Holding Faith and a Good Conscience

I pray that You would rebuke His work. Lord, that Your work might continue unhindered and Lord, there might be a great victory even as we read in verse number 18, there’s a warfare. And Lord, we pray that You would win. We know the war is finished, we know that You have won. But in these battles in which people’s well-being is on the line, we pray that You would help us win those battles as well, those spiritual battles.

So Lord, would you please help Your people this morning? Bless them by Your Word, we ask in Jesus’ name. Amen. Now in this charge in verse number 18 of first Timothy one is is I think referring to the entire book of first Timothy. A charge is like a duty that is laid upon someone to do something. It’s a command. In fact, verse number five, verse verse number five says this, the end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart and of a good conscience and of faith unfeigned. That commandment is the same thing as a charge. In other words, Paul is telling Timothy to do some things. Paul is telling Timothy to do some things and he’s laying upon him the duty and the responsibility to carry those things out. You you can look at chapter two and you can see it very plainly. I exhort therefore. We’re going to cover this tonight. If the lord lord helps us, I exhort thee there therefore that first of all, prayers, supplication, prayers, and intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men. So, that’s a that’s a part of the charge and so Paul is giving his his son Timothy here some instructions to carry out at the church at Ephesus where Timothy is the pastor. He’s spiritual leader there.

And so it includes a lot of different things. We actually saw the word charge in verse number three of this same chapter. He says, as I besought thee to abide still at Ephesus, when I went into Macedonia that thou mightest charge some that they teach no other doctrine. And so that’s part of the charge, we covered that already, people misusing the Word of God. And Timothy was instructed by Paul to listen, you need to stand up to that. You need to correct that. You need to make sure that people are sound in faith.

And then we read in verse number 18, he says, this charge I commit unto thee son Timothy according to the prophecies which went before on thee, that thou mightest by by them mightest war a good good warfare. If you look just to take a peek at chapter four of the same book, you’ll notice the the mention of this these prophecies, these prophecies. Now you can divide this prophecy into two different things.

At its core, prophecy just means to preach, but oftentimes in the Bible it refers to something, you know, a prediction of the future, sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn’t, but the idea of preaching. And so in first Timothy four verse 14 it says this, it says, Neglect not the gift that is in thee, which was given thee by prophecy, with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery.

And so this idea that when Paul met Timothy, Timothy was recommended by the church at where he was at I think it was at Lystra in Acts chapter chapter 16 verses one to three. Timothy was already there. Timothy was already a believer and apparently, there were people in the church who who were giving prophecies who were, I don’t know if they were just predicting it or if the lord led them to say certain things about Timothy. Maybe they saw something in Timothy that that kind of foretold his future as a as a servant of god or we don’t know all the details but but there were prophecies related to Timothy and to the lord’s desire to use Timothy in the ministry of Christ and so you think about that as this church recommended Timothy to Paul and he started traveling with Paul as Paul’s companion as a missionary and as a church planter, a lot of people at the at his home church had high expectations for him.

Timothy had others had hopes and and desires and expectations at what the lord was going to do and he says back in the first chapter verse 18, he says, listen, I’m giving you a charge Timothy, remember the things that were were said about you. Remember what people have expected of you. Now we don’t we don’t live for people’s approval. That’s that’s that’s not a good thing to live for at all because the moment that you and I begin to live for someone’s approval is the very moment that there’s gonna be someone that comes along who disapproves.

And so we can’t live for that, there has to be something higher than that. But that’s not to say that others approval doesn’t matter. Listen, if you’re a teenager, it ought to matter if your parents approve. Right? If you’re a husband or a wife, it ought to matter to you that your spouse has expectations of you. This guy is kind of like, you know, let it go type thing where it doesn’t really matter what, you know, how what I do affects other people, whether they approve or disapprove. That’s listen, that’s bunk. That’s baloney. It does matter.

It does, especially as the body of Christ, what we do affects other people and and if if you were to if you were to like we see here, if you were to shipwreck your faith, if I was to shipwreck my faith like we read in verse 20, it would affect everybody in this church.

It would discourage people and it might cause some to be like, well, you know, they they kind of slipped away and so, know, listen, it affects others. It affects others and so Paul is reminding Timothy in verse number 18, he’s saying, hey, listen, remember those prophecies, remember what people said, remember how the Lord was leading them and what they said about you. Remember that people are are have high expectations of you in the Lord, of what the Lord’s gonna do, be faithful.

You know, that’s part of our motivation. We stack motivations. We stack motivations. You know, you ought not be faithful to your wife because you’re afraid of losing your family. You ought to be faithful to your wife first and foremost because you fear god.

Right? You ought to be faithful to your husband because you fear God, and you know what the Lord says on that matter. But then behind that, you stack these motivations. You love your wife, you love your husband, you want you want you you want to be with them until death. Right? You love your children, you don’t wanna lose your family. You know, even what others think of you and the shame that would come from throwing all that away. You know what? Those are those are stacked motivations and they’re they’re good. They’re right. The the the first one is the lord himself and our relationship with him but behind that are a bunch of other things that the lord stacks behind us to make it all the more difficult.

To turn away from him and his will and that’s good and right. That’s part of what being in being a part of a church is. Is that accountability? That stacking motivation that we need in our life as a believer. Everyone of us needs it. And this is what Paul’s reminding Timothy of. At the end of verse number 18, he says this, that thou by them might as war a good warfare.

Now in second Timothy chapter two, when we get there, that’s gonna be some time from now, but when we get there, that’s where Paul really talks about this analogy of war and it’s really, it’s truly, it’s not an analogy. It’s an analogy only in the sense of that you compare it to like warfare in the physical sense on the battlefield like Iraq, Afghanistan, something like that. But really it’s not an analogy. This is a war.

And I’ll just say this, as we keep going, we’ll we’ll cover that later when we get to second Timothy two, but just as a reminder, the Christian life and the Christian ministry of which you are a part. You say, well, I’m not in the ministry, but you you listen, you are a part of the ministry. The ministry is not just the pastor, not just the deacons. The minute, every every Christian is supposed to be a servant of god. Amen. Right?

It’s not just the people who have a particular office. Everyone of us are supposed to be involved in the ministry. You read second Corinthians chapter eight, chapter nine, those those believers when they when it came time for that collection for the poor saints in Jerusalem, everyone was involved in that ministry. That’s the word used, ministry.

Ministry is for everybody, but this Christian life, this ministry, we are mistaken if we think this is peacetime. This is not peacetime. The Bible very clearly describes our Christian life and our role and our role in this world as a Christian among among really hostilities, spiritual hostilities. The Lord describes that as a war. That is not peacetime, but wartime. And with wartime, in this spiritual war, again, we’re gonna cover this in a lot more detail later, but in wartime, in this war, this spiritual war, included are all of the things that you would normally associate with war in the traditional sense.

There’s pain, there’s fighting, there’s hardship, there’s loss, there are casualties. All of these things we associate with war, that exists among the people of God as we live for God in this world. This is it. We’re not among friends. Now here we are, but in the broader sense in this world, we’re not among friends. The world is not friendly to the Lord Jesus Christ no matter the lip service that they give to Him.

But there’s also victory that comes along with war. And we’ll look at all of that when we get to those verses. Now notice what he says in verse number 19. This is really the crux of what I wanna say. He says, now as he wars this warfare, here’s here’s two things, there are two things that that Paul tells Timothy, there are two things you need to keep, you need to hold on to, that need that need to be a high priority in the way that you order your Christian life and ministry.

It says, verse 19, holding faith and a good conscience. Holding, that means holding tight to them. Holding faith and a good conscience. Now, we say the word faith. What we’re talking about is I I don’t think we’re referring necessarily especially in this context with Paul or and Timothy. We’re not so much talking about Timothy’s personal faith like his faith in god. What we’re talking about is the faith.

We’re talking about the the the set of truth, scriptural truths that Timothy is number one supposed to hold himself. Number two, supposed to teach others and all of us should, listen, every Christian should know that we call it sometimes a body of truth, a body of doctrine. That is what you believe about God. Like this morning, we were talking about the Holy Spirit. Who is the Holy Spirit?

He is he is very God. That’s a part, one small part of the body of of our faith and everything that it it involves with the gospel, with faith in Christ, in the cross, and resurrection, and all of the things that go along with that. He’s telling Timothy, listen, you need to hold on to these biblical truths that you have learned. You need to hold on to these biblical truths.

And we might be tempted to to to read that and think, well, because we do have a, you know, in our church, we’ve always had a strong emphasis on biblical truth, biblical doctrine. What does the Bible say? Where it’s not just kind of willy nilly, you know, whatever, you know, kind of whatever goes. No, it matters what we believe, and it does. He says, hold on to it.

But we would be mistaken to think that that’s all that matters because there’s another one. There’s another one. Let’s keep reading verse number 19, Holding faith and a good conscience. That’s the second one, a good conscience. Notice what it says in verse 19, which, referring to the conscience now, some having put away... So what they did is they they had the faith part, but when it came to the good conscience part, they cast it aside.

It wasn’t a priority. It it was not important. They they compromised on the good conscience part. Here’s and those will happen. Which some having put away concerning faith have made shipwreck. Now if their if their faith was a ship at sea, their ship ran aground and was destroyed by the waves. But here’s what I want you to see. It was not just that the the persons, the person decided to change their faith and abandon biblical true truth. It wasn’t that.

It was they put away the second one, the good conscience, and the effect of that was the wrecking of their faith. You see what I’m saying? They put away the second one and it wrecked the first one. That’s what the verse is saying. And he gives it two examples which we’ll look at in just a minute, it says, of whom is Hymenius and Alexander, whom I have delivered unto Satan that they may learn not to blaspheme. So these people had these people had had abandoned a good conscience and the effect was their faith was wrecked.

And you say, what are you what are you talking about, your faith and your conscience? And that’s why we need to look at the idea of the conscience for a minute.

Your conscience your conscience is a very important part of your life as a believer. It is very often mentioned in the New Testament. It’s mentioned by Paul, it’s mentioned in Hebrews, it’s mentioned in first Peter, it’s mentioned in a lot of places. And a lot of people don’t even know what the conscience is. In other words, they think the conscience just this little tinge of a feeling whenever something’s not exactly right.

But actually, the conscience is something a lot more important than that and it’s a good guide to a Christian. In fact, it’s so important that if it’s not right, you can wreck your faith.

It’s an important thing the Lord wants us to pay attention to. And the faith and the good conscience, the faith and conscience as a pair come together in the Bible. Look in chapter one verse number four. I’m sorry, verse number five, chapter one verse five, notice the two are mentioned together in verse five. The end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned. You see them together? Look at chapter three, chapter three verse nine.

Speaking of deacons, it says this, holding the mystery of the faith in a pure conscience, speaking of a requirement for a deacon. Not only does he have faith, but he also has a good conscience, with that faith they go together.

And then if you you go just a couple of books over, look at the book of Titus, the book of Titus chapter one verse 15 says this, Unto the pure are all things pure, but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure, but even their mind and conscience is defiled. Did you notice that? He mentioned unbelieving and he mentions a defiled conscience. You see, now the reverse.

Before we had in our text in first Timothy one eighteen, we have faith and a good conscience. Here we have the reverse. We have unbelief and a defiled conscience. Okay? Again, you can see them go together. Look one more place at Hebrews chapter 10. Hebrews chapter 10.

Hebrews 10 verse number 22. Hebrews ten twenty two, Let us draw near near to God now with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. You see that? Notice the faith and conscience that go together. So I’ll just say this and then we’ll get into a little bit more into what what we mean by the conscience.

What you believe, although vital, although important, what you believe are are are truths of the Bible, which form, which is what what we’re talking about in modern parlance, we would call that kind of like our worldview. That which shames shapes the way we think. What you believe matters. It matters a lot. What you believe matters a lot. But it is not all that matters.

That’s your faith, your conscience also matters. Now what is your conscience? The conscience can be defined as the faculty of every human being that according to his knowledge approves or condemns his actions. Okay, now I’m gonna say this one more time because this an important definition we have to get. It is the faculty of every human being that according to his knowledge approves or condemns his action.

And you might even relate it to the in the Garden Of Eden, there was a tree that once they once Adam and Eve ate, it was called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and once they ate of that tree, they became aware of their sin and they became aware. They felt that tinge of guilt because they had done that which god had forbidden.

So, in some deeper sense, I think we understand a little bit about what the conscience is. Every one of us has a conscience. Every one of us has a conscience.

A good conscience is a conscience such that one’s actions are in accord with one’s knowledge. In other words, a good conscience is a conscience in which you know what is right and wrong. That’s the basis of the word conscience, this knowledge. So you know what is right and you know what is wrong. If you have a good conscience, it means that your actions agree with your knowledge.

What you know to be right and what you know to be wrong is the way that you actually live, that’s what you do. Right? Look at a couple of verses, look in Acts chapter 23. Acts chapter 23 and then also in Acts chapter 26. I wanna show you how this plays out.

A good conscience. So if you have a good conscience, that means that your conscience approves of your deeds, your actions. Acts 23 verse one. Now this is talking about Paul, but notice what he says, and Paul earnestly beholding the council said, Men and brethren, I have lived in all good conscience before God unto this day. Think about that. What had Paul done up to that up to up to that time?

Paul was a Christian persecutor. In fact, there are many things in Paul’s life that sent that before he wrote this, there are many things in Paul’s life that he later repudiated. Like killing Christians. We talked about that on on on on on last Sunday. There are many things in Paul’s life that he actually repudiated but even though he was one who persecuted Christians, Paul said, he lived in good conscience when he did it. Is it possible to be a persecutor of Christians in good conscience? Yes.

Because as I said, the conscience is informed by our knowledge. See, Paul was totally convinced that Christians were of the devil. And so when he persecuted them, he didn’t feel a tinge of guilt about it. He thought he was doing right and his conscience patted him on the back and said, great job. Look at chapter 26 of the book of Acts.

Chapter 26 verse nine. This is Paul also notice what he says, I verily thought with myself that I ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth. Which thing I also did in Jerusalem and many of the saints did I shut up in prison having received authority from the chief priests and when they were put to death, I gave my voice against them.

What’s he saying? He’s saying, listen, second Timothy one also says it. He says, I’ve lived in I’ve lived in served God from my youth in good conscience. So even though Paul was dead wrong in what he was doing, he did it with a clear conscience, a good conscience, because as far as he was concerned, as far as he knew, he was doing right. He was wrong, but he thought he was doing right.

But then you have a defiled conscience. We we covered that already in Titus chapter one. It says, even their mind and conscience is defiled. So if if having a good conscience means that you have knowledge and you’re doing according to what you know to be right and wrong, whether it’s right and wrong is not the point. You’re doing according to what you understand by your knowledge to be right and wrong, what is a defiled conscience?

A defiled conscience, a bad conscience is a conscience in which our actions are in disagreement with the knowledge of good and evil that we have. And in that case, instead of approving us, our conscience accuses us. And that accusation like Adam and Eve in the garden, that accusation of that knowledge that we have done, that which we knew to be wrong, that produces fear because it’s the knowledge of our guilt and our failure.

Yes, it’s a very helpful thing, is it not? And then you take that, like we were talking about last Sunday, you take, then you take that and you add to that the law of God. You know what the law of God does? What the law of God is, God’s word informs our conscience. You know, are people in in days gone by in the eighteen hundreds, in the days of Amy Carmichael, there were people that would take their children when she was a missionary in India, and there were people that would take their children in Hinduism, and they would literally throw their children into a river in sacrifice to their God.

You know what, I bet millions and millions and millions of people did that and killed their children in clear conscience. Because from their perspective, that was the right thing to do. That’s what they they their knowledge was that. Now, was that right? Of course not. But that’s what their knowledge was. And so what the Lord does for us as a believer and or is even as an unbeliever, what he does is he brings his word in which adds knowledge to us.

And especially if you if you’re if you’re saved and you you know the Lord Jesus Christ and you’ve grown, God wants you in his word. You know why? Because his word, everything you learn in the word of God is is is it informs that knowledge that you have about what is good and what is evil, about what is right and what is wrong, what is pleasing to God and what is displeasing to God, and that puts your your conscience in a healthy state.

Because your conscience is actually what is right and what is wrong. Not you think you kill your kid and it’s good. But no, you know right and you know wrong according to the word of God. So they overlap. Does that make sense? They overlap with God’s word. This is this is a good thing. When you do something and I do something that we know is not right, and we feel that tinge of guilt before anybody says anything. We feel that that pain, right? That little stab in us. God put that faculty in our hearts on purpose.

He and and that’s whether you’re a believer, an unbeliever, it it it doesn’t matter. Now as a believer you have the additional influence of the Spirit of God in us and that’s a different thing altogether, but for our purposes, the conscience is important, it’s great guide to an informed believer just so long as it is informed correctly.

And then you cannot... The conscience can also be put into a state where it’s nonfunctional by perpetually defiling it, going against it. First Timothy four verse two says this, speaking of the false teachers, it says, they speak lies and hypocrisy having their conscience seared with a hot iron. In other words, just like a wound, take a hot iron and you stick it in the wound, thankfully we don’t do that now, at least not normally, but you stick it, you stick a hot iron to a wound and it sears it, stops the bleeding, but it also stops the functioning.

Well that’s repeatedly, listen, repeatedly throwing off the the the accusations of your conscience is dangerous, and it can get to a point where that safety mechanism that God put into us has been turned off.

And so again, the Lord wants us to have a conscience that is healthy, that is well informed with God’s Word, God’s truth. So that when we do, like we often do, step out of the way, our conscience is there to accuse us rightly for what... For where we have stepped out of the way. Now let me say one more word about this, about the conscience before we get to a couple of examples.

Although I have a functioning conscience like I trust you do, I don’t feel any pinch of guilt, I don’t feel any pain, I don’t feel any kind of any kind of guilt feeling or regret, you know, as far as that goes about all the things I did before I became a believer. Now I regret having done them, because they’re foolish and stupid and shameful, but I don’t feel that guilt, that that pain of the conscience, you know why?

Because Christ has forgiven me of all of those evil deeds that I did, those dead works, That’s what Hebrews tells us. He says, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience? It says, the blood of Christ purges your conscience from dead works to serve the living God. Now, there’s a lot of things I’m that that I’m ashamed of in that way that I know are wrong and wicked and you know, before I knew the Lord Jesus Christ, but I don’t carry that guilt around with me. You know why? Because I have the knowledge that the the lord Jesus Christ forgave those things and cleanse those things by the blood of his cross.

Does that make sense? It again, it’s the knowledge of that fact and it enables a Christian to live in a way that is that is it’s liberating and it’s free without all the baggage of all of that stuff we used to do. No Christian should carry that around if he is forgiven.

But as a Christian, we can misuse our conscience as a believer. And we can put away a good conscience like we read here, and it can have a terrible effects upon our life. Look if you would way back in the Old Testament now at the book of Numbers, Numbers 22.

Numbers 22. I want to give you two examples of this in the Bible. Numbers 22, read about this king, his name was Balak and he hired a man named Balaam. Balaam was a prophet. You know Balaam, the fame of Balaam comes from his donkey, not from Balaam. The donkey’s name was not Balaam. The donkey who spoke was not Balaam, Balaam was riding the donkey. But Balaam was the prophet that this King Balak had hired to curse Israel.

Now as you read through there, if you’ve ever read Numbers 22 through 24, you’ve probably been struck with this kind of the contradictions that seem to be present in Balaam’s life. At times, you read things that Balaam says and you’re like, man, he seems like he seems like he’s a real prophet and then and then by the end of the story, you think, well, I mean, he he kind of slipped up a little bit, but you know, maybe you know, maybe everything turned out okay.

And so I want to point point some of those things out to you. Look at Numbers 22 verse number 12. Numbers 22 verse number 12. So they send that the king sends sends men to Balaam to call him and verse 12 says this, and God said unto Balaam, thou shalt not go with them. Thou shalt not curse the people for they are blessed. And Balaam rose up in the morning and said unto the princes of Balak, get you to your land for the Lord refuses to give me leave to go with you. So you read that, what does that sound like? That sounds like God warned Balaam and Balaam said, okay, I’m not going.

That that would be a good thing, right? That’d be a good thing. He followed the warning of God. Look at verse 35, same same chapter. And the angel said unto Balaam, go with the men, but only the word that I shall speak unto thee, that thou shalt speak. So Balaam went with the princes of Balak. You said, what do you see Balaam doing again? What I’m trying to show you is Balaam has a measure of faith. Balaam Balaam is a man who’s he’s a prophet and he, you know, he’s he’s listening to the lord’s direction to him to some degree or another. Look at verse 38. Verse 38, it says, and Balaam said unto Balak, lo, I am come unto thee and and have I now any power at all to say anything?

The word that God putteth in my mouth, that shall I speak. Is that a good thing for a prophet to say? Would you you say that’s a good thing for a prophet to say? Prophet says, hey, I’m here but I’m only gonna say what God tells me to say. That’s a good thing for a prophet to say, that’s what I wanna say when I prepare to preach to you people. I wanna say, hey, Lord, I only wanna say what you want me to say.

So that’s not bad, look at chapter 23 verse five. And the Lord put a word in Baalim’s mouth and said, return unto Balak and thus thou shalt speak. And he returned unto him and lo, he stood by his burnt sacrifice, he and all the princes of Moab. And he took up a parable and said, Balak the son of Moab, the king of Moab had brought me from Aram out of the mountains of the East saying, come curse me Jacob and come defy Israel.

How shall I curse whom God hath not cursed? Or how shall I defy whom the Lord hath not defied? So when Balaam goes to speak, does Balaam speak his own words or does he speak the words of God? He speaks the words of God. He speaks the words of God. You see his faith? Verse 16, And the Lord met Balaam and put a word in his mouth and said, ‘Go again unto Balak and say thus.’ Here he goes again.

And he blesses Israel again. Look at verse 20. Behold, I have received commandment to bless and he hath blessed and I cannot reverse it. Verse 26, But Balaam answered and said unto Balak, told not I thee saying all that the Lord speaketh that I must do? Again, that kind of, he’s doing the right thing. Chapter 24 verse three. Chapter 24 verse three. And he took up his parable and said, Balaam the son of Beor hath said, and the man whose eyes are opened hath said, he hath said which heard the words of God, which saw the vision of the Almighty falling into a trance, having his eyes opened.

How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob, and thy tabernacles, O Israel. Then look at verse 13, If Balak would give me his house full of silver and gold, that’s the king now, I cannot go beyond the commandment of the Lord to do either good or bad of mine own mind, but what the Lord saith, that will I speak. Now, why did I go through all of those? Because I wanted to show something.

Remember we talked about in first Timothy one, holding faith and a good conscience. What you see here is you see something like faith in Balaam, that’s what you see. You see Balaam doing what God tells him to do, the Lord putting his words in his mouth, he’s saying expressly, I will not say anything except what God tells me to say. So if we... If I might put him forth as an example, say Balaam is a man who shows faith.

He’s trying to say what what he knows the lord wants him to say and do what the lord wants him to do. He has faith. That’s not Balaam’s problem.

Balaam’s problem is his conscience. He is not... Balaam is not going to maintain a good conscience. Look if you would at back in chapter 22 verse 19. Now therefore I pray you, tarry ye also here this night that I may know what the Lord will say unto me. So far sounds good? And God came into Balaam at night and said unto him, if the men come to call thee, rise up and go with them.

But yet the word which I shall say unto thee, that shalt thou do. Verse 21, pay close attention. And Balaam rose up in the morning and saddled his ass and went with the princes of Moab. What’s missing in verse 21?

You see, the Lord said, if they call you go, and he didn’t wait for that. They showed up at his house and he was already ready to leave. You know what that is? Balaam is now making a decision that he knows is wrong. You know what that is? That’s defiling his conscience. He knows what is right, in this case, he knows what is wrong and he’s choosing the wrong.

Do you see what I mean with the conscience now? Alright. Look at chapter 22 verse 23. And the ass, this is his donkey now, saw the angel of the Lord standing in the way and his sword drawn in his hand. And the ass turned aside out of the way and went into the field and Balaam smote the ass to turn her into the way. He’s beating his donkey because the donkey refuses to go.

Verse 32, and the angel of the Lord said unto him, wherefore hast thou smitten thine ass these three times? Behold, I went out to withstand thee because thy way is perverse.

And the saw me and turned from me these three times unless she had turned from me and surely now I had slain thee and saved her alive. This is what the angel now. So, the angel comes in the way. Balam is riding his donkey, doing the very thing in rebellion that God told him not to do. He’s riding his donkey to do it and so the Lord sends his angel with a sword drawn standing in the way. The donkey sees the angel but Balaam does not and so the donkey stops And knowing that, finally Balaam starts beating the donkey and the angel pops in and says, hey, look, if this donkey had not stopped, you’d be dead.

Balaam is not doing what God wants him to do. You notice how this is all mixed in with what I just spent all that time reading about Balaam’s faith? It’s all mixed in together.

Look at verse number chapter 24. Numbers 24 verse number 10. And Balak’s anger was kindled against Balaam, and he smote his hands together. And Balak said unto Balaam, I called thee to curse mine enemies and behold thou hast altogether blessed them these three times. Therefore, now flee flee thou to thy place. I thought to promote thee unto great honor, but lo the Lord hath kept thee back from honor. And Balaam said unto Balak, spake I not to also to thy messengers which thou sentest unto me saying, if Balak would give me his house full of silver and gold, I cannot go beyond the commandment of the Lord to do either good or bad of mine own mind, but what the Lord sayeth that will I speak. So I wanna ask you a question before we look a little bit further.

Why was Balaam so intent on going with this king to curse Israel? Why did he want to go even though he knew that’s not what God wanted, why? Money.

What the king says here. The king says, I thought to promote you to honor and make you rich, but I’m not going to now. And when Balaam heard that, it’s not in the text, we’ll see in a minute, when Balaam heard that, that was really kind of disheartening to him. Because he really really wanted that money and that power and that place. He really wanted to do the thing he knew for certain.

God did not want him to do and he tried to do it. But he didn’t just try. Look at Numbers 31. In the end, Balaam does exactly what God forbids.

In the end, Balaam does exactly what God forbids. Numbers 31 verse number 16. Behold, these caused the children of Israel through the counsel of Balaam to commit trespass against the Lord in the matter of Peor and there was a plague among the congregation of the Lord. We’re gonna look at that in just a minute. Let me just say this and wrap up the thing with Balaam. Balaam’s problem was this, Balaam loved money and he... But he knew exactly what the Lord wanted him to do as a prophet. He knew what God wanted him to do and he knew what God wanted him to say.

And so because he loved money, he chose to do the opposite of what he knew was right before God. And by doing so, he defiled his conscience. He did the thing that God told him not to do, okay?

And the way he went around it is instead of outright cursing Israel, he told, he knew when the king of Moab said, listen, I thought I was gonna promote you to honor, but I’m not now. He’s like, man. And so he made up a plan where he could get the same effect without outright cursing Israel. You know what he did? He told Balak King Moab, he said this, if you just send your women into Israel’s camp, and they’re dressed seductively and you get those women to entice the men, Israel will go after them and will sin against the Lord and the Lord... They’ll... And then they’ll have problem with the Lord and it’ll have the same effect, it’s a curse.

So even though he knew that’s not what God wanted him to do, listen, he was willing to defile his conscience and that therefore caused all that talk about his faith and what the Lord wanted, and Lord this, Lord that, and all this prophecy stuff that we read all that time reading, that went out the window too.

Because he was doing something he knew the Lord did not want him to do, that directly affected all the stuff regarding his faith. One more, look at Numbers 25.

Numbers 25. Number 25 verse number one. And Israel abode in Shittim, and the people began to commit whoredom with the daughters of Moab. That’s what I’m talking about. You know how they got that idea to send those women into Israel to entice them, to commit fornication, to to have this sexual sin? You know whose idea that was? That was Balaam’s idea. Now it doesn’t say that in the text, but we’ve we found out in chapter 31. Look look at verse number two, and they called the people unto the sacrifices of their gods.

And the people did eat and bowed down to their gods and Israel joined himself into Baal Peor and the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel. Here’s the second example. Listen, please. I’m almost finished.

Not only did Balaam defile his conscience and do that which he knew the Lord did not want him to do, which caused him to then abandon his faith that he supposedly had in the Lord. Here Israel is now being tempted. Israel believes in Jehovah. They believe in the Lord. They’ve been following him in the wilderness. They’ve been doing... There’s the tabernacle and there’s all the sacrifices and all the things that are going on in their service to God.

And so they have faith in God, that is clear in the book of Numbers. But now, these women come into the camp and seduce the men to commit sexual sin with them. They know it’s not right, it is strictly forbidden in God’s Word and God’s all, they know it’s not right, but they choose to do the thing that God forbids, they choose to do the opposite of what they know is right and thereby defile their conscience.

And the next thing you know, where are they? They are bowed down before false gods. You know what they’re wrecking? They’re wrecking their faith by their conscience. They knew what was right, said no, and before you know it, they’re bowing down and their faith is wrecked. They’re abandoning the Lord as their faith. Here’s what I’m bringing in into land now.

Brother David mentioned something, I think it was on Wednesday, when they went to the ministry in Clemson and he had a conversation with a young man who was atheistic, agnostic to that effect.

And the takeaway was after that long conversation, the takeaway that brother David got from this young man was this, I’m an atheist because I want to have sexual freedom, because I want to sin. That was the takeaway. Right.

Faith and a good conscience. See, here’s here’s this idea we have. We just need to believe the right thing. We just need to believe the right thing. We just need to believe the right thing. We don’t pay attention to our conscience. In other words, what you and I know very well is what the Lord wants us to do. But what I wanna warn you about is maintaining that good conscience. In other words, actually following through on what the Lord tells you to do is vitally important. Because if you fail in that, if I fail in that, it will directly come back to affect our faith. And that is exactly what what leads people to make very very bad decisions in their faith.

Where they abandon the Lord, because there was a thing that they wanted to do that they knew was wrong and evil, but when they did it, they could no longer stay in the faith that condemned that, so they abandoned the faith to make room for this thing that was originally something that defiled their conscience. You see what I’m saying? One affected the other.

You know there’s people that because they want to be able to drink at will, will change the church they go to. The question never comes into mind whether it’s right or wrong to do that, but they’re willing to push on that issue where they have doubt and where they they know it’s not right. So that they can they can do it without the faith part. Well you know there’s there’s there’s there are people that want to leave their husband and wife, They know it’s wrong, but they wanna leave their husband and wife. And so they don’t wanna go to the church where they where they’re taught that that’s what the what the Bible says on that. So what they do is they rearrange what they think the Bible says on it to make room for this.

And that’s actually what’s behind a lot of atheism. In fact, let me give you this quote. This is by Aldous Huxley. In the book Ends and Means in 1937, here’s what he says, The philosopher who finds no meaning in the world is not concerned exclusively with the problem in pure metaphysics. He is also concerned to prove that there is no valid reason why he personally should not do as he wants to do.

In other words, the philosopher, the guy who’s who’s philosophizing about the world, what’s the meaning of life? You might think, well, he’s just he’s just on the search for the truth. No, he’s not.

What he wants is he doesn’t want anybody to tell him what he can and can’t do, that’s his conscience. And so, he customizes his faith to match. He goes on to say this, For myself, as no doubt for most of my contemporaries, the philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation. The liberation we desired was simultaneously liberation from a certain political and economic system and liberation from a certain system of morality.

We objected to the morality because it interfered with our sexual freedom. You see that? Why did he say faith, there’s no meaning? It’s because if you say there’s no meaning, it gives me a pass to do the thing that I know is wrong.

A lot of times, listen, we get in our minds, we set, listen, we set intention to do a certain thing that we know is not right, we know it. And the warning I want to give you is not that you believe that you always believe the right thing, although you should, the warning is this, that if you don’t maintain a good conscience and do that which you know is right inside of God, there’s a great danger that it actually destroys your faith, what you believe.

That’s why it’s important these two are tied together. We might say, your faith and your life are tied together. Well, know I’ll I’ll always believe this. Oh yes, stand by. Get into a situation where you have a certain thing that you want to do and you’ll find that that faith thing getting real squishy. And moldable and changeable.

So the Lord tells Timothy, Paul through... The Lord through Paul tells Timothy, listen Timothy, you need to believe right, but you need to also consider your life, you need to make sure you’re doing according to what you know is right and maintaining that good conscience because that’ll protect your faith.

Let’s pray together.