The Conscience: God’s Gift to Humanity | Mark 6:14-20 | Pastor Daniel Batarseh (Gospel of Mark)

Please meet me in Mark chapter six. Let's read a couple verses together. Mark chapter six and verse 14. Here's what the Bible says to us today. King Herod heard of it, for Jesus's name had become known.

Some said, John the Baptist has been raised from the dead. That is why these miraculous powers are at work in him. But others said, he is Elijah. And others said, he is a prophet like one of the prophets of old. But when Herod heard of it, he said, John whom I beheaded has been raised.

Lord, we pray again, and we ask that you help us. We thank you that you have not left us to our own. You have given us your word, a lamp to our feet. You've given us direction into holiness, and from holiness into hope and joy and peace. We ask, Lord, that there would be a great help from the Holy Spirit at this time In the delivery, in the reception, that the name of your son Jesus would be exalted and blessed.

May we be overwhelmed by the wisdom of who you are and may we be eager to obey what you say. Amen. The Lord instructed and empowered his disciples for a ministry. And that ministry was a preaching outreach within the boundaries of Israel to give them the gospel and to demonstrate the power of the name of Jesus Christ. And immediately after being informed about this send off, we are given the report of the success of their endeavor.

The news of their deliverance, the news of the healing and the preaching that was breaking out all across Galilee has reached far and wide and has even reached the ears of many high profile men. And one of those men, as you just heard, was King Herod. King Herod heard about what was happening in the name of Jesus. And that is the person that the Holy Spirit precisely highlights for us in order to understand the great impact that Jesus was having. But before looking more into who Herod was and why Herod is important here, let us consider what is happening overall.

What is happening here at this point of Jesus' ministry. We hear and we read that Jesus' name had become known. Had become known. This is significant for many reasons but beyond the obvious, it tells us the way that the disciples did ministry. It shows us what and how they went about concerning their service to the Lord.

Think about it this way. It was not the the name of the disciples that had become known. It was the name of Jesus. All that they did and all that they preached pointed to the person of Christ. There was no ambiguity.

There was no confusion about what their message was about or who was the source of all the power that was put on display. It was Christ. People left the meeting speaking of Christ. People were impressed by Christ. And this shows that they they were effective in giving glory to God as they went about.

This shows that they did not, for any moment, bring attention to themselves unnecessarily, but they successfully presented Jesus as the object of men's need. And when people experienced what Jesus could offer, Christ got the glory. And if they didn't, they at least heard that Christ was their only hope. And I look at that and I think, Lord, if it is true of them, maybe true of us, that when we go about, when we serve you, when you send us into a local church or a mission, that we make the name of Christ known. Of Christ known.

But with this encouraging explosive expansion of the gospel at this time in Jesus' ministry, there are interesting comments being made. There are interesting comments being made. What you have here is people who had trouble identifying who Jesus was. The name was obvious. The name was clear, but they could not find it within themselves to confess who he claimed to be.

This man was unignorable. This man was unusual. And so people had to make a conclusion about them unless they'd be insane for ignoring what is happening around them. And the Holy Spirit brings to our attention three different explanations that the masses had concerning the identity of Jesus. The first one here is in verse 14.

Some said John the Baptist has been raised from the dead. That is why these miraculous powers are at work in him. John the Baptist. Now this shows that John the Baptist had recently died, obviously. But it also shows that because of John's influence in the nation, people assume that this new stir that was happening was caused by him.

And because they made that association, they had to believe that he must have been raised from the dead. And because he was now in touch with a parallel world, this is perhaps why he's able to do these signs and wonders. So you have people who said this was John raised from the dead. There's no other better explanation than that. But from there we we see a second explanation that people had.

It's in verse 15. But others said, he is Elijah. He is Elijah. Now why would the people out of all the prophets say that he was Elijah? Well these people knew their old testament.

They knew their bible very well. And they knew that the prophet Malachi in chapter four verse five tells us the following, behold, God is speaking. In Malachi four five, Behold, I will send you Elijah. I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. The Jewish people were anticipating Elijah to return.

They knew that the last that they heard of him was that he was taken up in a chariot of fire. And so they, through Malachi, were waiting for Elijah before the Messiah actually. And and that seems clear but it gets a little bit more complex as you flip from Malachi into the New Testament. Why does it get complicated? Well, because you realize that the identity of this Elijah is given to John the Baptist.

It it's it's what we see in Luke chapter one when the angel Gabriel appears before John's father and he tells him that this boys boy is going to grow up to go before the Lord in the spirit and power of Elijah. And he's gonna turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and vice versa. That's Malachi's prophecy. It's being echoed but it's being given over to John the Baptist. You're saying, well what's the problem with that?

Well again, you have to realize that Malachi added that when Elijah would come, following his arrival would be the great and awesome day of the Lord. You say, oh, that must be the arrival of Jesus. Yes and no. That phrase, the great and awesome day of the Lord is not Christ coming to save, it's Christ coming to judge. And so that day was the anticipation of Israel's enemies being destroyed and God's eternal kingdom being established.

So here's the dilemma. If John the Baptist is the fulfillment of Malachi's prophecy, then how is it that it's not followed by the great and awesome day of the Lord? John didn't prepare people for God's wrath. John prepared God's people for the Messiah's mercy. And so do we have a false fulfillment here?

It seems like we have some sympathy for these people because since nothing happened after John and John was actually put to death and John can't be the Elijah, then maybe this rabbi from Nazareth, maybe this is the Elijah and he he's preparing us for the great and awesome day of the Lord. Maybe that's what this is all about. Thankfully, Jesus solves the dilemma. You're there in Mark chapter six but scroll over to Mark chapter nine. And the the very disciples of Jesus had this question, especially after they encountered Elijah on the Mount Of Transfiguration.

But you see here in Mark chapter nine verse 11, and they asked them, why do the scribes say that first Elijah must come? And he said to them, Elijah does come first to restore all things. And how is it written of the Son of Man that he should suffer many things and be treated with contempt? But I tell you that Elijah has come and they did to him whatever they pleased as it is written of him. Notice that Jesus did not disagree with the scribes about Elijah coming first, but he does give a more complete truth and a more complete picture of this truth.

To say that the Messiah was only coming to bring judgment, that great and awesome day of the Lord was the mistake that the disciples and the scribes made. That was a favorite of the Jews. The Jews leaned towards the promises and the predictions that when Messiah would come, there would be a total revolt, a total restoration, a total transformation in the entire globe. And that this kingdom would rule and reign and everybody would be subdued to the son of David. That's what their hearts lean towards.

But notice what Jesus does here in verse 12. He brings to their attention the aspect of the Messiah that they often overlooked. So in essence, this is what's happening. Hey, Lord, what about the predictions and the prophecies of Elijah coming before the Messiah comes? And Jesus, yeah, that's true.

But what about the prophecies about the Messiah suffering? That's what he's saying in verse 12. Read it again. What does he say? He says here, and how it is written of the son of man that he should suffer many things and be treated with contempt.

You're overlooking that. And they often did. Even after his resurrection, those two on the road to Emmaus couldn't couldn't understand how this person that they hoped in would die and suffer and Jesus comes to rebuke them and gives them an exegetical bible study on how the Messiah would suffer. Well, it's happening right here. And so what he is saying is you're not putting the pieces of prophecy together carefully.

Yes, Elijah is to come. Yes, there is a great and awesome day of the Lord, but there is also this part where I come to pay for the sins of the world. To suffer, to die, to give my life as a ransom. And so what he is saying is, Elijah is still to come. And there's debate whether the actual Elijah will return or one like John the Baptist will be empowered in the spirit of Elijah, but it will definitely come before the second advent of Christ when he will bring about judgment upon those who are enemies of the gospel.

What about John the Baptist then? Well, he was a preview. John the Baptist was a partial fulfillment to this prophecy in Malachi. And so he says, yes he has come and yes he will come and when he does come, then the great and awesome day of the Lord will arrive. That is the second explanation.

That is what people thought about Jesus. But then there's a third one and the third one was more general. In verse 15 of Mark six, we read, he is a prophet like one of the prophets of old. So some people said, well, he's he's he's like in the same roster as Moses and Elisha and maybe Isaiah, Jeremiah, Jonah, Amos. He's just another gifted godsend of our generation just giving us the message and the word of the Lord of today.

This is what people had a dilemma with. This is what people had a problem with and we can make a whole sermon about that, how people misidentify who Jesus is. But the Holy Spirit does something really interesting. Instead of just taking us from those three explanations to the next part, we come back to King Herod. We return to Herod.

And what we see here is that Herod is absolutely convinced. No matter what the popular opinions were, he settled it in his mind and heart that this Jesus was in fact a resurrected John the Baptist. It has to be John the Baptist. This is gotta be the guy. And then for the rest of the next dozen verses or so, you and I get the explanation of why Herod believed that Jesus was John.

And I'm not gonna read it but I'll summarize it to you. The explanation is that, Herod was the one responsible for arresting John the Baptist and having him executed. Now here's the follow-up question. How does John being arrested and killed by Herod explain the conclusion that this Jesus was John the Baptist? Does that questioning make sense?

How do those things correlate? Herod is afraid. He is living in absolute dread, and fear has a way of misinterpreting and mistranslating events and news. Does it not? And so he is filtering this these reports of Jesus through a fear of his concluding that this is John coming back to life.

Another question. A lot of questions this afternoon. Right? Why is he afraid? How do you conclude that he is afraid?

How do you conclude that he's making this interpretation through fear? What we have before us is a man who is haunted by his conscience. Who is haunted by his conscience. We see that Herod here is living in guilt and this guilt is causing a paranoia. This fear of something lingering over him And because of this unresolved, unrepented, past evil, Herod in his palace, Herod on his throne, Herod with all the resources that can be available at the snap of a finger was being eaten up inside by something that he had done in the past.

The conscience is an amazing thing. The conscience is profoundly powerful. And instead of finishing the rest of this story, I wanna pause here because that's where my meditation pause in reading this for these verses. And I wanna speak to you today about your conscience. The human conscience.

So if you leave church this afternoon and somebody asks you, what did you learn today? Here is something you can borrow. We received an introductory biblical analysis of the human conscience. It's such a vast subject that my great trouble and preparation for it was not to try to keep you here for three hours. And so this is not an exhaustive analysis.

This is, with all of my heart, I believe, just the surface of understanding the Bible's information and data about this thing that we often don't speak about enough and that is the conscience. We're seeing Herod's conscience at work. Your conscience is constantly at work. There's some whose conscience aren't working at all, But let's let's pull back here and start from the beginning. What is the human conscience?

I'm not gonna give you my definition because the Bible has one. And I believe the best place to start is found in Romans chapter two. And so meet me there in Romans two verse 14, and let's understand what the Bible has to say about this thing called conscience. Romans two fourteen. Paul says, for when Gentiles who do not have the law by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves even though they do not have the law.

They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them. According to Paul, the conscience is the faculty of your soul that serves the distinct role of either condemning you or commending you, totally dependent upon your words, your thoughts or your actions. That is the conscience. And that is why he speaks about these conflicting thoughts that accuse or even excuse them. That is what your conscience does to you.

It either accuses you or it excuses you based on your behavior or your decisions that you make in day to day life. In essence, the conscience is a divinely designed device that is a part of the human constitution, which essentially holds us accountable to the moral law of God that has been instilled in every single person that is created in his image. That's why he says here that though the Gentiles, which is a description of the unbelieving, don't have the law that the Jews had access to, there is a law at work. It's a law that God had written on the heart. And what the conscience does is hold you accountable to that law that is innate.

That is woven into the very fabric of your being. The conscience is the watchful eye. It is a mentor to you, but it also sits on the judgment seat. And it either praises you or it shames you. It encourages you or it scourges you.

And it is there to provide some sort of direction though it is not infallible, though it is not perfect. Its function is to bring about some kind of moral guidance to man. The conscience feels like a voice. You probably are familiar with that inner dialogue within yourself. But the conscience is not the voice of God.

That is a mistake that some assume. It is not the voice of God but it is a gift from God. God has deposited this thing called a conscience as a gift. You know, pain in your body whether you like to admit it or not is a gift. The fact that you have nerve endings and you can feel certain things is God's wiring in you to signal to you that you are putting your body in physical danger.

If you step on something sharp and you ignore that sharp object that has penetrated your skin and your flesh, you risk of being infected and then more problems follow suit. So what pain does is alarm you and says, don't go any further. Don't ignore this. Don't neglect this. Treat this.

And what pain is to the body is what the conscious is to the soul. It is there to awaken you. It is there to bring things to your attention, lest you heap up more damage to your spirit, to your moral health, to your holiness, to your sanctification. So that ever present sensation is something that God has given to each of us. And there's an interesting verse in Proverbs twenty twenty seven.

It says that the spirit of a man is the lamp of the Lord. The spirit of a man is the lamp of the Lord, and it goes on to say, searching all the innermost parts. There's something about your spirit that God has breathed into you that is constantly investigating you. And that is an instrument that God has deposited in us. And and and it makes sense that these contemplations, these contemplations of either misery or relief, where do they surface from after you do something?

The conscience. It's a lamp. It's shining. It's an instrument. It's a tool invisible but authored by God.

Hidden but ever so powerful. And what we should not misunderstand about the conscience is that it is a gift limited to the children of God. No, you heard it in Romans that it is a universal wiring. Even the heathen Gentiles have a conscience. And it has been made available to everyone who has been created in the very image of God.

And that is why, let me encourage you believer, you have every right to appeal to the conscience as one of the strongest proofs of the existence of God. The conscience. It not only speaks to us, it speaks about the existence and the character of our creator. The fact that we all have this innate feeling that tells us what is right or wrong is is an inner witness. An inner witness that is a reminder that we are more than animals.

You know, we're teaching kids that they come from animals and then we get upset when they act like animals. No. You're more than a beast. You're more than a creature that walks on its four legs. No.

You are someone who has been created to reflect the character of God and your conscience bears witness not just to the uniqueness of who you are, but to the reality of God that he is holy. That he has a distinction in mind between good and evil. That he upholds justice and that he will hold all of us accountable one day. That is what the conscience does. One of the Puritans beautifully said that the conscience is the soul reflecting upon itself.

That is true. You know, everything that I just said to you is the basic biology of the function of the conscience. But there's so much more to say about how it operates. And in this very limited time this afternoon, again my challenge was I don't know what I'm gonna say. That wasn't my challenge.

My challenge was, I don't know how I'm gonna say all of it. I want you to understand the the function of the conscience in three things. First, I want you to understand the role of conscience in society. Second, I want you to see the use of conscience in salvation. And lastly, I want you to see the assistance of conscience in sanctification.

Three s's if you want to remember it easily. Society, salvation, sanctification. Society, salvation, sanctification. There's more to say about it, but this is what we're prayerfully going to explore. Let's come to this understanding of the conscience in society.

You heard me say that it is available to all. All men enjoy and know what this is. The unbeliever has been granted a conscience just as much as the person who believes. Why is that? Because of this, understand, conscience is an expression of common grace given by a good God.

It is an expression of common grace given by a good God. In our sin fractured, sin polluted, sin soaked world, God in his love has ordained and instituted certain restraints in our world in order to limit the corrupting influences of evil. And if you thought evil is just something that comes from the sky, you're wrong. Jesus says it comes from your heart. This is where the sewage of all sin comes from.

But God in knowing the potential devastation that can occur when sin is unleashed without restraint, has raised up certain things to mitigate and to deflect and to curb the potential destruction that can come if man is let loose. Most of those things are external. Most of those restraints that you and I are familiar with are outside of us including our judicial system. So when you hear defund the police, that's scary. That's not biblical.

That's actually satanic. Because those are one of the constraints in our world, the sword to limit evil from having full reign. So these restraints have been given by God. You know why? To make life livable.

And more than just livable, enjoyable. What? God would just give that kind of grace even to the heathen? Yes. That's what Jesus said.

That the sun rises on both the good and the evil. That rain comes to both the just and the unjust. That he threw seasons and and family and laughter and all these different things that originate with him, that that kindness of God would lead people to repentance. And in his kindness, he has raised up certain restraints. Most of them are external, one of them is internal.

Can you guess what it is? The conscience. It's the one in you. It's the one that you're born with. It's individualistic.

At the same time, it is universal. And the conscience is meant to hold back sinners from going further into their depravity and causing more harm to themselves and to others. There is an aspect of guilt, which comes from your conscience by the way, that is tormenting. Is it not? How many counseling sessions are booked because of one main reason, among many reasons, but one of the main reasons you can you can liberate many counselors if you just deal with people's remorse and regret.

Most of what people are sitting down and and pouring their hearts about is something that they are feeling that is keeping them up at night. Something that they have done or something that's been done to them or a false guilt, true guilt. People are tormented by this. There's an afflicting power behind a broken conscience. And God did that by design.

Guilt to an extent is a good thing if it's legitimate guilt. It's meant to preserve some kind of functionality in our world. Some kind of flow of normalcy. If people don't have guilt anymore, if people don't feel shame for what they do, then you will just wreak havoc. And that is precisely why we're seeing what we're seeing in our day to day.

There is an all out attack and assault on the restraints that God has placed in our world and not just the external ones, not just the government, not just family, not just the church, no, even the conscience. And it is masked in different ways. There is an effort for people to be released from legitimate guilt through the idea that you need to have self esteem. And don't be embarrassed about those things. You should in fact praise those things about yourself and and walk with your head up, when God actually designed for you to to be ashamed of those things and embarrassed about those things.

So now we're promoting people coming out of the closet. Right? At one time that sin was was was a shameful thing and people hid and people did it in the dark and it was secretive. Now it's it's public. It's paraded.

Now we're telling people, be you, be who you are, be who you feel you are. What is happening there? It's an attack on the conscience. Because the conscience as much as it is authored by God is not static. What do I mean by that?

Just because it's divinely designed does not mean that it is impervious to being conditioned. It can be altered. It can be tarnished. It can actually be smashed altogether. And so this very thing that is meant to bring order to our world is actually being assaulted as I speak and will only continue to be assaulted unless God comes and intervenes with his mercy.

How is it possible for the conscience to be altered in this way? Two ways. Two very simple ways. The first way is to ignore it. The second way is to misinform it.

The first way is to ignore it. The second way is to misinform it. Let me show you both of those things in the bible. Come to first Timothy chapter one with me. First Timothy one and let's go to verse 18.

First Timothy one eighteen reads, this charge I entrust you, Timothy my child, in accordance with the prophecies previously made about you, that by them you may wage the good warfare. Now look at this in verse 19, holding faith and what? A good conscience. A healthy conscience. By rejecting this, not just a good faith.

Right? Not just holding to the faith, but by rejecting even a good conscience, some have made shipwreck of their faith. There is something about rejecting a good conscience that leads to accidents. Do you know what the word reject means? The word reject actually means to thrust away.

It means to push away. It means to repel. It's possible for you and I to ignore that voice of reason. It's possible to suppress it as loud as it is, it cannot overpower you. It cannot dictate things for you, can't control you, it can only guide you.

And like a snooze button on your alarm, you can shut it off. And you can keep shutting it off. And like the sweet little voice that tells you to turn around when you took a wrong turn from your iPhone, you can ignore it and keep heading in a different direction. Paul says there are some who have pushed away what they knew their conscience was telling them not to do. And they rejected it over and over again until they crashed.

Until they collided with some kind of moral failure or doctrinal error that would lead to greater problems. So that conscience of yours and mine, it can be rejected. And here's the scary part, your GPS might continue to warn you even though you ignore it from time to time. Turn left, turn right, u-turn, u-turn, u-turn, and you just ignore it. You you blast the music louder.

But what happens with the conscience is that the more we persevere in our resistance against it, the more quiet it gets. The more quiet it can get. And what once bothered you, what was what once was unthinkable, what what was once something that you told yourself, I would never do that, It's something that you are able to engage in without any prick of heart, without any cut, without any nudge. You're just mindlessly now enjoying something that at one point would make you throw up or make you break out in sweats or make you blush. And that's what we see in first Timothy, not one, but in chapter four.

Look at it. Just flip a couple chapters over and see what Paul says to the same people. In verse one of chapter four, now the spirit expressly says that in later times, some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons through the sincerity of liars whose consciences are seared. Whose consciences now the conscience is not just being rejected, not just being pushed away, not just being repelled, there is now no more response. It has become unresponsive.

And just like scar tissue that comes from a burn that loses its feeling, what can happen to your conscience is that now it doesn't sense anything. That moral compass has been broken. It doesn't tell you anything anymore. And Paul is saying this in the context of false teachers who are able to hypocritically deceive people and lie to them, and they can do so without their conscience being disturbed. They can lead the masses astray.

Have you ever you look at some of these false teachers and you wonder, how can they bleed people from their money? How can they just look at out into the camera and blatantly lie? How can after being exposed over and over by news medias and different ministers, how can they just keep moving forward? I'll tell you how. Their consciences are seared.

They don't feel anything. They don't sense anything. There's no there's no agitation. There's no restlessness. There's they can go to sleep soundly even though they are devouring people.

And Paul says, it's possible to arrive at such a place. All you gotta do is to keep ignoring it. All you have to do is keep rejecting it. All you have to do is keep silencing it. All you have to do is turn away from it until it becomes totally obsolete and have no value to you.

Just like a shriveled up body part that has no more sensation. Now that might not be appealing to some people. You have some people who want to maintain some kind of understanding of right and wrong. And so if Satan can't get you to ignore your conscience, if he if he can't convince you to just silence it altogether, then he will find a way to misinform it. To misinform your conscience.

The conscience responds to a moral code. The law written on our hearts, that's what our conscience appeals to. And if you're in crisis, we're gonna find out there's a now a heightened awareness of God's law that your conscience responds to. But generally, there's a basic code that the conscious says, hey, you know that you broke that. Right?

Hey, you know you're guilty. Right? Hey, you know you shouldn't be doing this. Right? And so here's what the enemy does.

Knowing the the wiring of the conscience, he will bring and construct before people a different value system for your conscience to respond to. And Titus one tells us, you don't have to turn that, but Titus one tells us how that happens. He speaks about there in verse 15 and verse 16 of the defiling of the mind and conscience. Those two go together. Meaning, if your mind is constantly defiled, polluted, falsely informed, then eventually your conscience will be as well.

And this is the scary thing about your conscience being misinformed. It gives you a sense of right and wrong, but now here's what's happened, you're calling good evil. And you're calling evil good. Isaiah told us about, woe to those who call good evil and evil good. And that's why you have people out in the world who are passionate about what they are advocating even though according to God's objective law, what they're advocating is blatantly wrong.

But they feel like it's right. Why? Why are they willing to protest? Why are they willing to debate? Why are why are they willing to come against others who have a different moral code?

Because they feel like they're right. And they feel like they're right even though they're wrong because they have fed their conscience wrongly. They've absorbed that which is in fact deceptive. Here's the thing about the conscience. As I said earlier, it's not infallible.

It's a guide, but it's not your ultimate guide. It can help you, but it is not shielded from being distorted. It's infallible and and it is something that can be actually tampered with. And here's what you can do with your conscience just like any muscle of your body. You can strengthen it.

You can weaken it. You can even confuse it. And that's what Paul is speaking about here. If we don't take our conscience and harmonize it with the word of God, and clarify it and bring illumination to it through the truth of God's word, it becomes less reliable. And not only does it become less reliable, it becomes more vulnerable to being influenced by either your flesh or by our culture.

Some people wonder, how do I know if I can rely on my conscience? And one of the best answers you can give to that is, well, how dependent is it on the truth of God's word? And so the conscience works and operates in society and that's why, ladies and gentlemen, what we are witnessing before us, the breakdown of common sense is a satanic assault on one of God's restraints towards man. See, he doesn't just want to attack the gospel. The gospel is foundational.

It is what saves. He wants to just corrupt everything that God has made. Everything that is good, everything that helps, everything that points to him, he just wants to completely erase it. This is the great hatred that the evil one has for our God and for you has been created in the image. Every fingerprint of God in this world, he wants to erase.

And one of those things is your conscience. The conscience in society but the conscience also works in salvation. God designed this device not only to constrain sinners but to save sinners. To save sinners. Right?

And he generally does this by awakening that system, that device in you through a revelation of the holiness of God. An understanding of the nature of God is meant to disturb the self righteous and the one who is boldly and unashamedly evil to help them realize all the same thing. We all fall short of the glory of God. We all fall short of the glory of God. But in order for that disturbance to even occur, there must be a faithful representation of God's person and his principles.

You have to do that. Look at the book of the acts and see how these apostles and disciples preached. A lot of their evangelistic messages were heavily reliant upon the revelation of God being judge. Judge. Judge.

Judgment is coming. God is holy. At one point he has overlooked the sins of all men but now he calls all men to repent. You see that kind of message being delivered not to church people but to worldly people. The law silences the mouths of those who would try to think that they are righteous.

Right? And so you have all these indications pointing to this reality that if people would even begin to see their need of the gospel, they need to first be confronted by their guilt. I argue that the beginnings of somebody even being open to the gospel begins with a confrontation with a conscience. Here's where you are now before the eyes of God. And that is supposed to invoke and provoke a sense of guilt.

A sense of concern like Herod, a sense of even holy panic. I'm in trouble here. Where do I flee? Where do I go? Is this really true?

And if it is true, then I need I need saving. Do you see how that goes? And here's the problem, I wonder if in our day, the reason why we are not seeing as many people saved like we would want to see is because we have eliminated this idea of confronting the conscience. People are comfortable. Like people come in and out to services and and they they hear preachers traveling to different places.

How much of those interactions of truth is pointing at somebody's conscience saying, you're in trouble. There's a holy God. You're a sinner. I'm a sinner too. I'm forgiven but I'm trying to tell you and help you to be forgiven as well.

How much of that is occurring? And people come in and out, in and why? Because in part their conscience is not being touched. And so, you know, you if you've come here regularly, you realize that the preaching here is strong and there's a reason for that. There's a reason for that.

Not because we have pent up anger and we're letting it out here. Okay? That's not the reason. The reason is because we see this idea of a law giver and a law, and we are sinners. We're broken.

We're in trouble. So we need a savior. Right? And that that's where it begins. What happened with the first Christian sermon after Peter preached, what what a gracious God.

The one who denied you three times is the one who gets to preach the first Christian sermon. He preaches and what happens to the audience there? The thousands that were listening to these men and women glorifying God in different tongues. Peter preaches and when he preaches, it says that when they heard this, they were cut to the heart. The cutting of the heart must happen before the cleansing of the heart.

And when this cut occurs, when you begin to bleed in your soul a little bit, birth in that is an appeal. An appeal. And the appeal here is what I want you to see in first Peter three twenty one. Come with me. Come come come.

Come with me to first Peter three twenty one. First Peter three twenty one. Peter says, baptism which corresponds to this now saves you. Does baptism save you? Peter says, baptism saves you.

Really? Which corresponds to this, baptism now saves you not as a removal of dirt from the body. Oh, okay. Thank you for the clarification, Peter. Baptism which corresponds to this now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience.

Through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. There is no redemptive value in the body of water that you step into. There is nothing of that physical material that brings about any kind of salvation or sanctification. What Peter is saying here was when you collect his thoughts, is that as you know, baptism is this external tangible pledge that you make of something that has occurred internally. And what baptism really is according to this verse, is an appeal.

It's an appeal to God. An appeal that was first birthed inside, but now you're making it public first before him and before man. I wanna be washed. I wanna be cleansed. I want I want the old Daniel to go in that body water and die.

And I want the new Daniel in Christ to come up in resurrection life. That is what he is speaking about here. There is an appeal in baptism and that appeal was first born when you were cut in your heart. No wonder Peter after he preaches to them says, repent and be baptized. You really wanna be cleansed?

You really wanna be saved? Prove it. Show that your faith is genuine and true. And that's why I get a little nervous from people who hesitate to get baptized. It's a very telling sign of the condition of their conscience.

It reveals some things and one of those things is that it puts into question whether they truly understand the demand of the gospel and what Jesus is worthy of. But hopefully, when you see people get into that tank, what you're witnessing is people appealing for a good conscience. Oh, cleanse me, wash me, make me new. Not that that act does it, but it's just an expression of something that is birthed in the heart. It's birthed in the heart.

And Hebrews says in so many different ways how that sacrifice of Jesus sprinkles our conscience clean. There's a cleansing that takes place. And there is this relief that is born. And unlike Herod, you are no longer troubled by what you have done in the past. You're no longer thinking and it's no longer lingering behind you and ready to leap on you when any suspicious thing happens.

No. When you put your faith in Christ, your your conscience no longer reminds you of that which Christ has pardoned. It's put to rest. It's buried. And yes, Satan would try to try to unbury it and bring it back to you again, but upward you look there.

Right? And see him there. You look and see him there, the one who's paid for your sins, the one who's redeemed you from your sins, the one who's rescued you from your sins and you remind yourself and you strengthen your faith in the love of God, I'm free. I'm free. And your conscience is now being wired over and over again, conditioned, you are free.

You are free. You are free. And that gets louder and Satan voices is muted more and more and more. The cutting of the heart must occur before the cleansing of the heart. And one of the immediate gifts of salvation is that there is this resounding relief to your conscience.

The conscience in society, the conscience in salvation, the assistance of conscience in sanctification. After being a child of God, what happens to your conscience? What occurs when your evil conscience is now made new and you're born again, so you think differently and see things differently? Is there is there a cease of activity in your conscience? Do you never know a restlessness?

Are you forever at ease because of what Christ has done? Yes or no? You should never for a moment doubt your position in God because of Christ. If your conscience says anything to you contrary to the promises of God in Jesus, your conscience needs some work to be done on it. And that's okay.

God is patient with us maturing in the love of God as first John tells us. People who still feel condemnation, what that shows again is that their conscience is not up to par with the truth and they need to be trained. They need to be trained. And so there should never ever be a moment where the interruption of your peace occurs because of what Christ has done. At the same time, because of the spirit of God living inside of us, there's something that happens to our conscience that was not even known before you came to Christ, as real as it was before you came to Christ.

And it is this, you are now alerted and aware of a higher law. It's no longer just the basic law of God that has been instilled in every heart. Now you see the law of Christ. Now I understand the depth of the great call of discipleship and your conscious now is made aware of something glorious, something beautiful, and sometimes even terrifying apart from God's help. What is this?

That that's what happens. Right? And now the law of God is written on your heart. Well, I thought it was written before. Yeah.

It it was written before, but it's written in a new way now. Now you have the desire to obey it. Now you have the power to obey it. Now you have a deeper understanding of it. And you live differently and you pursue that life.

There's an understanding now with the conscience that brings about a new sense of responsibility. And that responsibility is for you to maintain, as Paul said so many times, a good conscience. And here are a few reasons why. Let me tell you why your conscience as a Christian is absolutely important for you to train and to obey. Again, time is not my friend now, so I'll give you just a couple to think about.

If you're there in first Peter, you're in a good place because you'll arrive there sooner than the others. I want you to see something in first Peter three verse 15. Notice this with me. This is for Christians now. This is not just for society as a whole.

It's not just a common grace expression. This is not even for for those for those who need to come to Christ and need their conscience to be smitten. This is for the believer. And what we are told here by Peter something instrumental about the use of a good conscience. First Peter five fifteen, you know this.

We read, but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you. Yet do it with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience. So that when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame. Having a good conscience is absolutely necessary for your testimony, For the boldness of your witness. Notice before he says that you'd be ready to make a defense to anyone asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you and he he follows that with you, but you need a good conscience.

You need a good conscience. And then he goes on to talk about how there are people who are ready to slander you or revile your good behavior. Right? The world is looking for ammunition to dismiss the hope that is in us. They're constantly looking for contradictions or hypocrisy to give them a reason to ignore what you have to say.

And what Peter is pleading for is listen, to the best of your ability and by God's help, ensure that your conscience is clear for the sake of your witness. A clear conscience makes a bold witness. Fearless. Courageous. Not wondering who knows what.

Not scared if somebody will bring something up. No. No. No. A person who has a clear conscience can give a clear gospel.

And not just a clear gospel in the sense that you can preach it if you're a hypocrite but a gospel that has authority with it. It has a strength to it. That has a persuasion to it. That is winsome. The only way that can happen is if you have nothing to be embarrassed about privately or you're not something's in a different sphere of of your life, for the sake of your testimony, pursue a good conscience and stay there.

Because you don't know when somebody will ask you about the hope that is in you. And when that time does come, you will be ready to deliver as a clear vessel. Not giving muddy water. And in fact, those who would try to put you to shame, when in realizing that you are a man who walks in good conscience, a woman who walks in integrity, they would be put to shame. They would be silenced.

So for your testimony. For your testimony. But there's another one that I think is so valuable and I love it and I praise God that it's in the Bible. Not just for the sake of your testimony, for the sake of your peace. For the sake of your peace.

Serve God long enough, And the more public your ministry is, the more you'll be exposed to these kind of attacks. Any servant of God who serves God long enough and is doing something effective for the kingdom of God will be subject to slander, will be subject to false accusations, will be subject to smear campaigns. It happened to Jesus, it happened to the disciples, it happened to the prophets, it happened to a man named Paul. In fact, that that was what Paul had to deal with throughout his whole ministry. This man was had to answer letters of people who were saying that he was in ministry for this reason or for that reason, and he had to defend himself and make a case.

This man, on top of that, was standing in trials and before tribunals, and he had to deal with these different accusations of what he was saying. All these things. He was constantly in the headlines of getting in trouble or being questionable. That can be very overwhelming for anybody. That can be destructive in so many cases.

But you see Paul, though a thorn in his flesh was able to pull through and not just pull through, but be fruitful in the midst of all of that. And you wonder how. What was Paul's secret? What was his comfort? What made his pillow soft at night?

And some might say, because the gospel amen. I know the gospel is the answer for many things. Right? Because the gospel. Yes, the gospel.

Amen. Amen. Amen. Because he had a certain personality, he had a leadership style that made him strong so he had alligator skin. No, actually read the scripture and you'll see that he was wounded in many ways including emotionally, mentally.

Do you know what Paul's secret was to endure the satanic assault on his character, on his reputation, on his ministry? A good conscience. A good conscience. Notice how many times Paul says throughout the scriptures that he has a good conscience. Let me read you a couple verses in Acts twenty three one.

He says here, and looking intently at the council, here he is standing before the Sanhedrin on a on a trial based on false reports. Paul said, brothers, I have lived my life before God in all good conscience up to this day. I have lived my life before God in all good conscience up to this day. Acts 24 verse 16. So I always take pains to have a clear conscience toward both God and man.

I know I could take the next five minutes to show you different verses where he says in his epistles, I thank God with a clear conscience, with a clear conscience, with a clear conscience. Do you know why Paul can weather those storms? Because of that. Because he took pains to ensure that his conduct, his life, secret, public, with finances, with the opposite sex, with how he did business, he was a tent maker, with all these different things. He ensured that his conscience was always in alignment with the truth and there was nothing that he was aware of that would hold him or make him guilty.

And I can't tell you how instrumental that is when people try to gaslight you or when people try to convince others about you, about things that are untrue. The greatest thing that can keep you strong according to the word of God is a clear conscience. I've known personal attacks over the years. I've known them. Many of you have known them as well.

And I can tell you this that the best thing the best thing is to be able to reflect and say, I've done all that I could. I've done all that I could to do or to handle the situation the way God's word tells me to. That will put you to sleep. That will that will bounce those arrows off of you. When you know that before God and before man, you did not ignore your conscience.

You did not violate your conscience, but you've upheld it and honored it. And you're free. You're free. I'm fully aware that there are nuances with the conscience. Right?

You go to Romans 14, you go to first Corinthians eight, and you see how believers feel differently about different things, and there are all these rules about how our separate consciences should should be harmonized together and work together. But you wanna stay for another hour? I mean, it's up to you. We can do it. I just wanted to give you a basic understanding, analysis of the conscience.

And here's my question to you, to the to the people who are filling this room right now, what is your conscience telling you today? What is your conscience telling you today? What is your value system that your conscience is adhering to? Is it the word of God or is it culture? Is it the podcaster that you love?

Is it the philosopher who doesn't know Christ? Where is your value system? What is right and wrong to you? Is it what this says or what you say or what your culture says or what your tradition says or what your the rapper says? Who?

Yeah. You might have a feeling of right and wrong, but those feelings could be misleading and deceptive and can lead you into danger. It will solidify you in damnation. And all the while, you thought that you were doing right. I hope that scares you enough to fling open your bible and to say, oh, man.

Oh man, what is what is my understanding of right and wrong? What about you, unbeliever? What is your conscience telling you even now as you've heard me speak for the past hour? Do you know Christ? Is your conscience clear before God?

Can you confidently stand before him? Can you confidently stand before him? My fiance and I are going through pre premarital counseling book and one of the things I appreciate about the questions was that it asked about the assurance of salvation and had different check boxes. And one of the check boxes well, the answer to the question was, how assured are you, how confident are you that you will be in heaven? And it says most confidently, kinda confident, not really sure, absolutely not sure.

And you know how good it felt to be able to without hesitation say absolutely confident. Are you? Oh, I don't know. How do you sleep at night, man? Oh, I don't know.

And you're worried about the stocks? Oh, I don't know. And you're worried about what's happening to your car? God help you. I'm trying to tell you right now, you're in trouble.

You're in deep trouble. You might not like me now, you might leave here saying that guy was crazy. That's fine. You're gonna stand before God one day and you're gonna remember these words. You know what's scary about the conscience?

As much as you think you can silence it in this life and you're able to, there is a time coming when your conscience will be as clear as it's ever been, more clear than you can fathom. One of the things that will make hell so torturous is not just the pain of physical elements. It's the fact that you will be fully aware that you are justifiably condemned. And on top of that, you had opportunity to repent and you rejected it. I have a feeling that that in part will be the reason for weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Your conscious might be dull now, but there is coming a day where you will be resurrected not unto life but unto death, the second death. And you'll be fully informed and aware, why didn't I do it when I had a chance. Believer, do you work with your conscience or do you just cruise through life without any kind of guidance? Do you train your conscience? Do you inform your conscience or do you just let anything come into your mind?

Here's the thing, whatever you allow to come into your mind inevitably will influence your conscience. So what do you feed your mind? How familiar are you with the standard of God, with the promises of God, with the directions of God? Do you have that concern as Paul had, I I take great pains to ensure that I have a clear conscience before God and man and at the same time believer. Is your guilt legitimate?

Because you have believers who are tormented by their conscience and it makes no sense to why they are actually tormented. Do you know your freedom in Christ? Do you know the liberty that Jesus purchased for you? Do you major on the minors? Do you make gray areas black and white?

So even believer, as much as you are called to to have a clear conscience, you also need an accurate conscience. And that's that's part of pastoral ministry too, not just people who ignore their conscience, but people who have a very sensitive conscience that just any intrusive thought can can just bury them and they just don't wanna do anything for God anymore, they wanna give up, they're not worthy when it's like, like, maybe there needs to be some rewiring there with your conscience. Let's pray. Lord, this afternoon, we have heard we've heard your insights on how you have made us. We thank you for this gift called conscience.

We thank you that it was used to bring us to your son. We thank you that it must be continually respected to be like your son, to be loving to our brethren, to have a testimony before the world, to know peace and to enjoy peace when Satan tries to attack us. We thank you that in your great love beyond the love of salvation, you have raised up restraints in our world to keep evil at bay. Forgive America and the rest of the world as they are listening to Satan instead of your word. We pray that you preserve our generation from self destruction, that you would bring about a move of the spirit that would reawaken the conscience and objective morality.

Lord, we ask tonight, rather this afternoon, if there is anyone who has a guilty conscience and it is legitimate guilt that they would know they can have forgiveness in Jesus Christ, That they don't have to live with this gnawing fear like Herod, that they've done something wrong and something is out to get them eventually. Let them know that not only do you remove that guilt, but you remove the punishment. Please, Lord, we pray that today people would have a washed conscience. And Lord, we worship you today with a clear conscience, with a pure heart. Knowing, oh God, that you are patient with us and that you are willing to forgive us over and over again.

May we not abuse that freedom, but use it. Use it to serve you with greater strength and assurance of your love for us. We give you honor and glory now, Lord. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

Let's stand together and worship.