01.05C. Deadening the Voice of Conscience

Deadening the Voice of Conscience Mr. Nathaniel Heywood, a Nonconformist minister, was resigning as minister to a particular congregation due to some doctrinal differences. A poor member came to him and said, “Ah! Mr. Heywood, we would gladly have you preach still in the Church.”

“Yes,” he said, “and I would as gladly preach as you can desire it, if I could do it with a safe conscience.” “O! Sir,” replied the member, “many a man nowadays makes a great gash in his conscience; cannot you make a little nick in yours?” However, Mr. Heywood was convinced that “Happy is he who does not condemn himself in what he does” (Romans 14:22 b).

Conscience, as Solomon tells us, is the candle of God searching the very inside of man (Proverbs 20:27). When a natural man, or a Christian, dethrones conscience by habitual disobedience, she does not abdicate her position. Whenever she gets a chance, she reasserts her claim. Even as a sinner wallows in vice like a swine in the mire, the voice of conscience frequently continues to convict of guilt and warn of judgment. Naturally, such a voice is an unpleasant interruption to the soul desiring the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the vainglory of life. In order to avoid the distress and self-accusation from conscience, man’s mental faculties instinctively seek to deaden her voice. At the beginning of the revolt, conscience fights vigorously for her throne in the soul, but after continually losing the battle, she gradually withdraws and leaves the soul in a state of unrest and confusion which may cause a nervous breakdown, or even worse, drive a person insane (“Now it came about on the next day that an evil spirit from God came mightily upon Saul, and he raved in the midst of the house . . . and a spear was in Saul’s hand. And Saul hurled the spear for he thought, ‘I will pin David to the wall’” 1 Samuel 18:10-11) or to commit suicide (“Then when Judas, who had betrayed Him, saw that He had been condemned, he felt remorse . . . saying ‘I have sinned by betraying the innocent blood . . . and he went away and hanged himself” Matthew 27:3-5). Conscience caused

Herod to turn pale, thinking Christ was a resurrected John the Baptist; (Gaius) Julius Caesar to suffer from lack of sleep; and Felix to tremble at Paul’s preaching.

Moreover, repeated failure to heed the voice of conscience may cause physical illness.

Years ago Dr. Lin held a series of meetings in a church. For several nights in succession, he noticed a family attend the services bringing one of their daughters, a girl about 18-20 years old, on a mat. The family placed her in the open area between the first row of pews and the pulpit where she would lie fully prone. When Dr. Lin inquired about the situation he was told that suddenly and quite mysteriously the young lady had become paralyzed, no longer able to walk or stand. After asking if he might talk to her, Dr. Lin met privately with the girl. Following some discussion, she revealed that she absolutely hated her family. Dr. Lin reminded her that such an attitude is a terrible sin before God and should be immediately confessed in order to receive forgiveness and cleansing. When the young 60 lady did so, a wonderful thing happened! She was able to sit up, then to stand, and walked out to meet her rejoicing siblings and parents.52

She had become physically ill because the law of Christian love that God had made known to her conscience was in dreadful conflict with her attitude and emotions. It cannot be overemphasized that whatever is unconfessed is beyond the reach of healing. Further, you cannot confess to God what you will not admit to yourself. These painful consequences teach us to live up to the light that God has given to us in our conscience. John Calvin well said, “The torture of a bad conscience is the hell of a living soul!” The schemes of the soul to deaden conscience may be a follows: By abusing oneself with alcohol and drugs. Today some people drink for remedy and enjoyment, but most drunkards or drug abusers seek oblivion in order to hide from the normal function of their souls and thus deaden their conscience-“they drink and forget what is decreed, and pervert the right of all the afflicted” (Proverbs 31:5). Some years ago, crusaders against alcoholism gathered in Istanbul and sadly concluded that, with a very few exceptions, most nations of the world were faced with increasing numbers of alcoholics in their population. In France and the United States during a thirteen-year period, alcoholic addiction had increased 44%. Drug addition, too, became increasingly prevalent. Can we not say that such a rapid increase in alcoholism and drug addition is due to mankind’s increasing unrest and anxiety? By keeping oneself busy all the time. Some people concentrate so much on their business day and night that their souls have no time to heed their conscience’s warnings. Believe it or not, some people dare not rest. They use “too busy” as a magic wand to silence all the echoes of God’s voice within. If they should ever pause and allow their stubborn will to relax its guard, conscience would slip out, make her survey in the different chambers of the soul and remind them of the events in their past and of the catalogue of their sins. The result of this would be thoughts whistling to fear, fear calling to horror, horror beckoning to despair, and saying, “Come, let us torment this sinner!” This may be one of the reasons why devils keep themselves busy since they have no other way to reduce their trembling. No wonder life in the last days is more rushed than ever before (“But as for you Daniel, conceal these words and seal up the book until the end of time; many will go back and forth . . .” Daniel 12:4). By taking a logical instead of a moral stand. Men have been seeking logical grounds to excuse themselves for doing evil ever since Adam and Eve were created. To do away with the summons of conscience man uses a variety of ruses to create a logical alibi: complaining about circumstances, placing the blame on other people, hiding behind a superiority or inferiority complex, or excusing self as unable to do any differently. Here are some manifestations of such ruses:

Moses’ self-pity (“Then Moses answered and said, ‘What if they will not believe me, or listen to what I say? For they may say, “The LORD has not appeared to you” . . .

Please Lord, I have never been eloquent . . . for I am slow of speech and slow of tongue’” Exodus 4:1; Exodus 4:10) 61

King Saul’s disobedience (“And Saul said, ‘They have brought them from the Amalekites for the people spared the best of the sheep and oxen, to sacrifice them to the LORD your God; but the rest we have utterly destroyed’” 1 Samuel 15:15) The Pharisee’s Corban (“Moses said honor your father and mother . . . but you say, ‘If a man says to his father or mother, anything of mine you might have been helped by is Corban, [that is to say, given to God],’ you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or mother; thus invalidating the word of God . . .’” Mark 7:10-13)

Denominational prejudice among churches and Christians’ indifference to the lost souls at home and abroad-all sprout from the same ground.

One who wants to puff up his denominational superiority or to avoid his share in missionary work may give hundreds of reasons to support his position, but morally, “Is Christ divided?” (1 Corinthians 1:13) and “You shall be My witnesses” (Acts 1:8) destroy all these so-called logical reasons. Excuses keep us immature and underdeveloped in both our conscience and spiritual walk. Thus we remain “men of flesh . . . babes in Christ” instead of growing up to become “spiritual men,” as God desires (1 Corinthians 3:1). By standing on good deeds. Using merit to bribe conscience is very common among moral or religious individuals. David’s desire to build God’s temple, one of Jesus’ disciples asking leave to bury his father, monastic life in the Middle Ages, and even those famous robbers in ancient China who used the motto “Carrying out the decree of Heaven-taking from the rich to help the poor” were all attempts to do good to appease conscience. Protestant’s church membership, Roman Catholic’s rosary and confession before the priests, Hindus’ bathing in the Ganges, Muslims’ “Allah is God and Mohammed is his prophet,” Buddhists’ “Nah-mo-o-mi-do-fu,” have all been used as instruments to deaden the voice of conscience. By inventing cultic and heretical doctrines. From the very beginning man has disliked God’s authority and this is probably the reason for the development of many cults. In order to separate conscience from her authority-God, some people deny the existence of God, others idealize Jesus’ teaching concerning heaven and hell, and yet others simply ignore the reality of sin and the authority of the Bible. Mrs. Eddy’s “man is incapable of sin,” Spiritualists’ “man never had a fall,” Jehovah Witnesses’ “second chance for everlasting life in the Millennium,” Mormons’ “the necessity of Adam’s sin,” are all used for more or less the same purpose: to hush the voice of conscience. What a pity! A seared conscience does not mean that the consciousness of sin is gone. On the contrary, there will ever be a certain fearful expectation of judgment unconsciously present in the mind until the sinner has found the truth of forgiveness: “If we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a certain terrifying expectation of judgment” (Hebrews 10:26-27). This expectation of judgment causes those with a bad conscience to be “like the tossing sea, for it cannot be quiet, and its waters toss up refuse and mud. ‘There is no peace,’ says my God, ‘for the wicked’” (Isaiah 57:19-20). 62