1 Peter 1:13-16 KJV Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ; [14] As obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance: [15] But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; [16] Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy.
I. INTRODUCTION—THE PRIORITY OF HOLINESS
-There is a great responsibility to teach and preach holiness in our times because it needs to be a high priority. It is imperative that we hear God’s high call to holiness.
-Our culture is changing so dramatically every day that we can get punch drunk unless there is a willingness to find our bearings through a clear understanding of Scripture and a relationship with God through prayer.
There is a story told of an elderly woman who was pulled over by a state trooper on the interstate. When the trooper got up to the car, he told the lady he was going to have to give her a ticket. She wondered why he would be giving her a ticket because she said that she was so meticulous about the posted speed limit signs. He told her that there were speed limits on the interstate and that she was only driving 20 mph which was too slow, she had to drive at least 45 mph. She assured him that she had just noticed a sign that said 20 on it. He kindly told her that she was in Interstate 20 and that this was simply the road number.
As he was explaining this he had already noticed a woman who appeared to be paralyzed in the passenger seat. Her hands were seemingly glued to the dashboard, eyes wide in fright, and a twisted look on her face. The trooper being concerned for her health asked the driver if the lady needed medical attention. The driver replied back to him and said that obviously she was in that state because of her driving patterns. The driver said, “Now I know what is wrong with her. I just turned off of State Highway 121 before I got on Interstate 20!”
-Our world is changing just like that. However, God’s standards never change and what He has called for in the 1st Century, He is still calling for in the 21st Century.
A. General Quotes on Holiness
Tyron Edwards—A holy life is not an ascetic, or gloomy, or solitary life, but a life regulated by divine truth and faithful in Christian duty. It is living above the world while we are still in it.
Carlo Carretto—The world and the Cross do not get along too well together, and comfort and holiness do not share the same room.
Leighton—A holy life is a voice; it speaks when the tongue is silent, and is either a constant attraction or a perpetual reproof.
B. Biblical Quotes on Holiness
-Just a quick look through the New Testament reveals that it is full of unique commands and specific calls for personal holiness.
• 1 Peter 2:11 KJV . . . abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul;
• Romans 8:13 KJV . . . mortify the deeds of the body.
• Romans 13:14 KJV . . . make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof.
• 1 John 2:15 KJV Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. . .
• 2 Timothy 2:22 KJV Flee also youthful lusts. . .
• Ephesians 4:22 KJV . . . put off . . . the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts;
• Ephesians 4:24 KJV . . put on the new man . .
• Philippians 4:8 KJV . . . think on these things.
• Colossians 3:16 KJV Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly . . .
• Ephesians 6:14 KJV Stand . . . having on the breastplate of righteousness;
• 1 Corinthians 9:27 KJV But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection. . .
• Romans 12:1 KJV . . . present your bodies a living sacrifice. . .
• James 1:21 KJV . . . lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word. . .
• 2 Corinthians 7:1 KJV . . . let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness. . .
• 1 Peter 2:1 KJV . . . laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings,
• 1 Peter 2:2 KJV As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby:
-The text that we read from 1 Peter is a cross-reference from the book of Leviticus (11:44; 19:2; 20:7). Despite the fact that the world wants to scoff at it, holiness is still a priority with God.
-But even stranger is the underlying hint of hostility that comes from inside the Church toward the message of holiness. It is sad to note but it appears as if there are those who call themselves Christians who don’t want to be troubled by certain specific directives toward holiness.
-Just last night I went into Lifeway (10/23/10) and looked at the bestsellers in the Christian market. Much of those books were oriented toward financial responsibility, healing emotional hurts, managing negative emotions, gaining acceptance in the world by not being so strident in our views and beliefs, and the last (maybe largest) genre was those of fulfilling dreams with God’s help.
• I did not find any books on how to be holy.
• I did not find any books on how to separate myself from the world.
• I did not find any books that were instructive on prayer.
• I did not find any books on cross-bearing and sacrifice.
-That is the challenge of our times—finding an atmosphere that is encourages holiness to develop. You will discover that you will have to seek out places that will encourage your own mind and heart to pursue a higher level of communion with God—not a lower one.
-I have a responsibility for accountability in my personal life:
• To the Church.
• To my wife, children, parents, and in-laws.
• The priority of holiness is ultimately accountability to God.
-I heard one pastor who said that his thirty-something year old son told him, “Dad, don’t mess up!!!” This pastor had lived his life long under the mantle of faithful responsibility but Satan is very deceptive and can derail those who are not vigilant. This man’s son was encouraging his father to live out a life of godliness even to his grave. You must understand that the priority for holiness becomes much higher the longer that you live.
-You will also discover that the greatest battlefield for holiness is on the inside. You have to fight the battle within before you will ever win those on the outside.
• Holiness is not a cultural battle although our world does not promote holiness in any form.
• Holiness is not a political battle as we are realizing our nation can no longer be cast as a Christian nation.
• Holiness is not a denominational battle as we have noted that Facebook has blown the cover of those who profess but have never possessed.
• Holiness is not a form of behavior modification; it is a priority of pursuing God and making Him the very center of our life.
-The battle for a life of personal holiness comes from within the heart of a man. He must be determined to pursue and seek after a holy relationship with God.
II. THE CONSCIENCE AND THE CALL TO HOLINESS
A. Paul and the Conscience
2 Corinthians 1:12 KJV For our rejoicing is this, the testimony of our conscience, that in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God, we have had our conversation in the world, and more abundantly to you-ward.
2 Corinthians 1:12 MOFFAT My proud boast is the testimony of my conscience that holiness and godly sincerity, not worldly cunning but the grace of God, have marked my conduct in the outside world and in particular my relations with you.
-This passage from 2 Corinthians introduces us to word “conscience.” You have to win the battle for holiness on the inside. If you do not win the battle on the inside you will lose it on the outside. The stronger your conscience is the more productive your battle for holiness will be.
John Owen—Let not that man think he makes any progress in holiness while he walks not over the bellies of his lusts. . . . If you want to kill sin, load your conscience with the guilt of it.
Thomas Watson—It is better to be a pattern of holiness, than a partner in wickedness. It is better to go to heaven with a few, than to hell in the crowd. We must walk in an opposite course to the men of the world.
-The conscience is a God-given gift and we must carefully consider and cultivate. Far too many people play with and mock their conscience until it is so sickly it cannot even protest their wrongdoing.
In 1984 a Boeing 707 crashed into the side of a mountain in Spain. The black box flight recorder brought an amazing discovery. Several minutes before the airliner crashed, the flight recorder captured the voice of an electronic warning given to the pilots. The message was to adjust the flight pattern due to an obstacle in the flight path. After the alarm continued to go off until the pilot finally ordered it to be turned off. The warning voice was silenced and all lives were lost. This is how far too many treat their conscience. They turn off the information and they make shipwreck of their soul. There is no way around the warnings that the conscience gives to us, if you ignore it you will hit the mountain.
-Conscience is a tremendous gift from God and it plays a vital part in our walk of holiness. It tells us when we are on a path to shipwreck. It is like the gift of pain. This mechanism tells us that something is not right with our body.
-This is the dilemma of leprosy. The nerve endings become so desensitized that you get to a place of being desensitized, you cannot feel a thing. So limbs are injured and destroyed because pain is no longer felt.
-Paul wrote to the Romans about the matter of the conscience.
Romans 2:14-15 KJV 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: [15] Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another;)
-My conscience either indicts or exonerates. Accusing or excusing. Conscience is the soul’s warning system. It works best when it has been filled with the Spirit and the Word.
-The Greeks understood the conscience as a goddess. Her name was Nemesis. She is the personification of morality and she is also the one who is responsible for vengeance. She is determined to pursue every law breaker who has ever transgressed the law.
-There is a painting of Nemesis by Alfred Rethel that has managed to be preserved over the years. In this picture, there is a man who is running in terrified fear. A thousand sins that he has committed in his lifetime are pursuing him with the force of a gale wind. His eyes are bulging with terror as he flees. But above all of these sins that are pursuing him is Nemesis and she is flying with a flashing sword lifted in her hand ready to strike him dead. This is the conscience!
B. How the Conscience Works
-The conscience has a “bully” function in your life. It is awakened by low living and spiritual luke-warmness. It can be the most relentless, disturbing enemy of the sinning soul or it can be your truest friend and truest comforter. This is the power of the holy heart that has a conscience that has been touched by God.
-Holiness begins with the heart. The pursuit of holiness is not to fix the outside but rather to pursue God and the closer we get to God the more we are going to allow God to transform us.
-The evidence of sinful society, a sinful church, and sinful leaders is due to a faulty functioning of the conscience.
-We have gotten it backwards in our days. The conscience has gotten so sick that it has re-defined sin. Most people in our society think of themselves as imperfect and in need of improvement—but they never think of themselves as sinners in need of forgiveness and redemption.
• Disease, antisocial behavior, and lack of moral development have replaced the concept of sin.
• Homosexuality has now been given a pass and now those who oppose the sin of homosexuality are considered homophobic.
• It is now common to hear of people having an affair instead of calling it adultery.
• Personal choice is now the thing to be achieved instead of approval of God.
-Conscience has been built into every soul—both the converted and unconverted. But the conscience is part of the fallen nature and it cannot function correctly without the work of the Spirit within. It has been flawed by the curse but it can be transformed by the work of the Spirit and the Word.
-It will certainly have the capacity to continue to say to those who can hear it, “Change your flight pattern, obstacle ahead!” But when it can no longer lead us into holiness it has been compromised.
-The conscience functions like a sky-light in a home, it does not produce its own light and it has to have the right source of light passing through it. For a saint of God this light can only come from the Word of God. A godly conscience is fully informed only by the truth of Scripture.
Psalms 119:11 KJV Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee.
-All through Psalm 119 the law of God is listed in descriptive ways.
• Testimonies
• Precepts
• Statutes
• Commandments
• Righteous Judgments
• It is our delight.
• The Scriptures are our counselors.
-Consider this recurring theme in Psalm 119: In God’s mercy and kindness, He has afflicted me. Why? To draw me back into the ways of God!
-A fully engaged conscience has to be a priority for us—A call to holiness. A fully engaged conscience will long to worship God.
III. A DEAD CONSCIENCE
-Any church that replaces the Word of God with entertainment, story-book sermons, music programs, youth functions, and pop-psychology, will soon find that the conscience never has the ability to convict and transform the human heart.
-Such a conscience will be rampant with ideas and thoughts that are not godly and conducive to what the Spirit is trying to say to the Church. It will be an unholy place. Self-help and counseling can never fix what the Word and the Spirit calls us to do because they are diametrically opposed.
A. Two Ways to Kill the Conscience
The conscience is like a sharp square peg in our hearts. If we are confronted by a questionable situation, that square begins to turn, and its corners cut into our hearts, warning us with an inward sensation against doing whatever confronts us. If the conscience is ignored time after time, the corners of that square are gradually worn down, and it virtually becomes a circle. When that circle turns within our hearts, there is no inner sensation of warning, and we are left without a conscience.
-There are two ways to ensure that the conscience can no longer work in the heart:
• Misinform it. Twist and pervert moral law until there are no standards of righteousness. Take a poll and find out who the cultural heroes are and that will tell you a good idea of where the nation is going.
• Silence it. Do as the pilots on the airliner did; turn off the warning system. Erase the guilt. The world has continually said from even before the times of Sigmund Freud, get rid of the guilt. It is just a matter of low self-esteem.
-Paul talked about the conscience that could become wounded, defiled, evil, and seared.
-A saint of God never needs to do this. He needs to respond to the feelings that the Lord places in his heart. This is how God calls us to do what we need to do about our sin. Guilt and remorse are often the ways that the Lord is working with the conscience, He may very well be trying to afflict you so that you will come to repentance.
-Charles Wesley hymn on the conscience and although I have never sung it or even heard it, the words are provoking:
I want a principle within
Of watchful, godly fear,
A sensibility of sin,
A pain to feel it near.
Help me the first approach to feel
Of pride or wrong desire;
To catch the wandering of my will,
And quench the kindling fire.
From Thee that I no more may stray,
No more Thy goodness grieve,
Grant me the awe, I pray,
The tender conscience give.
Quick as the apple of an eye,
O God, my conscience make!
Awake my soul when sin is nigh,
And keep it still awake.
B. An Awakened Conscience
-There will come a day when conscience in the end will turn on the sinner with a vengeance. Where will this take place? In hell. This is where they are weeping and gnashing their teeth. It will become the chief tormenter of the damned. It will not be misinformed and silent. It will remind them they are responsible for the torment they are suffering.
John Flavel—Conscience which should have been the soul’s curb here on earth, becomes the whip which must lash his soul in hell. Neither is there any faculty or power belonging to the soul of man fit and so able to do it as his own conscience. That which was the seat and center of all guilt now becomes the seat and center of all torment. No rest. No peace. Just weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth. Conscience will forever make the sinner admit the truth of every charge it brings and the justice of every pain he suffers.
-But there is a better way. Consider the reward of those who have been redeemed.
Hebrews 10:22 KJV 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.
Hebrews 9:14 KJV 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?
-The conscience can be sanitized by the power of God.
2 Corinthians 1:12 KJV For our rejoicing is this, the testimony of our conscience, that in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God, we have had our conversation in the world, and more abundantly to you-ward.
-Paul goes to his own defense in this passage. Look at all of the accusations that he had to defend himself against in 2 Corinthians. A group of false teachers had come in and were attempting to replace him. To do this, they had to tear him down. He was the reigning teacher and pastor who was leading them. They were deadly in their attack.
• His suffering was because God was punishing him for sin. 1:6
• Untrustworthy. 1:17
• Not truthful but rather a huckster.
• He lacked official papers from Jerusalem.
• He was unauthorized.
• Secretly corrupt.
• He had a hidden life of shame below the surface.
• A deceiver who was filled with deception.
• Accused him of being proud.
• Mentally imbalanced.
• Manipulative and was taking advantage of them for the sake of money.
• Dishonorable.
• Weak.
• Presence was contemptible as was his speech.
-As hard as it was to defend himself, he did so in this passage. “Our confidence is this. . . the testimony of our conscience. . . .”
IV. CONCLUSION—WHAT DOES YOUR CONSCIENCE SAY?
-What is your conscience saying right now? What will it say on that great day of the Lord? You can glory in a life of holiness, God’s high call to holiness leads us to a clear conscience
-The highest human court is that which is in the confines of the human conscience. The battle is won by the grace of God in our conscience.
• Acts 23:1—I have lived in a good conscience.
• Acts 24:16—My conscience is clear toward man and God.
• 2 Timothy 1:3—I will serve with a pure conscience.
-We have to be able to say that!
-When sin is mortified the conscience is most satisfied.
Philip Harrelson
October 24, 2010
