Do you know about - The Inward Voice
Although the Law of Moses was given to the descendants of Israel probably sometime around 1440 B.C, God had already given the whole human race other Law that predated the Mosaic Law by at least 2,500 years---a Law that He wrote upon every human heart. This fact is quite obvious, because as Paul pointed out, "death reigned from Adam until Moses" (Rom. 5:14). That is, population were dying long before God gave the Law of Moses to Israel, and death is a clear indication of God's displeasure and judgment. Because "sin is not imputed when there is no law" (Rom. 5:13), obviously people's sins were being imputed by God before the Mosaic Law, because after Adam, "death spread to all men, because all sinned" (Rom. 5:12, emphasis added). That indicates that there must have been a Law to which all were accountable even prior to the Mosaic Law.
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That pre-Mosaic Law is also a post-Mosaic Law. It has been engraved by God on the heart of every person, Jew and Gentile, from the time of Adam until this gift moment. Paul wrote that the Gentiles spin "the work of the Law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness, and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them" (Rom. 2:15).
As far as we know, that law of the conscience is the only allembracing law that God gave anyone, with the irregularity of the descendants of Israel, for a duration of about four thousand years, from Adam until Jesus' communal ministry began.
There is, of course, plentifulness of additional evidence that God's Law was written on everyone's heart prior to His giving the Mosaic Law. We can read in Genesis of population who lived long before the giving of the Ten Commandments who knew right from wrong. The Egyptian Pharaoh of Abraham's day, for example, knew it was wrong for a man to take other man's wife (see Gen. 14-20.) So did Abimelech, a Philistine king (see Gen. 20:1-18, 26:6-11). Jacob knew that deception was wrong (see Gen. 27:12), yet he deceived his father in order to steal from his brother (see Gen. 27:1-45). Judah knew that adultery was wrong (see Gen. 38:24), yet he committed adultery. Joseph also knew that adultery was a sin, but unlike Judah, resisted the temptation (see Gen. 39:7-9). All of these population lived before God gave the Law of Moses. All bear testimony of God's Law written on their hearts, conveyed to them by their consciences.
But did the population who lived before the Mosaic Law know anyone more of what God thinkable, than just His prohibition of adultery or lying? Certainly. An inscription on a tomb overlooking the modern Egyptian city of Aswan, belonging to Harkhuf of Elephantine, who lived during the 23rd century B.C.---at least 800 years before God gave the Law of Moses---reads (in part):
"I gave bread to the hungry, clothing to the naked, I ferried him who had no boat....I was one saying good things and repeating what was loved. Never did I say aught evil to a excellent one against anybody. I desired that it might be well with me in the Great God's presence."
Although Harkhuf may not win high marks for humility, the inscription on his tomb reveals that the Law God inscribed on his heart could be summarized, "Love your neighbor as yourself" or, "Treat others as you want to be treated" (Matt. 22:39; Luke 6:31).
As much as two hundred years before Harkhuf, a grand vizier of Egypt named Ptahhotep, who served under Pharaoh Isesi, in his old age authored a collection of thirty-seven moral maxims that were addressed to his son. At least one thousand years before God gave the Ten Commandments to Israel, he warned his son against both lust and greed. Here are maxims 18 and 19:
If you want friendship to endure
In the house you enter
As master, brother, or friend,
In anyone place you enter,
Beware of approaching the women!
Unhappy is the place where it is done,
Unwelcome is he who intrudes on them.
A thousand men are undone for the enjoyment of a brief occasion like a dream,
Then death comes for having known them...
When one goes to do it the heart rejects it. [Note this line!]
He who fails through lust of them,
No affair of his can prosper.
If you want a exquisite conduct,
To be free from every evil,
Guard against the vice of greed:
A grievous sickness without cure,
There is no medicine for it.
It embroils fathers, mothers,
And the brothers of the mother,
It parts wife from husband;
it is a combination of all evils,
A bundle of all hateful things.
That man endures whose rule is rightness,
Who walks a level line;
He will make a will by it,
The greedy has no tomb.
Seared and Sincere Consciences
All people, past and present, regardless of their race or religion, yield to their consciences to some degree. All have a "line in the sand" that they, at least currently, won't cross over.
The worst scoundrels of human history were those who repeatedly suppressed the inward voice until their consciences became, as Paul wrote, "seared" (1 Timothy 4:12). If you drink hot coffee often enough, finally it doesn't hurt going down. Likewise, no one begins as a serial murderer or rapist. The downward spiral of such population began by their allowing just a slight hatred or lust into their hearts, all at the protest of their consciences.
Entire societies, like ours, are degraded when the population collectively and increasingly allow their consciences to come to be seared. Their inward thoughts accuse them of wrongdoing, but they elucidate it with the excuse, "Everyone else is doing it." That is why abortion, for example, the barbaric murder of one's own child, has come to be commonplace (126,000 abortions every day worldwide, and forty-six million annually). Everybody knows it is morally wrong, but it is legal, so it must be Ok. That is also why modern professing Christians can ordinarily entertain themselves viewing filth on television that proud nonbelievers a few decades ago wouldn't have been caught dead viewing, inspecting it obscene. The ever-sinking appropriate of false Christians remains only slightly higher than the ever-sinking appropriate of nonChristians.
Similarly, the admired heros of history are those who followed their consciences to a higher degree than their peers. Great moralists like Gandhi come to mind, who said, "Everyone who wills can hear the inner voice. It is within everyone."
Gandhi was right about that. By following his own conscience, Gandhi aroused the conscience of the whole British Empire, and at times he was able to arouse the consciences of Everybody in India, stopping Muslims and Hindus from slaughtering each other. It is concept by many that Gandhi lived by Christian principles more than most professing Christians, yet he never became a Christian, a testimony to the fabulous moral possible of an unregenerate someone who yields to his conscience. Keep in mind that it was the British "Christians" who exploited and oppressed the poor Hindus and Muslims of India, which is why Gandhi is also illustrious for saying, "I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."
What is most tragic is that so many professing Christians believe that they can continually ignore their consciences and still go to heaven, just as long as they once prayed a prayer to "accept Jesus" Meanwhile, they also believe that population like Gandhi, whose lives are like shining lights in the darkness in comparison to theirs, will be cast into hell naturally because they didn't pray the same slight prayer at some point in their lives. I can't tell you how many times I've had conversations in other countries with population of other faiths who have higher moral principles, and who are listening more closely to their consciences, than many professing Christians. Neither can I tell you how many nonChristian countries I've visited that in many ways are much more moral than countries like ours, where the majority profess to be Christians. One of the countries I've visited at the time of this writing, Socialist Vietnam, forbids the importation of pornography and says so on the immigration forms that must be filled out by every visitor. In contrast, one-third of all American pastors who responded to a Christianity Today poll admitted to being addicted to internet pornography. Many of the women in their congregations, if they dressed in Vietnam like they dress in church in America, would be assumed to be prostitutes. And we are going to heaven and they are going to hell because we once prayed a slight prayer that they haven't prayed?
Please, I beg, don't misquote me. I am not saying that Gandhi went to heaven or that anyone can save himself by his moral effort. I'm only pointing out the absurdity of mental that one can gain eternal life apart from a real righteousness that is born of repentance and genuine faith. If that is not the case (the Bible, of course, says it is), then God is about as unrighteous as one could be. Fantasize God casting Gandhi into hell, while allowing a someone who was 1/100th as righteous into heaven only because that someone once prayed a prayer to accept Jesus. If such a thing indeed happened, we could quit that God, the giver of our consciences, has no conscience of His own. As I have said so many times before, the grace that God is offering the world through His Son is not a license to sin. Rather, it is a temporary occasion to repent of sin, be born again, live righteously, and be saved from God's holy wrath.
Had Gandhi fully yielded to his conscience, he would have come to be a devoted follower of Christ regardless of the political consequences. Enhancing the temporal lives of poor Indians by political means would have come to be a secondary goal to transforming the eternal lives of poor Indians through the gospel for God's glory.
All of this is to say that true Christians, those who are truly on the narrow road that leads to eternal life, are those who have believed and therefore repented, and from that point onward closely follow their consciences. When they fail, they repent again in order to clear their consciences. As Paul so naturally wrote,
There shall indeed be a resurrection of both the righteous and the wicked. In view of this, I also do my best to profess all the time a blameless conscience both before God and before men (Acts 24:15-16, emphasis added).
True believers are rightfully called "saints," as the New Testament addresses them, which means "holy ones." Their righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees (as Jesus said is required of all who would enter heaven; see Matt. 5:20) as well as exceeds that of population like Gandhi.
Stimulating and Dulling the Conscience
The closest thing to the Law that God has written in our hearts is the Law He has recorded in His written Word. Thus the wisest thing one could do to stimulate his sensitivity to his conscience is to read God's Word. It is like a two-edged sword, cutting to the spirit and soul, "able to judge the thoughts and intents of the heart" (Heb. 4:12), just like the conscience. When God's Word is read or proclaimed, every God-given conscience resonates with it, and it promptly and universally creates conviction. But let me tell you of one of the saddest things I've observed: A preacher who begins his sermon by reading a passage of Scripture that immediately creates conviction across his congregation, but who then follows it with a sermon that serves no other purpose than to free Everybody from that conviction---as he explains to them what the Word of God "really means." His sermon is not designed to make his hearers holy, but to make himself a hero---of Everybody who wants to continue in his self-deception.
Let me give you a more specific example: A pastor dares to read to his congregation the story of the rich, young ruler (for some guess recorded three times in God's one book, but rarely mentioned in most churches).
As he reads Jesus' shocking words, "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to enter heaven," conviction naturally grips the hearts of everyone. The rich ruler wanted eternal life. Jesus required him to liquidate his possessions. As he walked away sadly, Jesus made His illustrious statement about the camel and the needle, driving His point home, making it unmistakable. Tension builds as people's consciences begin to accuse them of their own greed and lack of concern for the poor. If their pastor, however, has proven himself in the past to be skilled at nullifying the Word of God, the real suspense revolves around just how he will do it this time. Jesus' words seem so straightforward. How can they perhaps mean anyone other than what He naturally said?
Yet within the space of twenty minutes (and no longer, lest he make the fatal mistake of going past noon), by breaking rules of logic, ignoring biblical context, dredging up some modern myths, adding a dash of cheap humor, and skillfully twisting positive truth, he is able to pacify Everybody who hopes that Jesus' words have no application to them. Once again a blind man has led the blind. The goats smile. The sheep weep. The inward voice has been drowned in a delusion.
But the sad ending of this story is just a precursor to a more tragic conclusion, because Everybody must one day stand before the One who wrote His Law on their hearts and give an account. Did I obey God's Law or not? Paul warned, "It is not the hearers of the Law who are just before God, but the doers of the Law will be justified" (Rom. 2:13). He learned that from Jesus: "Not Everybody who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven" (Matt. 7:21). It seems that too few believe those solemn words.
The voice of the conscience is itself a gospel from God, as logic would dictate that if God is convicting me for what I'm doing and not immediately punishing me for it, then He must be offering me a window of occasion to repent and receive a pardon. How foolish it would be to quit that God, the giver of my conscience, will grant me a pardon apart from my repentance. My God-given conscience tells me otherwise. That is why the gospel of Scripture is a call to repentance. And that is why the gospel proclaimed without a call to holiness is a grand delusion.
"The Inward Voice", an record on God's guess for conscience ©2007 David slave and ShepherdServe.org. You are welcome to repost this record as long as the record is unaltered and kept in its entirety (with all links and toll attached), and is not sold for profit.
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