Conscience Reboot
Acts 24:16 NIV
So I strive always to
keep my conscience clear before God and man.
Do You Have a Clear Conscience?
I don’t ever remember a time when I was taken to
school by my parents. It must have
happened but my only memories of getting to school were walking or riding my
bike. My mom at some point stopped walking with me to elementary school…I know
this because I can’t think of a single time that she actually accompanied
me. Those trips to school have long ago
all blended together into a single blur except for one particular morning that
is perhaps forever etched in my mind. As
I always did each day on my treks to school, I came to a since closed mom and
pop grocery store on E. 14th Street that was a constant curiosity to
me. My mom as far as I knew never
shopped in it and so I never had an occasion to see what was inside. Each day I went to school and then returned
home I went past the little store and wondered what it would be like to look
around. One morning, I was a bit early
for school so I finally decided to see what deep magic the store held within. I walked up and down each aisle like I
belonged, as if I intended to buy milk or bread or green beans. I did not have a penny in my pocket; I was
only on a fact finding mission.
Eventually I came upon the candy aisle and now I had found nirvana. I looked at each candy bar, at every ball of
gum, at each wrapped piece of hard candy and thought long and hard about what
it would be like to have one of those candies.
In the most split of split seconds, I had a most delicious idea. Why don’t I just take one? No one was looking. I was perhaps nine years old…too young to
realize how stupid that idea was since I was the son of a police officer and
too old to blame my action on ignorance of right and wrong. I glanced about, stuck my hand down, grabbed
a single Jolly Rancher, shoved it in my pocket and hurriedly walked out the
door and down the street. I kept waiting
for the clerk to come running after me, for the police to chase me down and
frisk me, for my dad to pull up in his car and confront me…but nothing
happened. I had gotten away with
stealing the little piece of candy. I
wasn’t arrested. I did not get a
spanking. I was not pulled out of class
and sent to the principal’s office. No
one ever discovered my crime…as far as I knew.
But, my conscience knew what had happened and it would not let me off
the hook. It attacked me with a
vengeance and despite the success of my great crime, I never unwrapped the
little candy because I felt too guilty to eat it.
Not everyone is like me. Many don’t feel guilty about all sorts of
matters that are considered wrong. They
feel no qualms about stealing or lying or the use of swear words. They don’t sweat it if they watch pornography
or run through a red light or take too long of a shower. They are unmoved by no trespassing signs,
they are perfectly fine with cheating on their biology tests, don’t worry a bit
about driving on a suspended license and will drink and drive without giving it
a thought. What are we supposed to do
about such people who don’t seem to ever have a guilty conscience; who aren’t
bothered by their bad behavior? Are they
hopelessly lost? Should we try to make
them see the error of their ways?
There is a mature, well thought through examination
of the conscience in the Bible and it provides rich insight into the psychology
of the conscience. For I envied the
arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. They have no struggles; their bodies are
healthy and strong. They are free from
the burdens common to man; they are not plagued by human ills. Therefore pride is their necklace; they
clothe themselves with violence. From
their callous hearts comes iniquity; the evil conceits of their minds know no
limits. (Psalm 73:3-7 NIV) “Hearts”
in this verse is speaking of the conscience.
Who hasn’t had at least a little bit of jealousy that some people seem
to feel no guilt over what they do. They
live wild lives with impunity and no one can get through to them that what they
are doing is wrong. It seems impossible
to convince such people to change; their consciences are nearly immutable.
Consider the strange case of Jonah who had a
profound hatred for Assyrians. He
refused to go to their capital city and warn them of God’s coming judgment
because he did not want them to get out from under the destruction the Lord had
planned for them. Even after God had
Jonah swallowed by a great fish and in its belly he stewed for three days, he
still was unbending in his loathing of the Assyrians. He did go and preach in the Assyrian city but
nothing inside him changed even after the people repented He was furious that God did not destroy
Nineveh; his conscience felt no guilt over his hatred of the Assyrians whom the
Lord clearly loved. Not even three days
in the gut of a great fish could rework Jonah’s conscience.
Likewise it is odd that the great Solomon who
experienced several miraculous encounters with God did not seem to feel the
least bit guilty about taxing the people excessively or dabbling in
paganism. His conscience was unmoved by
the scriptures he read or the poverty he saw all around him. Even while living in the golden age of the
church when the pastors were Apostles like Peter, James and John, Ananias and
Sapphira seemed to feel not the least twinge of guilt when they lied about the
extent of their charity. The great Paul
seemed to feel no guilt over all the atrocities he committed against the Church
even while facing the resurrected Jesus Christ in the middle of the road. The conscience in many ways is as unbending
as a steel bar and no amount of supernatural signs and wonders can force it to
change its opinion of good and bad. All
of us have tried to talk someone into believing some action or attitude was
morally wrong to no avail. Just think of
the times pro-life demonstrators have tried their best to convince abortion
advocates of the horrors of abortion without success or how many have tried to
get alcoholic family members to feel guilty for their actions. We can wreck a conscience by our actions but
rarely can we build up a conscience by our rhetoric.
We are thoroughly ineffective at trying to convince
others of the wrongness of their wrongs.
We can try interventions, guilt-tripping and emotional pleas and rarely,
if ever will we get far with another person’s conscience. There is only one way for a conscience to be significantly
altered. It must be transformed by the
presence of the Spirit of God. Isaiah
provides the perfect example of a converted conscience. When He came up into the presence of God, he
realized just how filthy and disgusting his speech had been before. "Woe
to me!" I cried. "I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live
among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord
Almighty. (Isaiah 6:5 NIV) Before
this encounter with the Lord, Isaiah thought nothing of what sort of things he
said…at least his conscience was unfazed by his words. The moment he met the real God, he came
undone with guilt for his conscience had been converted. He knew that the sorts of things he had said
before were ugly and wrong. This did not
come to him as an intellectual unearthing, it was a Spiritual revelation that
not only uncovered the sin he did not before think was sinful but also brought
deep remorse for what he realized he had been doing.
The Apostle Paul is a clear example of how the conscience
is altered. As mentioned before, Paul
did not seem to feel guilty about his past persecution of Christians when he
first met Jesus in a blazing manifestation of His glory. It was much later that his conscience
convicted him of the wrong he had done and he saw himself clearly as a sinner
and really a sinner. This is how he put
it after the Spirit of God had changed Paul’s conscience. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue
me from this body of death? (Romans 7:24-25 NIV) This is not false guilt…not like someone
weeping over the death of a mosquito he killed; this was the guilt of having
done rotten things that before he had never thought were wrong. This is the guilt of an alcoholic who
suddenly realizes what horrible consequences his drinking has brought his
family but more importantly, how it has wrecked his life with God. This is the guilt of a stockbroker who had
merrily cheated his clients out of their savings but now saw clearly the evil
of his actions. This is the guilt of
young mother who finally realizes how terrible it has been for her to abandon
the church. No one can make her see how truly
bad her own sin is; only God can reveal it.
The Bible puts it this way in 2 Corinthians 10: 4. The weapons we fight with are not the
weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish
strongholds. (NIV) God alone can break
through into a conscience that is unable to see its own sin and change the way
the conscience interprets badness.
Divine power can accomplish what we are powerless to undertake.
There is a second way our conscience is awakened to
real sin within and it is a terrible discovery.
Let the Apostle Paul explain. Timothy,
my son, I give you this instruction in keeping with the prophecies once made
about you, so that by following them you may fight the good fight, holding on
to faith and a good conscience. Some have rejected these and so have
shipwrecked their faith. Among them are
Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan to be taught not to
blaspheme. (1Timothy 1:18-20 NIV) There are times when even a Christian has
abandoned his conscience and it becomes wasted on him. What does God do in those situations? Honestly it is terrifying but it is the
epitome of “tough love”. The Lord turns
over the person to Satan. We know what
happened when God let Job be in the hands of Satan. It can feel like “hell” but it isn’t. God lets the person who has turned off her
conscience and given up on it be in the grip of Satan. It happened to Nebuchadnezzar when he went
crazy for a year. It happened to David
after he committed adultery with Bathsheba.
It happened to Jonah when he was cast into the raging sea and it
happened to Peter after he denied Christ in Caiaphas’s courtyard (see Luke 22:
31).
The church is given authority to do this and it must
happen for the good of those who are ruining their consciences by going against
them. The Bible says that it is strong
medicine for the sick spirit that is reeling from sin. When you are assembled in the name of our
Lord Jesus and I am with you in spirit, and the power of our Lord Jesus is
present, hand this man over to Satan, so that the sinful nature may be
destroyed and his spirit saved on the day of the Lord. (1 Corinthians 5:4-5
NIV) In this instance it was a man who
was sleeping with his father’s wife. It
could be someone cheating on her husband, another who is an angry man who won’t
control his temper, it might be a person who is cheating God out of the tithe
or someone destroying her family by her drug addiction. But we have to be careful here. This is an extreme measure and only to be done
if someone has completely shut out the conscience. When that happens and there is no remorse for
sin, you just quit praying for the person and stop trying to change his
behavior. You let Satan have his way
with the person and in the end, God will have freed him or her of the taste for
sin. All rebellion against God will be
gone and a craving for the Lord’s presence will surface and dominate the
personality.
It is most dreadful when God
turns us over to Satan…the most horrible of turns. That is why we must keep our conscience clear
and let the Holy Spirit of God direct our actions. You see misery and unmitigated corruption in
the personality turned over to Satan, a complete blindness to the destruction
that person faces and yet, when like Nebuchadnezzar, he turns back to God, when
he gets free of Satan’s grip by praying and seeking the mercy of Christ, it is
like a fresh and exciting new dawn, filled with promise and hope and the joy of
God. When we walk in the light and trust
Jesus Christ to direct us in each and every way whether it is something we see
to do or stop doing in Scripture or when the quiet prod of the Holy Spirit
through our conscience guides us, we have the peace of God surrounding us and
protecting us and keeping us safe.
