you out a little early.
26:26
SPEAKER_00: Because your conscience is only three, here's three things to do, okay?
26:29
SPEAKER_00: Because your conscience is only as reliable as your convictions.
26:33
SPEAKER_00: Let me say that again.
26:34
SPEAKER_00: Because your conscience is only as reliable as your convictions, as your own internal moral law, you need to Bible your convictions.
26:44
SPEAKER_00: Uh never heard that before.
26:46
SPEAKER_00: I'm sorry.
26:46
SPEAKER_00: Bible is now a verb.
26:47
SPEAKER_00: I've just stuck it in the dictionary as a verb.
26:50
SPEAKER_00: Bible your convictions.
26:53
SPEAKER_00: Hook your convictions up to the Bible.
26:56
SPEAKER_00: Martin Luther said, say it with me.
26:58
SPEAKER_00: My conscience is captive to the word of God.
27:02
SPEAKER_00: Come on, Martin Luther, this is his 500th birthday.
27:05
SPEAKER_00: You need to say this with me.
27:07
SPEAKER_00: My conscience is captive to the word of God.
27:10
SPEAKER_00: 500th birthday of the Reformation, I mean, when he posted that in 1517 on the door.
27:19
SPEAKER_00: So this is why you need to constantly check your convictions and moral law against the Bible.
27:25
SPEAKER_00: And then instead of relying on what you feel is right, you need to ask, what does the Bible say?
27:34
SPEAKER_00: Instead of relying on what you feel is right, you need to constantly ask, what does the Bible say?
27:40
SPEAKER_00: Bible your convictions.
27:44
SPEAKER_00: Because your conscience is only as good as your convictions.
27:47
SPEAKER_00: Number two, because it's always wrong to do what your conscience says is wrong, though, sorry, it may not be right to do what your conscience says is right, but it's always wrong to do what your conscience says is wrong.
28:01
SPEAKER_00: You need to listen to that still small voice.
28:06
SPEAKER_00: And when it says stop, you need to stop.
28:11
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you think, wow, I'm maybe overscrupulous here, I'm too picky, then go to the Bible and Bible your convictions and check that out and go to wiser people than you and see if maybe you need to adjust your moral convictions.
28:25
SPEAKER_00: But until that happens, you need to listen to that still small voice.
28:29
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna say, stop.
28:30
SPEAKER_00: Stop.
28:31
SPEAKER_00: And finally, third, because a bold, clear conscience is essential for your spiritual confidence and your prayer life.
28:40
SPEAKER_00: You can't pray to God if you have a broken conscience.
28:47
SPEAKER_00: So you need to resolve to live by Paul's motto.
28:50
SPEAKER_00: You need to commit to Paul's motto, which is say it with me, I strive always to keep my conscience clear before God and man.
29:01
SPEAKER_00: Say that again.
29:02
SPEAKER_00: I strive always to keep my conscience clear before God and man.
29:09
SPEAKER_00: There you are.
29:10
SPEAKER_00: Bible your convictions.
29:11
SPEAKER_00: Listen to that still small voice when it says stop, stop.
29:14
SPEAKER_00: Commit to Paul's motto.
29:15
SPEAKER_00: I strive always to keep my conscience clear before God and man as I was driving in this day.
29:20
SPEAKER_00: I thought, you know, it's a lot like red light, yellow lights, green lights.
29:25
SPEAKER_00: Your conscience is a good yellow light.
29:29
SPEAKER_00: It's a good sort of an early warning system, you know, that can go, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
29:34
SPEAKER_00: Really?
29:35
SPEAKER_00: Should you look at that?
29:36
SPEAKER_00: Should you say that?
29:36
SPEAKER_00: Should you be entering and there's gossip going on here?
29:39
SPEAKER_00: Shouldn't you maybe back off?
29:40
SPEAKER_00: Shouldn't you, you know, or say, you know, should you help that person by the side of the road?
29:44
SPEAKER_00: Shouldn't you be involved in justice and fairness to the poor here?
29:47
SPEAKER_00: Shouldn't you go over and talk?
29:49
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's an early, it's a yellow light.
29:52
SPEAKER_00: It warns you against making a mistake.
29:55
SPEAKER_00: And it's good that way.
29:57
SPEAKER_00: It's also a good red light.
29:59
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes your conscience will say, stop, you've you've you've you've gone over the top here.
30:05
SPEAKER_00: You know, you you started, it was started as a prayer request, and now it's become full-fledged gossip and even a little bit of slander in there.
30:13
SPEAKER_00: Okay, you need to stop.
30:15
SPEAKER_00: So your conscience is a good yellow light, and it's good red light, it's terrible green light.
30:22
SPEAKER_00: You you need to beware lest you say, how can it be wrong if it feels so right, it feels so good, it's gotta be a green light, it's gotta be okay, because I don't, it doesn't, I'm not bothered by it at all.
30:34
SPEAKER_00: That's that's in my experience, that's where you've got to watch out.
30:40
SPEAKER_00: Bible your convictions, listen to that still small voice.
30:46
SPEAKER_00: And then third, resolve to live by Paul's motto.
30:51
SPEAKER_00: Yesterday was a crazy day.
30:56
SPEAKER_00: Uh on the river, no sleep.
30:58
SPEAKER_00: It uh it was it was I hear it's been really hot here this last week.
31:02
SPEAKER_00: It was about 115 during the day on the river, and you wear hat at all times, and so you're glad when this freezing cold, 48-degree water from the bottom of uh anyway, uh when it splashes on you.
31:13
SPEAKER_00: Super frigid, but at least for a while.
31:16
SPEAKER_00: Uh but at night, a couple of the nights, just couldn't sleep.
31:19
SPEAKER_00: So I've got full water bottles next to next to my cot, and I'm sleeping in an in an embarrassing lack of clothing and and and covering and so forth.
31:29
SPEAKER_00: So, you know, uh, but it was just guys, and so they've seen underwear before.
31:35
SPEAKER_00: So um during the night, every hour or so, you know, I'm opening a water bottle and I'm going like this, and so that any possible stray breath of fresh air will will and so I don't sleep much.
31:46
SPEAKER_00: And then we get it before dawn because we've got to get yesterday morning because we've got to, you know, we've got to get off the river.
31:52
SPEAKER_00: And so then we take a boat down, then we take a helicopter, and then we take a small plane, and finally get to Vegas, and then we take a bus, and then we take a shuttle, and finally I'm at the airport at about five, five o'clock yesterday afternoon, Topeka time.
32:03
SPEAKER_00: And um anyway, uh get on the plane about 5:36, Topeka time, and I am trashed.
32:13
SPEAKER_00: And I say that to defend myself for uh for my next statement, as you'll recognize very soon, is is true.
32:22
SPEAKER_00: I was not my normally kind, sweet, and spiritual self.
32:29
SPEAKER_00: I was, in fact, carnal and irritable.
32:32
SPEAKER_00: I get on the plane and and I and I get to the seat and I say, excuse me, I'm in the middle seat.
32:42
SPEAKER_00: And he doesn't look up.
32:43
SPEAKER_00: I call him Big Fella.
32:45
SPEAKER_00: He's six foot one, 220 pounds, and he is hunched over his magazines.
32:49
SPEAKER_00: He's got for the whole flight a neck pillow on the back, and he also has something he's listening to in his ears.
32:54
SPEAKER_00: And he doesn't look, he just grunts, he's not real happy to get up, I can tell.
32:58
SPEAKER_00: But hunches up and he gets up and he gets in.
33:01
SPEAKER_00: And I squeeze down and then he crashes down, and I realize at that moment this armrest here is not, is not going to be mine for the whole trip.
33:10
SPEAKER_00: Because he's not only taking the armrest, he's taking his arm is even over.
33:15
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
33:17
SPEAKER_00: And then, horror of horrors, I'm about to tell you something which will cause you to absolutely gasp.
33:22
SPEAKER_00: Horror of horror.
33:23
SPEAKER_00: He commits the unpardonable sin of any airline passenger.
33:28
SPEAKER_00: He slops his leg over and slides his big foot underneath the middle seat, taking half of my space.
33:42
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I mean, is that like that's like capital punishment for something like that?
33:47
SPEAKER_00: All of a sudden I realize I've got to squeeze my two feet in half of the space underneath.
33:52
SPEAKER_00: He has invaded my space so horribly, I'm just shocked.
33:57
SPEAKER_00: I think for a while he must just be joking.
33:59
SPEAKER_00: He's not joking.
34:01
SPEAKER_00: So I go, okay, I'll just slide over this way and take.
34:04
SPEAKER_00: Oh no, I can't take this because the opposite of Big Fella is hyper kid.
34:08
SPEAKER_00: He hyper kid's on the other side.
34:10
SPEAKER_00: He's instead of six foot, he's five foot instead of two twenty, he's 120.
34:14
SPEAKER_00: But he is unbelievably hyper.
34:16
SPEAKER_00: He's flying alone, he's about 12 years old.
34:18
SPEAKER_00: And he has a stash, a huge stash of all kinds of chips and candy, which he's eating.
34:23
SPEAKER_00: He has not one, but two game pads.
34:26
SPEAKER_00: Two game pads, and he is super hyper.
34:30
SPEAKER_00: He can tell real quick, and he needs that armrest right here so that he can so that he can arrange this.
34:37
SPEAKER_00: And I mean, this kid is, and he's not happy.
34:41
SPEAKER_00: When he goes out in a game, when Mario crashes and burns or something, he doesn't, you I noticed he doesn't restart that game, try to go a little bit farther.
34:48
SPEAKER_00: He changes the game or changes game pads.
34:52
SPEAKER_00: And then he's also changing clothes.
34:55
SPEAKER_00: So he's eating and he's changing clothes, he's taking off, and then he's putting back on his little jacket, and he's reaching and shuffling around his can, and he's pulling out this hooded sweatshirt and putting it on, and whoops, it's backwards, he can't see, so he slides it around, and you know, I'm constantly getting the elbow over here.
35:09
SPEAKER_00: And I confess to you, I'm not doing well.
35:13
SPEAKER_00: I am I'm bothered.
35:18
SPEAKER_00: And every time, and then and the guy, and the big guy on the left has got three magazines, three glossies.
35:23
SPEAKER_00: One of them reads cigars, the other one, the next one reads whiskey, and the other one reads fantasy.
35:28
SPEAKER_00: And these are big magazines, and so as he turns the pages, you know, I'm periodically bumped on this side, and then the elbow on this side, and so forth.
35:37
SPEAKER_00: I I find myself thinking thoughts like this.
35:43
SPEAKER_00: It's not just my personal space being invaded, but these are my rights that are being violated.
35:51
SPEAKER_00: My human rights, my rights as an American, my rights as an airline passenger, my God-given rights are and and and I'm and and I think about the time I was thinking about how you know these rights are probably God-given, that um that all of a sudden my conscience decides to awaken.
36:12
SPEAKER_00: And it doesn't yell, it just whispers, and it doesn't shove me, it just nudges.
36:18
SPEAKER_00: But what is but but what my conscience said was this it said, okay, if you were Jesus and he was in this claustrophobically small little space with somebody's big foot bumping your feet, his elbow, the elbow, would Jesus be feeling the way you're feeling right now?
36:40
SPEAKER_00: Would Jesus be thinking about how many of his rights are being violated?
36:47
SPEAKER_00: I told you I wasn't doing well.
36:49
SPEAKER_00: And and you know, you know what the answer was.
36:52
SPEAKER_00: I thought, well, no, Jesus wouldn't feel that at all because that's what happened to him when he came to earth, not to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for me.
37:03
SPEAKER_00: You know, people just treated him as though he was, you know.
37:10
SPEAKER_00: So I'm getting about that point, and and hyper kid over here gets a, he's flying along, so he gets a special drink, gets a drink from the flight attendant.
37:20
SPEAKER_00: And the problem is with the two game pads with the clothes and with the food, the drink doesn't have much room, so he keeps moving it, just kind of shoving it like this.
37:28
SPEAKER_00: Oh dear, without ever having taken a drink, he flops it over onto the sermon that I'm preaching this morning.
37:37
SPEAKER_00: And he looks at me like, oh dear, but Mario is about to burn up in this burning building.
37:43
SPEAKER_00: So he doesn't say anything, he goes back and saves Mario's life.
37:47
SPEAKER_00: And so the flight attendant brings me this huge thing, you know, of papers.
37:51
SPEAKER_00: And so I'm cleaning up and I'm I'm returning to my thoughts about Jesus.
37:56
SPEAKER_00: What would Jesus do?
37:58
SPEAKER_00: And I realize Jesus, Jesus wouldn't be losing it.
38:01
SPEAKER_00: He really wouldn't.
38:02
SPEAKER_00: Jesus would be would be thinking, you know, these are two people with their with their own needs and their own agenda, and this is just not a big deal if if people don't give you your rights.
38:12
SPEAKER_00: And I have to tell you, the last two and a half hours of the flight went far better than than they would have if I would have been steaming that whole time, figuring out to I won't tell you what I was thinking.
38:26
SPEAKER_00: So sometimes your conscience can be a real God-given gift to you.
38:33
SPEAKER_00: As long, of course, as you've bübled your convictions, and as long as you're listening to that still small voice, and as long as you're resolving that you're going to yourself always live with a clear conscience before God and man.
38:50
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
38:51
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
38:52
SPEAKER_00: Father, we thank you for uh for your concern for us, for your care, and for the gift of conscience.
39:01
SPEAKER_00: And then the quick note and reminder that it's not infallible.
39:08
SPEAKER_00: That in fact it's only as good as our biblical convictions.
39:13
SPEAKER_00: I pray for my friends here and ask that this week you'd give us each an opportunity to see the best and use the best of this conscience you've given us, that our consciences would be tied into your revelation and then would whisper to us and nudge us when we need it the most.
39:30
SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name I pray.
39:32
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
39:34
SPEAKER_00: Thanks for coming.