Have you ever been involved in a questionable activity and had someone say, “Doesn’t your conscience bother you?” If so, know this: your conscience is not the voice of God; it is the gift of God, the gift He gave you to help you do what is right and avoid what is wrong.
What made Adam and Eve hide from God in the Garden of Eden? Their conscience! They had disobeyed God and knew that that they had to face Him.
What made King David cry out, “Have mercy upon me, O God?” His conscience! He had sinned grievously, and had hidden it from others. However, he knew his sin was not hidden from God.
What made Pilate’s wife say to her husband at the trial of Jesus, “Have nothing to do with this man?” Her conscience! She believed in the innocence of Jesus so strongly that she interceded in His behalf.
What caused Judas Iscariot, who had betrayed Jesus for thirty pieces of silver, to cry out in anguish, “I have betrayed innocent blood?” His conscience! Can you imagine what it would be like to spend three years with Jesus, betray Him, and then realize that what you had done aided His enemies in their goal to kill Him?
What made Simon Peter weep after he had denied on three separate occasions that he ever knew Jesus? His conscience! He knew that He had promised Jesus he would defend Him with his own life, and he had failed Him out of fear for his own life.
If your conscience doesn’t bother you when you do those things that God’s Word describes as sin, it is likely because you have ignored its voice so long that it has gone to sleep. Some people drug their conscience into silence. Others drown their conscience in a river of alcohol. They find themselves sooner or later at the end of a dead-end street.
If your conscience bothers you, thank God. It is His providential way – before compasses, or radar, or sonar, or Global Positioning Systems were ever invented – of providing you with a helpful navigational system. Ignore your conscience at your peril.
In Words We Live By, Bryan Burrell tells of an armed robber named Dennis Lee Curtis who was arrested in 1992 in Rapid City, South Dakota. Curtis had his own set of scruples that indicated his conscience had long since been put soundly to sleep. In his wallet the police found a sheet of paper on which was written the following code by which he lived:
- “I will not kill anyone unless I have to.
- I will take cash and food stamps – no checks.
- I will rob only at night.
- I will not wear a mask.
- I will not rob mini-marts or 7-Eleven stores.
- If I get chased by cops on foot, I will get away. If chased by vehicle, I will not put the lives of innocent civilians on the line.
- I will rob only seven months out of the year.
- I will enjoy robbing from the rich to give to the poor.”
Dennis Lee Curtis had a sense of morality, but it was seriously flawed. He had ignored his conscience so long and so often that his sense of right and wrong was weakened little by little and ultimately became totally twisted. When he stood before the court, he was not judged by the standards he had set for himself. He was judged by the higher law of the state.
The moral of the Dennis Lee Curtis story is this: pay attention to your conscience! Your best boss is a well-trained conscience. Some people stopped listening to their conscience years ago because they didn’t want to take advice from a stranger. Character is never erected on the foundation of a neglected conscience.
Every person will one day stand before God to be judged (Romans 14:10). We will not be judged by the code of morality we have written for ourselves, or by the standard set by the crowd with whom we associated and who exerted a negative influence over us. We will be judged by the perfect law of God.
If you have never given that any thought, you would be wise to do so today.
The Paper Pulpit 
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