Last time, when we considered our guilt, we looked at the difference between objective and subjective guilt and it became clear that all our guilt feelings must be in line with the Word of God. The feelings of guilt must be compared to the objective Word and law of God. Related to all of this is our conscience. Our conscience is an internal monitor which either approves or disapproves of what we do — it’s a sort of post-action monitor.

The question is, is our conscience an infallible guide? The answer is no. Our conscience can be shaped and molded. It can be desensitized. We can have an open, soft, and tender conscience or our conscience can be hardened and closed. As people become older, their conscience often speaks less and less. Why? Surely it is related to our habit of rationalizing our sins in order to live with ourselves. Think of when you were younger and you did some of the same things that you do today. Didn’t your conscience speak louder and with a more sharp prick than today? Is it because we have come to justify our actions? Have we excused ourselves so many times that our conscience has begun to shut down? Maybe you even watched what someone else was doing and thought, “I would never do that”; then later, you find yourself doing it but your conscience does not speak very loudly at all. We end up saying things like: “No one is perfect” and “As long as the end is okay, it doesn’t matter.” Friend, going down this path will bring you to your death because when we appear before the Great White Throne, our conscience which we have quieted, will shout with unmistakable clarity. We will condemn ourselves if we are outside of Christ.

Our conscience can be trained. When I think of the Pharisees faced with Jesus, His words, and His miracles, they must have pacified their conscience. They had to silence their conscience by believing the lie and telling themselves that they were pleasing God because they did everything their rabbinical fathers had taught them. When Christ came and preached the Sermon on the Mount, He set the record straight about how a person was to live. The Pharisees reacted with enmity perhaps because their conscience which had been silenced began to speak.

There are others who have an overly sensitive conscience. Such people can feel guilty about something unnecessarily. Their conscience becomes overactive and accuses them of things they have never done. We must be very careful of going against our conscience even when it may have been trained wrongly (compare Rom. 14:23 and 1 Cor. 8:7); rather, we must prayerfully seek to bring our conscience in line with the unchangeable Word of God.

One of the most devious activities of the devil is to get people to wallow in their guilt. He is the accuser of the brethren and he seeks to accuse people of their sins to such a degree that they doubt there is forgiveness with God. Are you such a person? Do you think you have sinned so much and sometimes you wonder how the Lord could ever forgive you? Your feelings tell you that you have sinned against so many warnings of conscience and of others, how could you be forgiven? I have good news for you, friend: there is forgiveness with God that He may be feared. The Word of God tells us there is forgiveness, even for the greatest of sinners (1 Tim. 1:15). You must not base your conclusion upon feelings, but you must lean hard upon Christ and His promises. Just as we saw that there is an objective and subjective guilt, so there is an objective and subjective forgiveness. Although a person may not always feel forgiven, it does not change the fact that, when he has come to Christ by faith and is born again, he is in fact forgiven. God sees no sin in us. When we come repenting of sin and clinging to Christ, forgiveness is promised. He turns none away.

If you are feeling guilty, do not delay. Do not silence your conscience; you feel guilty because you are guilty if you have not come to Christ for cleansing. You need to be washed, you need to be forgiven, you need to repent and turn to Christ from your sin.

If you are going to deal with your guilt, you must face it and confess it. You must not deny it or minimize it. But as you come to Christ, humbling yourself before Him, also believe His Word regarding forgiveness. Do not rely on your feelings of forgiveness, but on His Word of promise. “Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out” (John 6:37).

Are you bound or free?