338 The Spiritual Man
perfect fellowship with God? If so, you cannot contend before God
that “there is nothing between You and me.”
Only an unconditional and unrestricted acceptance of the reproach
of conscience with a corresponding willingness to do what is
revealed can show how perfect is our consecration, how truly we
hate sin, how sincerely we desire to do God’s will. Often we express
a wish to please God, to obey the Lord, to follow the Spirit; here is
the test as to whether our wish is real or fancied, perfect or
incomplete. If we are yet entangled in sin and not completely severed
from it, most likely our spirituality is largely a pretense. A believer
who is unable to follow his conscience wholly is unqualified to walk
after the spirit. Before conscience has its demand realized, what else
but an imaginary spirit will lead the person, since the true spirit
within him continues to petition him to listen to the monitor within?
A believer can make no genuine spiritual progress if he is reluctant to
have his evil conscience judged in God’s light and clearly dealt with.
The truth or falsity of his consecration and service depends on his
willing obedience to the Lord—both to His command and to His
reproach.
After one has permitted conscience to begin operating, he should
allow it to perfect its work. Sins must be treated progressively one by
one until all have been eliminated. If a child of God is faithful in his
dealing with sin and faithfully follows his conscience, he shall
receive light increasingly from heaven and have his unnoticed sins
exposed; the Holy Spirit shall enable him to read and to understand
more of the law written upon his heart. Thus is he made to know
what is holiness, righteousness, purity and honesty, concerning
which he had had only vague ideas before. Moreover, his intuition is
strengthened greatly in its ability to know the mind of the Holy
Spirit. Whenever a believer is therefore reproved by his conscience
his immediate response should be: “Lord, I am willing to obey.” He
should let Christ once again be the Lord of his life; he should be