be in the book of Hebrews, if
you'd like to turn there. Hebrews chapter nine. In our text, we see the word
conscience written two times. And the writer's being clear
that no amount of works, because of everything leading up to this
point, talking about all the ceremonies, all the sacrifices,
all the ministry of the priest, all the ordinances, everything
that took place, it never could purge the conscience. Shows us
that no matter what we do when we work, we cannot purge our
conscience. No amount of works can purge
or make the doer's conscience perfect. There's only one that
can do that, and it's the Lord Jesus Christ. This is such an
important topic because by nature, all men and women have a conscience. They're born with a conscience.
That conscience, and we're gonna talk about this in a minute,
goes all the way back to our father Adam in the garden. When
sin entered into the garden of Eden, It was the knowledge of
good and evil, wasn't it? Well, that's the conscience.
That's the conscience. And I hope to look at their response,
what the conscience does when it feels guilt. They felt guilty. They felt naked. And what did
they do to try to fix that? Well, that's all religion in
a nutshell. All false religion in a nutshell. What we do to
try to fix the guilt that we have when our conscience convicts
us. So let's read this, our text,
Hebrews 9, verse 6 through 14. Now, when these things were thus
ordained, the priest went always into the first tabernacle, accomplishing
the service of God, but into the second went the high priest
alone once every year, not without blood, which he offered for himself
and for the errors of the people. The Holy Ghost thus signifying
that the way into the holiest of all was not yet made manifest
while as the first tabernacle was yet standing, which was a
figure for the time then present in which were offered both gifts
and sacrifices that could not make him that did the service
perfect as pertaining to the conscience. which stood only
in meats and drinks and diverse washings and carnal ordinances
imposed on them until the time of reformation. But Christ, being
come a high priest of good things to come by a greater and more
perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not
of this building, neither by the blood of goats and calves,
but by his own blood, he entered in once unto the holy place,
having obtained eternal redemption for us. For if the blood of bulls
and of goats and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean
sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh, 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? Our title today is Purged Conscience,
Purged Conscience. The conscience can never bring
anyone to Christ. The conscience can never bring
anyone to Christ. It can only condemn. It can only
convict. It can only reveal sin. It can
only make guilty. The conscience can never bring
anyone to Christ. Conscience has to do with the
knowledge of good and evil, good and bad. That's what the conscience
is about. It's a part of human nature.
And that in and of itself tells us that it'll never seek Christ
because it's part of human nature. You know what it will seek after
rather than seeking Christ? It will seek a way to quiet itself. The flesh will seek a way to
quiet the conscience. And do you know the best way
to do that? It's called self-righteousness. It's running to the law to try
to do something to make oneself feel better about themselves. It's looking and saying, I'm
not as bad as this person. My conscience is clear. I'm not
as bad as this person, my conscience is clear, and that is all false
religion. I've done this, so I feel like
my conscience is clear, but a conscience that's clear is a conscience
that's not guilty. If our conscience is truly clear,
that means we're guiltless, and the only way that that could
be possible is not by works of righteousness, which we have
done, but according to the works that he hath wrought on the cross
of Calvary. Most of the time, do in false
religion, I would say all the time, but there may be exceptions,
I'm uncertain. All the do in false religion
is an attempt to ease the guilt of the conscience. Some of you
that were in false religion, how much did you do in false
religion? did a lot. Why? To ease the conscience. I'm doing this. I don't feel
guilty anymore because I'm doing this. And yet those of us who
the Lord called out of darkness into his light, we look back
and we see, I never had peace. I never had rest. There was always
contention. There was always strife. There
was always Difficulties dealing with others, always comparing
apples to apples, and they were both rotten apples, but your
apple isn't as rotten as mine is, so I'm better. My conscience
is clear. It's not true, is it? It's not
true. and in false religion try to
justify themselves. They try to rid themselves of
guilt. Guilt is the catalyst of all religion, all false religion. There's one, I wanna say this
to be very clear, there's one true religion. It's the one faith,
one Lord, one baptism. That's the true religion. It's
the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. So whenever I say false
religion, I'm talking about anything other than that. What we preach
here is the one true religion. But all false religion has is
the same catalyst of playing on guilt. For those of you who
don't know, there's certain things in false religion called altercals. And that came from a book called
A man, Billy Sunday, back, I think, in the 60s, they had this crusade.
They went all over the United States, and they called it a
great revival, because so many people would come forward. And
he made these altar calls and said, you need to come up here
and get right with Jesus, or you need to give Jesus your heart.
You need to get saved. You need to do this. You need
to do this. And that's still continuing on today. When you
go to a place, when you go to another church that practices
that, run away. Don't stay. Don't go there. Try not to go
there to begin with, if you can help it at all. But people believe
they do this. and they're now saved because
they've done something. They've eased their conscience. I've done my part, God is now
accepted with me. Two things will sever the conscience.
Self-righteousness in doing according to the law and continuing in
sin. Those are the two things that
will sever man's conscience with a hot iron. That's what the scripture
says, severed with a hot iron. Matter of fact, Timothy talks
about leaving the faith is how the conscience is severed. Well,
leaving the faith is false religion, isn't it? It's not just the terrible
places you think where horrible sin has taken place and immorality
is running rampant and whatever else. That's not the only place
where consciences are severed and reprobates are found. Reprobates
are found in the Baptist churches, brethren. They're left to themselves,
to their own devices. They've eased their conscience.
They think by what they've done in presenting themselves to God,
they've done enough. I'm good enough. I'm good. I'm
okay. I'm not like this person. I'm not like this person. But
the conscience can never bring us to Christ. Can never bring
us to Christ. Guilt is the catalyst of all
false religion. Men play on the conscience of
the ignorant. They'll give emotional stirrings.
I remember one time, you ever heard the song, Just As I Am?
Everybody, I see a couple of you. They would play, I remember
one time, Bobby can back me up on this after service. If they
didn't play that song 10 times, they didn't play it 20 times.
It was just, they kept it going. And you know why? They kept saying,
I really feel like somebody needs to do something. I really feel
like somebody needs to come forward. Somebody needs to do something.
And they're trying to get an emotional stirring. And when
they get that emotional stirring, you know what they did? The Lord
told the Pharisees, you spend all day to get a proselyte. And
a proselyte was a Gentile that could become a Jew. It was a
convert, converted. He said, you spend all day to
get a proselyte. And when you make them, when you make a proselyte,
you make them twofold the child of hell that you are. And that's
exactly what's happening in most churches in this country and
all over the world. Men do something and have emotional stirring and
believe because of this emotional stirring and this experience
that they have, now their conscience is clear. Only Christ can purge
the conscience because sin is gone when we see Christ. Sin is gone. The conscience is
clear because there's no more sin. It's not that we've done
something. It's that he did something to purge our conscience. The singular product of the conscience
is always and only a knowledge and a consideration of guilt.
You remember getting caught when you were, well, even as adults,
I get caught sometimes. Bobby told me not to get in the
cookies, and I got in the cookies anyways, and she caught me, and
maybe I feel a little guilty for that sometimes. Maybe I don't,
but you understand what I'm saying. With our children, they feel
guilty. You catch them in something, and they That feeling of guilt.
Well, what can I do to fix it? That's immediate response, isn't
it? What can I do to fix it? Well, there may be a consequence that
you have to face before it can be fixed. Or sometimes you can
just put the cookie back and you're good. It just depends.
But the conscience is always a knowledge of and a consideration
of guilt. That's what it always stems from.
Whenever we're caught in something, whenever we find out that we're
sinners, when we find out that we're wrong, There's a guilty
feeling, and that's what men play on in false religion. Here,
we don't preach to make people feel guilty, to feel bad enough
for themselves so that they need the Lord. We preach the Lord
Jesus Christ high and lifted up, and we do preach man low,
but we can't preach man low enough and God high enough. We don't
preach to attempt to convict someone to get a profession out
of them. We tell the truth and love and hope that the Lord convicts,
and the Lord gives repentance and faith. The Lord don't give
that or then there's no good gonna come of it. He has to do
that. When someone discovers they are guilty, you know what
they do? They run to the law. They run to the law to fix it.
I can fix this. I can try a little harder. I
can have a moral change. I can change my thinking I can
change my behavior, I can change my lifestyle, I can start wearing
this and stop wearing this, I can stop going here and start going
here. And before you know it, they see themselves as good. And the lie is they believe they
see themselves the way God sees them. And it's not true. God
sees them still dead and trespasses and in sin because there's nothing
we can do to put away sin. Two things will cauterize the
conscience, self-righteousness, keeping the law, self-righteousness,
and sin. Those are the two things. The conscience only reveals sin
and guilt and shame and can never operate in the spiritual realm,
can never operate in the spiritual Therefore, all efforts of man's
religion merely make one that they feel like it's making them
better, really making them worse. But men love themselves. They
love how they feel. This was the first response. Turn to Genesis
chapter three. The beginning of all false religion
didn't start back at the Catholic church, didn't start back at
Sodom and Gomorrah, didn't start back in the Tower of Babel. It
started in Genesis chapter three. That's where all false religion
stems from. and it has everything to do with
the conscience. Look in verse seven. Now what has taken place
thus far? Eve has taken the fruit, being
beguiled by the serpent. The serpent said, and the day
you eat thereof, you shall not surely die. Changed the word
of the Lord and lied. And Eve saw that the fruit was
good to eat, was pleasing to the eye, and to make one wise.
That's power, popularity, and pleasure. And she took it, she
ate it. She gave to Adam, he ate it. Now, verse seven, and
the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew they were naked.
And they sewed fig leaves together and made aprons. And they heard
the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of
the day. And Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence
of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden. And the Lord called
Adam and said unto him, where art thou? And he said, I heard
thy voice in the garden. I was afraid because I was naked
and I hid myself. And he said, who told you that
I was naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree wherever I've commanded
thee that thou shouldest not eat? And the man said, the woman,
the woman that thou gavest me, she gave me of the tree and I
did eat. And the Lord God said to the
woman, what is this thou hast done? And the woman said, well, it
wasn't me, it's the serpent. The serpent beguiled me and I
did eat. Now, what do you see the pattern
here is? Number one in false religion, when the conscience
convicts, this is the outcome every time. First thing you'll
do is you'll try to have a covering, a self-righteousness, a self-righteousness. The next thing you do, you'll
hide. You'll have to hide from the truth. You won't be able
to face the truth. The last thing you'll do is you'll
blame others. I'm not as bad as him, and I'm not as bad as
him, and I'm not as bad as you, and I have my covering, my self-righteous
robe, and I have hid all of my sin away so that nobody else
can see it. Is that not the three things
in false religion that men do? All religion, not just Baptists.
Every one of them, that's what they do. They justify themselves
by covering themselves. They sewed fig leaves together.
That's a picture of works. Sewing something together to
cover yourself. The work could be anything. Something
so simple, so subtle. We can make a work out of tithing.
We can make a work out of coming to church. We can make a work
out of so many things. Our depraved heart loves making
a work out of it. That's what he's talking about
here is covering and then hiding. Hiding from the truth, not willing
to listen to the truth, don't want the truth. They had to hide
from the voice of the Lord. They had to hide from the voice
of the Lord. And lastly, well, it's the woman's
fault. You ever heard the saying, the
devil made me do it. No, he didn't. That's never happened one time.
Do you know that? The devil didn't make you do it. I remember as
a boy, I was probably four, maybe three. I was pretty smart as
a kid. I got with my parents quite a bit. Got me in trouble
quite a bit, too, when I got caught. But I learned at a young
age, I could say, well, the devil made me do it. And for some reason,
my mom would have compassion on me when I would say that.
Oh, well, let's try not to do that again. And then they finally
realized one day, I was kind of just using that as an excuse,
and it didn't really work out after that. I couldn't use that
excuse anymore. But people go around, they'll say, well, the
devil made me do it. No, he didn't. We want to blame somebody else
for our situation, don't we? Look at society, the society
that we're living in. We blame others for our situations. We blame others. We judge others
based upon their actions, and we justify ourself based upon
our intentions. That's our nature. That's what
this is all about here, and it comes from the conscience. I
am the way I am because of the woman. It's her fault. Lord,
if you hadn't get, he blames God, the woman you gave me. Think
about that. And did that help the conscience?
Well, if the Lord would have left them to themselves, it would
have. They'd have thought, okay, we've done enough. We've done,
and that's religion. That's what men will do. They'll
get to a place where they say, okay, we have done enough and they
will lie to themselves and they'll sever their conscience. Conscience
could never bring us to Christ. We need a purged conscience. A purged conscience. When God
made creation, you know, you remember Genesis chapter one,
the children have learned from creation, Genesis chapter one,
that everything, one and two, everything that God made, what
did he say it was? It was good and it was very good. Everything he made. everything
he made. So that means there was nothing
bad in the garden at this time before this happened. Nothing
bad. And then Adam took of the tree
of the knowledge of good and evil. He gained a conscience.
He gained a conscience. Up till then, there was no knowledge
of evil, only good. Can you imagine never having
any fear, never having any anxiety, never having any sadness, depression? You name it, none of that, no
worry of anything. Then by one decision, sin enters. Now you have fear, fear of judgment,
fear of death. What are we gonna do? We're gonna
die. God said we're gonna die. What are we gonna do to fix this?
Well, let's sow fig leaves together. Let's hide and we'll blame one
another. And maybe the Lord will have
mercy. No, no. What had to happen? The Lord
had to kill a lamb. No death had happened upon the
face of the earth until this time. The only way for them to
have a covering was for the Lord to slay a lamb. He demanded blood
for their sin, demanded blood, and he covered them. and the
lamb's skin, and he covered them in the blood. It's a picture
of the Lord Jesus Christ, isn't it? You know why men fear death?
Some men say, I don't fear death. Well, they've seared their conscience,
what they've done. They've lived a life long enough
to where they figured out how to ignore it, and it's just, they've severed
it. They don't have to hear it anymore. You know why men and
women fear death? Because their conscience cries
guilty. They know judgment's coming. And there is no, I say
this carefully, there is no one that has more hope in death than
the believer, and there is no one that fears death more than
the believer at sometimes. Because sometimes you see yourself
as the sinner. and you feel guilty, and you
feel afraid, what if? Because you're examining yourself,
and then you see the Lord Jesus Christ, how he put away your
sin, and he reminds you, I've purged your conscience, you're
not guilty any longer, and we have the only rest that's on
the face of the earth for time and eternity. Lord's people are
the only one that gets to rest, truly. There's no work to be
done, there's nothing else you have to do to fix your conscience,
the Lord Jesus Christ did that. The Lord Jesus Christ did that. Adam had to do something to quiet
the guilty feeling he had, didn't he? He felt guilty. He had to
do something. He had to do something. You ever seen somebody rob a
bank? Maybe you've heard of something
like I've seen on the news and things. Somebody robs a bank
and then they'll end up going back and turning in the money. They
felt guilty for it. They felt guilty for it. And they were
hoping for a plea bargain at that point. And then maybe they
didn't get the sentence they would have got before. They didn't fix the sin,
did they? They didn't fix the sin. What
about those who commit a terrible act of murder or something of
that nature? If they are put to death, does
that fix the sin? Is that justice? Justice has
only been served one time and there's only one time where sin
was put away, sin was fixed. And it's on the cross of Calvary
by the Lord Jesus Christ for his people, by his own blood.
If you want a clear conscience, come to Christ. Don't examine
yourself. Don't try to figure out what
to do. Don't try to purge your conscience. You can't. Don't
try to make it feel better by doing other things. Come to Christ
and rest. That's the only place the conscience
can be purged. when you and I try to do something
or anybody tries to do something to fix the guilt, that's the
dead works that are mentioned here. When he says he hath purged
our conscience from dead works, that's the dead works running
back to the law. That's dead works. It's dead works. It's iniquity. What it means
is that we're discrediting the Lord Jesus Christ and his finished
work. And that's exactly what's happening today. Men and women
are living their lives thinking that they're doing something
for the Lord whenever In reality, it's just dead works. It's nothing. Lord, we've done all these wonderful
works in your name. We've cast out demons. We raised
up churches. We've built orphanages. We've
saved hundreds. The Lord says, depart from me.
I never knew you. You didn't do that for me. You
don't know me. I don't know you. You tell someone they're a sinner,
they'll try to fix it. You can't fix being a sinner.
It's what you are. There's a lot of talk about people
changing their bodies in different ways. And I'm not going to get
into all that. You can't change what you are. Dog's born a dog. Dog will die a dog. It's just
how it is. Dog's going to bark till the day it dies. That's
us. That's us. Cat's going to keep meowing,
scratching, even though it gets on your nerves. It's just going
to keep scratching. You can declaw it. It's still going to try to
scratch. It didn't change it. It changed the behavior. Sometimes
we can change our behavior a little bit morally, and I'm not saying
live immoral, you understand, it's not that. But this whole
thing about always let your conscience be your guide, not when it comes
to spiritual things, don't do it. Your conscience will not
lead you to Christ, it'll lead you away from Christ. Your conscience
is part of your flesh. And it is a gift from the Lord
to teach us that we do have sin, we are guilty. But it cannot
point us to the one who is the remedy. the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the Holy Spirit's job.
That's what the gospel does. Tell someone they're a sinner,
they'll try naturally to do something to fix it, only adding to the
iniquity that God has them charged with. Scripture says that men
are ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the
truth. Ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge
of the truth. No matter the shape or form, the conscience can only
define sin. It can only show us sin. It can
only assign blame, it can only determine punishment, and the
end is always guilt when dealing with the conscience. Yet men
spend their life, we were around some religious people and you
can tell they really think the Lord loves them because of the
way that they're living. You've been around people like
that who really think they've got the I dotted and the T crossed,
they really talk to them and they reek of self-righteousness.
I have a lot of them in my family. When it comes down to it, they're
still guilty before God. He's not looking for my works. And if I'm looking to my works,
I have no hope. My conscience is not going to
be purged. It's going to be guilty. I'm
going to be guilty. Left to ourself, we will follow
our conscience all the way into hell. Turn with me to Romans
chapter three. Look, I want to read two verses
here. Romans chapter three. Now we're talking about those
who are keeping the law in order to pacify the conscience. And
here's what Paul says in Romans three, verse 19 and 20. Now we
know that what's thing, what things, soever the law sayeth,
it sayeth to them who are under the law. And here's the reason
why that every mouth may be stopped and all the world may become
guilty before God. Therefore, by the deeds of the
law, there shall no flesh be justified in his sight, for by
the law is the knowledge of sin. So here we have our conscience
saying do, and we go to the law to try to fix it. And here the
Lord is saying that no flesh shall be justified by the deeds
of the law. It's just the knowledge of sin. And that guilty feeling
that you have in your conscience is not gonna lead you to Christ.
So what is our hope? That the Lord and mercy would
purge our conscience from dead works by saying, live, and give
us faith to believe him. All that our conscience can teach
us is what Adam's conscience taught him. Cover it, hide it,
blame. Cover it, hide it, and blame. Now, moral and ethical values
are not a bad thing, brethren, but no matter how much, how moral
you are or ethical you are, that's not gonna bring you to Christ.
It's not gonna bring us to Christ. It can never lead us to him.
I mentioned this the first hour, but I saw a sign when we were
down there, and it said, be kind and do right, and that will be
enough. Be kind and do right, and that
will be, this was like a religious, So I guess they mean forever,
I'm assuming. Be kind and do right and that
will be enough. And I thought, I looked over
at her and I said, look at that. And she looked and she said,
huh. And I said, enough for what? What will it be enough for? It'll
be enough to make me feel better about myself. That's what it'll
be enough for. It'll be enough to feel like
I can recommend myself to God. It'll be enough for me to be
able to sit beside you and believe that the Lord sees me sitting
just a little bit higher. and he sees you, that's what
it'll be enough for. I've been around several people
up here for quite some time now and it seems like the pattern
here and everywhere I go just about the mentality shift in
religion has been be kind and do good and it'll be enough.
Be kind to people. I've just, I want to be good
to people and the Lord will have respect to me. The Lord will
appreciate my efforts. I want to be kind to people.
It's great to be kind. I never want to say, don't, don't
go out here and be rude. You know, I'm not, pastor said,
we can just go out here and no, I didn't. No, I didn't be kind
to people. Yes, but not as part of your
righteousness. No, do what Scripture says, whether
therefore you eat or drink or whatsoever you do, do it all
to the glory of God. We do it looking to Christ. If
you're going to be kind, do it unto the Lord. You never know,
Lord might call them, bring them to church. I don't know. But
don't do it in order for it to recommend you to the Lord. Don't
do it to ease your conscience. Don't do anything to ease your
conscience. Look to Christ and your conscience will be purged.
Look to Christ and your conscience will be purged. Somebody told me this week, I was told by somebody, and I
won't give you the story this particular time, but at the end
of it all, it was a restaurant situation, gave a tip or something,
and the lady was like, you're just such a good person. I said,
no, I'm not. And she didn't know what to say
to that. I was like, no, you got the wrong guy. I'm not a
good person. I said, but I know a good person. I said, and his
name is the Lord Jesus Christ. You can't, that's what men want. They want that praise, don't
they? They do things, you know what I'm talking about. Men and
women both, we're the same. They'll do something, and they
want that pat on the back. They do it for the feel good,
and that helps the conscience not feel so guilty for the sin
that they have. And that's all false religion. All false religion. But brethren, a clear conscience
doesn't mean that you feel better. Clear conscience before God means
you're not guilty. You're not guilty, you're clean.
You're no longer a leper. You're clean before him, and
me and you can't do that. Now your conscience will do one
of two things if you follow it. It'll either accuse you or it'll
excuse you. Turn with me to Romans chapter two, just a page back.
Some of you might not even have to turn like I didn't. Romans chapter 2, I just want
to read two verses, or three verses here, 14-16, "'For 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.'"
How can that be? Because of their conscience.
Because of their conscience. "'Which show the work of the
law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing
witness in their thoughts. The mean while accusing or else
excusing one another in the day when God shall judge the secrets
of men by the Jesus Christ according to my gospel. That's what our
conscience does. Either accuses or it excuses. And we live our life, if we don't
know Christ, learning how to excuse ourself. Learning how
to excuse ourself. Well, I'm not as bad as this
person. I've done this, so that's eased my conscience by doing
this. But do you know it does not purge one sin? No matter
what we do, we cannot purge one sin. But this man, when he had
offered one sacrifice for sin forever, sat down on the right
hand of God. He purged his people's sin. If we do not have our conscience
purged, we will try to silence our conscience by fleeing to
the law. That's what we see all throughout
scripture. This is what all these ceremonies, go back to our text,
Hebrews chapter nine. All the ceremonies that we've
seen throughout this, all the Levitical ceremonies, everything
that you see throughout the first, after Moses received the law
in Exodus, everything after that, all those ceremonies, they all
pointed out the fact that their conscience could not be purged
by these works. This covenant could not cause
them to obtain eternal life. It was a failed covenant because
it hinged upon man. And yet men go back to this covenant,
back to this law, and they try to do things to ease their conscience.
But only one purges the conscience of the Lord Jesus Christ, only
one. The good news of the gospel is this. There is now, therefore, no condemnation
to them which are in Christ Jesus. Not there's no more condemnation
to them who are living a good life. Not that there is no condemnation
to those who have cleaned up their act and stopped doing this
and stopped doing that. No, those who no longer walk
according to the flesh, but according to the spirit, through the eyes
of faith, there is now, therefore, no condemnation. That's how you
know you have a purged conscience. You're not condemned anymore.
Before the Lord's law, guiltless. Because of the sacrifice of the
Lord Jesus Christ on Calvary's tree, guiltless. Not a little
bit guilty, guiltless, blameless. That's what we are in the Lord
Jesus Christ. A carnal holiness is false. We
have to be made as holy as him. Self-righteousness is a lie.
There's no such thing as being self-righteousness, being self-righteous. Fleshly goodness does not exist
in God's sight. Remember the rich young ruler
came to the Lord and said, good master, what must I do to inherit
eternal life? He said, why callest thou me good? There's none good
but God. None good but God. That's simple, isn't it? Fleshly
goodness is not true. He's a good man? No, he's not.
Not in God's standards. Now, there may be some good people
you've met, as far as man's standards are concerned, that's done humanitarian
things, and they're not as bad as some, but as far as God's
concerned, every one of us deserve hell unless we are in Christ. There's only one that pleased
God in the flesh, and it was the Lord Jesus Christ. And we
heard last hour, he by himself purged our sin. He entered once
by his own blood, having obtained eternal redemption for his people.
When he did that, he purged our conscience of dead works. When
he calls us out of darkness into his light, we no longer go to
the law anymore for dead works, do we? We believe in his works. We no longer try to live our
life in a way that we would recommend ourself to God. We look to his
life. He lived the perfect life. We
no longer try to offer our bodies as a sacrifice unto him. We look
to his sacrifice. We look to his sacrifice. No one's conscience can be silenced
by the deeds of the law, only severed, only severed. In 1 Timothy,
we're almost out of time. When 1 Timothy, I'll just say
it this and we'll close. 1 Timothy chapter 4 was telling us that
it's, they leave the faith and they sever their conscience with
a hot iron. Well, that leaving the faith,
that's not talking about leaving church. That means going to a
false church, false church that don't preach the truth. They'll
sever their conscience. They'll have it down pat. They'll
have it figured out. They'll believe that they're saved and
they'll be lost. It'll be the law that they're living and they
don't even realize that's what's happening. May the Lord keep the gospel
here. Keep it clear and plain and never allow us to start lawmongering
to enter in. Our adversary wants to creep
in any chance he gets and add one thing to it. No, it's not
one thing plus or minus. It's Christ alone. It's his blood
alone. That's the only thing that's
going to purge our our conscience. Notice this in our text, verse
13 and 14. For if the blood of bulls and
goats and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling the unclean sanctify
through the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the
blood of Christ who through the eternal spirit offer himself
without spot to God purge your conscience from dead works to
serve the living God? I wanted to mention this because
number one, it's in our text, but it may not be clear. And I want to make sure that
we understand what he's saying here. You know what the purpose of the
ashes of the heifer was? They were to purge those who
had touched something dead. Under the Levitical law, you
were not permitted to touch something dead. If you did, you were considered
unclean. And the only thing that could
make you clean was the ashes of the heifer. That's what's
being spoken about here. Now, how is it that we are to
be made clean because that's all we are is walking death. Is that not true? Born dead in
trespasses and in sin. That's what he's implying here.
The only thing that's going to do that, he tells us exactly
what does it. 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're
no longer unclean. Why? The blood of Christ. You've
been made clean by him. He's purged your conscience from
dead works. You no longer go to the law.
For salvation, we flee to Christ. We flee to Christ. We're clean
by the substitutionary finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Those who are in Christ because of his choice, because of his
work, because of his determinant counsel, he hath purged our conscience
from dead works. We're clean in his sight. This
is why we serve the Lord. We don't serve him. Think about
this. In all religion, in all religion, they say you should
serve the Lord or else. And here we say, if you don't
want to serve the Lord, don't. But if you can, you will. You won't
be able to help it. Why? Because you love him. They
make people feel guilty. Well, you need to be doing this
and you need to be doing that. And if you don't, this and this,
is that not true? They make people feel guilty.
We're not up here making people feel guilty. We serve the Lord
because we're guiltless. That's the whole point. We serve
the Lord because he's took, he's took away our sin. There's, he's
not putting us under his thumb saying you're going to do this
or else. He says, come unto me, all you
that labor and are heavy laden, I'll give you rest. I'll purge
your conscience from dead works. I've put away your sin. Seek
ye my face. My sheep hear my voice, and I
know them, and they follow me. And I give unto them eternal
life. Well, that's motivation to hear more about him, isn't
it? That's motivation to serve him.
It's motivation to tell others about him. That's just how it
is. We come begging, Lord, have mercy
on me, the sinner. We don't serve God because we're
guilty out of fear. We come confessing that we're
the sinner, but we confess Christ is our only hope of eternal life.
His blood is the only remedy for sin. His finished work is
what purges the conscience. We serve God because we're cleansed,
because we're guiltless. What do I mean by serving God?
Well, you came here this morning, didn't you? Wanted to hear about
a man. That's why we're here. That's
service, that took time, that's just how it is. We don't do something,
this is the greatest thing that's happening on the face of the
earth right now. I don't know if you know that, but when the gospel goes
forth, the Lord said, I will be there in the midst. I'll be
there when two or three are gathered. That makes this the greatest
place to be right now. We come begging, confessing his
blood alone. His finished work is all that
will purge the conscience. We serve God because we're guiltless.
We've been cleansed. What a gift. We've been made
the very righteousness of God in Christ. We serve out of love
because he loved first. Thank God he's purged our sin.
Thank God he's finished the work, saved his people. He purged our
conscience from dead works. Look to him. Look to him and
live. Bless the men if they will.