For our rejoicing is this, the testimony of our conscience, that in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God, we have had our conversation in the world, and more abundantly to you-ward. (II Corinthians 1:12)

On the night of November 27, 1983, Avianca Flight 011, in route from Paris to Bogota via Madrid, approached Madrid’s Barajas airport.  The weather was good, and there were no mechanical problems with the 747 jet.  The crew was experienced; the pilot had more than 20,000 hours of flying time and had made this same approach twenty-five times before.  Yet, with its flaps extended and its landing gear down, the jumbo jet smashed into a series of low hills about seven miles short of the runway.  The plane cartwheeled, broke into pieces, and came to rest upside down.  Tragically, 181 of the 192 people on board lost their lives.  Investigators determined that a series of errors by the crew caused the crash.  The crew misunderstood the reality of their location.  They thought they knew the truth about the plane’s location, but they did not.  Shockingly, the final and fatal error came when the pilot so sure he knew where he was heading, ignored the computerized voice of the plane’s GPWS (Ground Proximity Warning System), which repeatedly warned him, “Pull up! Pull up! Pull up!”  The cockpit recorder contained his strange reply to the warning.  He said, “Shut up, gringo!” and switched off the warning system.  Sadly, many do the same to their soul’s warning system, their conscience.  Today’s culture aggressively and systematically tries to silence the conscience (I Timothy 4:2).  People are told not to listen to the conscience’s warnings of guilt or shame, but God tells us in His Word that conscience is one of our greatest assets.

The conscience is “the soul reflecting upon itself;” it is the awareness of moral and ethical conduct, the knowledge of good and evil.  Even unsaved people have this soul’s warning system that we call the conscience (Rom. 2:14).  The conscience does not produce light; but, like a window or a skylight, it allows light to come in.  Jesus, by God’s Word and through the Holy Spirit, can shine into a person with a clear conscience.   A person with a clean conscience can stand powerfully with Christ.

• Paul’s first line of defense when being attacked by his enemies was his clean conscience: “For our rejoicing is this, the testimony of our conscience…”

A Clean Conscience Before the Sanhedrin: 

And Paul, earnestly beholding the council, said, Men and brethren, I have lived in all good conscience before God until this day. (Acts 23:1)

A Clean Conscience Before Felix:

And herein do I exercise myself, to have always a conscience void of offence toward God, and toward men.(Acts 24:16)

A Clean Conscience Before His Enemies in the Corinthian Church: 

“For our rejoicing is this, the testimony of our conscience…”

Self-proclaimed “super-apostles” at Corinth were attempting to take down Paul’s authority and character, thereby undermining the doctrine which he taught. Paul defended himself first by the “testimony of his character.”   

The Apostle Peter confirms what Paul writes by telling us a good conscience is the best defense in persecution:

Having a good conscience; that, whereas they speak evil of you, as of evildoers, they may be ashamed that falsely accuse your good conversation in Christ. (I Peter 3:16)

• A Clean Conscious Is Powerful.

 “Purity is power,” as the saying goes.  Paul declares, in II Corinthians 1:12, that his missions’ team went into Corinth and served the Lord with a clean conscious in “simplicity” and “sincerity.”     Sincerity means, “clearness that is by implication, and purity (figuratively).”  The missions’ team was transparent:  sincere in their “conversation” (manner of life).  There were no duplicitous actions, hidden skeletons, or wrong motives in their lives.  

In Paul’s day, unscrupulous potters would fill cracks in their pots with wax before selling them.  Careful buyers would hold the pots up to the sun, and the light would expose the wax-filled cracks.  Paul says to the Corinthians, “Hold up our ministry to the sun; there are no cracks!”

• Your Conscience Can Be Clean Through the Blood of Christ.

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? (Hebrews 9:14)

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. (Hebrews 10:22)

The Apostle Paul who was formerly a murderer and persecutor of the church cleansed his conscience from his past sins.

He could with confidence say:

I thank God, whom I serve from my forefathers with pure conscience, (II Tim. 1:3a)

Wherefore I take you to record this day, that I am pure from the blood of all men. For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God. (Acts 20:26-27)