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| Section: Basic Christian Living:
courses for new Christians |
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Beginning with God |
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6. The
Compass Within: |
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Conscience |
Romans
2:14-15
'When Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things
required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though
they do not have the law, since they show that the requirements
of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences
also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even
defending them.'
Red light flashing!
Everyone has a conscience.
It's an inner voice that 'bears witness' regarding your intentions
or behaviour. It signals whether you're doing right or wrong:
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If you head in the wrong direction
it will 'accuse' you, like a flashing red light proclaiming,
'Danger!' We call this a 'guilty conscience'.
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If you head in the right direction
it will 'defend' you, giving you the all clear. We call this
a 'clear conscience'.
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The
referee within
Colossians
3:15
'Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts.'
The word 'rule' here means
literally 'act as a referee'. In a football game, the
referee watches all the action and if he spots a foul or other
misdemeanour he'll blow his whistle and order the appropriate
action.
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You have a
referee inside you called 'the peace of Christ'—which is
a delightful way of describing the Christian conscience. If,
as you consider a course of action, Christ's peace remains in
your heart, you may go ahead. But if your inner peace feels disturbed
at the prospect, you are to take that as a warning whistle and
turn away from that course of action.
Can conscience
be trusted?
Usually, yes. It depends what
has been fed into your mind regarding what's right and what's
wrong.
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For example, suppose you find an old lady who
has fallen and lies crumpled on the pavement with a broken hip. Your
conscience will prompt you to help her by making her comfortable and calling
an ambulance. But a native of the Amazon jungle, finding an injured old
lady, might feel prompted to walk away and leave her to die. Why? Because he
believe the spirits of the jungle are angry and have punished her, and for
him to help her would be to upset them even further.
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| You, however, are now a Christian
and your conscience is daily becoming more 'accurate' as you read God's Word
and discover his will.
This means you'll now feel
unhappy about doing some things which, before you became a Christian,
you could do without even a twinge of conscience. This is a sign
of increasing spiritual maturity:
Hebrews
5:14
'…the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves
to distinguish good from evil.'
An over-sensitive
conscience
It's possible for a Christian's
conscience to become over-sensitive. In Paul's day, for
instance, the meat of cattle killed at the slaughter-house was
routinely dedicated to pagan gods. So what were Christians to
do if they were invited to a meal by non-Christians who served
up meat?
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Some said, 'I can't eat it,
because I follow Jesus and it would be wrong to compromise my
faith by eating meat offered to idols.'
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Others said, 'An idol is no
real god at all, so I'll have no problem in enjoying this meat.
The Lord knows I love him, and I'll eat it with thanksgiving
for his provision.'
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Which do you think is right? Paul deals with
this in 1 Corinthians 8. The first group, he says, have 'a weak conscience'.
They're over-sensitive, feeling guilty when they don't need to. It's like
the oil warning light on your car's dashboard coming on, not because the oil
is dangerously low but because of an electrical fault.
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| Paul then commends the attitude of the second
group, whose conscience in this matter is more robust because they have a
sounder view of the issues involved. But, he concludes, we must take our
fellow-Christians as we find them and must be careful not to trip them up if
their conscience is weaker than ours. Today, the
issues will be different ones, but the principle of love and
mutual consideration remains the same.
Educating
the conscience
Conscience needs to be constantly
educated from the Scriptures if it's to be a reliable
guide.
For example, suppose someone
in your church has had to be expelled from fellowship—there
has been some serious sin in their life and they have refused
to repent. How should you then treat that person? Paul deals
with such a situation in 1 Corinthians chapter 5.
Maybe your conscience will
prompt you to go and visit them, telephone them or invite them
round for a meal. You naturally want to encourage them back to
repentance and fellowship and this seems the best way to do it.
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But
the Scripture advocates the very opposite: we are not
to associate with them, not eat with them. We're to keep them at
arm's length, in fact, and refuse fellowship with them. Why? Because
expulsion from the fellowship is a 'handing over to Satan' of that person.
It's pushing them out from under the umbrella of warmth and fellowship into
the chill of Satan's territory outside.
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| God's purpose is that they begin to feel the
cold, remember how pleasant and cosy it was in the fellowship of God's
people, and thus be inclined to repent of their sin and be welcomed in again
(see 2 Corinthians 2:6-8). Showing them friendliness in the meantime defeats
that purpose. So you educate
your conscience in line with this and feel at peace keeping away
from the person.
Keeping your
conscience clear
It's vital that you keep your
conscience clear. Take this seriously, like Paul, who said:
Acts 24:16 'I strive always to keep my conscience clear before
God and man.'
If you don't you'll have constant
problems in your Christian life. You won't feel comfortable in
the Lord's presence or in prayer. You'll have difficulties telling
others about Jesus, because your guilty conscience will make
you feel like a hypocrite. And the Bible will lose its interest.
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If you set your alarm-clock at night but
regularly ignore it in the morning, it won't be long before you sleep right
through it. In the same way, if you ignore the warnings of conscience it
will soon stop issuing those warnings-then you'll be in major trouble. The
Bible calls this a conscience 'seared as with a hot iron' (1 Timothy 4:2).
It's like skin that has been burnt, leaving the nerve-endings destroyed and
insensitive. So how can you keep your conscience
clear?
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Keep short accounts
If you trip up and do wrong,
put it right immediately, both with God and with any person
involved. Don't delay and let matters pile up. Receive God's
forgiveness, and you'll be at peace again:
1 John
1:9
'If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive
us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.'
2. Do what's
right
If you failed to do something
you should have done, do it now. Or stop doing what you know
you ought not to be doing. Admitting your failure is good, but
in itself it doesn't go far enough. You have to put the admission
into action by actually doing what is right:
James
1:22
'Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves.
Do what it says.'
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