A Clear
Conscience
Pastor
Cornelius R. Stam
With
the knowledge of good and evil man came into the possession of
conscience. A sense of blameworthiness smote him when he committed, or
even contemplated committing, evil. This has been so ever since. The
Bible tells us that even the most ungodly and benighted heathen “show
the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also
bearing witness, and their thoughts the meanwhile accusing or else
excusing one another” (Romans2:15).
It
is true that man’s conscience can be violated so often that it becomes
calloused or, as St. Paul puts it: “seared with a hot iron” (I Timothy
4:2), but events or incidents can take place which suddenly awaken the
conscience and make it sensitive again. Many a person has indulged in
“the pleasures of sin” more and more freely until, suddenly, his sin has
found him out and his conscience has caught up with him to condemn him
day and night and make life itself unbearable.
The
Bible teaches that all men outside of Christ are, to some degree,
troubled by guilty consciences and certainly most are “through fear of
death… all their lifetime subject to bondage” (Hebrews 2:15). But it
also teaches that “Christ died for our sins” so that, our penalty having
been paid, we might be delivered from a guilty conscience.
The
works and ceremonies of the Mosaic Law could never accomplish this, but
sincere and intelligent believers in Christ, having been “once purged,”
have “no more conscience of sins” (Hebrews 9:14; 10:1,2). They are, to
be sure, conscious of their sins, but they are no longer tortured by a
forever-condemning conscience, for they know that the penalty for all
their sins, from the cradle to the coffin, was fully met by Christ at
Calvary.
This
is not to imply that even a sincere believer may not be troubled about
offending the One who paid for his sins, but he knows that the judgment
for these sins is past. Thus he earnestly seeks, like Paul, “to have
always a conscience void of offence toward God and toward man” (Acts
24:16).
How
God Saves Men
Believing
Christ DIED, that’s HISTORY.
Believing
Christ DIED for YOU SINS and Rose again that’s SALVATION.
ead
Acts 16L31 Romans 1:16, and 1. Corinthians 15:1-4
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