Sermon Tone Analysis

Conscience

The spiritual warning system

!!! /17-06-06 Morning Worship/

!!! Announcements

!!! Bible presented

!!!

Call to worship

We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin.

Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

(Hebrews 4:15-16)

!!! Blessing

Grace to you from God our Father, and Jesus Christ our Lord.

!!! Doxology Hymn No 56:          /“The earth belongs to God”/               

!!! Prayer of Adoration, Invocation and Thanksgiving Lord’s Prayer

!!! Hymn No 327:                            /“Lord Jesus, When your people meet” (Tune Rejoice! 19)/

!!! Scripture Reading                     /Psalm 32:1-7/

!!! Tithes, offering and dedication

Remaining seated, we sing Hymn 477 while the stewards wait upon the tithes and offering

!!! Hymn No 477:                            /“Take my life”/

!!! Prayer for others

!!! Baptism

Devina Hunt.

!!! Hymn 352

!!! Scripture Reading                     /Hebrews 9:11-14/

!!! Sermon

!!!!!! Introduction

My dear brothers and sisters in the Lord*/, /*it is because I am driven by the Word of God to preach about this topic that I come to you.

I do so not because I claim that I am perfect or sinlessness.

Quite the contrary, I stand before you as someone who knows the pain of sin, as someone who understands the disappointment of failure, and as someone who is by experience acquainted with the sting of a conscience which indicted me over and over again.

Before God I found myself hiding my face in my hands, hanging my head in shame, beating my chest in forgiveness.

Your minister is not perfect.

He is a fallible person with feet of clay.

And this, my dear brothers and sisters, I am not boasting about; I admit it in humility before a gracious, loving and merciful Father.

But I also stand before you as some who knows the glory of forgiven sin.

I can preach this gospel to you not because of any other reason, but because I love you in the Lord and I do not want to see anyone in this congregation burdened and hurt by a conscience that condemns, leading to uncertainty of salvation and unmentionable doubt, misgivings, despair and ultimate unbelief in the promises of God.

Another reason behind this sermon lies in the privilege I had to listen to a recorded sermon by the Rev Dr John MacArthur, Jnr., given to me be good friends some time ago.

This lead to a study of the Bible on the subject.

The idea and word “conscience” and what it means as we find it in the Bible, is probably something we do not really understand.

The concept of conscience keeps psychologists, sociologists, psychiatrists and philosophers very busy.

It seems as if believers and unbelievers alike are equipped with conscience.

But what is it?

From the Biblical perspective the conscience is something like a spiritual warning system.

It either excuses us, or accuses us.

It is like a spiritual radar system which God has given us.

It warns us to avoid a sure crash when we become lost and helps us to make decisions to find our way again.

Once we listen to our conscience and make amends, we find our conscience excusing us.

Within us we find relief; we breathe again, because we learned from our mistakes.

But should we choose not to listen our conscience, and not adjust the course we are upon, our conscience then becomes the accuser.

We became heavy-laden and depressed; our minds become clouded and the sun hinds behind the dark clouds of doubt.

In our hearts we feel the pain.

This pain lead us to try to make things right, but in many cases it is tool late.

The pain and confusion in our minds compound and we loose direction.

Here we can make one of two choices:  we confess our sins and receive forgiveness from the Lord; or we harden our hearts, silence our conscience and stumble ahead.

Once this happens and we succeed in not feeling bad, we can be sure we are on the deadly course of sure destruction.

And more often that not, turning around becomes too hard.

Eternal hell and condemnation awaits the one who has grown a calloused and insensitive conscience.

And this, my dear brothers and sisters, I want to warn you from this morning.

And as I understand the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, He wants you to be warned.

He wants you to come to Him and be washed and be given forgiveness and to serve Him clear conscience.

Allow my to just for one moment tell you something about the philosophy of the Greeks.

They believed in what is known as Nemesis.

Nemesis is the goddess of divine justice and vengeance.

Her anger is directed toward human transgression of the natural, right order of things and of the arrogance causing it.

Nemesis pursues the audacious and the wicked with inflexible vengeance.

She is portrayed as serious looking woman with in her left hand a whip, a rein, a sword, or a pair of scales.

The description "she whom none can escape" was later applied to her.

This was probably the Greek way to describe something of what the Bible refers to as conscience.

Let’s just look at the Bible to follow something of what it teaches about the conscience.

Turn with me to Romans 2. 

All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law.

For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous.

(Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law, since they show that the require-ments of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even de-fending them.)

This will take place on the day when God will judge men’s secrets through Jesus Christ, as my gospel declares.

(Romans 2:12-16)

From this we understand that believers and unbelievers alike are equipped with a conscience.

The unbeliever does not have the Law and are guided to do things required by the Law.

The requirements of the Law are written on their hearts.

The believer has the Law of God and his conscience helps him to have a sensitivity for what is right and wrong.

We also understand that conscience is something which this verse refers to as the “secrets”.

Conscience is therefore something that just we know about.

Conscience is the vault of the inmost privacy of each person.

Here we can hide from others our failures and sins.

But what is important about conscience is that it is not something that operate on its own.

Because it is ultimately responsible to God, what is so secret in my deepest heart of hearts is open to God.

He is my Judge.

It is his Law which I violate.

It is his Spirit who then convicts me of sin.

It is in the secrets of my conscience that I know that God knows.

This is the meaning of the word:  /con/ = with; /science/ = to know.

I know with God.

Science then is guided by two important things:  knowledge and truth.

It is like the radar system which warns the pilot against sure destruction based on the knowledge of the impending danger.

I asked a pilot friend one day what to they do in thick clouds, sitting in the cockpit, staring through those little windows into what seems to be impossible to see.

Imagine yourself driving a car in circumstances like that.

It is driving along full speed in the darkness of night, and all of a sudden your lights fail.

Has this happened to you?

Not very pleasant, I can assure you.

But my pilot-friend looked at me somewhat bewildered and amused, as if there was no real problem in my question.

“It is no problem; I just trust the instruments and forget about the rest.”

The radar of the plane, if it operates correctly, works with facts and the truth.

Should it sense danger, it alerts the pilot.