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Thank you so much guys, appreciate
that. Acts 23, Acts chapter 23. I know that we typically encourage
you to take notes in chapel. I wanna encourage you particularly
towards the end of the message to be ready to write down some
things that I think will be a help to you, at least I hope it will
be as we work through some of these things. This is gonna be
more of a topical message. It will not be an exhaustive
message on this topic, okay? There are just a variety of ways
that we could go this morning. But today we start the fifth
week of school. It's hard to believe, isn't it?
Already that far into it. But it's good to have you here
this morning like you had a choice, right? That you had to scan in
and all that kind of stuff. I got that. All right. Dr. Bill mentioned Dr. Surrett. He was my pastor. I worked for
him for 18 plus years and then took over Emmanuel once he stepped
off the scene, but he is incredible man of character. I wish you
guys got a chance to meet him. Really, I do. There are so many
things that he was just a consistent man and he's doing the same thing.
He told me a couple of weeks ago, he said, you know, pastor,
I figured out something. He said, I'm still in the ministry.
my audience is just slightly shrunk." He said, currently I
have one person that God's given me the responsibility for. It's
a great way to look at it and he would appreciate your prayers
for sure. Acts 23 and verse 1, and Paul
earnestly beholding the council said, men and brethren, I have
lived in all good conscience before God until this day. What do you think about those
words? Could you say that? Could you
say before a group of people that was going to judge you,
I've lived in good conscience before God? Now, Paul's going
to say in another text of Scripture that he was trying to be void
of offense towards God and man. But specifically here, he says,
before God and to this day. What a massive, powerful statement
this is. This morning, I would like for
us to look at our conscience. And I want to just kind of walk
through some things that Scripture says about it and kind of challenge
your thinking a little bit about it. Now, let me just kind of
preempt some things here, okay? I've already said this is not
going to be an exhaustive study about this. Can I say today that there
are people who are putting more and more things into the conscience
category In other words, this is up to you to decide whether
or not it's right and wrong that I believe God has not put in
that category, okay? But they would love to shift
them that way. But can I say also that there
are ministries out there that have put things that should be
conscience issues in the command issue, okay? They've commanded
that these things are so, and they're not that way, all right? Now, I don't want to get anybody
in trouble. Dr. Beal's already said he started
out on a Monday, so I'm going to try to do my best here today,
okay? But let me just give you one of those before we jump into
it, and that'll just kind of wet the whistle a little bit,
all right? A number of years ago, Emmanuel, switched our Sunday
evening service to the morning. So we moved a service time to
8.45 and that's like our Sunday night, okay? For a while we called
it the Sunday night service in the morning. You say, well, that's
kind of dumb. That's what other people said
too, so we've stopped saying that, but I'm just saying that's what
it was, okay? In the process. So we have an 8.45 service, then
we have a 10 o'clock Sunday school, have a breakfast together from
10.45 to 11.30, and then 11.30 to 12.30 is our morning worship
service. Do you know when we made that
switch that we had people call us compromisers for it? Now,
you may have a Sunday night service. I'm not telling you you're wrong
to have one, because I think that's a conscience issue. Because
let me tell you something. God doesn't say you have to have
a Sunday night service in his word. It's really quiet in here. Because what happens if we have
a missionary who has all their services on Sunday morning because
of travel time? Or what about a New York pastor
who has to rent a building in the middle of the afternoon because
he can't get a building any other time because of finances and
he has all his services at the same time? My point is, yes,
we should meet, great, but it doesn't say that we have to.
And so I've often asked people, what exactly did we compromise?
by doing that. That is one of those conscience
issues. Now I've talked to pastors who say, I would never do that
at my church. Okay, that's fine. Do you understand what I'm talking
about? Just get your thinking caps on a little bit, all right?
So first off this morning, let's define conscience. Okay, what
are we talking about? Well, it's the inward faculty
of distinguishing right and wrong. It's a moral consciousness, if
you will. Okay, that's Arden Gingrich definition
of it. Paul is saying, I have been in
all good conscience before God. Now, his conscience may have
been wrong at times, but he's tried to live according to his
conscience. Now, that may confuse some people,
but that's really important for you to understand, okay? I used
to ask my children when they would come to me and say, well,
daddy, I didn't know that was wrong. I would say to them, but
did it violate your conscience? Because whether you knew it was
right or wrong, if you violated your conscience, guess what?
It was wrong for you at that moment, okay? It was wrong for
you to do that, even if there wasn't a specific rule that says,
no, it wouldn't. A couple of authors define conscience
this way, I'm sorry, says about this verse, Paul can honestly
say that he faithfully matched his actions to his understanding
of God's moral standards. Now, do we know that Paul was
wrong at times? We do. Before he got saved, was
he living according to what he thought God wanted him to do?
Yes. What did that include? killing
Christians. That obviously wasn't the right
thing to do, but Paul was obeying his conscience as it had been
trained. In this same book, they go on to define the conscience
as your consciousness of what you believe is right and wrong. Dr. Stuart Custard, in his commentary
on Acts, defines conscience as that internal standard of right
and wrong that tells each person to do what is right It does not
define what is right and thus needs to be educated by scripture. Okay? So in other words, what
he's saying is, is we have this internal standard of right and
wrong, and it tells you what to do that's right. It may not
be right. That's why it needs to be honed
by scripture. Okay? So for instance, if your
conscience, if you grew up in this area and your conscience
tells you that you should absolutely be a Carolina Panthers fan, you're
wrong. Your conscience has been trained
in the wrong way. That's all I'm going to say.
All right. With that process. OK. It's OK. You can laugh. I
know it's a Monday morning, but we're good. All right. Martin
Luther said, My conscience is captive to the word of God. Now,
another standard Greek lexicon defines it as the inward faculty
that distinguishes right and wrong. Paul wrote to Timothy
in 1 Timothy 1 in verse 5, Now the passage in Acts, Paul made
this statement as before God. Paul recognized that this group
of men could condemn him, and based on his experience, probably
would. But that didn't change how God
felt about Paul. He knew that ultimately God would
be his judge. 1 Corinthians 4 and verse 4,
So, how's your conscience before God? How would you answer this
if you were standing before people? Could you say that you've obeyed
your conscience before God this day? to the definition of conscience.
Let's look at number two, the defilement of our conscience.
Because Paul was made in the image of God, as were we, he
would make moral judgments, as do we. These moral judgments
should be based on the character of God, but we are fallen creatures. It's part of our problem. This
is why our conscience needs correction by God's Word. We all have a
conscience, though flawed. Romans chapter 2 and verse 14
and following says, For when the Gentiles, which have not
the law, do by nature 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,
and their thoughts the meanwhile accusing or else excusing one
another. So this is confirmed by their
conscience. The faculty within the human beings that evaluates
their actions along with their thoughts that either accuse or
excuse them. This is why Paul says such Gentiles
are a law unto themselves. Okay, so we have this that was
naturally inbred, but the problem is sin came into the world, right?
And it defiled this. So now we don't know whether
or not our conscience is right or wrong because it's messed
up by the sin that comes into our lives. And so again, going
back to this idea, therefore, we need to be corrected by the
word of God. But it's important for us to
understand that when we disregard our conscience, that's dangerous.
Okay? It's dangerous when we're not
sure if something's right or wrong, but we think it might
be wrong and we do it anyway. We disregarded our conscience.
And whether it was technically wrong or not, it's dangerous
for you to disobey your conscience. All right? You need to get in
line with what God's Word says. Now, there's also the idea of
number three, the damage of our conscience, okay? So we have
a defiled conscience, we're born sinners, all right? But there's
also a way that we can damage our conscience. Number one, we
can make it insensitive. 1 Timothy 4 and verse 2, speaking
lies in hypocrisy, having their conscience seared with a hot
iron. This also can give the idea of
to brand it, all right, a certain way, if you will. So we can make
it insensitive to where nothing bothers us anymore. Okay, we
just do whatever and it doesn't bother us. For the most part
in this room, that's not a problem. It may be, but for the most part,
that's probably not a problem. It could be that this is more
of a problem here. And that is, we can make it over sensitive. We can make it oversensitive.
Again, this same text, 1 Timothy 4, verse 3 and following says, So Paul is saying to them, look,
they've made things illegal, wrong, that really aren't wrong.
They've just made them that way in the way that they've been
teaching this difficulty. This is a little bit of a lengthy
quote, but I think it'll be helpful to us, and I'm going to use a
big word here. Some people refer to scrupulosity. It's religious OCD. Okay, now we're thinking of people
washing their hands repeatedly or straightening things or being
intolerant of disorder or germs or uncleanliness. But scrupulosity,
specifically think of the word scruples. Michael Emmett has
called it a tender conscience on steroids. Now follow me here,
it deals more with issues not of cleanliness or orderliness
but of issues related to right and wrong or sinfulness and holiness
that tends to be the focus. It starts with an obsessive thought
that provokes fear in a person. Have I sinned in some certain
way? Am I the kind of person that would choose to do such
an awful thing? What would happen if I neglected this responsibility?
This thought feels relentless and tormenting to the person,
so they seek relief through a compulsion. It disarms the obsession, but
only in a very temporary way before the cycle starts all over
again. These compulsions can be related to the obsession itself,
but it's not always the case. These are compulsions particularly
that related to this can be like ritualistic confession of sin,
morbid introspection, avoidance of places where there's potential
temptation, incessant research. Christians can tend towards this
kind of OCD, especially considering that many of us have been taught
that the evils of sin need to be put off and repented of and
then put to death urgently. That's all true. While this is
right and good, the person who struggles with scrupulosity particularly
capitalizes on that truth of putting sin to death to neglect
of other realities of scripture. So in other words, their oversensitive
conscience makes them think of everything that potentially could
be wrong. All right. And they're not willing,
listen to this, they're not willing to trust what God's word says. This type of person potentially
could constantly be questioning their salvation, okay? They're not resting in what scripture
says, they're resting in what they said or what they did or
how they felt or whatever, right? And they're overanalyzing this,
okay? This is important. Psalms 119
verse 59 and 60 says, I thought on my ways and turned my feet
unto thy testimonies. I made haste and delayed not
to keep thy commandments. In other words, as I contemplated
your ways, it made me go a direction that wasn't even productive.
And I have to be careful with that. God is the only one who
knows all things. I'll tell you something, young
people. God is not up there waiting for
you to mess up so that he can club you. He's also not up there
waiting for you to say, aha, you put the it in that sentence
wrong, and now I'm not gonna forgive you. That's not what
kind of God we serve, okay? He's a God that longs to forgive
us and knows that we're but dust. He understands that, and so he's
patient with us. Aren't you glad for that? All
right, I'm really, really glad for that, right? He said to use
a whole boatload of patience on me, and I'm grateful for that.
1 Chronicles 28 and verse 9 says, Now this is important as we think
through this Damage to our conscience. Our
conscience has been impacted by who we were reared by, by
where we were reared, all kinds of things. There are tons of
circumstances. Some of you have in your mind
currently that something is wrong and you believe that it's biblically
wrong and it's not in the Bible at all. That's because you were
taught that it was in the Bible, but it's actually not. You say,
well, why are you preaching this message to us? Can I tell you,
young people, when you get out there, and my guess is you're
already facing some of this, you're going to have to determine
when God does not make clear guidelines in scripture about
something. There are things we do all the time that God doesn't
say directly we have to do. There's nothing in the Bible
that says if you have a Bible college, have chapel four days
a week. Doesn't say that in the Bible.
We do that because we believe that chapel is a central thing
of what we do. It's where we want to keep the
heartbeat of the campus to happen. All right. But if you walk out
of here and say, well, I went to Ambassador Baptist College,
and if I ever start a college, I have to have chapel four days
a week because that's what the Bible says. You'd be wrong. Do you
understand that? You understand what I'm saying?
You're like, are you against chapel four days a week? No, I'm not.
I'm just telling you, divide that which needs to be divided.
I mentioned at the beginning, what you're going to be faced
with is people want to dump all kinds of stuff into the basket
that says, well, this is up to you. The Bible doesn't actually
speak to this. And that's not true either. So you need to discern,
OK, what does the Bible actually speak to? And therefore, I need
to be where God's word is and where God's word doesn't say
anything. If it's silent on the subject, then that's up to our
preferences. OK, again, within the character
of God, as if whether we're going to talk a little bit about that
in just a minute. So most of us think our conscience
are right, don't we? I mean, don't you believe that
where you're standing is the right position? If you don't,
then what are you doing there, right? I mean, like you should
struggle and figure out, okay, I'm not saying we're not gonna
grow, we're all gonna grow, but obviously you should believe
that where you're standing currently and whatever position it may
be on something, I believe it's to be the right position, that's
why I'm standing there. Okay, number four, the directing
of our conscience, okay? What should we do then? Well,
this is important. We should obey our conscience. Now, we don't have time to go
through all the text of Romans 14 and 1 Corinthians 8, but those
things warn us that to disobey our conscience is sin. In the
Romans passage, for instance, Paul says, "...whatsoever is
not of faith is he that doubteth is damned if he eat." Now, Paul
makes it clear in other parts of Scripture that there's nothing
wrong with actually eating, right? But if it's wrong for you, then
it's wrong to eat. That would be a conscience issue.
Okay, can I eat this in good conscience? And if I can't, and
I eat it anyway, I violated my conscience and that's a problem.
Okay, for us. So, we should obey what our conscience
tells us. Now again, that needs to be honed
by Scripture. Doesn't mean our conscience is
always right. but disobeying it is dangerous. Okay, so if
someone says, well, look, it's sin to eat meat offered to idols. Well, they're actually wrong
that it's sin across the board, but it may be sin for them. Their
conscience needs to be aligned with scripture, and it's fine
for them to say, hey, because I came out of temple worship,
and I know what happens around that sacrifice, and it conjures
up things in my mind that I can't handle, for me to eat that meat,
it's sin. That's perfectly fine. For you
to say it's wrong for everybody to eat meat, that's where they
get into trouble. You understand the difference between those
two? That's important for you as you move forward on some of
these things. Number two, we should work to have a clean conscience. Paul worked to have a clean conscience,
didn't he, before God and man, Acts 24 and verse 16. And here
do I exercise myself to have always a conscience void of offense
toward God and toward man. Paul says, I work at that. Now,
is it possible to always keep Not offenses between other people.
Well, no, the Bible says that it doesn't matter as much as
lieth within you live peacefully with all men. But some people
just don't want to be peaceful, right? No matter what you do,
they don't want to be peaceable. But as much as you can, you should.
And then number three, our conscience should be both a warning and
a guide and a judge. Okay, it should warn us, hey,
be careful. Are you sure about that? It should
be a guide. Okay, this is going to help me
as I work through there. And it should be a judge of saying
that was wrong for you to do. And you didn't listen with that
story is told in 1984. A I know that's been a long time
ago, but it's okay. Most most of us faculty were
alive, at least by then, okay. An airline jet crashed in Spain.
investigators studying the accident made an eerie discovery. The
black box cockpit recorders revealed that several minutes before impact,
a shrill computer synthesized voice from the plane's automatic
warning system told the crew repeatedly in English, pull up,
pull up, pull up. The pilot, evidently thinking
the system was malfunctioning, snapped, shut up, gringo, and
switched the system off. Minutes later, the plane plowed
into the side of a mountain and everyone on board died. This
person who's writing this says, when I saw the tragic story on
the news shortly after it happened, it struck me as a perfect parallel
of the way modern people treat the warning messages of their
conscience. The wisdom of our age says guilt
feelings are nearly always erroneous or hurtful. Therefore, we should
switch them off. The conscience is generally seen by the modern
world as a defect that robs people of their self-esteem. Far from
being a defect or disorder, however, our ability to sense our own
guilt is a tremendous gift from God. He designed the conscience
into the very framework of the human soul. It is the automatic
warning system that tells us, pull up, pull up, before we crash
and burn. When we ignore it, it's dangerous
to do so. Now, what I'd like to do for
you, and again, this is not encompassing everything, but let me give you
some questions to ask yourself. And this is where I thought it'd
be helpful if you wrote down some things. These are not original
with me. The second one, I don't know where it came from, but
the first one is a Matthew Haste. He says, here's some questions
to ask when you come to a gray area, if you will, a debatable
thing is this is not clear-cut in Scripture. And I think these
are great questions. Number one, is this issue explicitly addressed
in the Bible? Okay, is this issue explicitly
addressed in the Bible? If it is, what's our options? I don't know this chapel, but
you can talk to me. What's our options? To obey what it says,
right? If it's explicitly addressed
in Scripture, I need to know what God's word says about it.
All right, number two, Are there any biblical prohibitions or
prescriptions that apply to this issue? Okay, are there any biblical
prohibitions or prescriptions that apply to this issue? In
other words, it's not directly spoken to, but does God's Word
give me some parameters by which it might impact this? And can
I look at those and say, oh, based upon this and this and
this, this activity is gonna be a problem. Number three, does
the Bible suggest this action could lead a person into temptation? Okay, does the Bible suggest
this action could lead a person into temptation? Notice it doesn't
say itself is temptation, but could it lead a person into temptation? Well, if it could lead you into
temptation, what should be the answer? Avoid it. Why would I
want to lead myself down a path thinking that I can stand because
God warns us, take heed lest you fall, right? Number four,
is there anything in a person's experience or their spouse's
personal experience that might lead either of them to be tempted
into sin by this action? Okay, read that again. Is there
anything in a person's experience that might lead either of them
to be tempted into sin by this action? In other words, did you
grow up in a certain environment that may cause you to do something,
right? Let me give you an example of
this. I am reading a book right now called The Heart of Addiction.
And one of the things that the author, it's a biblical counseling
book, it's really good. One of the things that the author
talks about in that book is if you have a problem with addiction,
one of the things that you may have to do is if you go into
a surgery, you may have to tell the doctors, hey, I can't handle
oxycodone. because I have a tendency to
be addictive to something. Since that's addictive, I need
some other kind of pain medicine. Now, you're like, well, if you
do that, the pain medicine doesn't work as well. Right. That might
be what you need to do to make the choice. So is it going to
lead me now? Is taking oxycodone in and of
itself wrong? Well, no, but it could lead certain
people to that direction and therefore They should have nothing
to do with it, okay, in that process. So these are some good
questions. And again, these are just guideline questions to help
you work through this. Let me give you another one.
Okay, this is a different author, and I'm not sure who's original with
this. I wish I could give them credit. But his premise is 1
Corinthians 10 31, whether therefore you eat or drink or whatsoever
you do, do all to the glory of God. So he says, number one,
does the Bible allow it? Does the Bible allow it? If the
answer is no, then don't do it. Okay, if it's yes, then we go
to the next question. The next question is, does my
conscience allow it? In other words, is my conscience
telling me, oh, that may not be a good idea. Okay, well, if
no, then don't do it. If the Bible doesn't speak to
it, and my conscience doesn't say anything about it, here's
three more questions, and these are fantastic. Number one question
is, what is the effect on other Christians? Love is more important
than knowledge. You're like, don't tell me I
can't do that. OK, but wait a minute. Is this
going to impact a brother or sister in Christ? And if so,
Do you love them enough not to do it? Let's go back to the passages
that Paul talks about, right? What is one of Paul's conclusions
in that passage? If meat causes my brother to
offend, I will do what? I'll not eat meat ever again.
It's not worth it to me. Why? Paul says, my brother in
Christ is more important than what I want dietarily. Now I'm
gonna tell you, to say I'm never gonna eat a steak again, it's
a pretty big deal, right? I mean, that's a pretty big deal,
right? But Paul was willing to do that.
I understand in the context it was about meat offered, I got
all that, but I'm just saying, that's a pretty big deal, but
love is more important than knowledge. Question two, what is the effect
on non-Christians? What is the effect on non-Christians? This is so important. The gospel
is more important than rights. The gospel is more important
than rights. You ever wonder why sometimes
the Apostle Paul pulls his Roman citizenship card and sometimes
he doesn't? Can I tell you my opinion? The
Bible didn't clearly say, but this is my opinion. My opinion
is if the gospel would be furthered by not pulling it, Paul didn't
pull it. And if the gospel would be furthered by pulling it, he
pulled it. Because that's all Paul really cared about was the
gospel. So there were times when he didn't think it furthered
the gospel, so he took a beating. Sometimes midway through the
Philippian jailers, Paul takes the beating and he pulls his
citizenship card later in the story. Why does he do that? Because
there's a young Philippi church there. And I don't think Paul
wanted them to go through persecution like he had been through because
they're not as strong as he is. And so at the end he goes, by
the way, I got this little get out of jail free card and you
guys aren't going to do this to me. And all of a sudden their
attitude changed. Do you think they treated those Christians
a little bit differently because of that? My contention is I think
they did. So the gospel is more important than rights. We live
in a country today where rights are really important, isn't it?
I know my rights. Okay. Are you willing to give
those up? Third question. What is the effect
on my spiritual life? What is the effect on my spiritual
life? Spiritual health is more important
than freedom. What is the effect on my spiritual
life? Spiritual health is more important than freedom. Young people, have you ever thought
that maybe we're asking the wrong type of questions? Maybe instead of saying things
like, prove to me that's wrong, how about you prove to me that
it's okay according to all these things? How's this gonna help you? We
could make a lot of application here. But I'm telling you, there
are people who have totally disregarded this. Matter of fact, they don't
even believe what they say. Because a lot of them would say
that we, who have the higher standards, are the weaker brothers.
Okay? But when they come to interact
with us, they're gonna do what they want. But if you think we're
the weaker brother and you're the stronger brother, the Bible
gives you some specific commands. and how you're supposed to interact
with me, the weaker brother, but you're not doing those because
your freedom is more important. Be careful. Be careful. You're like, well, Pastor Ogle,
are you kidding? I mean, if we go through all
this kind of stuff, we're gonna be miserable. Who told you that? I can give you stories of people
that sat right here who didn't listen and their lives far from
being pleasant. Some of us that have been here
for a while can take you currently to jail cells. And those who aren't in jail,
we can take you to divorces and we can take you to all kinds
of stuff. And for some of them, not all of them, but for some
of them, they were more important about their rights and their
freedom and their so forth, rather than trying to figure out what
is God telling me? And they want to argue about
all this kind of stuff. But young people, can I tell
you, look at what God's word has to say. If it says it, then
we don't have a choice about it. But there are other passages
where it doesn't specifically say, how am I going to handle
that? Is this going to be healthy for me? And how is it going to
be healthy for me? Those are just a few things to
work through your conscience. Now, you got some thinking to
do. OK, I realize you got classes and all that kind of stuff. But
but don't just shelve this as a message. I want you to think.
Because I promise you, if you don't already need it, you will
need this. It's going to be a battle that
you're going to have to face. And you're going to be faced
with questions in your ministries and so forth. And you're going
to try to figure out, I don't know what to do in this case.
And the Bible doesn't tell me explicitly what to do in this
case. So how do I draw the line here? One other thing and then
I'll be done. Can I tell you this, young people?
I don't care where you draw the line. Somebody will be just on
the other side of it. I don't care. Now, look at the
faculty. They're all gonna be shaking their head. I don't care
where you draw your line. Somebody's just gonna be on the other side
of it. And they're gonna say, well, why couldn't you include
this? But how far do we go with that,
right? I had a conversation with a person one time who said this
to me. I don't think churches are to have any dress standard.
Now, please understand, I'm not gonna try to be rude here, but
I said to them, so you're okay with people coming to church
completely nude? Do you know what they said to
me? Don't be ridiculous. Of course
they need clothes on. I said, oh, so you do have a
dress standard. It just happens to be different
than mine. Is that what they're saying? Of course they are. They've
just chosen to draw their line a little bit differently than
someone else. So don't fall into this trap, okay? Use God's word. There are principles here that
can help us. And I hope that that will be something that you
can think through as we do. Be like Paul. I can be in good
conscience before God.
Our Conscience
Series Spring Semester 2024
| Sermon ID | 2524197517873 |
| Duration | 36:29 |
| Date | |
| Category | Chapel Service |
| Bible Text | Acts 23 |
| Language | English |
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