0:01 [Music] Thank you for faithfulness in the memory verses. I'm always encouraged. Always encouraged. Yeah. Let's seek the Lord while he may be found. I believe that to mean there will come a time when he will not be 0:20 found. Call upon him while he is near. Let's pray. Father, I pray. Thank you for reminding us aresh Lord that you're worthy. You're worthy of it all. I 0:39 really want you to be my all in all. I don't want it just to be words that we sang, emotions that are stirred. But truly, Lord, when it matters the most, when it comes to a choice between you and anything else outside of you, everything is rubbish. 0:58 Everything is dumb. Whom have I in heaven but thee? And there is nothing I desire on earth besides thee. Lord, I believe that's true in my life. I want it to be more true. Prove it my life. Allow me Lord to be tested that what I said this morning, what we 1:17 sang this morning is really true. That you are really everything to us. And all joy we will have when we see you face to face and we see with our eyes that which we only saw with faith here on this earth. That you are worthy of it all. We 1:31 know it, Lord. I we believe it in our heart. Help us to be ready for that time. That none of us will shrink back in unbelief and fear when we see you for who you really are. But that all of us, Lord, will will experience the reality of what you 1:48 promised that when we see you, we shall be like you because we shall see you as you are. And so, Lord, give us grace to purify ourselves because we have this hope fixed. We have this hope fixed, unwavering hope. Thank you in Jesus 2:05 name. Amen. I would like to talk about uh one more guard rail on this new covenant narrow way that we're walking. Uh if you remember, we looked at first of all keeping ourselves in the love of God. You know that's a command. 2:24 God loves you. He loves you immensely. But it's up to you to keep yourself in his love. He won't force that. He won't force you to stay in his love. He didn't force Adam and Eve to stay in his love. He He loved them. That's it. But he 2:42 said, "Now you keep yourself in my love." And when the tempter came and tested them with this re with this reality that God with this thought, God doesn't really love you else he would not have forbidden that one tree from 2:58 you. They fell. They didn't keep themselves in the love of God. And all hell broke loose on this earth. Literally, all hell will break loose in your marriage, dear couples, unless you keep yourself in the love of 3:15 God. All hell will break loose in your home with your children unless you keep yourself in the love of God. All hell will break loose in the, and I don't use that term lightly, the devil can come in and wreak havoc. That's what I mean 3:32 when we not kept ourselves in the love of God. And then last week we looked at keeping faith in the faithful God. He is faithful. Even when we are faithless, he remains faithful because he cannot deny himself. So keep faith in the faithful 3:49 God. This was uh Jesus prayer for Peter. Can we look at that briefly? Luke chapter 22. Jesus loved Peter. Oh, he loved him so much. And Peter was one of those brash, 4:08 outgoing, wears his heart on his sleeve types that says the first thing that comes to his mind, but his heart was good. And often it came out wrong. And often even his unbrokenness and pride came out mixed in with his sincere zeal. 4:24 Jesus loved him. And Jesus, Peter said, I it's interesting that that's the one that the father revealed that Jesus was the Messiah to this brash fisherman who uh wore his heart on his sleeve. Like I said, and then he said, "Lord, 4:44 um when when uh you know, Peter was the one who said, "Lord, everyone else will deny you. All these 11 men here, you know, I know they say they won't deny they won't deny you, but they will, but I will not." And he really meant it. He 4:56 really meant it. But you know what he did? He was the one that swore, cursed, even to a little girl. Imagine a little 12-year-old girl standing in front of Peter, this sworthy fisherman, saying, "Aren't you one of Jesus disciples?" And he's afraid of 5:11 her. Said, "No, I don't know him." Jesus knew he was going to do that. And so he said to Peter in Luke 22:31, "Simon, Simon, what you're going to go through is a sifting." You know what sifting is? Sifting is where you separate the wheat from the chaff. This 5:30 wheat is mixed in with chaff. And chaff is not good to eat. I've never tried it, but I can't imagine it's very good. Wheat is good to eat. And you want to separate the wheat from the chaff. God wants to do that in your life, dear 5:42 brother, dear sister. If you're going through a sifting in your life right now, maybe with your job, maybe in your marriage, maybe with children, maybe with relatives, maybe in in your personal walk with Jesus, if it's a 5:53 sifting, God has a purpose. I love that hymn. Um I don't know if you could pull it up, Rama. It's that song um how firm a foundation. When through fiery trials he causes you to go, uh the fire will 6:10 not consume you. Um but his purpose is to purify you. He'll use even that fire to burn away the dross. It's another word similar to chaff. That which is not of eternal value. And that I think it's the fourth verse 6:27 maybe. Anyway, I I don't want to take up more time. Um but the I only desire my only design to purify you through it. That's my design. You know, the fiery trials are also by God's design. He may not bring it. He's not the author of sin 6:46 like some people think. They misunderstand a verse in Isaiah that that seems to sound like it. He doesn't create sin, he cannot. Every good and perfect gift God from the father above. Everything that God does is good and 6:58 loving. But he takes the fire that the devil brings into your life. He takes the temptation. He takes even our sin and turns it into something good. And so when you face that fiery trial, his desire is to purify you and and burn 7:17 away all that is not of eternal value. I think in heaven we'll realize it. Thanks. When through fiery trials thy pathway shall lie, my grace all sufficient shall be thy supply. The flame shall not hurt 7:34 thee. I only design thy dross. Dross is something that's not good. The dross impurity in this silver in this gold. Thy dross to consume and that gold to refine. There's only one thing that can that is so intelligent. Thank you, Don. 7:53 Um there's only one thing that's so intelligent to separate gold from draws. Fire. Have you heard about the intelligence of fire? Fire has this unique ability to burn away everything else that's dross and leave only gold. 8:10 And that's why he's designed fiery trials. So Peter Jesus said to Peter, I Satan has demanded permission to sift you like wheat. In other words, this is a comforting verse. Satan says, I want to sift Peter, but you know what I need to 8:27 do? I need to go and ask God for permission first. Remember this brothers and sisters, you cannot go through a trial unless the devil has sought permission for it. He had to go for Job. Can I Lord? And God said no. Answer was 8:42 no. You see how the devil and all his hosts with all their power are subject to your father in heaven. He has to get permission. And God said, "Okay, yeah, go ahead. I know Job. He'll come through." And it didn't he came through lost his family I 9:00 mean lost his children lost all his wealth in one day he came through gold the dross was burned away and the devil had didn't have enough he's like okay sure you see how he argues with God yeah you know you didn't let me touch his 9:14 body that's why no that wasn't why God said go ahead touch his body too but you can't kill him you see the boundary very specific the devil's afraid of God he knows in a moment oment God could destroy him and that's it. He's afraid. 9:29 He stays within the boundary that God has drawn around him and around you. Take comfort, dear brother, dear sister. Satan has demanded permission to sift you like wheat. But what does how does your Bible read? I have said no. No, I have said yes. 9:47 I've said yes. Satan, you can sift Peter. He's going to come through. I see he's going to be standing there in a few days on the day of Pentecost and he's going to draw 3,000 men and I'm going to use his failure. I'm going to use the 10:01 brokenness that I've taken him through to be the leader of the church to be an example to others to write scripture as we read. Satan has demanded permission to sift you like wheat. But I have prayed for you not that you won't fall but that 10:19 your faith will not fail. This was Jesus' prayer. You know, Jesus is not praying for you that you won't fall. I pray I don't want to fall and I I hope I never fall. But that's not Jesus' prayer. He knows that I will fall 10:32 sometimes. He's seen my failure. Every single one of them before I was even born, he saw all the times I was going to fall. And so he says, "I'm not going to pray that you won't fall, but I'll pray that when you fall or you rise up, your faith will 10:45 not fail. Keep faith in that faithful God. even when you feel faithless family and you when once you have turned because you will remember what it's like to have your face in the dust. You'll remember what it's like to be defeated. You'll be 11:02 remember you'll remember what it's like to be bound year after year after year in that sin. And then oh, I'll lift you up and I'll fill you with the Holy Spirit and I'll anoint you your years with the ear of a disciple and anoint 11:13 your tongue with the tongue of a disciple. And you must strengthen your brothers, Peter, because you know what it's like to be down there. The only person who didn't have to fall to be of encouragement to us was Jesus. He didn't have to fall and yet he could 11:28 sympathize with our weaknesses. He could sympathize with our falling without falling. That's Jesus. But all of us, we've fallen. We're all sinful beings. And why does God allow us to fall? Why does God allow us to face frustrations 11:43 and hit brick wall after brick wall after brick wall? Because he says, I want your faith not to fail. And I'm praying for you. You know, Jesus is still praying for you. It says that he's ever lives to make intercession for us 11:57 at the right hand of the father day and night. When you're fast asleep, snoring as I do, or tossing and turning, there's one who's wide awake at the right hand of the Father, praying for you, interceding for you, that your faith 12:09 will not fail. And when you have turned and you have been set free from those things, strengthen your brothers, strengthen your wife, strengthen your husband, strengthen your children, strengthen your brothers and sisters, strengthen 12:24 that coworker who seems hopeless. You know Jesus, she doesn't. He doesn't. I'm praying for you that your faith will not fail so that you can be of strength to your brothers and sisters. Um, I'd like to speak on one more. 12:40 That's a guardrail. You know, I talked about guardrails. It's a narrow way. And if we keep ourselves in the love of God, we keep faith in the faithful God, we will remain on this narrow way. It's not by our gritting our teeth, not by trying 12:53 harder. It's by giving it our full attention like we heard last week. Okay. 1 Timothy chapter 1 and I'll speak on this and that is keep your conscience clear until the end. Keep your conscience 13:10 clear until the end. This is a guardrail. You you must do it. God can't keep your conscience clear. You must do it. He can cleanse it. We'll talk about that in a moment. But 1 Timothy 1, we read in verse 18. This a verse we read 13:26 last week as well. This command I entrust to you, Timothy, my son. Like a father handing off his inheritance, he's about to pass on. He's saying, son, I'm giving you everything I can give you. And what's that? My son, in accordance 13:37 with the prophecies pro previously made concerning you, that by them you fight the good fight, keeping faith. You heard about that last week. And a good conscience. Keep a good conscience. Paul's not saying, "Timothy, I hope 13:51 you'll preach a lot of sermons and I make sure you teach on this and don't teach on that and all these doctrinal things. I'm not going to send you through seminary. I'm not going to give you this program or that program." No. I 14:00 have two things, Timothy. Keep faith. Keep your conscience clear until the end. It will all be well. God will keep you from stumbling. Keep faith and a good conscience. And he says that some have rejected this and suffered 14:18 shipwreck in regard to their faith. Some have rejected the good conscience. Maybe they kept faith. Maybe thought, "Yeah, Lord, I believe you'll keep me. I trust you. But I'm not careful and serious about keeping my conscience clean, 14:34 keeping a good conscience." And when I reject that, cuz there is a false teaching that, oh, God will keep you. You don't have to worry about it. Just, you know, keep on sinning. God loves you anyway, but you don't keep your 14:44 conscience clear. God is faithful. Keep faith in the faithful God, but keep a good conscience as well. Because if you reject that, you will suffer a shipwreck in regard to your faith. And that faith that you kept in the faithful God would also be 15:00 shipwrecked. See, why would a ship get wrecked? And I've thought about that in the light of a conscience. How does a conscience help me, my ship, which is my life and everything within it, my family, my work, church, uh, life, all of those 15:16 things? How does my conscience keep me from being wrecked? See, the conscience to me is like a it's a comp like a compass. You know what a compass is, children? You know what a compass is, right? It's it's a a magnetic object 15:29 that has the ability to always find where north is. And you turn it around this way, it'll say, "Well, no, it's no it's actually this way." and you turn it around this way. I don't have a compass inside of me. That's why I always get 15:40 turned around. But it'll all You turn it this way, I say, "No, north's that way." You turn it that way, north's that way. It has the ability to find what they call magnetic north. And the conscience is like that. God has given in each of 15:51 us a conscience, the ability to find him. Always find him in that situation. The devil spins you around, sifts you, and you're tossed and turned. Where's God? HE'S GIVEN YOU A CONSCIENCE. You don't need some teacher. You don't need some 16:05 priest to come and tell you. He's given you a conscience, the ability to find him if you are willing. See, that's what he says in Romans uh chapter 2. Romans chapter 2. Romans 2:14, he says even you don't have 16:28 to be a believer to have a conscience. Just you have to be a human being. That's the unique thing about human beings. God has given us a conscience. Verse 14, Romans 2:14. For when Gentiles, and there he's not talking about non-Jews, he's talking about 16:43 unbelievers. When unbelievers 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 16:59 hearts, their conscience bearing witness and their thoughts alternately accusing them or else defending them. So God has given us a conscience. Children, you have a conscience. Please remember this at a young age. From the day you born, 17:16 you're given a conscience. You may not be aware of it. I'll try to describe it here in a little bit but just want to finish this thought that that conscience is given you to tell you well was what I did right or what was what I did wrong 17:30 you actually don't need mom or dad to tell you whether what you did was right or wrong maybe for some bigger things which you're not sure about but the basic things God has given you a conscience that says you did something 17:43 wrong there and any of you parents you know this you don't have to teach your child that when they lie they have this guilty look like you know even my you know I think I don't believe dogs have a conscience but even my dogs have this look when they 17:57 know they're in trouble how much more are children in whom God has placed a conscience you know like if a child eats a cookie or eats that cookie that was sitting on the on the counter and you come and ask son daughter did you eat 18:09 the cookie and they they're they're they're wrestling what do I say now I I don't want to say yes because that's the truth because I'll get in trouble but I I want to say no either. What is it that's causing this tussle inside of 18:22 that little three-year-old boy or girl's heart? It's their conscience that's like he was just sitting here alternately accusing them or defending them. If the child honestly didn't eat the cookie, they would say, "No, Dad, I didn't. 18:34 Honestly, I didn't. But if they did, now is this tussle? Uh, I know I did. But I know what's going to happen if I do." That's there. And it's a precious, precious thing, dear children. It's like that little voice. I call it a little 18:50 preacher. You don't need to listen to a It's good to have preaching. But you all have a little preacher inside of you like a little radio maybe through whom God is through which God is speaking into your little heart saying don't do 19:02 that. Even if you fight with somebody or or uh say some mean thing, there's a little voice little preacher uh which is not in my voice or somebody else's voice, not even in your parents' voice. It's in God's voice. You can hear 19:18 it in your own voice as it were saying, "No, you don't do that. Let them let them have it." And what you could do, which we have all done, you could resist that voice of the conscience and say, "No, I still want to eat that cookie 19:31 even though mom said not to. No, I still want to grab that toy even though I don't think it's the right thing to do." And so, children, you'll find this tussle in your heart, in your in your conscience. And you know it's hard to 19:45 know where exactly it where exactly it is. It it's uh it's not a physical thing but I think of it like there in your heart. But there in your heart in your conscience God is trying to tell you trying to draw you to himself to teach 19:58 you right versus wrong. Jesus also described it in uh Luke 11 this way. Luke 11:34. It's like the eye of your spirit. 20:17 Jesus says in Luke 11:33, let's read no one. Oh, verse 34, the eye is the lamp of your body. The eye is what allows light to come into your body. When your eye is clear, and that eye Jesus is speaking about is the conscience. Your 20:34 conscience is the lamp of your body. When your conscious, it's not talking about your physical eye because you may you don't have to see with your physical eye. Or you could see with your physical eye and have a guilty conscience. You 20:45 may not be able to see with your physical eye and have a clear conscience. So it's not the physical eye that God is Jesus is talking about. He's talking about the conscience. Your conscience is the lamp of your body. When your conscience is clear, your 20:58 whole body is full of light. But when your conscience is unclear or bad, your body is full of darkness. Then watch out that the light in you is not darkness. Make sure that that conscience that you have is not polluted in any way because then your whole life 21:16 will be darkness. You may still go to the church meeting. You may still pray before your meals. You may still read your Bible. You may all do all these wonderful things and have a outwardly good-looking life. But your conscience 21:27 is not clear and your whole body is full of darkness. You can say, "Well, but I've been married for 30 years." Your cons your whole marriage is full of darkness. Well, but I'm raising a godly godly children. Your whole fam home is 21:40 full of darkness because your conscience is not clear. You see how important it is? See, that's like, and I was using the example of the compass. It's like having a demagnetized compass, a compass that's gone bad where now it's saying 21:52 north's actually that way. And you get spin around and you're like, I need to find God and says, "Yeah, go that way." And you don't know because you're trusting this compass that God has given you. Your conscience that is designed to 22:04 find its way back to God has now been demagnetized, desensitized because you shut it down. You shut it down. Says, "Nah, not a big deal. I can disobey. I'll get away with it. I've gotten away with it before. I can get away with it again." And this is how 22:19 ultimately sin gets worse and worse and worse and worse and worse. You end up in horrible sins. You know, all of the worst criminals in the world, I'm not trying to judge them. I feel sorry for them because they're bound in sin. Think 22:31 of the the the worst terrorists, people who do all kinds of evil to others. All kinds of evil. Think of molesters. Think of people who do horrible, horrible things. You know how it started? How did it get that bad? When they were 2, 3 22:43 years old, the little sins that they did, the conscience bothered them and they said, "Ah, be quiet conscience. Be quiet conscience." In many cases, they didn't have parents. They didn't have godly teaching like you all have children that could tell them 22:58 don't don't don't uh let your conscience be unclear. Keep your conscience clear. Keep your conscience clear. Keep your conscience clear. And they didn't. And then they got to be 15 and they got more trouble and their conscience was still being 23:13 shut down and gradually the conscience just kind of died out. The the compass got demagnetized. Now they can't find their way go back to God. There is a way back to God. If that's your life, any of you sitting here or listening, there's a 23:27 way back to God. I will definitely talk about that today. But um back in Romans 2, there I forgot to mention this. The last phrase of that verse in verse 16 says this. See, we read in verse 15. Romans 2:15 that all of us have this conscience 23:43 which either accuses us or defends us. And that will continue to the point where verse 16 on the day You know, sometime if you're interested, do a Bible study on this phrase, the day. The day. 1 Corinthians 3 talks about the 24:00 day when everything else will be burned up. Anything that's wood, hay, and straw will be burned up. Gold, silver, and precious stones. The day will show it by fire. Here's another one. The day, that day when Jesus will come. And it says, 24:12 "The day on the day when according to my gospel, I hope it's your gospel as well because I believe there's in Paul's day already another gospel. He talks about that in 2 Corinthians 11. He says, "The gospel I'm preaching is there is a day 24:26 when God will judge the secrets of men through Christ Jesus." And nobody will be able to say, "Well, but I didn't know." You know what God will say? I gave you a conscience. You knew. I gave you a conscience. You didn't go to RLCF. Maybe you didn't hear 24:43 this or you didn't do that. You didn't have the opportunities that the others did, but according to the light that I gave you, you will be judged. God will reveal the secrets of men's hearts, the secrets of men through Christ Jesus. And 24:56 he'll say, "Remember that day when you were 15 and your conscience accused you, they defended you and you shut it down." So very important to keep a clear conscience. There's a verse in 1 Timothy chapter 4 I'd like us to look at together. 1 25:12 Timothy chapter 4. There's a lot of questions that we get asked these days. A lot of people are asking about the end times. Many people have written to us saying, "Hey, what what do you believe about the end times prophecy and uh usually they're looking 25:28 for some prediction about the antichrist and the the 666 and the vaccine, all this garbage that a lot of people are taken up with because you I'll tell you why I call it garbage. Not because there's not truth in it. I don't know. 25:41 But I'll tell you what I do know is let God be true and every man a liar." The Bible consistently says warns us about what to be afraid of in the end times. You don't have to be afraid of the vaccine, dear brother, dear sister. 25:53 Whether you take it or not, it's up to you. You don't have to be afraid of it. What you do have to be afraid of is what he says in 1 Timothy 4:1. The spirit explicitly spirit specifically says that in the end times and later times you will men will 26:08 fall away. I mean that puts paid to the false gospel that's in Christendom today that you can't lose your salvation. The spirit specifically says that in later times some will fall away from the faith. Paying attention how to deceitful 26:27 spirits and doctrines of demons by means of the hypocrisy of liars. How is it I mean when you read that does a does a reverence for God come over you? Do you seem ah no it's not going to be me. It's probably going to be one of those other 26:39 people, not me. Somebody else sitting in this room maybe. No, I take heed to myself. Let us fear. Let's have a reverence for God. That the spirit expressly says in later days, some and I got to make sure that I'm not in that 26:53 some who will fall away from the faith by what he's given us the warning. He doesn't say, "Hey, you may be one of those that will fall away and leave me helpless." Now, he says, "I'll show you how you can make sure that you're not 27:05 one of those that falls away because those who fall away will pay attention to deceitful spirits." You know where the deceitful spirits are? Just get on some internet website. You'll see plenty of deceitful spirits. Listen to the media. They've got plenty 27:18 of deceitful spirits. Listen to some preaching that's going on in the world today. Deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons. But listen to what it is. It is the hypocrisy of liars. That means that I pretend to have a certain life. I speak 27:35 about having a certain life, but the reality is I'm a liar. I'm a hypocrite. And the more I continue in that hypocrisy because I've got a good reputation. I've got a name. I'm the preacher. I'm this or I'm that. And I can't I can't own up to the fact that 27:48 I'm defeated in sin, that I'm bound in sin. Nobody knows, not even my wife knows, all those secret things I get on the computer and watch or all those that little flirtation I do in the workplace. This is going on in Christendom. And 28:00 that that hypocrisy will get easier and easier to do, to have this double life as you shut your conscience down. The first time anybody sinned, their conscience pricked them real hard. Oh man, I shouldn't be doing that. But the 28:16 second time it was not as hard. The third time it was even less. And by the 15th, the 20th, the hundth time, ah, what can I do? Helpless. Conscience is not even bothering them. bothering us anymore. I've been there, my brothers and 28:30 sisters. I'm not pointing a finger at anyone. I've been there. And I thank God that he's saved me. I thank God that he's shown me a way of victory, shown me the way of life in him, a way where I can't have a clear conscience, and I 28:42 don't have to continue the cycle of being defeated, defeated, and defeated. Or being unkind in the way I speak to my wife, or thoughtless in not being thoughtful in the way I treat our family. those kinds of things that goes 28:54 on in Christian homes and Christian marriages. God has a way of freedom and liberty for us. Um the by means of the hypocrisy of liars. And he says how this hypocrisy happens. It says seared in their own conscience as with a branding 29:09 iron. You know what a branding iron is? You put it on a on a a cattle like a cow. I got to do it once. I the best day of my life. You know, I'm a city boy who sits in front of a computer all day. And one time I got to do a a branding. I had 29:22 so much fun. I like I want to quit my job, be a cattle rancher maybe someday. Um but um that searing, you know what they do is they put a brand the brand of the person who owns that cattle and they and it leaves a mark on there. But I 29:37 thought, you know, you thought about your conscience being seared. Imagine if you I I was make sure that I didn't get my hand anywhere near that hot iron. Let let the cow face it, not me. But imagine if you stuck that brand onto your palm 29:52 and you left it there for a period of time. Then you took it off and you put it back. You took it off and you put it back and you left it on there. You know what'll happen? Eventually the skin will become dead. Seared. They talk about searing meat, right? 30:06 When you cook meat, you sear it. That means you put this hot flame on it and you burn that meat off. And now you can never get sensitivity back in that flesh. It's been seared. You can sin. You can be a hypocrite. You can get away 30:19 with it. You can live and your entire life with secret sins. It's going on in Christ today. You know it. And and let's not judge them. Like I said, the one who thinks he stand, let them take heed lest he fall. Let's make sure that that 30:33 searing that comes through living a hypocritical life is not something that's in me. I'm not allowing my conscience to be seared by living a defeated life. And I want to tell you, my dear brothers and sisters, there's a 30:46 difference between being a hypocrite and being defeated. And I'm not talking about coming in front of the church and confessing all your sins or anything like that, but I'm saying that the hypocrites are the ones who sin and they 30:56 don't care and they get away with it and they continue to live this double life. They think they get away with it. But the one who's defeated, who's not a hypocrite, is the one who's mourning. Say, "Lord, I'm not Christlike. 31:08 I'm defeated in this area. I'm defeated in that area. And I want to be like you." I'm not talking about you. I'm talking about the ones who are hypocrites who get away with it and they have a reputation and they're um they 31:21 have, you know, some of them are preachers with great ministries, but this secret double life seared, their conscience is seared as with a branding iron. Um so, um what kind of sins? You know, I I talked about sins like lying, anger. 31:40 If you can speak a certain way to your wife or your husband in anger at home and then come to the church meeting and hold her hand or uh look loveydvey in the church meeting, that's a hypocrite. One who's unkind in the workplace, one 31:53 who's angry when they're irritated, when things don't go that way. If you yell at your children, if I yell at my children, but come here and look like our nice little ducks in a row family, that's a hypocrite. But if you're mourning, say, 32:05 "Lord, even though I had to discipline my child and correct them, there was anger there and I judge myself. I don't want even a little bit of anger." One who takes lust seriously. Jesus said, "If a man looks at a woman with 32:17 lust, he is guilty of hell." Jesus spoke about hell more than many preachers preach about it. Lust will send you to hell. Um, what about financial responsibility, fiscal responsibility, cheating on your taxes or telling 32:33 signing false statements? Maybe you can get away with it. And I'm not talking about using the laws of the land. There are certain deductions and things like that that the tax laws may afford you. But if you find a way to cheat the 32:44 system and you know it's illegal and you just kind of get away with it and it doesn't bother you. I remember there was one something I took once. I'll give you just a little testimony. something I took once that didn't belong to me. And uh I don't even 32:58 know why I took it, honestly. Uh it was a dumb thing. It wasn't even that expensive. I certainly could have afforded to buy that thing, but it was lying around there. It wasn't I took it stole it from somebody, but it was 33:08 there. It was sort of in a public place. I took it and I'll tell you, I I for a while it didn't bother me, but within a few weeks, I couldn't get away from it. And then, oh, I I tried hard to find who it belonged to. It was in like in a park 33:21 somewhere and I knew the people that had been there, groups of friends and I I tried to ask them all, is it yours? Is it yours? I want to return it. I was ready to humble myself and I I never did. And one eventually the Lord showed 33:32 me a way by which I could set things right, make restitution in that matter. But I say that as an encouragement for you brothers and sisters and especially children. It can be very difficult to set things right if you don't start out keeping 33:44 your conscience clear. And if you if you're tested in that situation to take something that doesn't belong to you and you might think, "Well, nobody found out. I just slipped it into my pocket and I left. It'll come back one day." I 33:56 hope God will convict you. I hope your conscience will stay sensitive where you're convicted about it. And it in some cases I've read of stories where they they for years they went away uh without being bothered. But I thank God 34:09 that God through his Holy Spirit reminded me of that and gave me a way to set things right. And today I tell you, I'm so free. My conscience is clear. I said it right. And I now the devil still likes to remind me of that as he will to 34:22 you. And he'll tell you, remember you did that. And I say, "Devil, Jesus has cleansed it. I I I'm cleansed in the blood of Jesus Christ. My conscience is clear." Talk about that here in a minute. But be righteous. Be a man of 34:35 integrity. Be women of integrity. Children, learn integrity at a young age. There are men and women in who are adults who have not learned the lesson of integrity. Integrity means you are completely honest. There's no nothing in 34:48 secret that you're doing that somebody will find out. In some cases after they're dead, they find out. I didn't realize that's all he what he was doing. I hope it happens when you're alive that they find out that you you get caught 35:01 cuz there's still hope. If you get caught after you're dead, it's too late. It is appointed to man once to die. After this, the judgment. Live with a clear conscience. Um, and also I want to say this, a clear conscience also means how we speak about 35:18 others, how we use our tongue. And I've been convicted about, see the thing about this gossip. I I'll tell you honestly, brothers and sisters, we don't hear about gossip much in Christendom. You, you know, you hear about it in this 35:29 church. I'll tell you why. Gossip is one of those things that once you sin with gossip, that gossip will spread. And now it's going to be incredibly difficult to c get it back. Once you've destroyed somebody's reputation by talking to 35:44 somebody else and they've told somebody else and they've told somebody else and they've told somebody else, you know, the only way you can get a clear conscience is through the blood of Jesus Christ, the precious blood of Jesus. But 35:53 you might have to chase all those people down and say, "I am so sorry for what I said, for that rumor I spread, for that gossip I shared with you lightly talking about somebody else." That's why gossip is such a serious sin. 36:07 And sadly, it's prevalent in Christendom. prevalent in Christryendom. So, be careful. You know, I I remember when David uh this is a picture I've got. Um no, I won't turn there. You know, you can read it. Uh 1st Samuel 24 or 36:22 something like that. Um David was running from Saul and he went and his men were hiding in the back recesses of a cave and Saul comes nearby just passing outside that cave and he has to go to the bathroom. So, he's like, "Let me just go in this cave." Not 36:37 knowing David and his men are further back in the cave and he's right there in the front part of the cave. And while Saul is over there taking his time, David sneaks up and you know very quietly Saul has this flowing robe. I 36:50 imagine he just cuts a little piece of the robe off. He says, "I'm going to show you later on." Saul, he had the chance. His men told him, "Kill him. Here's your chance. You can kill him." He says, "No, I'm not going to kill him. 36:59 I'll just cut a little piece of the robe." Saul finished his business and left. And then later on, David held up this piece uh and Saul um uh Saul said, "David, you're a righteous man. You could have killed me." But you 37:14 know what, David, he didn't go away thinking, "Oh, yeah. At least I didn't kill him." He was so convicted that he even cut the edge of his robe. It says, and I thought about that when it comes to speaking uh down about somebody or 37:28 speaking in a despising way about somebody, I believe that's what it means to cut the edge of somebody's robe. When you tell somebody else, "Oh, you know what? They're like there. They're kind of like that." Or you speak in a 37:39 despising way or spread a rumor or spread gossip about somebody. That's like cutting the edge of somebody's robe. David, without the Holy Spirit living within him, was convicted about it. And sadly, there are Christians today going 37:51 on just gossiping, spreading false rumors, and going on with their life. Keep your conscience clear. There is a way. You can set it right. You'll have to eat humble pie. Really what that means is you'll have to repent. You'll 38:04 have to make restitution. You have to humble yourself and perhaps even experience humiliation for that gossip much better to avoid it altogether. But the good news is you can reensitize your conscience. That's the wonderful 38:19 news. We've all had guilty consciences. We've all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God and all had our compasses demagnetized, desensitized. And there is a way of salvation. Uh, Hebrews chapter 10 reensitizing your conscience can happen 38:43 in a moment. I want you to remember that, dear brothers and sisters, dear children. You can get your conscience clear in a moment. It's not like victory over sin. That can take some time. Maybe you've been living in sin. You're 38:55 defeated by bad habits. Coming to a place of walking in victory in that area could take some time. weeks, months, maybe even years. But a clear conscience about those sins that you have done can happen in a moment, right now. You don't 39:08 even have to wait for me to finish my message this morning. You can have a clear conscience. Hebrews 10, we read in verse uh 22. Let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil 39:28 conscience and our bodies washed with pure water, sprinkled by the blood of Jesus Christ. If you have a guilty conscience right now, brother, sister, friend, child, if you have a guilty conscience right now, Jesus invites you 39:42 to have his blood sprinkled on your conscience and in a moment it's clean. Did you do something uh wrong yesterday? Did you do something hurtful yesterday, children, to somebody else? Did you tell a lie? Maybe did you um do something 39:59 that your conscience is reminding you of right now? Yeah. Wow. I didn't know Santo saw me. No, I didn't see you. God saw you. And he loves you. And the reason he's given you a sensitive conscience and is perhaps speaking to 40:11 your heart right now is because he's made a way for you to have a clear conscience. And you can sleep well tonight with that conscience clear. You you never have to worry about it coming back to haunt you because your conscience is clear. Sprinkled by the 40:26 blood of Jesus. He already shed it. You don't have to wait for him to shed it. He's already shed the blood. It's there. He's holding out his blood and saying, "Will you let me sprinkle your conscience clean? It will be white as 40:37 snow. You will have a clear conscience again. And you'll be like that little child that has a pure, it'll be as if you never did it. You never said that word. You never told that lie. You never spread that gossip. You never lusted 40:50 with your eyes. You never did this. You never did that sprinkled clean. You ever give your clothes to a dry cleaner, they bring it back looking better than the original even. That's the blood of Jesus. Better than any dry 41:03 cleaning anybody can do. I tell you, I have a conscience that looks so clean right now. You would think I never sinned. And oh, if you knew my past, you would know what things I've done. You don't have to know, but I'll tell you, 41:15 if you could see my conscience, it's clean. It's clear. It is so white because Jesus's blood is able to do that. and dear children at at any whether it's now or at some point down the road and and us adults as well you can know that in a moment the moment you 41:32 feel that prick of your conscience Jesus Christ can cleanse it and you are clean you're free like a bird that has been loosed he says in second Peter 3 so it's the blood of Jesus Christ but it's it's interesting in second Peter 3 he also 41:47 says that in uh no 1 Peter 3 right yeah 1 Peter He says that baptism also is that act of an appeal to God for a clear conscience. We saw baptism in the church here a few weeks ago, right? Um baptism corresponding to that, which is that 42:06 Noah in the ark. Corresponding to that 1 Peter 3:21. Baptism now saves you. Not the removal of dirt from the flesh. So you don't get in the tub to get your skin cleaned. No. But it's an appeal to God for a good conscience through the resurrection of 42:22 Jesus Christ. That's why every believer must be baptized because it's the appeal to God saying, "God, I want a clear conscience." He says, "Yes, you want to die to yourself. You don't want to live for yourself anymore. You put that old 42:34 man to death. Okay, I'll raise you back into the resurrection life of Christ. And what else do you have?" A clear conscience. Hallelujah. There's one more thing we have to cleanse our So that's sin. cleansing our our conscience from sin, 42:49 the guilt that comes from sin. But back in Hebrews chapter 9, there's something else that we must be cleansed off in our consciences. Hebrews chapter 9, I think, you know, we've all all of us who are believers, born again, we've been through that. Our 43:03 consciences have been cleansed. We've taken baptism in water. We appealed to God for a clear conscience. And I hope whether you knew it or not, now you know that God said from heaven, "Yes, son, daughter, clear conscience for you. You 43:15 asked me. You believed, you repented, clear conscience for you. That's my testimony. But he says in Hebrews 9, after we walk in this journey of keeping our conscience clean, making sure that now that God has cleansed your conscience, 43:28 I'm going to talk about that also uh for a few minutes after this. Uh I'll show you how we can keep our consciences clear, maintain that clear conscience. But there's one more thing that the blood of Jesus Christ must cleanse our 43:41 consciences from, and that is uh dead works. Hebrews 9:14, how much more will the blood of Christ, and you really have to, you know, let's say verse 13, the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a hepher sprinkling those who have been defiled 43:58 sanctify for the cleansing of the flesh. How much more it's not no longer blood of bulls and goats and heers. How much more will the blood of Christ who through the eternal spirit offered himself without blemish to God cleanse your conscience. Now he's 44:17 not talking about sin. He's talking about dead works. Very very little preaching on dead works in Christendom today or even in history. I don't know how much we've meditated on that. Dead works are good works done with a bad motive. 44:35 Right? Right? So now it's not talking about evil works that we've already had our consciences cleansed from by the blood of Jesus Christ. Hebrews 10:22, 1st Peter 3:21, having our consciences cleansed from those evil works. But what 44:47 about dead works? So there's evil works and good works. I think we understand that. But there's also this thing in the middle called dead works. And I hope you know this verse that the blood of Jesus Christ is to cleanse your conscience 45:00 from dead works. Those good things you do with a bad motive. that good message you preached Santosh or that good thing you did, that act of service that oh you stayed late and cleaned up the church or you you did that other thing and nobody 45:15 saw or you did the dishes for your wife to help her out. But you did it with a false motive, dead works. And you go around with a guilty conscience, not not because of sin anymore, but because of dead works, because of that good thing you did, 45:31 which the other person got a benefit from, but you did it with a false motive. Read it carefully. It's in your Bible, right? I hope it is. It's in mine. How much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit 45:42 offered himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? And if it's not cleansed from those dead works, you cannot serve the living God. Let's have our consciences cleansed from 45:54 all those good things we do to get a reputation. The ways we pray to get a reputation. Oh, he prays a certain way. He must be a godly man. Those things we do, the ways we act around others to get a reputation. People think highly of me 46:12 because of this, because of that. It's a dead work. You have a guilty conscience because of it, brother, sister. But you can be free. The blood of Jesus Christ can also cleanse you from dead works. Hallelujah. Now, keeping your conscience 46:25 clean, I should end with this and that is let's go to Acts chapter 24. Paul talked about his gospel and the day. He mentions that here also in Acts 46:41 24 verse 16 of um 15 sorry having a hope in God. Acts 24:15 having a hope in God which these men cherish themselves that there shall certainly be 46:59 a resurrection of both the righteous and the wicked. Both the righteous and the wicked will be brought back to life. Those who have died. Do you know that even in the wicked, those who have died in their sins will be brought back to 47:11 life? Not just the righteous ones. We were at a wonderful funeral a few days ago and we believe in that resurrection power for those who are righteous. But there's also going to be a resurrection of the wicked. Those who died in their 47:22 sins are also going to be brought back to life for what? To be judged. For God to examine their hearts. Like he said in Romans 2, he's going to bring the dead the wicked back from the dead and say, "Yeah, here's what was in your heart." He's going to 47:37 bring the righteous back and says, "Here's what was in your heart." And knowing that there's going to be this resurrection in view of this verse 16, I also do my best. I think it's the same sentiment. I give it my full attention. 47:52 Are you giving it your full Paul? This is Paul writing, giving his testimony towards the end of his life. Paul having served God for all these years and planted churches. He's written scripture by this point. Acts 24. He's nearing the 48:07 end of his life and he's saying, "Listen, I need to make sure that I have a good conscience. I'm 60 years old now." I imagine him. He's about that age now, I think, or in his 50s. And I've been serving the Lord for 20, 30 years. 48:19 But I do my best to maintain always a blameless conscience both before God and before men. And meanwhile, Christians who haven't come anywhere near to the life of Paul think, "Ah, yeah, I know I kind of spoke to my wife that way, but yeah, she'll 48:34 get over it. I'll get over it. I'll buy her some flowers on the way back from work, they live with that guilty conscience, their conscience sincereed with a branding iron. I do my best. I do my best. I do my best." Um, I give it my full attention. 48:51 I'm focused on that. That means the moment I sense there's a guilty conscience over something I said or did or thought, I repent of it. And the first thing he says, I repent of it before God. Sin must always be repented 49:04 of in the circle in which it's committed. That means if you think an evil thought, you repented before God because nobody else was affected by it. But if you said now, if that thought became a word or an action, now there's 49:15 somebody else that's been impacted by your sin and you must set it right with them as well. In fact, God says, "If you come to me and want to set things right with me, but you know that somebody has something against you, leave your altar, 49:28 your offering there, go set be reconciled to your brother. If you've harmed your brother, if you've harmed your wife, if you've harmed your children, if you've harmed your brother and you know it, and you bring your you 49:39 come to the church meeting and you're about to lift your hands and say, "You are my all in all." You ought to hear the conviction of the Holy Spirit saying, "No, put your hand down. Go be reconciled to your wife. Go be reconciled to your brother. Set it 49:51 right. Otherwise, this is empty. Go be reconciled to your brother and then come and give your offering to me, your offering of praise, your offering of your body as a living sacrifice. Set it right with men as well. You can have a 50:06 clear conscience. And lastly, um, and you know that also means that we have a good testimony in the world. You know, u, I want to show you this in Daniel uh, chapter 6. I love this. This is a wonderful testimony. All of us I 50:20 think are uh in the workplace. We work uh with you know in in in jobs. And so the the example of Daniel here is really wonderful. Uh Daniel 6, we read in verse four, these were men who were jealous of Daniel. He was successful and yet he 50:37 honored God. And they're like, we got to find a way to to get him for his boss, our boss to hate him. You know, maybe some of you have co-workers like that. They're always trying to pull you down in front of the boss and make you look 50:49 bad. Daniel faced it too. And listen to what they say though. The commissioners and sat traps began trying to find a ground of accusation against Daniel in regard to government affairs. In other words, in regard to his work. Oh, you 51:04 know what? If they see that he cheats a little bit, he clocks out and falsifies the time when he clocked out or something like that. these things that go on in the workplace today. They were trying to find something with regard to 51:15 his work, but they could find no ground of accusation or evidence of corruption in as much as he was faithful and no negligence or corruption was to be found in him. If somebody was to spy on you in how you do your job, not talking about 51:32 how you raise your family, we're talking about how you do your work, your earthly work. If somebody was to have a secret camera spying on you and they saw how efficient or how you spent your time at work, would this testimony be true? 51:47 And then these men said, "We will not find any ground of accusation against this Daniel unless we find it against him with regard to the law of God." Now, we ask him to do something that's unrighteous. We ask him to do something 52:00 that's against his conscience. Then we can catch him. And then they did, right? They they made this law that you're not allowed to pray. And he said, "Nah, I but submitting to earthly authority, honoring my boss, honoring the 52:14 president, honoring the king, that's biblical, right? You know that you can't find that in that." You know, it's sad that today there are many Christians whom other the world can say your Bible says submit to earthly authority in 52:26 Romans 13 and honor the king, honor the president. You don't. You say you live by the Bible, but I don't see you honoring the president. Many Christian so-called Christians are guilty of that today. Think about Daniel. When it comes to my 52:39 conscience and honoring God and obeying God, yeah, you can find everything wrong with me because I will obey God rather than men. It's a great testimony. Um, so living with a clear conscience before God and before men. And I want to say 52:53 one more thing. Another way by which you will have a guilty conscience is if you don't forgive others. If you don't forgive others, your conscience cannot be clear. Jesus said in Matthew 6, "Unless you forgive others their sins, your heavenly father will 53:08 not forgive your sins." Have you read the verse in the Bible that says God will not forgive your sins? It's there three times. Matthew 6:12, 14, and 15 or 15, 16, one of those. There's three times he says, "If you do not forgive 53:21 others their sins against you, your heavenly father will not forgive your sins against him." And the way to don't don't have a guilty conscience over somebody else's sin. See, that's how the devil kills two birds with one 53:35 stone. He got them to sin against you and now he got you to have the guilty conscience as well because you won't forgive them. You hold on to that grudge. You hold on to that bitterness. Yeah. Let's keep a clear conscience. 53:47 I've talked in the church about two ways to empty a bucket. We think about a bucket full of the Holy Spirit. One is to dump it upside down. That's pride. Dump the bucket upside down. If you are proud, immediately you lose the 53:59 anointing of the Holy Spirit just like that. That's what happened to the highest archangel. You became the devil in a moment. God opposes the proud. What does that mean? He could fill you with the Holy Spirit, use you in a mighty 54:10 way, and then you become proud of it. I'm guilty. I'm I'm in danger of that. I could get up here and preach and challenge you all, challenge us, and get down and think, "Oh, wow. That good sermon." Or anything like that. And in a 54:20 moment, the anointing is lost. The devil, God turns the bucket upside down. That's one way. Another way to empty a bucket is to put a little hole at the bottom. It'll take a little longer, but the bucket will still end up empty. And 54:33 that's a guilty conscience. If you allow a little little thing, a little guilty conscience to remain there, and you wonder, why do I lack the power? Why is the anointing? Why is the freshness gone from my life? Why is Jesus no longer 54:44 precious to me? A guilty conscience. Let the blood of Jesus Christ cleanse us today from all sin, all dead works. He will. Amen.
