Will you please turn to 1 Timothy 1:19?
Holding faith and a good conscience;
which some having put away have made shipwreck as to faith.
And 1 John 3:18-22:
Children, let us not love with word, nor with tongue, but in deed and in truth.
And hereby we shall know that we are of the truth, and shall persuade our hearts before Him—
that if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart and knows all things.
Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, we have boldness toward God;
and whatsoever we ask, we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and practise the things which are pleasing in His sight.
Let us have a word of prayer.
Dear Lord, we do want to thank Thee for saving us. And when Thou dost save us, Thou dost not leave us alone, but Thou art with us throughout the age, and Thou wilt continue to save us to the uttermost.
So, Lord, as we gather here this morning, we want to focus our attention upon Thee—not what we can do, but what Thou canst do with us. So we want to give ourselves completely over to Thee, and pray that Thou wilt, by Thy Spirit, work within us and save us to the uttermost, that Thy image may be formed in each one of us, to the praise of Thy glory. We ask in Thy precious name. Amen.
Well, brothers and sisters, we want to focus our attention on this matter of spiritual exercise.
We have mentioned before: what is spiritual life? Every Christian is supposed to have a spiritual life. What is spiritual life?
Spiritual life is a life of the spirit, a life in the Spirit. Thank God, when He saves us, He quickens our dead spirit into life, enabling us to communicate with God, to know His mind, and to do His will.
He not only gives us His own life, but He also gives His Spirit to us. So, brothers and sisters, when you are saved, you have not only a new spirit; you also have the life of God, which is Christ, in your new spirit. And you also have God’s Spirit dwelling in your new spirit.
Now, why is it so? Because it is the purpose of God that, when He has given us His life, He wants that life in us to grow into maturity. To put it another way, it is God’s eternal will that each and every one of us who are saved will be transformed and conformed into the image of His beloved Son.
And in order to do that, He restores our spirit to life. He gives His own Spirit and His life to us, and the Holy Spirit is there to be the custodian, as well as the manager, of that new life in us, that He may bring us into growth—spiritual growth, maturity, conformity to the image of God’s beloved Son. And what a glorious salvation that is.
Now, in order to have a real spiritual life, and to see that the life God has given to us grows within us and changes us into His likeness, there is something very important that we have to do.
May I say that God has provided everything for our spiritual life. But that does not mean that we just automatically grow and are conformed to His image. God expects us, by His grace, to do something—that is, to cooperate with Him.
And in cooperating with Him, what He expects us to do is to exercise our spirit.
Now, we have already mentioned that we know how to exercise our body, and we know how important physical exercise is. You may eat well, you may sleep well, and yet, if you do not exercise, what will happen?
That is why obesity is so prevalent in this city, in this country. We just eat and rest and sit and watch television or a computer, and we do not exercise ourselves. And that gives us lots of physical problems.
Now, in the same way, if our spirit—which God has renewed in Jesus, which is such a beautiful, wonderful gift of God—if we do not exercise it, you will find the same problem. Your spirit will be dull, insensitive, and unable to really cooperate with God.
So that is why it is so important, brothers and sisters, that we have to exercise our spirit, the great gift that God has given to us, and not allow it to lie there lazy, inactive, not growing, and suffering spiritual sickness.
But, brothers and sisters, we know how to exercise our body because our body is made of matter. We can see it, and we know how to put it into exercise. But our spirit—do you see your spirit? You do not.
Our spirit is not made of matter. It is spiritual. It is heavenly. It is unseen. And not because it is not seen does that mean it is not real or not there.
Now, we find in 2 Corinthians 4 that we are told that the things which are seen are temporal, just for a time; but the unseen is eternal. It is forever. In other words, the unseen is more important than the seen.
Our spiritual life is more important than our physical life, because, as the Bible says:
Bodily exercise is profitable for a little;
but godliness is profitable for all things,
having promise of life—the present life and that which is to come.
Now, the problem is, since our spirit is unseen, how do you exercise something which is invisible? It does not mean that it does not exist. It is there. It is real—even more real than my physical body.
May I ask the question: do you see electricity? Now, electricity is physical, but even that is not seen. Yet everybody knows about electricity, and everybody knows how to use it.
We know it by its power, by its light, and by its heat. So we cannot deny that there is electricity and say, “Well, because I do not see it, it must not be there.” Not true. We all believe it, and we all enjoy it. We enjoy the power, the light, and the heat.
If there were no electricity, how we would tremble when it was really cold. I remember when we were in school in China, we had no heat, and how we suffered through the winter.
So how do we exercise our spirit? We exercise our spirit by its functions.
Our spirit has three main functions, just like our body has five senses. And our soul has three functions too: our feeling, our emotion; our thought, our thinking; our will, our opinion. That is our soul; that represents what I am.
So our spirit is known by its functions. And the spirit has three main functions, as we can find in the Bible.
The Bible tells us that our spirit has the function of conscience. God has given us a conscience, and He has also given us intuition. Now, intuition is direct knowledge—revelation.
And He has also given us communion, that we can commune with God, because only spirit can commune with Spirit. God is Spirit, so He gave us a spirit that we may communicate with God, understand His mind, and do His will.
So this morning, we would like to concentrate on how to exercise our conscience.
Brothers and sisters, when God created man, He created man entirely different from all creation. Because only man has not only a body, not only a soul, but also a spirit.
The Bible says that when God created man, He breathed His breath into man’s nostrils. And in our Chinese Bible, we have something you do not find in the English Bible. The English Bible says that after God breathed His breath into that body, man became a living soul. That is true.
But in our Chinese Bible, it says man became a living soul with a spirit, because this is actually what happened. Our spirit is produced directly from the breath of God. It comes directly from God, and therefore our spirit can communicate with God. It is of the same nature.
And this is the highest gift in creating man. That is what makes man different. This is the dignity of man. If man loses his spirit and becomes flesh, he has lost his dignity. So how important, how great a gift, a man’s spirit is.
And you can see that after God had created man and put man in the Garden of Eden, God came and communicated with him. That was what it was.
But unfortunately, man sinned against God. Man did something that God forbade. And because of sin, death entered into this world, and that death began with man’s spirit.
The Bible says, “On the day that you eat that forbidden fruit, you shall die.” Adam lived for hundreds of years and begot sons and daughters. His body and his soul were still living, though eventually they all died. But his spirit was dead on the very day he sinned against God.
So, brothers and sisters, a person who does not know the Lord Jesus has a dead spirit. Now, death does not mean it does not exist. Death only means that it has lost its communication with its proper environment.
So when a man sinned and his spirit was dead, it meant that he had lost his communication with God, because God is the proper environment of his spirit. The functions of that spirit went into a coma.
But strangely, do you remember the story? When Adam and Eve sinned, what happened to them? They immediately realized that they were naked. Now, who told them that?
And when they heard the voice of God coming, they hid themselves. And when God said, “Where are you? Why do you hide yourself?” they said, “Because we are naked.”
Now, what happened? I often think, you know, every living being is clothed by God. You do not need to clothe your dog, as people sometimes try to put clothes on a dog. That is unnatural. God has given a dog clothes already. Every animal has clothes.
Now, why was man naked? Well, I believe it was not that way in the beginning. I believe that God clothed man with glory. But when man sinned, the glory disappeared, and man became naked before God. Shame.
Now, who told Adam and Eve that they were naked? Their conscience. Their conscience accused them. They had an uneasy conscience.
And you know what happened? When God said, “Why did you do that?” Adam said, “It is the woman that You gave me.” And the woman said, “The serpent.” In other words, they all tried to put the blame on others.
Now, what kind of conscience was that? They tried to cover their pride, put the blame on others, and try to quench the voice of their conscience.
And since then, brothers and sisters, men still have a conscience. But what kind of conscience is that? The Bible calls it a wicked conscience.
I often hear people tell me, “Well, I do everything according to my conscience. I am a good person.” Now, a robber can say that. A killer can say that. A cannibal, after eating a person, can say that. But what kind of conscience is that?
The conscience is still there. Once in a while, it wakes up. In other words, once in a great while, suddenly he realizes there is a God, and before God he is naked.
But how people have tried throughout human history to bribe their conscience, to put their conscience at peace—a false peace—by doing something good that will cover their wicked conscience. But unfortunately, it is still a wicked conscience.
Conscience can either accuse us or excuse us. But you find that after man sinned, man is under accusation. He tries to excuse himself, but in time of danger, it does not work. You are just cheating yourself.
This is why, when people are dying, they try to say something good, because their conscience bothers them. They know there is a reality that they have tried to cover up all their lives. How sick that is.
But thank God, when He saves us, something happens. You know, as we have mentioned before, first of all, by the grace of God, His Holy Spirit begins to demonstrate to us that we have sinned.
You know, we all tried before to cover up our sins, thinking that we had a good conscience and making excuses for ourselves. But when the light of God comes, under His light we begin to see how we are real sinners. From the head to our feet, there is nothing good.
That was the way I felt when the Spirit of God convicted me. I had to find the way of salvation, and thank God, it is in Christ Jesus.
So, you know what happens when you believe in the Lord Jesus? The Bible tells us. Now, if you turn to Hebrews 10:22:
Let us approach with a true heart, in full assurance of faith,
having our hearts sprinkled from a wicked conscience,
and our bodies washed with pure water.
You know, when you believe in the Lord Jesus, when your conscience is under conviction from God that you have a wicked condition, you cannot face God and you cannot face eternity. And when you turn your eyes to Jesus, who is the Saviour of the world, when you believe in the Lord Jesus as your personal Saviour, as your Christ, as the Son of God, what happens?
The Bible says that we are sprinkled as to our hearts from a wicked conscience. In other words, the blood of our Lord Jesus—the blood that our Lord Jesus shed on Calvary’s cross—has eternal power. His blood is sprinkled upon your heart and delivers you from a wicked conscience.
The precious blood of our Lord Jesus has a threefold effect. Number one: when you accept the blood of our Lord Jesus, when it is sprinkled upon your heart, you are justified before God.
God is a just God. He condemns everything that is unrighteous. But Christ Jesus, He who knew no sin, was made sin for us. And if we believe in Him, we shall be made the righteousness of God.
The blood is sprinkled upon our conscience. The blood has cleansed the way between us and God, and we are justified by His precious blood. Our sins are washed away, and we are free. We will be judged no more.
That is the preciousness of the blood of our Lord Jesus. God’s Word says our hearts are sprinkled from a wicked conscience. At once, our conscience within us gets peace. That is why, when you are saved, there is such peace that comes into your life.
I felt it at the time when I trusted the Lord, and that peace is forever.
And second, the blood of our Lord Jesus shuts the mouth of our accuser. Satan is our accuser. He tries to accuse us. Sometimes it is true; he has a basis for it. But most of the time it is not true—his false accusation.
But the blood of Jesus answers all the accusations and shuts the mouth of accusation. Now, how precious is the blood of the Lord Jesus. Throughout our life, we enjoy the efficacy, the power, of the blood of the Lord Jesus.
So, brothers and sisters, to a believer, his wicked conscience is sprinkled with the blood of the Lord Jesus and is purged from all sins. Now, you find that in Hebrews 10:2:
Would they not indeed have ceased being offered,
on account of the worshippers having no longer any conscience of sins?
We who believe in the Lord Jesus have a cleansed conscience, a renewed conscience, a purged conscience, a sprinkled conscience—a good conscience. That is what we receive at the time we are saved. How we do thank God for that.
Many people can testify that the burden, like a load upon you, fell away, and there is peace within you. How precious that is.
Now, I would like to ask this question. Since He has saved us and has purged our conscience, our conscience no longer accuses us. We have a good conscience. Now, why did He do that?
What is the meaning behind it? What is the will of God in giving us a good conscience?
It is more than just assuring us that one day we can see Him face to face and be with Him forever. That is true. But more than that, in our daily life, He wants us to keep a good conscience before Him.
Because conscience is the guide to our walk. To a believer, we say our conscience is now the voice of God.
By His Holy Spirit, who dwells in our spirit, He is telling our conscience what is the right thing before God and what is wrong before God, that we may be guided in our daily walk.
It is absolutely essential that we keep a good conscience before God. Because if we do not keep a good conscience, our faith will suffer shipwreck. That is what the Bible says.
So to keep a good conscience before God and man is the only way that we can walk uprightly before God and man.
Now, formerly, we could not depend upon our conscience before we were saved. Why? Because our conscience had lost its standard. God was no longer the standard of our conscience. On the contrary, our culture and our customs became the standard of our conscience.
And such a standard—what can I say?—is no standard at all. So it is a wicked conscience. You cannot depend upon that wicked conscience and live.
But now we have a good conscience, a clean and clear conscience. And it is the will of God that from now on, how do we walk our Christian walk? How do we behave as Christians? Not by somebody telling us how, but God Himself in our conscience will show us the way to righteousness, that we may live righteously before God.
So, brothers and sisters, a Christian’s conscience is God’s wonderful supply for us to walk rightly before God. It is absolutely important, brothers and sisters, that in our daily life we keep a good conscience before God. Amen.
Now, in order to keep that good conscience, who will keep it? We ourselves are not able to keep it, but the Holy Spirit—He is faithful. So it is His job to instruct us.
As we have said, spiritual exercise needs an instructor. You do not just exercise wildly; you may hurt yourself, overdo it, or underdo it. We need to be instructed by an instructor who knows what he is doing.
And the Holy Spirit is the One who knows the spirit. He is the One who knows the life of Christ. He is there to increase Christ in us and decrease us in ourselves. He is an expert, never wrong.
So the Holy Spirit begins His work in our conscience. Brothers and sisters, of all the functions of our spirit, conscience is the most active and sensitive one. So if we neglect our conscience, our spiritual life is finished.
So the Holy Spirit begins to work in our conscience. But thank God, He is so gentle. We often say the Holy Spirit is like a gentle dove. When He speaks, He speaks with a still, small voice.
And He will deal with us according to our measure—how much we are able to respond. He will never overwhelm us, never try to destroy or kill us.
He knows so well that He will gently, but firmly, touch our conscience, clear our conscience, strengthen our conscience, that we may walk rightly before God and man.
Now, as I say, we are not in a school; we are here in a gymnasium. So I am not trying to give you lots of teachings and doctrines. I would like to illustrate, I would like to prove by our experiences, how to exercise our conscience.
As a matter of fact, it is the Holy Spirit who exercises our conscience, but we respond, we cooperate, we work together.
You know, after you are saved, thank God, all your past sins have been forgiven. It is all cleansed by the precious blood. Before God, you are justified. You can approach God with a clear conscience. That is the beauty of Christ.
But the Holy Spirit, after we are saved, so far as our experience is concerned, will try to clear up our past. Not in the sense that our past sins are not forgiven—they are all forgiven. Before God, there is no problem. But before man, there may be a problem.
Suppose, before I was saved, I stole something. After I was saved, He forgave our sins. But how about the things that we have stolen?
In the eyes of God, we are justified. But in the eyes of the offended, we are not. We had no testimony before that person. So it does not mean that because God has forgiven us, everything is done. No. Some of our past has to be dealt with and cleared up.
If you owe anything, pay it back—with interest.
So you find in the Old Testament there is an offering called the trespass offering. Now, what is the trespass offering? The trespass offering has two sides. One side is this: when you sin, you sin against God and man.
You may sin against God only, but whenever you sin against man, you also sin against God, because man is created by God. So in the trespass offering, we are told there is the human side and the divine side. Christ is our trespass offering.
On the human side, if you owe anybody anything, pay it back, adding one fifth as interest. Now, that is the Old Testament, but the principle is there.
Because of that, when you read church history, especially in times of revival—and also in your personal experience—you can see it. After you are saved, the Holy Spirit will remind you of something that you did before that offended people, that hurt people. Go and make it right.
Now, have you had this experience? That is the reason why you find many of God’s people, after they are saved, have to make restitution. They have to make apologies.
After I was saved, I wrote out many letters asking for forgiveness. I hurt people. I hurt their feelings. I had to apologize.
So you find that in times of revival, the post office becomes so busy, because there are letters and also restitution. Things are repaid.
Have you done that? Is it one of the reasons why Christians are so weak? Because they have never concluded their past. In the eyes of the world, they are not Christians.
It is true, according to appearances, you may have to be humiliated, as it were. But are you willing to humble yourself and make it right, that you may have a good testimony before God and man?
Maybe bad old habits have to be dealt with.
I have a friend who was a banker, a millionaire, one of the best-known fortune tellers in China. He smoked seventy cigarettes a day—only one match.
When he was having his meal, his servant would hold a cigarette for him. I knew him intimately. When he was saved, the smoking was gone.
His wife was an opium smoker. On the day when he was baptized, she was afraid of cold, so she smoked opium. But after she was baptized, the opium was gone. Marvelous deliverance.
Yes, I have another friend, a medical doctor, Dr. Su. He smoked. He knew it was not right. He tried to get rid of it, but he could not.
So he smoked secretly, and then after smoking, he had to eat something in order to cover up the smell. But one day, he said, “I cannot quit smoking, but Thou canst take it.” He turned his eyes upon the Lord, and it was gone.
Drinking—now, the Bible says in 1 Corinthians 6:12:
All things are lawful to me, but all things do not profit.
All things are lawful to me, but I will not be brought under the power of any.
You know, after we are saved, all things are lawful to us. We are not under bondage of any kind. We are free. But all things do not profit. Yes, all things are lawful. You can do it, but is it profitable?
All things are lawful to me, but I will not be brought under the power of any. Now, if any habit has power over you, you have to overcome it.
I was a pastor’s son, but I liked movies. That was my life before I was saved. After I was saved, I still did it. I dared not do it on Sunday. I think all my life I did it once only.
But my conscience pricked me. God was asking me, “Is it right for you to waste your money to support those who are ungodly?” But I could not overcome it.
Sometimes I could go to the theater without paying anything, because I had relatives whose family owned a theater, and I had people sending me tickets. But my conscience bothered me.
So I tried to overcome it. For several months, I did not go to any theater. But then the temptation came. Somebody gave us tickets to a fancy theater to see a religious movie.
I hated to give up that ticket. I tried to comfort myself: “It is religious. Noah’s Ark—what is wrong with that?” So I went.
For two hours, I sat there looking. A battle was in my heart. “Have I walked out?” Thank God, I did it.
Later on, my aunt told me, “You are always a young man. Why do you not enjoy yourself going to the theater? I will give you the money for it.”
But deep in my heart, I said, “You do not understand. I do not need it. I have something far more precious, more satisfying than that.” Thank God.
Friendship—that is why a Christian usually changes his friends. How can you continue in friendship with the world? Because that will be enmity against God.
Many things, small things—the Spirit of God will begin to work in our lives, clearing up, as it were, delivering us from being under the power of anything.
Brothers and sisters, is the Holy Spirit touching your conscience? Are you cooperating?
If not, your conscience will become harder and harder, more and more insensitive, until it does not bother you. But what is your walk before God and man?
The apostle Paul tells us, toward the latter part of his life, when he was before the council, in Acts 23:1, he said:
I have walked in all good conscience before God until this day.
In Acts 24:16, he says to the governor:
I exercise myself to have always a conscience without offence toward God and men.
That is testimony.
If you will excuse me, has the Lord ever touched you on the matter of your dress?
Why do we dress? To cover our nakedness, to give us warmth. But what is the meaning of dress today? I am speaking especially to sisters. Now, brothers are not exempted; we can do the same thing.
Now, the love of beauty is natural. God is a God of beauty. There is nothing wrong with beauty. But what kind of beauty is real beauty?
The Bible teaches us about our dress. If you will turn to 1 Timothy 2:9-10:
In like manner also, that women in decent deportment and dress adorn themselves with modesty and discretion,
not with plaited hair and gold, or pearls, or costly clothing,
but, what becomes women making profession of the fear of God, by good works.
And also 1 Peter 3:2-4:
Having witnessed your pure conversation carried out in fear,
whose adorning, let it not be that outward one of tressing of hair, and wearing gold, or putting on apparel;
but the hidden man of the heart, in the incorruptible ornament of a meek and quiet spirit,
which, in the sight of God, is of great price.
There is no law here, but it is grace.
I believe that as we are walking with the Lord, He will touch our conscience and gradually, as it were, deliver us from things that control our life, that we may be freed to give ourselves totally to Him and be a good testimony to the world.
If we neglect our conscience, we cannot walk uprightly before God and man. Conscience is God’s way to guide us into the way of righteousness, and God Himself is the standard of our conscience.
Now, brothers and sisters, do not feel in any way intimidated. But I hope that we may all learn to exercise our conscience, and out of that gymnasium we can maintain before God and man a good conscience—a conscience without offence. May God bless.