The nature and function of conscience as a God-given faculty within humanity, drawing from Romans 2:13-14. It posits that conscience, an inherent part of the soul, acts as a moral compass, either accusing or excusing thoughts and actions. The message details how conscience, though a birthright, can become defiled, sickly, seared, or abandoned due to sin and a lack of understanding God's Word. Ultimately, it emphasizes that while conscience can reveal wrongdoing, it cannot lead to salvation, which is found solely in Jesus Christ.
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I invite you to turn with me this morning to the book of Romans chapter two. Romans chapter two. And we're going to begin our reading at verse thirteen. The book of Romans, the second chapter, answers the great question as to how God is going to judge the world in a coming day. and the principles of judgment are outlined in Romans chapter two. And when we begin reading at verse thirteen, we are going to deal with one of these principles this morning.
Verse thirteen of Romans two says, 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 the things contained in the law, these having not the law, are a law unto themselves, which show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts, the meanwhile accusing, or else excusing one another, in the day, when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel.
May the Lord bless the reading of his words. Let's pray together. Our Father, in the precious name of our Lord Jesus Christ, we thank you for the privilege of opening your word, of reading it, and finding that which comforts the heart, stirs the soul, moves the emotions and the will, and grant our God that it may be so today as we study together that the name of our Lord Jesus Christ will be exalted and that above all else we may honor him who loved us and gave himself for us.
Amen. Mankind in general and youth in particular are asking questions about themselves. Some of the questions that Young people ask today, especially, who am I? Where did I come from? Is there really life after death? I'd like to find myself. Often you hear the expression, I've got to get away from all this so I can find myself. So we ask the question, where can I find the answers? And may I quickly say that God has given us answers in His Word.
The truths of the Word of God contain the answers to these important questions, and they are important. But one of our big problems today is we prefer listening to other teachers, other than what the Scriptures say. The Word of God declares in the hundred thirty-nineth Psalm and the fourteenth verse, that man is fearfully and wonderfully made. And the very complexity of ourselves, the complexity of our being shows forth the handiwork of God in creation and that we are indeed fearfully and wonderfully made.
Man possesses a tripartite composition. Man is a soul. He has a spirit and he lives in a body. But that admission doesn't express the whole of the complexity of man. Not only does man possess a soul and have a spirit and live in a body, but man is also mind. Man has a mind. And the Lord says, thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. Man not only has a mind, but he has memory.
He has the ability to retain that which his mind creates. But he also has a will. John one, verse thirteen speaks of not of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man. So therefore we find that man has will. And he also, according to the text that we read this morning, he has conscience. And I want to deal with the subject of the conscience a man. It is something we very seldom talk about. I came across this subject recently because I came across a man.
We started talking together. He's a banker. And we met in the bank. And We introduced ourselves to each other. And I said, you have an interesting name. His name is Daniel Beard. And I said, you have an interesting name. I said, that you have a relative by the name of Thomas Beard. He said, my grandfather and my great-grandfather were named Thomas Beard. I said, well, I have a book in my library. on the subject of conscience, it's recognized as a classical work by a man by the name of Thomas Baer.
It was written quite a few years ago. He said, that might have been my grandfather or maybe my great-grandfather if it's that old. He said, I sure would like to read it. Well, I had a hunt through my books. I had a good idea where it was, and I found the book on the subject of conscience. And, of course, It's been years since I've read it. And therefore, before I give it to someone else to read, I want to be sure that everything will not be on the pathway to disaster. I wanted to be sure of that. However, I started reading this book, and the more I read it, a fresh...
the more I didn't remember about it when I read it the first time. And I realized that here is something that needs to be brought to the attention of God's people. And while there's a lot here that I'm indebted to this man who wrote this book on conscience for, all of it is related to the Word of God. Now, when we come to the subject of man, Man is a soul. Man possesses a spirit, for God breathed into man the breath of life. Man lives in a body, for God formed man out of the dust of the ground.
And man became, once he had the spirit, a living soul. But along with that, man has mind. memory, will, and conscience. But the soul is what you are. And I want to say a number of things about what you are. Because what you are is a soul. And these things, we're talking about the real you. When we describe one another, we usually describe the body. They either have the color of the hair, the color of the eyes, whether they're short, whether they're tall, etc.
But the real you is on the inside. And when we talk about the salvation of God, we're talking about the salvation of the soul, the real you in the inside. We're not talking about the body primarily, that if you're in the hospital with a great disease and you come through it, You're saved from that disease. But we're talking about the real you on the inside that needs the salvation of God. When we talk about man's soul as to its origin, it's indescribable. You and I can't describe the activity of God in making man.
We simply have to take the word of God for it. We reject the theories of evolution. For the theories of evolution are just that. They are only a theory. But God says he created man. And when I think of the complexity of the nature of man in his origin, it's indescribable. In appearance, the soul is invisible. I've never seen the soul. Neither have you. I've never seen the real you on the inside of anybody. The soul is invisible.
For the more in composition, it's unanalizable. You can't put the soul of a man under a microscope and analyze it. You just can't do it. For the more in value, it's incalculable. You can't calculate the value of a soul. The lovely Savior said, what shall it profit a man? if he gained the whole world and he lose his own soul. How can you calculate the value of a soul? You cannot do it. More than that, in constitution, it's indestructible.
You cannot destroy your soul. That real you that lives on the inside was born for eternity, made for eternity. And you cannot be destroyed. My brother-in-law thought he could. But I had words for him, even though he didn't listen, you cannot destroy your soul. In exchange, it's impossible. You cannot exchange for the Lord said, what will a man give in exchange for his soul?
Now this describes the real you. And the real you is valuable, my friend. The real you, only the Son of God, knew your value. Now, the person who lives in that body, that we know as you, we see and know what we really don't see the real person. Now when we think about the soul, we need to think about the mind. The mind of man is a thought-producing faculty. We think with our minds, thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
The memory is a thought-retaining faculty. And this is so important. A man stopped by my home this week. And he usually comes by when he has to speak in his church. And he wants a little help. And I was busy. I've just been reading this book on conscience by Thomas Baer. And I heard the doorbell ring. My wife answered the door. It wasn't long until someone was in my study room. And he said, Phil. He said, I've got to speak again, and I need you some help.
So I said, well, I'm willing to help you, if I can. I said, what's on your mind? Well, he said, I've been, last week, he said, I've been, I had some great thoughts on First Corinthians. But I can't remember a one of them. You see, I said, well, I can't remember them either. I can't remember what, well, you see, the mind, is a thought producer, but the memory is a thought retainer. And God has given us both. Now the soul is a thought apprehended in faculty. That inner you is the one who takes all the things that the mind produces and all the things that the memory retains and apprehends them and puts them into the perspective that you want and that you desire.
Now, when it comes to the spirit of man, the spirit of man is the thought analyzing faculty. That's why the scripture says the Word of God is living and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit. And it's when the Word of God comes by the power of the Spirit to jar your spirit free from the bondage to your soul. That man begins to apprehend in a right way and analyze the gospel of saving grace.
Now the heart, that's a thought appreciating faculty that God gave us. If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in thine heart, that God hath raised him from the dead. Thou shalt be saved. Now, the conscience. The conscience is a thought-convicting faculty of the soul. The thoughts of man. They either accuse we read this morning from Romans two, or they excused us. All depends. It's a thought-convicting faculty that we have. Now, the will. The will is a thought energizing faculty, and we desire that men's wills move in the direction of a holy God.
Now, some may say that the difference between the mind and the memory is not really that much, and we're making a distinction that's without justification, but I don't think so. The mind produces thoughts originally, but the mind cannot retain them for practical purposes apart from the memory. And my friend, he had some great thoughts in First Corinthians as he was reading, but his memory wasn't working and it didn't retain any of them. You see, he couldn't even remember the chapter that he was reading in First Corinthians.
You see, the memory retains what the mind produces but the memory cannot produce it is the mind that produces and so we have both and we can see these two working together when we take a look at Joseph in the Old Testament in Genesis forty two we're not going to turn to it we don't have time in Genesis forty two as his brothers come and Joseph realizes who his brothers who had thrown him in the pit and sold him as a slave but now Joseph is the ruler of the land of Egypt and his brothers stand aside without anyone accusing them and they make a great statement they talk about their memory and their memory has produced in the mind thought Because of memory retained.
They said we saw the anguish of his soul. And we wouldn't listen to him. And then they add, therefore, is this calamity come upon us. The reasoning of the mind. May I remind you that you can go anywhere in the universe. But you're always going to have to take yourself with you. And that's why the building faculties that God gave when he breathed into the nostrils of man the breath of life. And he became a living soul, no matter where a man goes in the universe. If he hasn't experienced genuine salvation in Christ Jesus, he could produce a hell for himself, no matter where he was.
Now, What I've done, I made a diagram on memory. And we want to examine that diagram, not a diagram on memory, but a diagram on the subject of conscience. And the Word of God has a lot to say about conscience. And we want to examine this diagram this morning so the accident will happen. And you'll find that we want to deal this morning with Romans chapter two, the portion that we read, and we call it the natural conscience. And I trust you can see from the back. Now the natural conscience is this line that is drawn horizontally across the page.
And you will find that this is drawn like a chart that would take a look at a thermometer. And you find that we're going to deal with pure and good as well this morning. But the natural conscience is that which every man possesses. And we read about it in Romans chapter two, verses thirteen and fourteen. Now, we're talking about a conscience there, the natural conscience, when it's in a healthy condition. This faculty... the natural conscience is the birthright of every human being.
This is inherent in all the mankind. But conscience is more or less developed. It's developed, and you'll notice as we go up here, we get all the way up to the place the Apostle Paul was in Acts chapter twenty, when he says, I strive to have our conscience void of offense. Toward God and toward man at all times. But there's a series of steps going up. Below this natural conscience is a line also. And you have a defiled conscience. And the Bible speaks of an evil conscience.
The Bible speaks of a convicting conscience. And that's the one that begins going up. Tonight, by the grace of God, we want to deal with the defiled and the evil and possibly the convicting conscience. But you see, all the way over here, you have a seared conscience. And the Bible speaks of the person who has a conscience that is seared as with a hot iron. My father was a village blacksmith. And he could take a hot tongues, though they seemed awful hot to me. And he could take and he could lift a hot horseshoe right out of the fire. And when he did, when I would try it, my hand burned.
But you see, his hand had been seared. And the Bible speaks of a person becoming that hard toward God that his conscience is seared as with a hot iron. And finally, you have an abandoned conscience. And it's possible to have a conscience that has been abandoned by the thought process of man. And you see that in a man by the name of Herod. King Herod, he loved to hear John the Baptist preach. But John the Baptist told him point blank, it's unlawful for you to have your brother Philip's wife. And of course, he was going to have his own way.
And in spite of the fact that he liked to hear John preach, And in spite of the fact that he liked John the Baptist, he had his head taken off, just to fulfill his own lusts, and just to please somebody else. So you see, man, as we read in the hundred thirty-nineth Psalm, is fearfully and wonderfully made. I notice a number of people have been trying to copy the chart. I turned it off. I appreciate the fact that you take notes. I'm going to give you a copy of it at the end of the meeting today.
I have it all ready for you. I have a copy for you. But the thing is this. I'm going to leave a few copies on the table. And if you leave me time to get to the door, the copies on the table will be for those who go out this way. I hope I made enough. Those at the door. I'll give you one as you leave. But conscience is important. Now, conscience is more or less developed according to age and according to understanding and environment. It operates with greater or less degree with knowledge and with understanding.
The more understanding we have, the more conscience operates. Now our portion in Romans two gives an excellent foundation to develop the subject of the natural conscience. You see, I want you to notice it is the Gentiles who are under discussion in Romans two. And it says concerning the Gentiles, and let me say a Gentile is anyone who is not included in natural Israel. and has come under that umbrella of natural Israel to whom God gave the old covenant law.
Now it is stated very definitely that the Gentiles don't have the law. They are not under the law. The Gentiles were never given the law of Moses. Yet it says of these Gentiles that they do the things contained in the law. And because they do the things contained in the law, they show the work of the law that is written in the heart. That is what it says. Now, I want you to notice that is a natural conscience. And by the way, every human being in the world is endowed with a natural conscience.
Now, what does a natural conscience do? What does it do? You see, God has made it his business to write his moral law across the heart of every human being. It is conscience that bears witness to this moral law. His thoughts, therefore, either excuse or they accuse. And It's according to the health of the conscience. There are people today with an unhealthy conscience who may have lived thirty years ago and they had a healthy conscience.
And the very things that they accused thirty years ago, they now do. God hasn't changed what has changed the health of the conscience. You see, if the conscience is sickly or sluggish, it will condone the sin that it would otherwise condemn. Now, we must conclude, friends, that every heathen person therefore knows or may know right from wrong.
This is why, according to Romans chapter one, the preceding chapter, we learn that the heathen are lost apart from the grace of God. Now, I want to deal further with this chart. For you'll notice on this chart, here's where man began. He began up here with a pure conscience. He knew neither right nor wrong. He came pure from the hand of the Creator. When God created man, God could say it was very good. But Satan came to Mother Eve, and she had a pure conscience, and he said, God knows that in the day that you eat of that which he is forbidden, in that day you'll be like God, knowing good and evil.
And of course, it looked good to Mother Eve, and therefore she ate or took of the fruit. She ate it. She gave some to Adam. And of course, the whole of the human family fell into sin. So we not only had a pure conscience, but she had a good conscience. But now, having fallen into sin, you see, now it is a defiled conscience that she has. In what way is it defiled? Well, while conscience witnesses for God within the breast of the human being, he will never take you to God. For when God came down to meet with Adam and Eve in the cool of the day, they knew they had sinned, they knew they were naked and what did they do?
They hid. Why did they hide? Their conscience told them something's wrong. And while the conscience will accuse, it will never lead to a knowledge of God. You need something beside conscience. You need the word of God and you need the grace of God. But I want you to notice, Satan said, you'll know good and evil. And after the sin they knew good and evil. But now they are destitute of power to do good. And so God writes across the face of humanity, there is none that do it good, no not one.
Oh, they know what's good, and they know what's right, but the power to do it. is now lacking and I get disgusted when I read a preacher's talking to man as though he could pull himself up by his own bootstraps. He could do a little better if he just had a little better education. We have more education in the world now than we ever have. And sin abounds more on every hand. And the conscience of man seems to be running wild towards sin. And the days of Noah are being repeated. For our Lord said, as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be in the days of the coming of the Son of Man.
In the days of Noah, the scripture says every thought of his heart was only evil continually. And that's what it seems to be in our day. Man possessed the knowledge to do good, but he didn't have the power to do good. And now they also know evil, but he has no power at all to resist the evil. And God said to the prophet Jeremiah in Jeremiah four, verse twenty two, they are wise to do evil, but to do good. They have no knowledge. I'd like to bring four things to your attention in closing.
First, when the conscience is healthy it will accuse the transgressor when it's healthy number two when the conscience is sickly it will excuse the same sin today that it formally accused and we see that in the world, in the change in the church today. Why must the church have problems over the subject of homosexuality?
Because we'd like to bypass the word of God and the conscience is excusing today what is accused before. You see, this is what leads, friends, to a seared conscience and an abandoned conscience. And what do we have today? We have a church that basically does a lot of talking but has no power. That's what we have. We've lost our moral judgment. For you see, this is what leads to a seared conscience.
And this is what leads to an abandoned conscience. And we have the truth of Romans chapter one, the last verse. And the last verse of Romans chapter one, and this describes the generation in which we live, who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but take pleasure in them that do them. Tonight, by the grace of God, we want to deal with a defiled conscience. And we want to deal with an evil conscience.
But knowing the Word of God, you and I may not be living tonight. We have no guarantee that we'll be here tonight. We have no guarantee that the Lord will not come today. For the scripture very emphatically says, he that shall come will come and will not perish. And my advice to anyone is, be sure you're saved today. Now. God's word says, behold, now is the accepted time. Behold, now is the day of salvation. And the salvation of God is not found in this preacher.
It is not found in this church. And it isn't found in any other preacher. And it isn't found in any other church. The salvation of God is found in a person. And that person is our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins that he might deliver us. He's the only means of deliverance. And thanks be to God. He's the one who says, Him that cometh to me, I will in no wise cast off. Now if I can help you come to Him, I'm willing to help.
I can't say it, but I'm willing to sit with you with an open Bible and talk about it. Would you give me that privilege? I'm going to be at the door handing out papers, but you just tell me you want to talk, and I have time. Let's stand together for the benediction. Our Father, in the precious name of our Lord Jesus Christ, we confess for the psalmist we're fearfully and wonderfully made. We acknowledge that thou art God beside thee, there is none else. And we marvel at thy word.
We rejoice in thy sovereign mercy. Father, as we part one from another upon those that have truly believed in thee may thy grace thy mercy and thy peace abide and give us a conscience void of offense toward men and toward thee upon those who may not yet know thee father stir their conscience convict of sin of righteousness and judgment. And we'll thank you.
And now may thy grace and thy mercy and thy peace abide upon all thine own, that from the heart we can say one to another, the Lord bless thee and keep thee. The Lord make his face to shine upon thee and be gracious unto thee. The Lord lift up his countenance upon thee and give thee peace. In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.