My church has a column in a local newspaper. I was asked to write an article and here it is. Please pray that many are convicted.
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Jam 4:17 Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.
Have you ever known to do good and chose not to? What happened? Did you feel guilty? Of course you did. What did you do when you felt that guilt? Try to do some good deed to make up for it or try to harden the feeling is what most would do. That guilty feeling you have when you do something wrong or the warm feeling you get when you do something good is a response that every person has because God has given us what we call a conscience.
If you break the word conscience down it will help you find out what it means. The word con means with and science means knowledge. If you put those two words together you have with knowledge or conscience. You are with knowledge of right and wrong. Who told you it was wrong to steal? What about lying? Who told the man in the deepest darkest jungle that it was wrong for his wife to commit adultery? No one, each person is born with this knowledge.
It is very interesting that what our conscience agrees with and lines up perfectly with, unless we have hardened it, is Gods standard. Our conscience will firmly agree that lying, stealing, adultery, and that dishonoring our parents is wrong. (If you didnt notice those are a few of the Ten Commandments.) It is true that no man has to be taught morality or immorality, but man has the choice. Even small children feel guilty when they do something wrong.
The conscience demands justice. When you hear of a man brutally raping and murdering a little girl your conscience rises up and you demand justice to be served. You know that that man should not be let free to roam the streets. If it were up to you, you would punish that man with the exact measure of pain, suffering and torment he measured to that little girl, right? Let us remember that God is just. There will not be any cases dismissed or lack of evidence in the Courtroom of God. Nothing slips by from that All-Seeing Eye.
We are completely without excuse before God. No one can honestly say, I didnt know it was wrong to
No, not you or I can say that. Like our conscience, God, knows right from wrong and demands that right be done. God demands justice. If God is good then He must do the right thing. He cannot let murders, rapists, or even liars go (See Rev. 21:8). If you listen to your conscience it will scream, guilty, guilty! Rebellion is a horrible thing. When we rebel against what we know is right we rebel against many things. Here are a few: our conscience, God, Gods Word, our own standard (the Golden Rule), and societys standard.
There is really only two options to deal with this guilt of conscience. You can both harden you conscience and ignore that God has given you knowledge of right and wrong or you can cling to Jesus and accept that He paid your punishment on the Cross. When you do that, God gives you a clean conscience, washed by the Blood of Christ.
If you feel the slightest tug at your conscience please remember that it is God giving you a warning that you will be judged upon that thing you knew was wrong. Good deeds do not cover up bad deeds, but only repentance and the Blood of Christ does. God is not willing that any should perish, and neither am I. This is my prime motivation in writing this. That is that you would listen to the scream of your conscience and choose what you know is right. Thank you for taking the time to read this.
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Josh Parsley
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