Hast thou not known, hast thou not heard,
that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator
of the ends of the earth, fainteth not,
neither is weary, there is no searching of
his understanding?
He giveth power to the faint, and to
them that have no might he increases strength.
Even the youth shall faint and be weary,
and the young men shall utterly fall.
But they that wait upon the Lord shall
renew their strength.
They shall mount up with wings as eagles,
they shall run and not be weary, and
they shall walk and not faint.
We welcome you to own eagles' wings.
Again, trust that God will use this to
be an encouragement to you.
We're for the pastor that's faithfully preaching the
word, the local church, the believer.
We want to proclaim Christ as the answer.
You need the Lord Jesus Christ as your
Savior.
If you're not saved, he's the answer.
He's the thing that you're looking for.
Consider him.
Well, we trust that this program will be
an encouragement to you personally.
There's so many things going on today, a
lot of bad news, and we want to
be an encouragement to you.
Let God use this to maybe teach you
something you don't know.
You can write us if you want here
on eagles' wings, Box 1100, Web City, 64870.
We welcome any kind of comment.
Well, I've been thinking about ending this year
and about our conscience.
You know, the Bible talks about the conscience
quite a bit, and I've been thinking, well,
it'd be good to finish this year up
with a clean conscience, wouldn't it?
Be good to go into 1990 with our
hearts all clean, and so we should maybe
take some time this morning just to give
God a chance to work on us in
this area of the conscience.
The Bible says that a good conscience is
what we need.
It's a healthy conscience.
What is a good conscience?
I believe it's a healthy conscience.
It's one that's cleared of offenses toward God
and toward men, and I believe if we
have a clean conscience, it'll give us boldness
and confidence in the Christian life.
It's the one thing that'll keep us going
during persecution.
The reason I say that is, it may
take persecution to bring revival to this land.
If you've read anything about revivals, most all
of them have come out of troublesome times.
I'm thinking of the church in China right
now, going through tremendous revival within, but yet
tremendous persecution without.
Those people over there have to live clean.
There's no hypocrites in the church in China.
Paul testified that he lived in all good
conscience before God.
He also told Timothy that the goal of
the Christian life is genuine love out of
a pure heart and of a good conscience
and of faith unfeigned.
If God was to open up your life
and put it on a screen, and one
day our lives will be portrayed on the
screen, the judgment seat of Christ is a
believer.
If that doesn't scare you, I don't know
what will.
But if your life was to be opened
up right now, this morning, maybe you're heading
to church, you're getting ready right now, eating
breakfast, shaving, dressing.
And if you knew this morning that when
you got to church, through some modern technology,
they were going to put you in front
of this machine and it was going to
lay open your life, your thought life, your
habits, the places you go, the things you
read, the things you said, would it drastically
affect you?
Or can you say to me, Pastor, it
doesn't bother me at all, I've got a
clean conscience.
That's quite a sobering thought, isn't it?
Peter urged the Christians to have a good
conscience so that anyone who spoke evil against
them falsely would be ashamed.
In 1 Peter 3, verse 16, it would
be a terrible thing to have someone accuse
you of something, an unbeliever especially, and find
out that they're right.
The word for good in the Greek is
agathos, and it's primarily a word giving it
a wide application of meaning, and a good
conscience is a strong, healthy conscience.
I hope you don't have a sick conscience,
or a weak conscience.
And a good conscience can be compared to
good ground that's been properly cultivated of the
stones and the weeds, and this will produce
a good harvest.
When I lived out in Wyoming and pastored
out there, I helped one of the men
in my church who was a wheat farmer,
and one of the things I would do
is we'd prepare that soil.
Well, as a matter of fact, most of
your work was preparing the soil, getting it
ready, and then you'd make that one-time
pass through there to plant the seed.
But all the other times you were running
the disk, or you was running the rod
weeder trying to get rid of, prepare the
soil, you had to bring the moisture up,
you had to get rid of those weeds,
for sure, have all the weeds out of
the way when you planted, because after you
planted, you couldn't go back over again and
try to get the weeds out.
And when the weeds would come up, as
they always did, they would come up with
the wheat.
And at first you couldn't even tell them
apart.
But as the crop grew on, and the
wheat grew tall, and then the wheat would
turn out to a golden color, there would
be those dark green weeds showing.
If you got weeds in your life, they're
going to show.
Maybe right now you're covering them up with
makeup, patching them up, like we try to
do so many times.
If something breaks, we try to patch it
up.
But sooner or later, it catches up with
you.
Be sure your sin will find you out.
We want to just encourage you to go
ahead and take care of it right now.
It's just like I've got something wrong with
my car, I've got a pump out on
it, and I keep putting power steering fluid
in it, but sooner or later I know
I'm going to have to go ahead and
get that thing fixed.
Well, I just keep putting it off, but
I know it's got to be done.
And that's the way we are.
We like to put it off.
But in the area of sin, it's better
to just do it right now.
And that's why I thought it might be
good to take some time this last day
of the year and get ourselves cleaned up,
especially maybe before you go to church this
morning.
What is a pure conscience, anyway?
You know, the Bible tells us in 1
Timothy 3, 9, that the deacons are to
hold the mystery of the faith in a
pure conscience.
Paul testified that he served God with a
pure conscience.
And this Greek word is related to the
word chaste.
And its primary definition is to be cleansed
or purged, free from any admixture which soils,
adulterates, corrupts, or defiles.
What about it?
You got anything in there that's defiling you,
a habit you haven't got victory over?
This is one of the things that we've
seen in the revival crusades that we hold,
is that as we give God time in
these meetings, and we like to have two
weeks, eight days for a minimum, because it
takes that much time to break through the
old, hardened, callous consciences that we've built up.
But if we'll give God time, we begin
to break up, and break down, and break
out, and we get our consciences cleansed.
We go confess things to others.
We take care of things, make restitution.
A pure conscience is not stained with guilt
toward God.
It is blameless and innocent.
It feels really good to be clean.
Now, because of our sin nature, the qualities
of a pure conscience are only possible as
we have our hearts cleansed by the blood
of Christ.
Hebrews 9, 14 says, 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?
My friend, if you've never received Christ as
your Savior, all of your confession and all
of your good deeds and all of your
church attendance and whatever you do, all those
good things, no matter how good they are,
aren't going to do you any good until
you get under the blood of Christ, receive
Christ as your sin bearer.
So many people are trying to keep their
conscience clean by doing good things.
Well, God's not interested in that.
First of all, he wants you to be
saved, to trust Christ as your Savior.
What can wash away my sin?
Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
When you become a Christian, then, you have
a pure conscience toward God through the blood
of Christ.
You remember how clean you felt when you
got saved, when you first got saved?
I do.
I walked out at night.
It felt like everything was fresh and clear
and crisp and clean.
I didn't know what was going on.
I didn't even know I got saved.
All I knew is I felt good, cleansed,
forgiven.
You need to watch it that you stay
this way.
Remember Jesus said something to us about our
conscience.
He says, Therefore if thou bring thy gift
to the altar, and there rememberest, there's that
word, rememberest, that thy brother hath ought against
thee, leave there thy gift before the altar,
and go thy way.
First be reconciled to thy brother, and then
come and offer thy gift.
That's Matthew 5, 23 and 24.
A good conscience is one that allows me
to look every person in the eye, knowing
that not one of them can point a
finger and say, You wronged me, and you
never tried to make it right.
One of the things that we have in
this ministry is we have some restitution guidelines.
Maybe I'll share some of these things with
you sometime.
Very important to make things right between God
and man.
Well, it's good to think about these things.
It's good to give some thought to them.
I think maybe we'll run a song through
while you think over some of the things
I've said, and then I'll come back and
share a little bit more with you.
Think about it.
Wouldn't you like to go into the new
year with a clean, cleansed heart?
Wouldn't you like to feel the freshness of
the Holy Spirit living in your life without
all the filth of lust?
Could I share some steps with you on
how to gain a good conscience?
You see, introspection is not the way to
gain a good conscience.
Just looking within.
Through introspection we measure ourselves by what we
think is right or wrong.
This type of evaluation, by the way, is
condemned in Scripture.
Look at 2 Corinthians 10 and 12.
In the course of reading Scripture and living
the Christian life, the Holy Spirit will bring
to your mind offenses which need to be
cleared up.
This is why, when you have sin in
your life, you won't spend much time in
prayer and in the Word.
This is one of the reasons our churches
are not praying, is because we are so
full of the cancerous sin that stops prayer.
And if somebody goes over in the prayer
meeting and prays too long, somebody else will
get upset.
We have so structured our churches according to
ourselves that I believe the Spirit of God
is almost totally out.
As far as practically running the church, we
do things.
And if things don't go our way, we
get upset, we get mad.
If someone doesn't do something just exactly the
way we think it should be done, we
get mad, upset, or we boil inside.
He's to be the Lord of the church.
And as a result of sin in our
lives, we don't spend much time in the
Word.
We get plenty of time for ourselves, though,
for TV and all that other stuff.
So in the course of reading Scripture and
living the Christian life, the Holy Spirit will
bring to your mind offenses that need to
be cleared up.
And when He does, if you don't take
care of it, you will just put another
layer of hardness on your conscience.
When these come to your remembrance, you're then
to take the steps to restore a good
conscience.
Paul said, herein do I exercise myself.
It's an exercise of spiritual discipline, he said,
to have always a conscience void of offense
toward God and towards men.
Okay, God may bring to your mind offenses
that you have committed against any of the
following.
Against Himself, or your father.
Or maybe you've committed an offense against your
mother, or your child, or your children.
Your stepfather, your stepmother, your brothers or brother,
your sister or sisters, your relatives.
What about your spouse, husband?
Have you said cutting words to her?
Or what about to your pastor?
Are you pastor to someone else?
Or your teacher?
Or your friend?
Have you committed an offense against your neighbor,
your employer?
Have you stole from him time or money?
Your business associate, have you cheated him and
not been totally honest?
A store owner, or the government?
It might be good to get you a
sheet of paper and just write a column
down in the first column of this worksheet.
List those whom you've offended.
And start with the ones whom you've offended
the most.
And then work on getting right with them.
And what I want to do is take
some time to share with you how to
do it.
There's a right way to do it, and
there's a wrong way to do it.
And we might have to get into next
week on some of this stuff.
But why don't you list their offenses toward
you?
There are at least two reasons for beginning
with a list of offenses which others have
committed toward us before we deal with our
own guilt.
First, we tend to balance guilt with blame.
And therefore we never effectively deal with either
one.
And there's another thing, too.
We usually concentrate more on blaming others than
we do on our own guilt.
And we do that because we want to
justify ourself.
And by writing down why we blame them,
we remove a major distraction in dealing with
our own offenses.
Another purpose for writing down why we blame
others is that we can more effectively deal
with our offenders after we have taken care
of our own guilt.
This is the instruction of Matthew 7, 3
and 5.
And why beholdest thou the molt that is
in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the
beam that is in thine own eye?
Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out
of thine own eye, get yourself cleansed first.
Then thou shalt see clearly to cast out
the molt out of thy brother's eye.
Isn't it amazing how we try to go
get somebody else straightened up before we've got
our own act straightened up?
And so what we've got is a church
full of people trying to get each other
straightened up first without getting out that log
out of their own eye.
Now in your good conscience worksheet, after that
first project you might have a second project
in another column.
List the things for which you blame each
person in column one.
Now in column two, list your offenses.
You see it's easy to minimize our offenses
and at the same time blame others or
justify what we did.
Therefore it would be very wise to begin
this next step by asking God to revive
our memory.
Psalms 139, 23 and 24, something good to
pray a lot.
Search me, O God, and know my heart.
Try me and know my thoughts.
And see if there be any wicked way
in me.
And lead me in the way everlasting.
If I were to ask those who are
offended with me what I did against them,
what would they say?
Have you ever gone back to somebody and
had them share with you how you offended
them?
Or something you did?
I did that once.
By the way, I don't like to have
my thoughts told to me.
I despise it.
I can't stand it.
But that is the flesh.
I need it.
Wives, husbands, be honest with one another.
Work with one another in this area.
I thank God that I have a godly
wife that is fearless, too, to point out
my flaws to me.
And she's continually making little statements and things.
And I need it because I'm rough.
I'm rough around the edges and rough inside
and out.
Just like sandpaper.
And if I rub somebody, boy, I need
her.
She is truly a help me.
Now, what did you do that caused others
to be offended by you?
This thing, you know, you're going to turn
me off if you're not really interested in
this.
I realize that.
That's not my problem.
It's yours.
But what did you do that caused others
to be offended by you?
Did you speak words which were critical?
Boy, this is one thing I have to
watch.
Romans 14 is good.
The critical spirit.
What about, did you speak some words that
were judgmental or slanderous or untruthful or harsh?
Have you spoken to someone in a disruptive
way or a vulgar or profane or contentious
or indiscreet?
Boy, Proverbs would really get down to this
thing of words.
What about actions?
Careless actions.
Dishonest actions.
Improper actions.
Sensual.
Disrespectful.
Slotful.
Destructive.
Indulgent.
Tardy.
What about this?
Do you have trouble with being late?
How about wasteful?
Hypocritical or unjust or forgetful or disobedient.
Whatever it is, write it down.
Now, for a third project, from the list
above, identify your major offenses toward the one
you wronged and write them out in column
3 on your worksheet.
Write them out.
Now, next time, if we continue on in
this study, if the Lord directs in this
area, we'll talk about the attitudes.
What were the attitudes that caused your wrong
words and actions?
And I'll do this by giving you some
illustrations of the right and wrong way to
try to make something right.
Now, you be very careful about trying to
do this in the flesh.
Because even if we're just 10% wrong,
we want to try to make ourself look
good.
But that's not the point.
Remember, Matthew, you take care of the log
that's in your own eye, then you can
get that splinter out of your brother's.
Because the interesting thing is, you think you've
just got a splinter and he's got the
log, but the fact may be that you've
got the log in your eye and he's
got the splinter.
It's human nature, the old fleshly nature, to
try to make ourselves look good by making
somebody else look bad.
That's an old, old trick from the pit
of hell, covered with slime.
Let God cleanse you.
Let Him deal with you and lift you
up.
Let Him be in your life holiness.
One of the characteristics of the early church
was holiness.
You remember in Acts chapter 5, when Ananias
and Sapphira sold some land and tried to
get away with making it look like they
were giving all of the money to the
church?
Remember?
It says, Peter, it says, Why has Satan
filled thine heart to lie to the Holy
Ghost?
Has Satan got a spot in your heart
to keep back part of the price of
the land?
While it remained, was it not thine own?
And after it was sold, was it not
thine own?
And in thy own power, why hast thou
conceived this thing in thine heart?
Thou hast not lied unto men, but unto
God.
And Ananias, hearing these words, fell down and
gave up the ghost.
And great fear came on all them that
heard these things.
And the same thing happened to his wife.
She fell down and died too.
And the result of that was great fear
came upon all the church, and upon many
as heard these things.
And by the hands of the apostles were
many signs and wonders wrought among the people,
and they were all with one accord in
Solomon's porch.
And the rest, no man joined himself to
them, but the people magnified them.
And believers were the more added to the
Lord, multitudes both of men and women.
They had a revival in the church.
People were getting saved because they were letting
God be the Lord.
There was a holiness in the church.
There was a purity in the church.
That's what we need today.
When we let go and let God lift
us up and bear us on eagle's wings,
we'll see people getting saved.
But first, they want to see the church
getting on fire, burning with a holy zeal,
with purity.
How about it?
Are you willing to let go and let
God be the Lord of your life, the
Lord of your church?
Let Him bear you on eagle's wings.
Let Him cleanse you.
One of the things about the grace of
God is that it purifies us.