The Conscience Pt. 1

Romans 2:13-16 “For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified. For 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, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.”

What is the conscience?

first off - it’s not the voice of God.

“well duh, we know that...”

well, maybe we do.... maybe not...

let me ask the question this way - what do we mean when we say “I’m convicted...” MOST OF THE TIME we mean we FEEL something - right?

and then we assume that feeling is the conviction of the Holy Spirit, don’t we?

but if we aren’t careful... We’ve let a feeling, an emotion, become our primary guide.

I’d submit, that FEELING isn’t the Holy Spirit - well not most of the time anyway - but INSTEAD it’s your conscience.

you see, the conscience is a tool

God can use it - the Spirit can use it - but Satan can use it too… as well as the flesh.

in other words - your conscience can point you in the wrong direction.

How do I know this? Well, the Bible tells us.

Romans 1:24 “Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves,”

Proverbs 30:20 “This is the way of an adulteress: she eats and wipes her mouth and says, “I have done no wrong.””

John 3:19 “And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.”

AND THE WORLD AROUND US TODAY is under a massive ploy to retrain our consciences en masse.

EXAMPLE - Homosexuality in the 1940s was illegal in many western countries.

In the 60s-70s it began to be embraced by the younger generations - then became something to laugh at on television in 70s-90s

Then a shift to a minority group that needed protection in the early 2000s - and today homosexuality in the west must be celebrated or you will feel the consequences.

you see - that’s conscience training, through media, pop culture, entertainment.

MOVEMENTS that encourage you to “be quiet, don’t speak, only listen” why? so that your conscience may be trained to new standards.

a quote from a former Christian who has since apostacized: “I felt the prodding of the Spirit to hold space, ask questions, and listen to my friends in this community.”

what’s happening in that moment? - the conscience is being trained. And the individual is willfully allowing it to be.

and they were prompted by a … feeling - by their conscience.

we must be aware here. our feelings - can lead us astray quickly. If we are solely relying on how we feel, we are in danger.

but as Christians what do we do?

2 Cor 10:5 ...take every thought captive to obey Christ,”

and who is Christ? THE WORD made flesh.

you see the discipline required for this work… it’s very great.

Imagine a world where what you see every day selected by someone who wants to shape society in a certain direction.

Well, you live in that world. And we are being shaped by it, and the consciences of your children are the goal.

THERE IS A DIFFERENCE between the conviction of the Holy Spirit and the pricking of your conscience.

IT’S NOT THE SAME THING

HOLY SPIRIT - Ps 32:3-4 “For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. Selah”

CONSCIENCE - “I feel...”

we have to stop saying “I’m convicted” when what’s actually happening is our conscience is being pricked - Your conscience is only reliable insofar as you have trained it according to the scriptures.

“the heart is deceitful...”

but yet we walk around trusting our feelings...

and you can see how this would cause issues for the church in our feelings-based societies.

“well I just didn’t get a lot out of that church service” - meaning - I didn’t feel a certain way by the time it was completed.

my conscience wasn’t pricked, my emotions weren’t stirred, “I just wasn’t feeling it....” etc.

If the word is being taught and we aren’t “feeling it” then our conscience is broken, and we need to fix it. RETRAIN IT

Some consciences are troubled when they shouldn’t be.

some are not troubled when they should be.

the conscience is trainable - and should be trained.

EDUCATE the conscience. how? Scripture.

TOO OFTEN churches no longer educate the conscience.

we maintain membership - maintain budgets - strive for wordly gain/reputation - and feel the pressure to no longer proclaim all the words of God.

as a result - we have churches full of conflicting consciences, conflicting convictions.

we operate based on how we FEEL rather than what is true.

little kids are a great illlustration of this.

ill: a five year old who gasps audibly when someone says “shut up!”

but later walks over to their sibling, yanks the toy out of their hands and slaps them in the face.

then looks at you bewildered when they are corrected!

SO! you’ve got a conscience - that’s a good thing! - as long as you remember something important - that it is TRAINABLE

HOW DO WE TRAIN?

Bible - LOTS of Bible.

Prayer - LOTS OF PRAYER

WE MAKE SUNDAYS A NON-NEGOTIABLE

WISE Christian friends - not just “Christian” friends

if you’re young in the faith - and you’re spending all your time with folks who are also young in the faith - well.

you need spiritual fathers & mothers - older men and women who have proven themselves faithful - their houses are in order, they’ve got kids and their kids are obedient, they have good reputations with the leadership of the church.

and watch out - you’ve gotta humble yourself to be able to do this. pride gets in the way of many trying to humble themselves this way.

When we feel a certain way we bring the scriptures to bear on it - we loop in our pastors - we speak to MATURE Christian friends.

We study like bereans - searching the scriptures - thinking and reasoning through our “feelings” and adjusting them when needed.

for some this is gonna be tricky - the tail has wagged the dog for quite some time and you’re not certain how to get out.

and if you couple that with mood altering drugs (prescribed or otherwise) it’s going to be even tougher.

BUT I FEEL THIS WAY - but it’s not what the Bible says - BUT I FEEL THIS WAY!!!

it will be a muscle that you will need to work out.

ill: You don’t get swole in a day at the gym. Takes years of commitment and work.

So - lets get super practical.

the next time you “feel” a certain way about something...

you pull out your Bible - you go to the concordance - you pull up the Christ Church sermon archives (YOU DON’T JUST GOOGLE IT!) - you call your MATURE Christian spiritual fathers/mothers

and you do the work. Keep in mind, just one small topic might take weeks.

you read and study, then you think and reason, then finally you UNDERSTAND it Biblically, HOORAY

BUT NOW you’ve gotta do the work of retraining your conscience.

“no, that’s not what the WORD says, that’s not what Jesus says, Jesus says THIS”

then you confess, you repent, and you repeat.

you see? not light work.

and in our culture we’re moving against the grain.

And when you get it, and you see progress, you CELEBRATE

The Lord is freeing you and redeeming you. He’s cut away one more bond of slavery that you had, and now you can rest in his Word and his Gospel even more freely than you did before.

And let me give you a vision of why this matters and where we’re going.

Imagine … five years , ten years , 20 years from now. Your children, your grandchildren, they don’t have all the same hangups you do.

they walk in the freedom of obedience to Jesus’ words, and confidently so, because they know what it says, and they’ve had a conscience properly trained.

why? because you started doing the work today.

now we’ve got families who are no longer blown to and fro by every wind of doctrine from the culture around us, but we can stand confidently on the truths of the scripture.

we know what the Bible says, and how to live it, and our consciences stand aligned with the truth.

why does this matter?

because now we can’t be shaken.

it takes COURAGE to fight - CONVICTION

we fear the lord, and not men, we don’t worry what the world thinks of us, and we can fight the wars the Lord gives to us with confidence.

Let’s fight the good fight of faith, in the little things, today.

so that tat the end of our days we can turn back, and see the glorious work that the Lord has done.