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Thursday, September 5, 2013

Message #9 "The Soul's Early Warning System" 2 Corinthians 1:12

In 1984 an Avianca jet crashed in Spain killing 181 people.  Investigators studying the accident made an eerie discovery.  The Black Box in the cockpit where they record the dialogue of the pilots and the controllers revealed that several minutes before the fatal impact, a shrill computerized synthesized voice from the plane's automatic warning system told the crew repeatedly in English, "Pull up, pull up, pull up."  The pilot inexplicably snapped back, "Shut up, Gringo," and switched the system off. Minutes later the plane smashed into the side of a mountain and everyone died.

That's a perfect example of how people treat the warning messages of their conscience. The conscience which every human being possesses is there by God's designed, built into the fabric of every human being as a moral warning system. And the reason I am talking about the conscience today is because our next passage in 2 Corinthians talks about the conscience—Paul’s conscience to be exact.  So turn there with me—to 2 Corinthians 1:12 and let’s read it.

Paul is in the very uncomfortable and undesirable position of having to defend himself and his ministry because some false teachers in Corinth were criticizing him and in fact bringing charges against his character, conduct, and teaching before the church.  But, before we go any farther, let me just say that if you are involved in ministry, especially in a leadership type of ministry, you need to understand that criticism is part of the job.

People are naturally critical and they especially enjoy criticizing those people and those ministries that are doing something that appears to be blessed by the Lord.  I learned along time ago that where there is light there are bugs.  So, the key is—if you are going to last in ministry—you have to stay long enough to outlast your critics.  But we’ll talk more about that another time. What I want you to see today is what Paul appeals to in defending himself from his critics—his own conscience and specifically, his confidence that he had not done anything wrong because he had a clear conscience about the accusations against him.  In essence, his defense is primarily that in all that he said and did in Corinth—He did not violate his conscience.

So, what is the conscience and how does it operate and why would Paul appeal to it as a first line of protection from pursuing wrongdoing as well as a defense of his life and ministry?  Well, as I said, the conscience is the God-designed warning system that is inside of us.  God really hard-wired the conscience into the very framework of the human soul where it resides so it can warn us to pull up before we make the choices that will cause us to crash and burn.  Like pain which warns you that you are hurting your body so you don't further hurt yourself and perhaps even kill yourself, the conscience warns you that you are damaging and perhaps even killing your soul.

Conscience has been defined as "that still, small voice that makes you feel smaller still," or, as one little boy put it, "It is that which feels bad when everything else feels good."  In essence, the conscience is the soul reflecting on your thoughts, actions, and reactions.  The Greek word Paul uses for conscience actually has the idea of “perception” in the sense that our conscience has a perception of everything you and I think, do, and say which it renders judgment upon and then either accuses or approves of us.  Paul makes this point in Romans 2:14-15:

For when Gentiles who do not have the Law do instinctively the things of the Law, these, not having the Law, are a law to themselves, in that they show the work of the Law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them.

So, according to this passage everyone has a conscience and his or her conscience is programed in accordance with that part of God’s Moral Law which is written or known in his heart.  Listen, the reason the unbeliever who has never heard the laws of God sees murder, stealing, lying, and other sinful activities as being wrong is because God hard-wired this information into his or her conscience.  And when a person violates God’s moral law which God has placed within his soul his conscience begins to accuse him.  If he obeys God’s moral law inscribed on his heart by God his conscience approves of his actions.

But note as well that the conscience also serves another purpose.  Look at verse 15 again.  Notice that the conscience “bears witness” in regard to the conscience.  It is like the “black box” in an airplane that records everything that is going  on board in that plane’s cockpit.  Similar to this, the conscience acts as a witness to everything a person thinks, says, does, and does not do.
And  look at verse 16 to see what the conscience and its recorded files are used for.  It “bears witness—either accusing or defending a person on the Day of  judgment when he stands before Christ at the Great White Throne in Revelation 20.  

In other words, the main witness to God’s charges against anyone is that person’s own conscience which acts as an on board recorder of everything he or she has ever done.  So, whereas, in Revelation 20:11-15, we are told God opens the books and judges according to a person’s deeds—the person’s own conscience acts as the main witness confirming that all that God has stated is true.

Now, it is not that God’s testimony has to be confirmed as true to be true—no way.  So why does God use the conscience to confirm His judgment?  Because God said that only on the testimony of two or more witnesses can a man be condemned.  Look at Deuteronomy 17:6 and 19:15.  So, in the end, at the judgment bar of God, the person standing before God literally condemns himself through his own conscience.

But what about the believer—will his conscience bear witness against him as well?

If the conscience of the unbeliever acts as an an on-board sort of “black box” that records everything the unbeliever does so as to confirm God’s charges against him at the Great White Throne Judgment—doesn’t it do the same in the believer’s life as well?  Well whereas, the conscience in the believer and the unbeliever operate the same way and does the same thing—the main difference is that God does not bring any charges against the believer.
Look at Romans 8:33-34.

And secondly, as far as our conscience recording all of our sins—it does!  It has too—that’s how it operates.  And that’s why the writer of Hebrews makes the point in Hebrews 10:22 that your heart—if you are a believer—has been sprinkled clean from your evil conscience.  The literal rendering of the phrase is “having our hearts sprinkled clean from a conscience of evil or filled with evil.

Thus, at salvation our hearts are cleansed from all the evil reports and accusations our conscience has been storing up against us. Thus, when we come before the Lord there is no evil report our conscience can bring against us for our life before salvation because it was cleansed when we embraced Christ as our Savior of all the accumulated records of evil it had against us.  But not only that.  The word “cleansed” is in the perfect tense in Greek which means it is talking about an action performed in the past which has continual ongoing ramifications.

Thus, not only was your heart and conscience cleansed at salvation of all your past sinful deeds—it was also cleansed of all your future evil deeds as well.  You see, when you became a Christian, Hebrews 9:14 says, "The blood of Christ cleansed your conscience."  So, at the point of your salvation, one of the things that happened in you was that the blood of Christ washed your conscience so that it no longer contains any records of sin committed by you—and never will.

Oh, you may still feel guilty from time to time over the sins in your past but that is a false guilt that you need to confront with the Word of God and the fact that He says your evil sinful deeds and thoughts have been deleted from the hard drive of your conscience.  To borrow the words of God Himself, "I've removed your sins as far as the east is from the west, buried them in the depths of the sea, and remember them no more."

So, what role does the conscience play in a believer’s life?

When you became a believer the Holy Spirit immediately indwelt you—came and took up residence in your life—and began the work of sanctification which is essentially making you like Christ.  And one of the things the Holy Spirit does is that He teaches the believer’s conscience most clearly what is right and wrong using the Word of God.

I think this is what the Bible may mean in 1 John 2:27 where we are told that since the Holy Spirit abides in us we have no need for anyone to teach us because the Holy Spirit teaches us about all things.  Well, Christians have always struggled with this verse because it seems to contradict other parts of the Bible that actually tells us God has given us teachers to help us grow in our faith.  Well, it very well may be that what John is referring to is the Holy Spirit being in us—abiding within us—so as to be teaching and confirming to our conscience that the teaching we are receiving is either right or wrong.
You see, the Bible informs our conscience of the truth and the Spirit then illuminates our minds to see the truth and then He enables our conscience to welcome and embrace that truth so that it transforms us from the inside out; and then we begin to develop godly and biblical deep-seated convictions that can guide and direct us.  So, every believer should  have as a goal—the spiritual and biblical training of his or her conscience through continual and consistent exposure to the Bible’s teaching.

Thus, being under the preaching of the Word of God, attending church, and studying your Bible is not a bunch of legalistic stuff you have to do to become acceptable to God.  It’s the stuff you do so as to live and operate at the highest level possible as a believer wanting to enjoy your relationship with the Lord and have a positive impact on others to do the same.

So again, our conscience, upon our being born again to new life in Christ, needs to be reprogramed if it is to function as a spiritual early warning system and guide to our souls.  If it is not reprogrammed it will not be of much help or use to us as believers who no longer exist as people living under the reign of sin but rather who now live under the reign of grace (Rom. 5-6).

A conscience that has not been reprogrammed properly and biblically after a person has come to saving faith in Christ will either be fixated on trying to lead the soul to earn its continued acceptance with God or lead the believer to feeling that since he is accepted by God he can live anyway he pleases.  In other words, the conscience of a new believer has to be reprogrammed and trained in “grace” by the Holy Spirit using the Gospel.  So, if you want to have a conscience that is Gospel-centered which allows you to enjoy your faith, your forgiveness of sins, your reconciliation with God, and your full and complete acceptance with God—you need to train it with the Gospel. 

Thus, the reason Paul devotes the 16 chapters of Romans a Book about the Gospel to believers!  The conscience has to be transformed by the renewing of the believer’s mind so that it will act as a trustworthy guide and warning system when it comes to living because it knows what is good and acceptable to the Lord because it has been taught that (Rom. 12:1-2).  Thus, the need to get new believers under the Word of God, to disciple them, and to ground them in the truth.

When you violate the Truth, your conscience will get your attention!  It will trigger feelings of shame, anguish regret, consternation, anxiety, and even disgrace when you are disobeying the Word.  Sometimes it will make you weep, make you fall on your face and plead with God for forgiveness.  And that's as it should be. That's a fully functioning conscience reacting to the full knowledge of God's truth as communicated to it by the Spirit of God.

On the other hand, when we know God's truth and obey it our conscience will commend us and bring us joy and confidence. It will affirm us.  It will grant us peace and gladness and contentment.  And if as a believer you have been giving yourself to the Word of God and pursuing Him you can trust your conscience as a spiritual early warning system.  It will tell you when your wrong and comfort you when you’re not.  That is what Paul is saying in our text in—2 Corinthians 1:12-14,

“For our proud confidence is this, the testimony of our conscience that in holiness and godly sincerity, not in fleshly wisdom but in the grace of God, we have conducted ourselves in the world and especially toward you for we write nothing else to you than what you read and understand and I hope you will understand until the end, just as you also partially did understand us that we are your reason to be proud are you also are ours in the day of our Lord Jesus.”

The reason why Paul can be so sure and confident, which is what the word “proud” is really referring to in this verse, that he has not violated his conscience in regard to how he conducted himself in Corinth is because it was not bothering him or plaguing him.  It was affirming him in accordance with what it knew the Word of God taught and the Spirit of God confirmed so that he had a clear and confident conscience with no doubts as to his integrity.  Wow….those who are the most bold are those with clear and undefiled consciences!

Now, he is not saying he is perfect nor is he saying that he never made a mistake—what he is saying however is that when it came to his ministry and his motives for ministry and his methodology in ministry that he operated according to holiness, in godly sincerity, and from an orientation of grace and he has a clear conscience about all this.

But Paul was able to say what so few can say today—even though they are believers—that their conscience is completely clear on any given day and about any given thing.  Paul made it a priority to live his life in such a way so as to keep and maintain a clear conscience because he knew the power and the confidence that flowed from not doubting or condemning your own actions, reactions, and speech.  Listen to what he says in Acts 24:16“So I strive always to keep my conscience clear before God and man.”

Such was the value of a clear conscience to him—it enabled him to have spiritual boldness and power before God and toward man!  And these two things—spiritual boldness and spiritual power are greatly lacking today in the church, in the family, and in our lives for the simple reason that many professing believers do not strive and work and live and talk and think in such a way as to maintain a clear and undefiled conscience.

If anything, our spiritual weakness and anemia toward unbelievers and in ministry is the result of playing with sins of the heart that our conscience is warning us from.  If anything, our lack of meaningful participation in any kind of ministry that challenges and stretches us beyond trusting in our own resources and strength and abilities is because we lack the boldness a confident and undefiled conscience can give us.

In fact, Paul makes the point in 1 Timothy 1:5 that love—the ability to truly love others is the result of a good conscience.  I mean how can you really be loving others, serving others, bolding proclaiming the Gospel, and pursuing hard things for God when you are putting all your efforts into trying to ignore or argue with your conscience? 

And the only way to appease the conscience and silence its screams to “pull up” before its too late is to change course—repent—confess—make things right and clear your conscience and start living powerfully and boldly again.


Let’s Pray!

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