God Reveals Himself Through Our Conscience

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Are continuing on in our series How Can We Know God Exists? And tonight we're going to focus on just a couple verses in Psalm 19. As we continue to go through that entitle is God has revealed himself for a moral conscience. Over the past three weeks, we looked at how God reveals Himself. Two weeks ago, in Psalm 19:1 6, God has revealed himself through his creation. And David says, by looking up and around us, we can see the nature of and divine attributes of God. And last week, Psalm 19, 7, 11, we talked about how God has revealed himself through the written word, his plan of redemption that reveals his love, his grace and mercy, that he's a relational God who meets us through his word and prayer. So this week, like I said, we're just focusing on two verses. And so let's see where David takes us. In Psalm 19, 12 and 13, he writes, who can discern their own errors? Forgive my hidden faults, Keep back your servant also from willful sins. May they not rule over me then I shall be blameless, innocent of great transgression. In Psalm 19, David tells us he reveals his existence to us, and he shifts from observing God's glory in the heavens in the scripture to recognize that God has revealed himself through our conscience. So the big idea tonight is God has written a universal moral law unto the human conscience that exposes the human sinfulness, demands a moral lawgiver, and points us to our need for redemption. The whisper in your conscience is the fingerprint of the Creator pointing you to the Savior. C.S. lewis, an Oxford professor, philosopher and skeptical atheist most of his life, opens up his book Mere Christianity by pointing out why he began to believe in God. And he says that it's because of the existence of morality. And Lewis is quoted in that book as saying, everyone has heard people quarreling. They say things like, how'd you like it if anyone did the same thing to you? Or that's my seat, I was there first. Or, leave him alone, he isn't doing any harm. Or give me a bit of your orange, I just gave you some of mine. Or come on, you promised. Lewis goes on and says that people say things like that every day, educated people as well as uneducated children as well as grownups. Now, what interests me about all these remarks is that the person who makes them is not merely saying that the other person's behavior does not happen to please him. The person's appealing to some standard of behavior which he expects other people to know about. In each comment, it appears very much as if both parties had in mind some kind of law or rule of fair play or decent behavior or morality about which they agreed. If there's no God and human beings evolved from a single celled organism and a primordial soup, if matter is eternal and there is no God, then how can you explain the evolution of human conscience and morality? I suggest an objective, universal and constant standard of truth and morality points to the existence of a personal moral lawgiver. It points to the existence of God. Paul the Apostle speaks to this in his letter to the Church in rome in Romans 2:14, 15. He says, 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. They show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts. Their conscience is also bearing witness, and their thoughts sometimes accusing them and at other times even defending them. So Paul's speaking about how the Gentiles who were non Jews actually at times lived as if they were under the law, but they had no access to the law. They were not trained by the law, they were not brought up by the law, but yet they still observe the law. It's the same thing you could say about many moral atheists. They don't believe there's a God or that the Bible is God's word, and yet they live good moral lives demonstrating acts of kindness towards others. So the simple argument says that if objective moral values exist, God must exist. Objective moral values exist, therefore God must exist. Have you ever tried to run away from something that lived inside your head? Imagine driving down a quiet highway at night and there's no police cars around. There's no traffic cameras. You don't have any passengers in your car. Suddenly you make a reckless choice to speed 100 miles an hour and go right through a red light. Nobody saw you. You're not going to get a ticket in the mail. And almost instantly, something inside your chest tightens, your pulse quickens. A quiet, un undeniable voice inside says, that was wrong. Where did that voice come from? Why does human nature possess an internal referee that commands or that commends us when we do good and condemns us when we cross a line, even when nobody's watching, our conscience reveals that God's law is written on each of our hearts. Let's move on and let's take a look at the first part of verse 12. And David goes on and says, but who can discern their own errors? David recognizes that human beings possess an innate awareness of right and wrong, yet our moral compass reveals that we'll fall short of a standard we didn't even invent. And as Christians, we all know the verse real well. Romans 3:23. It says, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. And the reason why we fall short is that God is the standard and God is perfect, and we don't meet his perfect standard. In his book the Problem of God, Pastor Mark Clark tackles the evidence of morality. And Clark points out that across every culture, continent and century, human beings operate with a universal, objective sense of right and wrong. While cultural applications vary slightly, basic core morals do not. There's no culture that praises a coward for running away, leaving his comrades to fight the battle alone. There's no one that honors a man for betraying his closest friends for personal gain. C.S. lewis's argument for morality famously observed in Mere Christianity, whenever two people argue, they don't just say, I don't like what you did. They appeal to a standard of fairness. They assume the other person knows, how would you like that if they did that to you? Or that was my seat, I was there first. Or why do you think you are? Well, who do you think you are that you're budding in line? You know, it made me think of two famous cases in the news, and I imagine all of you have heard about it because they've been in the news over and over and over. First one's a case of a mother who determined to arrange the circumstances of where her husband would be gone for 50 minutes and while he was gone she smothered her children to death. If there is no moral absolutes, then why is there universal moral outrage that she was declared not guilty because of postpartum depression? Now I'm not up here to minimize postpartum depression and the effects that it has, but I think you'd find very few cases of a woman who had postpartum depression that killed her children. Second case is of a married Christian man who was married for 15 years and had two beautiful daughters, 11 and I think seven. He was a member of a church worship team where his family faithfully attended for years. And he seemed to maintain a solid Christian witness to both his church and biological families and who chose to have a hidden year long affair with a female worship director and decided to shoot his wife twice in the head while she was sleeping so that he could be free to be with his mistress. Then he tried to stage it to look like it was a break in. Well, he was sentenced to life without parole. Parole. And why is it that everyone sees him as a scumbag in cases like these, it's obvious that the God we are discovering through this series was not the influencer over either of these heinous acts. The scriptures declare that God cannot sin, he cannot tempt others to sin, and he cannot lie. But according to the Bible, these were likely acts that were influenced by another person, a character, someone who's in the story, the devil, who's known as the architect of sin. He's known as a liar and a murderer from the beginning, a deceiver, one who steals, kills and destroys. If a mother with a natural instinct to protect her children, not to kill them, and a faithful Christian churchgoer or a worship team member who had a wonderful verbal witness of his faith in Christ with, who had two beautiful daughters and a wife can kill her, then we must realize that in our fallen nature, we are all subject to the devil and his schemes against us. Self deception not only runs rampant in our culture, but it also runs rampant in the church. If objective moral values exist, meaning things like torturing innocent children or committing genocide, or killing your wife, killing your daughters are truly objectively evil, regardless of who agrees or disagrees, then there must be an objective moral grounding. If you remember in a week in our week two, I stated that naturalist atheists needed to believe in six miracles to maintain their view of the world without God. And one of them being that morality came from matter. You see, their belief is that there is no God and matter is eternal. But when you ask the question, where'd the matter come from? You don't have an answer. It was just there. And rather than say that it possibly could be God, they'd come up with all different other kinds of reasons, like, well, it's the multiverse, or it's actually an aliens that came down and created and did the things that we now see in our world today. Anything, anything else but say there's a God. They contend that early humans who learned that to cooperate, share food and refrain from killing each other were more likely to survive and pass on their genes. Suppose you see a man drowning, freezing river. You have two competing instincts and the first is self preservation. I don't know this guy. I have myself and my family to worry about. I can't risk my life for this stranger. Or you have herd preservation, you decide to help another human being who's in crisis to try to ensure survival of the species. If morality were merely instinct, the stronger instinct, self preservation would always win. But what does your conscience tell you? Conscience tells you that you ought to help the drowning man, even risk your own life to try to save him. Conscience acts as a judge between two instincts. Evolution cannot account for why we feel an obligation to override our strongest physical survival drives. And in this worldview, it makes no sense to sacrifice yourself on behalf of another. There's a man named maximilian Colby. In 1941, after a prisoner escaped the concentration camp in Auschwitz, Nazi guard selected 10 men to starve to death as a form of punishment. Maximilian Colby stepped forward to take the place of a stranger who was married and a father. Colby led the remaining men in prayer and calm while in the underground starvation bunker. And after surviving two weeks without food or water, Colby was killed by a Nazi doctor who injected him with carbolic acid. Pope John Paul II canonized him as a martyr of charity in 1982. Why did Maximilian Colby voluntary step into an execution chamber at Auschwitz? To save a perfect stranger. From pure, naturalistic, evolutionary atheistic standpoint, sacrificing your reproductive potential for an unrelated stranger, it's nothing but an evolutionary error. It's a mistake. Yet humanity recognized it as the highest moral virtue. If ethics are just chemicals firing in the brain to keep the tribe alive, then Hitler's actions were not objectively wrong. They were merely a different socio evolutionary path. But most atheists rightly reject that conclusion because they know evil is real. But under a purely materialistic worldview, they have no foundation to call anything objectively evil, because in their worldview, an objective moral standard for right and wrong does not exist. You see, it does not make sense to for any other explanation. When every human being has a conscience that gives us innate understanding of right, wrong, of good and evil, that it could have come from anywhere else but a moral lawgiver. If we return to Psalm 19, David proceeds to break down how the moral law in our conscience exposes our fallen nature. In the second part of verse 12 and 13, he says, Forgive my hidden faults. Keep your servant also from willful sins. May they not rule over me. And David's categorizing human moral failure into two distinct categories. And the first is hidden faults. These are sins hidden from others, or even sins hidden from ourselves due to self deception or blind spots are hardened consciences. Our conscience warns us, but through habit and rationalization we bury those warnings deep inside. And David is saying, forgive me, because only God can uncover and forgive what we hide. And then David goes on to speak of willful sins. This is when your conscience flashes red lights. You know it, it sounds the alarm and you look God in the eye, knowing full well that it's wrong, but yet you press the accelerator anyway and go right through that red light. David warns that willful sin can lead to being enslaved by sin. For he says, may they not rule over me. And that's actually the lie of Satan, that your disobedience to God will lead to happiness and freedom, while he knows full well that it will become your tyrant, it will rule over your life and it will bring heartache and destruction. David reveals that it's not enough to know we have a conscience that reveals the existence of God. We must also respond to our conscience saying no to the things that are wrong in our hearts, in our actions, in our relationships, and put those things to death. I decided to look at several of the key psalms that David wrote where he gives insights into sin. And I find it fascinating that each of the psalms were identified for the director of music. He's writing these psalms specifically about sin, and he's ready to hand them over to the director of music so that they might be sung in the sanctuary as they worship together. Today, it seems as if in Christian circles, the word thin has become an antiquated word. It's certainly never sung about. It's rarely talked about in the pulpit and especially in the United States, since the seeker friendly move had influenced what should be done on Sunday mornings. Hey, we got to eliminate anything that's possibly going to be offensive to the seeker. We don't want to turn them off. The misguidedness in this is that for every person who walks in these doors, sin is their biggest problem. You see, sin separates us from God in this life and for eternity. Sin robs us of peace and joy and true freedom, and it leads to death. Sin kills the most important things in this life. Our relationships, our marriages, our families. It kills reputations and physical health and vitality in your Christian faith and walk and undealt with sin destroys our Christian witness. It hinders the power of God in your life, and it destroys churches. You know, I'm sorry, but if you're looking for a pastor to tickle your ears and say all the wonderful things and forget about talking about sin, it's not going to be me, because sin is a big deal. God is a holy hatred of sin. And Jesus, it's the very reason that he came incarnate in human flesh to pay for the sin that you and I have committed. It's a big deal. Let's look at several of David's psalms to see what insights he can share with us. And these insights come from his personal experience of struggling with sin. Already we've looked at Psalm 19 and David wrote that while he was a shepherd tending his father's sheep and as a teenager he already had keen insight in how he could be self deceived and how he needed God to give him discernment through convicting his conscience and how he needed God's forgiveness and cleansing and help and not allowing sin to rule his life. In Psalm 41:3, which I memorized years ago, David writes, I waited patiently for the Lord. He turned to me and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and the mire. He set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand. He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God. Many will see and fear and put their trust in the Lord. David wrote this early on in his reign as king, and this is a psalm of thanksgiving for past help. But it's also lament over current troubles and the causes of his distress are not specified in these few verses. But later on in verse 12, he says, for troubles without number surround me. My sins have overtaken me and I cannot see. They are more than the hairs on my head. And my heart fails within me. You see the pit that David's describing in this passage? He's calling it a slimy pit. He's calling it. It's a pit that's full of muck and mire. And have you ever been there when you know that you know you're living in unrepentant sin, there's some sin that you're not giving up. There's something that you're not surrendering to God and you just feel like all yucky. You feel like, you know, it's slimy and you're starting to feel kind of bad about yourself and you're feeling about bad, bad in your relationships and how you're hurting other people through this sin. I want you to notice that first it wasn't David's strength and resolve that turned his life around. And it won't be your personal strength and resolve either, that if you're sitting here, you know, struggling with some sin that you've find hard pressed to get over. It's not going to be your strength and your plan that's going to change you and get you out. What he reveals here is that God allowed David to wallow around in the consequences of his sin. He said he he was waiting for the Lord to come through and It's. It's only when David had enough of the struggle and heartache and the realization that sin will not satisfy, that it can't deliver the goods, that he fell to his knees in desperate prayer before the only one who could deliver him. God turned to David in response to his cries for help. God lifted him up out of the slimy pit of sin. God placed David on solid footing where he was free and could walk with God once again. God placed a new song of worship in his mouth that came from a repentant and restored heart. I'm not trying to say tonight that God drops this stuff on your laps, but I am trying to say that it's only when you turn to God with what you're struggling with and you surrender to him in confession and repentance, will God then do that work in you. He will kill that sin in your life. He'll save you from the pit. But I want you to know that the results of killing your sin with God's help is never only just for you. Because he says here many will see in fear and put their trust in the Lord. When the sin you've coddled and catered to has been killed, people will take notice. They'll notice something different about you. They'll start sensing the the presence and power of God seems to be with you. Your life is exemplified by the fruit of the Spirit. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness and self control. They're freely flowing through your life because the Holy Spirit is no longer grieved by your sin. It's because Christ has taken back the throne of your heart where your sin Once Sat. Hebrews 12:1 and 2. The author says, therefore, since we're surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, those witnesses are those who walked in faith before us. They're the ones who fill up chapter 11 and all the Old Testament saints and the New Testament saints that lived a life of faith and were examples. He's saying they are a cloud of witness because of them. Let us throw off everything that hinders in the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. See Christian. Not only here, but in other places in the scripture. It says that we've been given a race to run by the One who saved us, the One who endured such opposition from sinful men. And yet he never allowed the obstacles and the hindrances and the persecution deter him from his race, which was the cross. The Christian life's not a series of sprints, but it's a marathon. And those who run marathons would tell you that so much blood, sweat and tears goes into it. There are years of sacrifice and self denial and self control and abstaining from things that you love. There's a lot of training that goes into it. There's an embracing of pain and discomfort. There are injuries and setbacks to overcome along the way. And if you're a marathon runner, running is your life. It's what matters most. And it's not how you start at the race that's most important, but it's that you finished. I mean, if you look at any of these, like the New York Marathon or the Boston Marathon, there's thousands of runners. How many of those thousands of runners actually, do you think, think that they're going to win? They haven't gone through all that sacrifice and that life, self control and self discipline and the pain and the sweat and the tears because they actually thought they were going to win. Their goal was to finish the race. And that's our goal as Christians, is to finish the race. The writer of Hebrews is telling us that there are things that hinder you and entangle you from finishing your race for Christ. There are things you're allowing to get in the way of a fruitful and productive life with Christ. And that would hinder. It means to slow, delay or block your growth or success in the race. God has given you to run. And the word entangle means something is twisted around you, something has trapped you. It means to be tightly caught in something else other than the race God has given you to run. The thing that hinders or entangles a Christian from continued progress and fruitfulness in their walk and service of Christ is sin. It's something you've chosen that has become more of a priority in your life than running your race. And you see, so often as Christians, we for years can have this sin that we've never really dealt with and never really allowed God to kill. And we think we're running the race, we're going church and we're in Bible studies and we're serving over here and we're serving over there. And you know, we're even discipling people and it's like, but we're living in this unrepentant sin we're holding on to this. And while over here, our sin is killing things and hurting people, and over here, we're trying to live the Christian life, it doesn't work. You know, in First Corinthians 9, 24, 27, it says, do not. Do you not know that in a race, all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? You see, we've been enrolled in a race, and we're not really supposed to have an option whether or not we're going to run, but we choose to walk, and sometimes we choose to be spectators, and sometimes we choose to be consumers. And then sometimes we. We run, and then we get back to, you know, lounging around in the Christian life. And he says, in a race, all the runners run, but only one gets the prize. Run in such a way as to get the prize that everyone who competes in the Games, and he's speaking in that part, actually, the Olympic. The Greek Olympic Games, back then, everyone who competes in the Games, they go into strict training. They do so to get a crown that will not last, but we do so to get a crown that will last forever. Therefore, I don't run my race as a man running aimlessly. I don't box or fight as a man beating the air. I beat my body and make it my slave. So after I preach to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize. I think too many are thinking they're running the race, but they're running aimlessly. An aimless meaning means you have no real purpose, you have no real direction. And can you imagine a boxer getting into the ring and boxing the air? You know, that's part of the nature of the spiritual warfare that we're in. We're in a fight, we're in a war, we're in a battle. And we're just kind of boxing the air. We're doing shadow boxing. Pastor Sam Tennell, who's the lead pastor of ifc, which is the church that sent us, said in one of his messages, we just love our sin too much to give it up. And Tim Keller says sin isn't only doing bad things. It's more fundamentally making good things into ultimate things. Sin is building your life and meaning on anything or anyone, even a very good thing, more than on God, you know, and that's where we kind of need to be honest with ourselves and ask ourselves, what would I refuse to give up if Christ asked me to? Well, I asked a longtime friend of mine, Greg Egger, to come up and share his story, because he shared that with us probably a year ago in Gospel community and it speaks to exactly what we're talking about. So Greg, why don't you come up and share? [00:27:43] Speaker B: Jim. And here we are. My name is Greg Yeager for those that don't know me. My wife Sandy is sitting there next to Lisa, dreading being pointed out a little bit about myself. I am a 5th degree black belt master in the traditional Korean martial art of Kuksul Wan. And that may sound impressive, but, and for me it was a life accomplishment. But I will say that it did not come without a cost. So what happened was I've been walking with Christ since 83 and I got involved in, got involved in martial arts. I'm very goal oriented and I set my sights on, you know, once I started doing that and I realized, you know, I could attain the ranks that I was attaining, it became evident to me that this was something that I could set as a goal and accomplish it. So I did. And again, there's nothing wrong with that. It's. I had, I decided to pursue it with a single minded focus to the point where other things, it was starting to eclipse other things in my life, really everything in my life. And I was not able to see this. So this was at a time where I was working over around Missouri Research park and I would go to lunch over at Bush Wildlife. I'd take time and I'd pray, I'd read the Bible and I was praying one day and it was a day like today, it was in the autumn, I remember. And you know, I'm praying and I'm asking, you know, I'm just asking the Lord for some direction. And I felt like he was saying, you need to burn those uniforms, those martial art uniforms. And I said, what? You know, it's like, wait a minute, God, is this you or is this the white castles that I ate the night before? You know, this can't possibly be coming from God. So I, you know, I rationalized it and you know, I was like, God, if this is really you, then I need to know this by the end of the week or whatever condition I laid out. You know, it's like, I need to know this is you speaking. And I didn't hear anything. So then I thought, well, you know, maybe I can incorporate. You know, I'll continue on doing what I'm doing. I know what I'll do. I'll have a Bible study at our martial arts school. And so I got a few people together and nothing ever really came of it. It didn't take off. God was not in it prior to all of this, I, you know, I was walking with the Lord and I heard from him on a very regular basis after that. I didn't hear for him for close to 20 years. That was a tough time. But Jim was talking about that quote from Tim Keller. It's very true. You know, sin is really anything that it can be a good thing, but if it eclipses everything else, it's not a good thing. And especially if you hear it from the Holy Spirit. So fortunately, what happened, the Lord brought about some life circumstances to where I did not have the ability to fix it or control brought me back to him. So that is what happened with me. Hopefully, if any part of this relates to you, I would take it under very careful consideration. Thanks. [00:31:42] Speaker A: Thanks, Greg. But let's finish up. I want to just take a look at two more psalms of David as he continues to talk about sin. And Psalm 51:10, 13 was another passage that I memorized early on. And obviously I'm memorizing them because I think they're significant for me in my struggle with sin. And David wrote, created me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me from your presence or take your spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and grant me a willing spirit to sustain me. Then I'll teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will turn back to you. And so the amazing thing to me is that David wrote this psalm about one of the most disgraceful, the scandalous times of his life. His sin with his adulterous sin with Bathsheba and the conspiracy to commit murder of her husband. And he's writing this so that it'd be sung by God's people as they gathered to worship. And all I can say is that a man who's willing to do that, he's got to be humble. He must be vulnerable. He must be transparent. This is what happens in a man or woman who's truly broken, who has confessed and repented of their sins. And David's son Solomon wrote this in Proverbs 28:13, he said, whoever conceals their sins does not prosper. But one who confesses and renounces their sin finds mercy. You see, it's your hiding that compounds the effects of your sin. Sin kind of feeds in the shadow. It gains strength in the dark. In James 5:16 says, Therefore confess your sin to one another. Pray for each other so that you may be healed. You see, sin loses its strength when you call it what it is. And when you Drag it into the light. And when you hate it for what it's done and you agree with God that it must die. I believed in Christ as my Savior and surrender to him as lord now for 44 years and my entire life with Christ has been one of which at various mile markers along the race, God has convicted me over sin in my life. It started with a deep emptiness and void that I was attempting to fill through sin and substance abuse and addiction to cigarettes. And then it was my profane language. And then it was my critical, negative, judgmental heart. And then it was the bitterness I held against my father. And then it was brutish behavior towards my wife. And then it was deep seated anxiety that was fueled by my lack of trust in him. And then it was my need to forgive several people I pastored years ago who painfully betrayed me and my family. And then it was the pride I had as a pastor years ago because I was living some kind of savior complex. Each mile marker along the race, God in his discipline broke my heart as he allowed me to see what sin was doing to me and what it was doing to those I loved and to my relationship with him. It was painful to see how ugly my sin in my heart really was. And it broke me each and every time. But man, there were times I fought hard against surrendering, you know, by comparing myself to others, by justifying myself, by pointing out others sins, by shifting the blame, by rationalizing and minimizing it. And God in his love, grace and mercy met me at that place each time. And he forgave me and cleansed me and set me free. He killed the sin and revived my heart. The ministry he gave me to help others, I would not trade for any sin of my past. And that's all glory to him because each time it was him that lifted me out of the slimy pit. And now after 44 years, God's challenging me and convicting me at this mile marker in my life to once again face sin that I've allowed to fester. You see, I'll never stand in front of you and try to be on a pedestal or fake that I'm some kind of perfect pastor. Because the reality of what the scripture says is that God predestined each of us to be conformed to the image of his son. And that's a lifetime journey. That's what's called sanctification in the Word of God. And so there's never going to be a point in time that any of us are perfect. But yet we walk around hiding our sin and trying to make believe to everybody that we're perfect and we're always okay and there's nothing wrong with us. And what that causes us quite often is to ignore the very sin that we're struggling with in our life. And we go for years with the same unrepentant sin, the same approach to life, the same choices when God's waiting and saying, man, I want to set you free. I want to deliver you from that junk. I want to show you that there's joy and peace and freedom in living with me for me and making me first in your life. In each of the last two psalms of David, he's broken over his sin. He's humble, he hates his sin and the pit it's led him to. He's crying out to God. And then he again points his journey of repentance to what he longs to see God do through it. Then I will teach transgressors your ways so that sinners will turn back to you. When you get free of your sin by allowing Jesus to take it and put it to death, your life will become a fruitful witness for him. But you got to stop resuscitating the sin in your life, you know, giving it life, allow it to continue to breathe. When you repent and turn from your sin, it's killed in your life. It has no breath left. It's dead. The final psalm is Psalm 139. Once again for the director of music, a Psalm of David. And he ends the psalm with these words. Psalm 139, 23 and 24. Search me, God, and know my heart. Test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there's any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. When's the last time that you met with God and did that? This appears to be a mature reflection from later in David's kingship. When looking back on his life and his failures and God sustaining protection and deliverance. David's no longer willing to take for granted that everything's right with him in his heart. He understands that he can be self deceived about the sin in his life. And he's asking God now, as a way of life to search his heart and reveal anything that's offensive to God and a hindrance to the race God has called him to run. Let me ask you, do you really want to hear from God about that? Are you willing to hear from God and have him say, what you're doing is wrong? Let's recap we started out by focusing on how God has written a universal moral law into the human conscience that exposes human sinfulness, demands a moral lawgiver and points us to our need for redemption. God has revealed Himself in the heavens above and the Scriptures before us and in the conscience within us. And the whisper in your conscience is the fingerprint of the Creator, pointing you to your need for him and His Savior. Savior, when your conscience convicts you of hidden faults or willful sins, what do you do? You can't wash away moral guilt with good deeds. You cannot erase a bad conscience through therapy or denial or political activism or the best self help books. But the writer of Hebrews gives us the answer. In Hebrews 9:14 he says, how much more then will the blood of Christ purify our conscience from acts that lead to death so that we may serve the living God? You see where your conscience accuses you when Jesus defends you on the cross. Jesus took the guilt of your hidden faults and your willful sins. And when you turn from your sin and place your trust in him, he doesn't just forgive your past, he cleanses your conscience and restores your soul. For the believer in Christ, his finished work on the cross has saved you from the penalty of sin. It saved you from the power of sin, and it has saved you from the presence of sin. And those are beautiful truths. While all your sin, past, present and future have been dealt with on the cross, we still must face that it is the present that we struggle with sin. Galatians 5:16 says so I say live by the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. You see, God has given us the resources we need to kill the sin in our lives. He's given us the gift of regeneration, which when you're born again, you're a new creation. He's given us the gift of the Holy Spirit, which is the transformative power of the Spirit in cooperation with the word of God, which is the truth that sets you free. He's given us other brothers and sisters in Christ to be our defense. He's given us the full armor of God. He's given us the promise that no temptation will ever be too great for you if you take the escape route that he promises to provide. And finally, the promise that greater is he who is in me than he who is in the world. And don't forget we have a God who's ready, able and available to hear our cries for help, to forgive, deliver, and to set us free. My invitation to the skeptic. If you have never fully trusted Christ, just ask you to stop ignoring the moral voice inside you. Acknowledge that the existence of right and wrong points to a God who created you and loves you and desires for you to place your faith and trust in Him. Invitation for the believer Is God today, like David did to search your heart, God, reveal the sin in my life that I've been holding on to. Holy Spirit, bring what is in the dark into the light of the cross and no matter what it is and how much I love it, help me to say no to it and yes to you. God, forgive me, cleanse me and lead me to repentance from secret faults and willful sins. Lord, I commit to you to come out of hiding and to share my newfound conviction with a trusted friend to confess it and ask for prayer. Guys especially. I believe God led me to this book over the last week and it's called Killing Sin because he's dealing with me and anyone who feels like they would like to go. The guys especially if we want to have and go through this book together. I'd love for us to join together as brothers in Christ and be part of killing the sin in our lives. So if you think that's something you might like to do, you can let me know.