I pray that God will this hour
speak his word to your heart and cause you to know his voice
and follow him. Turn with me, if you will, to
1 Peter chapter 3. Sunday morning, I tried to preach
to you on the subject of Believer's Baptism. And when I did, I made
reference to this text of Scripture in 1 Peter 3, 21, where God the
Holy Ghost describes Believer's Baptism as the answer of a good
conscience toward God. Are you there? 1 Peter 3, 21.
The light figure wherein to. That is speaking of Noah and
his family being in the ark. The like figure wherein to even
baptism doth also now save us, not that baptism saves us, symbolically
in the like figure shows forth our salvation. Not putting away
of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience
toward God. by the resurrection of Jesus
Christ. Having made reference to this
text of scripture, after hearing the message Sunday morning, some
troubled souls asked me about this expression, a good conscience
toward God. For that reason, some who truly
trust the Lord Jesus, lacking what they think to be
a good conscience toward God, are not baptized, don't confess
them in believer's baptism. Some who have confessed him in
believer's baptism don't receive the Lord's table because they
think their conscience is not suitable. They've had very poor
instruction, very bad instruction about looking to themselves for
peace of conscience. The fact is, there are few, I
doubt any of us, who do not have relentless trouble with a troubling
conscience. If your conscience doesn't bother
you, there's something wrong with you. There's something wrong
with you. I had a note from a friend They
said, you say all the time, everything you do is mixed with sin and
marred by sin. He said, even when you preach?
And I wrote him back and said to him, yes, when I preach, I
am never so humbled as when God enables me by His Spirit to preach
the gospel in the power of His Spirit. and never so proud. And that's just fact. That's
just fact. You see, everything we do, we
do both as a natural man and as a spiritual man. It is both
the flesh and the spirit working against one another so that our
very best deeds are marred by the corruption of our nature.
Satan raises Moses up to accuse us constantly, reminding us incessantly
of our sin, hardening our hearts regarding our sin so that we
think it's insignificant, and condemning us for sin. The fiend
of hell seeks ever to terrify God's saints with a sense of
guilt. He can destroy none who believe. He cannot take Christ from us,
and bless God, he cannot take us from Christ. But he can and
does seize every weakness of our nature, every error of understanding
and doctrine, every flaw of our corrupt natures, And every act
of transgression, He seizes these things to torment our souls and
keep us from fully enjoying our Savior and God's free salvation
in Him. So tonight I want to talk to
you about your conscience. The title of my message is A
Good Conscience Toward God. Oh, to have a good conscience
toward God. You often hear folks say, well,
just follow your conscience. That wouldn't be real good. That
wouldn't be real good. Your conscience is depraved. It's very common for people in
all walks of life striving to rally men to follow them or to
give themselves to a cause to appeal to the conscience. Let
me give you some examples you might be familiar with. I have
a book. back in my library, I haven't
looked at it in a long time, I'm sure I still have it, written
in the 60s by a fellow named Barry Goldwater called The Conscience
of a Conservative. And he uses conscience to appeal
to men and get them to be persuaded of politically conservative ideas. I also read about a fellow named
Larry Flint, you may have heard of him. He used to publish, I
don't know whether he still does or not, I'm not interested, don't
tell me, but he used to publish Hustler Magazine. And he argued
that his battle for the right to publish his smuts to the destruction
of society was a matter of conscience, a matter of conscience. Some
time ago, I recall reading a brief portion of an article arguing
in defense of feminism, abortion, and sodomy. Now just in case
you didn't catch the connection, isn't it interesting they're
always connected? Folks who are just gung-ho excited about feminism
are gung-ho excited about murdering babies and gung-ho excited about
promoting sodomy. But they argue in the appeal
to defend these hideous evils to conscience, insisting that
conscience demands our approval of their perversity. In the religious
world, multitudes base their hope regarding eternal life and
salvation and everlasting acceptance with God on what they think is
their good conscience. But your conscience, as I said,
like your heart, like your nature is perverse and depraved. But
is it possible to have a good conscience? Does the Word of
God say anything about such a conscience? Indeed, it does. Here in 1 Peter
3, the apostle speaks of a good conscience toward God. A good conscience with reference
to God, a good conscience before God, A good conscience regarding
God. Now that's a good conscience.
A good conscience before God is a good conscience. What is
this? Let's see what the scripture
says. Understand first, we all have a conscience. Someone said,
turn back to Romans chapter 2 while I'm saying this. Romans chapter
2. Someone said conscience is the voice of God in man's soul. I don't know whether that's exactly
true or not, but I do know this. God has put in every man a conscience. A conscience which either accuses
him or excuses him all the time. Conscience is that voice inside
you that simply cannot be silenced. You try. You suppress it. You push it down. You try to
not hear it. But conscience is a faculty of
the mind that God's put in us by which we judge the moral character
of human conduct, our own and others. It's an inborn sense
of right and wrong. Here in Romans chapter 2, The
Apostle speaks of this conscience as the law of God written on
the heart. Not written on the hearts of
new men in the new birth. Not written on the hearts of
the new creature in the new birth. That's a new nature. Our consciences
then have the law of God written on our hearts with our full assent
to what's written. But this is talking about God
stamping on man a God-consciousness of right and wrong from which
he cannot escape. And you see it in every society
in history, no matter where you go in this world. Look at Romans
chapter 2. All men, to a greater or lesser
degree, have this voice in them that reflects the law of God
written upon their hearts. Verse 14. When the Gentiles,
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. Now that is not a suggestion
that the unregenerate, unbelieving man or woman, the folks in Africa,
New Guinea, who still run around naked with bones in their noses,
and they do that which is written in the law. He's not suggesting
they do it right. He's not suggesting they do it
perfectly. But they do have a sense of right and wrong, so that they
know stealing is wrong. They know adultery is wrong.
They know that lying is wrong. It's just written on the heart.
And they make tribal laws in the most barbaric way to enforce
those laws. Read verse 15. These things show
the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience
also bearing witness, and their thoughts that meanwhile accusing
or else excusing one another. They accuse one another of doing
evil and they excuse themselves and excuse one another according
to the light of nature God's given them, the conscience of
man. often produces a sense of guilt
and legal fear, which most people take to be Holy Spirit conviction. Turn to John chapter 8. Yeah,
John chapter 8. You remember the story of the
adulterous woman brought to our Lord Jesus by the religious Pharisees
to be condemned. This is how the whole religious
world plays on the minds of men to get them to get involved in
religious activity. They make you have a sense of
legal guilt. A dread and fear of God. A dread and fear because you've
been exposed. Your sin's been exposed. And
now you've got to do something to make up to God. But that's
not salvation. And that's not Holy Spirit conviction.
These Pharisees had just that kind when our Lord Jesus rode
on the ground. Look at verse 9, John chapter
8. They which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience,
went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even to the last,
and Jesus was left alone and the woman standing in the midst."
The conviction of sin is more than a sense of guilt. It's more
than a sense of guilt. The conviction of sin is much
more than the conviction that judgment day is coming and one
day you're going to meet God. Holy Spirit conviction is that
gracious work of God described in John chapter 16 by which he
convinces us that Christ alone is and must be the object of
our faith, of sin, because you believe not on me. And he convinces
us of righteousness brought in by the obedience of Christ because
he said, I go to my father. And he convinces us of judgment
finished because the prince of this world is judged. What's
he talking about? When God the Holy Spirit comes
and brings conviction to the heart, he doesn't frighten. He doesn't scare. He comforts by this conviction.
Christ alone is to be trusted. Christ is all my righteousness. Christ has put away my sin. That's
comfort. That's comfort. That's peace. That's joy. It was their conscience
that caused Adam and Eve to hide from God after the fall. the
law of God written on their hearts. It was their conscience that
made them know their nakedness and filled them with shame. And
that fact was made manifest by the fact that they sewed fig
leaves together and tried by the works of their hands to hide
their nakedness from God. You think, well, that's so absurd.
How can a man think to hide his nakedness from the eye of the
all-seeing God? Folks do it all the time. They
attempted to hide their sin and their shame from God by something
they did, but their conscience couldn't find satisfaction or
peace in their fig leaf aprons. The fact is we must not trust
our consciences. If there's anything to be learned,
from Adam's behavior in the garden after the fall, and anything
to be learned from our life experience, it's that we must not trust our
consciences. Let me give you some examples.
The scriptures tell us plainly that the conscience of fallen
man is an evil conscience departing from the living God. It is a
defiled conscience. Even the conscience of strict
religious folks is a defiled conscience if they're lost without
the knowledge of Christ. So defiled that they may even
have a good conscience while performing their most horrid
works. Religious folks have a good conscience. Is today the day that That monstrous Antichrist is
supposed to be speaking in this country somewhere? Is today the
day he arrives? I'm talking about the Pope, they
call him. Antichrist. I listened to some news the other
night, or yesterday, I listened to a recording of Mr. Wallace's Sunday afternoon news
program, and he had some folks on there with their black robes
and crosses and pretty smiles and talking about his holiness. and referred to it, these are
the titles they gave to that monster. His Holiness, the Prince
of Peace, the Holy Father. What? A man? And a man revel in those titles? And you know they do that with
all good conscience. And that man they call His Holiness. They refer to as the Prince of
Peace. They refer to as the Holy Father. That monster in good conscience
throughout history has put folks to death, burned men at the stake,
and did it in the name of Christ. Just like Saul of Tarsus spoke
and said he had all good conscience. when he lived in the religion
of the Pharisees persecuting the church. Our Lord Jesus said,
the day will come when they shall put you out of the church. Yea,
the time comes that whosoever killeth you will think he doeth
God's service. Turn over to 1 Timothy chapter
4. I want you to see this. Some are so hardened by free
will works or by ungodly behavior, often by both, the two go hand
in hand, that they live with a seared conscience. A seared
conscience. Some of you may recall a few
years ago I had some stress ulcers after having heart surgery and
nearly bled to death with them. And I was taken to the hospital
over in Lexington and a doctor went up inside me with a hot
iron. You know what he did to those
ulcers? He cauterized them. He burned them. Burned them to
stop them from bothering them. That's exactly what the Spirit
of God's talking about here. Look at 1 Timothy chapter 4,
verse 1. Now the Spirit speaketh expressly
that in the latter time some shall depart from the faith giving
heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils, speaking
lies in hypocrisy, having their conscience seared with a hot
iron. Such people, men, women, even
little children as demonstrated out in Colorado when the children,
murder children, have their consciences so cauterized, so hardened, so
seared that they're past feeling. They have no regard for righteousness
or holiness or truth. They have no regard for the rightness
or wrongness of anything that they say or do. They have conscience
of nothing, of nothing, so that they live utterly to themselves,
for themselves. utterly to fulfill their own
lust without thought to how it affects anyone else, under a
cloak of sanctity that commit the most shocking impieties. One of the brethren down in Madisonville
years ago, Brother Paul Hibbs, made the statement, if the Lord
left us to ourselves, there's nothing we wouldn't do and justify
ourselves in doing it. It's left to ourselves. There's
nothing we wouldn't do. And justify ourselves in doing
it. Nothing. And he was exactly right. So
I say, don't trust your conscience. But what would you give to have
a good conscience? A conscience that lets you sleep
at night. A conscience that would let you
draw near to God with full assurance. A conscience that would give
you ease, real ease of heart before God, private, alone before
God. I'm not talking about talking
to Bobby and Bill and Don about it. I'm talking about a conscience
that lets you have real ease of heart alone with God. Oh, pastor, I'd give anything
for that. I'd give anything for that. How
can I have such a conscience? Our consciences demand what we
can't give. Your conscience and mine demand
and can only be satisfied with that which satisfies God. Your
conscience demands and can only be satisfied with that which
satisfies God. I've said this so often to you, and I can't think I've gotten
it said more like I want to get it said. We have trouble because we keep
looking to a decision we made yesterday or 20 years ago. We
keep looking to baptism and when we were baptized and who baptized
us. We keep looking to Our religious
experience, walking down an aisle, saying a prayer, we keep looking
to our lives and what we do and how well we behave and how religious
we are and how well we practice our religion and we keep trying
to get peace like that. I just, oh brother Don, you don't
know how sinful I am. That's got nothing to do with
this. That's got nothing to do with this. You don't know, you
don't know how polluted I am. That's got nothing to do with
this. You don't know what I, you don't know what's been going
through my mind. I'm sorry to tell you, I do. I do. But that's got nothing to do
with a good conscience toward God. That's got nothing to do
with a good conscience toward God. Our consciences demand what
God himself demands. perfect righteousness and complete
satisfaction for sin. Now turn to Hebrews chapter 10.
Hebrews chapter 10. One of the brethren read this
to us just the other night. Get down to verse 22. Christ
came because men and women in the Old Testament, they bring
the sacrifices, mourning and Midday and night morning and
evening sacrifices and every Passover the children of Israel
will come and the high priest would go in once every year into
the Holy of Holies and he'd take the blood of that Paschal lamb
and he had as he's sprinkling blood on the mercy seat. He's
I'll be back next year I'll be back next year because the blood
of bulls and goats can never take away sin Never make us accepted
with God There's just a reminder of guilt in those things. Somebody
else has got to come. Somebody who can indeed take
away sin. And that somebody is God's Son,
the Lord Jesus. And our Lord Jesus has come now.
Look what he says to us in verse 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 in pure water. What? Our hearts sprinkled from an
evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. The believer comes to God trusting Christ. The purifying of conscience is
God speaking to you by His Spirit, giving you faith in Christ, faith
to believe His Son, to trust His Son. And God testifies that
you're free of guilt and sin. Your guiltiness was made His
guiltiness, and He put it away. Your sin was made His sin and
He put it away. And now this we have by the regenerating
gift of God the Holy Ghost making us holy in the new birth. Horatius
Bonar was right on the money when he wrote this. In another's
righteousness we stand and by another's righteousness we're
justified. All accusations against us founded
upon our unrighteousness, we answer by pointing to the perfection
of the righteousness that covers us from head to foot, even the
righteousness of Jesus Christ our Lord. Christ is our righteousness. Christ is our redemption. Christ is our sanctification. Christ is our acceptance with
God. That's a good conscience toward
God. That's a good conscience toward
God. Our hearts sprinkled from the guilt of sin, and our hearts
purged from the dead works of idolatrous religion, teaching
us to trust in ourselves. We look to Jesus Christ alone.
The only way we can ever obtain a good conscience is by the sprinkling
of the blood of Jesus Christ on our hearts. The blood of Christ
alone answers all the demands of God's holy law, and the blood
of Christ alone answers all the demands of the conscience. Without
the shedding of blood, is no remission. I have peace with God because my heart, my conscience,
by the gift of God's grace, by the operation of His Spirit,
looks out of self to Christ alone. and believing Him, my conscience
says, that's enough. That's enough. Do you understand
what I'm talking about? God cannot demand more. God's
law cannot demand more. My conscience cannot demand more
than Jesus Christ the Lord. Now if you would have a good
conscience toward God, Believe his sword and quit looking at
yourself. I have a good conscience toward
God. That means, I'll tell you exactly what that means. That
means that I am worthy to call God my father, saying, have a
father. I have a good conscience toward
God. That means, excuse me, that means that I'm worthy to take
my place in the watery grave with my Redeemer and confess
Christ as my Lord and Savior. Worthy to lift my hands to heaven
and say, my God, I'm yours. I'm worthy to do that. I have
a good conscience. That means I'm worthy to call
upon God in prayer. I can come to God boldly, freely. I have a good conscience. I'm
accepted in Christ. I have a good conscience. That
means I'm worthy to come to the Lord's table and break bread
with God's people, with God's saints, and eat the bread and
drink the wine in fellowship with God's people, in fellowship
with God's son. Our worthiness is Christ the
Lord. I have a good conscience. I have
a good conscience. That means I'm worthy. I'm worthy. A sinful man to stand here and
open this book and declare to you the word of God in the gospel. I have a good conscience. A good
conscience before God. A good conscience toward God. A good conscience with reference
to God. A good conscience concerning
the things of God. That means I know myself worthy
of heavenly glory in Jesus Christ the Lord. Oh, you can't say that. You can't talk like that. I'll
tell you what that is. That is the utter height of presumptuous
pride, or that is the basis of plain, easy, common faith in
Christ Jesus the Lord. I have a good conscience. But
preacher, don't you struggle with sin? Relentlessly. But don't you have a sense of
guilt? Well, yeah. Guilt in the fact
that I've done stuff that's wrong, and I'm doing stuff that's wrong,
and I'm thinking stuff that's wrong, and I'm guilt in that
sense, yeah, yeah, yeah. But not guilt before God. Christ bore my guiltiness in
his body on the tree, and there he bore it away. Oh, God help
us get hold of that. Not before God. Not before God,
but preacher. How can you think about coldness
and callousness and hardness of heart that you talk about
all the time you go through it. You talk about your sin and your
corruption that you struggle with all the time and at the
same time talk about a good conscience toward God. My hope before God
is not me and has nothing to do with me. And what I do, my
hope before God, is Jesus Christ the Lord. And when my heart is most hard,
and most vile, and most corrupt, I look out at myself, yonder
to Him, and say, that's enough. Bless God, that's enough. God make Him yours, give you
faith in Him, and give you a good conscience toward God. Amen.