conscience

[phareztamar]

Chapter One
Conscience
Every word of God is pure
Spoken by Agur the son of Jakeh
When he spoke to Ithiel and Ucal

Deep in the Amazon rain forest a remote tribe noisily gathers to stone a fellow tribesman to death. This vile man had brutally raped and murdered the only teenaged daughter of his neighbor. The skies come alive with birds fleeing the riotous chanting and screaming, as they madly stone the scoundrel to death.

But the thing is; our crude, primitive tribe has no bible. In fact, they’ve never even heard of the bible. Nor have they enacted any formal tribal laws. Yet, these wild tribesmen knew, passionately, that destroying this innocent flower of youth was horribly wrong. Where does this core sense of right and wrong come from?

Or take the young lad on a shopping trip with mama. Eventually he slips away from the shopping cart, just long enough to stuff a candybar in his coat pocket. At only five years old the little scamp is much too young to comprehend that it’s against the law. His parents haven’t even taught him such things yet. So again, where is this thunder in his five year old chest coming from?

In varying degrees you yourself have sensed, and been guided by, this fabric of our hearts. Through crises, gray areas, circumstance and choices, a deep-rooted sense of right and wrong has ever been with you. The apostle Paul marveled at this enigma, leaving us an anointed word on the matter:

For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves: which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another.

So what if the clerk gave me back a dollar too much in change. They’re a big grocery chain. They’ll never miss a dollar. Some will even throw God in there with: “It’s a blessing from the Lord!” Here is a tiny example of that mind battle when your thoughts are excusing you. Conscience softly whispers it’s wrong not to give the dollar back. This conscience-sermon is a direct function of your spirit. But the soul, using the mind, quickly rationalizes away this silent sermon. At the end of the day; your thoughts will briefly visit the gentle accusations of your guilty conscience, until at last your thoughts will excuse you.

At the foundation level of all humanity…from all time…rests this bedrock sense of right and wrong. This law of God is etched upon our innermost being. One can find its tentacles throughout the formation of man’s laws, governments, and judicial systems. Search any civil law, common law, royal law, state and federal law, canon law, and even primitive tribal law. Despite their many differences, in each of them murder and mayhem are wrong, adultery, lying and stealing are wrong. Cheating and grifting are wrong. They all share this common link in the law of God written upon every man’s heart. And it is from that hidden law that conscience selects her sermons as we encounter life’s crossroads. I dare say that from criminal to pastor, all do hear the sermons. But like a packed Sunday morning church service, the majority enjoy and ignore the sermon, and head straight to a restaurant.

Conscience knocks as a suggestion, not a mandate. And of course free will trumps conscience. One can clearly see in the unskilled reaction of a little child…blushing red with guilt…conscience in it’s purity. But as we grow that purity is bombarded by cultural tenets, societal norms, peer pressure, lust and pleasure, and any number of distractions. These begin to numb the conscience and muffle her silent sermons. Without the baptism of the Holy Ghost conscience fights a losing battle against the soul and the flesh. Finally the conscience is seared. Much like a jar of fleas. They will jump, jump, jump, continually smashing into the lid. But at length they learn the height of the lid, and refrain from jumping that high. Though they are still jump, jump, jumping in the jar, you can remove the lid now, and they won’t jump out.

Consider society a scant seven hundred years ago. Ninety percent of the population were peasants, barely eating dinner. Fifty percent of all children died in their first year. Those who made it didn’t go on to youth baseball or soccer or basketball. They began hard physical work at the age of twelve. Most houses were one-room hovels with earthen floors, and often shared with livestock. Today’s job market…your career, my career, nearly everyone’s career…simply didn’t exist. There was no such thing as insurance for the general public. If you had a medical emergency, you were probably going to die. The sporadic and archaic medical help available was slim to none. If you had a dental emergency, your prospects were even bleaker. No life insurance, no social security or Medicare for the elderly. You work until you can’t or you die, whichever comes first. Commutes to and from work didn’t exist. Laundry, personal hygiene, and daily diets were on a whole different planet from today. Literacy was extremely rare, and the printed bible even rarer and much more sacred. Home farming was a must for food and sparse income, and not a hobby in the back yard.

In this un-industrialized environment the law of God written upon man’s heart was so much clearer, more acute, and much less cluttered. Modesty and decorum still prevailed. Sin was still unquestionably sin. The utterly lewd madness on our landscape today was unimagined back then. For all of it’s comforts, progress has been a most violent assault on conscience.

Conscience was a noble and godly guide for society until about two hundred years ago. Even governments and nations adopted ethics and principles of conduct based on the law of God written upon men’s hearts. But this holy influence went completely off the rails when we decided as a race we know better than God what is right, and what is wrong. The bloodiest casualty has been the moral law of God’s word…the library from whence conscience preaches. Look around you. Google the world, nation by nation. In every land the populace has completely changed what is morally right, and what is morally wrong. Trying desperately to amend the clear word of God…the clear voice of conscience…that they might indulge their lusts.

Compound this global evil with the zombie state of the iphone-selfie generation, and the results are what you see around you. The time-out generation has reached fruition, and the violence and debauchery will only get worse until Jesus returns. No regard for law and order or propriety or authority, or even human life. No boundaries, no consequences, and no biblical guidance.

You see, it actually was a blessing from the Lord. Not the extra dollar that the clerk gave back, but the wonderful opportunity to display to the clerk, to the line waiting behind you, and to yourself, a Christ-like integrity by giving the dollar back.