Have you ever been troubled by a guilty conscience? I’m guessing your honest answer would be, “Yes.” Conscience is defined as “the inner sense of what is right or wrong in one’s conduct or motives, impelling one toward right action.”
Few would deny that mankind possesses an innate sense of what he ought to do and what he ought not to do. There is a marked contrast between animals and man. Animals seem to act more instinctually. Humans are endowed with moral sensitivity.
Unfortunately, when men are bent upon doing evil, they often try to suppress the prodding of a guilty conscience. As an illustration, someone too bothered to wear an automobile safety belt could disable the buzzer that indicates an unlatched belt. Similarly, men become resourceful in coming up with ways to evade their built-in moral detector.
One attempt is to redefine right and wrong. The prophet Isaiah spoke of this rebellious maneuver. “Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” (Isaiah 5:20). If you call a horse a cow, the animal remains the same. To speak of an alternative lifestyle, an extra-marital encounter and recreational or social use of intoxicants does not change the moral standing of the activity.
Another means of quieting the conscience is by repeated disregard for its promptings. When interviewed, a mass murderer likely would admit that the first murder bothered his conscience, but the feeling lessened with each homicide. The Bible speaks of those who are “branded in their own conscience as with a hot iron” (1 Timothy 4:2) and who have “hardening of their heart; who being past feeling gave themselves up to lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness” (Ephesians 4:18-19).
A third way to salve a guilty conscience is to find comfort in numbers. If “everybody is doing it,” then we feel it can’t be too bad. What about the masses who lived before the flood? Virtually everyone was thoroughly wicked (Genesis 6:5), and all but eight people were destroyed (1 Peter 3:20). “Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil” (Exodus 23:2). Read Matthew 7:13-14. Right and wrong is not determined by popular vote!
