Conscience

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TbeScalesOI

Lester Sa111rall
Unless otherwise indicated,
all Scripture quotations are taken from
the King James Version of the Bible.

ISBN 0-937580-42-2
Conscience, The Eternal Scales Of Justice
Set up and printed 1985
Published by LeSEA Publishing Company
P.O. Box 12
South Bend, Indiana 46624

Printed in the United States of America.


All rights reserved under international
Copyright Law. Contents and/or cover may
not be reproduced in whole or in part in any
form without the express written consent of
the Publisher.
CONTENTS

1. What Is Conscience? ................. 6


2. Does God Have A Conscience? ....... 18
3. The Dispensation Of Conscience ...... 30
4. Human Conscience Without God ..... 38
5. Reborn Conscience ................. 51
1

WHAT IS
CONSCIENCE?

Homo sapiens is so intriguingly de-


signed, engineered and perfected that,
after six thousand years of human study,
man's innermost workings are still a
mystery. Science may understand many
things, but man is its greatest mystery.
Man witnesses and sees the beauty of
the universe with two instruments called
eyes. He feels with his total personality all
the vibrations of human experience.
Man's inner mechanisms of mind and
emotions will spur imagination, con-
science and memory beyond the grasp of
total definition. You can struggle with
them, but they baffle scientific minds.
What Is Conscience? 7

Human conscience is one of the greatest


gifts God gave to man. The Bible says in
Acts 24: 16, "And herein do I exercise
myself, to have always a conscience void
of offence toward God and toward
men."

What is the ''voice of conscience'' that


we hear about so often? What does it
mean to have a conscience?

When we say, "That man has a con-


science," what do we mean?

What do we mean when we say, "Con-


science is my way of life. I live by my con-
science"?
Sometimes people will say to one
another, "Man, have a conscience."
What do we mean when we ask a person
to have a conscience?
If a man drives a hard bargain with
someone, his neighbors will say, "That
fellow has no conscience." What is really
lacking in that person?
Others say, "Now, that is the voice of
conscience speaking out." What is the
voice of conscience speaking out? What
8 Conscience, The Eternal Scales Of Justice

is the voice of conscience?


Without conscience, man would be an
animal. He would not be a human person.
He would not be ''made in the image and
likeness of God" if he had no conscience.
Man's conscience is in his soulical part,
not his spirit. It is part of our Adamic
nature and not our born-again spirit
nature.
The word ''conscience'' comes to us
from a Latin word conscire which means
"con-science" or "with knowing." There
is the word conscientia which means "a
moral sense of knowledge.''
The word "conscience" comes from a
Greek word suneidesis, which means
"knowing or to know the truth." Con-
science means knowing truth.
Conscience is the faculty by which we
apprehend the will of God. It is a function
and operation from the soulish part of us.

The conscience is designed to govern


our lives. The sense of guilt before God
comes through conscience. It helps us
know how we should live before God.
Hebrews 10:2 says, "For then would they
What Is Conscience? 9

not have ceased to be offered? because


that the worshippers once purged should
have had no more conscience of sins."
In the Old Testament, sin was forgiven
at the time of sacrifice. When an Old
Testament believer committed another
sin, he had to return and ask for
forgiveness again. God says the offerings
that were offered at that time took away
the conscience of sins. The Lord Jesus
does not function in that way. He does
not have to die every year, or every
month, or every day. Christ died one time
and He purged our consciences. Mankind
is still purged after 2,000 years.
Conscience distinguishes what it con-
siders morally good or bad; commending
us if we are good and condemning us if we
are bad.
Conscience is the ability to evaluate
judgment and to justify the works or the
thoughts you have.
Conscience cannot be measured for size.
It is an explosive power on the inside of you
that permeates your total being. It func-
tions through all your soulical parts: your
mind, your feelings and your decisions.
Human conscience was not a part of
man's nature until Adam and Eve ate the
10 Conscience, The Eternal Scales Of Justice

fruit of the tree of the Knowledge of


Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden.
Kenneth Taylor translated in his Living
Bible that the tree Adam and Eve ate of
was the "Tree of Conscience." Rather
than call it the Tree of the Knowledge of
Good and Evil, he called it the Tree of
Conscience.
As a soulical power, conscience is
neutral. Conscience can become spiritual
through spiritual rebirth. Conscience can
become evil if you lend yourself to evil.
Then human conscience 1s no longer
neutral.
The reason the Bible says that some
people's consciences are seared with a hot
iron is because of wrong decisions. They
do what is wrong. Your conscience can be,
carnal, or fleshly, or it can be spiritual.
Man has to decide what kind of con-
science he desires inside of himself.
The Apostle Paul said, "I want a con-
science void of offense to God." Then he
paused and said, '' I want a conscience
void of offense to man.''
He had the capacity to direct conscience
to whether it would be a spiritual con-
science or a sinful conscience. You have
What Is Conscience? 11

the authority within yourself to decide


what kind of conscience you will have.
You can make your conscience more
tender by drawing closer to God.
Conscience is a faculty by which the
human mind, human emotions, and
human will apprehend the morality of
God. Man knows and understands what is
right and what is evil by his inner man, his
conscience man. To have a conscience is
to be governed by conscious decisions
spiritually motivated by the reborn ex-
perience.
Today, God is not telling anybody
anywhere to live by his conscience. He is
telling us to live by the blood of Jesus
Christ which cleanses us from our sins so
that we can be holy before Him and live
according to His Word.
When I was traveling to Alaska, I en-
joyed one of the most beautiful boat rides
in the world up the Inland Passage be-
tween Seattle and Juneau. As the boat
made its way, one night I was walking on
the top deck and found the captain. He
was striding alone and I got in step and
walked with him.
It was a beautiful starry night as we two
12 Conscience, The Eternal Scales Of Justice

men walked the top deck, back and forth.


I leaned over and said, "Captain, who is
Jesus? Whose son was He?" It was amaz-
ing how angry the captain became. He
knew it was a religious question and he let
me know that he was not religious. I
almost was sorry he was the captain.
The captain looked up and said,
"Those stars are my gods. They have
guided me for 50 years." I touched him
on the arm and said, "Do you know that
my God created your gods?''
How did the sea captain arrive at such a
conclusion? His conscience was out of
balance with the Word of God and the
Spirit of God, out of balance with reality.
The man worshiped a dead star made of
gases and minerals.
We use the word ''conscience'' in many
interesting ways. For example, there is the
conscientious objector. He is a person
who objects to military service on the
grounds that his conscience forbids him to
take up arms.
In London, England, they have the
Court of Conscience. It is used for the
recovery of small debts, usually to keep
petty grievances out of the big courts.
What Is Conscience? 13

In Scotland on the trams and buses I


noticed a small box on the back. That
special box is there to put your fare in if the
conductor is busy at the other end of the
tram or bus and cannot get to you. It is
called a Conscience Box. I was intrigued
to watch people when they got off the
tram. If the conductor had not gotten to
them, they would put their threepence or
sixpence in that box. When I spoke to the
conductor about the box, he said, ''The
Conscience Box is full every day." Those
people slept well at night.
Your conscience is like a compass. It
tells you where you are without lying. It
gives direction on where you are going.
Eve's conscience, in the Garden of
Eden said, "God said not to eat of this
tree." Satan's rebuttal was, "You will not
surely die. Go ahead and eat of the fruit."
Satan told Eve that the forbidden fruit
was delicious.
The devil is always offering something
that he does not have. He said the fruit
would be enlightening to the soul. What
Satan did not tell Eve was that her
rebellion would be devastating to the
human spirit. The rebellion would
alienate her from the Most High God and
14 Conscience, The Eternal Scales Of Justice

it would bring pain in childbirth and sor-


row to her and to all women who would
ever live on planet Earth.
When a person realizes he is in trouble,
his conscience begins to assist him.
"Remember that thing you did!" Then
you pray, 'Oh, God forgive me."
Why was your conscience so alive?
Because you were in trouble. Men in fox-
holes in war make all kind of promises
and commitments to God. Men and
women in hospitals make new resolutions,
conscience resolutions. A man who used
to come to my church in South Bend was
in the hospital. When I went up to see
him, he gave his heart to Jesus on the
hospital bed. He told me, "I almost went
to hell over a six-inch fish and fishing on
Sunday.'' Over and over he said, '' I
almost went to hell over a six-inch fish."
The human conscience has the built-in
authority to convict or approve your ac-
tions. Your conscience can approve of
your deeds or expose them.
Conscience can make you aware of real
needs. Conscience can be called a
policeman-it is a watchman over your
soul. Conscience is a court of appeals,
What Is Conscience? 15

evaluating the decisions that you have


made.
This generation has a conscience burned
out as by a hot iron, and many people do
not know right from wrong.
Through the reading of the Word, your
conscience will produce conviction of sin.
Without conscience there is no convic-
tion.
You cannot imagine what goes on in-
side the hearts of men and women who
have lived dishonestly with their mates
and have sinned outside of marriage.
Their consciences will accuse them for the
rest of their lives. There is no medicine to
heal the conscience. Drugs bring only
temporary relief.
The human conscience can bring a per-
son from hopelessness to calling upon the
Most High God for assistance. When
your conscience tells you that you really
need help, Christ is the helper.
Paul wrote in I Timothy 3:9, "Holding
the mystery of the faith in a pure con-
science.'' Your conscience will function
by the mystery of faith. The human con-
science, when born again, is taught how to
please God by the Holy Spirit and through
16 Conscience, The Eternal Scales Of Justice

the Word of God. It functions through


the newborn spirit dwelling within you.
Paul calls this "the mystery of faith."
Faith guides the conscience into making
spiritual decisions rather than carnal and
sinful ones.

II Corinthians 1: 12 says, "For our re-


joicing is this, the testimony of our con-
science ... '' The testimony of your
conscience witnesses to what kind of
person you are. The Apostle Paul
declared that his conscience gave witness
to the simplicity and the sincerity of his
ministry to people.

Paul said, "I have a better witness and I


have a testimony on the inside of me. His
name is conscience and he has a good
witness upwardly toward God; he has a
good witness outwardly toward you; he
has a good witness inwardly on the inside
of myself. I feel good inside." That is
very important.

The Bible speaks to us about holding on


to our conscience and getting a grasp on
it. I Timothy 1: 19 says, "Holding faith,
and a good conscience; which some having
What Is Conscience? 17

put away concerning faith have made


shipwreck." You have to keep a good,
clean conscience inside. God wants you to
keep a conscience that is spiritual and
joyful unto the Lord. We must guard our
consciences like a treasure. We must hold
on to a good conscience.
I Timothy 4:2 says, "Speaking lies in
hypocrisy; having their conscience seared
with a hot iron."
Paul speaks of an impaired or abused
conscience. Your conscience can beat on
the door of your heart and you will not let
him in. He can make the brain restless at
night because you have not done what is
right during the day. The human con-
science can be seared with a hot iron. It
can be burned out. It can be so calloused
over that even if you committed murder,
your conscience would not bother you.
A man's convictions become clear by
his conscience revealing his real person.
Your conscience is like your shadow; it is
always there.
Man has to learn to live with his con-
science because your conscience happens
to be the scales of eternal justice.
2

DOES GOD HAVE


A CONSCIENCE?

"And the LORD said, I have surely


seen the affliction of my people which are
in Egypt, and have heard their cry by
reason of their taskmasters; for I know
their sorrows; and I am come down to
deliver them out of the hand of the Egyp-
tians, and to bring them up out of that
land unto a good land and a large, unto a
land flowing with milk and honey; unto
the place of the Canaanites, and the Hit-
tites, and the Amorites, and the Periz-
zites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites.
"Now therefore, behold, the cry of the
Does God Have A Conscience? 19

children of Israel is come unto me: and I


have also seen the oppression wherewith
the Egyptians oppress them'' (Exodus
3:7-9).
We can see very clearly in this scripture
that God has a consciousness of condi-
tions. God also has a conscience directed
toward human persons. He saw their sor-
rows and their hurts, and He heard their
cries. Conscience is what moves a person.
When a person's conscience begins to
flow in a certain direction, whether it is
anger or love, his whole being flows that
direction.
God gave man a conscience and man
must possess this conscience to direct his
own life, his own decisions, and his own
choices before God. The Bible tells us in
Genesis, chapter 1, that man is made in
the image and likeness of God. He
possesses what we call a God-conscience,
or God-consciousness. God must have a
conscience or man could not be God-
conscious. Conscience means to evaluate
moral conduct. God has an amazing and
tremendous conscience. God understands
the feelings that have never been
represented outwardly and the words that
have never been spoken. He understands
20 Conscience, The Eternal Scales Of Justice

man's innermost feelings. God has a con-


science and He knows how to deal with
conscience in your life or mine.
Is God absolute conscience or is He
above conscience? A king may be above
his laws, but if that king disrespects his
own laws, his subjects will also disrespect
the laws and his kingdom will deteriorate.
Soon he will be overcome by a stronger
nation. God's conscience is not above
law. He operates the moral fabric of the
universe on His consciousness.
In Genesis 1:26, God said, "Let us
make man in our image, after our like-
ness: and let them have dominion over the
fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the
air, ·and over the cattle, and over all the
earth, and over every creeping thing that
creepeth upon the earth." It was through
His conscience that God conceived man in
His own likeness. God delighted in His
creation and when God created His
universe, He looked upon it and it was
good. The consciousness of God was
flowing out of the things He had created.
He was conscious that they were good.
"And God blessed them, (Adam and
Eve) and God said unto them, Be fruitful,
and multiply, and replenish the earth,
Does God Have A Conscience? 21

and subdue it: and have dominion over


the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of
the air, and over every living thing that
moveth upon the earth.
"And God said, Behold, I have given
you every herb bearing seed, which is
upon the face of all the earth, and every
tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree
yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.
And to every beast of the earth, and to
every fowl of the air, and to every thing
that creepeth upon the earth, wherein
there is life, I have given every green herb
for meat: and it was so" (Genesis
1:28-30).
We behold the consciousness of God in
His creative works, in His choice of what
He did, and where He placed the sover-
eignty over planet Earth. He placed the
dominion over all His creation in the
human person and He placed the scales of
eternal justice, called conscience, inside of
him. The conscience, with the knowledge
of good and evil, became awakened and
came into mighty activity at the time of
transgression. Adam's conscience had to
decide which of these to follow.
We see conscience working so strongly
after the fall. Genesis 3:8 says, "And they
22 Conscience, The Eternal Scales Of Justice

heard the voice of the LORD God walk-


ing in the garden in the cool of the day:
and Adam and his wife hid themselves
from the presence of the LORD God
amongst the trees of the garden."
Without a conscience they would not have
hidden themselves. They were smitten by
their consciences working in their minds,
emotions, and will.
Conscience is a soulical power and a
soulical function. It cannot be taken out.
If a person goes to hell, his conscience will
be there. Jesus told about a rich man in
Luke 15. Even though he was in hell, he
had a conscience bearing witness to the
life that he had lived on this earth. You
are not going to lose your conscience. You
are going to keep it for eternity. For that
reason it is subject to the laws of God.
You must live in subjection to the Most
High in order for you to have eternal
peace and joy.
Genesis 6:1-3 says, "And it came to
pass, when men began to multiply on the
face of the earth, and daughters were
born unto them, that the sons of God saw
the daughters of men that they were fair;
and they took them wives of all which
they chose. And the LORD said, My spirit
shall not always strive with man, for that
Does God Have A Conscience? 23

he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an


hundred and twenty years.''
Man could have lived forever in the
garden of Eden, but after Adam sinned his
lifespan was about a thousand years. God
saw that man learned to sin so quickly
that He reduced their days from up to a
thousand years to around a hundred and
twenty years. Later He reduced them
again to around seventy years. Man has
had a reduction of his years because of his
rebellion against God and not paying at-
tention to his conscience.
What happened when the sons of
Elohim married regular women of
Adam's seed? Verse 4 says, "There were
giants in the earth in those days." The
sons of Elohim created giants. Possibly
there were men whose heads were three
feet across. Possibly they had six fingers
on each hand and six toes on each foot.
They may have been ten feet tall and
weighed five or six hundred pounds. They
were probably brutes who growled like
lions. They were not human; they were
something more than human.
"God saw that the wickedness of man
was great in the earth, and that every imag-
ination of the thoughts of his heart was
only evil continually" (Genesis 6:5). That
24 Conscience, The Eternal Scales Of Justice

is what conscience will do for you. God


saw and understood the whole situation
through the powers of His conscience.
God said He repented that He had even
made a man on the earth and it grieved
Him in His heart. There is conscience!
Jehovah said, "I will destroy man whom I
have created from the face of the earth;
both man, and beast, and the creeping
thing, and the fowls of the air; for it
repenteth me that I have made them''
(Genesis 6:7). All this came because of
rebellion, which is a feature of the con-
science inside of a man.
Verse 8 says, "But Noah found grace in
the eyes of the LORD." Earth has had
three great priesthoods. The first was the
priesthood of the sons of God, who were
called the priests of Melchizedek. The
Word of God tells us about them in
Hebrews, chapters 5, 6, and 7.
Hebrews 5:6-7, speaking of Jesus, says,
"Thou art a priest for ever after the order
of Melchizedek. Who in the days of his
flesh, when he had offered up prayers and
supplications with strong crying and tears
unto him that was able to save him from
death, and was heard in that he feared.''
This reveals to us the great conscience of
God. He had to work with great wickedness
Does God Have A Conscience? 25

from Adam right down to Noah-nearly


2,000 years.
God had great feeling toward sin and
righteousness, toward good and bad in
those early times of man. Conscience has
not just been born. Conscience came
straight out of the Garden of Eden. God
still has a conscience which is working
toward you and toward all humanity,
right now.
Genesis 18:20-21 tells us about a city
called Sodom. "And the LORD said,
Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah
is great, and because their sin is very
grievous; I will go down now, and see
whether they have done altogether accord-
ing to the cry of it, which is come unto
me; and if not, I will know.'' Here we see
God's consciousness toward the great city
of Sodom.
Moses was very aware of the con-
sciousness of God. God saw Israel's suf-
fering in Egypt; He heard their cry; He
saw their taskmasters. In Exodus 3:7 God
said, " ... I know their sorrows." That is
the function of God's conscience.
God delivered the Israelites out of
Egypt and brought them to the Red Sea.
''The Egyptians shall know that I am the
26 Conscience, The Eternal Scales Of Justice

LORD, when I have gotten me honour


upon Pharaoh, upon his chariots, and
upon his horsemen. And the angel of
God, which went before the camp of
Israel, removed and went behind them;
and the pillar of the cloud went from
before their face, and stood behind them:
And it came between the camp of the
Egyptians and the camp of Israel; and .it
was a cloud and darkness to them, but it
gave light by night to these: so that the
one came not near the other all the night"
(Exodus 14: 18-20). The Egyptians sought
to pass over, but they could not. God
overthrew the Egyptians completely. God
had seen what had happened to the Israeli
people and He said, "I'll do something
about it.'' His conscience was stirred and
God dealt with that situation.
God knows good and God knows bad.
Though He is pure and good and holy,
through His consciousness He under-
stands goodness and holiness and
unholiness and impurity.
God's conscience was moved in the
desert toward Israel when they worshiped
the golden calf. He was angry about it.
Everytime they did wrong during those for-
ty years of desert wanderings, the con-
science of God was stirred up toward them.
Does God Have A Conscience? 27

God also has a conscience toward you.


He sees what you do every day and He
understands your motivations on the in-
side. God knows when your lips speak one
thing and your heart believes another. He
judges you by His conscience.
David was a great man who understood
the consciousness of God. II Samuel
23: 10 says, "He arose, and smote the
Philistines until his hand was weary, and
his hand clave unto the sword: and the
LORD wrought a great victory that day;
and the people returned after him only to
spoil." I Samuel 25: 31 adds, "That this
shall be no grief unto thee, nor offence of
heart unto my lord, either that thou hast
shed blood causeless, or that my lord hath
avenged himself: but when the LORD
shall have dealt well with my lord, then
remember thine handmaid." David had
been mistreated and he was about to kill
Nabal when Nabal's wife said, "Oh,
don't do that, he is not worth it." She
brought alive his God-consciousness
within him.
When we study the Psalms, we realize
that David was a person who very strong-
ly understood the conscience of God. In
fact, the whole Bible is a picture to us of
the conscience of God. Every word in the
28 Conscience, The Eternal Scales OJ Justice

Bible represents God-consciousness.


What does God say about this? How does
God feel about this matter? What will
God do in this case? The Bible is God's
conscience toward sin, toward good, and
toward people.
I believe the seven dispensations of time
were given to man in order to let his con-
science come alive to God. God, through
His conscious spirit, gave man these seven
opportunities to know and serve Him.
I believe that Christ is actually the con-
science of God in the earth. How does
God feel? Look at Jesus and you can see
how God feels. He is an image of the
Father. How does God make judgment?
Observe Jesus. To the woman caught in
adultery, He said, "Neither do I condemn
thee, go and sin no more." Jesus still
loved her. Christ and His conscious acts
reveal to us the conscience of God. He is
the beautiful image of the Most High and
how God feels about everything.
It could be that the New Jerusalem, the
eternal city of God, will be the very con-
science of God. The ultimate feeling of
God will be in the building and the
making and the creating of the New
Jerusalem. It will be His perfect restora-
Does God Have A Conscience? 29

tion. The New Jerusalem will be the ful-


fillment of God's total joy. The New
Jerusalem will be the embodiment of what
God determined by His feeling and by His
conscience.
In the heart of the Almighty, con-
science is the scales of eternal justice. God
has a conscience; if He did not, man
would not be on the face of this earth.
3

THE DISPENSATION OF
CONSCIENCE

There was a period of time when con-


science was actually the law of the land. It
was the only law men had. It is most
remarkable to me that God created a
dispensation called Conscience.
When Adam and Eve were expelled
from the Garden of Eden, God removed
them from the Dispensation of Innocence
and brought them into an era called the
Dispensation of Conscience. The human
consciousness had been born in them
through the eating of the fruit of the Tree
of Knowledge of Good and Evil. They
now had to live by that new law which
The Dispensation Of Conscience 31

they had created themselves-the law of


obedience by conscience. Their minds,
emotions, and wills-the areas of the
functioning of the conscience-would tell
them how they should live before God.
The Dispensation of Conscience was a
long one-1,656 years. It began at the
door of Eden after Adam's debacle and
continued until the Flood covered the
earth in Noah's day.
The human life span was changed in
this dispensation. God said, "My spirit
shall not always strive with man"
(Genesis 6:3). God shortened man's span,
which was almost a thousand years, down
to 120 years. That is a tremendous
change.
Adam volitionally decided to choose his
own way rather than God's way. He had a
personal determination to do something
that God did not want him to do. A power
called human consciousness awakened in
him to determine between good and evil.
From that time, every moral act of man
would be governed by the conscience in-
side of him. This began the remarkable
period of time known through history as
the Dispensation of Conscience. Man had
32 Conscience, The Eternal Scales Of Justice

no laws, he had no governors; he lived by


the power of his own conscience saying,
"This is good; that is bad." He was ruled
only by an inner feeling during this
Dispensation of Conscience. This was a
very wonderful thing that God still relied
upon man so strongly that man had total
freedom to make his own decisions. After
the debacle in Eden God said, "I will
speak to man through his conscience and
converse with him through his inner man."
Adam and Eve had two sons. One was
named Cain, the other Abel. The devil put
it in the heart of Cain to kill his brother
Abel. The devil said, "One of these will
bruise my head." He thought the first one
born would be the redeemer, so he caused
Cain to murder Abel through rebellion.
This damned his conscience right there.
As long as Cain lived, he had a terrible
conscience. There are people who commit
suicide because their consciences hammer
away at them until they cannot stand it.
God showed Adam that a lamb must be
slain for a sacrifice. Abel obeyed this law
that God had laid down, but his brother
Cain would not. As Abel brought his
offering of the lamb, Cain brought his
vegetable sacrifice of the field. God said,
The Dispensation Of Conscience 33

'' I cannot accept your offering; only


blood can cover a trespass. The life of the
flesh is in the blood." Satan said, "Now I
have destroyed the program of God; I
caused Cain to destroy Abel, so I cannot
be hurt and my head cannot be bruised. If
I can infiltrate the seed of the woman,
there can never be any pure seed to pro-
duce a world savior.'' What an awful
thing for the devil to try to perpetrate
upon the human race and upon the seed
of Adam!
There have been three priesthoods in
the history of the human race. The first
one was the Melchizedek priesthood,
which we have already described. This
priesthood functioned during the period .
called Conscience. The people did have
preachers who talked to them and re-
minded them that they should not live bad
lives. Even the priesthood fell into sin; it
lost its conscience.
The geneology of this period is not very
exciting. It says that they were born, they
lived, and they died. When you read it,
you say, "Is that all a person can do: be
born, live, and die? Is it true that all you
can expect is a tombstone?'' However,
when history comes to the man named
34 Conscience, The Eternal Scales Of Justice

Enoch, the pattern was changed. In only a


few verses his whole life story is told, but
he changed history! Genesis 5:22 says,
"And Enoch walked with God ... " This was
the dispensation in which God desired
men to walk with Him personally. He
wanted to deal with them on a personal
basis of conscience.
Enoch walked with God so perfectly that
when he was 365 years old, God took him
to heaven without his dying. What a mir-
acle! Enoch was 65 years old when his son
Methuselah was born. Adam, the great-
great-great-grandfather of Methuselah,
was then about 600 years old. Adam had
time to tell Methuselah how he had lived
in the Garden and how Eve ate him out of
house and home.
Enoch was a prophet of God. One of
his prophecies was in the birth of his own
son. The name "Methuselah" means,
"At his death judgment comes." That
was an awful name to give a child. I can
believe that everybody who knew him
would try to keep him alive because they
knew that at his death judgment would
come. What amazes me is that this man
lived longer than any human has ever
lived. He lived 969 years, because God did
The Dispensation Of Conscience 35

not want to judge anybody. The year that


Methuselah died was also the same year
the Flood came. The Flood terminated the
Dispensation of Conscience. Because of
the mercy of the Most High in His con-
sciousness, He was waiting for man to
become good, clean, and pure. That was
what the Dispensation ·of Conscience was
all about. It was time to live for God.

The reason Methuselah lived so long was


that God did not want to send that flood
of water upon the earth. Noah had the ark
ready beforehand. It was the mercy of
God that did not let the rain come. God
said, "I will give you one more chance.
The day that Methuselah dies I will send
judgment upon the earth because his
name means 'At death judgment comes.' "
God gave Methuselah an extra year, and
another extra year until he finally outlived
every other human who had ever lived on
planet Earth. This reveals the great mercy,
love, and consciousness of God. God's
consciousness goes out to you in your
weakness and your failings. God wants to
bring you back to Himself no matter how
much you have transgressed against Him.
God is love. He does not want to judge
mankind, but He has to.
36 Conscience, The Eternal Scales Of Justice

After the Flood, God started all over


again with a new dispensation called
Human Government, when men checked
on other men. The Dispensation of Con-
science terminated at the Flood in the time
of Noah and it is gone forever. God
never moves in reverse, God only moves
forward. There will never be a period of
innocence as there was in the Garden of
Eden. There will never be a period called
Conscience as there was for almost 2,000
years. Christ has now accomplished the
first promise in the Bible, Genesis 3: 15,
'' And I will put enmity between thee and
the woman, and between thy seed and her
seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou
shalt bruise his heel."
We now live in the Dispensation of
Grace when the Lord Jesus speaks to man
through his heart and through the Word
of God, the Bible. The Dispensation of
Conscience was a very beautiful time, but
it is terminated. We live under a different
agreement from God. I John 1:9 says, "If
we confess our sins, he is faithful and just
to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us
from all unrighteousness.''
Only a very few great people lived in the
time of Conscience. One was Enoch, who
The Dispensation Of Conscience 37

was translated to heaven. Another was


Methuselah; we do not know if he was
good or bad, we just know that he lived a
long time. Enoch broke through the wall
of unbelief and walked with God. What
an achievement! Methuselah was
celebrated in that his father Enoch proph-
esied over him the day he was born. He
was the oldest man that ever lived. Noah,
by his righteousness and good conscience,
saved the whole world.
There were a few great men living in the
Dispensation of Conscience, but not
many. In these last days it might be the
same again; there may not be many peo-
ple with a great conscience inside of them.
The regulation of conscience in those
days was what you might call a free moral
agency or a self-acting entity. The scales
of eternal justice moved on man's behalf
and God did everything that He possibly
could to bring man into a place of fulfill-
ment, peace and joy in God. This dispen-
sation ended in defeat for man because he
did not obey the laws of his dispensation.
They had nothing written on stone; they
had nothing written on paper; they had no
judges sitting to judge them. Their whole
lives were built upon their consciences.
4

HUMAN CONSCIENCE
WITHOUT GOD

''Now the end of the commandment is


charity out of a pure heart, and of a good
conscience, and of faith unfeigned"
(I Timothy 1:5). It is possible for humans
to have a good conscience before God and
man. Man can stand before them making
the right decisions, doing the right things,
and having a good conscience.

Verse 19 says, "Holding faith, and a


good conscience; which some having put
away concerning faith have made ship-
wreck." You must hold on to a good con-
science. The human conscience is a divine
attribute possessed by the soulical man on
this earth.
Human Conscience Without God 39

We do not know who else has a con-


science in the universe, but we know that
God does. The Bible reveals that. We
know that man does. We also know that
animals do not have a conscience. They
are not responsible for their actions
because they do not possess a conscience.
Man has this attribute. Walking in holy
consciousness, the human person yields
his conscience to the laws of the Most
High and to the Holy Spirit of God.
In rebellion, through following the
devil against the Most High God, the
human conscience is without divine
guidance. This means it is motivated by
demonic or human forces.
The first sin ever committed on planet
Earth created a guilty conscience. In
Genesis 3: 10, Adam confessed, "I heard
thy voice in the garden and I was afraid,
because I was naked; and I hid myself."
A conscience not motivated by God caused
man to be afraid. The first thing Adam
said was, "I was afraid." Fear comes
because of a warped conscience. With a
conscience in relationship to God and a
conscience with a proper attitude toward
God, a person is not fearful. He is strong;
he is brave; he is courageous. However,
40 Conscience, The Eternal Scales Of Justice

a conscience not motivated by the Most


High is a seedbed for fear.
Adam also said, "I was naked." A
human conscience without God is dis-
robed of its holiness, its purity and its
virginity. It discovers itself naked before
the Most High. The human conscience
without God becomes fearful of the
unknown. Adam did not know what was
going to happen to him. He was afraid
and he hid himself from reality, from
fellowship and from the One who had
created him. The human conscience
without God does not understand the
unknown. It knows it has made the wrong
decision and the insides of a human being
become fearful.
We have what we call the voice of con-
science. It all began in the beginning of
the Bible. Not much has changed in the
last six thousand years. The Lord said to
Cain in Genesis 4:9-10, "Where is Abel
thy brother? And he said, I know not: Am
I my brother's keeper? And he said, What
hast thou done? the voice of thy brother's
blood crieth unto me from the ground.''
This is the voice of conscience.
When the people of Israel were in
Egypt, their voice of weeping and hurting
Human Conscience Without God 41

and persecution cried out. Their con-


sciences cried out, and God with His con-
sciousness perceived it. He said, "I hear it
and I will come down and do something
about it." We have the voice of con-
science crying in the world today. Those
that are starving to death have a voice of
conscience crying. A voice cries for those
that do not have sufficient clothing or
housing and God will hear their cry. God
will hear your cry if you will cry out to
Him and say, "This is not right. I want
help."
In I Kings 21: 19 we read about a king
and his queen who did not do right. '' And
thou shalt speak unto him, saying, Thus
saith the LORD, Hast thou killed, and
also taken possession? And thou shalt
speak unto him, saying, Thus saith the
LORD, In the place where dogs licked the
blood of Naboth shall dogs lick thy
blood, even thine.''
Queen Jezebel stole Naboth's vineyard
and had him killed by false accusers.
Naboth's blood cried out and God said,
'' In the same place where he died, you will
die. You left him there for the dogs to eat
his flesh, and the same thing will happen
to you."
42 Conscience, The Eternal Scales Of Justice

We discover in the Bible that when


David sinned, Nathan the prophet came
and said, ''You are the man, you are
guilty," and David's conscience was ac-
tivated. In Psalm 51 you will find that
David was beaten down by his own in-
sides. He came to God with great contri-
tion and said, "Forgive me, I am sorry,
please forgive me." He was a man who
found his way back to God.
The voice of conscience comes in so
many ways. When I was a young man liv-
ing in the state of Mississippi, I was told a
story about a logging pond in the town of
Laurel. Two men were working in the log-
ging pond taking the logs, putting them
under the water and then pulling them out
when it came time for them to be sawed.
They would put a big chain around the
logs and pull them on to a big crawler.
From there they would go inside the mill
to be sawed into all kinds of timber. After
they were dried, the timbers were sent out
to build houses all over the world.
One day one of the men laughed and
said, "In this pond ten years ago I planted
a grain of rice and it never did grow.'' The
other man began to think and think.
Finally he said, "Yes, there was a man
Human Conscience Without God 43

named Rice that used to live here ten years


ago and he disappeared. His family never
knew what happened to him; he just
disappeared.'' He went to the police aiid
said, "I would like you to drag the bot-
tom of that millpond. A man told me that
he planted a grain of rice in it ten years
ago. If you will look back through the
newspapers, you will find that ten years
ago a man named Rice disappeared."
The police took their instruments and
dragged the bottom of the pond and they
brought up a skeleton with a chain wrap-
ped around it! When the police presented
the bones and the chain before the logger,
he confessed that he had been working
with Mr. Rice and that he knocked him
unconscious, wrapped a log chain around
him, sinking him to the bottom of the
pond. He said, "I could not stand it any
longer. Every night, every day, this thing
was on my mind. I could not stand it!"
A person without God needs the con-
sciousness of God. Your conscience will
cry out to you. You have to say, "God, I
want a converted conscience. I want a
conscience toward God and not a con-
science without God.'' A conscience
without God will destroy you. It will beat
44 Conscience, The Eternal Scales Of Justice

you to pieces. There are people in the in-


sane asylums right now because their con-
sciences have beaten them into that place.
The human conscience without God is
fearful of the unknown, of the future and
of coming judgment.
The voice of conscience cries out to
people; it cries out to God; it has a force
and a power. Even though the man was
dead, the conscience still cried out.
God calls the unconverted conscience
defiled and dirty. I Corinthians 8:7 says,
"Howbeit there is not in every man that
knowledge: for some with conscience of
the idol unto this hour eat it as a thing
offered unto an idol; and their conscience
being weak is defiled.''
Sin and rebellion will always bring
defilement or uncleanness. God said the
defiled conscience is a weak conscience.
You can make your conscience stronger
by working on it to strengthen it.
The human conscience without God is
the consciousness of sin. It is the con-
science which produces the sense of
guiltiness before God.
Animal sacrifice could not heal the
Human Conscience Without God 45

consciousness of sin. Jesus came so that


conscious thought could distinguish what
is morally good from what is morally
wrong if we are righteous and live before
God. A good conscience could commend
us. God wants us to live before Him in
uprightness.
Acts 26:9 is an interesting scriptute. "I
verily thought with myself, that I ought to
do many things contrary to the name of
Jesus of Nazareth." Here we learn that a
person can have an ignorant conscience.
Paul had been trained that people with the
wrong religion ought to die. He put Chris-
tians in jail, he stood by and watched
Stephen be stoned, and he went to Damas-
cus to put the whole church in jail. In all
this, his conscience was ignorant of the
thing he was doing wrong. That possibly
is true in many situations.
Romans 10:2 says, "For I bear them
record that they have a zeal of God, but
not according to knowledge." Their con-
sciences were in a state of ignorance.
When conscience comes into a state of
wisdom and knowledge, it guides man the
way he should be guided.
Psalm 40: 11-12 says, "Withhold not
46 Conscience, The Eternal Scales Of Justice

thou thy tender mercies from me, 0


LORD: let thy lovingkindness and thy
truth continually preserve me. For in-
numerable evils have compassed me
about: mine iniquities have taken hold
upon me, so that I am not able to look up;
they are more than the hairs of mine head:
therefore my heart faileth me." Here was
a guilty conscience crying out for mercy.
The Psalmist was telling here how his con-
science was beating him to death. His con-
science was actually destroying him. What
he needed was for God to forgive him and
give him a clean conscience so he could
live the right way. If you will seek God,
He can heal your conscience. He can heal
the misdoings and the misgivings of the
past and make your conscience new.
In Matthew 27:3-5 we read, "Then
Judas, which had betrayed him, when he
saw that he (Jesus) was condemned,
repented himself, and brought again the
thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests
and elders, saying, I have sinned in that I
have betrayed the innocent blood. And
they said, What is that to us? see thou to
that. And he cast down the pieces of silver
in the temple, and departed, and went and
hanged himself." Acts 1:25 says,
Human Conscience Without God 47

" ... Judas by transgression fell." He was


not predestinated to do this. He did not
have an overpowering situation from out-
side of him making him do it. It was his
own self that wanted to do it. Judas' con-
science drove him to suicide. That was an
evil, sinful conscience. He took his own
life. Conscience is like that today. People
never commit suicide with a good con-
science. They always have griefs and sor-
rows and hurts they cannot overcome, so
they say, "The way out is to kill myself."
It is not the way out! The way out is for
Jesus to come into your heart and make
you a new creature.
I Timothy 4: 1-2 has a very familiar
word that I would like you to hear again.
It says, "Now the Spirit speaketh expressly,
that in the latter times some shall depart
from the faith, giving heed to seducing
spirits, and doctrines of devils; Speaking
lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience
seared with a hot iron." This means that
you can burn out your conscience. You
can bruise your conscience until it ceases
to function. You can keep putting down
your conscience until there is nothing
there. There are people that could kill in
cold blood and never think anything about
48 Conscience, The Eternal Scales Of Justice

it. They need an operation on their con-


sciences. Judas missed it. His con-
science drove him the wrong way because
he was without Christ. Peter's conscience
was different. Even though he had sinned
and blasphemed, he wept with bitterness
and said, '' I would like to get to Christ
and be forgiven." That is exactly what
happened to him.
"Knowing therefore the terror of the
Lord, we persuade men, but we are made
manifest unto God; and I trust also are
made manifest in your consciences" (II Cor-
inthians 5: 11). Paul was saying, "I want
you in your conscience to know that I am
a good man. I am speaking truth. I am
speaking of God. I want you to believe
that and to understand it." The American
Amplified Version reads, II Corinthians
5:10-11, "We must all appear and be
revealed as we are before the judgment
seat of Christ, so that each one may
receive (his pay) according to what he has
done in the body, whether good or evil,
(considering what his purpose and motive
have been, and what he has achieved,
been busy with and given himself and
his attention to accomplishing). There-
fore, being conscious of fearing the Lord
Human Conscience Without God 49

with respect and reverence, we seek to win


people over-to persuade them. But what
sort of persons we are is plainly recog-
nized and thoroughly understood by God,
and I hope that it is plainly recognized
and understood also by your con-
sciences-that is, by your inborn discern-
ment." Another version reads, "For we
must all appear before the judgment seat
of Christ, that each one may receive what
is due him for the things done while in the
body, whether good or bad. Since, then,
we know what it is to fear the Lord, we try
to persuade men. What we are is plain to
God, and I hope it is also plain to your
conscience.'' When you come to the Lord
Jesus Christ and confess your sins, He
puts a new conscience in you. The Bible
says, "If we confess our sins God is
faithful and just to forgive us our sins,
and cleanse us from all unrighteousness''
(I John 1:9. At that point in time, you
receive a new conscience. Your old con-
science passes away and you receive a
born-again conscience. An evil conscience
breeds evil; a bad conscience breeds bad;
a demonic conscience breeds demonic ef-
fects. Every unbeliever has a conscience
that has been hurt and, like Adam, is
hiding from God. An evil conscience is
50 Conscience, The Eternal Scales Of Justice

fearful and tormenting. When you come


to Jesus Christ and your sins are all wiped
away, you have a new life in Him. A
newborn conscience dwells within you.
The nightmares of yesterday are all gone.
The sorrows of a heavy conscience are
gone. The blood of Jesus Christ, God's
Son, cleanses you from an evil conscience.
God can pull the drapes of yesterday and
give you a brand new future with a
beautiful new magnificent conscience!
Receive it! Accept it! Walk in Him! You
will always be glad that you did!
5

REBORN CONSCIENCE

It is possible to have operations within


you which you do not understand. When
this is the case, you do not know when
you are working with God or not working
with God. You do not know how to direct
your inner being. It is necessary to learn
of these workings. It is of prime impor-
tance to know about conscience. Let us
consider the reborn conscience-the saved
or converted conscience.
The human conscience fell from grace
with the sin and rebellion of Adam in the
Garden of Eden. At that time the human
conscience fell into disrepute.
All sinners have a conscience. Hebrews
10:22 says, "Let us draw near with a true
heart in full assurance of faith, having our
52 Conscience, The Eternal Scales Of Justice

hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience... "


The conscience of man became evil
through transgression. It was not evil
before the fall.
It is possible to change the human con-
science. In your born-again experience
many things change; your mind, emo-
tions, and conscience change when you
are born again.
The conscience can only become pure
by the blood of Jesus. It cannot be cleansed
by resolutions. You cannot talk yourself
out of it or go to a psychiatrist and have
him give you reasons out of your past.
There is only one way a human con-
science can be made holy. Hebrews 9: 14
tells us, "How much more shall the blood
of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit
offered himself without spot to God,
purge your conscience from dead works
to serve the living God?" Only Christ can
produce the reborn conscience.
Hebrew 13:18 says, "Pray for us: for
we trust we have a good conscience ... " The
only way to have a good conscience is that
the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son,
cleanses us from all our sins. Then we do
not have that evil conscience, but a con-
science which is holy and good unto God.
The Reborn Conscience 53

The reborn conscience is so exciting. In


many countries, my wife and I have
observed the miracle of the rebirth. We
have seen men and women who were liv-
ing together without a marriage because
the wedding certificates from the govern-
ment cost so much that they could not af-
ford them. The couples were just living
together without the paper, but they were
true to each other. They had lived
together ten or fifteen years, but were not
officially married. When they got saved,
inside of them they would say, ''This is
not right. We have ten children, but we
are not married.'' When they were born
again, something inside of them said,
"Conform to God's commandments!"
As long as families are living in sin,
adultery does not condemn them. When
their conscience becomes purged by the
blood of Jesus, they receive a good con-
science before God.
It is beautiful to see a once rebellious
conscience become reborn and to witness
the whole inside of a person change.
Let's look at the story Jesus gave in
Luke 15: 17, "When the prodigal came to
himself." It is hard to know what that
means. When he got tired of the way he
54 Conscience, The Eternal Scales Of Justice

was living, he came to realize that home


was not so bad after all. When he got tired
of fellowshiping with pigs, he came to
himself and said, "Now, wait a minute.
In my father's house there are hired ser-
vants. There is bread enough for every-
body and plenty leftover. I am perishing
with hunger. I am a son, but I am
perishing with hunger while my father's
servants are throwing away food." That
was the arousement of conscience within
him.
Verse 18 says, "I will arise and go to my
father, and will say unto him, Father, I
have sinned ... " That is what salvation is
all about. It was hard for him to say, "I
have sinned against heaven, and before
thee, and am no more worthy to be called
thy son." This was the miracle of the
soulical person, and especially this prod-
igal son, in the rebirth of a new life.
Home became a desirable place. He did
not like it when he walked off and said, "I
am glad to get away from this place. I am
tired of seeing Mom and Dad. You are old
fuddy-duddys anyway. You are so far out
of time that you do not know what is go-
ing on in the world. I am leaving here!"
When his conscience came alive, the first
The Reborn Conscience 55

thing he said was, ''The place I left was


desirable.''
The same thing happens to sinners
when they are born again. Before they
were born again, they did not like church.
Afterwards, you cannot get them to go
home.
This prodigal son had entered into a
higher state of appreciation. That is what
happens to a sinner. He does not like the
singing, praising, praying, or preaching.
In fact, he does not like anything about
God. When Jesus comes into his heart, he
has a new appreciation of God, the Word
of God and the worship hour. He has a
new appreciation of everything that is
related to heaven and God and eternity.
That is what it means to have a renewed
and reborn conscience!
The prodigal realized his miserable con-
dition. He realized that he had been in the
state of rebellion against his father. He
confessed it very freely.
That is when the conscience is really
working, cleaning up the past, cleaning
out the mud, the mess, and letting you see
that the pigsty is not a parlor. Sinners do
not know the difference so they play in
56 Conscience, The Eternal Scales Of Justice

the pigsty. When they let Jesus into their


hearts, they say, "I cannot stand this mess
anymore. I do not even like these 'pigs' I
have been running around with."
Romans 13:5 says, "Wherefore ye must
needs be subject, not only for wrath, but
also for conscience sake.'' It is not easy to
be subject to others. Rebellion is a normal
thing for the unregenerated. Sometimes
sheer rebellion even gets over into
believers' lives. You can be a rebel at
work; you can be a rebel at home; you can
be a rebel at church. When the conscience
comes alive in Jesus, your old conscience
is changed or reborn.
We must keep our consciences func-
tioning because conscience is the moral
and spiritual guide of our destiny.
I have been in countries where I would
not drink coffee for the simple reason that
Christians in that country thought drink-
ing coffee was a sin. So I drank water and
that is all right with me. I want to live,
wherever I am in the world, in a way that
will help people go to heaven and not tear
them down.
The Apostle Paul says in I Corinthians
8: 13, "Wherefore, if meat make my brother
The Reborn Conscience 57

to offend, I will eat no flesh while the


world standeth, lest I make my brother to
offend.'' Paul was functioning here
altogether in the area of conscience.
Today the church needs the reborn con-
science to make its way through the
world, seeking to win many to God and
not hurting anybody. Your conscience is
your antenna that bends one way or the
other, telling you to do this or not to do
that and to be careful not to offend other
people.
One of the greatest powers of con-
science is prayer. I can speak harshly to
my wife and feel rather good about it.
When I get down to pray the Lord says,
"Why are you so nasty in your speech?" I
might retort, "I had my rights." God's
firm answer is, ''No, you did not have any
right. Go say that you are sorry." The
matter seemed all right until my con-
science got quiet in an attitude of wor-
ship. Your conscience can purge, cleanse,
and work for you.
Prayer attains a high degree of sensitivity
in order that we might, like the Apostle
Paul said, "Walk before God and before
man with a good conscience.''
58 Conscience, The Eternal Scales Of Justice

Look at the word "purge." "Purge"


can mean ''to purify, to clean it up or to
separate.'' It means to separate one thing
from another. It means to wash out and
take away the impurities. He wants to
remove guilt from the human person. On
the other hand, if you talk to a man that
works with trees, "purge" means to cut
off twigs and to cut back branches. Some-
times a branch might grow out too fast
and it needs to be cut back. The Lord does
this kind of purging so that we can pro-
duce better spiritual fruit.
You can teach the Word of God to
some people and they will do the opposite
of it. It is amazing that you can teach peo-
ple and they will go shooting out a little
branch before they are ready for it. Then
God has to trim it back. You can do the
right thing at the wrong time. You can do
a good thing at a bad time. If you wait un-
til God does it, it will be so easy, good,
successful and blessed.
It is the same way with getting married.
You can get married at the right time or
the wrong time. I always thought I had no
business getting married until I was able
to provide a house to live in. One of the
first things I did when my wife and I were
The Reborn Conscience 59

married was to buy a house. We did not


live in it much, but we had a house. We
were never stranded; we could always go
home. To marry a girl and strand her is
not the right way to begin life together. If
a young man would work more diligently
and make full preparation, he might have
a lot more happiness after marriage.
My wife and I have been married for
more than forty years and she has never
had to worry about where her food was
coming from or if she would have a place
to stay.
The Apostle Paul talked about con-
science more than anyone else in the Bible.
He was very conscious of conscience, may-
be because he was trained in the ways of
the Greeks and the concept of conscience
was a strong thought in their language.
In Acts 24: 16 Paul said, "Herein do I
exercise myself. I move myself; I give a lot
of activity in the area of having always a
conscience void of offence toward God."
Paul said, "My conscience will not of-
fend God." Paul further said, "I will not
allow an offence toward men.'' He was
striving for good conscience toward God
and man.
60 Reborn Conscience

In the New Testament, the word "of-


fense'' is used as something that arouses
prejudice or it becomes a hindrance. Of-
fense can sometimes, in itself, be a good
thing. For example, you may say, "No, I
am a holy person. I will not drink
alcohol." This may become an offense to
some people. I have had people tell me,
"If your rejoicing was not so strong, I
would worship with you." We offended
them by rejoicing in Jesus, but we cannot
stop.

The greatest lesson to learn from a con-


science void of offense is that we must do
nothing whereby we would cause a
brother in Christ to stumble or fall.
Daniel did not want to offend anyone in
Babylon but when he prayed he offended
the whole empire.

In Acts 23: 1 the Apostle Paul said,


" ... Men and brethren, I have lived in all
good conscience before God until this
day." The Amplified version says, "Then
Paul, gazing earnestly at the council
(Sanhedrin), said, Brethren, I have lived
before God doing my duty with a perfect-
ly good conscience until this very day ... ''
The Reborn Conscience 61

Paul had a good conscience about


everything that he had done. In I Timothy
1:5 he said, "Now the end of the com-
mandment is charity out of a pure heart,
and of a good conscience, and of faith
unfeigned." All of us must "hold faith
and a good conscience." If you do not
hold on to a good conscience, you can
lose it. ''Which some have put away con-
cerning faith have made shipwreck."

I have a good conscience. I have never


hurt anybody to get anything that we
have. The television stations we own were
purchased out of bankruptcy.

I Peter 3: 16 says, "Having a good con-


science; that, whereas they speak evil of
you, as of evildoers, they may be ashamed
that falsely accuse your good conversa-
tion in Christ." The enemies of God can
falsely accuse your good conscience in
Christ. You can have a good conscience
and people will misunderstand you com-
pletely. How glad we are to have a good
conscience with a mystery of faith sur-
rounding it.

II Timothy 1:3 says, "I thank God,


whom I serve from my forefathers with
62 Conscience, The Eternal Scales Of Justice

pure conscience, that without ceasing I


have remembrance of thee in my prayers
night and day.'' A pure conscience is one
that has been cleansed. It has not only
been purged, cut off and separated, but is
one that is pure. You have to be born
again in order to be the person that God
wants you to be. If you will do that, you
will stand before God and He will praise
you for it.

Paul says in II Corinthians 4:2, "But


have renounced the hidden things of
dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor
handling the word of God deceitfully; but
by manifestation of the truth commend-
ing ourselves to every man's conscience in
the sight of God.'' We should commend
ourselves to people through conscience.

A Christian can endure grief, suffering


wrongfully, because of his conscience
toward God. The reborn conscience can
bear sorrow. It can bear hurt when others
say, "I cannot stand it." A pure con-
science can stand it.

John 8:9 reads, "And they which heard


it, being convicted by their own con-
science, went out one by one, beginning at
The Reborn Conscience 63

the eldest, even unto the last: and Jesus


was left alone, and the woman standing in
the midst."
These men had stones in their hands.
Their consciences told them, "Stone
her!'' Jesus awakened within them a new
conscience. He said, "You without sin,
cast the first stone.''
They began to look at one another and
say, "You know, I am guilty and you are
guilty.'' They dropped their stones on the
ground and one by one they walked away,
awakened by a conscience. The Bible says
they were convicted by their own con-
sciences. When they saw the attitude of
Jesus, they had an awakening of a con-
sdence chat they did not have before.
There are two judgments before us.
One is the Judgment Seat of Christ, which
is just for believers, the other is the Great
White Throne Judgment. At this latter
judgment only sinners are judged. At
both judgments, every wrong thing that
people have done and justified to them-
selves will be weighed in the scales of eter-
nal justice-the conscience.
This means our conscience ought to be
purged and made clean and good and holy.
64 Conscience, The Eternal Scales Of Justice

Some of us are smitten by our con-


sciences. If you are convicted by your con-
science, the blood of Jesus Christ God's
Son can cleanse your conscience.
We read in Romans 8: 1, "There is
therefore now no condemnation to them
which are in Christ Jesus ... "
If you are a believer in Christ Jesus,
say, "Lord, I am sorry. Forgive me." If
you have not been faithful to God, let
your conscience start all over again.

FINAL WORD
We have a saying, "Let your conscience
be your guide." Do not believe it! The
Bible is our guide. Your conscience is
your relationship with God concerning
good and evil. God has placed within you
this mysterious thing called conscience. It
understands good and evil. It will guide
you to do the things that are good and will
separate you from things that are evil.
Your conscience is the scales of God's
eternal justice.

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