Conscience Isolates Every Man
Why Are Christians Afraid to Listen to Conscience?
OUTLINE
Introduction: Some in the Christian church are not sure of what they believe about the human conscience. The Word of God reminds us that conscience is always on God’s side, judging conduct in the light of the moral law, either excusing or accusing. Conscience is only a joke to many in our day. It seems almost unbelievable that it has gotten to the point where we must defend the whole concept of human conscience if we are to speak of it seriously.
I. The definitions of conscience.
1.Always refers to right and wrong.
2. In the Scriptures means an inward awareness
3. The secret presence of Christ, the ground of conscience.
II. The Bible example of the operation of Conscience.
1. The hypocritical condition of the Jewish religious leaders.
2. Their plot to use the woman to discredit Jesus’ teaching.
3. Their hatred was for Jesus-not for her sin or the broken law.
4. "Let him who is without sin cast the first stone!"
5. The men leave, ashamed and silent, one by one.
6. Operation of the conscience-it smites the inner life and isolates, setting us off all by ourselves.
Ill. Examples of what men do with their Conscience
1. They turn aside from a good conscience.
2. Some allow their conscience to become seared.
3. Some are living with a defiled conscience.
4. The blessings of the conscience "sprinkled from evil works."
IV. Conclusion; it may be fatal to silence the inner voice.
JOHN 8:9-11
9 And they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last: and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst.
10 When Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw none but the woman, he said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee?
11 She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.
IT IS a foregone conclusion in our generation that a minister of the gospel will have a hard time padding out his popularity in the pulpit by bearing down hard on the subject of the human conscience.
What is happening to us in the Christian church-that we no longer believe in the human conscience? I believe that God has given us a faithful witness in-side of our own being, and that it is able to single a man out, and reveal his loneliness, the loneliness of a single soul in the universe going on to meet an angry God. That’s the terror of the conscience.
Why should the church be afraid to admit to conscience, when the Word of God has much to say about it, and reminding us that conscience is always on God’s side? It judges conduct in the light of the moral law, and as the Bible says, excuses or accuses.
Not long ago I preached on the conscience in another state, and an elderly brother took me aside after the message and told me that he had developed a great burden for me as a minister because of my sermon. Obviously, he didn’t believe in the human conscience. Another man, who is in some ways an evangelical ’bigwig,’ also came to me, and with the same burden-the idea that conscience is to be pushed aside.
Now, I say that hell has done that by propaganda. bringing into disrepute many of life’s verities, including the conscience. When conscience is mentioned now in learned circles, it is mentioned only with a smirk. And that’s one way the devil has of getting rid of things-get humans to make jokes about them. It is part of the process of the corruption of our minds, for whenever any humor takes holy things for its object, that humor is devilish.
The light that lights every man that comes into the world is not a joking matter. That power that God has set in the human breast and which can isolate a soul and hang it between heaven and hell, as lonely as if God had created only that single soul-that is not a joking matter. Joke about politics, if you must joke-they are usually funny, anyway-but don’t joke about God, and don’t joke about conscience, nor death nor life, nor the cross nor prayer. We are fast becoming in our day the greatest bunch of sacrilegious jokesters in the world.
It has gotten to the point where we must defend the whole concept of human conscience if we are to speak of it seriously. That seems almost unbelievable, but it is true.
I cannot ignore that which the universal wisdom of the race has approved-the idea of there being a conscience within the heart of man. I will not ignore that which the universal testimony of all peoples and all ages have confirmed. Neither will I defend that which the Christian Scriptures take for granted, in most places, and in some instances clearly teach.
If you will go through your Bible concordance, you will find conscience is mentioned in very many places, and the idea which the word conscience embodies is mentioned throughout the Bible-not once, or ten times-but underlies the whole structure and is woven into the entire revelation.
Now, I want to tell you what we mean by conscience, as I am able, and then point to this Bible example of its operation, before showing what it has done and is doing to people.
By conscience, we mean that which always refers to right and wrong. Conscience never deals with theories. Conscience always deals with right and wrong, and the relation of the individual to that which is right or wrong.
In this connection we notice an interesting fact. The conscience never deals in plurals, but always in the singular. There is only one place in the entire Bible where conscience is used in the plural, and that is where Paul wrote to Christians that he commended himself to their consciences. Everywhere else it is referred to the singular, and always, conscience in the Bible refers to right and wrong.
So, it is individual and exclusive. It never permits plurals-it excludes everyone else, and never lets you lean on another. Conscience singles you out as though nobody else existed.
Now, the word "conscience" in the Scriptures refers to a moral sight-it means to see completely; it means an inward awareness; it means to be secretly aware of. That is the psychological definition for conscience.
But there is also a ground of conscience, and that is what we are concerned with here more than with a psychological definition. That ground of human conscience, I believe, is the secret presence of Christ in the world. Christ is in the world, and His secret presence is the ground of human conscience. It is a moral awareness.
A verse which I quote very often because it is basic in my theology is John 1:9: "That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world." That Light that has come into the world, which lights every man that comes into the world, is the ground of moral conscience. However it operates, that is its ground. That is why it is here. Because the living, eternal Word is present in the world, present in human society, secretly present, humanity has a secret awareness of moral values.
I know there are some who contend that when the Bible says we are dead in trespasses and sins, it means that we are dead in such a literal sense of the word that we have no moral awareness. But I think that kind of exegesis (Thinking) is so bad and so confused that it should be rejected immediately. It just has no place at all in the Scriptures.
It is not true that because the Bible says I am dead in sin I am just a dead lump-that I can’t be talked to nor persuaded, nor convicted, nor convinced, nor pleaded with, nor frightened, nor appealed to. They say I am like a dead man until God in His sovereign mercy raises me from the dead, gives me the new birth and regenerates me, and then I am prepared to listen!
That’s all wrong, brethren. When the Bible says we are dead in trespasses and sins, it means that we are cut off from the life of God, and that is all that it means. But that, in itself, is so bad that it is impossible to think of anything worse. But that same man that is cut off from the life of God, and so dead in sin, has within him a moral awareness. He has within him a secret inner voice that is always talking to him-the Light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world. It is a singular voice in the bosom of every human being, excusing or else accusing him, as Paul explained it. That is what I mean by conscience.
In this eighth chapter of John we have a Bible example of the operation of the human conscience. Those Jews of Jesus’ day were very strict moralists, particularly when others were watching. They were not strict when they could get away with something in private. They found a poor wretched woman, and they had no underlying compassion or concern about her, about the broken law, or about the spiritual welfare of Israel.
They really had only one thing in mind-they were going to deal with this religious Teacher who was embarrassing them, and they were going to silence Him for good. They were going to get Him to commit Himself to a statement that they could use against Him, and then, take the hide off Him. They would drive Him out with loss of face, discredited forever.
That was their business and their plot. The woman was merely a pawn, a cat’s-paw, nothing more. They had no love for her as a person and they had no hatred of her sin. It was Jesus that they hated and they would do anything to get at Him.
So they dragged this poor miserable woman into His presence, and said to Him: "Here is a harlot, caught in the act. Now the law of Moses says we are to stone her to death. What do you say?"
If He said, "Stone her to death," and they did so, the Romans would put Jesus in prison and that would be the end of Him. But if He said, "Let her go," they could reply, ’We always knew you were against the law of Moses," and that would be the end of Him as a teacher in Israel. He would be completely discredited before the law.
I must admit here that I have always gotten considerable personal, private, highly individualistic delight out of the way Jesus handled their approach. He knew all of those men-and He knew their hypocrisy. He knew that they had no love or concern for the woman. He knew that they had no basic concern for the law. He knew that they only hated Him, and He perceived the trap which they had laid. Not only that, He knew their false piety, their phylacteries, their long robes,
