January 1929
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great many souls in Chicago. He was living with his brother’s wife, and John said, “It is wrong for you to have your brother Philip’s wife.” We need a few more preachers like John the Baptist and like old Nathan who rebuked David. I don’t know how it affected Herod, but I know how it affected Herodius. She was the Jezebel of the New Testament. When she heard what John had said, she declared, “I will never rest until I see that preacher dead.” You know how her dancing daughter charmed the drunken king and he cried out, “I will give you half of my kingdom.” Her mother whispered, “Ask for the head of John the Baptist.” Isn’t hate,a hellish thing? So Herod said, “Bring in the head of John the Bap tist.” And they brought it on a charger. The great courtiers and the company are dismissed, and I hear Herod talking to himself. “It seems too bad to have poor old John slain, but I couldn’t help it. I never dreamed she would ask for that. And I didn’t do it really; it was the headsman who beheaded him.” Months passed. By and by another preacher comes to Galilee, and everybody asks, “Who is he?” Some say he is Jeremiah and some, Elijah. But Herod says, “I know who it is. It is John the Baptist whom I beheaded. He has come to life again.” Conscience makes him say “whom I beheaded.” You can lie to everything else and everybody else but your conscience. C onvicted N ot C onverted There is another instance—Judas, who betrayed our Lord for “thirty pieces of silver.” Some men sell out awfully cheap. Just a moment’s pleasure, just a night of fun, just a minute’s gaiety, are sometimes quickly paid for a wrecked home, for an eternity of despair. Judas loved money. He liked the “feel” of it. But inside of twenty-four hours he came back to the priests who gave it to him and he flung it down on the floor crying, “Take your money! I have betrayed innocent blood.” Convicted by his conscience, he went out and hanged himself. Notice, a convicted conscience is not a converted con science. There are lots of men convicted, who have been awakened like Judas and Herod, but have -never been saved. “I said good-bye to my conscience, Good-bye for aye and for aye, And I pushed her hand off harshly And turned my face away, And conscience, sorely wounded, Returned not from that day.
void of offence toward God and toward man” ? It is Paul, the blasphemer, the murderer, the man who said, “I am the chief of sinners,” he who hailed men, women and children in the early days of the church and cast them into prison. Luke tells us that out of Paul’s heart came threat- enings and slaughter like the fumes of sulphur from the pit. Yet it is this Paul who is telling you and me that he has a conscience void of offense toward God and man. How did it all happen? It has happened, bless God, a great many times since, and it may happen tonight. “The blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, cleanseth us from all unrighteousness.” In his Epistle to the Hebrews the Apostle has a great deal to say about .conscience, and in the 9th chapter he is making a comparison between the old Levitical sac rifices and the great and perfect sacrifice that Christ made upon the cross. The argument is that those were types and shadows pointing forward to the coming of Christ and His death upon the cross. In that 9th chapter he speaks of “gifts and sacrifices that could not make perfect him that did the service, as pertaining to the conscience.” In other words, those sacrifices never cleansed away, the sense of guilt. But listen to this. “The blood of Christ who through the eternal spirit offered himself without spot to God, hath purged your conscience from dead works.” If I believe anything, I believe that “though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.” When the sons of Jacob discovered that the governor of Egypt was the man whom they had so sinned against, their fear was pathetic. “I am Joseph, your brother,” he cried; “fee not grieved nor angry, for God did send me here. Oh, come near to me.” And in a moment he and Benjamin were locked in each other’s arms, their tears freely falling. And “he kissed all his brethren”—mark you— all of them. Of course, Joseph is a type of Jesus here. And some day, it may be soon, the sons of Jacob who long since crucified Him will “look upon Him whom they pierced and mourn because of Him.” .&■ Covenanted Possibilities Here are strong words from Dr. J. Stuart Holden: “Every command of our Lord’s is a covenanted possibility of power. He never says, ‘Be holy,’ in order to mock my unholiness. He never says, ‘Be strong,’ in order to mock my weakness. He never says, ‘Follow me,’ in order to mock my frailness and insufficiency. When God calls me, when Christ woos me, when the Holy Spirit tenderly invites me, there is the covenanted possibility of power as I obey and take Him at His word.” I P Highest Reach of Faith “The highest reach of faith” says J. R. Miller, “is loving, intelligent consecration of all our life to the will of God. We are to have desires, but they should be held in subordination to God’s desires and thoughts for us. We are to have plans, but they should be laid down at God’s feet, that He may either let us work them out for Hjm or show us His plan for us instead of our own. Complete consecration of our will to God’s—that is the standard of Christian living at which we are to aim.”
“But the time came when my spirit Was weary with its pace, And I said, ‘Come back,’ to conscience, ‘For I long to see thy face’ ; But conscience said, ‘I cannot, Remorse is in my place.’ ”
O God on high, have pity on any one who has sinned and abused his or her conscience until despair has dis placed it. But, brethren, I would not conclude the sermon here, f would not like to have you go away with just these thoughts in your mind. I have good news for you. The conscience may be cleansed. Who is this man that says, “I always exercise myself that I may have a conscience
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