West Willow Community Church

The Soul’s Warning System Our Conscience from Don Tines on Vimeo.

The Soul’s Warning System

TEXT: II Corinthians 1:12-14

THESIS: Paul’s conscience absolved him of moral, relational, and theological wrongdoing that he was being charged with.

INTRODUCTION: On the night of November 27, 1983, Avianca Flight 011, en route from Paris to Bogotá via Madrid, approached Madrid’s Barajas airport. The weather was good, and there were no mechanical problems with the 747 jet. The crew was experienced; the pilot had more than 20,000 hours of flying time and had made this same approach twenty-five times before. Yet, with its flaps extended and its landing gear down, the jumbo jet smashed into a series of low hills about seven miles short of the runway. The plane cartwheeled, broke into pieces, and came to rest upside down. Tragically, 181 of the 192 people on board lost their lives. Investigators determined that a series of errors by the crew caused the crash. The crew misunderstood the reality of their location. They thought they knew the truth about the plane’s position, but they did not. Shockingly, the final and fatal error came when the pilot, so sure he knew where he was heading, ignored the computerized voice of the plane’s GPWS (Ground Proximity Warning System), which repeatedly warned him, “Pull up! Pull up! Pull up!” The cockpit recorder had his strange reply to the warning. He said, “Shut up, gringo” and switched off the warning device. The next moment, he was dead with the rest of the victims.
That tragic story is a compelling illustration of the way people often ignore the truth of their life’s direction and the warning messages from their consciences. The conscience is a warning system, placed by God into the very framework of the human soul. Like physical pain, which warns of damage to the body, the conscience warns of damage to the soul. It reacts to the proximity of sin, warning the soul to “Pull up!” before it suffers the terrible consequences of sin.
The enemies of the gospel had launched a three-pronged attack on Paul’s credibility. On the moral level, they accused him of secretly being a wicked sinner, justly suffering all the time because of the chastening of God. On the relational level, they accused him of being insincere, deceptive, and manipulative. They charged that he was not what he appeared to be on the surface; that in reality, he was using the Corinthians for his own selfish purposes. On the theological level, they charged that Paul misrepresented God’s Word and was a liar and a false teacher. What hurt Paul more than those baseless, slanderous lies was the sad fact that many in the Corinthian congregation believed them. In this passage Paul’s conscience exonerated him of moral, relational, and theological wrongdoing.

Scripture Reading: Prayer:
I. A Lesson Concerning Our Conscience

A. Today’s culture aggressively and systematically tries to silence the conscience.

1. People have been taught to ignore any and all guilt feelings the conscience produces, viewing them as harmful to their self-esteem.
2. They believe their problems stem not from their sin but from external factors beyond their control.
3. Sin and guilt are viewed as psychological issues, not moral and spiritual ones.
4. People imagine that their guilt feelings are harmful attacks on their self-esteem. The voice of conscience cannot be safely rejected; those who attempt to do so face spiritual ruin.

B. The conscience is the soul reflecting on itself; both the Greek and English word “conscience” have the idea of knowing oneself.

1. According to Rom 2:14, even those without God’s written law have an innate moral sense of right and wrong: “For when Gentiles who do not have the Law do instinctively the things of the Law, these, not having the Law, are a law to themselves.”
2. The conscience either affirms right behavior or condemns sinful behavior.

C. The conscience is not infallible.

1. Conscience is neither the voice of God, nor His moral law.
2. Since all of human nature has been affected by sin our conscience has been affected as well.
3. The conscience can never be the ultimate judge of behavior.
4. It is possible that the conscience may excuse something for that which God will not excuse, and condemn a person for that which God allows.

D. To reject the voice of conscience is to court spiritual disaster.

1. Since the conscience holds people to their highest perceived standard, believers need to set that standard to the highest level by submitting to all of God’s Word.
2. As we fill our minds with the truth of Scripture, we clarify God’s perfect law.
3. Our consciences will then call us to live according to that law.
4. The conscience functions like a skylight, not like a lamp; it does not produce its own light, but merely lets moral light in.
a. Because of that, the Bible teaches the importance of keeping a clear or good conscience.
b. At salvation, God cleanses the conscience from its lifelong accumulation of guilt, shame, and self-contempt.
c. As a result, believers have their “hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience” (Heb 10:22).
d. Believers’ must guard the purity of their cleansed consciences, winning the battle for holiness on the inside where conscience works.
e. Christians must also be careful not to cause other believers to violate their consciences.

Transition: In proving his integrity, Paul’s clear conscience was a source of peace, comfort, and joy to him. Others might falsely accuse him of sin, but Paul’s conscience did not accuse him. It exonerated him of their charges and protected him from false guilt.

II. Paul’s Conscience Absolved Him Of Moral Wrongdoing Vs. 12b
in holiness and godly sincerity, not in fleshly wisdom but in the grace of God, we have conducted ourselves in the world, and especially toward you. (1:12b)

A. The first charge against Paul was that he was suffering as a result of God’s chastening for his sin.

1. For one reason or another people can’t get it through their heads that not all suffering is due to a person’s sin.
2. Paul’s conscience affirmed that his conduct revealed holiness, godliness and sincerity.
a. Later in this epistle, Paul responded in detail to their lies about his character,
b. In Chapter 6:3-10 he says: that he was careful to give no cause for offense in anything, so that the ministry will not be discredited, but in everything commending ourselves as servants of God, in much endurance, in afflictions, in hardships, in distresses, in beatings, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labors, in sleeplessness, in hunger, in purity, in knowledge, in patience, in kindness, in the Holy Spirit, in genuine love, in the word of truth, in the power of God; by the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and the left, by glory and dishonor, by evil report and good report; regarded as deceivers and yet true; as unknown yet well-known, as dying yet behold, we live; as punished yet not put to death, as sorrowful yet always rejoicing, as poor yet making many rich, as having nothing yet possessing all things. (6:3-10)
3. Paul’s life was above reproach.
a. The false allegations were nothing more than slanderous lies, and his conscience testified to that.
b. When Paul speaks of “Holiness” he is describing moral purity or pure motives.
c. Paul’s holiness, confirmed in his own mind, contrasts sharply with the immorality and corruption of which he was wrongly accused.
d. In Paul’s day, unscrupulous potters would fill the cracks in their pots with wax before selling them. Careful buyers would hold the pots up to the sun, by which light the wax-filled cracks would be clearly visible.
4. Paul’s sincerity flowed from his holiness and purity of life.
a. He characterized it as godly because God was its object and its source.
b. He acknowledged that God’s grace was the source of his spiritual power: “By the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me did not prove vain; but I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me.”
c. Paul was a sincere man, a man of integrity. His life would stand up to the closest scrutiny; there were no skeletons in his closet.
5. Lest anyone think that Paul achieved holiness and godly sincerity by his own efforts, he added that they came not in fleshly wisdom but in the grace of God.
a. They did not stem from Paul’s wisdom or his insights into religion and spirituality.
b. Fleshly wisdom cannot produce holiness and godly sincerity, because it is nothing more than the manifestation of sinful man’s rebellion against God.
c. It consists of the fallible insights of the sin-darkened heart apart from God’s revelation in Jesus Christ and in Scripture.
d. Humanistic rationalism cannot produce spiritual growth, which comes only by the grace of God.

B. As further proof of his integrity, Paul declared that he had conducted himself properly throughout the world.

1. There was no place where he had ministered from which a legitimate accusation against him could come.
2. At all places and at all times, he had consistently lived a life above reproach.
3. Paul’s integrity and godliness should have been especially evident to the Corinthians.
a. They had observed him firsthand during the eighteen months that he ministered in their city (Acts 18:11).
b. The shining purity of his life was set against the dark, ugly backdrop of Corinth’s immorality. Corinth was corrupt, even by the pagan standards of that day,
4. There was nothing in Paul’s life or conduct that would have confirmed any such accusation against him.
a. Paul’s conscience exonerated him of the false charges leveled against his personal life.
b. Like David Paul constantly prayed, “Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me and know my anxious thoughts; and see if there be any hurtful way in me, and lead me in the everlasting way.”

III. Paul’s Conscience Absolved Him Of Relational Wrongdoing Vs. 13-14
For we write nothing else to you than what you read and understand, and I hope you will understand until the end; just as you also partially did understand us, (1:13-14a)

A. Paul was innocent of moral wrongdoing; he also was not guilty of relational wrongdoing.

1. He had defrauded no one;
2. He had used no one for his own selfish ends;
3. He had deceived and manipulated no one.
4. He pleaded with the Corinthians, “Make room for us in your hearts; we wronged no one, we corrupted no one, we took advantage of no one” (7:2),
5. In Chapter 11:9 he reminded them, “When I was present with you and was in need, I was not a burden to anyone; for when the brethren came from Macedonia they fully supplied my need, and in everything I kept myself from being a burden to you, and will continue to do so.”

B. Paul didn’t write his letters to the Corinthians with a hidden agenda; he wrote nothing else to them other than what they could read and understand.

1. There was no deception involved; Paul wrote what he meant, and meant what he wrote.
2. His letters were clear, straightforward, consistent, genuine, transparent, and without ambiguity.
3. The Words “read” and “understand” are compound forms of the verb ‎(to know), forming a play on words in the Greek.
4. This “The play on words” cannot successfully be reproduced in English.
a. To “Read” ‎refers to what they read in his letters and ‎”Understand” refers ‎to what they know through personal contact with him.
b. They are being assured that the two are in complete harmony.
5. “Until the end” means “completely,” or “fully.” As he wanted the Corinthians to understand him completely, just as they also partially did understand him.
6. He wanted them to gain an ever-deeper understanding of God’s Word, and of himself and his motives.
7. Then they would trust Paul and would not be swayed by the lies of the false apostles.

C. Paul’s conscience once again absolved him from the false charges against him.

1. Later Paul writes, “For they say, ‘His letters are weighty and strong, but his personal presence is unimpressive and his speech contemptible.’ Let such a person consider this, that what we are in word by letters when absent, such persons we are also in deed when present” (10:10-11).
2. What Paul wrote in his letters was perfectly consistent with who he was in person.

IV. Paul’s Conscience Absolved Him Of Theological Wrongdoing Vs. 14b
that we are your reason to be proud as you also are ours, in the day of our Lord Jesus. (1:14b)

A. This was the last and most serious charge against Paul was that he was a false teacher.

1. The false apostles alleged that he was guilty of spiritual wrongdoing because he taught errant theology.
2. Like the two previous charges, Paul replied to this charge throughout this letter.
a. In 2:17 he wrote, “For we are not like many, peddling the word of God, but as from sincerity, but as from God, we speak in Christ in the sight of God.”
b. In 4:2 he reminded the Corinthians, “We have renounced the things hidden because of shame, not walking in craftiness or adulterating the word of God, but by the manifestation of truth commending ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God,”
c. In 13:8 he insisted, “For we can do nothing against the truth, but only for the truth.”

B. Paul was not a spiritual con man, not a huckster twisting the truth of God for his own ends, as the Corinthians well knew.

1. They should not have been ashamed of Paul because he allegedly mishandled and twisted God’s Word.
2. Instead, he should have been their reason to be proud, as they were his.
3. They should have boasted in the Lord about how God had so mightily used Paul, both in Corinth and elsewhere.
4. The Corinthians should have been so proud of Paul that they eagerly looked forward to the day of our Lord Jesus, when they will embrace him in eternal and perfect fellowship.
5. Paul looked forward to that day, when the presence of those to whom he had ministered would bring him great joy.

C. “The day of our Lord Jesus” is not “The Day of the Lord”, —- What!

1. “The Day of the Lord” is the time of God’s fierce and final judgment on the sinful world,
2. “The Day of the Lord Jesus” is the day referred to here is the time when glorified believers will appear before the Lord Jesus, when their salvation will be completed and made perfect.
3. Paul was able to look forward to the day of our Lord Jesus with great joy.
4. He did not fear the false accusations against him, because his conscience verified that he had not perverted divine truth, and he would gladly stand before his Lord with no fear.

D. Paul was able to endure difficulties of all sorts—physical abuse, false accusations, disappointments, defections—with absolute contentment because his conscience did not accuse him.

E. So How can We enjoy a clear conscience like Paul did?

1. First, by learning God’s word.
a. In Ps 37:30-31 David wrote, “The mouth of the righteous utters wisdom, and his tongue speaks justice. The law of his God is in his heart; his steps do not slip.”
2. Second, by meditating on God’s Word.
a. In Ps 119:11 the psalmist wrote, “Your word I have treasured in my heart, that I may not sin against You.”
3. Third, by continual watchfulness and prayer.
a. In Matt 26:41 Jesus warned, “Keep watching and praying that you may not enter into temptation; the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”
4. Fourth, by avoiding spiritual pride.
a. “Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed that he does not fall” (1 Cor 10:12).
5. Fifth, by recognizing the seriousness of sin.
a. It was sin that caused the death of the Lord Jesus Christ (Rom 4:25).
6. Sixth, by purposing not to sin.
a. In Ps 119:106 the psalmist resolved, “I have sworn and I will confirm it, that I will keep Your righteous ordinances.”
7. Seventh, by resisting the first hint of temptation.
a. James 1:14-15 graphically shows the rapid progression from temptation to sinful act: “Each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death.”
8. Finally, by instantly confessing and repenting of sin.
a. “If we confess our sins,” John wrote, “He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).