Chapter # 14 Paragraph # 2 Study # 16
September 19, 2021
Humble, Texas
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Thesis: The person who puts his/her "conscience" above all else in respect to his/her "relationship" to God is strongly assured of the future's outcomes for him/her.
Introduction: In our studies of "How To Get Along With Each Other" in
Romans 14, we have seen that Paul was insistent upon one basic principle: maintaining a good conscience in view of both God's "desires" and the brothers' "best interests".
This issue of a "good conscience" is of extreme importance in that it highlights the critical truth about how God is going to deal with us when the future comes upon us. That critical truth is this: that God is not seeking a "knowledgable" mind, but, rather, an "uncompromised" heart.
In our study this evening we are going to continue to look into this critical truth by considering what happens when the "uncompromised heart" is not "uncompromised".
- I. What Is Involved In Paul's Declaration of "Blessedness"?
- A. One is "blessed" when an experience is imposed upon a person if that experience is decreed by God to result in eternal joy, but one is also "blessed" when the imposed experience is presently "joyful" (John 16:20-22).
- B. Paul's declaration of the "condition(s) of blessedness" in this text/context.
- 1. There is a present sense of "blessedness" when one "approves" his own actions by deciding they are legitimate and pleasing to God.
- 2. But that sense of "blessedness" may actually evaporate when the "judgments of the person" are later subjected to God's evaluation of those judgments as false.
- 3. Thus, the "sense of blessedness" is only lasting if what one approves for himself is in actual harmony with what God approves for him.
- II. One Bottom Line Issue.
- A. Paul does not insist upon "accuracy in theology/Theology"; he insists upon a willingness to act according to "embraced theology/Theology".
- B. This insistence does not guarantee ultimate "blessedness" because both accuracy and embracing are crucial to the judgment of God.
- C. When attempting to "judge" what God "approves" for oneself, all human beings are subject to error in both of the questions of "accuracy" and "embracing", but God's focus is upon "embracing".
- 1. God knows the difference between "profession" by a mouth controlled by the heart ("...out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks..."; Matthew 12:34 and Luke 6:45) and "reality" as it is.
- 2. Men do not have this "knowledge" in many situations of life (both mouth and heart are plagued by deceit), so they are left to having to decide how they will relate to God.
- a. Will they go with "what they think they know of Truth"?
- b. Or will they go with "what they are experiencing internally" in the face of their confusion?
- D. Paul insists that we go with our "inner experience of the work of the conscience" and not with our "knowledge".
- 1. If we are assured of the accuracy of our theology/Theology, our conscience will give us no qualms, even if our theology is not accurate.
- a. The conditions wherein this is true are revealed by Paul in this context: acting with the goal of pleasing God and giving thanks.
- b. When a person is ill-instructed, but has the foundation of seeking to please the Lord and is giving thanks, God looks upon the genuineness of that foundation, not upon the accuracy of professed knowledge (there is no other basis for His gradual correction of our faulty thinking as Hebrews 5:14 says: "the senses have to be trained to discern good and evil" and that "training" comes by actual "practice" of what is considered legitimate theology because it is by the experience of "doing" and "enduring" the consequences that a person is "trained").
- 2. If we are unsure of the accuracy of our theology/Theology, qualms will surface unless we have completely abandoned the work of the conscience as in 1 Timothy 4:2 ("...seared in their own conscience as with a branding iron...").
- E. Lasting "blessedness" is only possible when the heart is uncompromised and the grasp of The Faith is accurate.
- 1. In our text/context, we "approve" our behavior so that our conscience does not object.
- a. In this context, those "healthy in The Faith" were "approving" their departure from dietary and memorial day issues so that they had no "qualms of conscience".
- 1) But they should have had certain "qualms".
- 2) They should have had their brother's best interests in mind and did not.
- 3) So they were "approving" in error and their consciences were at peace because they had not yet been "trained".
- 4) Thus, Paul had to be the instrument of that "training" so that they began to see that their brother's best interests were to be raised above their own personal "good" interests.
- b. In this context, those "diseased in The Faith" were "approving" their rigidity of dietary discipline and loyalty to the celebration of memorial days so that they had no "qualms of conscience".
- 1) But they should have had certain "qualms".
- 2) They should have had their brother's true interests in mind and did not.
- 3) So they were "approving" in error and their consciences were at peace because they had not yet been "trained".
- 4) Thus, Paul had to be the instrument of that "training" so that they began to see that "judging their brothers" in matters that had to be true was an improper response to the "untrained" desire to be "viewed by men" as "examples to follow".
- a) It is indisputable that diets and days could not be the issues of the heart because those issues can easily be faked so as to hide the real desires of the heart.
- b) Both the Law and history revealed that the outer man could be totally wrong while thinking they were totally right.
- 2. In our text, it is not our "approval" that will ultimately matter.
- a. Ultimate "blessedness" is rooted in actual Truth, not perceived "truth".
- b. When God acts as the final "judge", He will point out how we "approved" falsely and were willing to follow the inappropriate desires of the heart as the expense of our brothers.
- c. When God points this out, His rationale will be unassailable and so "obvious" that we should have seen it, and when that happens the "blessedness" of our faulty motives and "truth" will disappear (to be replaced by "Truth" and the blessedness that loyalty to it brings: this is the goal of the Judgment Seat).
- F. In the interim between temporal "blessedness" with no qualms of conscience and ultimate "blessedness" with a finally purified "conscience", we are to operate by conscience as the tool of The Spirit in His supremacy in our decision-making at the present time (Romans 9:1).
