The following 12 minute video talks about the importance of a gift from God, our conscience. It makes clear how our society seeks to misinform the conscience and shut it off.
The conscience is the soul’s warning system; it plays a critical role in salvation and sanctification; it senses moral violation and provides appropriate direction if it has been informed appropriately.
Video highlights [square brackets, emboldening and italics are mine]:
- Dr. MacArthur read about the 1984 Avianca Airlines plane crash as he was writing his book: The Vanishing Conscience: Drawing The Line In A No-Fault, Guilt-Free World
- The warning system of the airplane instructed the Spanish pilot to “pull up” several times; the pilot said to the warning system, “Shut up Gringo,” and in a few moments the plane crashed into the side of a mountain killing everyone aboard
- The Avianca incident is a parable of how modern people treat the warning system which God has put into their souls
- A parallel that may be more understandable is the body’s signalling pain when something is wrong; if you continue to override that system, then you will do permanent damage to yourself (the example of leprosy is used as an illustration)
- Romans 2: 14 For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. 15 They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them
- The conscience has 2 functions: it accuses and it excuses; it indicts or defends you; it instructs – this is good for you, or this is bad for you
- To suppress conscience is to engage in soul-destroying activity
- Modern wisdom seeks to render the conscience ineffective
- The Evil One wants us to ignore and to misinform it when it calls to us, “Pull up!”
- Contemporary psychology says man is basically good [they got that from eastern religion] and the guilt that conscience produces limits one’s potential to feel good about himself, to have good self-esteem…
- Our society is trying to do two things: misinform our conscience; shut it off
- Two things were happening in that Avianca airline: 1. radar was finding a mountain and articulating that; 2. the safety system alerted the captain with directions to “Pull up”
- Two things needed to happen: 1. know the reality of the situation; 2, respond accordingly
- Sanctification functions on those same two principles: it starts with knowing the truth: the conscience is the soul reflecting upon itself
- Reflecting upon self is the soul’s own innate ability to understand what is right and what is wrong and to make a determination to do right
- When conscience is violated, it produces: shame, regret, guilt, fear, anxiety, disgrace, anguish, and sometimes, depression
- Conventional wisdom says, “Go see a counselor…” assuming there must be some medical explanation
- That type of wisdom, diminishes the sensitivity of conscience and is tantamount to saying, “Shut Up!” to your conscience; the apostle Paul’s words below describe a hardened conscience, which values the opposite of what God intended it to value, and is defiled
- Philippians 3:19 Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things. (Examples also given from Isaiah 5 and Titus 1)
- The conscience is not a light, it is a sky light through which divine light shines
- When you misinform your conscience, you are using the wrong radar [not the radar that will preserve it]
- The conscience senses moral violation when it is rightly informed, it then tells the soul, “Pull Up!”
6-6-22 update: the video in this post was designated ‘unavailable’ by the communist leaders at YouTube because it has religious content, that is my guess because it is still available. I could not upload it after trying numerous times because my DSL is not working well due to phone line problems.
The following link is for the 12-minute video which adds much to the above highlights; you may have to go to YouTube to view it?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVLV_1TrZGw
Featured Image: captured from video