Paul said, "I myself always strive to have a conscience without offense toward God and man." (Acts 24:16) How do you acquire a conscience without offense? Part 1 in the Conscience series deals with the theology of the conscience, as part of God's imagine in man (both pre-fall and post-fall), the conscience's legislative, executive, and judicial functions, how sin distorts all three functions, and how to recognize a good conscience vs the counterfeit. Dr. Kayser likens to conscience to a light on the dashboard that sometimes doesn't work properly, which should be neither smashed nor ignored, but fixed.
Part 2 of the "Developing a Healthy Conscience" series describes the positive changes that happen in our consciences at conversion, but why the new baby conscience still needs to be strengthened, and what happens when it isn't. Dr. Kayser expounds Paul's teaching on how to both make sure weaker brothers are protected in their conscience, *and* that the church be protected from the legalistic doctrine of the weaker brothers. He shows what happens when the three functions of the conscience become sensitized to man's opinions rather than to God's opinion, how to help rather than hurt brothers with weak consciences, and also how and when weaker-brother-ism becomes Phariseeism.
The Pharisees show us that legalists — people who add man's laws — always end up being antinomians, that is, people who disobey or throw out God's laws. In Part 3 of the "Developing a Healthy Conscience" series, Dr. Kayser shows how the hedge around the law that modern evangelicals have erected to try to keep people as far away from sinning as possible simply do not work in overcoming sin or promoting holiness, and why those who seem to think sin comes from without rather than within, focusing on issues of dress, activities, substances, etc. almost invariably focus their attention on something other than the heart. He ends with going through several diagnostic questions to help you apply Jesus' teaching about the Pharisees to your own life, and see how your own conscience is calibrated.
In the final part of the "Developing a Healthy Conscience" series, Dr. Kayser walks us through the benefits of having a healthy conscience, from confidence in witnessing to accelerated maturity and peace and freedom before God and man, and then walks us through the Bible's methods for developing a "good conscience" — how to cleanse your conscience, retrain your conscience, deal with things still troubling your conscience, and more.
This sermon on Acts 16:16-24 walks through Acts' third example of "high level spiritual warfare" — the taking on of the demonic prince of a given area (like when Peter confronted the sorcerer, Simon Magus, whose demon had complete control over the whole region of Samaria, which then opened that region up to the gospel.) Down through history, God has led missionaries to cut down a sacred tree or in other ways to slap a demonic strong man in the face and claim that territory for King Jesus. At the same time, it is terribly dangerous to rush in where angels fear to tread, especially for the spiritually or morally vulnerable. This provides a theology of the Python spirit as well as a correction to the two extremes on this subject.
This sermon analyzes the songs of Revelation and shows how they are a paradigm for the church today