2008 APOSTOLIC SUMMIT
(Defining The Conscience Of Modern Day Jesus Name Pentecostalism)A Pure Conscience
By Pastor G. Reckart
(Copyright 2007 All Rights Reserved/May Not Be Posted On Any Other Web Site)Webster tells us this about the conscience: "it is the sense or consciousness of right or wrong."
Alfred M. Renwinkel, in his book The Voice of Conscience, page 78 says:
"When God made man, he did not make him only potentially a moral being; he was in his very essence a moral being. There was in him not only a knowledge of the will of God, but also a readiness to apply such knowledge as an ethical norm for his own will and his whole life. For God placed in him a natural aptitude, whereby his moral responsibility was spontaneously suggested to his consciousness and endowed him with the readiness and power to respond accordingly."
The conscience is the seat of moral responsibility. It is the judge of all things if they are right or wrong. It establishes the foundation of moral actions. If the conscience is altered it no longer functions as God created it. As I began to study about the conscience in the Scriptures I found there are at least five different categories of the conscience:
An evil conscience (Hebrews 10:22;
A defiled conscience (Titus 1:15);
A seared conscience (1 Timothy 4:2);
A good conscience (1Peter 3:16);
A pure conscience (Hebrews 10:27).It is evident in the first three instances that the good and pure conscience minds have been altered. The good and pure conscience minds have been blunted. They no longer operate in those modes of holiness. The evil, defiled, and seared conscience minds are the opposite of holiness and are ungodly, unholy, and unruly. Only when the good and pure conscience minds are in control can there be condemnation and a moral conviction if something is right and wrong. The evil, defiled, and seared conscience minds are not condemned, not convicted, and have no feelings of guilt of doing things that are unholy and wrong. We can sum up the identity of sin as any act of the person that is contrary to the good and pure conscience God intended to be inherent in the human will. To will and not to will to do sin is an open exposure of the classification of the conscience mind whether it be evil, defiled, seared, good, or pure.
The conscience is a wonderful creation. Animals do not have it. Those who sear it have animal behaviour. A seared conscience is one that can never again function in a good and pure mode, therefore reprobate, worthless, and will be judged by God. All behaviour of a seared conscience will be directed toward things ungodly and evil. There seems to be a progression from an evil conscience mind to a defiled conscience mind and then at last a seared conscience mind. In my examination of these three steps to being reprobate with a seared conscience mind I cannot help but notice there is a common ground movement that continually graduates from pure to good, to evil, to defiled, arriving at last to a seared conscience. When there is any compromise of the conscience from the pure and good with anything evil, defiled, or promoted by those with a seared conscience, total apostasy occurs. Apostasy is gradual but steady in its work once the foundation of the conscience slips from its pure and good moral accountability and accepts even the slightest of sins as good.
There is absolutely no way Jesus and the Apostles had anything but good and pure conscience minds. Sin then had not changed them to have an evil conscience, it had not defiled them, and they did not fall into apostasy with a seared conscience. This is our foundation as Apostolics. Modern day Pentecostalism however it was revived and restored is not the heritage of the Jesus name people when it comes to moral conscience accountability. Those who brought about the restoration were wrought with conflicts over moral accountability, trying to restore also the good and pure conscience mind that once was the outward display of holiness. Trying to fight moral depravity they turned to the Word of God looking for answers. A restoration of good and pure consciousness would bring back moral accountability. Those who could be restored to this place of sanctification and justification before God would submit to holiness. Moral consciousness was restored. Holiness Churches abounded. Evil of every aspect: trend, fashion, fad, worldliness, was looked upon as attacks upon the moral conscience fiber of the Apostolic people. Great men of God stepped out and proclaimed the holiness of God and man. Revivals broke out as sinners of all kinds were convicted of their moral depravity and cried to God that their sins might not cast them down to hell. In some old-fashion way these Men of God had the ability to dig at the conscience as anointed preaching penetrated into the realm of apostasy and rebuked it. Minds that were evil, defiled, and seared, were set free of their bondage to live with a good and pure conscience. This was the revival of holiness. Inward conviction of right and wrong was restored. Good and pure consciousness was behind the joy of the Holy Ghost. They were as Paul said in Romans 8:1 without condemnation. Why? Because they no longer walked after flesh but after the Spirit. It is right here we see the war against the conscience and it is flesh and Spirit. When the flesh is in operation there will be evil, defilement, and seared conscience minds. When the real Holy Ghost is in operation the fruit is a good and pure conscience.
What we are seeing today is a substitution and altering of the judgments of the conscience. Many are setting the evil, defiled, and seared conscience minds as the good and pure ones. The good and pure conscience minds are now considered evil, defiled, and seared. Right here is the identity of liberalism in all of his satanic order. Holiness becomes evil and evil claims it is holiness.
The television issue that has recently created a stir across the land goes to the issue of the conscience. Out of which conscience category are the decisions being made? Out of which category does television operate? Television can only produce within its own conscience category. The world functions and lives on television in all of its categories of evil, defilement, and seared consciousness. How then can it ever operate for the perfection of a good and pure conscience mind?
I am 62 years old. My parents came into the Oneness Apostolic church in 1949. I am a witness of the time span from that year until this year of 2007. I lived among Jesus name Pentecostals who had moral consciousness. They were good and pure people and their holiness was not an issue they found to be legalistic or bondage. Here we get a glimpse of a good and pure conscience that has its own boundaries of moral behaviour. These indeed "saints" (holy ones), had courage to stand and take mocking, scoffing, ridicule, slander, bigotry, and hatred: all because they operated their minds out of a good and pure conscience. They were the ones called holly rollers. Something was behind the shout and the rolling on the floor and it was not music pumped up until people were worked up into a frenzy to jump and leap. It was the days of the real move of the Holy Ghost.
As the years past and I watched worldliness come into the churches I saw also a decay in moral accountability. I could not put my finger on the cause. What had taken place? How could a pastor who taught holiness suddenly get up, call his wife to the front of the Church, and there take a pair of scissors and whack off her hair. Then see his wife jump a jig and say she was free at last. Freedom is not always a moral blessing of a good and pure conscience. Freedom is now certified to be the right and uncondemned privilege to take up evil, be defiled, and to have a seared conscience. Liberalism is the religion of those who claim this freedom. But who are these people? They are not holiness. They do not operate in good and pure conscience of Godliness. Who are they? I get a revelation of why one day Jesus will look at such people and say "I never knew you." I can understand this now more then ever. Some people I have known for years, or thought I knew, have become bitter enemies over holiness. They hate the righteousness of holiness. They have become the mockers, scoffers, and who hate standards that demonstrate a good and pure conscience.
I have a new revelation. Oh, yes, to others it is not new. Maybe it is not new to me either, but I see it as new. Maybe I was calling it something else instead of the conscience. I think maybe I was thinking it was just a love for the world not knowing that this love came from the conscience of those who loved evil and that which would defile them. Yes, I think it is a new revelation. At least I better understand how some who claim they are the people of God can endorse television and other worldliness. To me, acceptance of television is just a symptom of a bad and evil conscience working in those who approve of it. And they want us and others to join in unity with this? Are we that big a fools?
Who are those people? They are not my people when they operate in an evil, defiled, and seared conscience mind. I cannot pledge unity with them. I cannot enter a bond of peace with these kinds of minds. They are not my people and I cannot pretend they are. My only choice is to come out from among them and be separate.
I have observed some Jesus Name Pentecostals who are so liberal they approved trinitarians in the pulpit, women wearing pants, men wearing shorts, women with earrings and bobbed hair, men with tattoos, and the use of television for advertising and evangelism. Who are they I asked myself? Who are these who are hateful and full of bigotry against holiness and standards? What church or organization gave birth to these people? Children who refuse to return to the ways of the fathers. And children in whom there is no conviction because they no longer have a good and pure conscience. Who are these who spend most of their time railing, mocking, ridiculing, and gainsaying men of God who stand for the old paths and seek the right ways of God? They have no fear to blaspheme. They attack holiness Men of God as Pharisees, legalists, and reprobates. Who are these people? They are not the people of God. They do not love the truth and this even more emphasizes their conscience is defiled. I heard someone recently from among this tribe of misfits say: "my conscience no longer bothers me." Is not this the case of a seared conscience? These have broadened their minds so far they have silenced their conscience. At last their conscience is killed.
Can you remember when Apostolics had a conscience about adultery, fornication, witchcraft, cursing, drinking, ungodly clothes, women cutting their hair, wearing jewelry, women wearing pants, and so forth? The moral consciousness was at its all time level of goodness and purity. But now look at our choirs, our musicians, our minsters, our sunday school teachers: they are not a unified holiness group. We were raised in olden times with a conscience about television evils, secret societies, wedding rings, unholy dress, and lived by standards that revealed the inward good and pure conscience of the saints. I have now come to see there are different kinds of consciousness:
1.) Family consciousness where a husband and wife together have a good, pure, and holy oneness;
2.) Church consciousness where the Pastor and his wife lead the congregation in good, pure, and holy oneness before God;
3.) Organizational consciousness where the member ministers in love for their individual members, hold to the good, pure conscience mind of God, casting down all other imaginations of the flesh that likes to masquerade as the life of the Holy Ghost.I can testify that as goes the home so goes the church and so goes the organization. Television came into homes and then into the church. Then demands were made upon the organizations and we can see the result. From good and pure consciousness they have now accepted an evil, defiled, and seared concienceness and want all to unify around this apostasy. How many are there out there whose minds have been blunted and can no longer see their backslid condition?
As my mail box fills up with all kinds of hate rants I came across this Scripture:Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the later times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils; speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with an hot iron (1Timothy 4:1).
I believe these are the later times. And I cannot see how a cry and plea of unity by those who are giving heed to seducing spirits on television is the voice of God? The only outcome in the television issue is so many will have a seared conscience. In fact, I believe the evidence bears out that the only way television could have ever been past was because the men who voted in favor did not have a good and pure conscience. I am also convinced that no one wants to correctly identify this issue as holiness and tied to the moral decay of the conscience. I am convinced that many may harden themselves to the voice of a good and pure conscience, but the voice of God's prophets will speak again to return to the old paths and find that good way. What God has declared to be unholy, ungodly, evil, and sinful no man can legalize or use for his glory. God has said he will not give his glory to another and this includes the television set.
Now seeing these things, I will watch and witness man's feeble attempt to voice and pass resolutions for their manual of discipline and forget they are dealing with the conscience of millions of souls. Are we in such a hurry to build our barns bigger that we are willing to forget how many souls we will hurt and destroy by using television? Already, because of my boldness, I am a witness of those who have an evil, defiled, and seared conscience attacking me and trying to destroy my reputation and character. Already because I am not in a certain clique, I have become the whipping boy of both sides. I am indeed an outsider. But I have the mind of God. I am not one of those who at one time had a good and pure conscience but little by little began to change my attitude on sin and accepted change, until all resistance was gone. Some think that because their conscience does not condemn them, this is a signal it is not a sin for them. They do not take into account that condemnation is impossible for those with an evil, defiled, and seared conscience. The only salvation is for these hearts to be penetrated by Holy Ghost anointed Word and brought to repentance. Repentance is the first act of an evil, defiled, and seared conscience to return to God and restoration of a good and pure conscience. I am not among the liberals therefore I cannot be in unity with them. I cannot share their tables for with fornicators know not to eat.
Is there a collective conscience now any where in the Apostolic ranks that has a burden to preserve that which is good and pure? Tulsa will give us a glimpse if it is among this new group that may be formed.
I have a pure heart today as I send out this message to the people of God. I send this out as I prepare for my Philippine missions trip where I am teaching holiness as a conscience choice of those who have a good and pure heart.Pastor Gary Reckart
Tampa, Florida
813-238-7283Note: If you are looking for the new Pentecostal group that will meet in Tulsa, Oklahoma, please CLICK HERE