In this sermon, the speaker discusses the biblical concept of the mind of man. He references Ephesians chapter 4, verses 17 to 24, to construct a biblical model of the mind. The speaker also explores the function of the conscience and shares a story about an Indian who struggled with his conscience after finding a silver coin in a package of supplies. The sermon emphasizes the importance of having a clear conscience and aligning oneself with the Word of God.

All right, we're here to work hard, we're not here to be entertained, but the next day and a half we're going to be working hard and learning all that we can learn. By God's grace, we're just delighted to see you and trust that God is going to really speak to our hearts. We're beginning this morning with a question, what is man's makeup? A biblical model, a biblical model. And I'd like to begin with a passage of scripture that I think applies to this whole area of counseling, and that is Matthew 11, 28 to 30. Matthew 11, 28 to 30, where Jesus said, Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart. Notice the heart. The heart of Jesus was the issue from which everything else came in his life. And he said, I am meek and lowly in heart, and you will find rest to your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Every once in a while when my burden gets too heavy, my wife says to me, Honey, you must have picked up a burden the Lord didn't give you. Because the word of God says that his burdens are light. And so we have to remember that. Now, as we begin this morning, let's ask ourselves the question, why do people come for counseling? Why do they come to me or you or someone else for help concerning personal problems? Why do they come? And I'm going to put down five different things here. The first reason that they come is for advice. They come for advice about all kinds of things. They may come for advice about some financial problem that they're facing. Maybe their budget is under a strain or they're not making enough money or they're out of work or they have heavy debts. They may come with a vocational problem. They're trying to find a job or they need advice as to what kind of a work they should do in life. And so they come with a vocational problem. They may even come with a physical problem. Sometimes people who come to us for counseling really have a physical problem. So they come for advice. What shall I do about this problem? And there are all kinds of the temporal problems of life that they come to us with. Now, we believe in our church that with those temporal problems, we should have deacons who are after the New Testament style, who can handle those problems. And when people come to us with temporal problems, such as financial problems, vocational problems, job problems, things of that kind, we always turn them immediately over to our deacons who do a superb job. Two of our deacons go into the home and sit down and talk with the people about their problems. We have expert people on that board who can help them with their finances. Right now, there's a young couple in our church, and every time they get their paycheck, why of course the deacons know when that time is, and they just make a visit to the home and they sit down with them, and they help them pay their bills, and they're helping them to learn how to handle their money so that they can live a Christian life with peace of mind. And it's not a problem for me, it's a problem for men who are trained in that area who are godly men who can handle it. And so they come for all kinds of advice, but most of those kinds of matters we refer to our church deacons. I had a very interesting one in the very first church I pastored up in New Hampshire. A lady came by the door one morning with a very serious problem. She had been down to the store, and she couldn't get back in her house. And her house was outside of town a little ways, and the reason she couldn't is because the house was surrounded with a fence, and there was a skunk right in the open gate. And she didn't know what to do, and her husband was out of town at work, and this was a little country town up in the hills of New Hampshire, and there's no way she could get back into her house, and so of course, who else would she come to? The pastor. And so here I was faced with a problem. Well, I didn't have any trained deacons at that time, so I went and got my .22 rifle, and we went outside the town to her house, and I shot the skunk, and she was able to get in. That didn't take any training except to be able to shoot straight and stand back. But you get all kinds of problems that are just temporal matters, and I think those temporal matters should be turned over to deacons who are trained to handle those kinds of affairs. The second thing that people will come for, and this is certainly the most common reason that they come, they come for peace of heart and mind. They have come because they do not have peace. Their mind, for some reason, is in a turmoil, their inner conflicts, and they come because they want peace of mind, peace of heart, inner peace in their emotional life or their mental life. And so that's why they've come to us. Many of them are deeply depressed. Depression today has epidemic proportions, and I think most of the people who come to us with any kind of emotional problem will come because they are deeply depressed, and that depression will have all kinds of ranges, all the way from the person who is just depressed enough that they're uncomfortable to the person who is so depressed that they can't even take off their clothes or dress themselves. And you just have that whole gamut of people who are suffering from depression, and that's part of this need for peace of mind. The third reason that people come to us for counseling is to resolve some kind of a conflict. Now, this may, basically, I'm thinking of conflicts with another human being. In other words, people come to us for marriage counseling because there's a conflict in their marriage, or they come to us for counsel about their family because they're having a conflict with their children or their brother or sister or father or mother or whatever it may be. Recently, we had a young lady who came to me for counseling. She had just signed up for a counseling session. She was a new Christian in the church, and when she came in, she told me that she was having a tremendous conflict with her mother, who was very upset that she had become a Protestant Christian, and she was afraid that our church was one of those cults like the Jonestown people. Of course, we're getting a lot of that today. And she was shook up about this because her daughter was so transformed. Her life was so completely different, the mother had no idea how to cope with such a thing. And it seemed to her that her daughter must be hypnotized by something. And so I gave her some advice. And pretty soon the mother called me on the phone and was absolutely so upset that she threatened to kill me. But she didn't, as you can see, because I'm here. But anyway, just our last baptismal service, we were able to baptize that dear girl with her parents' permission. So the Lord worked that out. But she came in for advice about a conflict in her family. And there's those kinds of things that come to us. The fourth thing that people come to us for in counseling is a behavior problem. Now, it's behavior, either their own behavior, and that's usually what it's about, or the behavior of someone else who is close to them for whom they are in some way responsible, such as a child or someone that they feel a responsibility for. But usually people come to us because they themselves have behavior problems. They're struggling with sin or they're struggling with something they cannot conquer. They have a habit that they cannot get the best of. They can't stop smoking or they can't stop their impure way of thinking or some other problem that is a behavior problem in their life. And they come to us for counseling. The fifth reason, I think, is people come to us because they are looking for love. They want exception, acceptance in life. They feel rejected. They are lonely. They have no friends, no one to turn to. And they come to us for counseling because they are looking for that kind of a thing. Now, as we begin to look at these different problems, I want to take them one by one and just deal with them briefly. The first one I've already dealt with some, the matter of people who come to us with temporal problems, when they come to us with physical problems, of course, you have two choices. And I'm not going to get into this subject at all. But as they come to you as a spiritual counselor, certainly you can turn to the Lord in prayer and you can give them some instruction about what they can do to seek the Lord in prayer for the healing of their bodies. And then also, of course, they may need to be referred to a good physician, someone that you trust, someone that they trust, a good practicing internist who can help them with their physical problems. In one of the churches that I pastored, I had a mother come to me very distraught about her nine-year-old daughter, and she said this girl's behavior had had a tremendous change and the change was very dramatic. And as she talked about it first, it sounded like the girl might have some kind of emotional problem. But as she continued to talk about this behavior problem and I questioned her and the child had always been well-behaved and obedient. And now the child's behavior was so bad that the teacher in school was complaining and the child would not stay in her seat and she would not do anything. She was told. And the teachers were facing real problems with her. The mother had instituted very strict discipline and so had the teacher at school. But the behavior problems increased. As I continue to question this mother about this particular child, I found out that she was suffering pain all over her body. And I questioned her a little more and found the child had recently had a severe illness where she had a temperature that had gone up to one hundred and five degrees. Well, at that point, I began to suspect there was something else. And of course, when I'm counseling, I have always prayed earnestly and I have said, Oh, spirit of God, here is this poor, ignorant man. And I cannot see in the heart of this person that's coming in my door. And I desperately need divine direction. Amen. I said, amen. And so I'm always listening to the spirit of God and see to me, the Lord was nudging me and telling me this was a physical problem. So I said, listen, why don't you just hold on? I'm going to call Dr. Crocker. He was chairman of our board and he was a fine pediatrician. And I picked up the phone and called and said, if at all possible, I want to speak to Dr. Crocker immediately. So in about five minutes, he called me back. I told him the symptoms and he said, have her bring the child right over this afternoon. And the child was taken over. A careful examination showed that it was a physical problem. And when that physical problem was treated, then the child's behavior went back to normal. So there are those kinds of problems that are strictly physical and where they're strictly physical. We need to know how to refer those problems to a medical man who can take care of them and also how to enter into prayer with people for the healing of their bodies. Consider a second incident in which I was involved, a somewhat hair raising one. I was sound asleep when I heard someone beating on my door. It's not like they're going to break the door down. And I I got up and threw on a bathrobe and rushed to the door. And there was one of the young men from the church. It was one in the morning. And he said, I think my uncle is losing his mind. Can you come over to his house right away? So I threw on some clothes and I went over to the house and I found this man who was a very godly man. He was one of our elders. In fact, he filled the pulpit for me often and was a fine preacher and an excellent Bible teacher and just his daughter, a fine missionary, one of the godliest men I've ever known. And he was running through the house shouting, praise the Lord. You say, well, what's wrong with that? Well, nothing is wrong with it, except that it was by this time, one thirty in the morning and he had his pajamas on and he was literally running through the house and up and down the stairs. And when I walked in, he fell down at my feet, grabbed me around the legs and shouted, praise the Lord, pastor. And he did it with such vehemence that all I could do was stand there and say, yes, praise the Lord. I wasn't quite sure he was twice my size. I knew that there's nothing I could do to control him. And this continued to get worse and worse until and his wife was afraid and his sister was afraid. And finally, she went to another part of the house and called his doctor and the doctor came over and we got him got his attention out in the kitchen and the doctor gave him a hypo and that kind of quieted him down. And we called the police and they took him off to a mental hospital and I went along and his wife went along. And once they got him in there, he got absolutely violent, just completely violent. I could hear him throwing interns all over the room and they got him strapped down to one of these very straight tables and they came wheeling him out of the room where they had strapped him down. And he saw me standing there and he turned, looked at me and said, praise the Lord, pastor. Well, I guess what's in will come out. I was relieved there weren't other things coming out. And within 24 hours, he was back to normal. Well, now, what was the problem? Well, the problem was that he had had a bad diagnosis from a medical man who I'm sure was sincere and he'd given him a shot of insulin, which he did not need. And on top of that, he had a severe infection in his bloodstream. It had gone to his brain and he was completely out of his mind, but it was a physical matter. And when that was taken care of with some antibiotics within 24 hours, he was back to normal. So now I've told you those things just to emphasize the fact that some of the people who come to us have strictly physical problems and we need to learn how to be sensitive to those things so that we can help them with those things. Some people who are depressed have a thyroid problem. Very often I send such people and call the doctor and tell him I want him to look for a thyroid problem in this person who's severely depressed. If I get someone in my office who can't stop crying, I begin to suspect they may have a thyroid problem and that needs to be taken care of in a medical way. So there are those practical problems. And then again, I said our deacons deal with all those temporal affairs. The fifth statement that I have down here where people are looking for love and acceptance. Brothers and sisters, one of the great needs in the Church of Jesus Christ today is for a loving, fellowshipping church. Amen. We need a church that has that is so set up that people who are lonely and who need love will find it in the body of Christ. Of course, the first thing they need is Christ himself, because he is the one who will accept them as they are, will forgive their sin and will pour his love into their hearts. And they need his love to begin with. They need salvation. But even if they are Christians, they need the love of a caring church, people who will take them in, who will love them and who will meet that need. And so with those kind of people, we try to refer them to a home Bible study, to a sharing group, to some caring situation where someone can take them in and show them love, where our elders and our deaconesses can show them love. And we don't feel that our church has anywhere near touched that yet. We're very much concerned about that. And we want our church to come to the place where every person that comes in those doors with a need for love will be able to find love in our body. And I hope your church is working on that. It's something that we think we have a long ways to go with yet, but it's one of the things that we want to see happen. Now, I said all that just to say this, the other three, number two, number three and number four, people who are looking for peace of mind, who are wanting to solve conflicts with other people and who have behavior problems of their own. All of those people are in need of spiritual, that is, biblical counseling, and I want to put the emphasis on biblical counseling. Why? Because their problems are spiritual problems. Now, someone says, well, isn't it possible that they're psychological problems? Not really. Now, they may manifest themselves in some kind of what we would call psychological display, but that is not their problem. If they are in any one of those three categories, if they need peace of mind, they have a conflict with others or they have a personal behavior problem, those people need biblical counseling. They have spiritual problems. Let me read you this morning very quickly an excerpt from chapter two of a forthcoming book. And I want to read it to you because I think it emphasizes so well what I want to say. A Christian woman was counseling with a lady who had not been able to keep a full meal on her stomach for 20 years. Needless to say, every normal meal ended with vomiting. She was greatly underweight and was unable to carry on the normal duties of life as she wished to do. All administrations of skillful positions were to no avail. During the conversation, the real problem came to light. This woman had a mother and an unmarried sister who made her life miserable by criticism and a constant attempt to run every aspect of her life. She kept up a facade of love for her sister and mother, but inwardly she was full of resentment and bitterness. My friend told her that she would have to forgive her sister and mother. She surrendered her life completely to God with the strength and help of the Holy Spirit. She made the decision to forgive. Now, listen, that very evening, that woman ate a normal meal without any problem. She quickly regained her normal weight and has been well ever since. This incident indicates the close relationship that exists between our physical bodies and our inner lives. Man is much more than a body. He is a three part being. The word of God tells us that he is made up of spirit, soul and body. In First Thessalonians 523, Paul says, The very God of peace sanctify you wholly or through and through, and I pray, God, your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Hebrews 4.12 speaks of the word of God that is living and powerful and sharper than any two edged sword piercing to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit. The word of God can go right down in to the soul and make a distinction between the soul of a man and the spirit of a man. And what does it do? It discerns the very thoughts and the very motives of his heart. And that's where the problem is, the problem is a spiritual problem in Luke 16, where Jesus speaks about the rich man who died and went to hell. It is remarkable to notice that though his body was dead and buried, that the spiritual part of that man, the inner part, which I take to be the spirit and soul, that part of that man without the body manifested many of the functions of the body. Interesting, it says that in hell he lifted up his eyes. What eyes? His body is in is in the grave rotting. But his inner man has eyes and he lifted up his eyes and he cried out with his voice. He had a voice and he said, send Abraham to dip his finger in water and cool my tongue. And yet his body was in the grave. He said, I am tormented in this flame. He had a memory. He could remember his brothers back upon earth. He still loved his brothers back upon earth. He had emotions, affections. This man had all the functions of the body, it seemed, without the body. So what I'm trying to say this morning is that there is an extremely close relationship between the inner spiritual man and the outer man, the emotional and the intellectual man. Therefore, people who are having problems with peace of mind, with emotional conflicts, with all of those inner things, those problems, unless they are distinctly spirit or physical problems and we know their physical problems, those problems are spiritual problems. The psalmist says, oh, taste and see that the Lord is good. And here we have him definitely talking about a spiritual activity and talking about tasting so that inner man is a very complete man and has this connection between spirit, soul and body. Do you remember what happened to Moses when he died? The Lord buried him, isn't that right? He was buried, his physical body was buried. But in the transfiguration on the Mount with the Lord Jesus, Moses and Elijah appeared talking with Jesus and Moses was there. And though only a spiritual being, his physical body dead and rotted away centuries ago. Yet he was recognizable as Moses. So the inner man is very important and is connected directly to the outer man in every way. Now, the reason that the spiritual life is so important is that the human spirit is what the Bible calls the heart. And I want to emphasize this now, this morning, we're going to show it to you in a diagram in a moment. The center of the human being is what the Bible calls the heart or the spirit, the spirit of man and the heart of man are either one in the same thing or the heart of man is within the spirit. The heart of man is within the human spirit and the will is within that heart. We're going to show that to you and show the scriptures that make that very clear. Psalm 51, verses 10 and 17, listen to the words of David, create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. The heart and spirit are the same thing again. He says the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart. Oh, God, I will not despise. You see, they're the same thing. The spirit in the heart or at least one is within the other, so they function together. This is the center of man's being his spirit, his heart. That is the center of his being. Proverbs 36, 26 admonishes us. No, that's not the right reference. Pardon me. Don't have the reference for that one. It admonishes us. Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life. Ezekiel and Ezekiel 36, 26 says, A new heart also will I give you and a new spirit will I put within you. The word of God says he that is joined to the Lord is one spirit. First Corinthians 617. I knew that I was going to pull that off in a minute, try to get it where I won't pull it off. All right. Is it still is it still running? Oh, good. He gives me enough rope, I'll hang myself. All right. Thank you. Now, let us see for a moment if we can construct a biblical model of the mind of man. I'd like to have you take your Bibles and turn to Ephesians chapter four so that you can have the scriptures in front of you. Now, you see at the top, it says the mind of man. I'm going to push that right up out of your sight so you can see the rest of it. All right. Ephesians chapter four, verses 17 to 24. I'm going to read it and then we'll go back and consider this passage very carefully. This I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk. So now he's talking about non-Christians, people who are unbelievers. And so much of what's said here is a description of the mind of the unbeliever. But it also gives you a description of the mind of man. It says in the vanity of their mind or in your new American standard, in the futility of their mind, they have a mind that is vain or futile. Empty it, it cannot produce. And then it goes on to describe the mind, having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them because of the blindness of their heart, who being past feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness to work all uncleanness with greediness, but ye have not so learned Christ, if so be ye have heard him and have been taught by him as the truth is in Jesus. That you put off concerning the former conversation, the old man, which which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts and be renewed in the spirit of your mind and that you put on a new man, which after God has created in righteousness and true holiness. Now, I want to outline the mind as it's given here in this verse. And you notice the first thing in verse 18, he talks about the understanding and that which I have called reason up here in this part of the mind could have just as well been called understanding. It's that part of the human mind that is able to take the information that it has, the facts, the knowledge that it has learned and weigh those facts, balance them one against the other and come to conclusions so that that person has reason, knowledge, knowledge that they have gained by reasoning, by thinking, by the understanding. So there's a part of the mind that reasons, that weighs things in and discusses within itself what the answer will be and comes up with knowledge of various kinds by reasoning. That's the understanding of man. All right. This mind is alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them. Now, ignorance refers to learned knowledge that what you learn or the memory of man. And I've pictured the memory of man here as an electric computer. I hope you understand that's what that's supposed to be. And this part of man is very much like a computer, certainly the brain. I can't say the brain is like a computer. What I should say is a computer is like the brain because the brain was first and is more complicated than any electric computer anyone ever will make. But the human brain is pretty much functions as a computer functions electrically. Information is poured into it and stored there. And then you get back out what you put in. But you cannot say it's limited to the physical brain, because when the rich man died and went to hell, his body was buried. But he still had a memory because Abraham said to him, son, remember. So the memory goes much farther than the body, the memory must go right on through the soul and the spirit. So the memory is a part of the mind which is permanent in the mind, even without the body. And so the memory is that part of the mind where we store up knowledge, where we learn things all of our lives from the time we're born to the time we die. And so the memory stores things that we learn and then we take those things we learn and we reason them out to come to conclusions and get other kinds of ideas and thoughts and knowledge. All right. Then you come down and you find a statement who are past feeling again. He's talking about the mind now and both before and after the whole context is the mind. So we have the emotions which are part of the human mind. Now, it's true there is a little sack here in the front of the brain that deals with the feelings and emotions physically. And that's part of it, of course. But there is an emotional life that is part of the soul and the spirit. So the mind of man has an emotional function of feelings, and that's where imagined knowledge comes in. And certainly you can go much farther when you imagine things. You can go completely beyond reason, can't you? And in fact, this part of us can color the facts. We can receive all kinds of knowledge and our emotions can color the knowledge we receive and make it appear quite different than it really is. So this is a very important part of us, our imagination, which makes us creative beings and makes us able to think of all things through what we've learned and what we've reasoned. And then the imagination gets a hold of it. It makes men able to invent things and to write poetry and music and do art and all the beautiful and great things of life. But it also enables men to do very terrible things in life and to become very, very mixed up because of the evil of their imaginations. You remember back before the flood that God said that every thought and imagination of man's heart was only evil continually. So here is the inner part of man with his imagination. So we've noticed in this passage, the memory of man, that where he stores knowledge, the reasoning powers of man, where he weighs the things that he knows and comes up with conclusions and the emotional part of man, where his imagination is, where he can think things through and imagine things far beyond any information he could ever receive. Now, notice in Ephesians 4, 23, the statement that we are to be renewed in the spirit of our minds. And there's one part that I haven't mentioned, and that was the hardness of his heart in this passage. And here is the heart of man right at the center. Now, the spirit and the heart, remember, are one in the same. We've already noticed that from the scriptures right at the center of the being is the heart of man in his human spirit. And that's the part of man that gives him the most trouble. Now, you say to me this morning, well, listen, we've been taught for years now that the part of man that gives him the most trouble is his emotions. It isn't true. The emotional problems of men are basically connected to his spiritual problems. And it's the heart of man where the real problems are. And in the heart of man is the will. And here's where man is capable of what I call intuitive knowledge. Will you say what is intuitive knowledge? In an inner spirit of man, a man can come to know things that he did not learn, that he did not reason and that he did not imagine. We say, how can he know that he can know things directly by divine revelation or by demon revelation? Either the Holy Spirit of God or an evil spirit can reveal things directly to the inner spirit of a man. And when you become a Christian, you have the Holy Spirit within this spirit, this heart of man, and that Holy Spirit can speak to us directly, immediately, without anything in between. Amen. And that I said, amen, you're not going to commit yourself, are you? And so here is the very center of man, according to the scriptures, the heart of man, and it speaks of the unbelieving heart as being hard, the stubborn will, the hard, stubborn heart of sinful men. And there is the inner part of man, his heart. Notice it says, be renewed in the spirit of your mind. There needs to be in men a renewing of this heart. This inner spirit, as David said, a broken and a contrite heart. Oh, God, thou will not despise. Put a right spirit within me, said David. I need a new heart. Ezekiel said, God's going to give you a new spirit, a new heart. He's going to take away the stony heart out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. So this is the center of man. And God says you need to be renewed in the spirit of your mind. I want to read you something that I think is very fascinating. It's from Vincent's Word Studies, which is a study manual of the Greek language of the New Testament. And I want you to see what this great scholar says about this word spirit, where it says be renewed in the spirit of your mind. I'm going to read you one paragraph from his book. It's volume three, page 395. If you want to look it up, Vincent's Word Studies. Listen carefully, the spirit mentioned here is the human spirit having its seat in and directing the mind in the New Testament. The Holy Spirit is never designated so that the man appears as the subject of the spirit. We have a spirit of adoption, of holiness, of God, but never the Holy Spirit of man. Furthermore, the apostles object is to set forth the moral self activity of the Christian life. Hence, spirit is here the higher life principle in man by which the human reason. Viewed on its moral side, the organ of moral thinking and knowing where you gain knowledge is informed, the renewal takes place not in the mind, but in the spirit of the mind in the heart. The change is not in mind psychologically. Did you hear me say that? Are you writing that down? This is a great scholar of the Greek New Testament. He says this word doesn't mean that this word means the change is not a psychological change. It is a spiritual change. It is in the spirit of the mind, in the power, which when changed itself, radically alters the entire sphere and business of the inner mechanism. What he is saying is that when this inner spirit, this heart of man, this very center of man's mind, the very life principle in the mind of man and the inner man, when that is changed, it radically alters the entire mechanism in Christian counseling. The thing that we are after above all other things is the heart. And when the heart is right, then God, by his spirit, can radically alter the whole rest of the mechanism, the memory system, the reasoning system, the emotional system. Every part of the mind can be cleansed and put in order and peace of mind can result. Hallelujah. And that's what men need. And that's what we're talking about in these studies here today and tomorrow. Now, let me give you some other scriptures very quickly to go along with this and say the same thing in different ways. Second Corinthians 10, 2 to 5, and I'm just going to read some of these very quickly to you now. But I beseech you that I may not be bold when I am present with that confidence wherewith I think to be bold against some which think of us as if we walked according to the flesh. For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal. I'm not going to stop to talk about that. I'm going to get that later. But brethren, the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God. Christians, don't let people tell you that you have to refer people to other people who have problems with peace of mind and messed up emotions and internal conflicts and behavior problems. You are not limited to carnal weapons. You have a mighty weapon through God to the pulling down of strongholds, casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalted itself against the knowledge of God and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. And that's what I'm after when I'm counseling with someone. I want to get every thought in their mind in obedience to Christ. I want to cast down their imaginations, which have raised up their pride against the knowledge of God and break that heart and bring that heart to submission to the spirit of God so that they can have every thought brought into captivity to Jesus Christ. You think that'll work? It will work. Absolutely. Praise the Lord. Philemon, 14, without my mind, what I do, nothing that I benefit should not be as of necessity, but willingly the will is in the mind. Paul puts it there. Matthew 22, 37. Jesus said, Thou shall love the Lord, thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy mind and with all thy strength. And that would be the will, the determination. And then your neighbor as yourself, Romans 14, verse five, let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind. The mind has to be persuaded. Now, I think one of the most beautiful verses in the New Testament is John 14, 27. John 14, 27, ought to set our hearts at ease. Jesus speaking peace. I leave with you. And what's the next word? My peace, I give unto you. And then what's the next phrase? Not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. How do we get peace in our minds? By taking care of the heart. Let not your heart be troubled, said Jesus. He said, I'm going to give you peace. How? By taking the trouble out of your heart and the fears out of your heart. And that goes right with Jesus. Other statement coming to me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Same thing as peace. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart. And you shall find rest under your souls. It's the heart that is the issue out of the heart are the issues of life. Now, most people come to us for counseling because they are troubled. And Jesus said, let not your heart be troubled. And they come to us because they are troubled about something. One of the principal factors in those inner conflicts is that part of the mind called by God, the conscience. And I haven't talked about the conscience yet. Will you turn your Bibles to John chapter eight? Please turn to John chapter eight. I'm going to talk for a moment about the conscience. We're giving a biblical model of the mind of man. John eight, verses one to nine. This is a passage would be helpful to you to study. Jesus went into the Mount of Olives. You'll catch up with me. And early in the morning, he came again into the temple and all the people came unto him and he sat down and taught them. And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery. Always bugs me how they happen to have that woman who was taken in adultery. She was taken in adultery. Where was the man? You have to have a man if you have a woman taken in adultery and the law said to stone the man. Same as a woman, doesn't it? I said, doesn't it? I thought you'd know that. Where was he, the dirty rascals? Anyway, they brought the woman and when they had set her in the midst, they say unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery in the very act. So the man must have been there. Now, Moses and the law commanded us that such should be stoned. But what sayest thou? And this, they said, tempting him that they might have to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down with his finger rolling the ground as though he heard them not. Now, he did that on purpose, I think, just like sometimes I'm silent and look at people when they sit there and ask me a question. I just go let them stew for a minute so they'll get their attention. So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself and said unto them, he that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her. And again, he stooped down and wrote on the ground and they which heard it being convicted by their own. But. Conscience. Went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last, and Jesus was left alone, the woman standing in the midst. Now, the conscience is a very powerful part of the human mind. Here were these self-righteous, hard hearted Pharisees who couldn't care a straw for the spiritual needs of the people who put heavy burdens on their back, too heavy to bear and would not with one finger lift them. And here they were intent on trapping Jesus, they didn't care about the woman, what they didn't care if she committed adultery and they didn't care if she was stoned, they did want to trap Jesus here. These wicked men were, but their consciences were so powerful that when Jesus reached out his gentle finger and just put his finger on their conscience, they all backed away. They couldn't take it. This powerful thing called the conscience, and they all began from the. Youngest in the beginning at the eldest, rather unto the youngest, and they went out and no one threw a stone. Now, how does the conscience function? I'm going to give this to you slowly now, you may want to take some of it down. How does the conscience function? I'm going to make very careful statements. The conscience. Is that part of our inner or spiritual man that passes judgment on all our conduct, and I have pictured the conscience as an eye. And here it is completely running through the entire mind over the memory and the reason and the emotions and looking in at the heart in the center. The conscience is viewing the entire inner man, the conscience, is that part of our inner or spiritual man that passes judgment on all our conduct? Number two, there is also the law of God written on the heart of every man. And we have the scripture for that, Romans 2, 15, and I'll be reading that to you, Romans 2, 15. Which says that even with the pagan who's never seen the word of God, that the law of God's written on his heart. So there's also the law of God written on the heart of every man. There it is in the center of the man, his inner spirit. Number three, in the mind of the same man, there is knowledge. Here's the memory system that has gained knowledge, either from facts it's learned or from reason or even from emotion. But the memory system has gained knowledge in the mind of the same man. There is knowledge, whether true or false. Some of the knowledge he has is false. Some of the things he thinks are right that he believes or not, they're false. And this is that which he has acquired in his life up to that time. All right. Again, number four, the conscience uses that knowledge of the mind. Now listen carefully to what I'm going to say now. The conscience uses the knowledge of the mind to interpret the law of God written in the heart. Now, sadly to say, the conscience is not able to look at the law of God written in the heart and read it clearly. Because the man has acquired a great deal of knowledge over his lifetime, true or false, and that colors the interpretation of the law. So the conscience may look at the law of God that's written in the heart of every man that's ever come into the world. The conscience looks at that law, interprets it in the light of what the man has learned, and then the conscience excuses or approves the man's conduct. In the light of that, in the light of the interpreted law, the conscience either approves what the man does or excuses what he does. Again, Romans 2, 15. Now, this means that every thing that I do, every act, every thought, every word of my life comes under the scrutiny of this conscience that God has set in my mind. And that conscience takes all my actions, my thoughts, and my words and judges them by the law of God written in my heart, but under the interpretation of what the mind and memory system has learned. Now, let me explain that a little to you. Here, for instance, is someone who has been taught all their life that if you're a Christian, you should wear black clothes and you should wear long sleeves on your black clothes and uptight around the neck and you should dress totally drab so that you won't attract attention because that's what a Christian is supposed to do. Now, if you've been taught that very carefully all your life in the time you were a little tiny child and all the people around you were dressed like that and that was a holy way to live. Well, you see, the law of God written on my heart tells me that I ought to be holy and that I ought to be humble because it's the basic moral law of God that's written on my heart, the law of love. And yet that law is interpreted by what I've been taught. So if I wear anything but black clothes, my conscience will condemn me. You understand that? If you don't understand, shake your head. No, I'll go back over it. Do you understand it? How many of you understand it? Good. The rest of you have arthritis. You can't move. The motel didn't have the right size pool or whatever. All right. Now, that's very important when counseling people, because people have been taught all kinds of things. And one of the first things we have to do in counseling people is take them back to the word of God and teach them the scriptures. Sometimes the things they've been taught are wrong, but sometimes people are taught that they can do things that the Bible says they cannot do. But they've always been taught that, and so they interpret God's law in the light of what they have been taught. And that can mean that the conscience is a very unreliable thing, but nevertheless, it is there and the conscience is responsible for the majority. Listen carefully. The conscience is responsible, its function for the majority of the inner conflicts in the minds of men. It is involved in almost all the conflicts. The word of God says in First John, the epistle of First John, chapter three and verse twenty one, Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God. Now, I want to well, I better close time for me to stop just before I close. I want to give you a little story that I came across recently. Dr. David James Burrell once told a story that illustrates the conscience. He said an Indian had bought a package of supplies at a trading post and on opening the package, he found a silver coin inside. Something troubled him. He came back to the trading post and had the coin to the trader. The trader laughed at his scruples, but the Indian insisted, saying, I got a good man and a bad man in my heart. The good man say it is not yours. The bad man say nobody will know. The good man say, take it back. The bad man say, never mind. So I think I sleep, but the good man and the bad man talk all night and trouble me. Any of you ever had that problem? Yes, for the flesh lusted against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh, and these are contrary, the one to the other, so that you cannot do the things that you would. Yes, you know all about that. And so the conscience is there and is part of the mind of man. I'm going to run over it very quickly and then I'm going to bring my session to a close. A model of the mind of man, a biblical model represents three large areas, the memory area that takes in all that we learn, and that includes the word of God, by the way, and I hope you're saturating your memory with scripture. Amen. That was a weak amen. That's because some of your consciences are bothering you. I hope you're doing that. Fill your memory system with the word of God and then the reason which is able to take the things we learn to balance them, to weigh them and to come to conclusions. Then the imagination, which is involved in the emotional system, which colors all of our thinking and makes it beautiful or otherwise. It makes us able to be creative and gives us an emotional life. And then the very center of the man's mind, the heart in which is the will and on which is written the law of God. It has intuitive knowledge. It can know things immediately, directly, either from the spirit world or from the Holy Spirit. And then the conscience, which is within the mind. Now, one of the problems with most people who try to try to diagram the inner life is that they section it off too much. But I have spent years studying this in the word of God. And you cannot do it because it seems as if God has so integrated the parts of the inward man that they cannot be separated by anything but the function of the Holy Spirit and the word of God. The scriptures say the heart is deceitful above all things and what? Desperately wicked, who can know it, who can understand the heart of man? I, the Lord, try the heart, the word of God can pierce to the heart and the Holy Spirit can pierce to the heart and the spirit of a man that is in him knows what's in the man. But the rest of us don't. And we need the word of God and the spirit of God to pierce to his heart so that he will admit what is in him, what is in his heart, so that we can get his heart straightened out. And when we get his heart right, then the entire mechanism can be put in order. May God bless you.