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The Place of Conscience:

The Place of Conscience: . 'The goal of this commandment is love, which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.' 1Tim 1:5 'So I always take pains to have a clear conscience toward both God and man.' Acts 24:16

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The Place of Conscience:

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  1. The Place of Conscience: 'The goal of this commandment is love, which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.' 1Tim 1:5 • 'So I always take pains to have a clear conscience toward both God and man.' Acts 24:16 • 'I thank God whom I serve, as did my ancestors, with a clear conscience, as I remember you constantly in my prayers night and day.' 2Tim 1:3

  2. Natural: Guidance & Conviction: • 'Their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.' Roms 2:15-16 Christian Conscience: • 'I am speaking the truth in Christ--I am not lying; my conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit' Roms 9:1

  3. Three Questions: • What is the state of our conscience? • How did we get into this state? • How do we remedy this state?

  4. A Weak Conscience: • Therefore, as to the eating of food offered to idols, we know that "an idol has no real existence," and that "there is no God but one." 1Cor 8:4 • 'However, not all possess this knowledge .... and their conscience, being weak, is defiled.' 1Cor 8:7 • ‘But the man who has doubts is condemned if he eats, because his eating is not from faith; and everything that does not come from faith is sin.' Roms 14:23

  5. Remedy:Educate the conscience but stay within the bonds of faith! • So whatever you believe about these things keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the man who does not condemn himself by what he approves. Roms 14:22 • 'Holding faith and a good conscience. By rejecting this, some have made shipwreck of their faith' 1Tim 1:19

  6. Wounded or Crippled Conscience:(Numb or Paralysed) • ‘I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.' Roms 7:15 • 'From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.' John 1:16-17 • Remedy: 'For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace.' Roms 6:14. It empowers the conscience to act obediently.

  7. The stronger your conscience the greater your responsibility for the weak! • 'But take care that this right of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak .... Thus, sinning against your brothers and wounding their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ. Therefore, if food makes my brother stumble, I will never eat meat, lest I make my brother stumble.' 1Cor 8:9 -13 • 'Accept him whose faith is weak, without passing judgment on disputable matters.' Roms 14:1

  8. A Guilty Conscience: True & False Guilt! • Abigail: 'My master (David) will not have on his conscience the staggering burden of needless bloodshed or of having avenged himself.' 1Sam 25:31 • ‘Gifts and sacrifices are offered that cannot perfect the conscience of the worshiper.' Heb 9:9 • 'If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.' 1John1:9 Forgiveness & Cleansing are Necessary!

  9. Remedy:Only the blood of Jesus can cleanse away a guilty conscience: • 'How much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.' Heb 9:14 The Law reminds us of sin, it does not remove it! • 'Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.' Heb10:22

  10. A Hardened Conscience: • 'So, as the Holy Spirit says: "Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion, during the time of testing in the desert.' Heb 3:7-8 Unbelief & Deceitfulness: • 'See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness.' Heb 3:12-13

  11. Remedy:Healing occurs through the obedience of faith: • Marah:'They could not drink the waters for they were bitter ... So he cried out to the LORD, and the LORD showed him a tree. When he cast it into the waters, the waters were made sweet.' The Cross!Ex 15:25 • "If you diligently heed the voice of the LORD your God and do what is right in His sight, give ear to His commandments and keep all His statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you which I have brought on the Egyptians. For I am the LORD who heals you."Ex 15:26

  12. Provision! 'Then they came to Elim, where there were twelve wells of water and seventy palm trees; so they camped there by the waters.' Ex 15:27 'Looking carefully lest anyone fall short of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble, and by this many become defiled.' Heb 12:15 It is a healthy conscience that prevents roots of bitterness spring up!

  13. Corrupted Conscience:(Evil or Defiled) • 'To the pure all things are pure, but to those who are defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure; but even their mind and conscience are defiled.‘ Titus 1:15 • Then Saul, who was also called Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked straight at Elymas and said, "You are a child of the devil and an enemy of everything that is right! You are full of all kinds of deceit and trickery. Will you never stop perverting the right ways of the Lord? Acts 13:9-10

  14. Remedy: Repentance & Making Straight Paths: • 'Therefore strengthen the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be dislocated, but rather be healed.' Heb 12:12-13 • A voice of one calling in the desert, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for Him. Every valley shall be filled in, every mountain and hill made low. The crooked roads shall become straight, the rough ways smooth.’ Luke 3:4-5

  15. Guarding the Heart: 'Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life. Put away perversity from your mouth; keep corrupt talk far from your lips. Let your eyes look straight ahead, fix your gaze directly before you. Make level paths for your feet and take only ways that are firm. Do not swerve to the right or the left; keep your foot from evil.' Prov 4:23-27

  16. Seared or Depraved Conscience: • 'The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron.' 1Tim 4:1-2 • 'They have left the straight way and wandered off'. 2Peter 2:15. • Of them the proverbs are true: "A dog returns to its vomit," and, "A sow that is washed goes back to her wallowing in the mud." 2Peter 2:22

  17. There is no Remedy: 'For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, if they fall away, to renew them again to repentance, since they crucify again for themselves the Son of God, and put Him to an open shame.' Heb 6:4-6

  18. Deadened Conscience: • 'And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins .... But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved). Eph 2:1-5 • Remedy: An Awakened Conscience: "I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life. I tell you the truth, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live.' John 5:24-25

  19. Christian: Hearing God’s Voice: ‘To him the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear his voice; and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. And when he brings out his own sheep, he goes before them; and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. Yet they will by no means follow a stranger, but will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers.’John 10:3-5

  20. Christian Living: • '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.' 1Peter 3:21 • Behaviour: 'For our boast is this, the testimony of our conscience, 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.' 2Cor 1:12

  21. Evangelism: • '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.' 1Peter 3:15-16 • ‘We have renounced the hidden things of shame, not walking in craftiness nor handling the word of God deceitfully, but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God.' 2Cor 4:2

  22. Spiritual & Civil Responsibilty: • Deacons:'Likewise deacons must be reverent …. holding the mystery of the faith with a pure conscience. But let these also first be tested; then let them serve as deacons, being found blameless.' 1Tim 3:8-10 A Requirement of office! • Public Obedience: 'Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God's wrath but also for the sake of conscience.' Roms 13:5

  23. Shaping Conscience: Scripture & the Holy Spirit: • 'All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.' 2Tim 3:16 • "He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches."Rev Ch 2 & Ch 3 • 'I am speaking the truth in Christ--I am not lying; my conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit' Roms 9:1

  24. A 'clear' conscience & a 'clean' conscience: • Clear Conscience:Nuremburg War Crimes Trials -decreed that 'conscience' was accountable to a Higher Court than the court of conscience itself! • Clean Conscience:is a conscience that has been 'judged' by that Higher Court already and has been 'acquitted'. • So, for a Christian, a clean conscience is one that has stood in God's dock under the judgment of God, and been, not only acquitted of any fault, but also justified and declared 'clean'. This occurs obviously only through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, and in the power of His Blood. "You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you." John 15:3

  25. Motives, Attitudes & Accounting: • Clear Conscience: 'For I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted. It is the Lord who judges me ..... who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart.' 1Cor 4:4-5 • Clean Conscience (‘good’): 'Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me, and know my anxieties; And see if there is any wicked way in me, And lead me in the way everlasting.' Psalm 139:23-24

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