Brother, let's turn to 1 Peter
chapter 3. 1 Peter 3. Since we have a baptism after
the service today, I want to speak a little bit on baptism
and about it in a way that we sometimes may not think about
it. We read here in 1 Peter 3 and verse 20, And I'm not going to read the
whole verse, I'm just pointing out something to you here. Speaking
of the ark, Noah's ark, and he says here, wherein, in that ark,
few, that is, eight souls were saved by water. And he says, verse 21, the like
figure, in other words, that was a picture, that was a figure,
pictured something. the like figure whereunto even
baptism doth also now save us." Not the putting away of the flesh. Baptism doesn't put away any
sin of ours. When you go in that baptismal
pool, that's not going to put your sin away. He says, but baptism
is the answer of a good conscience toward God. And now take that
parenthesis out and read verse 21 again. He said, the ark is
a figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us by the
resurrection of Jesus Christ, who's gone into the heaven and
is on the right hand of God, angels and authorities and powers
being made subject unto him. He's saying that That's what
baptism's picturing. It's picturing how Christ, like
that ark, was submersed in judgment, then arose to the right hand
of God. And that doesn't put away our sin. When we go into
that watery grave and then we come out in newness, that doesn't
put away our sin. That's the answer. We're doing
that because God has already put away our sin. He's already
given us a good conscience and purged our conscience toward
Him. and that's what we're confessing
in this water baptism. So I want to focus on this answer
of a good conscience toward God. You know, Paul told Timothy,
the end of the commandment. You've been brought to the end
purpose of the commandment when you have this. It's charity,
love, God-given love out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience,
and faith unfamed. Faith unfamed. What's this good
conscience? That's what I want to talk about.
Baptism, confession of a good conscience. Well, first of all,
we don't have a good conscience by nature. We don't have this
by nature. We can't give ourselves this
by nature. Scripture says we come into this world defiled.
Titus 115, Paul said this. Unto the pure, those who have
been purified by the grace of God, unto the pure, all things
are pure. But unto them that are defiled,
that is us by nature, them that are defiled and unbelieving is
nothing pure. But even their mind and their
conscience is defiled. Sin's not just wounded us outwardly. Sin has totally defiled our conscience. So we can't know who God is,
what God desires, what God's pleased with. You talking to
a natural man about things of God is like talking to a blind
man and asking him to tell you what the rainbow looks like.
He can't do it. He's defiled. His conscience
is defiled. And all mankind coming into this
world defiled in sin, in our conscience. That includes everything
about us. It's the mind, the conscience,
the will, the affections. Our thoughts are evil. Our hearts
are evil. Our nature's evil. That's what
makes our deeds evil. They come from an evil motive.
They come from a defiled motive. When scripture says God looks
on the heart, he's saying God looks on the motive. That's what
he's looking at. Why do you do what you do? Trying
to gain acceptance with God, trying to impress men, trying
to look a certain way and gain a reputation and this and that.
That's what God's looking on. and that's a man who's dead in
sins, that nature, that heart, that conscience is defiled. Everything
he's doing, he's doing it for a wrong reason, everything. The
Lord said in Haggai 2.14, he said, so is this people, so is
this nation before me, saith the Lord, so is every work of
their hands. That which they offer there is
unclean. Because he looked on the heart.
He knew the heart. He knew what... He said, they draw near me with
their lips. Oh, they're saying all the right
words. But God said, but in their heart, they're nowhere near me. They're not thinking on me. They're
thinking on themselves. They're doing what they're doing
to be seen of men. But while in this state, we do have a conscience
of sin, but it's just a legal guilty conscience of sin. and
it causes us to fear death. The majority of religion, the
majority of works that go on in religion is simply motivated
and performed out of a fear of death. That's what it is. And false preachers prey upon
that. They use that because that's
what the devil uses. That's what Christ came to deliver
his people from. Go to Hebrews chapter Chapter 2. We have a law in our hearts,
you know, by nature. Paul said that about the Gentiles.
He said they accuse or excuse one another. They don't have
the law of God, but they know things that are right and wrong,
and they accuse or excuse one another. We have that on our
heart by nature, the law. so that you know it's wrong to
murder, you know. It's always amazing to me when
they interview some terrible, terrible serial killer or something
like that, you know, he's done all these atrocities, but there's
some things he'll tell you, but I didn't do this. You know, there's
something that to him is just a high moral thing that he just,
oh, I don't want to be accused of that. Oh, I'll kill a man,
but I don't want to be accused of that other thing, you know.
See, we have this in our conscience by nature. It's all messed up
because of sin. But it's there. And it's that
guilty conscience that religion uses, the devil uses, to keep
you trying to soothe that guilty conscience. That's what most
religion's about, trying to soothe a guilty conscience. He said, Hebrews 2.14, he says, As the
children are partakers of flesh and blood, Christ also himself
likewise took part of the same, that through death he might destroy
him that had the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver
them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject
to bondage. That's what bondage is about.
You know, the conscience is a powerful, powerful thing. And if you have
a guilty conscience, You're going to be in bondage. You're going
to be in some serious bondage. And as long as God leaves a man
to himself, he'll keep trying to soothe that conscience with
works. He'll turn over a new leaf, and it's just the same
old dirty sinner turned over is all it is, but he'll keep
trying to turn over, you know, and get rededicated and rebaptized
and this and that and the other thing, and none of that does
any good. He can't soothe his conscience. And if he's left
in that state, Scripture says eventually that conscience will
become like a seared, like with a hot iron. It won't bother him
anymore. It just won't bother him anymore.
But secondly, let me show you where a good conscience comes
from. It's given to God's people by the blood of Christ. That's
where a good conscience comes from. The gifts and the sacrifices,
look now at Hebrews 9. The gifts and the sacrifices
of that Old Testament, they picture some good things to come, but
they also tell us something about dead works. They teach us something
about dead religion. Look here, Hebrews 9.9. It says,
all that was a figure for the time then present in which were
offered both gifts and sacrifices, but now look, they could not
make him that did the service perfect as pertaining to the
conscience. Those men and women in the Old
Testament, in the Old Covenant, under the Old Covenant, when
they brought those sacrifices and those offerings, now if they
were gods and he had regenerated them and given them a new heart,
they offered those with a clean conscience and walked away with
a clean conscience. Those sacrifices didn't do it.
God did it. He taught them what those sacrifices
pictured. God did it. But that person who was an unregenerate
sinner who was just going through the outward form and bringing
those sacrifices and offerings, those literal outside works he
was doing couldn't take away that guilty conscience. They
couldn't perfect him inwardly. And that's a good illustration
to us that all the works that men do in religion They can't
make a man's conscience perfect. They can't clear his conscience.
That's why he keeps doing them. He keeps trying these vain ways
of soothing his conscience. He just keeps doing the same
thing over and over and over, and it'll never give him a clear
conscience. It might soothe it temporarily, where he feels like,
oh boy, I'm so good now. But it won't be long, he'll be
right back in that bondage, just trying to soothe that conscience,
trying to soothe that conscience. But there is one thing that can
clear that conscience. There's one thing that can clear
the conscience. The Holy Spirit comes in through the preaching
of the gospel. God in spirit enters into his
child as the gospel's being preached. And this is how this work begins.
Go with me to Acts chapter two. It takes a preacher God's sins
that has already had his conscience purged to preach this gospel. Paul said, we've renounced the
hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, not
handling the word of God deceitfully, but by manifestation of the truth,
commending ourselves, commending this gospel we preach to every
man's conscience in the sight of God. I'm not preaching to
your face. I'm not preaching to your body.
I'm not preaching to your hands or your feet. I'm preaching to
your conscience. I want you to hear this inwardly,
within, and it's just going to be through the truth, through
the truth of the gospel. Look at Peter. He stands up at
the day of Pentecost in Acts 2.34, and he says, David's not
ascended into the heavens. But he said himself, the Lord
said unto my Lord, sit thou in my right hand till I make thy
foes thy footstool. Therefore, let all the house
of Israel know assuredly that God had made that same Jesus
whom you have crucified, both Lord and Christ. That's the man
right there who ain't, he ain't handling the word craftily. If
he would have handled it craftily and deceitfully, you know what
he'd have said? He'd have left out who you crucified. He'd have
left that out. He wouldn't have said this one
Jesus, he wouldn't have said this one that you called a Nazirite,
a Nazarene. He wouldn't have said one you've
crucified. But he said, yeah, it's the one
whose blood you're guilty of. And he preached this to him.
He said, he's Lord and Christ. He's the king and he's the savior
and there is no other. And look what happened. Now when
they heard, this was an altogether spiritual hearing. They heard
with a spiritual hearing here. When they heard, they were pricked
in their heart. There you go now. There's where
this guilty conscience begins in a good way. When God pricks
your heart and makes you see yourself guilty and your conscience
becomes overwhelmed with guilt, that's a good guilt. He pricked
them in their heart, and they said unto Peter to the rest of
the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do? They were despairing
of their own life. What happened? What took place?
What had the Spirit of God done right there? They were made to
behold their sin, not just as guilty, and not just so as to
make them fear death, but they beheld their sin as being against
God and His Christ. That's when you behold sin aright.
Remember what Zechariah 12.10 says? I will pour upon the house
of David and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem the spirit of grace
and of supplication. That's what happened first through
Peter's preaching. The Lord poured upon them the
Holy Spirit. That's why they were pricked in their heart.
And here's what it was. And they shall look upon me whom
they've pierced. Christ said they're going to
look at me whom they've pierced. Jesus being the Lord and the
Christ that day. And they looked upon him whom
they had peers. And it says, and they shall mourn
for him. It stops being about me just
mourning for me. Legal guilt in the conscience
is just, oh, poor, oh, pitiful me. A God-given guilty conscience
is, I've sinned against God. I've sinned against the Lord
Jesus Christ. I haven't believed on him. That's my sin. I called
him a liar. I haven't believed on him. And
he said they'll mourn for me as one mourns for his only son.
There'll be a bitterness for him as one that's in bitterness
for his firstborn. When you're brought to the point
where you're mourning and you're bitterness and you're conscious
of sin is in relation to Christ. Not just you and how you want
to be seen, but Christ. Not just you because you got
caught doing something, but in relation to Christ. You see, I've crucified Him.
He was bearing my sin. He was putting away my sin. He
was answering God's justice on my behalf, and I've been calling
Him a liar. and you see him and you begin
to mourn in bitterness over him. Go back to Hebrews 9. What had
happened? What had happened? What made them be pricked in
their heart and what made them cry out to God? How were they granted repentance
and faith? Here it is right here. Hebrews
9.14. 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? When God purges your conscience,
he makes you to see that all your works you've ever done were
dead works. They weren't to God. They weren't
pleasing to God. They were for self. They were
trying to exalt self. They were trying to get praise
and glory for self. And they weren't even for God.
They were just dead works and God didn't like them. He wasn't
pleased with them. And he makes you behold Christ's
obedience is the righteousness God's pleased with. He makes
you see, now, that's your righteousness. Because you're brought to believe
on Him, He makes you see that's your righteousness. Christ's
righteousness is your righteousness. He makes you behold that Christ's
blood has purged your sin, past, present, and future, so that
there is no record in God's record books of sin, period. Christ
put it away. And he makes you see that Christ's
one offering has perfected you forever. And when you find that
out, brethren, that you are sanctified, that you are righteous, that
Christ is your life, a miraculous thing happens. You stop working
to try to please God. You start doing what you do now
because God is pleased with you. There's a world of difference
between those two. Before we were doing everything
to try to please God. Now we do what we do because
God's pleased with us. There's a difference in doing
it from a mercenary spirit trying to indebt God and doing it because
you feel like you're a debtor to God because of all the free
grace he's shown you in Christ. Now look here at Hebrews 10 and
we see what a clean conscience will make us stop doing. It'll
make us stop working for acceptance with God. Look here, Hebrews
10.1, the law having a shadow of good things to come and not
the very image of the things can never with those sacrifices
which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto
perfect. For then, now listen, understand
that if they had, if those offerings had of made them perfect as pertaining
to the conscience, look what would happen. Then would they
not have ceased to be offered? Because that the worshipers once
purged should have no more conscience of sins. What does that mean? Well, once he's purged us in
our conscience, we're still sinners. We still have this old man of
sin, we're still sinners. And we still see our sin? We
see it now in a whole different way than we saw before. Before
we only saw it as being outward deeds. Now, others may look at
you and say, well, he's not that great a sinner outwardly. You
know, he don't do near the things he once did. But what they don't
see is what you see. You see what's in here. And you
see yourself as worse sinner than you ever were. And that's
how you start seeing your sin. So you do see your sin, but now
because of the blood of Christ, we no longer have a condemning
conscience. There's no more that, you know,
you may feel guilty because you've done this against the Lord Jesus,
but there's a difference in that and having a conscience where
you feel like you're condemned by God. When your conscience
is purged, you may mourn your sin, but you know, despite it
all, I'm not condemned. There's therefore now no condemnation
in Christ. And so it makes you stop trying
to, you know, before when you would sin, you'd try to do something
to make up for it, to fix it, to soothe your conscience. Now
when you see you sin, you know what you do now? Before you ran
away from God, now you run to Him. Now you run to Him. Look at Hebrews 10.22. Let me read Hebrews 10.22. Let us draw near
with a true heart and full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled
from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.
It makes you want to flee to Him now because you know you're
not condemned anymore. Christ said the man that does
evil, he hates the light. He won't come to the light because
he don't want his deeds to be reproved. But he that doeth truth
comes to the light. He wants his deeds to be made
manifest. He wants to hear God say, those wicked works you did
aren't your deeds. What my son did are your deeds.
That's your deeds, what my son did. And they're perfect. And so your deeds are perfect
before me. We want to flee to him and hear him tell us that
in our conscience so that we don't go on in this state, you
know. And you do that now because he
sprinkled you from that evil, wicked conscience that wouldn't
come to him. Now you come to him confessing
your sin. And he's faithful and just to
forgive us our sin. We have an advocate with the
Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. So this is what we're confessing
in Believer's Baptism. We're confessing God's put a
new man in us, created a new man in us. We've been purged
by the blood of Christ so that we believe Christ is our only
acceptance with God. So we have a good conscience
before God. That's what he said in our text
there. We believe Christ Jesus has entered into the heavens.
He's seated at God's right hand. and my life, everything I need,
everything that is required by God, holy God, is seated right
there at God's right hand, the Lord Jesus Christ. I have Him. And so, now then, brethren, we're
confessing. This is, you know, besides the
death with Christ and our burial with Christ and our resurrection
with Christ, when we're baptized, we're confessing now that we're
committed to Christ and to His people. We're committed to them,
wholeheartedly committed to them. And listen to this, Acts 24,
16. Herein do I exercise myself to
have always a conscience void of offense toward God and men. When he's giving you a clean
conscience, it makes you want to live with a clean conscience.
He says, our rejoicing is this. What makes us rejoice? the testimony
of our conscience. You got a conscience and it's
testifying something. It's either telling you this
is wrong, you're a sinner, this is not something that's honoring
to God, or it's telling you you're righteous and holy in Christ,
do everything you do for His sake. He says, Listen, it's the
testimony of our conscience that in simplicity and godly sincerity,
not with fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God we've had
our conduct in the world and more abundantly to you. It's
simplicity. It's godly sincerity. It's a
good conscience, a testimony of a good conscience. There's
no more trying to live like you don't have sin. That's what religion
does. That's why it's so uncomfortable
to be in a self-righteous church because you're under the eye
of a Pharisee constantly and they're all trying to fake each
other out and act like they don't have sin and just lying to one
another. But you can be honest with God's
people because they know what you are. You're not fooling them.
They know what they are. And it's godly sincerity. You know, you're doing what you're
doing out of a love for Christ, not because you're trying to
earn something or be something you're not or any of that. It's
just simplicity. It's the singleness of Christ. Having a single heart for Christ
is what it is. You're going to fail. You're
going to fail miserably. And you're going to be seen to
fail. But he tells us to try to live
so that when we are accused, we're accused wrongfully and not truthfully. But this is the This is the conscience He gives
us. Let me read Romans 12. Go there with me and you can
just hold your place there because I'm going to preach in Romans
11, the second hour. Here's where He brings you, right here. Verse 1, I beseech you therefore,
brethren, by the mercies of God that you present your bodies
a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is just reasonable,
isn't it? Isn't that just reasonable? Be
not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the
renewing of your mind, by that clean conscience that he's given
you, that you may prove what's that good and acceptable and
perfect will of God. You and I know what God accepts. We know what God's pleased with.
We're told all through the New Testament what pleases God. And
so, he says now, with a clear conscience, it's our endeavor
to live toward God, doing what God says pleases Him. Not for
acceptance, because we are accepted. All right, brethren. Read the
rest of 1 Peter, chapter two and three, and you'll see him
talk a lot about conscience. And I pray God will bless that.
Let's stand together. Father, thank you for assembling
us here and giving us a word in season. We thank you for Sheryl
and Lenore. Thankful, Lord, you've given
them hearts to confess you, that clear conscience that you speak
about in your word. Lord, make us all be ever more
committed to you and committed to living as we ought in this
world and without offense toward God and toward men. Make it be from the motive of
Christ's love for us, that pure motive, that sincere motive. Make our conscience know there's
no condemnation, that we can come to his throne of grace and
find help in time of need. And Lord, forgive us our sins.
There are many, there are far more than we even imagine. Make
us not to look at others, make us to examine ourselves. And
we ask this, Lord, in Christ's name, amen.