Today, focus is upon conscience as an expression from the flesh and the World, rather than divine Spirit. At one time, conscience was widely understood to be like artistry and talent, a gift given a person by GOD. Conscience appeared as an operation of law detecting and exposing sin, making challenge as an accuser, and delivering correction and punishment in the form of despair and unending mental anguish. Many in modern society are startled and disheartened knowing there are those among us who repeatedly show anger, aggressive and “hard-core” attitudes (the young say, gangsta), bitterness, enmity, frigidity, hostility, indifference to the suffering of others, lack of love, rage, self-destructiveness, and mindless violence. Impenitent sinners, having exaggerated pride and refusing to show remorse or sorrow for sin, seem to be multiplying. Their behavior and conduct shows no respect to law, to life, to judgment, to forgiveness, to kindness, or to love. Because they are increasingly labeled as inhuman, monsters, psychopaths, and sociopaths, it often seems acceptable to say such sinners are “dead” in sin, can not be raised or restored, and will never be saved since they have no remaining scrap of conscience or humanity. Yet, these are the ones who would benefit most through being “born again.” The fighter at “Yahoo! Answers” using the ID “Bobby” (Level 1 with 1 point, a member since March 10, 2012) posted the following:
How can people not believe in God when our consciences testify to his existence?
Our conscience is like a fire alarm. It tells us when we are violating God's law. It can make us feel terrible, because that is God's way of warning us when we are in trouble.
How can someone ignore that and then insist that everything happened by chance and as such, morality is purely a societal construct?
It's like saying that a building just formed by chance and natural processes, instead of intelligence!
THE GOLDEN ARROW: For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh: 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? And for this cause he is the mediator of the new testament, that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance. (Hebrews 9: 13-15, King James Version, KJV)
THE DOUBLE DAGGER: Spirit Process not Feelings? (09/21/2016); Judgment Focused On Content? (08/30/2016); Boasting In The Lord (08/19/2016); Where Society Is Headed? (01/11/2016); In Times of Progress? (12/21/2015); Punishment To Show Love? (11/29/2015); Sin in Mind not Deed? (01/06/2014)
“Bobby”, here are some thoughts I’d like to share: As an emotional and psychological aspect of ones awareness (we may say, the flesh), conscience and self-will may be dominated by the operations of sin. Conscience, that many take to be an inner standard that tells us right and wrong, may be the origin and source for our feelings and sense of condemnation, disgrace, embarrassment, guilt, and shame. Thus, the testimony and witness of conscience can be more akin to the products of flesh and mind than to those from (we say, the fruit of) the imparted, indwelling spirit of GOD. Therefore, for Christian believers, conscience is not a “thorn in the flesh” that reveals divine grace and the active presence of divinity, nor is conscience a device that increases sacred knowledge, and establishes eternal purpose.
Conscience appears as if a complex and higher order response in created beings and living creatures because there is always a three-fold mix of emotional, intellectual and mental responses that persist, recur, and linger. The mechanism of conscience appears to be a cycle wherein feeling triggers thoughts, followed by thoughts that repeatedly trigger the previous feelings. Where conscience becomes corrupted, loses its forcefulness, and becomes unfocused, it does not operate as prophecy to comfort, edify (build up), and exhort (command immediate action; excite believers to “stir up the gifts”). More than this, conscience may become seared. (When fire (i.e., judgment) is used to cauterize (close) a person’s deep and unseen wounds, so to speak, a seal is created that stops the bleeding. However, the seal that no longer allows anything out from the wound, also no longer allows anything in. Thus, many are “ever learning,” yet, never coming to the knowledge of the truth.)
To the extent conscience in modern society may be seen as a result of carnal, material, and social elements, what we experience as being matters of “conscience” (or not) can be determined by such features as corporate advertising, gossip, politics, popular culture, government propaganda, slander, and even the “charm” and panache of criminal and nonconformist personality (bad boyz!). Consider again the admonitions, examples, and how some of this is stated using language from the Bible:
(1.) 1st Timothy 4: 1-3, King James Version (KJV): 1 Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; 2 Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron; 3 Forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth.
(2.) Titus 1: 15-16, KJV: 15 Unto the pure all things are pure: but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure; but even their mind and conscience is defiled. 16 They profess that they know God; but in works they deny him, being abominable, and disobedient, and unto every good work reprobate.
(3.) 1st Timothy 1: 3-7, KJV: 3 As I besought thee to abide still at Ephesus, when I went into Macedonia, that thou mightest charge some that they teach no other doctrine, 4 Neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which minister questions, rather than godly edifying which is in faith: so do. 5 Now the end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned: 6 From which some having swerved have turned aside unto vain jangling; 7 Desiring to be teachers of the law; understanding neither what they say, nor whereof they affirm.
(4.) 1st Timothy 1: 18-20, KJV: 18 This charge I commit unto thee, son Timothy, according to the prophecies which went before on thee, that thou by them mightest war a good warfare; 19 Holding faith, and a good conscience; which some having put away concerning faith have made shipwreck: 20 Of whom is Hymenaeus and Alexander; whom I have delivered unto Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme.
There is far more to be said, carefully examined, and spiritually apprehended. (For example, (5.) Romans 8: 5-9, KJV: 5 For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit. 6 For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. 7 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. 8 So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. 9 But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.) Even so, I trust this fragment will be useful. Be it unto you according to your faith.
THE BLACK PHOENIX
Washington, DC
Washington, DC
No comments:
Post a Comment