Open up your Bibles to Hebrews chapter 9, as we work our way through the book of Hebrews. What a great blessing it has been to do that. Such a Christ-exalting book we have here. But what I'd like you to see today is a contrast, or what the Bible often does is it helps us see what the false is, or what the counterfeit is, and then you can see what the truth is, and you can weigh both of them together. So we're not going to stick directly to our text, it's definitely going to be our main point, but I want to contrast these two verses in Hebrews 9, verses 13 and 14, with two verses in the book of Romans. Romans chapter 2 verses 14 and 15. And we're going to look at how this works and how these two things fit together. Let's pray. Dear Father, I pray, God, please help us with your word that it would sink deep into our hearts. I pray that your spirit would be present here in the hearts of those here, God, that we would know your word that we would understand it. Oh, please help us, God, to apply it to our lives. In Jesus' name, Amen. In Hebrews 9, 13 and 14, it says, For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of heifers sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies to the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God. Now in verse 14, what do we have here? It's the blood of Christ that does what? It purges our conscience to serve. So the blood of Christ purges our conscience to serve. A conscience that is not purged will have difficulty or no power to serve God. I have no power to serve God. And I think, as we look into this, we must define what is the conscience? What is the conscience? There's many different views on that. And how does a conscience work? I mean, one person's conscience may be totally different than another person's conscience. And how can this person say, my conscience is right and your conscience is wrong? One person can do one thing and and feel very guilty about it, while another person can do that same thing. It may not even be a moral issue. And the other person can do the same thing and feel no guilt at all. And their conscience is different. What is the conscience? And how does it work? And what is the principle that's being taught here? And I think we must look into this, because look in Romans chapter 2, put a bookmark there if you would, in Hebrews chapter 9, and go to Romans chapter 2. I want you to see something here. So there's the blood of Christ that purges our conscience, it says. But I believe there's an appeasing of the conscience also. There's an appeasing of the conscience. Look at this in chapter 2 of Romans, verses 14. It says, For when the Gentiles, that's speaking of the people who are not of God, That's what it's a reference to. Listen to it in context. 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 shows 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 there's the work of the conscience in the unbeliever. In this verse, you have the work of the conscience in the unbeliever in Romans chapter 2. But I believe this work in the conscience can also be in the believer, in his natural part. In other words, I think as a believer, we can operate in this unregenerate conscience But in Hebrews chapter 9 verses 13 and 14 is speaking of something completely different. It's speaking of a different type of conscience. It's speaking of the conscience of the believer. The conscience that is purged by the blood of Christ. And in verses 9 and 14 we see the emphasis on the conscience and how it is related to our service to God. The conscience can be a difficult thing to define, not in what the conscience is, but how the conscience works, or how it is formed, or how one might formulate what is right and wrong. In other words, I think we all understand that the conscience is a part of a person that distinguishes right from wrong. This ability comes from our self-awareness. It also comes from sin or it's been affected by sin. Our self-awareness has been affected by sin. In other words, Adam and Eve had self-awareness. When I say self-awareness, I mean some call it self-consciousness. And I'm referring to the distinct ability of a human that separates him from the animal world. The ability to reason. with respect to know how I relate to the world and to others and to God. Adam and Eve obviously had self-consciousness and were able to reason and think independently of God before they sinned. But they only served God and they only knew what was good and what was right. And That was their delight. Their delight was to serve God and to obey God. They did not know right from wrong because there was no wrong. They only knew that which was right. And the devil's lie to Eve in Genesis 3, 5 was partially true when he said, Then your eyes shall be opened and you shall be as God's, knowing good from evil. In other words, the devil said, if you do this, your eyes will be opened. Your conscience will be awakened. You'll know good from evil. And then when Adam and Eve did sin, what was the first thing they did? They hid from God. They covered themselves with fig leaves. Their consciences were awakened to evil. They knew they had disobeyed God and that they would suffer the consequences. They also felt shame for their sin and tried to cover themselves with the fig leaves. And now we are born with the ability to understand that there is a right and a wrong. And that we are obligated to do what is right. And when we don't, we feel the guilt. This is what's happening in Romans chapter 2. It's the conscience accusing you. And this is what happens in the natural mind. And I'm bringing this to your attention because I want you to make the distinction between the natural process that goes on in the conscience and the conscience that is being talked about in Hebrews chapter 9. I believe there's a clear distinction between the two. And I believe many people are deceived and I believe many Christians operate in the process of the natural conscience and they're not living in a purged conscience, a purified conscience. And Paul often spoke of his conscience, several times at least, as his, like, this is where his power was, and he preached with a pure conscience. He did what he did through a pure conscience. However, the problem with the unregenerate man's conscience is that he is devoid of spiritual life, and he is devoid of any knowledge of God in relation to the attributes of God. In other words, every man and woman and child on earth knows that there is a God. Except for those who deceive themselves and convince themselves that there's not. And at the same time, they will never come to a true knowledge of God unless God reveals himself to them through his word and through his spirit. Titus chapter 1 verse 15 says, unto the pure all things are pure, but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure. But even their mind and conscience is defiled. Their conscience is defiled. I believe that defiled conscience is a conscience that relieves itself, a conscience that appeases itself. by excusing or accusing. Their mind is defiled and unpure because they are not seeing anything in light of who God is. Therefore, everything in reference to their perception of reality is distorted. And the same is true with the conscience. The conscience of an unregenerate person is distorted and even deceiving. because it can feel the guilt of sin to a certain degree, and sense the presence of God, and therefore think that it is in right relation to God. But as we think of this, it leads me to two questions. One, what is the purpose of the conscience? And two, how is the conscience formed, or what determines a person's system of right and wrong? The answer to the first is shorter, and the purpose of the conscience is that we would feel the guilt of what we have done that is wrong. This is the primary purpose of the conscience. The conscience is really a part of the mind. It's our self-awareness. We are aware of ourselves. We are conscious of who we are. And we are conscious of God. Therefore, our conscience works. Because we know that there's a God. And we know that we stand before Him. Therefore, we feel the guilt of when we do something that is wrong. It shows that we are conscious of ourselves. and that we are conscious of God. And the person who has no work of the Holy Spirit in their life, their conscience is for the purpose, primarily I would say, of restraining their evil passions in order that sin would be controlled. And the person who has the work of the Holy Spirit in their heart, the guilt of sin and the conscience is used to bring that person to a true knowledge and a repentance of their sin. These verses in Romans 2, 14, and 15 that we read are speaking of the Gentiles, which refers to those who are not the children of God, or those in our first category, which have no work of the Holy Spirit in their life. And what happens? Even though they are not being convicted by a direct work of the Holy Spirit, they still feel the guilt of their sin. which shows the work of the law written in their hearts in verse 14. In other words, they know right and wrong, but they only know right and wrong in relation to man, and not in relation to God. So what happens? In verse 15 of Romans 2, their thoughts are accusing and excusing Accusing has more to do with feeling the guilt of sin. And excusing has more to do with feeling the relief of guilt. And it's this process in the unregenerate conscience that leads so many into deception. Because guilt is a very heavy weight on the conscience. Listen to me, the human mind was never made to bear the weight of guilt, the guilt of sin. So what happens, and many times subconsciously, is that the mind comes up with a system to relieve the guilt. It accuses and then it excuses. It's what the natural mind does, it's what the natural conscience does. So what is happening in our thoughts, And the unregenerate thought is that we are being accused. We are being told that what we are doing is wrong. What we're saying or thinking is wrong. So we must excuse, or we must call, what we'll call this is self-justification. How does the mind justify or excuse itself? The mind, listen, you must, if you are not justified, or purified by the blood of Christ, your conscience must relieve the guilt. Many people go insane. They lose their minds. And if you've spent any time with people who struggle with mental disabilities and are in that condition, you'll see that one of the biggest things they struggle with, and I've talked to other people and they've seen the same thing, is guilt. It's guilt. Guilt will drive you insane. The human mind was never meant to bear it. So do you know what the mind automatically does? Do you know what the mind automatically does? It relieves that guilt. It finds a way to relieve your guilt. It's what the natural conscience does. It does it subconsciously without you even knowing it. And I'll prove it to you. Did you ever do something for the first time and it's difficult to do it and you feel the guilt of it? This is in the unregenerate man. And then you do it again. In the regenerate man, this is opposite, but this is definitely true in the unregenerate man. You do it again and it's easier. You do it again, it's easier. You do it again, it's easier. There's less and less guilt the more you do it. And so what happens? The guilt's gone. You can do this thing and the guilt's gone. What's happened? What has happened? Your mind has made a system to relieve that guilt. Because if it doesn't, you'll lose your mind. The mind was never designed for guilt. Guilt is a very heavy weight on the mind and on the conscience. And your mind will either excuse or accuse. And you have no choice on that matter. And I can think of two ways of excusing. First, we tell ourselves that it's really not that bad. Right? Don't we excuse ourselves that way? We say, well, everybody else is doing it. It's not really that bad. Or we make up our little system, our trade-off system, where we say, I've done this over here, but I've done that over there, so that balances out. In other words, I did this bad thing over here, but I did this good thing over here. and it balances out. And this goes on in the mind subconsciously. In the human unregenerate mind, this is what goes on. You're making this system, people make this system in their mind to relieve the guilt. And it's a way to make the guilt go away. And it happens to everybody. Nobody's excused from this process. These thoughts are constantly, and I hate to say this, but I think it can happen in Christians. I think the Spirit will convict you of it, but I think it can happen in Christians. People walk around and they don't feel the guilt of their sin. Why don't they feel the guilt of their sin? Their conscience has deceived them. Their conscience has subconsciously made a system to relieve their guilt. And the guilt is gone. Hey! Everybody's doing it! So what's the big deal? Hey, I gave that guy a dollar. I gave the homeless guy a dollar yesterday. Yeah, I do these bad things over here, but I gave the homeless guy a dollar. That makes me a good person. It's a trade-off system. It's either one of the two and you are doing one of those two things if you're unregenerate. You're excusing yourself. You're taking the guilt and you're excusing yourself by either saying it's not that bad or you're saying, well I'm a good person because I did these things over here and that excuses the bad things I've done over here. No one's exempt from that process. You either do one of those two things, or you end up in the mental institution. One of the two, one of the three. You either excuse, accuse, or you go crazy. Your mind is not designed for guilt. It must be relieved. And there's a natural process that happens to relieve guilt. And I'm afraid today that many are deceived and say that my relief is guilt by the blood of Christ and they don't even have guilt because it's relieved naturally. It's relieved naturally through the natural process of relieving guilt. The mind must relieve guilt. Guilt and justification are what goes on in the conscience. Guilt and justification and so many are deceived because they feel very little guilt. Because they have exercised themselves with their own system and not with the blood of Christ or the conviction of the Holy Spirit in the conscience. And their own system of the first feeling the guilt is set up by earthly things. Listen to me. How is the guilt... You can get into... This is the next thing I want you to see quickly. How is guilt... how is guilt set up, or how is it formulated in your mind? In other words, one person feels guilt, and this is in a natural sense, one person feels guilt about one thing and another person doesn't, right? And this is set up, I know this sounds like it's psychology, but it's true. It's set up in different ways, our culture, our society, our families, Our role models, our government. This is how we set up a system in our minds of what's right and wrong. Our natural abilities, our natural gifts, our natural advantages, and the common influence of the Holy Spirit. All these things have an influence on the conscience. If you catch all that, the culture, the society, your family, the government, the common influence of the Holy Spirit, which is everywhere, the advantages, your abilities, all these things have an effect on somebody's conscience, or how they discern what is right and wrong. And all these things have an effect on a person. Then the human mind, as it matures naturally, comes up with a system of justifying itself. How much good do I need to do to outweigh my bad? How far can I go with this thing until it's really wrong? How far can we go with something that's determined by others? These are the natural workings of the conscience and the mind. It's why those who often struggle, like I've already mentioned, with mental disabilities, often struggle with guilt because their minds can't come up with a system of relieving the guilt. Now I bring all this up, and it sounds psychological, and in one sense it is, but I bring it up because in order to serve God, we must do it with a pure conscience. And not just a clean conscience. What I mean by a clean conscience is someone who has cleaned up their conscience with natural means. But we need a purge conscience. A person with a purged conscience is a thorough change. A person with a clean conscience is only on the surface. A purged conscience is spiritual. A clean conscience is natural. But these things are spiritual. Many people do things with a clean conscience, but it has never been purged by the blood of Jesus. I fear it is only clean because of natural processes. Oh, but when a person comes into a personal encounter with the living God, there is only one reaction. There is only one reaction. Go to Revelation chapter 1. You cannot have an encounter with God, the true and living God, unless you've had this reaction in verse 17 of Revelation 1. John says, And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. And he laid his right hand upon me, saying, Fear not, I am the first and the last. In Luke 5, verse 8, when Simon Peter, it says, saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, Depart from me, for I am a sinful man. When the Spirit of God convicts our conscience, we feel the weight of our sin. We feel what an offense we are to God. I believe there's a massive difference between knowing I am a sinner and feeling what an offense my sin is to God. There's a massive difference. Anybody can say, well, I'm a sinner. But has the Holy Spirit ever convicted your conscience that you are an enemy of God? You are in opposition to God. You are fighting God. He's calling you. He's provided salvation for you. and you sit there and sleep and act like there's nothing going on and you think God you think God will allow that to just slip by when he's provided everything for you in salvation and you sit there week after week after week and do nothing about it and just live your life with no thoughts about God whatsoever? Do you think God's going to just blink at that? Have you ever been convicted in your conscience by the Holy Spirit and fall at Jesus' feet like John did as a dead man? Or do you just say, oh, I'm a sinner. I'll sin and fall. I'll sin and fall. I swear to God. Everyone's a sinner. Is that how you view sin? If it's not, then your conscience has not been pricked by the Holy Spirit. It has not been moved by the Holy Spirit. The work of the Spirit in the conscience reveals to us the magnitude of our sins and its eternal consequences. In Hebrews 9, 13, we see three specific sacrifices mentioned. Look in Hebrews, go back to Hebrews 9. How can we talk about the conscience being purged when so many people's consciences are just naturally influenced? And they're naturally cleaned. Oh yeah, my conscience has been purged by Christ. Your conscience can't be purged by the blood of Christ until you come under the conviction of sin. And when you come under the conviction of your sin, and then you see Christ, your conscience will be purged by His blood. And we see this in these three sacrifices. Look in verse 13. For the blood of bulls and goats and ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies to the purifying of the flesh." And it says, how much more? But look at these three things mentioned here. First, we see the bulls. The bulls. The bull representing the sacrifice of once a year the priest would make of his sin. Most people believe that this bull spoken of here was once a year before the priest would go in to make the sacrifice he would offer a sacrifice for himself. And that sacrifice was the bull. This bull representing the once a year sacrifice that the priest would make. Secondly, you have the goats in this verse. The goats representing the daily sacrifices. The goats were one of the most common of the daily sacrifices. Thirdly, you have the red heifer. or the heifer. It's the red heifer spoken of in Numbers chapter 19. They would take the red heifer mixed with the cedar wood, the hyssop, and the scarlet. They would burn it all together and they would make an ash out of it. And that ash would actually cleanse people who were defiled by handling dead bodies. In the book of Exodus, if you handled a dead body, you were unclean. Until you went through a process, you had to go through a cleaning process. So if someone died in your family and you had to handle the dead body, you had to go through this cleaning process in order to be, you had to go outside the camp and you had to be washed and all these different ceremonies they did to make them clean so they can come back into the camp again. And they also, during that process, they also had to be sprinkled with the ashes of the red heifer, also signifying a cleansing of sin. So first you have the bull, the bull mentioned in verse 13, the bull on the day of atonement, representing the whole of our sin. That he was offered once a year by the priest for his own sins. So this is the once-for-all sacrifice. That's what the Day of Atonement stands for. You have the daily sacrifices, which is what the goats stand for. The goats in the daily sacrifices represent the multitude of our sins. I daily need the cleansing of Christ's blood. So the bull represents the once-and-for-all sacrifice. The once a year sacrifice is what the Day of Atonement stood for. The goats and the daily sacrifice is representing what? That I daily need the blood of Christ. I daily need to go to Him and see what He has done for me in the cleansing of my conscience. Do not hide your sin or suppress your sin or act like it's not that bad. Allow, go to God. and see what Christ has done for your sin, and the shedding of his blood, and your conscience will be cleansed and purged. And thirdly, the ashes of the red heifer represent a specific sin, or a specific cleansing, because, like I said, there were times when the sin and the conscience is aggravated to a greater degree and we need a sacrifice. The ashes, like I said, of the red heifer were a specific sin. In other words, so we need a once and for all sacrifice, we need the daily sacrifice, and then it's like we need the specific sacrifice. Because we all sit here, listen to me, we all sit here and have sins that nag us. Is anybody sitting here? It doesn't have a sin that every so often I do that comes into my mind and says, Mark, remember when you did that? Remember it? How can you say that you're now going to heaven after you did that? Well, the ashes of the red heifer represent that Christ's blood covers our specific sin. Those sins that are deep in our hearts, and cannot be even relieved by natural processes, the blood of Christ purges our sin. The Christ blood even goes deep and it covers those specific sins. He is our once and for all sacrifice. He is our daily sacrifice. And He is the sacrifice for when we need it the most, or for the worst of our sins, those sins that would plague us. and plague our conscience. The blood of Christ purges our conscience. If these animals in verse 13 were useful in God's purpose to the cleansing of sin, how much more, he says, shall the blood of Christ purge your conscience. Purge means to purify or to be made free from all defilement. The natural process in your conscience can only take your conscience so far, can only clean the surface, but the blood of Christ purges, it purifies, it means it thoroughly cleans, it thoroughly changes your conscience through knowing that God's wrath, God's judgment has been satisfied through Christ, through His suffering, through His blood. I have peace with God. In my conscience, our conscience, those who are trusting Christ, our conscience is made pure through the blood of Christ, through His eternal Spirit. Isn't that what it says in verse 14? How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through His eternal Spirit, offered Himself without spot to God? How can my conscience be purified or made free of guilt in a practical way. Well, think about this, that Christ is perfect. He's the perfect sacrifice, the perfect Lamb of God, holy, without sin. He is the perfect sacrifice. I don't believe it's some, like, metaphysical way that our conscience is necessarily purified, but it's through knowing who Christ is. and knowing what He has done for us, that our conscience is purified. It's knowing that my debt is paid. If you had a debt, and then you see the judge would stamp it and say, paid, and someone else paid it, you would know your debt was paid. Your guilt would be free. Our debt has been paid through Christ, through the perfect Lamb of God, through the sinless One. And how? Through His eternal Spirit. that His sacrifice is forever. His sacrifice cleanses me once and for all. It cleanses me once and for all. It cleanses me continually. And ultimately, it will do the thorough cleansing. In other words, ultimately, those who trust Christ, those who are trusting in Him and what He has done through the shedding of His blood, will forever be cleansed by His blood. There will be that one final thorough cleansing that we're waiting for when sin will be totally removed from our bodies. And we will have bodies like unto His. We will have bodies like unto His because He is eternal. We will live in an eternal cleansed state, an eternal purified state with Christ. with Christ. Let's look at the last verses of this chapter and we'll close. Look in verse 26. It says this. For then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world. But now, once, in the end of the world, hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this to judgment, so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many. And unto them that look for Him shall He appear the second time without sin unto salvation." Unto salvation. What is your hope today? Is your hope in Christ? That He has taken away all of your sin? that He has paid the price with His own blood? Are you waiting for that day when you will be with Him and be without sin? This is our ultimate salvation. This is ultimately what it means that we are purged and purified through the blood of Christ. that one day we will literally be purified. We will be without sin. We will be with Christ, like Him, forever and ever. And I am waiting for that day, for that thorough purging, when sin will be taken away forever and ever and ever. So Jesus Christ, the blood of Christ, will cleanse your conscience. But please, Please don't let this natural process of accusing and excusing yourself relieve you of your guilt. Because many we talk to, and people are sitting right here. There's no guilt of sin. Why is that? Because your mind has relieved yourself of it. Pray that the Holy Spirit will convict you. pray that the Holy Spirit will do that deep work of conviction in your heart and show you that there is a coming judgment, that God's wrath is coming, and you are walking on a sheet of ice that is this thin, that it can break at any second, and you can drop into hell forever and ever. And you may say, well I'm young, I don't have to worry about that. You better wake up. Watch the news one night and you'll see young people dying. Every day. You're walking on a sheet of ice that's this thin. And you say, well, I don't really feel any guilt. What's the big deal? It's because your mind has deceived you. The heart is deceitful. Your heart has deceived you into thinking that your sin has no consequences. when your sin has incredible consequences. It's eternal destruction, eternal hell. Repent today. Turn to Christ today. And you will have eternal life in Him, through His blood, through His blood. And when that weight of sin comes upon you because of the conviction of the Spirit, then the blood of Christ will purge your conscience. It'll purge your conscience and give you a new conscience. Give you a new way of seeing things. And when those sins of your past would come up, you say, the blood of Christ cleanses me. And it's washed me and made me whole. And I'm earnestly waiting for that day. I'm earnestly waiting and expecting it could be today. Could be today. that I meet Christ and I will be purged forever because of His blood, because of His blood, because of what He has done on our behalf. And I pray that each one here would consider these things today. Let's pray. Dear Father, we praise You and thank You, Father, for Your Son, our precious Lord and Savior Jesus. We know, Father, that all Your delight is found in Your Son. And we can taste why, because it's marvelous, it's great, it's incredible, God, that you would even purge our conscience. It could so easily be deceived and so easily be relieved by natural process, but God, thank you that you have convicted us of our sin, that you've showed us that the blood of Christ purges our conscience. I pray, God, teach us here that are saved, to learn how to daily, just like the daily sacrifices, that we would daily bathe ourselves in what Christ has done for us, in the order that we would be free to serve you, God, that we would be free to serve you with a pure heart and a pure conscience. And Lord, I pray for those that are here that do not know you, O God, I pray, please work God. I pray that they would repent and believe today. Please work God in each one here. That none of us would leave the same. I pray in Jesus' name. Amen.