This following sermon from David Dykes is part of his series entitled "No,
that's NOT in the Bible" and centers around the cliché "let your
conscience
be your guide." Personally I never even remotely thought this came from
the
Bible but apparently some do mistakenly believe it did. I knew it came
from
a Disney movie many years ago but David Dykes points out that the phrase
is
much older than that which is something I did not know.
Anyway, David Dykes shows that we do have a conscience which God gave us
but
is not a reliable guide since it can be made defective via sin. However
with
God as our guide, we are led along a proper and holy path.
May God bless,
Carl
my website -- http://www.nettally.com/saints/
my blog -- http://www.anniemayhem.com/cgi-bin/wordpress/
---
Let Your Conscience Be Your Guide
by David O. Dykes
Titus 1:15-16
15 To the pure, all things are pure, but to those who are corrupted and do
not believe, nothing is pure. In fact, both their minds and consciences
are
corrupted. 16 They claim to know God, but by their actions they deny him.
They are detestable, disobedient and unfit for doing anything good.
This is the penultimate message in this series on spurious Bible verses.
Next week, we'll consider the final adage, "To Thine Own Self Be True." I
encourage you to investigate this week and see if you can find the true
source of that saying.
A helicopter pilot flying over Seattle got lost in the dense fog. The
pilot
emerged from the fog and had no idea where he was. He saw a tall building
nearby with people working, so he hovered the helicopter near one of the
windows and held up a sign asking "Where am I?" One of the workers wrote a
response and held up a sign that said, "You are in a helicopter." The
pilot
nodded his thanks and flew straight to the airport. One of the passengers
was curious and asked, "How could that sign 'you are in a helicopter' help
you know where you were?" The pilot said, "Simple. The answer that guy
gave
me was technically correct, but completely useless, so I figured that must
be the Microsoft Customer Relations Building, so I knew where I was!"
Many Americans are circling around in a moral fog, with no idea which
direction to go. Most of the moral advice you find in magazines or hear on
talk-shows only creates more confusion. How can you know right from wrong?
How about this advice: "Let your conscience be your guide." No, that's NOT
in the Bible. Do you know the original source the saying? Most people
think
it comes from the 1940 Disney movie "Pinocchio." In it, Jiminy Cricket
sang
a song to Pinocchio in which he said, "Take the strait and narrow path;
and
if you start to slide-give a little whistle, give a little whistle and
always let your conscience be your guide."
That's where many of us heard it first, but that saying had been around a
long time when Jiminy Cricket sang it in 1940. Actually, it originated as
an
Islamic saying 1,300 years ago. Caliph Umar Ibn Al-khattab was the father
of
one of Mohammed's wives and was the third Muslim Caliph. After conquering
Jerusalem he was returning to Medina and he prayed and gave a message at
Jabiah. One of the things Al-Khattab said was: "And speak the truth. Do
not
hesitate to say what you consider to be the truth. Say what you feel. Let
your conscience be your guide."
Can you let your conscience be your guide? Yes and no. Yes, when you are
very young, you should pay attention to your conscience, but as you grow
older, we're going to see that it is actually a very dangerous thing to
let
your conscience be your guide. Consider three important spiritual
principles
concerning conscience:
1. YOUR CONSCIENCE WAS FORMED BY GOD
Each person is born with a conscience. It's like a candle burning in the
inner depths of your heart telling you the difference between right and
wrong. Your conscience is described as a candle or lamp in Proverbs 20:27.
The Bible says, "The spirit of a man is the lamp of the Lord, searching
all
the inner depths of his heart." This moral searchlight is given by God to
every person on the planet. Almost all societies have rules against
killing
and stealing. Where did they get that idea? It came from our God-given
conscience.
Our English word "conscience" comes from two Latin words, con, which means
"with" and science which means "to know." The New Testament word is
suneidesis which means "to know together." Both words have the idea of
"knowing with ourselves" or "knowing within ourselves." When it comes to
moral decisions, it means to "understand internally."
When Adam and Eve sinned, they felt guilty about what they had done. They
suddenly realized they were naked, and the first thing they wanted to do
was
to cover their nakedness. How did they know that? Their consciences were
operating. Not only did they try to hide their nakedness, when God came to
talk with them, they tried to hide from God. Why? Because their conscience
made them feel guilty. In Genesis 4, Cain was so angry at his brother Abel
that he killed him. Although this was long before the Ten Commandments
ever
stated, "You shall not murder," Cain knew instinctively what he had done
was
wrong. Your conscience is to your soul what your nerves are to your body.
When your finger touches something hot, the nerves send a warning message
to
the brain: THAT'S HOT! REMOVE THE FINGER! The brain sends a message to the
muscles in the arm to withdraw the finger. Past experiences also allow us
warn others. Because parents know that fire can burn, they can say,
"Children, stay away from the fire or you'll get burned."
The same is true of the conscience. Your conscience is like a warning
light
telling you what you are contemplating doing is wrong-and if you do it,
your
conscience says, "See I told you not to do that."
Even secular experts recognize the existence of a human conscience. Dr.
Marvin W. Berkowitz, an expert on moral development writes: "Kids have an
internal conscience. It starts developing in the first few years of life
and
really kicks into high gear around 3 or 4 years of age. Our consciences
tell
us when we are about to violate (or have violated) our moral code. You can
see this even in pre-schoolers who cry at their own selfishness and who
try
to soothe those they have hurt." (Sanford N. McDonnell Professor of
Character Education; University of Missouri-St. Louis)
Even without being taught a moral law, people are born with a sense of
what
is right and wrong. The Bible teaches that God provided two solid proofs
that point to His existence. The first is an external witness-creation.
When
you understand the amazing complexity and order of the Universe in which
we
live, you are driven to admit there is a higher intelligence that designed
all this and created it.
The other witness to the existence of God is an internal
witness-conscience.
The fact that we are born with this moral equipment called conscience
should
prove there is Someone who determines the rightness and wrongness of
actions. You don't have to read a written law to know that stealing,
killing, and lying are wrong; that's something everyone instinctively
knows.
Romans 2:14-15 says, "Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do
by
nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even
though they do not have the law, since they show that the requirements of
the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing
witness,
and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them."
Just as a compass points to magnetic north, we are born with a moral
conscience that points to right and wrong. Your conscience doesn't make
you
do right, or wrong, it just lets you know when you are about to do wrong,
and it makes you suffer when you have done wrong. Conscience is like the
yellow line on a two lane highway. When there is a yellow line, you know
that it's not safe to pass the car in front of you. The yellow line
doesn't
keep you from passing that car; it just tells you that you shouldn't.
2. YOUR CONSCIENCE CAN BE DEFORMED BY SIN
When a person continually ignores the dictates of his conscience, the
conscience can become faulty. You can take a perfectly good compass that
is
pointing north, and you can hold a magnet next to the compass, and the
needle will rotate and no longer be a reliable guide. The same thing
happens
to your conscience when you expose it to repeated sin-it no longer is
reliable guide. Your conscience doesn't become ruined instantly, it
happens
gradually.
Step One: Moral guidance is distorted
The first thing that happens is your sense of right and wrong becomes
distorted. Your conscience is like a triangle that operates within your
soul. It has three sharp corners, and when you are considering doing
something wrong, the three corners stab you on the inside. However, every
time you ignore or deny your conscience it's like filing down the sharp
edges of that triangle. The next time you are confronted with the same
opportunity to do wrong, your conscience stabs you again, but this time
the
jab is not as sharp. Over time, as you continually resist the dictates of
your conscience the sharp edges are worn down until you seldom feel them.
Instead of being a triangle, it's as if your conscience has become a moral
beach ball bouncing around inside your soul.
The Bible says, "To those who are corrupted and do not believe, nothing is
pure. In fact, both their minds and consciences are corrupted. They claim
to
know God, but by their actions, they deny him." (Titus 1:15-16)
Have you ever told a lie? The first time you told a lie, you felt badly
about it. But the next time you told it, the lie came a little easier. We
have all known people who were so good at lying, they could look you right
in the eye and lie without any sign of moral compunction or remorse. They
have convinced themselves that telling a little lie is actually not so
bad.
In 2001, George O'Leary was hired as head football coach for Notre Dame,
the
job he had always dreamed about having. Five days later, he was fired when
it was discovered he lied about his background. He claimed to have
received
a Masters degree and to have lettered in football three years at New
Hampshire. He had neither. Early in his coaching career he fabricated
these
lies and as the years passed he found it easier and easier to repeat the
claims, until someone at Notre Dame checked!
Step Two: Moral guidance is deadened
The reason you can't just let your conscience be your guide is because not
only can your conscience become distorted and dull, it can actually become
deadened. A person can commit sin so often over a period of time, his
conscience can basically die. The Bible makes this possibility clear in I
Timothy 4:1-2, "The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will
abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by
demons.
Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have
been
seared (Greek: kauteriazo) as with a hot iron."
When I was teenager, I had a friend who suffered a terrible burn on his
arm
as a child. There was a terrible scar there, and he used to brag about how
tough he was by sticking the end of his pocketknife into the scar, or even
putting a lit cigarette against it without burning. Of course, he could do
that because all the nerve endings were cauterized-burned. He didn't have
any sensitivity there. The Bible says the same thing can happen to a
person
morally. Someone can ignore their conscience so long until it becomes
completely desensitized to conviction. That's a terrible place to be.
Someone once said the worst sin is consciousness of no sin!
You wonder how the Nazi prison guards could participate in the wholesale
slaughter of Jewish prisoners during WWII? Their consciences had become so
deadened some of them thought they were doing the world a favor by killing
Jews.
You wonder how a serial killer like Ted Bundy could smile and carry on a
life that seemed outwardly normal when he brutally killed at least 36
women?
Psychiatrists have a term for them: psychopaths. Basically, their moral
restraint has disappeared. Their consciences have been seared with a hot
iron. Sigmund Freud described this as "an iron curtain that is constructed
between the ego and the id...and 'repression' is said to be in force.
Neurosis occurs when the id breaks through the wall and overwhelms the
ego."
(John Drakeford, Integrity Therapy, p. 29)
But you don't have to be a criminal psychopath to have your conscience
deadened. I've known men who claimed to be Christians who could carry on
an
adulterous relationship and say they didn't feel any guilt about it. Some
people have cheated on their income tax for so long they have convinced
themselves there is nothing wrong with it. The main reason you should
never
live by your feelings is because, like your conscience, your feelings can
be
dead wrong.
3. YOUR CONSCIENCE MUST BE TRANSFORMED BY JESUS
If you could spend your entire life listening to and obeying your
God-given
conscience, you could live a perfect life.
But the Bible says we have ALL sinned and we fall short of the glory of
God.
Have you ever told a lie? Have you ever cheated or stolen? Have you ever
deliberately hurt someone? That's why all of us end up with a messed-up
conscience.
Samuel Langhorne Clemens was best known by his pen-name, Mark Twain. He
struggled personally with his own guilty conscience, and he addressed the
topic in many of his writings. He wrote: "An uneasy conscience is a hair
in
the mouth. I would trade mine for the small-pox and seven kinds of
consumption, and be glad of the chance." (Samuel Clemens, Notebook, 1904)
In
the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, this struggle with conscience was
expressed by Huck: "If I had a yaller dog that didn't know no more than a
person's conscience does I would pison him. It takes up more room than all
the rest of a person's insides, and yet ain't no good, nohow." (The
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, chapter 33) Notice he said the conscience
"takes up more room that all the rest of a person's insides." When you
have
a guilty conscience, it seems as if it is hard to ignore, but that's a
good
sign. It shows your conscience hasn't been completely deadened.
What do you do when you have a guilty conscience? The Bible answers that
question in Hebrews
10:22: "Let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of
faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty
conscience."
The Bible teaches a guilty conscience is a dirty conscience. It's like
moral
filth that you allow to accumulate that pollutes your soul. And when your
conscience becomes dirty, it affects the way you look at others. Once
there
was an old woman who sat in her home and watched her neighbors with a
critical eye. She commented to her family who visited that her neighbor's
car was always dirty. She complained that the neighbor's children wore
dirty
clothes, and that the neighbor's house was so dirty it needed a new coat
of
paint. One day she was repeating her criticism to her daughter of how
dirty
her neighbors were. The daughter got up and walked over to her mother's
window and discovered the window itself was filthy. When she cleaned one
of
the windows for her mother, it was clear the neighbor's house, car, and
clothes were clean-the problem was her mother's dirty windows. That's what
a
dirty conscience can do; it not only affects the way we look at ourselves,
it affects the way we look at others. Jesus can do two important things
for
a deformed, dirty conscience:
(1) Your conscience must be cleansed by His blood
When people have a guilty conscience they do all kinds of things to get
rid
of their guilt. In certain areas around the world people crawl on their
hands and knees up steep mountains to reach a church or altar. They think
these painful acts of penitence will absolve them of their guilt. Other
people throw themselves into religious activity trying to get rid of their
guilt. But the Bible teaches that there is only one thing that can clean a
dirty conscience-the Blood of Jesus Christ. The Bible says, "How much
more,
then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered
himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to
death, so that we may serve the living God. (Hebrews 9:14)
In Hebrews 9, the writer emphasizes that the blood of all the goats and
bulls sacrificed over the years was not able to forgive a guilty
conscience.
But when Jesus, the perfect Lamb of God died on the cross, His blood alone
can cleanse our dirty consciences. The reason we need a clean conscience
is
because we are all guilty of acts that lead to death, not merely physical
death, but eternal separation from God. Salvation consists of coming to
God
and admitting you are guilty, you have a dirty conscience. It is asking
God
to cleanse you of your sinfulness. It is accepting by faith that you have
been cleansed by His blood.
We all need to ask ourselves the question posed by the hymn writer Elisha
Hoffman: "Have you been to Jesus for the cleansing power? Are you washed
in
the blood of the Lamb? Are you fully trusting in His grace this hour? Are
you washed in the blood of the Lamb? Are you washed in the blood? In the
soul-cleansing blood of the Lamb? Are your garments spotless, are they
white
as snow? Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?"
(2) Your conscience must be corrected by His Word
I once read a story of man who worked in a small town factory. One of his
jobs was to blow the factory whistle every day at 7, 12 and 4. Every
morning
on the way to work, he stopped and set his pocket watch by a large clock
sitting in the window of a local jewelry store. Then he would know when to
blow the whistle. After doing this for years, he happened to visit the
jewelry store on the weekend. He asked the owner how the clock in the shop
window kept such perfect time. The owner said, "Oh, I set that clock every
day by the factory whistle."
Your conscience is like a clock: If you set it to the wrong time, it will
keep the wrong time, and it will be unreliable. But if you set it to the
right time, it should be dependable. When you become a Christian, you
"set"
your conscience to the Bible-Word of God. We read in II Timothy 3:16-17:
"All scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking,
correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be
thoroughly equipped for every good work." God's Word always points you to
Jesus and He becomes your standard for right and wrong.
When you become a follower of Jesus Christ, your determination of right
and
wrong is no longer dependent on your conscience because you know you can't
let your conscience be your guide. You don't decide what is right or wrong
by how you feel, because you have learned feelings can be unreliable. Your
standard for morality is NOT what the majority of other people think,
because most people think it's okay to tell a lie every now and then.
I've been flying airplanes since 1975, and every airplane has a magnetic
compass. You can't depend on the magnetic compass unless you are flying
straight and level because whenever you are climbing, descending, or
turning, the compass doesn't work properly. So every airplane has a
gyroscopic compass called a "directional gyro" or a DG for short. This
instrument is driven by a small gyroscope which maintains equilibrium even
when the airplane is turning or climbing. But the DG is not a real
compass,
it must be set to match the magnetic compass, and it has to be reset
frequently or it will not reflect the correct heading. Even so, as
followers
of Jesus, we must be constantly and continually recalibrating our
consciences to the Word of God.
CONCLUSION
The Bible will guide you into an understanding of what is right and wrong,
and it can also guide you into heaven. I recently read a true story about
a
teenage girl in Columbia who was given a Spanish New Testament. She read
the
New Testament until one day her father caught her reading it. and told her
not to read it any more because it was full of lies and fantasy. But the
girl kept on reading until one day her father came home unexpectedly found
her with the New Testament grabbed it from her hands and shoved it into
his
briefcase. The father went off to work where he was a mining engineer.
Several hours later there was a muffled explosion then the sound of
sirens.
There had been a cave-in at the mine. The father was trapped in the mine
along with 30 other workers. The rescue workers took 5 days to finally
reach
the men, but it was too late. All 31 men died including the father of this
little girl. Curiously, workers found the man clutching the New Testament
between his praying hands. When they opened the front cover they found a
note: "To my daughter Keep reading this New Testament, it is true and
right,
and I will see you one day in heaven." Then they turned to the back page
where the father had signed the commitment card after having said the
sinner's
prayer. But that was not the end of the story. Turning the page there were
signed the names of the other 30 workers. Let your conscience be your
guide?
Heaven forbid! Let God's Word illuminated by God's Spirit be your guide!
|
