The Conscience

[00:00:19] Greetings and welcome to Become A Competent Biblical Counselor. I'm Dr. Dave Jones and today's episode is entitled, The Conscience.

[00:00:29] Now and then we refer to our conscience. You don't hear much about consciences these days, but the Word of God talks about the conscience from time to time.

[00:00:38] And it's a fact that we ought to come to grips with that we have conscience built into each one of us.

[00:00:45] What is this conscience of which scriptures speak? And should I, as the proverb, not the biblical proverb, but the non-biblical proverb, says, let my conscience be my guide?

[00:00:57] Well, let's think about these questions for a few moments. What is a conscience?

[00:01:03] Well, in Romans 2, verse 15, we have a good description of what the conscience does and what it's like, as I think we have anywhere.

[00:01:15] Paul says, speaking of the law written in the hearts of unbelievers, he says, their conscience bearing witness as their thoughts alternately accuse or else defend them.

[00:01:27] Paul is talking about the conscience as a certain kind of capability that we have within us to make judgments about ourselves.

[00:01:38] That's what the conscience is. It's not some kind of a little black box inside of us that has some kind of power to lead us and guide us in the ways that we should go,

[00:01:48] or, but somehow or other sending forth signals to our minds telling us what we should do or not do.

[00:01:55] But it is the capacity for self-judgment that God has given to us to make judgments about our own thoughts and about our own feelings and about our own attitudes.

[00:02:06] You know, the animal doesn't have that kind of ability to make self-judgments, but we do.

[00:02:12] God has made us moral creatures and the conscience is that ability, that capability for looking at ourselves and analyzing ourselves and judging ourselves.

[00:02:24] The conscience is like the red light on the dashboard of your car.

[00:02:28] For example, if you're driving down the street on a moonless night at midnight and suddenly on your dashboard, a red light flashes out hot.

[00:02:37] Hot. And you say, my, that's annoying. That light, it keeps flashing at me. Hot.

[00:02:44] And you go on and this thing keeps irritating you and bothering you and flashing at you. Hot.

[00:02:50] And so finally, you reach over to the glove compartment and you take out a hammer and you go smash.

[00:02:57] And you put it out of business and you say, ah, I feel so much better.

[00:03:02] I got rid of that annoying red flash. Well, about two miles down the road, your motor melts.

[00:03:10] You see, it wasn't a good idea to put that red light out of business. Why not?

[00:03:15] Because that red light was built into the car as a warning signal.

[00:03:20] That's what you're conscious is in many respects.

[00:03:24] It becomes a thermometer, a sort of recording device to tell you when it's too hot, when things are going wrong.

[00:03:34] It's a red light that flashes out and says, aha, something's wrong.

[00:03:39] You better pay attention. You better look at it.

[00:03:42] When you begin to feel guilty, when you begin to feel the bad feelings that come from making a judgment about yourself that you are guilty,

[00:03:50] then you better start taking heed. What is it that's wrong in my life?

[00:03:57] Anybody bothered by his conscience has guilt over something that needs to be dealt with.

[00:04:03] And you see, that's exactly the point.

[00:04:07] A lot of people today will try to get rid of the conscience.

[00:04:11] They like to get rid of the feelings that the conscience triggers.

[00:04:15] That bad feeling of depression or anxiety or easiness.

[00:04:21] Or so they take pills in order to dull those feelings.

[00:04:25] That's like smashing the red light on the dashboard.

[00:04:28] Or they go have shock treatments, as many people do today, in order to smash that red light.

[00:04:35] Or some, perhaps, who don't want to spend the money for the pills or the shock treatments,

[00:04:39] they just go out and they get bashed with alcohol.

[00:04:44] They take homebrew, and so they get drunk.

[00:04:47] But whatever the method may be, whenever you try to put your conscience out of business,

[00:04:53] you're making a drastic mistake because your conscience is not what's wrong.

[00:04:58] Your conscience is your friend.

[00:05:01] Your conscience is that red light, that warning device that keeps you from destroying your car.

[00:05:07] What ought you do when the registers get hot?

[00:05:11] Well, of course.

[00:05:12] You ought to pull it over immediately to the side of the road and turn the motor off

[00:05:17] and go to the back of the car and lift up the hood.

[00:05:20] You guessed.

[00:05:21] You probably have a Volkswagen, right?

[00:05:23] And as you look in that hood, you find out that your fan belt is broken.

[00:05:28] And so you're in trouble because of that.

[00:05:30] Well, then you fix the fan belt.

[00:05:33] The red light goes out.

[00:05:35] There's no more annoyance and your motor has been saved.

[00:05:39] That's the logical, sensible, sane purpose for it.

[00:05:43] That's why the manufacturer built the red light into the car in the first place.

[00:05:47] So why do you think God put the conscience in you in the first place?

[00:05:52] Do you think he put it there for you to smash with pills?

[00:05:55] Do you think he put it there for you to zap electricity through your brain

[00:05:59] so that you could rattle your brain cells in such a way that

[00:06:02] you'd no longer be able to even remember what it was that you were guilty about?

[00:06:07] No.

[00:06:08] God put that conscience in you

[00:06:10] in order to save you the agony and the trouble

[00:06:14] that would come here and hereafter from the failure to live as you should.

[00:06:20] When you don't think as you should,

[00:06:22] when you don't live as you should,

[00:06:24] your conscience will operate.

[00:06:26] Now, of course, if you keep smashing it with a hammer

[00:06:30] and smashing it with a hammer and smashing it with a hammer,

[00:06:32] it is possible to change the figure, as the Bible puts it,

[00:06:36] to sear your conscience as with a hide iron.

[00:06:40] I'll tell you, if you take some flesh and you put a hot iron against that flesh,

[00:06:45] that flesh no longer has much sensitivity to anything.

[00:06:50] You have seared it.

[00:06:52] That is, you've killed the nerve endings so that they don't register as they once did.

[00:06:58] And it's possible, of course, to sear a conscience

[00:07:01] so that it no longer speaks against you when it should.

[00:07:04] It's possible to smash the red light and to destroy your motor more readily as a result.

[00:07:11] The conscience does not have, you see, a negative function in our lives.

[00:07:16] It has a very positive warning function.

[00:07:20] But the conscience cannot be our guide.

[00:07:22] Our guide is the Word of God,

[00:07:24] and our conscience must be informed by the Word of God.

[00:07:28] A conscience can be a weak conscience that is not informed properly by the Word of God.

[00:07:34] Or we can have a bad conscience that simply does not,

[00:07:38] has not dealt with because we have not dealt with the problem in our lives.

[00:07:44] Or we can have a good conscience which gives us rest and peace.

[00:07:48] The Bible speaks all about three kinds of consciences.

[00:07:52] That is what your conscience is all about.

[00:07:55] And so, the next time your conscience begins to work on you,

[00:08:00] because remember your conscience is this ability that you have to make a self-judgment,

[00:08:05] and after having made the self-judgment, this conscience pronounces you guilty.

[00:08:11] And then it triggers all sorts of unpleasant feelings in your body

[00:08:14] so that you begin to recognize that something is wrong.

[00:08:18] Do not try to stop those feelings.

[00:08:20] Don't try to put an end to the conscience and its function.

[00:08:23] But instead, thank God for that conscience and go to work under the hood.

[00:08:28] See what's wrong in your life.

[00:08:30] See what you've been thinking wrong or planning wrong.

[00:08:33] Maybe it's not something you've done yet.

[00:08:35] It's something you're thinking of doing.

[00:08:37] Or maybe it's something that you have done that you haven't dealt with yet before God and others.

[00:08:42] But whatever it is,

[00:08:44] thank God for your conscience and heed it whenever it speaks to you.

[00:08:50] Lord, we are truly thankful that you have built this severe and serious and important warning device into us.

[00:08:56] May we not disregard it, but may we pay strict attention to it

[00:09:00] and deal with our lives according to your word.

[00:09:03] For Christ's sake, amen.

[00:09:06] I hope this episode of The Conscience helps to clarify any issues that you may have come across

[00:09:13] or somebody that you have been speaking to and trying to help that's having a problem with their conscience.

[00:09:18] Help them to see life from God's point of view.

[00:09:21] And thanks for listening.

[00:09:23] Make it a blessing.

[00:09:24] Thank you.