SPRINKLING THE CONSCIENCE Hebrews 9:14; 10:1,2,22 OR, RENDING THE VEIL OF FLESHLINESS PART 3   HAVING "CONNECTIONS" In the natural, many people with influence have helped many others simply because of the friendship shared between them, or family connections. This made way for much promotion in the business world. Connections are simply a benefit to those desiring to rise in this world. We can have connections with the Creator! We must enter into fellowship with Him. I cannot stress this point enough. We must believe Jesus died so that we could have God's divine influence work for us! We need His influence to work for us when it comes to overcoming our fears. Our frail flesh cannot cut it when it come to delivering itself from its inherent fears. You must believe in this and repent for forgiveness of sins. Then live for the Lord and not yourself. Abide by the covenant, for you're united to Him. Let Him do the work. The word we use to describe this divine influence is one which we have all heard of, but may not have truly understood - "grace." Paul said he became what he was by the grace of God - not by his fleshly will power urging him to be great for God. God's power made Him successful in the ministry. Grace alone will accomplish the rending of the flesh. The conscience could rest if we could only overcome our failures and our fears successfully! If we cannot overcome these, we will find ourselves living a life of constant condemnation. When God's influence takes over to work for us, we are sure to see our consciences rest! That which the flesh fears is the condemnation from the conscience. How many people are already condemned in their own minds about themselves? Check the psychiatric rosters and see the masses suffering from inferiority. Children are raised in a home where the parents fight and feud. As a result, they grow up thinking they're bad. Battered wives blame themselves for their abusive husband's acts. They look in the mirror so lowly at themselves. Spouses mess around with other sex affairs, and leave their mates in frenzied loneliness. As the years pass by, the veils of humanity's fleshly fear grows thicker. There is not only the veil of being born in sin, but there is also that element of the heaped-on increase of fleshly damages due to experiences that hurt and wound which all adds onto the veiling we are already born with. Today, there are more acts of adultery, more child abuse, more fighting in homes than in any other generation. More and more damage is being experienced in souls today. The veil is growing thicker than it has ever been. The Jordan is swelling its banks. JESUS NEVER FAILS When Jesus takes the controls we can have no shortcomings. Jesus never comes short! Believers in these dark days of rampant flesh will see these obstacles overcome as we enter into the Holiest - the land of all truth - the Promised land of Rest! The ten doubtful spies who returned from syoing the Canaan land, referred to themselves as "grasshoppers" in the sight of the giants of Canaan. They were correct. In comparison to the giants they really were as grasshoppers. Yet God is bigger than any giant in our eyes. And if He fights for us, we will not lose. And we will not be condemned by a conscience which reprimands human incompetence. Giants fall before grasshoppers who trust in God! David... Gideon... Its like telling the conscience: "Conscience, you can rest now. This faith I hold up, in this blood, is being sprinkled on you to remind you of something. This believer is not depending upon human weakness to overcome. I am trusting in God's power - His influence. You will not be condemning me for any failures in this battle. Since God is taking over on my behalf, there will be no failure for you to condemn. "The fears which stopped me from even trying to overcome were rent away with the flesh they dwelt in. I have believed God so much that I walked into the midst of one of my fears and trusted Him to remove it. I could never see these fears removed earlier. However, fears from mortal flesh could not stand up against the divine influence of God Almighty! These fears were rent asunder. "Conscience, the goal was to calm your condemnation. You have been the culprit all along. You began working when man fell from the garden. And ever since that time you have hammered the soul of mankind, reminding him of his weaknesses. "Now you are appeased. Rest now, conscience. I was held back from appeasing you due to the fears in my flesh. As long as flesh was involved in trying to improve myself, you were there to condemn. I have banged my head against this wall long enough! Only the blood of a sinless person could get me past my own fears and appease you. The blood that I hold up proves that no condemnation will evermore be necessary. A sinless person never fails. And this is the blood of the sinless Jesus Christ. You are unemployed in your condemning duties." THE VEIL RENDER Since fear is from our flesh, we see the flesh removed as we trust Jesus' blood! No more veil! The enemies in Canaan are the multitudes of condemnations. These exist in the human spirit's conscience. They come at us like armies from hell. And, indeed, Satan's hordes likewise attack. But the flesh is most of the problem. God not only delivered us from fear, but also is now able to smite the foes we face, which we alone could never defeat! In the book of Joshua we find people defeating their own fears - the giants - in God's power! They were then bold, as opposed to their fearful past, for He removed their fears. (Compare with Hebrews 10:19-23). Hebr 10:19-23 Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, By a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh; And [having] an high priest over the house of God; 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. Let us hold fast the profession of [our] faith without wavering; (for he [is] faithful that promised;) He first removed Jordan. Then He emboldened the nation to confront their giants with valour! Enter into your fears! But hold up the blood as you enter. You will find your own fears vanish. Paul promised us, through his own experience, that God would send vigils of His peace to guard your heart from distress, if you will go to Him in need. Remember Philippians 4:6-7. "Be careful for nothing: but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Jesus Christ." That means that all our trials do not have to make us careful or fearful. We are to pray for help in these trials, and what would normally scare us will not do so again. God's peace will protect our hearts like a soldier guarding a fort. And it is through the blood of Jesus. To do something "through Christ" is to rely upon and work through the means supplied by the work He did on the cross. He died for us. The blood symbolizes the death of the cross. So, upholding faith in the blood is what is meant by saying we are accomplishing a work THROUGH JESUS CHRIST. Condemnation is the thief of boldness. It casts fear on your soul as you realize your incompetence. And you dare not move ahead any more! When fears are relieved, boldness is granted. Your conscience has nothing to condemn. THE END OF CONDEMNATION Man's greatest goal is to bring rest to the conscience. It has plagued us since Eden. Whatever you fear, whatever you fall short in, is all linked to the condemnations of the conscience. Nothing harasses you like your own conscience. Your conscience condemns you so much that it stops you from praying to God. It puts fear in your heart and, again, the flesh becomes a barrier from the glory of God's presence. It causes you to fear to even talk to God! Carry Christ's blood with you and you'll rend that Jordan-veil of the flesh. Go on in and deal with that culprit conscience. Sprinkle it with that same blood you carried to rend the veil. Jesus spoke peace to the stormy waters that day as those waters sought to hinder the disciples from reaching the other side. His blood will again speak peace to the troubled waters of fear and doubt which bar you from the promises ahead. The troubled waters of Jordan will vanish! You will cross as if no waters ever raged - as if on dry land! Our conscience likes to remind us that we are sinners. Sinners are people who are not all-powerful. Sinners come short of God's expectations. And this reminder operates when we fail, and makes us feel worthless. Man's greatest need is to be loved. Condemnation from the conscience mars us as we experience bad relationships throughout life. We are wounded by people who should never have wounded us, and the scars remain in the conscience. Some scars so damage our consciences that they are made to operate improperly. We even condemn ourselves when we need not be condemned. There is this improper condemnation from the conscience, but also proper condemnation. As sinners, people will always be condemned within. And rightly so. Sinners must be made to know their need of salvation. Yet, on the other hand, we must also realize that all our convictions may be foolishness in reality, since we have a damaged conscience, and that we actually need not be condemned in certain things. (The bible speaks of the "evil conscience" that must be purged from a dead-works mentality - He. 9:14 - you cannot serve a living God with dead, ritualistic and legalistic works. Such an evil conscience condemns you for not striving with your greatest human energy to make yourself good). Hebr 9:14 How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? God wants Life in us - not knowledge of good and evil that prompts the flesh to fulfil the good, and striving in the power of flesh to resist the bad. His Life will do the good! Paul said, "Not I,... but Christ liveth-- in me..." Gal. 2:20 There was the tree of Life-- and tree of the knowledge of good and evil. This portrays the two routes to take. Many believers have mistakenly chosen the "works" route. Many do not allow that Life to live in them. Paul said Christ lived in Him, and the works he did were the results of that Life doing them. People crowd God's Life out by doing all the works themselves. Even Jesus said the words He spoke were not spoken from His flesh - but it was the Father in Him doing the works. John 14:10. He was our example. John 14:10 Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works. MANY RENDERED HOPELESS Many believe one can never be free of the misery contrived by condemnation. The conscience is like a police force. Yet, we may ask, why have a police force when there is no way to keep the laws that they enforce? In like manner, why have a conscience that urges us toward doing right if it isn't possible to always do right? Some try solving the dilemma by searing their consciences. They stir the conscience up so much through repeated sinning that it loses it's affect. And in time it no longer condemns us. The conscience is like a nerve that warns us we are damaging ourselves. When we burn our fingers, the nerves tell us to stop immediately lest we destroy those fingers. Otherwise, unknowingly and unintentionally, we could lose a finger. Similarly, what the conscience warns us about is that we are heading for hellfire unless we stop sinning. Now, this condemnation is necessary and good. So the conscience is our friend. Since it is still human, though, it also is subject to damage, rendering it distorted. More Bible Study Lessons