Hebrews 10:22-24 Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience… Suppose that all the people in the place where we live had some disease of the eye, and that in consequence some were not able to see at all, while none of them were able to see anything clearly. What a sad state of things this would be! We read of persons in the Bible who were just in this condition (2 Kings 6.). It is a good thing that we have no such trouble with our bodily eyes; but the soul has an eye as well as the body. God has put these eyes in our bodies that we may see where to go and what to do. And so God has given to our souls that which we call conscience, and which shows us what is right and what is wrong — what we ought to do and what we ought not to do. But the apostle speaks in our text of "an evil conscience." This means a conscience that has been injured like a diseased eye, so that we cannot see clearly. I. WHAT IS THE USE OF CONSCIENCE? 1. To guide us and keep us from doing wrong. You know we have reins for our horses to keep them in the way they should go; and our consciences are the reins by which God guides us, and if we only mind the reins we shall save ourselves from sin and sorrow. 2. To keep an account of what we do. Conscience is God's scribe or private secretary; it writes down all that we do, or say, or think, or feel. During the reign of Queen Mary, Bishop Latimer was brought to trial for conscience' sake. In the room in which the trial took place was a curtain, and behind this curtain a man writing. Whenever the bishop answered a question he heard the sound of this man's pen as he wrote down each word that was spoken. The bishop said that the sound of that pen made him very careful to say nothing but what was strictly true. And this shows us how we should act at all times. Conscience, God's secretary, is writing down everything that we do, "whether it be good or whether it be evil." And the book in which this is written is " the book of God's remembrance," of which the Bible tells us, and out of which we are to be judged at last. 3. As a detector, to find out sin after it has been committed. You know we have what are called detective police. When a robbery has taken place, or a murder has been committed, the business of these men is to try and find out the guilty ones. And God makes use of conscience as His detective police to find out those who have sinned secretly. II. How MAY CONSCIENCE BE INJURED? 1. By not giving it good light. We have compared conscience to the eye of the soul. We may also compare it to the window of the soul. A window is of use for letting light into room, and also for looking through, that we may see what is outside of the window. But if we wish to have a correct view of the things that we are looking at through a window, what sort of glass is it necessary to have in the window? Clear glass. Suppose that the glass in the window instead of being clear is stained glass — one pane red, another blue, another yellow, and another green. When we look through the red glass what colour will the things be that we are looking at? Red. And so, when we look through the blue glass all things will be blue, they will be yellow when we look through the yellow glass, and green when we look through the green glass. But suppose we have thick, heavy shutters to the window, and keep them closed. Can we see anything through the window then? No. And can we see anything in the room when the shutters are closed? No; it will be dark. And conscience is like a window in this respect. We must keep the shutters open and the windows clean, so that plenty of pure light can get in if we wish to see things plainly. God's blessed Word, the Bible, gives us exactly the kind of light we need in order to have a good conscience. Let us be careful that we do not injure our consciences by not letting in this light. 2. By not minding what they say. The apostle Paul speaks in one place of men's consciences, which, he says, have been "seared with a hot iron" (1 Timothy 4:2). Notice how thin and tender is the skin on your hand or face. It is so delicate that it can feel the slightest touch. Not even a feather can rest upon it without your feeling it. But suppose you should have a red-hot iron applied to your hand. It would burn the skin off, and make a sore which would give you great pain. Afterwards it would heal over, and the skin would grow again, but the new skin would be very different from that on your hand now. Instead of being smooth and tender like this, it would be rough and hard, and have very little feeling. And the apostle means to say that if we do not mind what our consciences tell us we shall injure them just as the skin of our hand is injured by being "seared with a hot iron." You know what an alarm-clock is. It is a kind of clock made to wake persons at a particular hour by making a loud noise. Suppose you have one of these clocks, and you wish it to waken you so that you can rise every morning at four o'clock. You wind it up at night and set the index-finger on the dial-plate pointing to four. The clock keeps on through the night, ticking away, till four o'clock in the morning. Then it begins to strike and ring, and makes such a racket as is sure to wake any ordinary sleeper. This is a very convenient way of being roused from sleep. Yes, it is a sure way, if you only mind the clock, and get up when it calls you. But if you turn over and go to sleep again for two or three mornings, the alarum-clock will lose its power, or rather you will lose your power of hearing it or of being awakened by it. No change will take place in the clock, but a great change will take place in yon. The clock will continue to sound the alarm at the proper hour, and it will make as much noise as ever it did, but it will lose its effect. You will sleep quietly on, just as though the alarm had never been given. Now, conscience is God's alarum-clock. If we stop when it says " stop," if we do what it tells us to do, then we shall always hear it; but if we get into the habit of not heeding its warning, and not doing what it tells us to do, then by and by we shall cease to hear it. III. How MAY AN EVIL CONSCIENCE BE HEALED? The answer to this question will depend upon the way in which we injure our consciences. We may injure them by doing wrong to those about us, or by sinning against God. And this must be taken into account in saying how the injured conscience can be healed. Suppose we feel distressed in our consciences on account of some wrong done to a friend or neighbour; then the way to get rid of this trouble, and heal our injured conscience, is to go and tell that friend of the fault — to say that we are sorry for it, and ask his forgiveness, thus making up for the wrong we have done. But if our consciences are troubled on account of our sins against God, then how are they to be healed. How are we to get rid of this trouble? Oh, it is dreadful to feel that God is angry with us I When we know that this is the case we never can be happy till our sins are pardoned and our consciences are healed; and it is for this reason that the Bible tells us of Jesus as "the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world." He shed His precious blood and died for us on purpose that our sins may be pardoned, and we may be at peace with God. And this is what the apostle refers to in the text when he speaks of "having our hearts sprinkled from an evil .conscience." (R. Newton, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water. |
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