What Happened To Shame?

Illus: The minister rose to address his congregation. "There is a certain man among us today who is flirting with another man's wife. Unless he puts $100.00 in the collection plate, his name will be read from the pulpit."

When the collection plate came in, there were 19 one hundred dollar bills and a note that said, "I will pay the other five on payday." (Quoted and adapted from the SermonFodder email list)

Everyone has a conscience, but there are some who claim that some are born without a conscience.

• Robert D. Hare has a book out called, “Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths Among Us”.

• Martha Stout has a 256 page book called, “THE SOCIOPATH NEXT DOOR: THE RUTHLESS VERSUS THE REST OF US.”

In her book, she says that four percent of us have no conscience. It makes you wonder how she knows that. She must have some kind of instrument that she can look into a person and see if they have a conscience. But the fact is, at birth every one of us has been created with a conscience.

THIS IS ONE OF THE PROBLEMS WITH CLONING! When God makes a man or a woman, He places within them a CONSCIENCE. One of the big controversies is; if scientists are able to clone another human being, who will put a conscience in that clone?

When God creates a human, He places within that person a conscience. A person can sin against their conscience over and over again and their conscience will become hardened.

Illus: Have you noticed that when you commit a sin, your conscience speaks to you and you feel guilty for the sin you committed? Have you noticed that if you keep committing that sin, it will become easier and easier to do, because your conscience will become hardened and no longer bother you?

Illus: Most of us can remember the time that when a lady pulled up to a gas station, an attendant would come out and pump her gas. And if a gas attendant was not available, often a man would see her preparing to pump gas into her car and he would walk over and do it for her. But today, we see young women, middle age women, and elderly women pull up to get some gas nobody helps. We have come to accept this as normal.

The more we see something, the more we get used to it. And the same is true with sin; the more we see it the more we accept it.

Illus: This is the strategy of the homosexuals. They want to keep homosexuality before the American people so they will get used to it and begin to accept it.

God has given each and every one of us a conscience.

Remember in John 8, when the adulterous woman was brought to Jesus? She was thrust at the feet of Jesus and the men that brought her said that they caught her in the very act of adultery. They reminded the Lord that the law taught that she should be stoned to death.

The Lord was quick to reply, “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.”

John 8:9 says, “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.”

God has given every one of us a conscience; it is a voice within that tells us things are wrong. But when we violate that conscience over and over again, we soon become shameless!

Did you know that amputees often have PHANTOM PAINS in the limb that was removed? They think they can still feel it.

Illus: Somewhere, locked in their brains:

• A memory lingers of the nonexistent hand or leg

• Invisible toes curl

• Imaginary hands grasp things

• A "leg" feels so sturdy a patient may try to stand on it when they do not have a leg to stand on

For a few, the experience includes pain. Doctors watch helplessly as the part of the body screaming for attention does not exist.

Illus: Dr. Paul Brand and Philip Yancey, in Leadership magazine said, “One such patient was my medical school administrator, Mr. Barwick, who had a serious and painful circulation problem in his leg but refused to allow the recommended amputation.”

As the pain grew worse, Barwick grew bitter. “I hate it! I hate It!” he would mutter about the leg. At last he relented and told the doctor, “I can’t stand it anymore. I’m through with that leg. Take it off.” Surgery was scheduled immediately.

Before the operation, however, Barwick asked the doctor, "What do you do with legs after they’re removed?"