Dr. Kevin DeYoung | A Case of Conscience

Sunday Morning, May 17, 2026

Given by Dr. Kevin DeYoung | Senior Pastor, Christ Covenant Church

A Case of Conscience
Romans 2:14-16

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Let's pray. 

Now he's standing in the place of honor, crowned with glory on the highest throne, interceding for his own beloved till his Father calls to bring them home. Then the skies will part as the trumpet sounds – hope of heaven or the fear of hell. But the bride will run to her lover's arms, giving glory to Emmanuel. We pray in the name of the Lord Jesus by the power of the Spirit, O heavenly Father, that you would so direct our hearts now in this moment that when we stand before you on that moment – and we all will stand before you – that it will not be for us the fear of hell, but it will be the assured hope of heaven. So, cause us now to run to the arms of our loving savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge the living and the dead, that we might find help and grace and glory, now and in the life to come. We pray in his name. Amen. 

Our text this morning comes from Romans chapter 2. You're looking at three verses: 14, 15, and 16. We'll have a guest preacher, Lord willing, here next week who will be in town for the RTS commencement. I will be here and happy to assist, but I won't be preaching from Romans. And then when we pick up though, I do think – don't hold me to it – but I think we might get a paragraph coming up. I know, big deal. Don't miss it. But this morning, just three more verses, and there's a lot here. Follow along as I read beginning at verse 14. For – so this is connecting to the argument that Paul has been laying out in these verses. Say more about that in a moment. 

“For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.”

According to this text, there are three things that are true of every one of you in this room. Three things. And not only are these three things true for every single person on this side of the pulpit and on that side of the pulpit, but these three things are true for every person you will meet this week, every person you encountered this last week, every person you see at work, every person you see at school, every person in your family. These three things are true. They may not know that they're true. They may have a different explanation for why they are true, but these three things are true of everyone everywhere. And it is really important, as Christians, to understand the things that are true of all people at all times and in all places. And this text gives us three really important facts. Number one, everyone has the work of the law written on their hearts. Number two, everyone has a conscience inside of them. And number three, everyone will stand before Christ on the day of judgment. Those three things are true of you and me. They're true of everyone that you know, everyone in your family, everyone older, younger. Everyone. 

Here's the first. Everyone has the work of the law written on their hearts. You see this in verse 14 and the first half of verse 15. Now, immediately look at verse 14, and we're presented with a question, which has various interpretations, as many parts of Romans do. We read, “For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires.” So, before we go any further, we have to answer this question. Who are these Gentiles? These Gentiles. Paul has been going back and forth in 1 and 2, Jews and Gentiles. He's making the case about the universality of sin and the righteousness of God's wrath poured out on the world for both Jews and Gentiles. But now we have these Gentiles, and it is said that they do not do the law – or rather, they do not have the law – but in some sense they do the law. So, who are they? Some have argued that this is showing how Gentiles have been doers of the law. That's what verse 13 just talked about. It's not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified. And so, some have said, “For – okay, here's an example. Here are some who have proved to be doers of the law.” These Gentiles – some people think of them as virtuous pagans from the ancient world, maybe a Socrates or an Aristotle. I hope we can quickly set aside this interpretation, because it doesn't fit with anything that Paul is saying before or after these verses. Everything has been rolling about judgment and wrath, and it's coming to chapter three, how no one is righteous, how everyone's mouth ought to be shut, and so, it would make no sense that Paul just drops in a, "Oh, by the way, but there's some virtuous pagans somewhere, and they've been saved by being doers of the law." And it doesn't fit, this interpretation, with verse 14 when it says “when” – so “when Gentiles.” Paul is not at all making the claim that there's some Gentiles out there who are really just getting an A+ on doing what the law requires. What he says is there are occasions, in a certain manner of speaking, when they do what is right. So, this is not that they are doing this as a matter of their whole life, but when – and if you look at verse 15, you see the word “even” at the end of verse 15; that's important – their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them (we'll come back to that later, but that little – it's called a concessive particle there) – even, which is to say, mainly what the conscience does is accuse us. There's a lot more to accuse us than to excuse us. So, this is not painting a picture of some Gentiles who are really just kind of cruising above 90% in being doers of the law. It's saying when – okay, this happens – and even, at times, it excuses them. So, that's not a good interpretation. 

What about a second one? And yes, it's going to be the third that’s going to be correct one, but one of these times I'm going to put it first or second, so just keep paying attention. Others have argued – and this is a much more plausible argument, and some good interpreters think this, though I'm going to argue against it – others have argued that this refers to Gentile Christians. And there are some good reasons it might refer to Gentile Christians. Someone would say, well, only a Christian would be able to do what the law requires. Paul is talking about how we're dead in our sins and trespasses, so if somebody is even on occasion doing what the law requires, then this must be a Christian, right? And more importantly, some people have pointed out, doesn't this language about the law written on their hearts – is that the promise of the new covenant in Jeremiah 31? We read that earlier in the service. So, is this talking about some new-covenant Gentile Christians who now have the law written on their hearts? They're born again. They're believers. That's why they're able, in some sense, to do the law. Well, there are several arguments against this interpretation. First of all, the language “who do not have the law” – “there are Gentiles who do not have the law” – would be a very strange way to refer to Christians, because Paul's going to come back to this later in 12 and 13 and talk about the sense in which we do have the law. We do believe in keeping the law, so we don't refer to Christians as “those who have no law.” They have the law of Christ. They have the law of love. That'd be a strange way to refer to Christians. Also, that phrase there, “they are a law to themselves” – say more about that in a moment. (You're saying, you're giving us a lot of “more of that in a moment.” How long is this sermon going to be? Well, we'll go through it quickly.) That's a strange way to talk about Christians, a law to themselves. That doesn't sound like the description of a born-again Christian. And you say, "Well, what about that language of Jeremiah 31? Because I hadn't thought of that, but that's kind of a good argument, isn't it?" Well, it's not the exact language of Jeremiah 31, and I think the difference in language is important. Notice that here we read, verse 15, “They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts,” when the prophecy from Jeremiah 31 about the new covenant is about the law written on their hearts. You say, "Well, what's the difference?" Well, the word “work” is significant. Paul is talking about the work that the law requires, rather than the new covenant promise of a delight in the law and a desire to obey it. Do you see the difference? He's saying that all people have the work of the law – they have some sense of what God's moral standards require. They have the work of the law – what does the law require me to do? – they have that written on their hearts. But it's not the regenerating power of God that gives us a desire to do it, to rejoice in it, to say, “Yes, I love this law, and I want to obey it, and I have the power to fulfill it.”

So, a third interpretation, which I think is the correct one, is to understand that these Gentiles are non-Christian Gentiles, or in a manner of speaking, everyone everywhere. This would be true in a heart level of the Jews, though the contrast he's making here about the Jews who have the Mosaic law and the Gentiles who don't. But he's talking about the human condition. Remember, the argument in Romans thus far is about the universal sinfulness of both Jews and Gentiles – we might say of religious insiders and religious outsiders. You can't say, "Well, I've been at church my whole life, and I was baptized. Wasn't that a good thing? And so therefore, whatever I do with the rest of my life, whatever I say, whatever I profess is fine, right? I'm a religious insider." Paul says, "No, that – just being an insider doesn't get you saved.” And you say, "Well, but God looks favorably upon the poor, and he knows what all the trouble I've gone through, and I've not had all these experiences. I've not been exposed to the truth that the rest of you had. Therefore, he's going to sort of grade me on a curve." Well, Romans tells us that's not how it works either. Follow, real quickly, the argument here, starting at verse 10. So, this judgment – this tribulation and distress for the wicked, glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, which I argued is a category of zero people, but this is talking about the end – judgment is said to be to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. So, just as salvation is the Jew first, also to the Greek, so judgment to the Jew first, then the Greek. Greek is another word for Gentile here. And then verse 11, God shows no partiality. So, being a Jew, being a Gentile before God on the day of judgment – that is going to be of no consequence. Verse 12, both will perish. If you sin without the law – that is, you're a Gentile, and you were not given the Mosaic covenant – you'll perish without it. And those who have sinned under the law – the Jews who received the Mosaic covenant – they're going to be judged by the law. Verse 13, the Jews won't be safe just because they have the law. Why? Because it doesn't help you to just say, "I have the law" when you didn't do the law. I said last week, you can't, when you get pulled over for going 70 in a 35 – don't do that; that's really unsafe – and you said, "Well, officer, of course, of course, I know it's 35. I wrote a dissertation on this street being a 35 mile – yes, I know. I teach people my whole life this is 35, so I think I'll be going now.” You're a hearer of the law. Doesn't help you. Kind of makes it worse if you're not a doer of the law. 

So, verse 13 is about the Jew most particularly, and now verse 14. So, why will the Gentile perish, and why will the Jew perish? Well, the Jews will perish because though they have the law, they did not do it. And now he comes in verse 14 to the argument about the Gentiles. Someone might say in their mind, “Well, okay, the Jews were given a chance. They had the Mosaic covenant, and they absolutely blew it. They were not keepers of the law. So, I can see why they would be judged, but what about the Gentiles? They were not recipients of this written revelation. They did not have mainly the prophets to them. God did not write the law on tablets of stone with his own finger like he did for the Jews.” Ah, Paul says, but he did write the law with his own finger, not on tablets of stone, but he wrote the requirements of the law upon the human heart. That's what he's saying. I think, surely, there's an allusion to the tablets that Moses came down the mountain. Well, God wrote those with his own finger. What about the Gentiles? You know, God wrote a law with his own finger upon every human heart. So, when it says “they're a law to themselves,” that might sound to us like, “Well, he's a law to himself. He just does whatever he wants.” The phrase here means pretty much exactly the opposite. It means that in themselves, yet, they have some awareness of the law of God. They have an awareness of what the law of God requires even though they were not formerly given the law of Moses. That's why the Old Testament is full of warnings for foreign kings and promises of judgment upon the nations of the earth. We don’t have time to go through this, but it makes a good study through the Old Testament – why God judges Israel and why God judges the nations, because they're not identical. But all peoples – I mean, God has every right to judge this country. His standards for Israel were the standards of the Mosaic covenant. These nations of the earth – could they just do whatever they want? Well, no, but their standards – he doesn't come and the prophets say, “I'm going to judge Egypt because they didn't build a tabernacle.” He says, "I'm going to judge Egypt or Damascus or Babylon or any number of nations, because they failed to keep the law that they should have known." And so, the prophets often fault them for pride, a kind of vanity, a self-assurance, violence is a key one, oppression, especially of God's people. Those are the three things that come up over and over again. The nations of the earth – so, not his redemptive people, we might say, not the church – but the nations on earth, they, too, can be judged. Not because they weren't Israel here in the Old Testament. Not because America doesn't look from top to bottom like a church. The church is the church. But there are standards that they could have known and should know. Those standards of basic humility and posture before God and a sense of loving one another and honoring contracts. These are the sort of things that Paul says here. The Old Testament, God judged the Gentile nations for failing to obey the law that was revealed in nature and in the conscience. They were not judged per se for failing to keep the law of Moses as it was specifically revealed to the Jews, but they were still subject to God's judgment as they failed to obey this law. 

So, go back up to that word I highlighted already in verse 14. When. When they do the law. Don't think Paul's argument is that there's a lot of non-Christian Gentiles, unconverted people, and they're just cruising through life, and they're just obeying the law all the time. And in fact, we know that this is a, we might say, a surface-level obedience. True obedience that pleases God must be done with a heart of faith, from the right heart and for the right end, for God's glory, and according to the right standard. So, these are not people who are doing things that in any way are meritorious or fully can stand before the judgment seat of Christ, but we all know this in fact. I hope you all know your neighbors aren't all the worst possible neighbors you could have. There's lots of people that you work with or in a school or who live on your street, and they're pretty nice people. Sometimes they might even seem a little nicer than some of the Christians you know. They get you a gift when you graduate, and they might bring a meal if you have a baby, and they don't fight with you over the fence between your two yards. Some of you have the neighbors who do fight, but you know, some of them they don't, and they're good employees, and they can be a good boss. So, it's possible – this is what Paul is saying – when they do the law by an external morality. See how Paul is giving us a way to think about why are non-Christians even sometimes morally halfway-decent or better people? They are. They can tell the truth. They can keep their word. There are non-Christians who live their whole lives, and they keep their marriage vows. They're not adulterers in the totally outward sense. They honor their parents. Now, none of this is in a totally virtuous way from the heart and to the glory of God, but in an approximate way. That's what Paul is saying. We can look around the world. This why you need all of Romans, because if you just stopped after one section of Romans, you’d just say, "Well, I guess the pagan world, the non-Christian world, it's just root and branch everywhere you go. It's just – people are absolutely as rotten, as despicable, as possible." That's not what Paul says here. He says, "We can obviously look around and see when there are non-Christian Gentiles who keep the law, in a manner of speaking.” We can call this, as theologians have for a long time, the natural law. This doesn't save people, of course, and it is still subject to all sorts of distortions because of human sin, but even in the Reformed tradition there's an awareness that there is a natural law that people can observe. 

Here's what Calvin says: “There is, therefore, a certain understanding of natural law, which dictates one action to be virtuous and to deserve the pursuit of all while it holds up another to our utmost detestation.” Calvin says there's an awareness that even a non-Christian can have of certain good, decent, moral behavior. I'll give you another quote from a Reformed luminary. This is from John Murray in his commentary, the esteemed professor from Westminster in the 20th century. He says, commenting on this language here, you see “by nature” – by nature, verse 14, they do what the law requires – what does that mean? By nature. I thought we had fallen human natures. Isn't that the point that Paul is making? And he is. So, he doesn't mean here “by nature” as if you're born into the world with a good heart. Here's how Murray explains: “By nature is contrasted with what is derived from external sources and refers to that which is engraven on our natural constitution.” What is done by nature is done by native instinct. By native instinct, by nature. Calvin called it there “the natural law.” So, if someone steals from you, if someone lies to you, someone signs their name on a contract, and they completely void the contract. If someone sleeps with your husband or wife, if someone is watching a baseball game, and your kid is there, and he's doing his best, and he strikes out, and this bad example of a parent decides to cuss out your kid for striking out. If someone slanders your reputation, no one thinks in any of these situations, “I'm not really sure if that's right or wrong.” You just lied to me. You just went into my garage, and you stole something from me. You got road rage, and you just rammed into me, and now my car is destroyed, and my neck is injured. Nobody thinks in that moment, “I think we need to have a long, drawn-out disquisition, and we need to determine if this is right or wrong.” We know by a natural instinct some basics of morality. Now, that's not to say that we can't get all twisted up, and there's all sorts of things that people call evil good and good evil. Paul's argument is in a general sense there is the possibility, at least on a surface level, of a shared morality on some things. It is possible to appeal to a law that we know comes from God. Other people may think it's just western tradition or custom or just their own sense of things, but we know it's the law that comes from God. So natural law – don't think, well, that's a law that's apart from God. No, it's still the same law of God, but it is revealed, and it is implanted, within us – that is, by nature. Think of some examples in the book of Genesis 12, 20, 26. Abraham and Isaac. There are these three stories where Abraham or Isaac lie about their sister, wife, technically half-sister, but they lie, and then the leader, either Pharaoh or Abimelech, is almost going to have the men or himself sleep with the woman. These are pagan rulers, and this is hundreds of years before the formal revelation of the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai. And yet, in each instance, Pharaoh or Abimelech understands, “You almost had us do something really bad, like sleep with your wife.” These pagan rulers know by nature that that's a wrong thing. They had all sorts of other sexual ethics that were likely very messed up, but they had that basic awareness to sleep with another man's wife would have brought judgment upon us. They're not Yahweh-ists. They're not born-again people, but they have this basic instinct. They are these sorts of Gentiles that, in that moment, apart from any written revelation from God, they have a law within their hearts to know, “Well, that would have been a really bad thing.” This is important. It means that even the person who has no awareness of Jesus or the Bible or access to the church – you say, "Well, how could that person be judged?" Well, they won't be judged for the things that they don't know, but they will be judged for many things that they do know. That's part of what Paul is doing over and over in Romans 1 and 2 is he's helping people to see you know more things than you think you know. Now, you suppress that in unrighteousness. You twist it. You get it all mangled up. But there are things that you know and that you can know. 

And here's another one of them. They do not have the law, but (verse 15) they show that the work of the law – that is, what the law requires in a basic sense: tell people the truth, honor your parents – especially that second table of the law, but even in an approximate sense, the first table of the law, an awareness, maybe, that there's a God, and he is to be honored, and he's not to be defamed. There is a law, Paul says, and you will be judged not by the law you didn't have, but by the law you do have, and that's the law that is written – the work of the law written on your hearts. Everyone in this room and everyone you know has the work of the law written on their hearts. 

Here's the second thing related to the first. Everyone has a conscience. A conscience inside of them. The conscience is a human faculty that judges human behavior. Put it another way: the conscience is the innate moral sense that accuses us of wrong but can also acquit us for doing what was right. So, it comes before reasoning. It comes before someone has to sit down. If you have two young children, and one grabs a toy out of the other child's hand, you need no logical syllogism. You need no deduction about what is fair and unfair and the law handed down Sinai about stealing. That child knows instantly, "You did me dirty. You took my toy." Now, it takes developing some kind of conscience within one, but it is this innate moral sense that accuses us. Every one of you – even if you think it's been a long time since you've paid attention to your conscience – every one of you, you've had that experience. While you're doing it, while you're getting ready to do it, or thinking after you did it – I wish I wouldn't have done that. That was – I feel so rotten about that. The way I just lost my temper with my kids. The way I went to that site when I said I was never going to go to that site again. The way I just completely got passive aggressive with my mother. Some of you are just aggressive-aggressive. I just – I shouldn't have done that. You feel remorse. Now, it's important to realize here, we don't have time for a whole lesson on the conscience, but it's one of those doctrines that – years ago, especially the Puritans, did a lot about the conscience, and we don't talk about it nearly as much as we should. Paul, more than a dozen times in Acts and in his letters, talks about the conscience. It appears several times in Hebrews and in 1 Peter. It's a neglected doctrine. The conscience is not the voice of God, though God can use the conscience, and the conscience is not infallible. In fact, the Bible highlights many ways the conscience can misfire. Some categories: it can be weak, which means it's overly scrupulous. Now, a weak conscience – when Paul is talking about certain foods, for example, and he now says, you know what, all the foods are clean. You can really eat all the foods. But maybe there's Jews who their whole life they just knew there were certain foods you couldn't eat, and they sort of get it intellectually, but when they would eat those foods, they would feel like they were sinning. You know, maybe you grew up your whole life, you can't play cards. Hope I'm not stepping on a limb here that I think you can play cards, but maybe you grew up in a way for whatever – it's a game of chance, or it's too much like the world, and then somebody convinces you, “I think it's okay. You could probably play Go Fish with your grandkids and be all right,” but if you still feel like, “I just always,” that's a weak conscience. You may know intellectually this is okay, but it still feels wrong to you, and here's what the Bible says: you shouldn't do it. You should not do things that feel wrong to you, because you put yourself in great danger if you're in the habit of violating your conscience. That's what the Bible means by the weaker brother. We use that language incorrectly. People say the weaker brother is just the person who doesn't like what we do. No, the weaker brother is, in particular, somebody who doesn't have the conscience to, say, drink a glass of alcohol when they're past 21, because they grew up thinking it's all wrong, and it just feels very nasty. And then you tell them, “Just do it. Just come on. Yeah. It'll be okay. Bible says it's okay.” And then they do it. You have led someone with a weaker conscience to violate their conscience. That's a stumbling block. You don't press people to do something when they feel like it's wrong. So, your conscience could be overly scrupulous. It accuses you of things and says that's wrong when it's not wrong. 

On the other hand, and probably more common in our day, is a conscience that doesn't accuse us of things. It's too accommodating. So, the Bible talks about a defiled conscience or an evil conscience. This is a conscience that does something and feels that it's wrong, and then they do it anyways. Or a further stage, a seared conscience – that is, cauterized. It's been so scarred. You ever have a scar, and you scratch, because you had a nasty flesh wound, and then it scars up, and you can scratch, and you can't feel anything. It's like frostbite if you're playing out in Michigan in April, and your hands are freezing cold. You can't feel it. Just when you can't feel your fingers, and you think, "Ah, it doesn't hurt anymore," that's when you're in really big trouble. Same with the conscience. Sometimes people get to the point, “You know what? I used to feel real bad about these kinds of movies. I used to feel bad about the things that I was doing with those other – and I don't feel so bad anymore. I must be doing well.” Or your conscience is completely scarred and seared. The Bible warns about that. So, there are many ways that the conscience can go wrong. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 4:4, I'm not aware of anything against myself, which is a really amazing statement. Like Paul, you perfect? You just going through life? What he means is when I sin, I come before the Lord, and I repent, and I receive forgiveness. You are not meant to walk around with a low to medium level of just constant guilt. That's not – “Well, I thought that was Calvinism.” That's not Calvinism. Calvinism is to know that you are guilty, and then there's Christ, who forgives you. So, Paul says, I am not aware of anything – meaning I'm walking with the Lord, and when I sin, I quickly go, and I say I'm sorry, and I get forgiveness from the Lord. But then Paul says, “That doesn't mean I'm acquitted.” Even the great Apostle Paul says, “It's possible my conscience has missed something.” So, the conscience is not infallible. It must be instructed. You can think of it like a muscle. Your muscles need to be trained if they're going to be healthy, if they're going to be strong, if they're going to be reliable. So, the conscience needs to be instructed and trained. 

The Puritans said the conscience is God's spy and man's overseer. It was often suggested this is one of the reasons why belief in God is rational. The reformers didn't say, "Well, there's a deduction, and then you'll come out, and you'll have to believe in God." But they said, "You want to know one of the reasons why it makes sense to believe in God? Look at – everyone around the world has a conscience. Everyone around the world has had that experience of ‘I'm doing something that I shouldn't have done.’ Everyone around the world has had the experience of criticizing someone else.” You think we live moral relativism? Have you not been on X before? We don't live in moral relativism. We are hyper morality. It's just that people's morality is all twisted up. The online world is all about sin and judgment, righteousness, but no grace, no forgiveness, no mechanism to deal with it. But of course people know that there's a right and wrong. The conscience is that faculty within us that God can use, but even apart from the Holy Spirit, the conscience can work. People often ask the question, “So is the conscience and the Holy Spirit the same thing?” Well, no, not identical, though a Christian conscience informed by the Word, the Spirit uses the Word, then, to apply to the conscience. But Paul's argument here is you don't have to be a Christian to have a conscience. In fact, all of the Gentiles, they, too, had a conscience. And notice this language. It's a little hard to translate from the Greek, but it comes out in the ESV with the word “also.” Others say “together with.” So, the work of the law is written on their hearts while their conscience also bears witness, or together. So, the “also” should invite the question, “Well if that's the ‘also,’ what was the first?” So, also bears witness. 

So, it seems that Paul is saying there are two witnesses. Remember this is a courtroom scene. You're going to stand before God. We're coming to that in verse 16. You're going to stand before Christ in that courtroom. And for the Jew, one of the witnesses against the Jew is, “Here's the Mosaic covenant. You had it. You didn't do it.” But now he says for the Gentile world, lest you think you're off the hook, here's two witnesses that when you have to stand there before Christ, and you're apt to feel sort of confident that, you know, I wasn't such a bad person. I did the best with what I had. Two witnesses will be there to testify. One is the work of the law written on your heart. That's verse 14 and half of 15. And then, Paul is saying the second witness also is your conscience. Didn't you have many times, many times where you were convicted to think this is not right? I should not be going down this path. I should not be having this level of conversation with a man or a woman who is not my wife. I should not be using this language. I should not be watching. I don't care if it doesn't have a bad rating. I should not be watching this. That's your conscience – often to accuse, verse 15, and sometimes to excuse you. That is, sometimes the conscience – somebody may say to you, "Well, you did me dirty. You didn't do it. You hurt me, and you need to repent." And you may say, "As far as I know my own conscience, I am not aware that I have done something wrong. I'm sorry that you feel that way, and I want to listen." But you don't have to apologize for things that you don't think you really did. Your conscience may be excusing you, saying, "I don't think I did anything wrong here." The conscience – the conscience is on our side. That is, when you think about sharing your faith with other people – yes, people's consciences get all messed up, but they still have a conscience, and it's our ally. It's God's instrument. That's why I hope you feel like the preaching from this pulpit – I very deliberately try to preach to the conscience to tell you to look in your heart, see if you have any wicked way in you. What do you feel as you stand before God? Well, evangelize to the conscience. One of the worst things that can happen is when your conscience is so deadened that you sin against it. You've heard me say before, I think the metaphor there in Pinocchio – you know, your nose grows when you lie, because a lie eventually becomes as plain as the nose on your face, and then as little Pinocchio lies and lies, and all of a sudden he starts making “hee haw” – he starts making donkey sounds. He starts becoming an animal. Why? Because the more you violate your conscience, the more you become like a beast, not like the human being that you were created to be. You become like one of the animals. You don't become stronger and nobler. You become less. The conscience. And it may not happen by deliberate disobedience. It happens often in our age by simple distraction. Perpetual distraction can be positively diabolical. It may not be that anything on your TV or on your phone is even by itself bad, but if you never have a quiet moment, if you never have a few hours of boredom, if you never have a quiet space in the car, mowing your lawn, exercising, something's always coming in, you're liable to deaden the conscience, to bury the conscience in streaming and sports and scrolling, never to hear what the conscience has been trying to scream in your ear. 

And then finally, everyone has the work of the law written on their hearts. Everyone has a conscience, and everyone will stand before Christ on the day of judgment. Verse 16, he says, "According to my gospel" – now, we're used to gospel being good news, and it is good news, but there's also a broader sense in which the gospel refers to the whole message about Jesus Christ. Think about the gospel according to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John –the whole story from Jesus and about Jesus. That's what Paul means here: my gospel, everything revealed about the person and work of Jesus Christ, what I'm teaching you, the story I'm telling you, the truth about Jesus. On that day – so, the language here is pulling us into the future. He's saying, "On that day, God will judge the secrets of men by Christ Jesus." Now, do you notice what Paul is doing? Do you see the connection between verse 15 and 16? On the one hand, the conscience is continually operative. It can be deadened, but it's there. We're all born with a conscience. So, he's speaking about presently what happens in life. But then he goes to verse 16, and he says, you know where the conscience is really, really going to shout at you? It'll be on the day of judgment when all of the secrets are revealed. The thing that you can't stop thinking about that you thought nobody else knew about. Where you wandered off with your eyes this week. The thoughts in your heart, those daydreams of revenge, those thoughts of, you know, your enemy or your former friend, you have these sort of daydreams about the things that might just happen to them, or the lustful thoughts, or the bitterness you nurture, the things you do in secret, the things you think in secret. Verse 16 says it's all out there. And you think if you have to watch all of that, your conscience isn't going to be screaming at you? Why? Oh, I shouldn't have done that. I shouldn't have looked at that. I shouldn't have been – nobody knew I was that sort of person. Nobody knew I had that going on in my heart. Your conscience will be there – not much to excuse you, but a lot to accuse you. The church father Chrysostom said, "How then shall we feel when, before the whole world, all things are brought into the midst in a theater so bright and open, with both those known and those unknown to us seeing into everything?” He says you're going to have people you know, people you don't know in a bright, open, massive theater to see the secrets of your life. I need help. I need more than help. I need a covering. I need a savior. God will judge those things, those thoughts, those intentions, those motives, all the time that I got up to preach and I had some other motive than to glorify God. All those times, even when you were doing the right things, and they said, "What a wonderful parent you are. What a lovely child," and they didn't see what was going on in your heart, all the vain fantasies or the ways you're trying to stick it to someone – all of that exposed. In other words, Christ will deal with us according to our real character. And notice here, you can't pit – well, God the Father bad cop, I'm going to go with Jesus, good cop. You know what the Apostles’ Creed says: coming again to judge the living and the dead. John 5:22, “The Father has committed judgment into the hands of the Son.” It is a judgment by the Lord Jesus Christ. He has infinite knowledge. He's divine. And one of the things that it means, that you and I will stand before the God-man, Jesus Christ, for judgment. I think one of the reasons – why would God the Father judge by Christ? Well, because he's accomplished the work, and all authority has been given to him. He's qualified as the high priest. He's the king. He's given the seat of honor. But it's also to remove any thought that you and I might have to stand before him and say, "It's not fair. No man could keep this law." Jesus says, "No man could?" “Well, but God, you don't know – you don't know what it's like to face temptation.” The Lord Jesus says, "Really? I didn't know what it was to face temptation?” “But God, you don't know. You don't know how much I've suffered. You don't know all the things that people have done to me and all the struggle that I've had. I couldn't possibly be expected to worship you and obey you,” and Jesus will say, "You want to talk about suffering?" That argument, friends, will not work with our crucified Messiah as he judges the living and the dead. What will you do on this day in light of that day? 

Let me finish with this. 250 years ago to the exact day – May 17, 1776 – John Witherspoon preached a sermon. You say, “Really pastor, is the John Witherspoon thing really going to fit here at the end?” It does. Listen. He preached one of the most famous sermons in American history two and a half months before he became the only clergyman to sign the Declaration of Independence. The sermon was called “The Dominion of Providence Over the Passions of Men,” and it was based on Psalm 76:10, “Surely the wrath of man shall praise thee.” It was a public fast day in the colonies, and he preached this sermon. There might have been not even a hundred people – preached at a little church there in Princeton. It was some students, barely had any faculty, some townspeople. He preached this sermon, and now today many consider it one of the most important sermons in the history of this country. So, what did he do? Well, he talked about independence. That's why it became famous. Unless you think, well, he was doing that all the time, he says in the sermon, “You are all my witnesses that this is the first time of my intruding any political subject into the pulpit.” Say, okay, the rule is we're not bringing politics into the pulpit. Well, what about Witherspoon? If you're forming a new country, you can do it once. Now, historians pay attention to the second half, because – typical sermon of that day – he does the text, he does the doctrine, then he does the use, the application. And the second application is to say that the providence of God has so arranged the thing that now is the time to defend our rights, and he makes the case for independence. But everyone skips the first part of the sermon, because it's not interesting to most historians. But here's what he says. His first point: “In the first place, I would take the opportunity on this occasion and from this subject to press every hearer to a sincere concern for his own salvation.” He says, "I do not blame your ardor for the resolute defense of your temporal rights, but consider, I beseech you, the truly infinite importance of the salvation of your souls.” He might say to some of us, “I don't begrudge you that you care about politics, and you follow it, and you're concerned about what's happening in America.” He says, "You have every right to do so, but are you concerned about something of much more infinite importance?" He says, "Have you assembled together willingly to hear what I shall say on public affairs and to join in imploring the blessing of God on the councils and arms of the united colonies? And yet you are unconcerned what shall become of you forever, when all the monuments of human greatness shall be laid in waste?” He even says, "Some of you, your time is short. Some of you will die. You will be the first to die in the battles that are coming." And he said to his audience, and I say to you, do not rest content with a form of godliness that denies its power. "There can be no true religion till there be a discovery of your lost state by nature and practice and then an unfeigned acceptance of Christ Jesus as he is offered in the gospel.” 

If he would preach that in a time of coming war and independence, surely it's the same message that must be proclaimed to you today. Of whatever important thing you think is happening in your life and in the world, none is more important than that – that you would understand your lost state by nature and then move toward an unfeigned acceptance of Jesus Christ. Or to put it in Romans 2 terms, you know the work of the law. Your conscience tells you, you haven't obeyed that law, and you don't have a clean conscience. Come to Christ. Keep coming to Christ over and over again, and find rest and assurance, so that when you stand before Jesus on that day, you will not have the fear of hell, but the assured hope of heaven. Let's pray. 

Father, give us grace that we might attend to these things, that you might so instruct us, convict us, apply to our hearts the work of the conscience, and lead us to Christ, we pray. In Jesus’ name. Amen.