The rejoicing of our conscience. That's our subject tonight. The
rejoicing of our conscience. A clear conscience is a treasured
thing to God's saints. Because to have a clear conscience
is of God. It's of Christ creating. To have a true, clear conscience. That's a valuable thing. In our
text, Paul speaks of the believer's rejoicing in two things. He speaks of it twice here. And
this is the rejoicing of our conscience. It's two things.
Number one, he speaks of the rejoicing of a believer's conscience
from the way we minister. From the way we minister. Now
this applies to Christ's preacher. Paul is writing this about himself,
but it also applies to all God's people because we are all ministers. We minister to one another by
God's grace. So this applies to all of us.
The rejoicing of our conscience is the manner in which we minister. Now look here in verse 12. He
says, For our rejoicing is this, and let me say this before I
forget it. He is referring back to where he said, even as our
suffering is by Christ, our consolation is also by Christ. And he is
saying here, now here is our consolation, here is our rejoicing,
this is it right here. The testimony of our conscience
that in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom,
but by the grace of God, We have had our conversation in the world,
that is our conduct in the world and more abundantly to you, more
abundantly toward you, the saints. For we write none other things
unto you than what you read or acknowledge. In other words,
the truth of the gospel is all we have written to you, and that's
all you acknowledge, and I trust you shall acknowledge even to
the end. So that's the first rejoicing of our conscience is
the way we minister, the manner in which we minister. And then
secondly, the Apostle Paul says the rejoicing of our conscience
is one another, is one another. He says in verse 14, as also
you have acknowledged us in part, that we are your rejoicing. Part of the saints at Corinth
were true saints. I mean, part of those that professed
faith were true saints. And those that did rejoiced in
the Apostle Paul for faithfully preaching the gospel to them.
And God's people are rejoicing is the faithful preacher. that
God gives us to minister Christ to us. And he says this, even
as you also are our rejoicing in the day of our Lord Jesus.
And just like the believer rejoices in Christ's faithful minister,
the preacher rejoices in Christ's faithful people, those that believe
the gospel that Christ is made to believe through the word we
preach. So, our rejoicing is twofold. The rejoicing of our
conscience is twofold. Believers rejoice with clear
conscience in the manner in which we minister. And number two,
we rejoice in one another. Now, somebody might say, well,
we're not supposed to glory in men. We're not supposed to rejoice
in men. I understand this. This is the
point of the message. God's saints rejoice in Christ,
giving Christ all the glory. by rejoicing in what Christ has
created in each of our brethren. We're glorying in Christ when
we rejoice in our brethren because Christ created it. He's the one
that produced it. We know it's not of them, we
know it's not of ourselves, it's of Christ. We rejoice in what
Christ did when we rejoice in our brethren, and thank our brethren,
and defend our brethren, and glory in our brethren. We rejoice
in what Christ did in them. Now first of all, our rejoicing
is a clear conscience from the manner of our ministry. A clear conscience from the manner
in which we minister. Now first, let me say something
about this rejoicing in the conscience. He says here, Our rejoicing is
this, the testimony of our conscience. Now, the word testimony means
witness. It means witness. You know, if
you testify in a court, you're bearing witness. And that's what
we're talking about here, the witness of our conscience. Now,
the conscience, what is the conscience? The conscience is the voice within
us that distinguishes between what is truth and what is a lie. The conscience distinguishes
between what is morally good and morally wrong. The conscience
commends to a man that which is true and condemns a lie. The conscience commends good
and condemns that which is bad. And the conscience is involved
in moving us to do what is right to repent from what is wrong
and to do what is right. The conscience is involved in
moving us to do that. Now, God determines what's true
and what's false. God determines what is right
and what is wrong. Therefore, since we're all the
creation of God, we're all created by God, and the law of God is
written on the heart by nature, on every man's heart by nature.
And so, even the fallen nature of a depraved sinner has a consciousness
of what is right and what is wrong. Even a fallen sinner has
a consciousness of what's right and what's wrong. In Romans 2.14,
Paul said, when the Gentiles, the Gentiles weren't in Israel,
they didn't have the law. He said, when the Gentiles which
have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law.
These having not the law are a law unto themselves. What does
he mean by that? They show the work of the law
written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness,
their conscience testifying within them, moving them, and their
thoughts the meanwhile accusing or else excusing one another. You see, man has the law written
on his heart by nature. But every fallen sinner in his
conscience, he's defiled. His conscience is defiled. So
even though he knows something of the law and knows right and
wrong, nobody does wrong without knowing they're doing wrong.
But he knows when he's doing right, he knows when he's doing
wrong. And so, men are without excuse before God. Nobody is
going to be able to plead ignorance when they come into God's presence.
We have that law in our heart. But without the Spirit of Christ
regenerating a sinner, without Christ, the conscience is defiled. Paul said to Titus in Titus 1.15,
unto the pure all things are pure, that is, those that have
been purified. But unto them that are defiled
and unbelieving, they are defiled and unbelieving, Nothing is pure. But even their mind and conscience
is defiled. It's defiled. And so the fallen
sinner looks no further than himself. He doesn't have God
as his compass, his moral compass. He just looks to himself. In
other words, he accuses others for certain sins. But he will
excuse himself for the very same sins. That's the defiled conscience
and he has no remorse for the sin. In himself, he may take
notice of what he considers to be bad sins, but he takes no
notice of the fact that all he is is sin. So he never repents from himself
and from his sin. In his defiled conscience, it
speaks a lie to him. It tells him he has peace. He's
going to be at peace with God when he meets God. And that's
a lie. His conscience is telling him
that. And so he never repents and comes to Christ. The truth
is he's under the wrath of God. And left to himself, the sinner
grows harder and harder in sin until his conscience becomes
seared. That means sin don't bother him
anymore. And that happens to you and I
to a degree because of that in our old man, that conscience
of our old man. All these things are true of
our old nature and the conscience of our old nature. You know,
things that bothered you when you were a child, those things
don't bother you at all anymore. They're still as sinful as they
were when you were a child, but they don't have any effect on
you anymore at all. See what I'm saying? But the
man that's only that, that has just that defiled conscience
and just that sinful nature, he just gets harder and harder
until nothing bothers him anymore. He's not conscious of his sin
anymore. But when the Spirit of God purges,
when the Spirit of God creates a new spirit in us, a new heart
in us, by the blood of Christ our conscience is purged. We
have a conscience that's been purged now by the blood of Christ. It's purified by the blood of
Christ. Remember, 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? You see, no amount of works that
we do can purge our conscience. Christ must do that. We can't
do any works to purge our conscience. That's the majority of good works
in the world. is men trying to sue the guilty
conscience. Aren't you glad? The world would be a miserable place
if everybody's conscience was seared. But even a defiled man
does a lot of good things for people because he's trying to
make up to God. When are we going to stop trying
to offer God offerings for our sins? When he purchased the conscience. gives us a new spirit, a new
heart, a purged conscience. Even those Old Testament saints
couldn't purge their conscience, even by those works God gave
them to do, those offerings God gave them to make never purged
their conscience. It says, those were a figure
for the time then present. They offered gifts and sacrifices
that could not make him that did the service perfect as pertaining
to the conscience. He couldn't clear his conscience.
He knew next year I've got to do this again because I'm guilty. For then would they not have
ceased to be offered, because that the worshippers once purged
should have had no more conscience of sins." And you see, the only
way we're going to stop offering offerings to God is for Christ
to purge our conscience. When He purges your conscience,
then He makes you hear Him in the Gospel. He makes you hear
Him say, you are a helpless sinner. totally helpless sinner, guilty
in so many more ways than what you thought you were guilty in,
altogether unprofitable. And He makes you behold that
we are saved one way by the works of Christ alone. And He makes
us to know this and when He does, He pricks us in our conscience. Our conscience is pricked so
that we understand now and began to hear Christ speak. Remember
at Pentecost when Peter was preaching it says, now when they heard,
who made them hear? Christ did. When they heard by
Him purging their conscience, they were pricked in their heart.
And they said to Peter, what must we do? What must we do? And then Christ tells us what
to do. The same gospel is being preached. And through that same
Word which He pricked our conscience, He tells us what we are to do.
He uses His preacher to preach it, and He tells us what we are
to do. Repent! That is, repent from
you. Repent from anything and any
hope you had in you. And believe on Christ. And be
baptized, publicly confessing that Christ has remitted, forgiven
you of all your sins. And now your sins are gone. There
is no more offering for sin. He teaches you to repent and
believe on Christ and be baptized, confessing Christ, that Christ
did it all. And then follow Christ, united
with His people under the Gospel. And so that's how we're made
to draw near to Christ. That's what Hebrews 10.22 says.
Let us draw near with a true heart, in full assurance of faith,
having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience. Our hearts
have been sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed
with pure water. And so then we are made willing
to be baptized publicly. Listen to this, Peter said, he
spoke of a picture and he said it is a picture of baptism. How
baptism does now save us. And then he qualified what he
meant by that. He said, not the putting away of the filth of
the flesh, but baptism is the answer of a good conscience toward
God. A conscience has been purged
so that you believe God now. That's the answer. That's what
baptism is confessing. If there's anybody who's hearing
Christ speak and has been pricked in your heart, and now you believe
you're a sinner, you believe Christ alone saves you, and you
believe Him, you trust Him, then hear Christ speak saying, be
baptized, publicly confess Christ in baptism. That's the answer
of a good conscience toward God. And from then on, we're led to
do what Christ would have us to do the same way. Through the
Gospel, through the Holy Spirit, breaking our conscience, washing
our inward man, we're constantly made to do what He would have
us to do as Christ speaks in that still small voice called
a purged conscience. You've heard yourself When you
turn to go this way, you've heard that voice say, this is not the
way. Where did that come from? Well,
in God's saying, it came from Christ. Christ will prick the
conscience of an unbeliever, not for His benefit, but for
the benefit of His saints. Remember He did that with the
Pharisees that caught the woman in adultery? After he got through
speaking, it said they were pricked in their conscience and they
all went out one by one and there was none left but Christ and
her. He didn't do that for them. He did it for her. But what is
it in a believer that makes you say, I shouldn't go this way,
I should go that way? And you hear it screaming in
your conscience. Turn to Isaiah 30. I'll show you what it is.
Isaiah 30. Look at verse 20. I said He's
going to do it through the preaching of the Word. He's going to do
it through the Holy Spirit. Is Christ going to be speaking
to you in that still small voice called the conscience? Listen
to this. Verse 20, Though the Lord give you the bread of adversity
and the water of affliction, yet shall not thy teachers be
removed into a corner anymore. You are going to hear His teacher
preaching to you. And He says, But thine eyes shall
see thy teachers, and thine ears shall hear a word behind thee.
a still small voice saying, this is the way, walk ye in it when
you turn to the right hand and when you turn to the left. It's
called being led of the Spirit rather than the flesh. And He
stays with you long after you've left the church building and
ceased hearing the gospel preached and He brings it to mind whenever
you would go this way or that way and says, this is what Christ
would have you do. And you hear that voice in your
conscience. You get what I'm saying? I'm not saying you're
going to hear an audible voice. I'm saying, but that conscience,
that voice of conscience, it's louder than an audible voice
telling you, don't do that, do this. It's what Christ can have
you do. You see, we have Christ leading us. We have the Spirit
of God leading us. We don't have to be yoked and
bound with legal constraints. The love of Christ constrains
us in our heart. Our compass now is, I want to
do what is going to honor Christ. And I want to do what he says
do. And so that's the basis for everything in the believer. And
he speaks and he lets you know in the conscience what to do
and you'll hear it. Now he said he will give you the bread of
adversity and affliction. But in the midst of that you're
going to hear a still small voice in your conscience declaring
the truth to you. Do you remember what happened
to Elijah? I'm going to not have you turn there because I'm going
to preach on this very soon. But Elijah, remember he got all
down in the mouth and he thought he was the only elect child of
God left. Remember that? God told him,
you go stand upon the mount of God and you wait on the Lord.
So he did. He went up into this cave and
he was sitting there having a pity party, waiting on the Lord. And
the Scripture said as he sat there, the Lord sent out a strong
wind and rent the mountains and break in pieces the rocks. Imagine
sitting in a cave and all of a sudden everything starts crumbling
down because you've got a tornado coming through. But the Lord
was not in the wind. And after the wind, the Lord
caused an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake.
And after the earthquake, the Lord caused a fire, but the Lord
was not in the fire. And after the fire, a still,
small voice. And it was so, when Elijah heard,
that he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood
in the entering in of the cave. And behold, there came a voice
unto him and said, What doest thou hear, Elijah? He heard Christ
speaking in his conscience, that still, small voice saying, What
are you doing here, Elijah? Why are you here, down in the
mouth, moping about what I am doing? Now, what the point of
that is, brethren, when Christ speaks, you're going to hear
it in that still, small voice, in the conscience, in that purged
conscience. You're not necessarily going
to hear him in the providence that God orders and arranges.
Because he said, I'm going to give you the bread of adversity
and the water of affliction. You're going to have to go through
the fire. So that doesn't mean when you see a troubled way in
your path that I should go this other way because God's telling
me that's not the way. Not necessarily. You'll know it when you hear
God in your conscience saying, this is the way, walk in it.
He wasn't in the fire, He wasn't in the earthquake, He wasn't
in the wind, He was in the still, small voice. That's where He
heard Him. And that's where you'll hear Him. And Christ promised
that. Now, let's get to our text now. To be free of guilt, of
a guilty conscience. What is it to be free of a guilty
conscience and have a clear conscience that our ministry and our conduct
has been what is right, what is pleasing to God? Where do
you get that? What is it? Well, Paul tells
us here now in verse 12. First of all is being open and
honest toward everybody regarding the gospel of Christ. Is to be
open and honest regarding the gospel of Christ. He said, we
have ministered in simplicity and in godly sincerity. Simplicity is the virtue of one
who is free from pretense and hypocrisy. In other words, he's
saying, we haven't been self-seeking, we haven't been doing things
with a double mind from an ulterior motive, but we've been open and
truthful towards you all, preaching Christ and Him only. And Paul
said, that's how we've ministered. And a godly sincerity. It's purity,
it's honesty, it's virtue of heart. It's the virtue you put
in the new man when Christ creates that new man. Remember He said
in 2 Peter 1.3, according as His divine power hath given unto
us all things that pertain unto life and godliness. through the
knowledge of Him, through the knowledge of Christ, that it
called us to glory and virtue. If I want to know what's right,
I look to Christ. It's through the knowledge of
Him. I look to Him to see what's right. And He's called me to
that. He's called me to glory and virtue.
And He's the one that gave that. So that's godly sincerity or
godliness is of God. And then he says there, a clear
conscience involves not using anything of the flesh in our
ministry and our conduct. He says in verse 12, not with
fleshly wisdom. That means I didn't use a word,
my word, rather than God's word. I spoke God's word. It means not appealing to the
flesh by putting a part of salvation in the hand of the sinner. And
it means not adapting our doctrine to what will earn us money, or
glory, or a bigger following after ourselves. In 2 Corinthians 4.2, look there
with me. Paul said in verse 1, he said, seeing we
have this ministry as we have received mercy. Where does that
mercy come from? It comes from God. He's saying,
this is why we don't faint. This is why we continue. God
continues to be merciful to us. He's doing this. And so what's
the fruit of what Christ does? Verse 2, 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 to every man's conscience in the sight
of God. You see that? That's opposite
of using fleshly wisdom. It's to renounce fleshly wisdom
and to walk in truth. And then to have a clear conscience
in our ministering and in our conduct is to depend upon God
alone to freely give us His message and create these fruits in us.
It's to depend on God alone for this. He said there that what
we've done, we've done by the grace of God. We've done it by
the grace of God. Go to chapter 2 and look at verse
17. He says, We are not as many which
corrupt the Word of God, but as of sincerity, but as of God,
in the sight of God, speak we in or of Christ. You see that? We have this clear conscience
because we're dependent on the grace of God and we're speaking
of God. We're speaking by God, by God
creating this, by His grace. And we're doing it in the sight
of God and we're doing it in Christ. That's to depend entirely
upon the grace of God. We depend upon the grace of God
for everything, everything by His free and sovereign grace.
He chose us, redeemed us, regenerated us and preserves us all by His
grace. And by the same token, He chose
His minister, He called His minister, He sends His minister, He upholds
His minister, He gives His minister the message to preach by His
grace. That includes me and that includes
you. If He is going to use you to minister in whatever capacity
He is going to use you to minister in, it is going to be all given
to you by the grace of God, just like it is to me. And how is
the word or the ministry made effectual to those to whom we
minister? By the grace of God. See, we
depend entirely upon the grace of God. And so, this includes our conduct
in the world and it includes our conduct towards saints. Listen
now, verse 12. He said, we have had our conversation
in the world and more abundantly to you. He said, this is how
we have had our conduct in the world and more abundantly to
you. God's saints don't act and speak one way amongst the worldly
folks out in the world and another way when we're amongst God's
saints, speaking to God's saints. We minister and conduct ourselves
the same way to all. The only difference is He said
we minister more abundantly toward God's saints. And we do. We minister more abundantly to
God's saints. But this thing don't stop when
you walk out the door. You know, it's not like, okay,
I'm a saint when I'm sitting here, but when I go out in the
world now, you know, it's the same. It's the same. And then look, now by this manner
of ministry, by this conduct, we commend ourselves to the conscience
of other faithful believers. Now I want you to, this is important,
look at verse 13. He says, for we write none other
things unto you than what you read or acknowledge. He's saying, you're the proof
of this, you can bear witness to this, he's saying. See, He
is commending this ministry and His faithfulness to them, before
them. And He says, we write none other
things than what you read or acknowledge, and I trust you
shall acknowledge, believe them even to the end. Go over to 2
Corinthians 4 again and look at verse 2 again. After He said all that about
not walking in craftiness, look at the second part after the
semicolon. He said, but by manifestation of the truth, commending ourselves
to every man's conscience in the sight of God. Go over to
2 Corinthians 5. I encourage you to read this
whole psalm, I mean this whole epistle after we leave here because
you're going to see what I'm telling you. Maybe after I send
you the notes, read those notes and then read the whole thing.
You're going to see that Paul is mentioning this all through
this psalm. This is what he's talking about all through this
psalm. and is having a clear conscience. Look at 2 Corinthians
5, look at verse 10. He says, We must all appear before
the judgment seat of Christ, that everyone may receive the
things done in his body according to that he hath done, whether
it be good or bad. Knowing therefore the terror
of the Lord, we persuade men. How are they going to be made
to know we are telling them the truth? How are they going to
be made to rejoice in the fact we told them the truth and rejoice
in Christ? How is that going to happen? Look, but we are made
manifest openly unto God and I trust also are made manifest
in your consciousness. Now understand that how is it
that when we preach and the way we conduct ourselves that it
will be made manifest in the conscience of our brethren? I
can't do that. It's more than just you and your
conscience saying, well, he's an honest man. It's much more
than that. Christ purges that conscience.
Just like we looked at, just like I told you, He purges that
conscience. And God's people are made to know. They're made
to know and acknowledge two things in their conscience. Number one,
when we hear the truth of Christ preached according to the Gospel,
according to the Scriptures, we're made to know that's it.
That's it. I know that's it. You might not
know all the doctrine and may not know how to say it and speak
it yourself, but when you hear it, by God working in your heart,
you know that's the truth. And when you hear a sour note
that's not according to these scriptures, you know something's
off there. That's not right. You know that. Because God commends the truth. By the truth, He commends the
faithfulness of His preacher preaching Christ in your heart.
in your conscience and you acknowledge it. That's the truth. That's
it right there. Your conscience bears witness to you. He's telling
you the truth. And you know it. And number two,
just as important now, just as important as hearing a man speak
the truth according to the Scriptures and knowing it's according to
the Scriptures. Just as important. Christ makes believers know when
a preacher's conduct is honest or when it's deceitful and cunning
for selfish gain. Now brethren, compare what men
say with the Word of God. When you hear a Word spoken,
don't sit there sleepy-eyed and not look up the Scriptures. Look
these Scriptures up. I may one day go off the rails
and start telling you a lie. The way you are going to determine
it is going to God and seeing what did God say. And He is going
to bear witness in your conscience. That's wrong. So pay attention
to the Word of God. But I'll tell you something else,
and this is just as important. Pay attention to the tenor of
a man's life. I'm not talking about isolated
falls. You know, men are going to fall.
But I'm talking about overall. Pay attention. Does he align
himself with faithful men? Or is he in communion with faithful
men? Or does he reject them for unfaithful
men? That's important. It doesn't
matter if he preaches the truth better than anybody you've ever
heard if he's doing that. Is he a giver or is he a taker? Does he benefit himself or does
he benefit God's people? Does his ministry result in unity
among brethren or cause division among brethren? Turn over to Matthew 7. Is this
really how we're going to recognize? Is this really going to be made
manifest in our conscience? That's exactly what Paul is saying
throughout this epistle. He's saying the one way you saints
love me and rejoice in what I've done and the only way I've done
it is because God has worked it in your heart and mine. He's
made manifest in your conscience that I'm preaching the truth
and I'm doing it for your good. Everything I do. That's how you're
going to know. This is Christ speaking. Matthew 7.15, He said,
Beware of false prophets which come to you in sheep's clothing.
They're not going to come to you. A wolf is not going to come
saying, I'm a wolf, I'm going to devour you. He's going to
come dressed like a sheep, talking like a sheep. They all said they
transform themselves into angels of light. But watch this, what
Christ said. They come in sheep's clothing,
but inwardly they are ravening wolves. You shall know them."
How is it that God is not going to know them? You shall know
them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns
or figs of thistles? What did He mean by that? Here
is what He means. What kind of fruit does a tree produce? Even
so, every good tree brings forth good fruit, and every corrupt
tree brings forth evil fruit. You get that? If the tree is
bringing forth evil fruit, why is that fruit evil? Because the
tree is corrupt. And if it's good fruit, the tree
has been made good. The apostle Paul was able to
rejoice because Christ himself had created him anew and given
him everything he needed to be faithful to God's people in the
preaching of the gospel and in everything he did towards the
people. You remember how the reason He would not take any
pay from the Corinthians is because He knew false men were there
ready to pounce on that and say He did that just so He could
fleece you all. And so He wouldn't take pay from
them and minister to them freely. Where did that fruit come from? Christ created that. He made
Him that way. He gave Him that heart. And so
he had this clear conscience that he had done this in his
heart and he was doing what God would have him to do. And Christ
gave the true saints of Corinth the same witness in their conscience
to know that Paul had both preached the truth of the Gospel, they
could go to the Old Testament Scriptures and see, this is exactly
what the Old Testament Scriptures were telling us. And they knew
everything he did by the Spirit bearing witness in their conscience.
what Paul's doing is for our good. They knew that. And therefore,
here's the second thing, and I'm just going to touch on this,
but the second rejoicing we have is in one another. And it's because
of this reason. When he's given his minister
a clear conscience to know Christ and preach Christ and deal honestly
in all his dealings with men, and he's given the saints a clear
conscience to do the same and to rejoice that they have a faithful
minister. The faithful minister rejoices
in them and they rejoice in him. We have this rejoicing because
he's cleared our conscience to know the truth. Look here, verse
14. He said, faithful brethren rejoice
in faithful ministers. He said, as you also have acknowledged
us, part of you have, that we're your rejoicing. Why would the
saints rejoice in Paul and the other faithful apostles and ministers? because they preached Christ.
And the saints knew they wouldn't have done that if Christ hadn't
created them anew. And they saw by their works,
by what they did, that it was to give Christ all the glory,
to give man no glory, and it was for the furtherance of the
gospel, everything they did. And so Christ bore witness in
their heart, in their conscience, and they knew this is a faithful
man because of Christ and what Christ created. And likewise,
Christ's faithful minister rejoices in faithful brethren. He said,
verse 14, even as you also are ours in the day of the Lord Jesus
Christ. This rejoicing in brethren is rejoicing in Christ because
Christ alone created us and not we ourselves. You know that. We know that. We rejoice in our
brethren that Christ created them anew inwardly by His grace.
That's what we're rejoicing in, that He made them rest in Christ
as their righteousness and their holiness. We're rejoicing that
He made them faithful to Christ and faithful to brethren and
to all men. We're rejoicing that Christ made
the tree good and produced the good fruit. That's what we're
rejoicing in. See, we're rejoicing in Christ. Don't be afraid to
tell some faithful preacher, thank you, and don't be afraid
to tell him that. Because if he's God's minister,
he'll thank you for thanking him. Because it's encouraging. But he didn't get that of himself
if he preached the truth and if he's doing for you what is
right and needful. God did it. So by thanking him
and rejoicing in him and defending him, you're rejoicing in Christ. That's the whole point. You're
going to see this as you go through this whole epistle. So let me give you this to go
on with. Let us always exercise ourselves
to always have a conscience clear of offense. Paul said, herein
do I exercise myself to have always a conscience void of offense
toward God and toward men. And that's the end of the commandment.
Listen, the end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart
and a good conscience and faith unfeigned. That's what he told
Timothy. That includes not only toward
God, it includes toward men. And it includes toward weak brethren. Weak brethren. I don't want to
wound the conscience of a weak brother in any way. We should
ask ourselves not, am I free to do this? We might be free
to do it. We should ask ourselves, is this going to offend a weak
brother? Just remotely. Even just remotely. Don't do it then, because it's
not worth offending a weak brother. And your conscience will be pricked
if you do that. If we sin so against the brethren
and wound their weak conscience, we sin against Christ. And you
better believe, if one of God's saints does that, Christ is going
to prick them in their conscience. They're going to know, this wasn't
right. This was not right. Approve things
that are excellent, that you may be sincere and without offense
till the day of Christ. toward God and toward brethren.
And then rejoice and thank God and defend those Christ has used
to minister to you and made faithful and glory in Christ by doing
so. And the way that you rejoice in them most is by being the
same toward them. If they've been faithful toward
you and they preached the truth to you and their conduct was
good toward you, I'll tell you how you can make them rejoice.
Do the same toward them. in all men. Read Titus, read
the book of Titus. Paul has told Titus, in all things
show thyself a pattern of good works. In doctrine show uncorruptness,
gravity, sincerity, singleness, preach Christ only. That's what
sincerity means, singleness. Sound speech that cannot be condemned. that he that is of the contrary
part may be ashamed, having no evil thing to say of you." And
I'll say something else before I let you go. Just like I just
said, the Lord is going to prick the conscience of a believer.
And if He started to prick anybody's conscience to hear the Gospel
for the first time, to see your need of Him, and you're wondering,
what shall I do? You listen. You listen. Listen
to the Gospel. Listen to the Word of God. Listen
to Christ speaking in you. Because remember what He told
Paul? When He blinded Paul on the road
of Damascus, put him down, he's wallowing around in the dust.
He said, it's hard. He's saying it's impossible to
kick against a pricked conscience. It ain't happening. He won't
let you go. He'll drive you to the ground
with that guilty conscience until you cry out to Him for mercy.
And it's not pleasant, but it's needful, and when he does it,
then you see, oh, thank you, Lord, thank you. So the rejoicing
of our conscience, brethren, as believers, is number one,
our ministry, our conduct, both the preacher and the people,
in sincerity and godly simplicity and godly sincerity, not after
the flesh, but according to the grace of God, in the world and
among the saints. And it's also our brethren in
whom Christ has created and made this faithfulness to be. We rejoice
in them. That's the rejoicing of our conscience.
All right. Amen.