Intro
Last week we introduced the subject of conscience. We identified what the conscience is and how it works. It is not a perfect guide because its moral judgment is based on the knowledge it has. But we are constituted in such a way that if we violate conscience, we become laden with guilt and lose our effectiveness in several ways. After an introduction about the nature of conscience, we discussed five conditions of conscience:
1. A pure conscience is sometimes called a good conscience. A pure conscience is not burdened with a sense of guilt. The person has not violated his own moral standards. In Acts 24:16, Paul said that he always strived “to have a conscience without offense toward God and men.”i And in Acts 23:1, he said that he had “lived in all good conscience.” This is an essential key to his success in life and ministry. This is what we want to do. A good conscience is an affirming conscience.
2. A defiled conscience has been corrupted or soiled through violations of its moral standards (Titus 1:15).
3. An evil conscience is a bad conscience, in contrast to a good conscience. A defiled conscience and an evil conscience may be the same thing, but each term emphasizes something different. Defiled emphasized the pollution of the conscience in contrast to a pure, clean conscience. Evil emphasizes the troublesome nature of the conscience. It is an accusing conscience.ii
4. A seared conscience is an evil conscience that has been violated so resolutely and so long that it has become insensitive to right and wrong. The conscience is so calloused that there is no concern about doing right. The only concern is personal advantage.
5. A weak conscience is not adequately informed by truth. People with a weak conscience tend to go into legalism because they want to quiet the accusations.iii However, a lack of knowledge concerning the grace of God and where God has set the boundaries, leaves them setting inappropriate boundaries.
If we want to live a happy, fulfilling life, we must be informed by the Word of God and live accordingly. This is one reason we spend time in Scripture. When the conscience is well-informed by truth and the person is living according to that truth, then the conscience is strong. The person can say, “I have lived in all good conscience.” The person who lives “in all good conscience” enjoys inner peace and assurance. Sometimes people confuse an accusing conscience with low self-esteem. Rather than changing the condition through better self-talk, those people need the conscience cleansed.
With that foundation, we will now discuss how to maintain a pure conscience.
1. We must appreciate the VALUE of a pure conscience. An accusing conscience is distracting. There is the inner sense that something is not right. It is a nagging voice inside that calls for attention. Without biblical knowledge of what to do about it, some people spend thousands of dollars in therapy. Others try to quieten the voice with alcohol or drugs. Some overdose on entertainment, busyness, work, or even religion. In the long run, none of those efforts can silence conscience. A minority of people violate conscience until it becomes seared. But most people just try to tread through life with that monkey on their back.
A good conscience produces assurance in the heart for prayer. Watch a small child who has violated his conscience. He does not want to look Mom in the eye. He may even physically hide from her the way Adam hid from God in the Garden. When the conscience is violated, our tendence is to draw back from God rather than drawing near to him. We may find excuses for not going to church where the Word of God will be preached and the people around us will be worshipping. We may neglect personal Bible study. And we will likely find it hard to get into prayer. Watchman Nee says, “A single offense on the conscience may suppress and suspend the normal function of intuition in communing with God, for as soon as a believer is conscious of sin his spirit gathers all its powers to eliminate that particular sin and leaves no more strength to ascend heavenward.”iv In other words, the mind becomes so preoccupied with the voice of conscience that it is difficult to focus on God and our love relationship with him. The person becomes sin-conscience, rather than God-conscience.
In contrast, when the conscience is affirming, we look forward to intimacy with God. We enjoy getting into the Word, and we easily enter into worship. The little toddler, who did what Mom told him to do, enjoys cuddling up next to her. One indicator of the condition of conscience is one’s passion for the presence of God or, in contrast, the person’s reluctance to draw near to the Lord.v
A good conscience also produces courage before people. When we know that all is right between us and God, we are not easily intimidated by people, no matter what their status is. That’s one reason David was not intimidated by Goliath.vi He knew that God was with him, and he knew that God’s favor was on him. “The wicked flee when no one pursues, But the righteous are bold as a lion” (Prov. 28:1).
When the report of Jesus’s ministry was brought to Herod, his immediate thought was that Jesus was John the Baptist “risen from the dead” (Mark 6:14). Herod had beheaded John the Baptist thinking that would be the end of the prophet’s voice. But his conscience was haunting him. An when he received the report about Jesus, his conscience immediately screamed, “This is John, whom I beheaded” (Mark 6:16). You cannot think straight when the conscience is screaming in the background.
When your conscience is clear before God, people’s accusations roll off you like water on a duck’s back. They say, “You’re lying,” but you know better. Your conscience has already said otherwise. The opinions of others become secondary, and the person is not easily intimidated.
The Three Hebrew Children could not be intimidated by King Nebuchadnezzar. When he threatened to throw them into the fiery furnace, they did not flinch. Their conscience was clear, and their confidence was strong. Nebuchadnezzar’s threat did not phase them. “The Lord is on my side,” wrote the Psalmist, “I will not fear. What can man do to me?” (Ps. 118:6). “If God is for us, who can be against us?” (Rom. 8:31). When the conscience is clean and affirming, we have an inner sense that God is indeed for us. And that produces courage.
A pure conscience enables faith. “Blessed are the pure in heart,” Jesus said in his sixth beatitude. A pure conscience is part of what it means to be “pure in heart.”
Faith is not a matter of techniques and methods. It is a heart matter. When the conscience is accusing, it is hard to believe God for miracles. We want more miracles. A step toward that is a pure heart. In Mark 11:23, Jesus said, “For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, 'Be removed and be cast into the sea,' and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says.” The key to mountain-moving faith is the phrase, “does not doubt in his heart.”vii
A violated conscience gives place to doubt, and doubt undermines the exercise of faith. I deal with this issue more fully in my book, Beatitudes of Christ, which should be published in a few weeks.viii We cannot operate in great faith when the conscience is accusing. So, one benefit of a pure conscience is answered prayer. Watchman Nee identifies an accusing conscience as the greatest hinderance to operating in faith. He writes, “Natually there are many reasons for not possessing greater faith, but the gravest of these is probably an evil conscience.”ix
The first thing we must do toward maintaining a pure conscience is to understand how valuable it is for our wellbeing: spirit, soul, and body. We have talked about some of the spiritual benefits. We can hear God more clearly when the background noise of an accusing conscience is silenced. We have also mentioned some psychological benefits. The mind works better when the conscience is clear. We are not so defensive. We can see matters more clearly. “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” In fact, they see everything more clearly. When we a spiritually and psychologically healthy, the body tends to be stronger as well. There are innumerable benefits in maintaining a pure conscience. When we know that, we are motivated to keep the conscience healthy.
2. Practice SILENCE. Learn to get quit before God and just listen.
Listen to conscience and deal with the issues it raises.x Listen to God and hear his words of comfort and love.
We are driving ourselves insane with noise. In his classic book, Celebration of Discipline, Richard Foster names Solitude as a key discipline for spiritual health. He writes, “Our fear of being alone drives us to noise and crowds. We keep up a constant stream of words even if they are insane. [If you have listened to some of the news and talk shows, you know what that means.] We buy radios that strap to our wrists or fit over our ears so that, if no one else is around, at least we are not condemned to silence.”xi He wrote this before everyone had an iPhone. The is even more pronounced now. We now have more information available to us than any previous generation, yet less wisdom. Lots of knowledge, but most of the thinking is very shallow. Deep thinking requires solitude and silence. T. S. Eliot asked, “Where shall the world be found, where will the word resound? Not here, there is not enough silence.”xii
To maintain a pure conscience, we must listen to what it is saying, then deal with the matter in a biblical way. Muffling the voice of conscience with noise and activity is no solution. Yes, it can be painful to hear the accusations of our conscience. We don’t like to be told that we’re doing something wrong. But the road to higher ground begins there. Face it so that you can deal with it. How do we deal with an accusing conscience? The answer is only found in inspired Scripture. Without times of solitude and silence we tend to deal with the voice of conscience in general terms. We sense that all is not well, so we make a general confession of sin. Our acknowledgement of sin is so vague we are unaware of what needs to change. To maintain a pure conscience, we must hear precisely enough to address the problem successfully. Our repentance must be prefaced with an understanding of what specifically needs to change.
3. Appropriate the BLOOD of Christ to cleanse your conscience.
Without an understanding of this, everything else that we’re saying ultimately does not matter. Hebrews 10:22 extends the invitation: “Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience.” How can a defiled conscience be cleansed? Only by the blood of Jesus! But make no mistake about it: The blood of Christ is sufficient to cleanse your conscience and give you full assurance before God. Hebrews 9 talks about the limitations of the Old Testament sacrifices, but in verse 14, it declares the power of the blood of Jesus to cleanse the conscience: “How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?”
To maintain a pure conscience, we must draw upon the power of the blood to cleanse the accusations. That requires an honest confession of the violation and sincere repentance along with the exercise of faith in Christ’s work on the cross. You can cleanse your conscience in no other way. No amount of therapeutic counseling will do it. No amount of positive self-talk will silence the condemning voice. Those efforts may muffle the sound some. But the blood of Jesus will cleanse the sin and silence the accusations. First John 1:7: “If we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.”xiii Live in that daily cleansing.xiv
4. Do NOT VIOLATE the voice of your conscience. We dealt with that quite a bit last week. Even when our conscience is misinformed, we should not violate it.xv Any violation of conscience is defiling. Violation progressively callouses the conscience so that it becomes more and more insensitive. On the other hand, respecting, and obeying conscience fine tunes it to becoming more and more sensitive to moral direction. It functions more and more the way God designed it to function.
We must cherish our conscience like a delicate instrument. When we know the value of conscience, we will not manage it haphazardly and roughly. A professional violinist does not mistreat his instrument. He meticulously cares for it. He takes care of his instrument and reaps the benefits. If you will take care of conscience, conscience will take care of you! We may not always understand why the conscience is saying “no” to a particular activity, but if we will obey it, we can avoid many pitfalls. God can speak to us through the conscience.
After declaring that an idol is nothing and it is okay scripturally to eat meat offered to idols, Paul says in 1 Corinthians 8:7: “However, there is not in everyone that knowledge; for some, with consciousness of the idol, until now eat it as a thing offered to an idol; and their conscience, being weak, is defiled.” Even though the activity is legitimate, if the person’s conscience is saying no, then it is defiling for that person to do it. You can’t live off my conscience, and I can’t live off your conscience. I am answerable to my conscience, and you’re answerable to your conscience. Many unnecessary conflicts arise because somebody is trying to impose their conscience on someone else.xvi
Of course, 1 Corinthians 8 is talking about activities that are not clearly condemned in Scripture. There are some things that are wrong regardless of what the conscience is saying. To steal a coworker’s tools is wrong, even if you have justified the act in your mind. Point number 4 is this: To maintain a pure conscience, you must obey it.
5. INFORM your conscience with biblical revelation.
The conscience can be weak because it is misinformed or uninformed about the truth. As a church, we spend a lot of time in the Bible. Why do we do that? Are we just slavishly following religious tradition? No, we are convinced of the value found in knowing and apply truth in our lives.
Jesus said, “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. 32 And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:31). Many people live in religious bondage because they do not know some of the truths we have talked about this morning. They are driven to do dead religious works and rituals, because they do not know the power of Jesus’s blood. Their conscience is accusing, and they try to still that voice by doing good works. They fall into legalism because they are not adequately schooled in the grace of God and how to deal with conscience biblically. Others live in bondage to sin and addictions because they violate the warnings their conscience is giving. “You shall know the truth,” Jesus said, “and the truth shall make you free.”
Maintaining a pure conscience is easier when the conscience is strong and well-informed by Scripture. A strong conscience is not troubled by meat in the market place that may have been offered to idols. A strong conscience warns the person of dangers inherent in violating God’s commandments. A strong conscience allows us to enjoy legitimate things and avoid sinful activities that ensnare the soul.
Conclusion:
To summarize the teaching this morning, we have addressed five keys to maintaining a pure conscience:
1. Understand the value of a pure conscience.
2. Practice silence so that you can hear the accusations of conscience clearly, then deal with them biblically.
3. Appropriate the blood of Christ to cleanse your conscience.
4. Do not violate your conscience.
5. Inform your conscience with biblical revelation.
With all this talk about conscience, you may be aware of something that needs to be addressed in your own life. If that is the case, I have good news: The blood of Jesus cleanses from all sin. Just take it to the Lord and ask him to cleanse you.
You will need to not only ask but receive. Some people are haunted by past sins that they can do nothing about in terms of fixing the error.xvii What they must do is receive—receive the forgiveness Jesus offers. Then move forward in obedience from where you are now.
Before closing, let’s just have a couple of minutes of silence so that you can do that if it is needed.
ENDNOTES:
i All Scripture quotes are from the New King James Version unless indicated otherwise.
ii In general, the conscience is either affirming or accusing (Rom. 2:15).
iii Cf. Heb. 9:14.
iv Watchman Nee, The Spiritual Man (New York: Christian Fellowship Publishers, 1977), 109.
v “Who may ascend into the hill of the Lord? Or who may stand in His holy place? 4 He who has clean hands and a pure heart [which includes a pure conscience],” (Ps. 24:3-4).
vi David did not need a boost in self-esteem to face Goliath; he did not need more self-confidence. He had an abundance of God-confidence, and that carried the day.
vii It is helpful to know how to declare one’s faith verbally as Jesus did in Mark 11:14. But the words are only strong when the heart is pure and the words flow out of a heart that is not doubting. Some of the techniques of faith that were taught by the Word of Faith Movement are helpful, but not essential. What is essential to mountain-moving faith is the condition of the heart.
viii Beatitudes of Christ: Pathway of Blessing, is being published by WestBow Press and will be available on Amazon.
ix Nee, The Spiritual Man, 118.
x Pray as the Psalmist prayed; “Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me, and know my anxieties; 24 And see if there is any wicked way in me, And lead me in the way everlasting” (Ps. 139:23-24).
xi Richard J. Foster, Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth, 1978 (New York: HarperCollins, 1998), 96.
xii Foster, Celebration of Discipline, 96 quoted from Elizabeth O’ Connor, Search for Silence (Waco, TX: Word Books, 1971), 132.
xiii For further explanation, see Richard W. Tow, Authentic Christianity: Studies in 1 John (Bloomington, IN: WestBow Press, 2019), 24-38.
xiv In the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus taught us to pray: “Give us day by day our daily bread. And forgive us our sins” (Emphasis Mine) (Luke 11:3-4).
xv In conjunction with this, 1 Corinthians 8 also teaches us to not lead others to violate their conscience.
xvi For example, during the COVID pandemic, Christians contended with one another as to whether one should receive the vaccine. Nowhere is Scripture are we told to take a vaccine in a situation like that. Nowhere in Scripture are we told to not take a vaccine. It is an issue of conscience. Christians are at liberty in issues of conscience to respectfully share their rationale with one another. But 1 Corinthians 8 and Romans 14 teach us to not impose our conscience concerning such issues on others.
xvii If there are past offences that need to be resolved with other people, then those must be addressed in accordance with Matt. 5:23-26 and Matt. 18. Even having done those things, some people live under the condemnation of conscience. For those people, the answer is to trust the sufficiency of Christ’s blood and receive the forgiveness.
