We're going to be looking at
Proverbs chapter 20, if you'd like to turn that. We'll be in
Proverbs both hours. We're in Proverbs chapter 20
for the first hour. After today, I will have officially
preached to you from Proverbs more than any other book, because
we went through Proverbs in December, if you remember, the four times,
and this will make two more times, that's six. I actually drew a
text from this when we went through, the next hour would be the 28th.
We did it on the 28th, but a totally different part of the passage,
totally different part of the, I didn't go over the whole entire
chapter with you. And you see, it's easy to do
that in Proverbs because one thought leads to another thought
leads to another thought. But sometimes if, if the Lord doesn't
give us understanding, it seems kind of choppy, doesn't it? When
he does give us understanding, we see how it does mesh together,
if I can put it that way. And that's what's happened here
in Proverbs 20. Show me something. So let's look at verse nine of
Proverbs 20. Now pay close attention to this
question. Who can say, I have made my heart
clean. I am pure from my sin. Who can say that? Diverse weights,
diverse measures, both of them are alike abomination to the
Lord. Even a child is known by his
doings, whether his work be pure or whether it be right. The hearing
ear and the seeing eye, the Lord hath made even both of them. Now look in verse 22. Say not
thou our recompense evil, but wait on the Lord and he shall
save thee. Now here it is again, the second time. We saw in verse
10 diverse weights, but here it is again in verse 23. Diverse
weights are an abomination unto the Lord and a false balance
is not good. Man's goings are of the Lord. How can a man, how
can a man then understand his own way? It is a snare to the
man who devoureth that which is holy and after vows to make
inquiry. The wise king scattereth the
wicked and bringeth the wheel over them. The spirit of man
is the candle of the Lord, searching all the inward parts of the belly. Now, the two verses I want to
primarily look at with you this morning is verse nine again.
Who can say I have made my heart clean? I am pure from my sin.
And secondly, it would be verse 27. The spirit of man is the
candle of the Lord, searching all the inward parts of the belly. I've titled this message, What
Clears the Conscience? What Clears the Conscience? Now
we know what a conscience is. It's given of the Lord. And we
remember that whenever the Lord formed Adam out of the dust of
the ground, breathed into his nostril, man became a living
soul. He became conscious. of his actions, he became conscious
of his thoughts. But everything doesn't have a
conscience, just men and women, just the humans that the Lord
created. Those are the ones that have
a conscience. Animals don't have a conscience. You can see all
throughout nature, whenever different animals act violently towards
other and they kill to eat or kill for sport or whatever it
may be, they have no remorse for that. They can't feel guilt,
no guilt whatsoever. And this is what separates us
from animals as we feel guilty for doing things that are contrary,
even contrary by nature. So we have natural guilt that
the Lord has caused us to have. That we observe that we, and
it's all because the Lord has caused his law to be written
on every heart of man. Did you know that? God's law
is written on every single man and woman on the face of the
earth. All men have this law, but yet in their conscience,
knowing that they're sinful, knowing that they're wrong, obeying
the conscience cannot bring salvation. It cannot cause salvation to
be, to happen. It cannot cause a man to be born
again, cannot make one believe. Turn with me to Romans chapter
two. We have this law that is written
upon the heart, yet observing it naturally is not going to
bring salvation. And obeying the conscience cannot
make one believe. Paul tells us about this in Romans
chapter two in verse 12. For as many as have sinned without
the law shall also perish without the law. And as many as have
sinned in the law shall be judged by the law. For not the hearers
of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall
be justified. For when the Gentiles which have
not the law do by nature, when the Gentiles which have not the
law do by nature, the things contained in the law, these having
not the law and are law unto themselves, 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." The conscience is a witness against all men. Our conscience is our witness.
Now, notice his declaration here of the thoughts of every man.
Having this law on their hearts, they do one of two things, he
says. They excuse themselves and they accuse. That's the two
things that they do. And this is us, brethren. This is what we do by nature.
Whenever we hear of the law of God, we will justify ourselves. We will justify, we will excuse
ourselves because perhaps our behavior is better than others,
or perhaps this, or perhaps that, unless the Lord reveals, gives
us repentance, unless the Lord reveals that we cannot keep his
law, that we cannot help our conscience by pretending to keep
the law of God. That's what all men do, isn't
it? They excuse themselves. I said this, I believe last Sunday,
maybe Wednesday, I can't remember now, but we judge everyone based
upon their actions. That's how we make judgments.
That's how we determine what a man says and what a man does
is based upon their actions. We judge ourselves based upon
our intentions, don't we? We look at ourself and we say,
well, I tried my best and I know this to be so in my life. Whenever
I attempt to do something, I judge myself based upon my intentions,
not my actions. And this is how we all are by
nature. And when men hear this truth of the Lord's gospel, when
they hear of the law, they hear of their conscience. pleading
against them, they are faced and they do the exact same thing
over and over again. They excuse themselves. They
excuse themselves, their behavior. Now, men use different types
of excuses, different types of excuses. Now, don't forget, I'm
still preaching on what clears the conscience. That's what we
need to know, because you and I need to have a clean conscience
before the Lord. Our conscience is not lying to us in that what
it sees is guilt. Now, our hope is that the Lord
doesn't see what our conscience sees, and we're gonna get to
that. But right now, I want us to understand that every man
by nature will justify themselves in the sight of God, even though
the law of God's written on their heart. They will hear their conscience
call saying, you're guilty, and they will justify themselves
by trying to do different things. They'll say, well, it's human
nature. It's human nature to do this, or it's human nature
to do that. I was born this way. You ever heard somebody say that?
I was born this way. What they're saying when they say, I was born
this way, is they're saying it's God's fault that I am like what
I am. That's what that means. If you
ever hear somebody say, I was born this way, they're accusing
God of wrongdoing. That's what they're doing. Homosexuality
is one of the greatest examples I can give to you of that. Men
say, I was born this way. No, you weren't. No, you weren't.
The Lord, you were calling God a liar is what you're doing.
We're trying to be God at that point, aren't we? That's exactly
what I'm trying to tell us this morning. Men know what's right. Men know what's wrong. And nobody
is born the way that they are. Everyone is, I'm not saying that
right. Everyone is born the way that
they are. But everything that we do is by choice and we are
accountable for it. Our conscience tells us that.
We're guilty. We're guilty of all the wrongdoing
that we do. 100% guilty. That's why it's so important
that we need a substitute. You ever heard men say, the devil
made me do it? You ever heard that expression? I have a family
member, they say that. This guy says it all the time
to me. I'm like, what have you been doing? I did this and this
and I feel bad for it, but the devil made me do it. No, he didn't.
The devil doesn't make you do anything, does he? He doesn't
make me do anything. This is just another excuse that men
try to do to justify themselves. I was born this way. The devil
made me do it. It's just human nature, all these things. It's
a lie. It's not true. We're guilty before
the law of God in every way. We're sinners by nature, sinners
by practice, sinners by choice, sinners by pleasure. We need
our conscience to be clear, don't we? We need our conscience to
be cleared. Now, conscience can cause us
to feel guilty, can cause us to feel guilt or shame, but feeling
guilty is not repentance. Men in religion say, well, if
you'll come to the Lord with a broken heart and a contrite
spirit, he'll in no wise cast you out. That's so true, isn't
it? But the Lord is the one that gives the broken heart and the
contrite spirit. The Lord is the one that gives
repentance and faith. And so if we come to the Lord
with a broken heart, it's a gift that's been bestowed. Feeling
guilty is not repentance. Our conscience can reveal sin
and make us feel guilty for it, but it can't atone for sin, can
it? No matter how guilty you feel, no matter how sorrowful
you are of your sin, you cannot atone for your sin and what you
do. There is no work that you can
perform that is pleasing unto the Lord. Nothing, not one thing. And none of the work that you
do will clear your conscience, not here and not before the Lord.
It will not. I heard Todd Norbert say. Recently,
I was listening to a message that he said, and men want to
clear their conscience, but. He said somebody came to him
in the congregation and said, would you teach us how to live
right? We need to know how to live right. That's what this
guy, Todd, looked at him and said, no, you don't. You don't
need me to teach you how to live right. You know how to live right.
You have a conscience. We know how to live right, don't
we? It's truthful. If our conscience tells us not to do it, probably
shouldn't do it. There's going to be a consequence for that.
I'm not preaching works. I'm not talking about for salvation.
I'm literally saying the Lord's given you a voice inside that
has the law of God written on it. We are to observe these things
and we know how to live right. We don't need somebody to teach
us that. The Lord teaches his people how
to live right, doesn't he? Romans chapter one tells us,
for the invisible things of him from the creation of the world
are clearly seeing, being understood by the things that are made.
Everywhere we look around us, everything that you see teaches
us, teaches us of him. Think of the seedling that's
planted in the ground and the tree comes forth. Who else can
do that besides God? Who else can do that? Even his
eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse. Men will say, Well, I don't believe
that there's a God. Men will say things like, men
justify themselves on so many different levels, don't they?
They do. And yet they are without excuse. We are without excuse
in how we live and what we do. We're without excuse in every
way, shape or form. We are guilty. No justification can come forth
from what we speak or what we do. It must come forth from something,
some other source, and it must be bestowed. And that source
is the Lord Jesus Christ. God sees all things. God sees
all things. Now back to Proverbs chapter
20. I should have told you to hold your place there. We're
going to be coming back to it, so just keep your place in Proverbs 20.
And we're fixing it right back to
Romans 3, so I guess I should have told you to hold your place
there, but that's OK. I want you to notice verse 24. Man's goings. Man's goings are
of the Lord. How can a man then understand
his own way? The Lord gives us rhetorical
questions, rhetorical questions to make us think. Even whenever
he was speaking in parables to the Pharisees and then his followers,
his disciples would say, Lord, What does the parable mean? They
didn't even understand it. And he said, no, you're not these
things. And he began to elaborate. He began to explain it. And he
would say things rhetorically in order for them to not, they
would not understand because it's discerned. And he tells
us a rhetorical question here. Man's goings are of the Lord.
How can a man then understand his own way? We can't understand
our own way because the Lord is the full disposer of it, isn't
he? A lot falls in a lap, but the
whole disposing is of the Lord. Look back over your entire life
and see all the things that you have done. Who gets the glory
for that? The Lord does, doesn't he? Everything,
everything that's happened, everything that's transpired up until this
point in your life and everything that's going to happen, the Lord
is going to get the glory for it. We don't understand everything
that's going on. We can't make our heart beat,
can we? We can't make our breath. We can concentrate on breathing,
but as I'm speaking right now, I'm not thinking about my breath.
See, the Lord is the one that orders the steps. The Lord is
the one that calls us, and we are thus. The Lord gets all the
glory, all the glory in this, and all the glory in salvation.
Now, verse 27 tells us, the spirit of man is the candle of the Lord,
searching all the inward parts of the belly. That sounds a lot
like a conscience, doesn't it? I believe that's what he's describing
to us. This light that the Lord's given us, the little bit of light
that we have by nature, by nature, this law that's written upon
our heart, The Lord is showing forth that we are unable to please
him in any way, any shape, in any form. He looks all the way
down, all the way down inside the inward parts, the belly.
This is the core. This is the center. This is where
the deep things are hidden. And that's where the Lord looks.
You ever heard somebody say, don't judge a book by its cover?
The Lord The Lord does not judge a book by its cover. He looks
all the way down on the inside of the book, the upside of the
book, from page one all the way to the end. He knows our frame
that we are but dust. He knows everything about us.
He knows the thoughts and intents of our heart. He knows because
he has created us thusly. I'm reminded that when the Lord
looks all the way down, he was talking to the, He was talking
to the Pharisees once and he told them, he said, you're whitewashed
sepulchers. You know what that means? Whitewashed sepulchers. So they would take a tomb and
then they would bleach it and turn it white. So it'd be beautiful.
And then they would bleach it on the inside and they would
turn it completely white. And everybody would look at the tomb and say, boy, that's
a clean sepulcher. It's still just a tomb, isn't
it? And even though men looked at it and thought it was something
to be desired, that's what he compares the Pharisees to. He
says, that's all that you are, whitewashed sepulchers. And inside
you're full of dead men's bones. Now what does he see when he
looks at us? Say, I need to know how my conscience can be clear.
I need to know how my conscience can be made clean. What does
he see when he looks at us? Well, let's turn to Romans chapter
three. Romans chapter three in verse
10. As it is written, there is none
righteous, no, not one. Remember the rich young ruler
that came to the Lord and said, what must I do to inherit eternal
life? He thought he was going to be able to do something to
accomplish or merit or gain eternal life. And the Lord told him exactly
what his God was. It was his riches, wasn't it?
He said, go and sell all you have, distribute to the poor,
take up your cross and follow me. And the man went away sorrowful.
Now, some people say that that was Saul of Tarsus that became
Paul later on, but there's no evidence of that. And it's, I
guess, not relevant at the present moment. But what's interesting
about it is, is the only way that that man would have sold
everything that he had, whether it's in knowledge, whether it's
in goods or whatever it may be, is because the Lord made him
do so. The Lord showed him that there's none righteous, no, not
one. That's what he told him. He said, why callest thou me
good? There's none good but God. So what does the Lord see when
he looks all the way down? Well, there's none righteous. No, not
one. That's the first thing that he
sees. Verse 11, there is none that understandeth. There is
none that seeketh after God. Somebody said, well, I feel like
I'm seeking after God. Not unless the Lord's saying,
seek ye my face. See, it's not a choice that you
make to come to God. He gives you the faith to come
to him and you run to him. It's an effectual calling that's
not something that we can dismiss. It's that He calls and we are
made to answer it. Do you find rest in that? Do you see the grace of the Lord
in making you do something? Men like to say, well, I'm my
own man. I can make my own decisions.
But see, there's none that seeketh after Him. That's what I'm telling
us. Verse 12, they are all gone out of the way. They are together
become unprofitable. There is none that do with good,
no, not one. Their throat is an open sepulcher. Their throat is an open sepulcher.
With their tongue they have used deceit. The poison of ask is
under their lips. What does he mean their throat
is an open sepulcher? That means when the Lord looks
at you, he sees you as if your mouth was open looking up and
he sees all the way down through you, every single bit of you.
That's what he's talking about. He doesn't just look at the outside.
He sees down to the deep parts. That's what we just read in Proverbs
chapter 20. It's the candle of the Lord.
He knows all things. He sees it very clearly. We're
open sepulchers unto him. He looks all the way, all the
way down. No flesh is justified. in his
sight. And look at verse 19. Now we
know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them
who are under the law, 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. But now the righteousness
of God without the law is manifested with being witnessed by the law
and the prophets, even the righteousness of God, which is by faith of
Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe, for there
is no difference. For all have sinned and come
short of the glory of God. Now, Here is our hope in verse
24, being justified freely by His grace, through the redemption
that is in Christ Jesus. He's telling us that the law
is given, that every mouth may be stopped. Even the law that's
written on your heart, His law that He gives you by nature,
it's to stop us, it's to shut us up. Do you ever notice when
the Lord speaks, we stop talking? Look throughout all scripture,
when the Lord spoke unto Saul, Saul responded, but he shut up
after that, didn't he? What did Job say? I'm placing
my hand over my mouth not to speak anymore. Every time the
Lord speaks, it shuts us up. When we see the law, when we
truly see the holiness of God's law, it shuts us up. We have no confession before
the law of God, no justification in any way before the law of
God. And that's what it's supposed to do. the deeds of the law,
no man can be justified. He's done this so every mouth
would be stopped. So what do all men do whenever
they hear that they are guilty? And they hear that they're guilty.
I'm still preaching on what clears the conscience. I'm explaining
that there is nothing that we can do to clear the conscience,
and I'm hitting that nail on the head as many times as I can.
It's so important to understand that. What do men hear whenever
they hear that they're guilty? What do they think? What do they
do? They attempt to clear their own
conscience, don't they? That's what men do. How do they
do that? Well, they do it by keeping the
law, don't they? If you hear that you transgress
God's law, naturally speaking, you're going to want to keep
God's law. You're going to want to live a better life. You're
going to want to taste not, touch not, handle not. But the law
was not given for redemption. The law was given to expose our
sin. Grace and truth came through
the Lord Jesus Christ only, not the law, not by the works of
the law. No man will be justified. We
just read that. It's by the obedience of the Lord Jesus Christ. That
is our justification. Now back to Proverbs 20. In verse number nine, who can
say I have made my heart clean? I am pure from my sin. Diverse
weights and diverse measures, both of them are like abomination
to the Lord. That word abomination is literally
translated disgusting. It disgusts the Lord. So what
is he talking about? Diverse weights and diverse measures.
Well, back in the time when this was written, that's their unit
of measurement would be the unit of measurement was determined
by a scale. Everything in trade would have
been a scale. So they brought the scale forth
and they would put a weight of this on the scale and they would
put a weight of that on the scale. What he's referring to is those
that were swindlers, those that were thieves, those that were
crooked, and they had a weighted scale. So that whenever you went
to purchase something from them, you wouldn't know that their
scale was off, but you would have to give more in order to
obtain what you desired. You'd have to give more. They
would trick you. That's what he's talking about here. And
he's saying diverse weights. And diverse measures, both are
like an abomination unto the Lord. It's disgusting. What does
he mean? Men trying to fix their own sin problem is like trying
to use a weighted scale. It's like trying to use a broken
scale. It's like trying to manipulate
the scale in God's eyes. And God says, I don't, I won't
have it. I'll disannoy your covenant. I see all the way down inside
you. There is no way that a man can be justified in the eyes
of God. God has a just, Scale, I can't
stress the importance of that. His scale is true. His scale
is holy. And we cannot attain to his scale
no matter what we do. Men by nature think that they
can come. and do things to clear their conscience so that when
they stand in the presence of God, they put all their good
deeds on one side of the scale and they put all their sin on
the other side of the scale and it's going to balance out. We don't understand that
that's not the way God is. God says one sin equals death. There is not a good deed that
can erase a bad deed. It has to be put away. The sin
must be put away in order for you and I to be justified. In
order for us to have a clear conscience, sin must be put away. From the very beginning in the
garden, men tried to do something to fix the scale, didn't they?
Adam and Eve, what did they do? They sowed fig leaves together,
didn't they? They tried to cover up their nakedness. They tried
to form their own righteousness. They tried to fix what they had
broken. What did Cain do whenever he killed Abel? God gave him
the judgment. What did Cain say? Well, it's too much for me. What
was he saying? He was justifying himself. He was saying that's
not fair. It's not fair that I just killed
him and now you're making me live my life this way. That's
not fair. That's what men would say by nature. That's exactly
what Cain said. Men trying to fix their problems.
I can remember the best, probably the best example is Judas. When
Judas sold our Lord for silver, he took the silver from the scribes,
the Pharisees, the high priest, he took the money, didn't he?
And he kissed the face of God, kissed the face of the Lord Jesus
Christ. When he found out, when he saw the Lord being crucified,
when he saw everything that was transpiring, he was convicted. What convicted him? He wasn't
the Lord, he was born for the singular purpose of betraying
Christ. He was the son of perdition.
He was literally born, you understand what I'm saying. So what convicted
him? His conscience. Do we see that?
His conscience did. He knew that he had transgressed
God's law. He knew that he was wrong. What did he do? Did he
repent? No, he didn't repent, did he?
He didn't turn, learn it and change his mind because repentance
is a gift. What did he do? He took the money back and he
said, take it. He said, I don't want the money anymore. He tried
to fix his problem, didn't he? He tried to fix it. He couldn't
fix it. So then what did he do? He went out. And he did what
every man will do left to themselves. He offered himself up unto God
as a sacrifice. He committed suicide. That's
what it means to commit suicide. You're offering yourself up to
God instead of Christ. That's exactly what it means.
That's what he did. What clears the conscience? Men
try to Do you know you can sear your own conscience? If you continue
to do repetitious things over and over again, even though your
conscience says it's wrong, you can sear it. You can become numb
to bad deeds. You can, men can. The scripture
talks about men having their conscience seared with a hot
iron. Men try to fix their problems
by searing their conscience with repetition, by moral living.
None of these things can clear the conscience, can they? The
taste not, touch not, handle not mentality cannot clear the
conscience. So what do men do when they can no longer fix their
conscience? They lie. Men lie. They lie about who God is. They
lie about what God has done. They lie about what they've done.
Why do men lie? talking to someone the other
day, and I've been around men that are habitual liars. It's
like it's natural to them. They'll just talk and you know
they're telling you a lie right to your face. Why do they do
that? They have no confidence. They have no confidence in themselves
or what they're speaking of. They want to be viewed as better
than what they are. Did you know the Lord's people
are the only honest people? Why? Because they don't lie on
who God is. Their confession is Christ is
all. They confess the truth, the Lord Jesus Christ. These
people that I'm referring to that lie all the time, they have
no confidence. They're trying to look better
among men. Why? Because their conscience has
convicted them at some point, and the Lord has not given them
repentance. They're trying to be viewed as better in society.
They're looking around and saying, I'm not like this. I'm not like
that. And that's exactly what the Pharisee prayed. Lord, I
thank you that I'm not like this publican over here. What did
the publican say? Lord, have mercy upon me, the
sinner. Is that your prayer? Is that your prayer? It is. If
you're the Lord's, he's going to cause you to cry out. Lord,
I've sinned against myself. I've sinned against nature. But
most of all, I've sinned against you. And I need my conscience
cleared. I need my conscience cleared.
And I can't do anything to clear it. Somebody mentioned to me
about white lies. A lie is a lie either way, it
doesn't it doesn't matter whether it's white or black or purple,
whatever color you want to put on, it's a lie, isn't it? And
I'm guilty of this. I'm about to confess something
to you and you'll probably laugh at me. And you're probably guilty
of this too, just to be honest. But whenever I go fishing, a
lot of times I'll catch a fish and they'll say, how big was
it? And I'll hold my hands up. And I'm kind of like, yeah, probably,
probably not completely honest with how big the fish is. Have
you ever done anything like that before? I'm sure you probably
have. What's my point? We lie by nature, don't we? We
lie to, I want to impress the person I'm talking to. It was
this big. This is how big that fish was. No, it wasn't. No,
I'm lying to you. I shouldn't. We shouldn't do
that shit, but we do. We tell these white lies and
act like everything's just fine. That's what men do with their
soul is what I'm trying to tell you. They lie about what's on
the inside, but God sees it all the way down. I can't stress
the importance of that enough. The Lord sees it. It doesn't
matter how big you say the fish was. God knows exactly how big
the fish was. I'm referring to our souls. He
sees down. Why do men do this? Because men
love the praise of man more than the praise of God, don't they?
Scripture tells us that clearly. When Adam and Eve sinned in the
garden, this is our example of it from the very beginning. When
Adam and Eve sinned in the garden, What did Adam say to God? Did
you know Adam blamed God for Adam's sin? He did. The woman
that you gave me is the reason I sinned. He blamed God. That's
what men will do by nature over and over again, to try to clear
their conscience. It's the blame game, isn't it?
It started in the Garden of Eden. It's still the same. Men are
blaming others. I'm not where I should be because of him or
her. I'm not where I should be because of this or that. Men
won't take responsibility and they won't take ownership of
their sin. They try to put it aside, to get rid of it, hoping
that the Lord turns a blind eye to it, that their good deeds
will outweigh their bad deeds. And the Lord says, no, I see all the
way down, all the way down, that you are utterly sinful and that
I am utterly sinful. God's law exposes this sin. Romans chapter two, verse one
tells us, therefore thou art inexcusable, inexcusable, O man,
Whosoever thou art that judges, for wherein thou judgest another,
thou condemnest thyself, for thou that judges doest the same."
What does he mean? Every time that you've ever pointed
your finger at somebody and said, you're guilty of this, I think
my mother probably taught me this as a kid, but you have three
pointing right back at you. Isn't that right? Have you ever
heard that before? Why? Because we're guilty of the same.
There's nothing that I can accuse you of that I'm not guilty of
myself. There's nothing that the Lord's
people can accuse others of that they're not guilty of themselves.
That's what he's saying. You're inexcusable. You're inexcusable. And this is revealed unto each
and every man, the natural response is either to rebel or to justify
themselves. Or. Men will take their works. I learned behavior from the very
earliest of age, you remember being a child perhaps and being
afraid and you had a comfort item. Greg Elmquist wrote a bullet
article on this and I want to put it in our bulletin already
had the bulletin finished. It'll probably be in there next Sunday. So when
you read it, remember this. You take in a baby blanket. That's
what he was referring to, a baby blanket. And that's what a child
does, is scared of the dark and scared of something chasing after
it, running up the stairs. You can remember perhaps running
through the house and feel like something's chasing you. You
run into bed, you cover up with the blanket, don't you? And it's
like the blanket makes it all disappear or something. I don't know. But
it's a false sense of security, isn't it? It really is. There's
no protection in the blanket. The blanket's not going to save
you. The blanket's not going to save me. And that's what men
are doing and gambling with their souls. presenting their righteousness
before God, saying, I'm good enough. It's the same as hiding
under a baby blanket. The Lord says, I'll disannul
your covenant. I see all the way down. That blanket's not
going to protect you from the wrath of God when it comes. You
must have a covering the Lord Jesus Christ's blood and his
righteousness alone. That's what we must have. Only the Lord's people admit
that they are 100% guilty. 100% guilty. If the Lord sends me
to hell, he is right to do so. That's what I deserve. I deserve
eternal separation from him. I deserve eternal punishment
for what I am and what I've done. Paul said in 2 Corinthians 1,
for our rejoicing is this. This is our rejoicing. Testimony
of our conscience that in simplicity and Godly sincerity, that it's
in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom, but
by the grace of God. Now I have spent quite some time
in explaining to us what does not clear the conscience, what
does not. And I've mentioned what does
clear the conscience some, but I have three quick points that
I want to make to you on what clears the conscience. Number
one, the truth. The truth shall set you free. The truth shall clear the conscience. Now, who is the truth? The Lord
Jesus Christ himself is, isn't he? The Lord Jesus Christ is
the truth. Turn with me to Philippians chapter
3. Philippians chapter 3. But what things were gained to
me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yea, doubtless, I count
all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus,
my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and do
count them but done that I may win Christ and be found in him,
not having my own righteousness, which is of the law, but that
which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness, which
is of God by faith, that I may know him, that I may know him. and the power of his resurrection
and the fellowship of his sufferings being made conformable unto his
death. We must have Christ to have a
clear conscience. We must have the truth. In a court of law, the judge
determines what is the truth and what is false, who is guilty
and who is innocent. And the only hope that we have
is that whenever the judge looks at us and he asks for our plea,
that we speak the truth and the judge sets us free. What is the
truth? That Christ Jesus came into the
world to save sinners. Christ Jesus successfully put
away the sin of his people. It's not that I plead myself.
It's not that I point to myself and say, I have done this and
I have done that. I have cleared my conscience. No, it's that
Christ Jesus cleared the conscience of his people by putting their
sin away. That's what our hope is. We must
have his righteousness. Our conscience convicts us. The
truth sets us free. When the conscience says that
you're guilty of sin, it is true as far as what we see and as
far as what the conscience sees. But in God's eyes, think about
this. Think about this. In God's eyes,
when he looks upon you, your hope and my hope is that he sees
his darling son. And if he sees his darling son,
you have a clear conscience before God. He put away your sin. What
cleans the conscience is a clear conscience. The Lord had taken
the sin that we are accused of by our conscience, and he has
cleared it. He has put it away by his own
death. The Lord's the one that did that. This is the truth that
sets us free. We're no longer looking at a
baby blanket for our covering, but we're looking at a hiding
place. The cleft of the rock. Moses said, Lord, I want to see
your glory. He said, no man can look upon me and live. I'm holy.
He said, there is a place nigh unto me, the cleft of the rock.
And I'm going to put you in there. That's what he did for his people.
That's what's cleared our conscience is the Lord has put us in the
cleft of the rock, the Lord Jesus Christ, and put away our sin. This is our hope. None of the
other things I was mentioning before is going to clear our
conscience, not justification of ourself, not the works that
we do. Everything that we are, the Lord sees all the way down.
The only thing that's going to satisfy, the only thing that's
going to clear our conscience is the gospel of God's free and
sovereign grace. What clears the conscience? The
truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Number two, what
clears the conscience? The blood of Christ. The blood
of Christ clears the conscience. How? He has washed us and made
us whiter than snow. Turn with me to Hebrews chapter
nine. Hebrews chapter nine. Look at verse 11. but Christ, the incumbent 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 once into the holy place, having obtained eternal
redemption for us. For if the blood of bulls and
goats and the ashes of heifer sprinkling the unclean sanctify
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 what? Your conscience. Purge your conscience
from dead works to serve the living God. We must be washed
in the blood of the Lamb to have a clear conscience. He did that
for his people. He has purged your conscience. If you're his, he's purged your
conscience. You have a clear conscience before
God. That is priceless. You can't
put a price on that. The blood of Christ is what it
took in order to accomplish that. And he did that for his people. So that when you feel guilty,
when your conscience says you've done this wrong and you've done
that wrong, you have a place to run to. And you confess, Lord,
I'm false and full of sin, but thou art full of truth and grace.
You plead the blood of Christ alone knowing that he had purged
your conscience from dead works to serve the living and true
God. You've been made perfect. You've been made spotless. Your
conscience is pure before the Lord. He's given you a clear
conscience. What clears the conscience? First
of all, it's the truth, isn't it? The truth of God. Second
of all, it's the blood of Christ. And lastly, what clears the conscience,
the true heart of faith that he gives his people. Look in
verse 19 of chapter 10 of Hebrews. Having therefore brethren boldness
to enter the holiest by the blood of Jesus. You have complete,
that word boldness, I wrote, I think I wrote an article last
week on boldness, what boldness is, what boldness is not. Boldness
is complete confidence in the finished work of Christ. That's
it. It's not being, Haughty it's not being puffed up. It's not
being really loud and obnoxious. That's not boldness. That's arrogance
totally different Boldness is confidence in the finished work
of Christ. He says you have confidence That everything Christ set out
to do he accomplished therefore you can enter into his presence
by the blood of Christ Having therefore brethren boldness to
enter the holiest by the blood of Christ by a new and living
way which he hath consecrated for us through the veil, that
is to say, his flesh. And having an high priest over
the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full
assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil
conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold
fast the profession of our faith without wavering, for he is faithful
that promise. Let us consider one another to
provoke unto love and to good works. not forsaking the assembling
of ourself together as a manner of some is, but exhorting one
another and so much more. As you see the day approaching,
we have been given a heart of faith that looks unto him. He hath sprinkled our conscience
and made it clear before him. Now, I want to be careful how
I say this to you because I don't want to be misunderstood. But
in God's eyes, and the way God sees it is exactly how it is.
In God's eyes, those that Christ died for, he hath put away their
sin. So that whenever our conscience says that you're guilty, our
conscience is not telling the truth. Do you understand what
I'm saying by that? Now, as far as it's concerned,
yes, we are guilty of the sin, but the way God sees it is we're
not guilty of the sin. Am I making sense? So our conscience
is, When it's speaking, it's telling the truth that we are
guilty, but yet at the same time, it's not telling the truth because
God doesn't see it that way. Many say, well, that doesn't
make any sense. Well, we don't, there's a lot of things that doesn't
make sense that we believe, but that's what we believe, isn't it? Our conscience
is telling the truth that we're guilty. But as far as God sees
it, we're not guilty of anything except the righteousness of Jesus
Christ by substitution. The Lord Jesus Christ did that
and putting away our sin. We've been given this heart of
faith that looks to Christ. And we don't lie on the Lord,
do we? Men lie because they have no
confidence, no confidence in themselves. They want to be viewed
a certain way. We don't lie. You know why? Because we have no
confidence in the flesh. It's exactly the opposite. We are
100% without confidence. We're confident in Christ. That's
why we don't lie. We confess that Christ is all.
We're no longer liars. We tell the truth. The Lord's
people tell the truth. This is why we come together
every time, because this is the only thing that purges our conscience. Now, you can take the truth,
the blood of the lamb, and you can take the true heart of faith,
those three, and you can sum it up by calling it the gospel.
That's what gives us a clear conscience before God is the
gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is why we keep coming back
over and over. This is why David said, purge
me with hyssop and I shall be clean. Wash me and I shall be
made water than snow. I admit that I am guilty. My
conscience tells me I'm guilty. Lord, make it not be thus. Make
it when you died, I died in you. Lord, give me you as my confession.
Give me your righteousness. Clear my conscience, Lord. Show
me that when you died, I died in you. Show me that it was for
me. Show me that you washed my conscience clear. You purged
my conscience. Show me that, Lord. That's why we keep coming
over and over and over. The Lord's people are the only
ones that are honest for this reason. They're the only ones
that can say my conscience is clear. Why? Because of your confession
that Christ is all. We are made to believe Christ
is all because of the truth revealed. Proverbs 20, verse nine is where
we started. And it says, who can say? Who can say that I have
cleared? Who can we turn back there? Who
can say I have made my heart clean? I am pure for my sin. There is nobody that can say
they have done that themselves, can they? But the believer looking
unto Christ knows that their sin hath been put away and that
their heart is clean before God. and that their conscience is
spotless because of the precious blood of Christ, because of his
finished work. Only those who are resting in
his glorious gospel can have a clear conscience. What clears
the conscience? The gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, the truth
of the Lord, the blood of Christ, and the heart of faith, true
heart of faith that he's given his people. Father, thank you
that you have given us a clear conscience before you.