"Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting." -Psalm 139:23,24
I was standing on the corner of Hollywood and Vine in Hollywood on my way to do a radio interview. With me was a missionary who went into the highlands of Irian Jaya and brought the Gospel to a tribe whose culture was Stone Age. Bill and Judy Carne had introduced metal and cloth—something these folks had never before seen.
Bill and I were commenting on some of the rather weird people we observed on the streets of Hollywood with their tattoos, earrings, weird makeup, chains and pretty bizarre outfits, hoping that someone would notice them. As we talked about changing morality, Bill said, “You know, our people in Irian Jaya have a far stricter moral code than we have today.” This struck me as rather strange, because where he had been, women wore grass skirts and men wore gourds covering the front of their anatomy and nothing more. “How is that?” I asked.
He explained that in their tribe, they had a prescribed moral code that determined what was right and wrong. He said that if a man had sex with another man’s wife, he would be taken before the council and tried. If he was found guilty they would take him and burn out his eyes with lime. “We just don’t have immorality,” Bill said.
Few people would deny that morality has changed in the past generation. What our grandparents talked about in hushed tones, our parents did with troubled consciences, and our generation is doing without a troubled conscience. I’ve just been leafing through a file which I have kept containing letters from individuals who have written to me.
From the 60s and 70s come letters such as, “I have been unfaithful to my wife. The guilt is destroying me. I have to tell someone.” Another read, “Just yesterday I revealed the truth to my husband of being unfaithful last fall, a guilt I had long carried.” A third reads, “When I committed my great sin, God forgave me, but I fell again and again thinking each time I would not any more. I am so ashamed that I let Satan win so many times.”
I have also noticed that in the late 80s and continuing into this decade, those letters filled with guilt and remorse have been few and fewer. Why? Because we are getting more and more moral? I wish that were true, but the fact is that as culture has become more accommodating, our consciences bother us less and less.
Alexander Pope once wrote, “Vice is a monster of such frightful mien,/ as to be hated, needs but to be seen,/ Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face,/ we first endure, then pity, then embrace.”
If society says, “It’s OK,” does that really make it OK? Not for a moment. What may be lawful isn’t necessary moral or right in the sight of God, who is the final judge of what is what is right and wrong.
Your conscience is only as good as your understanding of what is right and wrong. If you shut out the voice of God and ignore His Word, your conscience won’t give you much trouble. That’s why Paul spoke of continued wrongdoing as searing your conscience as with a hot iron (1 Timothy 4:2). But the issue of guilt before God remains unchanged no matter how acceptable something may be in the eyes of the world and society.
A final thought. The laws of God are given—not to take the fun and excitement out of life—but to provide the joy and happiness of fulfillment in life. Recognizing this and abiding by those timeless guidelines, your conscience is trustworthy. Go with it, and heed its voice. You can trust it.
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