Conscience | Billy Graham Classic Sermon

from our archives the Billy Graham

classics now tonight I want you to turn

with me to mark the 6th chapter the

sixth chapter of

Mark starting at verse

14 these

words and King Herod heard of him for

his name was spread

abroad now this is he was hearing of

Jesus all the things that Jesus was

doing making the blind to see and the

deaf to hear and the dumb to speak and

even raising the dead and King Herod

heard about

it and he

said that John the Baptist was risen

from the

dead they said you’ve made a mistake his

name’s not Jesus it’s John the

Baptist John the Baptist has been raised

from the dead I killed John the

Baptist when salomi danced in front of

me I was so taken with her dancing that

I promised her anything

in my whole

Kingdom and she asked for the head of

John the Baptist to be brought on a

platter and I regretted

it I like John the Baptist even though I

didn’t agree with some of the things he

was saying and especially when he

accused me of

adultery but I didn’t want to have to

kill him but I had made a promise in

front of all my Lords and Ladies and all

the heads of state that I would give

this girl anything she wanted and she

asked for the head of John the Baptist

so I had to send an executioner to go

and bring his

head and I know he’s risen from the dead

that’s the only explanation for this man

that’s going around the country now and

who has become very famous they call him

Jesus but actually he’s John the

Baptist why did Herod say

that he said it because his

conscience was killing him

all he could think about night and day

was that head that bloody head of John

the Baptist that he had had brought on a

platter because a girl had performed a

sensual dance for him and gotten his

passions all

aroused you know there’s a conscience

Fund in almost every major post office

in the United

States if you’ve cheated the government

and your conscience bothers you you can

send it to that conscience

fund all over the world little children

know that certain things are wrong

wherever you find

them who told

them now when the wind is coming from

this

direction we get the planes because the

airport is right over here and they come

right right down low over the

stadium and its marvelous sound effects

for

preaching but conscience is the moral

Judiciary of the

soul and conscious conscience does not

lay down a

law but warns of the existence of a

law think about that a moment

conscience warns you that there is a

moral

law that moral law is expressed verbally

by God in the Ten

Commandments it is also expressed

verbally by the Lord Jesus Christ in The

Sermon on the

Mount these are

laws and conscience is put within you to

tell

you when you’re breaking

one

conscience is in the heart of every one

of

us there’s a little red

light that goes

on but there’s something in your own

heart in your own soul that flashes red

and says don’t do that

you’re

wrong and most of us go against our

conscience Time After Time and in a

moment I’ll show you how we pay for

it because the Bible speaks of several

kinds of

conscience first there’s the evil

conscience Hebrews 10:22 let us draw

near with a True Heart in full Assurance

of Faith having our hearts sprinkled

from an evil conscience and our bodies

washed with pure water

in another place the Bible talks about

the defiled conscience Titus 1:15 unto

them that are defiled and

unbelieving is nothing

pure but even their mind and conscience

is defiled you can have an evil

conscience and a defiled conscience and

here is the thing that shakes me about

these

scriptures the very thing

that tells us when we are knowingly

wrong itself becomes

debauched like a little

bell that is supposed to ring and give

us a clear note becomes crack so that

its note will be

false and it’s true when you reject the

voice of conscience Time After Time

After Time After Time after a while the

voice of conscience itself becomes

defiled and becomes evil and gives you

the wrong

signals so that you too May crash as you

approach the runway of a

decision because you see your conscience

will begin calling evil

good it’ll call good evil it’ll put

Darkness for light and light for

darkness and will it will say that

bitter is sweet and that sweet is

bitter it becomes evil itself

when you go against your conscience Time

After Time there comes a point a

dividing

line when your conscience is no longer

reliable at all in fact it’ll leads you

in the wrong direction and when you’ve

reached that point you have reached a

very dangerous situation in your

life for then would they not have ceased

to be offered because that the

worshippers want once

purged have no more conscience of sins

in other words there’s a possibility

that you can you can destroy your

conscience the Bible talks about the

Apostle Paul writing to Timothy talks

about people that have a conscience that

have been seared with a hot

iron like a branding iron you’re

conscience

seared

your conscience has been driven away as

a friend and a counselor and comes back

in the form of remorse and comes back in

so many different

forms conscience can even be used by

evil

spirits you see God put it in your heart

to help you and to guide you through

life and your conscience has told you

not to tell that lie not to go to

that place that you went the other

night and you did it

anyway told you not to disobey your

parents but you

did and so you make your conscience

harder and harder and harder you see the

Holy Spirit uses the conscience to

convict you of sin and righteousness and

judgment the Holy Spirit uses the

conscience to draw you to the Lord Jesus

Christ and you say no no no no no and

after a while your heart gets harder and

harder and harder and harder and harder

and harder and harder and harder and

harder God still loves

you God wants to forgive

you it’s still not too late for anyone

here but I do know people very brilliant

theologians who think that there’s a

line Beyond which you can go in which

you can no longer be

saved you become a

reprobate with a reprobate

mind so

hardened that you cannot come to Christ

now I know that the Bible says that

there’s a sin unto death and I also know

that Jesus talked about a sin that could

not be forgiven blasphemy against the

Holy Spirit his blasphemy against the

holy spirit that total rejection of

Christ

that cannot be forgiven I think that’s

what it

is we’re talking about something here

tonight that’s very

very sensitive and delicate and

dangerous and I know so many

people that have some church anity and

they go to church and

they’ve been

baptized but they’ve never really known

Jesus Jesus Christ as their lord and

their

Savior and they’re in danger of

hardening their hearts and hardening

their

conscience until they can no longer hear

the voice of the Holy

Spirit and if you can come to a meeting

like

this and hear the Gospel of Jesus

Christ’s

son and

preached and it doesn’t touch your heart

at

all

beware because you see you can become

gospel

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hardened we have so much gospel Now in

America on

television radio churches thank God for

every one of

them I don’t care what they do just so

they get people to

Christ but the danger is that we hear so

much gospel that it goes in one ear and

out the other and doesn’t get lodged

into our hearts and we don’t go deep as

Andre Crouch was talking about a moment

ago and singing

about it must go deep until we become

Disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ and

I’m delighted to hear how many churches

in this

city have Bible studies and Bible

classes and how many preachers in the

city preach expository messages taking

people right through the Bible and

teaching the Bible as they

preach because that helps the people to

grow but we have so many

people that they think because they’ve

been faithful to the church or because

they’ve given to the church or because

they’ve done some good deeds that

they’re going to go to heaven and the

Bible plainly says you can’t go to

Heaven by

works for by grace are you saved through

faith and that not of yourselves not of

Works lest any man should boast if I

could work my way to heaven Christ would

never have died on the cross if I could

work my way to

heaven I’d be working from morning till

night all day

long and still it wouldn’t be

enough because I have come short of

God’s

glory and that’s why Christ went to the

cross and paid the penalty and the price

of my

sins and gave to me eternal life

and here’s an interesting thing that

happened when I accepted Christ and this

will happen to you you can have your

conscience

resensitized and your conscience can

become the conscience of a little child

again just and and I don’t hold myself

up as an example at

all of any

goodness but I can tell you this I can

do something like this or like that or

like the other thing in my conscience

speaks to me immediately about little

things and I believe that a Christian

walks that way the Holy Spirit speaking

through

conscience and guiding and directing and

instructing oh to have a

conscience that is clear of all offense

the Apostle Paul

said to have a clean

conscience

that

little light that God has put in our

hearts now the Bible talks about a

convicting conscience and they being

convicted by their own conscience went

out one by one and of course that’s the

story of the woman taken in

adultery Jesus had been teaching and

these discip uh these Pharisees had

brought this woman that they had caught

taken in adultery to Jesus and they said

Lord you claim to be a rabbi you claim

to be a great teacher from God all right

what shall we do shall we Stone this

woman the law says Stone her and kill

her what do you

say and Jesus wrote on the ground we

don’t know what he wrote but I think he

wrote the Ten Commandments and they read

the Ten Commandments and he said he that

is without sin among you let him cast

the first stone they might not have been

guilty of breaking the seventh

commandment but maybe they were guilty

of breaking the 10th commandment or the

first commandment or the third

commandment because not one of those

religious leaders could pick up a stone

and throw it because they too were

guilty and the Bible teaches that all

have sinned we’ve all come short of the

glory of

God now the Bible teaches

also that the conscience cannot heal the

wound which it inflicts

it cannot wash out the stain of the Soul

it cannot undo the past it cannot cover

up your sins that’s not its

business its business is to

convict it is the Lord Jesus Christ

death on the cross and his

resurrection that saves us from our sins

Christ Alone can say to our souls and to

our conscience be

still as he said to the angry received

very long

ago I’m asking you tonight to come to

the foot of the cross and find

forgiveness of all your past sins I’m

asking you to come to the Cross tonight

and receive eternal life I’m asking you

to come to the Cross tonight while you

can still hear the voice of the spirit

of God because you see there’s some

strange passages in the Bible it talks

about Ephraim is joined to his idols let

him

alone in other words Ephraim is so taken

up with his play things God said leave

him alone don’t disturb him let him have

a good time he’s

lost the Bible says he that hardeneth

his heart being often reproved shall

suddenly be cut

off without

remedy I do not pretend to know all the

meaning of those

scriptures I dare not tread beyond the

teaching of the word of God but I’ll

tell you that warning is all the way

through the

Bible I remember a story that they used

to tell years ago I think Dr RG Lee used

to tell it about a man at

Niagara and they have a place there and

I’ve seen this place it’s called Beyond

redemption’s

point and this man

had been able to swim the English

Channel several times so he came to

America and he said I’m going to swim

Agra River at that point that they say

it can’t you can’t swim it so a big

crowd gathered and he dived in and he

began to swim powerful Strokes a very

strong man and a fast

swimmer and he came to that place that

they call redemption’s

point and he waved at the crowd and

dived in

swimming they picked his body up way

Downstream there’s a point there Beyond

which you cannot

go there’s a point in your rejection of

Christ or in your neglect of

Christ a point Beyond which you cannot

go without endangering your Eternal

Soul I’m going to ask you tonight to

surrender to Christ you say what do I

have to

do it’s very very simple you see God

made it so simple

that the

uneducated the blind the deaf the dumb

the

educated people of all Races all over

the world can do what God

asks he just asked you to believe and

that word believe though has a lot in it

it means to stand on to put your trust

in and your confidence

in

totally and it means that you’re willing

to repent of your sins which also means

a change in your lifestyle a change in

the way you

live from now on God is

first Not Your

Lust not your

Idols not your work but

God and Christ becomes the Lord of your

life and you receive him as Lord Jesus

Christ

I’m going to ask you to do something

tonight we’ve seen hundreds of people do

in this Stadium this past week I’m going

to ask you to get up out of your seat

right now and come and stand in front of

the platform and say tonight I am not

sure that Christ lives in my heart I

don’t know whether I’ve hardened my

conscience or not but I want to make

sure tonight by letting him come in I

want to surrender my life to him as

Savior and Lord I want to make sure of

it

you get up and come right now hundreds

of you from all over the stadium why do

I ask you to come Jesus said if you’re

not willing to acknowledge me publicly

before men I’ll not acknowledge you

before my father he hung on the cross

publicly for

you people were laughing at him they may

laugh at

you they were mocking him when he hung

there but he did it for you because he

loved

you now you get up and come and stand

here quietly and reverently and say

tonight I want Christ in my heart I want

to know that he’s there he’s spoken to

me tonight he’s convicted me tonight

I’ve been Disturbed

tonight you come and stand and after

you’ve come and stood here I’m going to

say a word to you and have a prayer with

you and we’re going to give you some

literature and you can go back and join

your friends if you’re with friends or

relatives they’ll wait or if you’ve come

in a bus they’ll wait just get up and

come quickly right now from all over the

stadium from the choir from everywhere

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my

sh for

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me

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to of

God

as hundreds are responding to Mr

Graham’s invitation to make a public

commitment to Jesus Christ you can make

that same commitment right where you are

just pick up the phone and call the

number you see on your screen special

friends are waiting to talk with you and

pray with you about this most important

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decision

of

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God

to

my

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soul

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to

God

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I would like to say a word to you that

have been watching by

television as you already know we’re

here in the Liberty Bowl in Memphis

Tennessee some 40,000 people are here

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tonight and hundreds of people are

coming from every part of the state

Stadium to make their commitment to

Jesus

Christ you don’t have to be here in this

Stadium to find Christ you can find him

where you

are you may be sitting at a

bar you may be in a hotel

room you may be in your own

home but you can say yes to Christ he’ll

forgive all the past I don’t care how

dirty and how sorted it may be he’ll

forgive it because he loves you loves

you so much that he died for

you and I hope that you’ll go to church

next

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Sunday it is the prayer of Mr Graham and

all of us on the team that as the people

across the country share in this Crusade

by means of Television that many many of

you will make decisions for Jesus Christ

and as he told you a moment ago take

time to write to him and tell him about

it we’d like to send the same helps to

you that we are giving these tonight who

are coming here Jesus Christ can meet

your

need

Pro

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if you just prayed that prayer with my

father or if you have any questions

about a relationship with Jesus Christ I

would just call that number that is on

the screen there’ll be someone there to

talk with you pray with you and answer

those questions and

remember God loves

you if you would like to commit your

life to Jesus Christ

please call us right now toll-free at

877772

4559 that’s

877772

4559 or you can write to us at Billy

Graham 1 Billy gram Parkway Department C

Charlotte North Carolina

28201 or you can contact us on the web

247 at peacewithgod.net

everyone who responds at the invitation

on behalf of Franklin Graham and the

Billy Graham Evangelistic Association

thank you for watching and thank you for

your

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prayers the Bible says seek the Lord

while he may be

found call on him while he is

near the Bible says without faith it’s

impossible to please God because anyone

who comes to him must believe that he

exists and that he rewards those who

seek

Him you come to Christ tonight you’ve

got to be willing to turn your back on

your

sins you call upon his

name will you seek him

tonight there’s only one way only one

hope

the sound of a new

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day and give your life to Christ and see

what

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happen come with me to the Billy

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Library