Let your conscience be your guide?

OPEN: This is the final week of our series: “Stupid things even Christians believe. This week we’re focusing on an old piece of advice:

Summary: To say we should let our conscience be our guide seems so reasonable. It almost makes sense. But God never said we should do that. Instead He said we should seek to have a clear conscience. How can we accomplish this?

“Let your conscience be your guide.”

Have you ever heard that said?

Of course, we all have.

At the core of this proverb is the idea that our consciences will never be wrong.

The problem is – that’s not always so.

To help illustrate me lay the groundwork for this sermon, I’d like to play a clip from Mark Lowry describing a movie he saw about Jesus when he was four.

tells us “when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while THEIR CONSCIENCE ALSO BEARS WITNESS...” (ESV)

God created the conscience to be our inner voice.

And everybody’s got one.

Even those who are pagans, who don’t believe in God, have a conscience.

Everybody is guided by a force within them that helps decide right and wrong.

Everybody has that voice inside them that convicts them of guilt and shame when they've done things they shouldn't.

It’s like an inner GPS.

It helps you know where you are AND where you should be going.

But like GPS units, your conscience can be fed the wrong information and you can end up going places you really don’t want to go.

You do realize that GPS can give you the wrong information don’t you?

ILLUS: A year or so ago, a 67-year old Belgian woman, followed her GPS directions and ended up going 800 miles in the wrong direction!

It happens! GPS units are dependent on the source of information they get.

And it also happens with our conscience.

Your conscience feeds on what you give to it.

It’s possible to program your conscience to accept things that you shouldn't.

It’s possible to program your conscience to steal and cheat and hurt and kill.

The Bible talks about this as “searing your conscience”.

And that happened on a large scale in the last century.

It happened with Nazi Germany.

Hitler said: “I freed Germany from the stupid and degrading fallacies of conscience and morality. …We will train young people before whom the world will tremble. I want young people capable of violence – imperious, relentless and cruel.”

(Can Man Live Without God by Ravi Zacharias, p. 23)

That’s one of the reasons Hitler worked so hard to undermine and destroy the church in Germany. As long as preachers preached Godly morals, the conscience of the people might be awakened, and the people turn against Hitler, undermining his evil.

The point is: Your conscience can be seared.

It can be warped.

It can be bent out of shape.

It all depends on who you listen to.

That’s why the very first Psalm in the book of Psalms says this:

“Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers.”

That verse is saying that we shouldn't hang around the wicked, the sinners, and the mockers.

Why? Because those kind of people can warp you.

They’ll bend your conscience out of shape.

You’ll begin to think like they do.

You’ll begin to talk like they do.

You’ll begin to act like they do.

And you’ll end up just as lost as they are.

All you have to do is watch those people long enough and you’ll see they’re off course

You just have to pay attention to how these people live their lives and how their choices affect their lives. If you pay attention long enough, you’ll see the results of their thinking.

You just have to pay attention.

Be careful who you listen to because the wrong people will take your life off course.

Pay attention to where these folks are going and ask yourself the question “Do I really want to end up where they’re going? Do I really want my life to turn out like theirs?

Now, you’d think religious people would be the best folks to hang around.

You’d think church folks would help me shape my conscience.

I mean, that’s why we come to church isn't it?

So, you’d think religious people would be the best influences?

But, it was the religious folk who whipped the crowd into calling for Jesus’ crucifixion.

It was the Pharisees and the priests and the Sanhedrin who were the ruling religious leaders of the day.

When Paul wrote Timothy, he warned him about “religious people”

He said some of those “religious people” had consciences that were seared.

“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 as with a hot iron. They forbid people to marry and order them to abstain from certain foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and who know the truth.”

In other words, there are people out there whose consciences are seared.

Don’t let your own understanding be the final say in your conscience

Don’t allow yourself to be taught by those who are not teaching from scripture

Now, think about this: if you want to shape and mold your conscience so you can trust it then doesn't it make sense to let the One who made your conscience… influence it?

Of course it does.

David said it this way: Oh, how I love your law! I meditate on it all day long. Your commands are always with me and make me wiser than my enemies. I have more insight than all my teachers, for I meditate on your statutes. I have more understanding than the elders, for I obey your precepts.

I have kept my feet from every evil path so that I might obey your word. I have not departed from your laws, for YOU YOURSELF HAVE TAUGHT ME.”

What’s David saying?

He’s was saying, that studying God’s word made him wiser than his enemies.

It gave him more understanding than his elders.

And it kept him from every evil path.

In other words: it molded his conscience.

It made it so that he could trust his “instincts” on what was right and wrong.

It made it so that he would become a man after God’s own heart.

David was basically saying… it’s all in who you listen to.

And you can’t get ANYBODY who’s as good to listen to as God Himself.

Now, that’s not to say that you shouldn't go to church, and listen to the sermon, and take communion, sing songs of praise, etc. etc.

What it is saying is this: if you’re not listening to God… all that’s worthless.

If you’re not listening to God, paying attention to God, focusing on God, looking for God… then church can become an empty exercise.

ILLUS: Years ago, when the telegraph was the main form of communication, a local telegraph office advertised for helpers. A number of young men came into the office and they were all told the same thing: Sit down and fill out this form… and wait to be summoned into the office.

After a fairly long period of time, one of the young men got up and went into the office.

The other boys were confused.

The employer hadn't come out to ask this man, or any other to come into his office.

They were even more confused when the boss came out and said the job had been taken.

One of them spoke up saying, “Wait a minute, I don’t understand. He was the last to come in, and we never even got a chance to be interviewed. Yet he got the job. That’s not fair.”

And the boss responded: “the last several minutes while you have been sitting here the telegraph has been ticking out the following messages in Morse Code:

‘If you understand this message, then come right in. The job is yours.’

None of you heard it or understood it. He did. The job is his.”

You have to listen to God.

You have to pay attention to God.

You have to focus on His message to you.

And what is that message?

Cleanse your conscience.

And how do you do that?

Hebrews says it this way: “the BLOOD OF CHRIST, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, (will) Cleanse Our Consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God!”

And just how do we have the blood of Christ cleanse our consciences?

tells us it’s when we’re buried in the waters of baptism.

CLOSE: A good conscience is a good thing. But a conscience that isn't influenced by God’s reasonings and thinkings can still fall short. Unless you and I are Christians, and unless we allow God’s thinking to affect our consciences, there will always be something missing.