Is Your Conscience Your Friend Or Enemy?

Do you ever hear voices in your head?  I don’t, but I do hear my conscience from time to time.  Could hearing our conscience be what our society needs to return to sanity, our nation to return to nationhood, our family to be what a family should be?  I find what follows to be an excruciatingly painful thought or truth.  Will anyone be able to escape from their conscience in the end?

The Truth Stated

First, the truth I am talking about is derived from Malachi 3:5.  Note that God mentions here that He will be a swift witness.

“Then I will draw near to you for judgment; and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers and against the adulterers and against those who swear falsely, and against those who oppress the wage earner in his wages, the widow and the orphan, and those who turn aside the alien and do not fear Me,” says the Lord of hosts.”

What is a witness but one who saw something pertaining to the crime.  I used to have a bumper sticker that read

The Thought Derived

God has watched something and is witness to something.  What?

The sobering if not terrifying thought derived from this truth is brought out in this commentary on this passage.  Barne’s Notes says,

[And I will be a swift witness](NOTE: Dionysius) “In judging I will bear witness, and witnessing, I, the same, will bring forth judgment, saith the Lord; therefore, the judgment shall be terrible, since the judge is an infallible witness, whom the conscience of no one will be able to contradict.”

Our conscience will agree with God the Judge!  And if you are true to yourself, you know it will.  No wonder people flee from God.

But how are you doing fleeing from your own conscience?

Questions Raised

  1. Is your conscience friend or foe?
  2. Would you consider the voice of your conscience to be in the category of self-evident truths?
  3. The Founders sourced self-evident truths in the Declaration of Independence as the rallying point behind their Revolution.  Would they have sought to include our conscience among such things?
  4. Could something as simple as returning to conscience protect the blessings of liberty that we cherish?
  5. If you listened to your conscience particularly close today how would it affect your life, your business, your family, your friends, our government?

Here’s to the hope that pointing such things out will change our world.

And Me

What is the effect of all this on me?  I know my conscience speaks to me and I know I am not that good at listening to it.  Knowing the truth Mal 3:5 motivates me to listen more attentively and maybe even respond more immediately so as not to ignore it.  After all, if I ignore it who or what exactly am I being influenced by?  My conscience is a part of me; why let something that is not control me?

Going to change my way of thinking
Make myself a different set of rules
Going to put my good foot forward
And stop being influenced by fools
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