We're going to be in 2 Timothy chapter 2. This is part two from last week. And the title of the message is repentance, the conscience and assurance. I kind of indicated last week that that was three sections and I didn't think we'd get past the first. And we still have a little bit left over from that, from the tail end of last week's message on repentance. And we will drift into the idea of the conscience. And then Lord willing, finish that part today and then go into some more assurance next week. So these things are always in our ministry. They're always blended anyway. We talk about all these things all at the same time for the most part. But I thought I would put one together that was like a go to message that was a little more precise on the particulars that I could refer people to. And last week's message, if anybody didn't hear that, would be one to listen to. In dealing with repentance, I'll give some review after I read the text here. 2 Timothy chapter 2, and we'll read verses 23 through 26. But foolish and unlearned questions, but avoid foolish and unlearned questions, knowing that they, those questions, give birth to strifes. But the servant of the Lord must not strive, but be gentle to all, apt to teach, patient in meekness instructing those, notice this, who oppose themselves, if perhaps, God will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth and that they may recover themselves out of the snare or trap of the devil who are taken by him, by the devil at his will, at the devil's will. Now, last week we covered a lot. When we do a two-parter, I always want to go back and re-preach last week's message, you know, so you can have it in your head. But I can't do that, of course. But we covered a lot. Basically, what we said in a nutshell that the vast majority of Sovereign Grace Calvinist Reform people are, or the majority of them, not all, are clueless on the subject of repentance. I think you all here are used to me bringing up that three-fold phrase, Sovereign Grace Calvinistic Reformed. And when I bring that up, I'm just doing that because these are the people that use our language. The others that are of a works-based, openly, blatantly works-based, conditional, law-righteousness, an Arminian, Pelagian, semi-Pelagian, you could go on and on. Those people, I don't even bring them up a lot of times when we're talking about similar language that we use because I believe automatically on their face of their doctrine they believe a false gospel. So I would hope that everybody assumes and knows that We believe that conditional salvation or works plus grace salvation, which is Armenianism, universal atonement, Christ died for all and not all are saved. That message is a false gospel. And those that preach that are false teachers. And those that would really, those teachers that would count themselves saved under that doctrine are tolerant of a false gospel. And if they call someone a brother that believes in that false gospel, what they're doing is they are saying, I believe the same gospel you do. That's what that means. And if they haven't thought about that and they just now heard that, they ought to stop. And it doesn't take being a professor in logic to figure that out. It's pretty basic. Last week we warned about a repentance that needs repented of. We looked at a text that talked about that. And that would be one that's more likened to the Catholic doctrine of penance. Looks more like that. We know that some make repentance some form of like Catholic confession. When I say Catholic confession, I mean, so many Protestants are like that. It almost doesn't help to say Catholic confession because a lot of Protestants have that same idea where they, you know, they come down front and they name their sins and they boohoo about it. There's Kleenexes up front too, right? And that's that deed that they do to receive forgiveness. It's conditional. They think that's what repentance is. We know confession, biblically confession is saying the same thing about something, but it's often defined as asking forgiveness for sins as a condition for forgiveness. Right. We last week defined repentance biblically as a change of mind, a change of mind. That's what it means. Named three things that at least that God gives repentance unto, a change of mind about who God is, what it requires, change of mind about who we are, change of mind about who Christ is and what the gospel is. We saw that repentance was a gift of God, just like faith, and it's worked in the elect by the power of God. All that the father gives me shall come to me. We could just as well say all the father gives me, God will cause to repent. They will repent of their false ideas about those three things I just mentioned. Who God is, who we are, who Christ is. We mentioned that repentance was not an offer that we accept or reject. It is not an opportunity. Repentance is not an opportunity, right? It's not we're walking in a repentance bubble cloud around us. All we got to do, it's just right there. You know, we just, it's crazy. That's what people think. It's an opportunity. It's not. It's something that is so foreign to us and God works it in us powerfully. It's not in our own sphere of operation. It is totally opposite of the way we think. That's why God has to change our mind. We cannot repent unless or until God causes us to do this, because about this repentance and this information that we talked about last week and this week, about this information, this is not natural to our minds. We don't know about this. As a matter of fact, it's the opposite of the way we think. So how can we naturally do it? It's not there naturally. God has to place it in our minds because it's not to our natural understanding. Our natural understanding is the very opposite of this idea. Salvation is of the Lord. In other words, He has to do this. It's a miracle. If you want to You can turn to this if you want, Acts 20, 21. Last week, we this is one of the last verses that shows that repentance is this different idea that the scripture talks about, that it's toward God and not necessarily as the evangelical crowd would press repentance from sins, but it's repentance toward God. And I'll get back to that idea about repentance from sins here in a minute. convoluted idea that people have and we'll talk about that here in a second. Acts 20, 21 testifying both to the Jews and also to the Greeks. Notice this repentance toward God, a change of mind toward God. We can just start substituting that word for that phrase. Instead of saying repentance, we can just start saying, at least put it in your mind, a change of mind toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. Go to Luke. I want to kind of start now to shift gears about this is kind of tied to the evangelism section. This is not officially an evangelism section message of our Chosen in Christ series. We're not that far along to be able to do that with this, but this We've touched on this before, and I want us to think about this in the context of us preaching the gospel to people in hopes that God will give them repentance. Luke 16 and verse 28. I think everybody knows this story. Verse 28, Luke 16. The one in hell said, I have five brothers. I have five brothers that he may testify unto them lest they come to this place in torment. He's saying, send somebody and warn them about this place that I'm in. I'm in hell. I'm in torment. Please, I know I can't go, but send somebody else to warn my five brothers about this place. And Abraham said, pretty much, it's not going to work that way. That's what he's saying. He said, it doesn't work that way. We can't do that. And here's some commentary why. They already have something. As a matter of fact, they already have the only thing that will work, the means to communicate, the remedy that will keep them out of this place. They have Moses and the prophets. Let your five brothers hear them. Now, what did Christ say about Moses? He testifies to me. He testified to me. That's what Moses is all about. He talked about me. Well, I'm bringing this up in the context of how that some would maybe enjoy or think that evangelistic techniques involve scare tactics. If I can just scare the hell out of people about hell, surely, surely they'll repent. if I can get him scared enough. He said, verse 30, he said, nay, father Abraham, but if one went from them from the dead, they will repent. I mean, that would be pretty scary, wouldn't it? I mean, one from the dead, I would imagine he's talking about one from the same place he's at, right? That's toasty, right? Maybe, I don't know. Not in a good shape. And warning about, look, you don't want to come here. You're not allowed to have water. We're thinking about our sins. We're being punished for our sins. You know, on and on and on, all the negativity. Would that scare people? Would that be a shock value to waken those people on earth up? Well, we know about total depravity, right? I mean, there's none that understandeth. There's none that seeketh after God. There's none that you can't spiritually understand. So some dramatic fear thing is not going to override that not understanding. But this guy's saying surely it would. And we know that the word of God is the means and not just the word of God by itself, because God uses the word of God sometimes to condemn people and harden them even the more. And he said unto them, verse 31, if they don't hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be, notice the word, persuaded Though one rose from the dead. So again, faith and repentance comes through the means of hearing God's word. They got to hear that. That's that's what Abraham's saying. That's the remedy. If they don't hear that, this other stuff is not the means. The scare tactics are not the means. That's not going to work. The word persuaded in this in this verse here is the Greek word pitho. Probably heard some people talk that try to talk fancy about saying something that's pithy. It's got some persuasion to it. It's a convincing argument. It will pacify or conciliate, cause one to agree or to assure that something's true, something they can lean on. And Abraham was saying that this thing about somebody coming from the dead and testifying, look, I've been there. Listen to me. I've been there. You don't want to go there. He's saying that's not going to persuade anybody. That has no power. Scare tactics have no power. If somebody preaches a message and scares somebody that is just about hell, that's scary about the punishment and condemnation of hell and what hell is going to be like, and there's no gospel in it, like sinners in the hands of anger God, Jonathan Edwards, nobody's going to be converted. I don't care how many people shake and faint and pee their pants. It doesn't matter. No gospel, no conversion. Romans 2.4, let's look at this. Let's take it in the opposite way of this idea of scare tactics. No, I'm not going to talk about a sweet, still voice either. I'm not going to talk about a Jesus that's leaning over the banister of heaven saying, please, will you do this, that, and the other. I'm not talking about that. Romans 2.4. This is about the gospel of Christ. If we could keep that in its context. Or do you despise the riches of his kindness and forbearance and long suffering? Not knowing, and this should be like a big billboard. It's talking about ignorance. Not knowing the goodness of God leads you to repentance. Not scare tactics, not somebody coming back from hell saying, you don't want to go there. I mean, don't people really already know here on earth that idea that there is a hell? I mean, this is what this message is talking about anyway. It's going to talk about the things people do to stay out of hell. It's not a newsflash that there's a hell. Some people might say, well, you know, atheists and agnostics and stuff deny there's a hell. They know all about who God is and the fact that there's coming wrath. Romans 1 explains it. They're just suppressing the truth and unrighteousness. I'm not going to take the time to spend the time of majoring on the intricate details of hell, which most people will have to embellish anyway to try to explain. When I can talk about the hell that Christ endured the space of three hours on the cross, that accomplished redemption, that's where the gospel is at right there. That is the goodness of God that will be seen at the cross as Christ is seen as the only one to establish the perfect righteousness as he satisfied God's law and justice to be only hope of acceptance to God by what he performed there on the cross by taking God's wrath. That's the scary part. Nobody wants to look at that. Nobody knows anything about it. They're too busy preaching the law and trying to scare people out of hell. Who cares about the gospel, they think. Preaching the gospel doesn't get anybody to come down the aisle and you can't get numbers. You got to scare people, right? Got to get them to tell them stupid stories and crying and stuff. So we need God to change our minds about us trying to do something by way of works, obedience, condition, law keeping, etc. to establish our own righteousness. That's what we need our mind changed about. That is the hardest thing to change our minds about. We don't know that we need to change our minds about that. That's the thing that God has to wake us up about. We mentioned last week about how if you do a search for repent, repented, or repentance, and add the word sin or sins, you're not going to find very much in there. So I said that in trying to get us to think about this idea of repentance toward God, because people, legalists, have convoluted this idea of repentance. We need to think about it right. And then, you know, I inserted this idea, does this mean that it's okay to sin or should we stop sinning? I mean, seriously? Does that have to even be asked? Part of the problem is identifying the fact that there is the kind of sin that we don't know that we're committing. that is the sin that we need to repent of that our conscience doesn't tell us about. And that's what the rest of the message is going to be about. So in other words, in other words, people have this idea and they say it all the time. If you don't change your ways, you're going to hell, right? That's the famous idea. If you don't change your ways, you're going to hell. In other words, what they mean is if you don't stop misbehaving and start obeying, you're going to go to hell as if people are obeying. Right. So it's like this, it's like these preachers, they talk about. If you got sin in your life, then there's not much hope for you. Sin in the life. I mean, that's the title of the message. Sin in the life of the believer. You got sin in your life. So are you kidding me? The preacher who's saying this and these members that are shouting amen, they don't have sin in their life. They're liars So, you know Patrick read it earlier talked about in Hebrews 6 more in the foundation of repentance from dead works and faith unto God So this is a foundational thing. This is What I'm talking about today and what we talked about last week is basic So here's the question today, 2019, Christ died how many years ago? And to most people, this message, this truth in this message is unheard of. But the scripture says it's the very basic thing. So I started last week talking about initial repentance and then talked about how we deal with sin in reference to confession. asking for forgiveness and repentance as we live the Christian life. I alluded to that. I didn't really spend much time on there. So when I'm talking about all these things, I want us to think about not just the message in reference to coming to Christ initially, but as we live our Christian life daily, what are we counting on? What's our plea? What are we looking to? What are we thinking? That whole thing. In other words, after we claim to be born again and we live our life, I'm wanting to ask the question, do we have this initial repentance thing right? Because if we don't, we're going to be screwing up in this so-called Christian life, doing our sanctification as some people want to think it should be spoken like. So how many do we deal with all the time and talk with and they think they don't sin very often, but they think that they sin less, less and less, and that that gives them assurance. I'm sinning less, therefore I have confidence that I'm saved. I just want to say if righteousness comes by the law, Is that taking that verse out of context? That's exactly what it's talking about. If your confidence is in you sinning less, you are not looking to the cross of Christ at all. If you're sinning less and less every day, you have to come to a point where you stop sinning. It's just a math problem. You can see the trajectory. It goes down to nothing after a while. If you're sinning a lot and it goes down less and less and less, if you live long enough, you're done sinning and you don't need the cross. So I guess that's the goal. Get to the point where you don't need the cross. Is that the goal? That seems like what I hear in preaching. Nobody but God can change the mind of a sinner about this stuff, about the need to repent of our supposed good works for acceptance. and to count it, not as the best thing. Now people are counting that as the best thing. But we, like Paul, Paul is our pattern. Paul said he's put it in the lost category and he's counting it as dung. It's something you flush down the toilet. Now, I'll quote a verse in Genesis. You don't have to turn there. Everybody's familiar with this. Genesis 2.17. But you shall not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. For in the day that you eat out of it, you shall surely die. That was the promise of threat God made to Adam and Eve concerning that was the law he gave. You can have everything you want, don't eat of this tree right here. You're going to die if you do. There wasn't some kind of promise that if you don't eat, you're going to merit eternal life. You go through a probationary period and you'll merit eternal life. You come to a certain, that's a lie. That's a false gospel. That's what some believe under the supposed covenant works. It's a covenant that's a lie. It's not there. We believe in the federal headship of Adam and of Christ also. Death in Adam, life in Christ. Here's the death in Adam that it's talking about. And it has to do with the broken law, which brought what? Death. Death. What did it do? Eating of this tree gave us or imparted to us from then on a conscience. A conscience. What did the conscience do? How effective is the conscience? What does it do? It brings guilt. That's what the conscience is for. It brings guilt. It's pretty good at it. Guilt brings that condemnation. And then, what does that turn into? Fear. Terror. Right? That puts people to work, to self-reconcile, self-justify. Here we see the problem. This is the problem by nature. Go to Romans 2. Let's look at a few other verses in Romans 2. Two verses. Verse 14 and 15. This is going to be talking about Gentiles. I'm pretty sure we all are here. Gentiles. Nobody delivered the actual tablets of stone to us. Right? We know what they were. We have access to a Bible where we can read what those laws were written on the tablets of stone. But this talks about the Gentiles that by nature have a law that didn't necessarily get it from the Ten Commandments. Verse 14, when the Gentiles which have not the law do by nature the things contained in the law, these having not the law, notice, are a law unto themselves. He gives some commentary on that further, which show the work of the law written in their hearts, in their minds, naturally. Right. What's he say? Their conscience. He defines it. That's what that is. Their conscience bearing witness and their thoughts. What is that? That's their hearts. It was talking about the law written in their hearts, their thoughts that comes from their heart. The meanwhile, what does that do? Does two things. This is what the conscience does. It accuses and it excuses one another. Those are two things. Point the finger, get yourself off the hook. That's what happens when there is a law that brings death, the conscience is affected, guilt comes, condemnation and fear are felt. Accuse and excuse. You got to get that guilt, condemnation and fear. You got to get it off of you. Accuse and excuse. That's all. That's the best you can do in that system. That's the best. That's what the law does. That's what the law does. That's what it's for. That's why the law is good at controlling society. That's what Paul said. That's what the law is for. The law is not for the righteous. It's not for those that are justified. The law is for lawbreakers in society. Control society. That's what Paul said. So a defiled or uncleansed conscience is one that works from a self-righteous platform that automatically the unbeliever works from automatically by nature. So he circles right back to the very thing that condemns him. Do you notice that? Look at that. The sinner that's condemned circles right back to the very thing that condemns him. Some form of law obedience. So he starts out trying to do the law, breaks the law, is scared, condemned. He works his way back to obey the law, to try to make peace. But he goes right back to the very thing that condemns him. Sounds like a trap, doesn't it? That might be a good word, a trap or a snare, right? So that is, in ignorance, a self-opposing satanic trap. And it's like an addiction. Look at back in our text, the last two verses. This is exactly what this is talking about. And this is why, you know, I just said, here it is, 2019. Christ died a lot of years ago. This idea of repentance from dead works is a basic foundational Christian teaching. but nobody knows about it. Therefore, when we deal with people, we should be patient, apt to teach, and we're dealing with these people that we should automatically know oppose themselves. Look, verse 25, in meekness, instructing those who oppose themselves. We talked a little bit about this last week, but I just want to hammer on this. I want you to understand and see how this operates. These people that we're talking to, they oppose themselves. And then our hope is, of course, right here what it says, if God perhaps, peradventure into King James, will give them, God has to give, you're shut up to mercy, God has to give this repentance. Doesn't give it to everybody, doesn't have to give it to anybody. Gives it to the elect, through the means of the preaching of the gospel. God will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth. We'll talk about what that truth is here in a second, but notice. That, so that, this is why, So they can recover themselves out of the trap. This is saying they are in a trap. They are. And this is why they need to be recovered because they oppose themselves. They haven't repented. They don't know the truth. All that could take place, knowledge of the truth and repentance of what opposes themselves by, they can be recovered from this trap that they're in, that the devil has overtaken them because he's stronger by his trickery, his subtlety concerning about keeping people on this treadmill of law, condemnation, fear, law, condemnation, fear, speed it up, keep going, religion, free will. It's an addiction. Romans 10.2. The context Paul's talking about people that are in Judaism, his old crowd he came out of. God gave him repentance of that. He came out of it. So, of course, he wants these people to know what he knows now and his heart's desires that they be saved. And he says in verse two, Romans 10.2. Now, this is the I'm going to show here in our context in Second Timothy two, how people that don't believe the gospel actually oppose themselves. Here it is. For I bear them record now, let me let me say we can extend this context to any unbelieving biblical context, any kind of religion that deals with the Bible that does not believe. whether it be Judaism, Catholicism, Arminianism. It's all the same. It's all conditional based, works based, some form of obedience because they don't understand or believe or love the sufficiency of the cross of Christ. So it's works based salvation. So fill in the blank when it comes to the type denomination or religion. He says, I bear them record. They have a zeal of God. They're excited. They have fervor, but not according to knowledge. Remember, knowing God is eternal life, right? And this is eternal life that they may know you. The only true God, Jesus Christ, whom I sent. They don't have any knowledge. They don't have the knowledge of eternal life. What are they missing? What are they missing? Verse three says, for they, these people are lost, they being ignorant of what God's righteousness. She's going to cut to the chase and say, this is the righteousness talked about in chapter one. Verse 17, for therein is the righteousness of God revealed in the gospel. This is the righteousness that Christ came and established that's imputed to the account of his people. That's the kind of righteousness that enables God to be both a just God and a savior. That kind of a righteousness. That's what we're talking about. They're ignorant of it. And as a result of being ignorant of it, they oppose themselves and they go about to establish one of their own. That's what it says in the next line. And going about to establish their own a personal righteousness. There's a cry today for a personal, growing, progressive righteousness. If you don't have one, you won't see the Lord. We need not go about to establish one of our own. Paul says, I don't want to be found having mine own. I want to be found in Christ having his, not of my own, which is a part of the law. Here it says that they have not submitted themselves to the righteousness of God. They haven't been made to submit themselves because God hasn't given them repentance or even a knowledge that they need to repent of their own righteousness because they're addicted to the self-opposing trap that cannot stop. It's that, again, that treadmill of religion. They can't stop it. They don't know. That's what the conscience does. That is the conscience in operation right there. That's the best that the conscience can do. The conscience is not a good thing. The conscience is Satan's best tool. But religion would have you lean on your conscience. Religion is all about taking the moral high road. It's all about doing good in order to be accepted. That's what it's about. It's the deceivableness of unrighteousness. It's a trap. So this is what causes sinners to use their self-righteous deeds, which Christ called evil deeds. So he talked to the scribes and Pharisees. He looked at him and said, you guys are doing evil deeds. What were they doing? Were they shooting heroin and doing things with prostitutes? No, they were religious. That's the evil deeds they were doing. And their evil deeds or anybody else's evil deeds, their self-righteous evil deeds is what they are pleading now for their assurance. And it's what they will plea at judgment. The guy in Matthew 7, Lord, Lord, having done this, that, that's evil deeds. It's the best that he could do. He thought he was keeping the law. Christ looked at it, said, very opposite. You're against the law, lawless. It's opposite day in the Bible. That's what it is. Every time we read the scripture and we look at the scripture and look at the world, it's opposite day. We've been given repentance from religion so we can see in the proper lenses that the world opposes the very basic Christian principle of what we're supposed to repent of. It's opposite day. What do you think the persecution comes? This is a minority view. So we know that the very best deeds are actually lawlessness, but they don't even know that they oppose themselves by that. Again, the law written in the hearts, their conscience also bearing witnesses, thoughts to meanwhile accusing or else excusing the other. So what's going on there? What's happening? Their conscience is haunting them and will not leave them alone. And it levels charges, that's what accused means, to level a charge. It levels charges, first it levels the charge at themselves and they deflect and level charges toward others through what? A law judgment. It's through a law judgment. It's judging by the law. And at the same time they give a legal account or plea in their own defense by using the law written on their own heart and their own conscience to do both, to level charges and to excuse charges. And that's the best they can do. That's the best the conscience can do. That's it. That's the peak of the conscience. That's false religion of the conscience. That's the best right there. You interested in that? You want some of that? It's not going to work. So they're trying to be accepted on a basis of what they do or don't do. But in doing so, they're under the guilt and condemnation of the law. They have a fear, a lack of peace, and that's the sure and certain result. So there's no rest. Now, again, I want to point out not just initial, but ongoing in reference to salvation, repentance and salvation and the Christian life. Do you think somebody is going to get this repentance from dead works thing right and then turn around and in their Christian life, turn around and try to get to heaven by keeping the law? That's not going to happen. If God gives them repentance initially, they're going to have the rest right. If they're taught of God, they're going to have the rest right. So there's no rest from work for our righteousness because they're going about to establish one. They're running and willing. Romans 9, 16, it's not him that runneth, not him that willeth, but God that shows mercy. Remember in John 1, 13 talks about those that are born and not by the will of the flesh, not by the will of man. So there's no rest for these people. They're trying to earn or merit mercy or reconciliation. So this is where the mind needs to be changed. Now, if I was if I was robbing banks, if I was a serial killer, If I was a frequent to the local prostitute area, if I was doing these things, I mean, the conscience already tells me don't do that. This is not news to my conscience. My conscience already knows this, but the conscience cannot detect me thinking, Hey, you know what? I don't have extramarital affairs. I don't do drugs. I don't do this. I don't do that. I don't do that. I fast twice in a week. I give my alms to the poor. I start naming. My conscience cannot detect those sins of thinking I'm going to heaven because I'm not a homosexual. Third, thinking I'm going to heaven because I don't kill people or I'm not a child molester. My conscience can't stop me from thinking those things. People naturally think that. I'm better than a homosexual. Therefore, I'm closer to heaven. I'm better than a pedophile. I'm better than Hitler. I'm better than Charles Manson. That's self-righteousness. The conscience can't warn you about those things. That's the trap. Therefore, when I do lie, or I embellish, or I steal, even if it's just like if I don't work hard, you know, I'm over talking for 20 minutes when I should be working. That's stealing. If I do that and feel guilty and I turn back around and think, OK, now I'm going to do something. I shouldn't have done it. I'm going to do something to make up for it. That's the conscience trying to self-justify and reconcile. So the law written on the heart will be flared and react and react in trying to produce a righteousness. But it's still ignorant of the righteousness of Christ revealed in the gospel. and the self-righteousness that needs to be repented of. That's where the conscience can't operate, but doesn't know, it's ignorant. So Christ is the end of the law for righteousness for everyone who believes, for everyone who believes, who God has given faith and repentance. 2. So that gospel is the narrow way, it's the way of reverence to God, that is the way of seeing and loving and believing the glory of the cross and that is where persecution comes because the offense of the cross. Go to Hebrews 9, we're on the tail end here, we'll look at a few more verses. Hebrews 9 and verse 7, let's look at the contrast between the two covenants. We can place ourselves historically in, you know, we could say that before we were believers, we were in a different covenant of under some kind of law that we had in our minds at least. I'm not saying that me as a Gentile born in 1964 was under the old covenant, because I wasn't. But there's a sense in which in my old life, I was under some kind of covenant of death because I was trying to do the same thing that was done in this old covenant. Look at verse seven. But unto the second went the high priest alone once every year, not without blood, which he offered for himself and for the sins of the people. The Holy Ghost, this signifying that the way of the holiest of all was not yet made manifest as the first tabernacle was yet standing. which was a figure for the time then present, in which were offered both gifts and sacrifices, notice this, that could not make him that did the service perfect. As what? As pertaining to conscience. He would see the person that the priest was representing, the person given gifts and sacrifices for his sins, could never have a satisfaction in his conscience because those sacrifices could never take away sins and they had to continually be offered. They never stopped. And what did that do to the conscience? I need more. I'm not satisfied. I need more. I'm not at peace. I'm not reconciled. Verse 10, which stood only in meats and drinks and divers washings and carnal ordinances imposed on them Look, until the time of, you might as well just say Christ, the time of reformation, the time when Christ the reformer would come and be the one that offers to the father the blood of the new covenant that did satisfy and did take away sins and did fix the problem of the conscience. Look at verse 14, let's jump down there. How much more? This is exactly what we're talking about. So we're comparing the two covenants, comparing animals to this sacrifice. We're comparing the priesthood of the old covenant to this priest. How much more? Shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered himself without spot to God, do this thing right here, purge your conscience from dead works to do what? To serve the living God. If you purge something, you clean it out. I think I brought this up before. I've got experience in my past. It's pipe fitting. And you have lines that have different fluids or whatever in them, and you have to clean them out. You purge them. Your conscience is full of guilt, fear, and condemnation because of the breaking of the law. And those lines of your conscience are full of death. They need to be purged. The only way is through the information, the truth of the gospel of Christ, how that he did that by the blood of his covenant, by the merit of his blood and righteousness that purges the conscience once and for all from dead works. And for the very first time, you can serve the living God. Before that, you didn't know the living God. That's repentance granted. So you're repenting from this trap. I just listed some things off the top of my head that were in the negative category that describe this whole mess that we've been talking about. The trap, it's in our text. The flesh. The unclean thing. Remember that phrase, touch not the unclean thing? This is what we're talking about. Self-righteousness, dead works, the way that seems right. The deceivableness of unrighteousness, evil deeds, fruit unto death, sin unto death, the practice of sin. Both of those in 1 John. The willful sin, Hebrews in 26. Idolatry. This is a false god of our imagination, a false Christ. This is transgressing the doctrine of Christ. 2 John. What is that? It's the spirit of Antichrist. What is that really when you wind it all down, boil it all down? What is all that? It's blasphemous slander against God himself. All that. All those things we mentioned are religious sins. And I don't care how many times you use the word God generically. I don't care if you use the name Jesus Christ. You can even say, Lord, we know the guy in Matthew 7 did when he was condemned. Having this doctrine that allows this sin of our own righteousness to prevail And for us to glory in is nothing short of slander against the holy name of God. That means that that is evidence that we are actual enemies of God. That's evidence of our hatred toward God. You mean somebody obeying the law sincerely and with zeal is evidence. You know, they're doing that to try to be accepted before God. That, their moral, that is evidence that they hate God. Yes. That's the clearest evidence that they hate God. The clearest. It's the foundation of all false religion in the name of Christ. It's the lie of Satan when he was in the garden. It's the lie, as God said. This is all the stuff God said. Nobody can hear it. They don't understand it until God gives them ears. It's unbelief. It's what it is. And all that stuff will be what the reprobate will plea at judgment. Their conscience will not cause them to plea their immorality. Isn't that common sense? Their conscience is not going to say, but Lord, Lord, didn't I rob banks and hang with prostitutes? And nobody in their right conscience mind will plea immorality, but they'll plea what they think is good because they have no understanding. God's people have an advocate. He's going to plead for us, which is the merit of the blood. without spot or blemish. For our final, look at our Hebrews 10. We'll conclude with these few verses here. Verse one, for the law having a shadow of good things to come and not the very image of those things, it can never with those sacrifices, which they offered year by year continually, make the comers therein too perfect. Never do that. For wouldn't they have ceased to be offered? In other words, if they made the comers perfect, they'd say, well, we don't need them anymore. The ones that are coming for the sacrifices, with the sacrifices, they've been made perfect. We can stop the sacrifices because they're perfect and they're accepted. But it wasn't like that. It said they were offered year by year continually. They were not ceased to be offered. They were continually offered because that the worshippers once purged should not have had no more conscience of sins. In other words, if the comers were made perfect, if those sacrifices were accepted, that were offered and they could stop then those comers would have a clear conscience. They would say, my sin is taken care of. But that's not the case. And it was set up so that this would not be the case. That's the point. This is why even the law was given, so that we could see that there's only one that can keep it, and it ain't us. It brings condemnation. Verse three, but in those sacrifices, there is a remembrance again made of sins every year. So that's what the conscience does. It stirs up the remembrance of sins, keeps the guilt going. It's good at that, right? Look at verse 19 down there lower. Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus. That's the only way we can do that with boldness. is by his blood, by a new and living way. New identity. Remember, we looked at this not too long ago. Not with a flesh, not in Adam. This is a new and living way. Boldness because of the blood of Christ. Notice, which he consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say, his flesh. And having a high priest over the house of God, referring to his church, his people, Let us draw near with a true heart, notice this, in full assurance of faith. Not full assurance that we have faith in our faith. Not full assurance that we've done well enough this week or in the past that our conscience is clear. Not that, well, we sin less today than we did yesterday. Not that full assurance of faith, the object of our faith, the Lord Jesus Christ. That's where our assurance is. Notice what has been done that's connected to having assurance, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. So an evil conscience is one that's not purged. It's not cleansed. It's one that opposes itself. Let me give you a little clue here. The conscience is not helping. It's a trap. There's two more verses. I lied. Titus one, two more verses. We'll look at that, that add to this. We're going to pile on Titus one 15 unto the pure. All things are pure. but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving. These are put in synonymous categories. The defiled are the unbelieving is nothing pure, but even there's two words of saying, but this is what it is. Do you notice that he's saying, but even, but these two defiled and unbelieving. This is what it is. It's not pure, but this is what it is. Their mind and conscience is defiled. And it goes on, defines them a little bit more. There's some more poking done here by Paul writing to Titus about describing who these people are because their conscience is defiled and because they're unbelievers. It says that they profess to know God. They're religious, right? No doubt they're religious. They're probably zealous, too, probably like Paul was describing those other people. They profess to know God, but in works they deny him. These are dead works. Notice being abominable and disobedience unto every good work, reprobate. So as these people are doing things they think are good, the things that they would use to plead to God for righteousness, Paul writes and he says, this is the very thing that denies God and is abominable and is disobedient. And shows there, reprobate means cast away. They're rejected. This is not positive. It's not good. They oppose themselves, right? It's a trap. You keep reading people after people after people that are stuck in the trap. So we got to be turned. I talked about that verse last week. You don't have to turn there, but here's the reference. You can look at it at your leisure. Jeremiah 31, 18 and 19. Turn me and I shall be turned for you are the Lord, my God. Surely after I was turned, I repented and after I was taught, I struck my thigh and I was ashamed. Yeah, I even blushed because I bore the disgrace of my youth. I thought back on all the righteousness that I thought I was doing to perform, to get to God and to impress him. But he turned to me and he revealed to me the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, who is the end of the law for righteousness. And that's repentance from dead works. That's a purge cleanse conscience. by the blood of the new covenant. And that is the incentive to serve in a new and living way, constrained by love, living by faith, walking in the spirit, under the dominion of grace, being guided by the spirit, and in the unity of the brethren knit together in love and all the other things the scripture tells us to do. We are not of them that go back and turn back to the old way. We persevere in the gospel. Our hope is in the gospel. It's not in what we're doing or not doing. After we're converted, our hope should never be in what we're doing or not doing. Therefore, our assurance should always be a full assurance. The only time you have assurance that's not full assurance, And when we have these ones that are enemies of the cross from outside of our group or some stupid something in your head from time past coming back, making you think you're accepted by what you do or don't do. We should always have a full assurance in Christ alone. And if you don't, you're not looking to Christ alone. You're looking inside. I'll tell you right now, there's nothing inside that will help you. It was just a defiled conscience that will always keep you on the treadmill of lack of assurance, fear, guilt, misery, accusing and excusing. If we had that mindset all the time, can you imagine the atmosphere in the church? We'd be like gunslingers, man. It's called hate. It's what it is. I hate you. Therefore, I'm going to accuse you of being worse than me. Oh, you've done something against me. I'm going to make you jump through hoops before I forgive you. That's a mess. That's Arminianism. That's works righteousness. And as the old song goes, Satan laughing spreads his wings. What is that? What is that song? You're familiar with it? Huh? Yeah, it's Ozzy, but I didn't know which song it was. But I mean, that's the idea. War pigs? Yeah, war pigs. We would be war pigs. We should be non interventionalists. Right, Eric? That's some Ron Paul speak. I thought you would know it. But we should not be at war with one another. It's not our job to, spiritually speaking, go across the other side of the world and accuse someone else and excuse ourselves. Questions, comments?