A Clear Conscience

Men are constantly endeavoring to clear their consciences from guilt.  When Judas’ conscience was pricked by feelings of remorse, he threw down the thirty pieces of silver, ever since known as “conscience money,” and proclaimed, “I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood.” -Matthew 27:4    

Even the Pharisees had troubled consciences.  They brought to the Savior a woman caught in adultery.  After He said “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her,” the Master wrote something on the ground.  It is then recorded, “And they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last” (John 8:9).  

William Carey was a missionary to India from late 1793 to his death in 1834 A.D.  When he went to India he found people who were trying to rid themselves of their guilt by various means, most of them self-tormenting.  A historian wrote, “One would hold his hand above his head until it would be so stiff he could not take it down.  Another would lie on iron spikes just blunt enough not to pierce him to death.  

They had what they called the worship of the Juggernaut.  A massive wooden god was carried on a huge carriage drawn by many men howling and shrieking, and anyone who would throw himself under its wheels to be crushed to death was counted happy.  

It was common to throw new-born infants into the river as offering to the gods.”  Those things were done in an effort to rid themselves of feelings of guilt, to pacify their troubled consciences.

The only remedy for a troubled conscience is a perfect Savior.  In the death of the Lord Jesus, God has manifested His justice and mercy: justice in punishing the sins of the guilty in His Son and mercy in pardoning and accepting those for whom Christ died and arose.  

It is only in the sacrifice of the Son of God that there is a just basis for salvation and it is only upon the grounds of this perfect sin-offering that God receives the sinful.  Paul declared in Hebrews 9:14, “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?”   

The blood of Christ alone can purge the conscience of dead works, cleanse it from all sin and speak to it words of peace and assurance.  So long as we look to Christ and His righteous obedience for acceptance with the Lord, the conscience is quiet.  The moment, however, that the eye of faith is taken off Christ, the conscience again is awakened and troubled.  There is no real peace of conscience except in looking to Christ alone!                                                                                                                  -preacher Jim Byrd of Thirteenth Street Baptist church located in Ashland, Kentucky USA