FOUR WAYS TO KEEP YOUR CONSCIENCE UNEASY

 Posted at Reformation Scotland:

Our sense that we’ve done something wrong (or indeed something virtuous) is the voice of conscience. An uneasy conscience is a very troubling thing. Whatever else is going well for us, when our conscience niggles and prickles, we cannot be at peace. The epistle to the Hebrews tackles the problem that we have an ‘evil conscience’ (Hebrews 10:22) and that our conscience needs to be ‘purged’ (Hebrews 9:14). The gospel has a solution to a defiled and accusing conscience. Peace of conscience is one of the key benefits that Jesus Christ can give us. However, in a sermon on these two verses in Hebrews, James Durham takes the time to identify four ways that people can temporarily buy themselves some suppression of the voice of conscience. He shows in the following updated extract that a conscience that goes quiet – but not because it’s been purged by the atoning blood of Christ – is a very dangerous thing.

In Hebrews 9 and 10, the apostle’s purpose is to commend the transcendent worth and matchless excellency of Jesus Christ, and the incomparable efficacy of his most precious blood. He does this on the basis of this noble, notable, and unique effect of it, i.e., that when nothing else can allay the storm of an evil conscience, nor purge it from defilement, this blood can do it effectually, when applied by faith.

There is nothing that Christians should more aim at, and endeavour more to practice, than to follow the way by which they may get their consciences purged. All the more so for those who have had their consciences defiled all over again, after they were previously purged.

Observe from Hebrews 10:22 that a conscience which is not purged by the blood of Christ is a very evil thing.

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