The Defilement of the Conscience

Romans 2:12-15 - "For all who have sinned without the Law will also perish without the Law, and all who have sinned under the Law will be judged by the Law; for not the hearers of the Law are just before God, but the doers of the Law will be justified. For when Gentiles who do not have the Law do instinctively the things of the Law, these, not having the Law, are a law to themselves, in that they show the work of the Law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them."

The claim of the Bible is that God has inscribed His moral law on people's hearts. He has given everyone a conscience which knows right from wrong. But when you read the newspaper or watch the news, look at the events that are taking place around the world, and an objection might come into your mind. When we hear the excuse about the man in the jungle, and your neighbor says things like, "I don't think God is going to be fair in judging people for not responding to a message which they never had." And you say, "Actually, they do have God's law, He has written it on their hearts. They do know right from wrong." Then the next anticipated objection goes something like this: Wait a minute, you're telling me that God has encoded every person with a moral standard of right and wrong; have you read the newspaper lately? Have you watched the news? There are people around the world who are committing blatant evil, and they don't seem to have any problem with it. Their conscience, if they have one, doesn't seem to bother them at all. In fact, in some cases they seem to think that they're doing the right thing. If God writes His moral standard on people's hearts, then it sure looks like He missed some people, doesn't it? And if He missed some people here in our enlightened society then certainly it's possible that He missed some of the people out in the jungle too, right? That's a good question.

I'm sure you can think of some examples, but here's just a few that I came across: A couple of weeks ago down in Florida there was a seventeen year old boy who broke into a woman’s home and began to steal her stuff. She came home while he was robbing her house, and she ended up pulling out a gun and shooting and killing him. Now, I don't know what was going on in this guys conscience as he robbed this lady's house, but as I heard this report on the radio I was shocked by some of the things that certain members of his extended family were saying. Some of this guys relatives were being interviewed, I think were cousins or something, I'm not sure, but when they were asked about the crime they said things like this, "How else was he supposed to get money to buy clothes for school?" And someone actually said, "Why did she have to come home when she did? Couldn’t she have waited until he left?" Now, again, I don't know what was going on in this guy's conscience as he was robbing her house, but they seem to think that there is nothing wrong with robbery. Stealing is completely fine. If you need a couple bucks to buy some clothes, why not just break into a house and take what you find? What are we to make of things like this? Don’t they have a conscience? Don't they know it's wrong to steal? 
Or take some other thing you've heard about, it could be blatant immorality or greed, somebody taking advantage of another person and seeing nothing wrong with it. You have people committing all sorts of crimes, from robbery to murder, they get caught. Some of them feel guilty for what they've done, they know it was wrong, but others don't seem to have any conscience at all. You have serial killers who have no problem taking the life of another person, and when they're caught and put on trial they don't have any remorse for it. They think it was the right thing to do. And we could go on and on. Here's a headline I read this week, "Florida man arrested for throwing an alligator through drive-thru window." Didn't he know he shouldn't do that? Granted, God didn't give us a verse for that one, but I don't think we need a verse for that.

Is the Law of God really written on people’s consciences, and if it is, what has to happen to their conscience in order for them to get to the place where they can approve what is evil?

The Bible has a lot to say concerning the conscience, and much of what it says it directed toward us as believers. We're given warnings to guard our consciences, to keep a pure conscience, keep a clear conscience. And just the fact that we're given these warnings tells us something, the conscience can be defiled. Why else would we be warned to keep it clean if we couldn't defile it? In First Timothy chapter 1 the apostle Paul writes about two guys named Hymenaeus and Alexander, and he says of them that they rejected faith and a good conscience, and as a result they had suffered shipwreck in regard to their faith. In Titus chapter 1 and verse 15 we're told about the conscience of the unbeliever becoming defiled. And I think that the answer is somewhere along those lines. To those who are defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure, but both their mind and their conscience are defiled. The conscience can be defiled. In 1 Timothy chapter 4 we read about the conscience being seared as with a hot iron. In Ephesians chapter 4 it talks about people being darkened in their understanding because of the hardness of their heart and becoming callous and as a result giving themselves over to things like sensuality and impurity and greed. See, God has written standard, His moral law on everyone's heart, He has given everyone a conscience, but we can choose to ignore it and suppress it. The conscience presents us with a standard, it shows us what is right, but it doesn't force us to conform to that standard. Right? The conscience tells me not to throw an alligator through a drive-thru window, but I can still choose to do it if I want to. And when you disregard that standard there is a pang of guilt, of conviction, at first. But it is possible to suppress the truth, defile your conscience, to sear your conscience, so that after consistently choosing to neglect the conscience it becomes defiled. So you're presented with a moral choice, and your conscience is saying, "Don't give in to that. Do the right thing." But if you ignore that, next time it becomes easier to neglect your conscience. Your conscience won't speak quite so loud next time. And it just becomes easier and easier to live with a lowered standard of morality. You can walk down the Las Vegas strip at eleven o'clock at night and just know this, every person and every expression of sin and debauchery at one point would have made all those people blush. It doesn't anymore, but it did at one time. But now they don't even bat an eye. Why? Because they've become used to sin. Oh, their conscience used to cry out against it, but they fought it, they suppressed the truth. To get to the point where your conscience no longer bothers you, you have to continually suppress it. And then it becomes defiled, and then it becomes seared and calloused. And before long the Law of God written on the human heart is muffled and we're comfortable with a lowered standard of morality.

And, by the way, when the conscience of an individual becomes defiled, the whole moral standard of a society begins to go downhill. Because as goes the individual, so goes the society. The human conscience, this internal moral standard cannot be accounted for apart from the biblical God. And that, in part, is one reason why, I think, the standard of morality in our society is being undermined. People are beginning to realize that in order for them to be consistent with their worldview they shouldn't be compelled to obey God's standard of morality, and they definitely can't impose a standard of morality on others. Of course, they won't completely abandon it, but there's no question that our culture as a whole is in moral decline. God has put this standard of right and wrong within us, but when man chooses to suppress the truth in unrighteousness, ignore their conscience and commend things that they know are wrong, we find ourselves in a place where we're comfortable with a lower standard of morality. This is what we see at the end of Romans 1, people are openly sinning and they’re walking around giving each other high-fives for their sin. “They not only practice such things, but they give hearty approval to those who do them.” So now, because of the defiled conscience of individuals the collective standard of morality is being undermined, and we've come to a place in our country where it's morally acceptable for men to marry men and for women to marry women. It's morally acceptable for mothers to have their unborn babies killed for the sake of convenience. It's morally acceptable for couples to sleep together outside the bonds of marriage. It's morally acceptable for you to divorce your spouse. It's morally acceptable to use profanity in our speech and take the Lords name in vain. It's morally acceptable for children to disrespect their parents. It's morally acceptable to be boastful and arrogant and conceited. And it’s even morally acceptable, if someone has something that you want, to break into their home and take it. “They not only practice such things but they give hardy approval to those who do them. What has happened to morality in our country? What has happened to our collective conscience? A century ago people knew that these things were wrong and they weren't afraid to say so. A century ago it was a shameful thing to have sex before marriage, now it's the norm. A century ago homosexuality was almost unheard of, now it's presented as a completely acceptable alternative lifestyle. A century ago in this country the average person believed in the sanctity of human life, now children are sacrificed on the altar of convenience. A century ago in the United States people recognized that the marriage covenant was a sacred vow before God, now if you want to divorce your spouse, no problem, sign on the dotted line.

In Jeremiah chapter 6 the Lord is predicting the captivity of Judah, and He is giving reasons why He is going to allow His people to be carried off. In chapter 6 verse 15 the Lord says of His people - "Were they ashamed because of the abomination they have done? They were not even ashamed at all; They did not even know how to blush."He says it again in chapter 8 verse 12 - "Were they ashamed because of the abomination they had done? They certainly were not ashamed, and they did not know how to blush." And eventually that's where a person, or a society, will find themselves. And that's where we are right now, our culture does not even know how to blush. We can become so used to sin that the things which we would have been uncomfortable with at one time become normal. We would have blushed about it at one point, but now our conscience has become so seared that we don't even know how to blush. But it doesn't stop there. It's bad enough to become so defiled in your conscience that you no longer blush at sin, but it gets worse. Because eventually, individuals, as well as society as a whole, get to a place where, not only do they forget how to blush, but the things that used to make them blush they're now applauding. "They not only practice such things, but give hearty approval to those who do them." They've exchanged evil for good and good for evil. It's not simply that sin no longer carries with it any shame, but when someone stands up for what's right they are slandered and ridiculed as though they were the ones in the wrong. The standard of right and wrong is slowly eroded until it is completely upside-down. This is what happened during the days when Isaiah prophesied. The Lord sent Isaiah on the scene during a dark period of Israels history. The nation as a whole had turned their back on God, and God was about to let them reap the consequences of their actions. He was going to deliver them into the hands of a foreign nation who would carry them away into exile. What was the reason given for this punishment? There are several reasons given throughout the early chapters, but one of the reasons, according to Isaiah 5:20 is that these people had turned the standard of right and wrong on its head. The Lord says - "Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness; who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!" It's bad enough to accept what is morally wrong, but you take it to a whole new level when you call sin "Good" and those who oppose it are labeled as "Evil." When you oppose abortion or homosexuality our culture labels you as evil. Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil.

Just as the Scriptures affirm, God has written His law on people's hearts, no exception. And as for the man in the jungle, God has given him a conscience too. He may choose to ignore it, he may choose to defile it, but he's born with the standard written on his heart, and God will be just on judgment day to say to anyone, whether they live in your neighborhood, or out in the middle of a jungle somewhere, "You broke My law, and you knew it was wrong." How did they know? Because He encoded His law into their conscience. And this is a serious warning for us as believers as well. We need to be careful to guard our consciences. And that's why Paul often said things like this in his defense, Acts 24:16 - "In view of this, I also do my best to maintain always a blameless conscience both before God and before men." It's why Peter warned us to in First Peter 3 to "Keep a good conscience." It's important to protect it, don't defile it. Paul wrote to Timothy that one of the goals of our instruction is "a good conscience." And it's so easy, especially in a society like ours where sin is so acceptable, to compromise with it, to become used to it. But we need to watch out that our consciences don't get numb. And the good news for us is that we have the Word of God to correct us when our consciences begin to get defiled. We have the Word of God to correct us when we begin to forget how to blush. It realigns our conscience when it starts getting off track. God has endowed human beings with a conscience.

Romans 2:14-15 - "For when Gentiles who do not have the Law do instinctively the things of the Law, these, not having the Law, are a law to themselves, in that they show the work of the Law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them."

Conscience

Romans 2:14-15 - "For when Gentiles who do not have the Law do instinctively the things of the Law, these, not having the Law, are a law to themselves, in that they show the work of the Law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them."

Another general way in which God reveals Himself to everyone is through human consciences. The human conscience, according to this passage, is the reflection of God’s moral law. The conscience is an interesting thing. What is your conscience? Where is your conscience? Where did it come from? The dictionary defines conscience like this: "The inner sense of what is right or wrong in one's conduct or motives, impelling one toward right action." So the conscience is an inward standard or code that distinguishes between right and wrong. But here’s the thing, not only does it distinguish between right and wrong, it also compels you to do what is right and refuse what is wrong. It distinguishes between what is morally good and morally bad and then it prompts you to do the morally good thing and shun the morally bad thing. It commends one and condemns the other. The conscience is based on some seemingly unwritten standard, some universal moral code. But who determined the standard? Who wrote the code? C.S. Lewis writes about this in his book Mere Christianity, and he says that if you listen to two people arguing you'll hear them appealing to some higher standard, and they'll things like this, - ""How'd you like it if anyone did the same to you?" - "That's my seat, I was there first." - "Leave him alone, he isn't doing you any harm." - "Why should you shove in first?" - "Give me a bit of your orange, I gave you a bit of mine." - "Come on, you promised." People say things like that every day, educated people as well as uneducated, and children as well as grown-ups. Now what interests me about all these remarks is that the man who makes them is not merely saying that the other man's behavior does not happen to please him. He is appealing to some kind of standard of behavior which he expects the other man to know about. And the other man very seldom replies, "To hell with your standard." Nearly always he tries to make out that what he has been doing does not really go against the standard, or that if it does there is some special excuse. He pretends there is some special reason in this particular case why the person who took the seat first should not keep it, or that things were quite different when he was given the bit of orange, or that something has turned up which lets him off keeping his promise. It looks, in fact, very much as if both parties had in mind some kind of Law or Rule of fair play or decent behavior or morality or whatever you like to call it, about which they really agreed. And they have. If they had not, they might, of course, fight like animals, but they could not quarrel in the human sense of the word. Quarreling means trying to show that the other man is in the wrong. And there would be no sense in trying to do that unless you and he had some sort of agreement as to what Right and Wrong are."

That’s what the apostle Paul is writing about here in Romans chapter 2. God has put a moral standard of right and wrong within us. And when you do something wrong your conscience either accuses you, "How could you do something so despicable? You need to go make it right." Or it defends you, "That was the right thing to do. I may not understand it but I know I did the right thing." Your conscience either accuses or defends you, based on what? Based on an internal standard of right and wrong.

We see an example of this back in Genesis chapter 42; this is when Joseph’s brothers went down to Egypt to buy bread. As they stood before Joseph, you’ll remember that Joseph disguised himself so that they wouldn’t recognize him and spoke harshly to them and accused them of being spies. As this was going on their consciences began to accuse them. Even though they had no idea that it was Joseph who was standing in front of them, even though it had been over ten years since they had sold their brother and lied to their father, this is what they said to one another, “Truly we are guilty concerning our brother, because we saw the distress of his soul when he pleaded with us, yet we would not listen; therefore this distress has come upon us.” They basically said, “what we did was wrong and now we’re going to suffer the consequences of that.” And Reuben said his brothers, “Did I not tell you, ‘Do not sin against the boy’; and you would not listen? Now comes the reckoning for his blood.” Question: How did they know that what they had done was wrong? How did they know that it was a sin? How did they know that casting Joseph into a pit and then selling him into slavery and lying to their father was wrong? Well it’s obviously wrong. Yeah, I know it is, but my question is, why is it wrong? And how did they know? At this point there were no written Scriptures. The law of God has not yet been written. But, as we see here in Romans 2, the law of God was written on their hearts, they knew that it was wrong, and now they’re being accused by their consciences. They didn't need the Scriptures to know what they had done was wrong, their consciences showed them their guilt, and they didn't try to defend themselves because they knew instinctively that what they had done was wrong.

God has written His moral standard on the hearts of men. And, by the way, this is a moral standard, not a ceremonial standard. What do I mean by that? Suppose that you're invited to a dinner party. As you walk up and knock on the front door the host answers, and you can see over his shoulder into the living room, and you notice that everyone inside is wearing yellow, and you show up and you’re wearing purple. Now, the host says to you, “Oh, you know what? At my house, when I’m hosting the dinner party and I’m the one who paid for the food, we do yellow here. Sorry, you're not getting in.” You’re going to object, right? “Wait a minute, I didn’t get the memo on that! I never got that e-mail.” And you would have a case. You didn’t get the memo on the yellow clothes. Now suppose that as he invites you into his house and as you’re walking past him and his wife you take your knuckles and hit his wife right in the mouth. What, you didn’t get the memo on that? Now, there may be strange rules at dinner parties, but you don’t have to be told not to hit the host's wife. Why not? Because intuitively you know, you don’t do that. Maybe he can excuse you for the purple clothes, but you didn’t have to be told not to hit the host's wife. You knew that one was wrong.

And this distinction between a ceremonial standard and a moral standard is an important one, because where Paul is going in the end of chapter 2, he’s going to start talking about some of the ceremonial laws, circumcision in particular. Now, someone is not going to show up at God’s front door and have God say to them, “you didn’t have the circumcision, you didn’t have the Levitical priesthood, you didn’t have the right garments and the ephod, sorry, you’re not getting in.” Because someone could respond, “Wait a minute, I didn’t get the memo on that! I never received the e-mail about the priesthood and the ephod and the circumcision and all that.” And they would have a case. But you can’t show up at God’s front door having lied and stolen and committed adultery and murder, and say, “Wait a minute, I never got the memo on that.” Why? Because God has written His moral standard on people’s hearts, and when we break that standard we are culpable. When it comes to the moral standard of God, even the man in the jungle got the memo on that one. Why? Because God has written it on their hearts.

Think about this, you go into a jungle somewhere where they don’t even have a written language, they’re walking around with bones through their nose dragging boars behind them. You go up, take their boar, and run off into the jungle. Now, they’ve never read the Bible, they’ve never been to Sunday school, they’ve never memorized the ten commandments, and yet they know that it is wrong to steal. He just took something that wasn’t his. That’s not right. Now, they’re showing up to the dinner party at each others huts wearing the wrong color loin cloth, but they know it’s wrong to steal. They know, you don’t hit the host's wife. How? Because they have a conscience. And God has inscribed upon their hearts His moral standard of right and wrong. And when they break that standard, they know it. And God is just on judgment day in saying to them, “You violated the law of God and you knew it was wrong, and now you will be punished for your sin.” And all of this hinges on the truth that God has inscribed His law on the hearts of men, God has endowed human beings with a conscience.

Romans 2:14-15 - "For when Gentiles who do not have the Law do instinctively the things of the Law, these, not having the Law, are a law to themselves, in that they show the work of the Law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them."