I just am very glad to be back to being able to teach the Word of God. Although I had some real struggles about coming here today. You know, I had a couple people come up to me and they said, well, you skipped out on us last week. And no, I didn't. We were on a trip up in Pennsylvania. We were live streaming the whole thing, and so I saw the Bible study last week and the full message of pastor, but it concerned me, this baldness thing. I had some suggestions that, well, you ought to wear one of those colorful wigs and things like for crazy hat day in Awana, No, that just would not keep the dignity of this pulpit. And I also have a suggestion, we'll just get one of those rubber baldness things and put that over tight and everything, and then you'll be okay. But you know, I couldn't do that. But anyways, I'm glad to be here. I am so thankful for the teachings that we've got here. But I want you to know that this is today, what I'm going to teach on is is just going to be a continuation of something that we've been working on for over a year. Ever since COVID, we've missed, without a beat, studying in Corinthians every week via Zoom. And so I'm very thankful for those that participated in that. And so this is just going to be, I'm going to hit the ground right where we left off in the last time we had our meeting. So those of you that have been in the Zoom meetings, you will have the advantage of knowing more the background of what I'll be talking about. And one of the other things I had to consider coming up here today is you know how I can run on sometimes, and I get surprised by the time. Oh, they put the clock up. Oh, I feel better now already. But I was. running through just the outline of what I was going to cover today with Karen. And after 45 minutes, I was just rounding up the outline and I knew I was in trouble. So you'll have to bear with me. I will have to skip through some things. But I will have you know that I did manage to boil it down to only 14 pages. So I think we'll be in good shape here. But I would have you turn with me, please, to 2 Corinthians, the first chapter, to refresh the memory of those who have been with us and also to bring up to speed those of you that haven't been in our study. And by the way, we spent, it seems like, almost a year in 1 Corinthians, and we were just starting in 2 Corinthians. But just to give you a little bit of refresh of where we're at and where Paul was at when he was writing this letter, because it's quite a bit different from his previous letters, it's one of the most autobiographical books of the Bible. It really is a vindication of Paul's authority and his ministry. While the first Corinthian letter was the most systematic of Paul's writing, this was the least so. It was the most personal letter that he wrote, and it's the least doctrinal, except for Philemon. And the key words that he uses repeatedly in 2 Corinthians are words that derive from the word for ministry that's used 18 times in this book, and the word glory, which is used 20 times in this book. This is about Paul's life and the ministry, and it really gives us an indication what a minister of the gospel, a preacher, should expect in his preaching and his ministry. But to give a little background of those that, if you haven't studied Paul or the other epistles written by him, he had been over between year-and-a-half and two years in Corinth after having come from Athens and debating with the philosophers who basically laughed him to scorn and once he mentioned the resurrection but he spent almost two years of his life there with the Corinthians pouring his life out to them he was able to stay there longer here because he was visited by the Lord and said You know, I have many people here. Don't worry, no one's going to hurt you. Why would he have to tell them that? Well, if you look back at his history, and it will make a difference in some of the things when I get to it, is you have to remember what Paul went through. He gives an accounting of some of the things that he had gone through. And just to mention one, he had been left for dead. He had been stoned. He had been beaten up. He had been put in jail. He had been chased out of places and all. And basically from Corinth, he spent some short time in Ephesus. Then he went down to Jerusalem, went through Antioch, came back to Ephesus, and stayed there for about two years. And it's from then that he wrote the first letter to the Corinthians. He wrote some others that we don't have copies of them. And what we're getting to is really the fourth letter that we know of that he wrote. But during this time, while he was at Ephesus, he had received some reports from some people at Close House. And there were problems in the Corinthian church. In particular, the community was breaking up into factions and also, According to 1 Corinthians 16, 17, you had three men that possibly told him or maybe delivered to him a letter that had all sorts of questions. And that was what brought up his response. He wrote what was known as 1 Corinthians. Go through their wonderful book to study. Now in late 55 AD, now this was between fall of 52 and 55 AD, and all these dates are not exact. But in late 55, he left Ephesus after facing some of the worst opposition he had had. And he was going to Troas, hopefully to meet with Titus and to get some news about how the Corinthians had responded to his letter. Well, he got to Troas and no Titus. But apparently they had pre-agreed that, well, if he wasn't there, he went on to Macedonia. And finally, Titus arrives, and he brings both good news and bad news, as you'd have it. He had good news that many of them were responding very well to his letter. They were serving the Lord fervently. They were zealous for God, which was great. It caused great rejoicing. But he also had some bad news. some false apostles that had come up to Corinth and were stirring up trouble, and they were undermining the apostleship and the authority of Paul. And this was of great concern to Paul. And so because of that, he wrote down, and that's where we are when we're getting into this letter. It's now about late 55 or 56. He sits down and he writes this letter. which we know as 2 Corinthians. Hopefully, it would prepare them for his next visit to Corinth. But if you join me in 2 Corinthians, I'm not going to read from the first verse, because just for shortage of time, we already have covered them in previous classes. You'll notice we'll be picking up on verse 3, a verse that I believe was just read from this pulpit recently, and it'll sound familiar to you, and then we'll move into a less familiar area. I'm going to read down to verse 13. So join me at chapter 1, verse 3. Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, the God of all comfort, who comfort us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God. For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, and he was speaking from experience, so our consolation also abounded by Christ. And whether we be afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation, which is effectual in the enduring of the same sufferings, which we also suffer. Or whether we be comforted, it is for your consolation and salvation. And our hope of you is steadfast, knowing that as you are partakers of the suffering, so shall you also be of the consolation. For we would not have you ignorant of our trouble which came to us in Asia, that we were pressed at measure above strength insomuch that we despaired even of life. That's how far it had gone. But we had the sentence of death in ourselves that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God that raises the dead, who delivered us. Now, just take note of the tenses here. Who delivered us from so great a death, and doth deliver the here and now, in whom we trust that he will yet deliver us. Talks of past, present, and future. yet also helping together by prayer for us that for the gift bestowed upon us by the means of many people's thanks may be given by many on our behalf. Now please listen carefully to the next two verses because this will really be where I will be centering my attention here. For our rejoicing is this, the testimony of our conscience that in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God, we have had our conversation in the world and more abundantly to you word. For we write none other things unto you than what we you read or acknowledge, and I trust you shall acknowledge even to the end. And I just thank the Lord Father for your word. Just pray that even in the reading of it and hearing of it that we grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior in Jesus name, Amen. I'm sure that having read that passage, Many of you, if I were to put you on the spot and say, what did I just read? What did he say? How many in here would be comfortable to be able to answer that question? Let's see a show of hands. How many would be comfortable with answering, what did I just read? What did it mean? I hate it when people say, let me show of hands. I want to see. I want people to commit. And I'm always hesitant to put my hand up. too afraid of being wrong. But anyways, I really believe that that is a mouthful of a sentence. And I want to unpack it to see, well, what is he saying? Because it's tremendous. I mean, when I consider what he's saying, I marvel at what he's saying. But even more so, it led to what we're really going to focus on. This is just an introduction. Wow. For our rejoicing, that rejoicing is, oh, and by the way, you all know that I love word pictures. I believe words mean something. And in the scripture, the Holy Spirit, when he gave words, the words he used, they paint pictures for you to figure in your mind and how you can, we tend as a people just to learn more permanently when we have pictures on things. But he paints pictures about things. And I will go into that in a couple of words that are used here. But he says, our rejoicing. And just note at the beginning that he says, our. He said, our rejoicing, our conscience. Now you might say, some scholars might say, oh, he was just using the the hour for, you know, that, what do you call it, royal type of talking of himself. Or you might just take a more common sense approach. Yeah, he says he introduces this is from Paul and Timothy. Or better yet, you can see what he says the hour was because he does mention who the hour was. Down in verse 19, he talks about the hour, and he says us, and he identifies it as being Paul, Timothy, and Silvanus. So, they're the ones that are having this rejoicing, and by the way, that rejoicing, the word behind it is used many times in the New Testament, and some of its associated words. It carries through more the idea of glorying, or boasting in something, and so He's there with rejoicing. They're having this inside glory time, you might say, and I think that's fantastic. I mean, we need those type of times. But what was it that was giving him this joy? What was giving him this boasting inside? And it was the testimony of his conscience. Read that. Look, it's the testimony of our conscience. Testimony that is that very word that is used oftentimes for witnesses. It comes from that word that we get our word for martyr from. It's just someone that's seen something. It's saying something. And we'll see that this focuses in quite well on some of the functions of conscience. The next thing, the testimony, his conscience, their consciences was telling them something. It was testifying something. And it was making them really joyful. And by the way, I won't spend a whole lot of time on conscience this moment, but I'm going to come back to that, because quite frankly, that is more the subject of what I'm going to talk about today. But he goes on, and then he gives, well, what is it? What's the conscience telling him? And look at it. He says, with godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom. And he attributes it. By the grace of God, we've had conversation in the world, and more abundantly, the U word. their conscience was saying something about their manner of life. Two words that bring up wonderful pictures, word pictures, that when we process we can go back and we can see how we've been hearing that from a number of messages recently. The first word, that word for simplicity, that paints this nice word because it's one of these common compound words that are used in the Greek. They will often use a word and they'll put an alpha privative before it that changes the meaning to a un or not. Just like if I'm speaking clearly to you, that's one thing, but if I'm speaking unclearly to you, it's because it's not clear. Well, this was that type of a word. It was not. And then the second half of it comes from a word that means to plate. to braid, to weave together. So one thing their conscience was telling them and testifying was that their life was just one of singleness, of simplicity. One lexicon on synonyms, he says, it's literally spread out without folds and hence means single, simple, without complexity of character and motive. Barnes states in his commentary commentary, Tyndale renders this forcibly without doubleness. The word means sincerity, candor, plain heartedness, Christian simplicity, frankness, integrity. It stands opposed to double dealings and purposes, to deceitful appearances and crafty plans, to mere policy and craftiness in accomplishing an object. I can't go down that path. Politics. Don't you wish our politicians had this, this simplicity, this without weaving, without duplicity at all. Well, the second word there is just about as good as this first word, godly sincerity. It's sincerity literally of God. This is another one of those compound words. And it comes, first part of the word has to do with the sun, the sun's rays. And the second one is a very common word, krino, to judge or decide. And it's found pure when unfolded and then examined by the sun's light. It's open. Probably a good word today could be it was transparent and true transparency again. Politicians. It's used later by Paul when he says, for we are not as many which corrupt the word of God, but of sincerity. Transparency. You see what you get. That's what I love about Paul and why he was so effective in this preacher. So let's unpack this and look at it again. Our rejoicing, our boasting, our glorying. Because our conscience, it's letting us know that there's nothing against what they've been saying. That their conscience is saying they've been saying the truth. They've been saying it openly. They haven't been mixing it up. The more you pour light on it, the more it shines through. That should bring to mind many of the scriptures that talk about light and what it does and how it exposes darkness and Jesus is the light. All sorts of things that should bring up in your mind. It's great to have a good conscience. And just to throw in some things to keep things light. What has to do with your ability to fall asleep? is not caffeine, it's having a clean conscience. I have a clean conscience so I can drink all the caffeine I want. And I'm not going to give the names of the sources of some of these because it might prejudice you towards what they're saying. But I have to give you a little background as what this triggered when I was reading on their conscience and how they were able to have this conscience that was testifying such good things that they could glory in it. Wouldn't you all like to have that type of conscience all the time? I would. But I was discussing this a little bit. Oh, by the way, one of the negative, you might say, persons that talk about it as a clear conscience is just usually the sign of a bad memory. Mm-mm. Well, in light of just this verse and everything, I could use that quip from the advertisement as, what's in your conscience? And that's what we're going to continue on today. I always have to be careful, because I cry easily. So I have to get it over with. But I was discussing. this at home for some reason. I don't actually remember exactly why it was, but I was talking about the conscience a little bit. And my granddaughter was there. And just out of the blue, she says in kind of a sing-songy way, always let your conscience be your guide. Where did that come from? She said that. And I started wondering, first of all, in my heart, it doesn't ring true. I don't know how it does in yours. And I'm going to, again, put you on the spot. But how does that ring to you? Does anybody know where that came from? Raise your hand if you know where it come from. Jimmy Cricket, yes. No. Yes, probably one of the more common routes that that has entered into our culture was in the 1940 production of Jiminy Cricket or Pinocchio by Walt Disney. If you want to get another side of the story, read the original. It was from the adventures of Pinocchio, the story of a puppet. It was a classic children's novel written back around 1881 and published in 1883. If you want to see the other side of the story, it's a very dark story, actually. But anyways, in Pinocchio, the Blue Fairy, as she's leaving Pinocchio, she says, now remember, Pinocchio, be a good boy and always let your conscience be your guide. And then Jiminy Cricket, who was really his conscience, he taught him a song. He taught him a song so that whenever he was tempted, he would remember this, that always let your conscience be your guide. And I can't sing it, but give a little whistle, give a little whistle, and always let your conscience be your guide. Dare I challenge, how many here think that's a true saying? If you're bold, raise your hand. If you really think that's a true thing, let your conscience be your guide. Always be your guide. No one's brave enough to raise your hands. OK. Would you be surprised, first of all, to know that that was not the first using of that term? I had to go back and research this. And by the way, I'll just have you know that none of the material that I'm sharing is unique to me. This all comes from other people. I borrow it freely, so I'll just be open and transparent about that. But in the last couple months, I've had the occasion to either listen to or read many, many sermons, messages, both secular and religious and Christian, on conscience. I went through the internet and started looking up, well, quotes on Constance. And if you do a study on it, you'll see that you just get overwhelmed with how much this word and this thought is used in our culture. Just the first hit on that, it had 950 quotes just on Constance that they had readily at hand of some I'll share. It's just so ubiquitous. You hear it all the time. But what I found is looking up and finding the first use of this thought, this idea and the sentence about that, I noticed in two of the different things I was listening to that referred to a Muslim text from an imam It's the earliest known use. And I figured, uh-oh, you know, this is the type of thing you can't repeat until you really fact check, because we have so many things that are being repeated that have no basis in fact at all. But this, I did a little research on it. And I found on a Muslim site that had some Muslim texts in it. And it was Caliph Umar's address after Jerusalem. After receiving the surrender of Jerusalem and completing the tour of Syria when Caliph Umar was returning to Medina, he led the prayer at Jebia. And I may slaughter these pronunciations, but as long as you don't know, it doesn't matter. On this occasion, he delivered an address which is preserved in history. And I'm going to leave out the first paragraph and all, but just the one in particular. It says, and speak the truth, do not hesitate to say what You consider to be the truth. Say what you feel. Let your conscience be your guide. Let your intentions be good, for verily God is aware of your intentions, and your deeds, your intentions count. All that just doesn't ring with me. One well-known preacher, Richard Baxter, I will say who said this, but he said, oh, What a potent instrument for Satan is a misguided conscience. And another that says, how many times has our conscience firmly prompted us to draw the line and we showed up with an eraser? And another one says, all human life, we may say, consists solely of these two activities, bringing one's activities into harmony with conscience or hiding from oneself the indication of of conscience in order to be able to continue to live as before, by Tolstoy. So we need to look, what does the Bible say about conscience? What is it? How does it affect us? And by the way, this is not going to be a class just going through conscience. Don't have time. When I started looking it up, you find that Conscience, the word itself, is used 32 times in the New Testament. Almost every one is about either Paul speaking or someone quoting what Paul said. There's only a couple others that are used. I'll read that one in particular because it illustrates, very readily, conscience. But then Peter also uses it a couple times. But at so many of these times, it's Paul. He knew something about conscience. Really, what I wanted to focus on today is just one aspect of Paul's life. I found that there is a thread when you go through scriptures and you read Paul. There's a thread throughout his entire life having to do with conscience, and that's what I'll get to. As far as definitions for what is conscience in our English word, Merriam-Webster would say, it's the sense of consciousness of a moral goodness or blameworthiness of one's own conduct intentions or character together with a feeling of obligation to do right or be good. I like the little story that is brought up about a woman that was teaching her son the difference between the word conscious and consciousness. And after spending some time with him, he said, now, do you understand the meaning? And his answer is much simpler than some of these definitions. He said, oh, yeah. Consciousness is when you're aware of something. Conscience is when you wish you weren't. So simple definitions. Now, a more academic definition, and that's to say, big mouthful but little substance, goes like this. Conscience is a cognitive process that elicits emotion and rational associations based on an individual's moral philosophy or value system. Conscience stands in contrast to illicit emotion or thought due to associations based on immediate sensory perceptions and reflexive responses. I hope you all got that. Easton, he gives it a little clearer. That faculty of mind or inward sense of right and wrong by which we judge of the moral character of human conduct. And an even simpler one. Conscience is what makes a boy tell his mother before his sister does. Conscience, if you look at the etymology dictionary, and I just had to throw in Latin just because of some other people that were talking about scholarship and things. So I have to throw out some Latin. Well, our word comes directly from the Latin that originates from Latin, consensia, a joint knowledge, because in Latin, you have com, which has the idea of with, and you have consensia, which is basically knowledge. A joint knowledge is something, a knowing of a thing together with another person, consciousness, knowledge, particularly knowledge within oneself, sense of right and wrong. And it goes on. We keep going back from the English, where we have our word to the Latin. And then that basically has its derivation. The Latin word is probably a loan translation of the Greek word, sunitisis. Again, it's one of those compound words, sun, with, has to do with association. And again, it comes from, the second part has to do with knowledge. It's interesting that while we have that word itself being used many times in the New Testament, yet you won't find it when you search for conscience in the Old Testament. There is no word that directly is the same as conscience in the Old Testament, or is there? The Old Testament is loaded with examples of conscience. I'm sure some of you can think of the very first activation of conscience, and we have it in Genesis, when they said, the eyes of them both were open and they knew that they were naked. Do you think they had any conscience before they ate of that tree? We also have many other examples of conscience. in the Old Testament. And I'll just bring up one or a couple by David. And it gives a little light on something that I think can open up the meanings of some memory verses that we use in awe. But Saul was chasing David around quite a bit. And if you recall the instance where David was able to get to Saul cut a little bit off his skirt. What happened after that? Do you remember? Although the words are very interesting that it says that in 1 Samuel 24 5 the Bible says it came to pass afterward that David's heart smote him because he had cut off Saul's skirt. Heart. His heart smote him. And that's something that should open up for you some things that the Bible says about the heart. Heart and conscience are just intertwined. It's just part and parcel together. What struck me when I was reading that is I just think, boy, there's one verse that I had memorized a long time ago, and this packs so much more into it. It says, keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life. Keep your conscience. Keep your heart. With all diligence, work at it. And I'll bring up in something here how Paul, he had to work at it. At one point in time, he also had just looked at the time. He had looked back. And I'll skip that. Let's go on. In looking through the Bible. when you're looking for a definition, true definition of conscience, you have a whole lot of words that when you study them, each one, each one of these aspects, you can spend a whole hour on just opening it up. But conscience, when you just look at all those 32 times that it's used in the New Testament, we find out that it is something that is set by knowledge. It's not so much a temperature gauge as much as a thermostat. When you're comfortable, everything's fine and dandy. But if you get uncomfortable, you get a little too hot or a little too cold, you adjust that thermostat, and ah, you're comfortable again. You know we can do that to our conscience. It's been likened to a window. As long as that window is clean and clear, you can see straight. But if that conscience is, that window is clouded, What you see coming through there won't necessarily be the truth. The functions of conscience, it convicts. It bears witness. It judges. It's either accusing or excusing. And you see one of the best examples of this. Look in Romans 2 chapter 2. And I'm just going to read Romans 2 from verse 12 to 15. For as many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law, and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law. For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified. For when the Gentiles, not the law, do by nature, that is, we all have been given this faculty of conscience, Due by nature to the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves, which show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness in their thoughts, the meanwhile, accusing or else excusing one another." Good area to find what the conscience does in the New Testament. And a good example of the conscience in action in John. And if you remember the incident of the woman caught in adultery, my, my, my. After writing things on the ground, they that heard it being convicted by their own conscience went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last. And Jesus was left alone and the woman standing in the midst. I'm going to have to fast forward simply because I only have three minutes left. I told someone earlier that I was a little bit in one of those age moments. Words aren't always there. But in certain ways, I envied some of my predecessors. My goodness, Mr. Cox has got three weeks. It's fair. But anyways, turn with me to Acts, because I will try and wrap this up, believe it or not, in three minutes. But in Acts, I'm going to have to make a long story short. Paul had been traveling. He left Ephesus. He ended up going back to Jerusalem. He entered the temple. He had a vow on his head. He was serving God. You know the story of some of the Jews that recognized him from Asia. They recognized him and thought that he was polluting the temple, basically. And they started to beat him. The mob rule came in and they were beating on him. They would have killed him. They were in the process of killing him. When the Roman legion, the centurion, he went in there and he actually had to pick them up to get away from the crowd because of their ferocity. And he, a little while later, was able to say he wanted to speak to the crowd. And he told them his whole testimony. He talked about how Jesus had revealed himself. But then as soon as he mentioned going to the Gentiles and everything, the crowd, the mob, just riled up again. The centurion had to take them again. And he called for them to come back the next day if they had a cause against them. Make a long story short. One minute. But I want you to read with me. And I want to illustrate something that made it so affect Paul's life, and something he said. He said he was beholding them all, and he said this. They had given their little speech, and he said, in verse 1, 23, 1, I have lived in all good conscience before God until this day. You heard a little rustle of noise, and the high priest there told a guy to smack him, strike him in the face. Then Paul said unto him, and by the way, he didn't have the advantage of Mr. Armstrong training on how Jesus held his peace. He didn't get that advantage. He was raw. He had just been beaten up. He'd been through all this. God shall smite thee, thou whited wall. Forsittest thou to judge me after the law, and commandest me to be smitten contrary to the law? And they that stood by said, revilest thou God's high priest? Look at his reaction. Then Paul said, I wist not, brethren, that he was the high priest. For it is written, thou shalt not speak evil of the ruler of thy people. What an answer. It also illustrates a thread of how he kept a conscience, how he was able to say that. This man had killed Christians. He had persecuted them. They had chased them out of their houses, brought them to be locked up, and yet he can say he lived in all good conscience? Yes, because of this one little thing. As soon as he found the truth and that his life departed from it, he immediately acknowledged it and confessed it. He cleaned his conscience. He washed it. It was purged just like we can. We can now go to the throne room of God because he's made a way through the blood of Christ which can purge, can clean our conscience. The only thing I can wrap this up with by saying there's a memory verse that I would challenge some of you to look at and in the context. And that's in the next chapter when he ends up in front of Felix. And he says, in verse 16, after he has told them about the resurrection, the certainty and his confidence that there was going to be a judgment of the good and the bad. And he says this. And herein, that's because of his belief in the resurrection, I exercise. And herein do I exercise myself to have always a conscience void of offense toward God and towards man. I wish I had time a little bit more to develop, but this word for exercise is another word picture that is just beautiful. It has its roots back in old classical Greek, where it talked about raw materials and artists forming, fashioning raw materials into something. And it evolved into more sporting things and practicing, repeating things, building skills. And it says, this is Paul's life verse. exercise. He worked hard at keeping a clean conscience, just like he illustrated here, where immediately, as soon as he knew that what he had spoken out of his mouth was against what the law of God said, because he didn't know he was a high priest, but it's something that is integral to conscience. It's tied in with knowledge. That idea of let your conscience be your guide is no Much different from, every man did what was right in his own sight. Or, you know, some of the other phrases that have to do with, there's a way that appears right unto men. Yeah, let your conscience be God. No. There's only one fallible, infallible God, and that's the Word of God. It is the plumb line when held up against whatever you do can show you whether you're straight or whether you're out of kilter. I'm going to take two minutes, if you don't mind. But I worked with linemen, and one of the ways that they made sure a pole was straight, they'd take a string with the weight on it, and they'd hold it up against that pole with one eye, and as long as the top and the bottom of the pole was centered on that string, it was straight. Well, when Paul was persecuting the Jews, he was lining up his plumb line with the Word of God thinking that he was doing the right thing of God, but when you have that pole and you look only one direction, you don't see when you turn over here, wow, that pole was leaning towards me by, you know, 15 degrees, which really illustrates the truth about things. We need to have the whole word of God, not just one passage, but the whole word because it will bring in the plumb line from multiple directions to make sure you are straight in all areas. But I would challenge you to take this word and make it part of you. I thought, oh boy, this is one of those life verses. I here and do exercise myself. I work hard to have always a conscience void of offense towards God and towards men. Work hard at, first of all, training your conscience from the word of God. If you continue in my word, then you're my disciples, and you'll know the truth, and the truth shall free you. That word is a lamp unto my feet, a light unto my path. That word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against it. All these things, lay them up in your heart. And then if your conscience says something good or bad, you make sure that you compare it with the word of God before you go by it. And I have to stop there. I'm sorry. But I challenge you to memorize. That is Acts 24, 16, and next time I get an opportunity to speak or teach, I wake up right where I left off. Amen.