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.