https://youtu.be/3IJUWnZ8J78
In our verse-by-verse study of Romans we finished Rom 2:5. Our expanded translation is "Because of your hardness and unrepentant heart, you store up and accumulate for yourself wrath against the day of wrath, even disclosure of just judgment from the God."
The words translated heart, hardness, unrepentant, and judgment in this verse brought up some doctrines to look at and we are presently looking at the doctrine of the heart.
At the moment we are looking at the compartments of the heart and at the moment are discussing the conscience. Last time we noted that the conscience is related to unjust and unfair treatment, 1 Pet 2:18-19;
"Servants, be submissive to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle masters, but also to the perverse and unreasonable ones; for this is grace, if for the sake of conscience toward God, anyone bears up under sorrows when suffering unjustly."
Though originally addressed to slaves, this verse came to refer to anyone who is under the authority of someone else. Some people in authority are perverse, but you are just as responsible to submit to their authority. You serve them and do your best job as unto the Lord.
Such a believer has a strong conscience but the weak believer complains and rejects authority, and as a result becomes a loser in God's system.
So it is very important to have a conscience based on "epignosis" doctrine so that you can handle unjust treatment in the same manner that you handle fair treatment.
Military training can be counted on to provide unjust and unfair treatment from authority. Learning to submit to unfair authority is necessary for proper function when under the abnormal circumstances of combat.
The conscience is important in suffering for blessing according to 1Pet 3:14-16; "But even if you should suffer for righteousness' sake, you are blessed (suffering for blessing in three categories). Furthermore, do not fear their intimidation tactics and do not be troubled,
v15 but set apart the Lord Christ in your hearts, always be ready to make a defense to anyone who asks you to give an account for the confidence that is in you with grace orientation and respect (occupation with Christ).
v16 Keep on having a good of intrinsic value conscience, so that in the things in which you are slandered, those who malign your intrinsic good in Christ may be put to shame."
The three categories of suffering for blessing are providential preventative suffering, momentum testing, and evidence testing. We see here that the source of occupation with Christ is epignosis doctrine in the heart. Slander is handled by epignosis in the heart.
If you have a strong conscience, you will leave it in the Lord's hands. Then it will go to the supreme court of heaven. God will put the slanderer to shame without you ever responding to defend yourself.
Apostasy in believers is related to a conscience that has been destroyed. 1Tim 4:1-2; "But the Spirit explicitly states that in latter periods of time (between First and Second Advents), some believers will become apostate from doctrine, paying attention to deceitful spirits and concentrating on doctrines from demons (cosmic involvement)
v2 by means of hypocrisy of liars (false teachers), seared in their own conscience as with a branding iron."
False teaching sears the conscience like a branding iron creating scar tissue. It destroys the conscience. Searing refers to scar tissue of the soul that is created by carnal cosmic involvement.
A great deal of strength comes from having the proper norms and standards in the conscience of your heart. This means that it is important to understand how apostasy destroys the conscience.
Believing in Jesus and rebound purifies the conscience from dead works based on the substitutionary spiritual death of Christ on the cross.
Heb 9:14; "How much more will the blood of Christ who, through the eternal Spirit (omnipotence of the Holy Spirit), offered Himself without blemish to God, purify your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?"
There is no work we can perform for salvation; salvation is by grace alone. Therefore, our conscience must be purified from dead works. Dead works are human works, like faith plus anything for salvation. All dead works will be burned at the Judgment Seat of Christ.
This means that anything performed apart from the filling ministry of the Holy Spirit is dead works. This tells us that Christian service that involves dead works is actually not Christian service. It is the work of the devil.
The great power experiment of the Church Age and the execution of God's protocol plan demand the use of the omnipotence of the Holy Spirit and epignosis doctrine inside God's spiritual power system.
Divine omnipotence and human power are mutually exclusive. Serving God and fulfilling His plan cannot be accomplished by human power. Human power destroys the conscience and manufactures dead works.
Legalism cannot execute God's plan, purpose, or will because serving God requires the use of God's power from God the Holy Spirit and the cognition of Bible doctrine, that establishes proper norms and standards for heart's conscience.
The next compartment of the heart is the momentum compartment that can also be described as the compartment of spiritual growth. This is the sphere of spiritual growth that is based on momentum that is developed under the enabling power of the Holy Spirit from the application of metabolized doctrine.
It is the result of having doctrine in the frame of reference and choosing to moving it into memory center, vocabulary and categorical storage, developing norms and standards; we then have a growth factor from metabolized doctrine that propels us toward spiritual maturity.
The two categories of spiritual growth are called normal and accelerated. Normal spiritual growth comes from post-salvation renovation of the thinking. This is the function of reception, retention and recall of operation Z.
Receptive comprehension is the first three stage of Operation Z, followed by retention that is the metabolization of Bible doctrine where gnosis is converted into epignosis followed by recall for doctrinal application.