How is your conscience?

"And Paul, looking intently at the Council, said, 'Brethren, I have lived my life with a perfectly good conscience before God up to this day'" Acts 23:1

I recently came across the story of a shipmaster who was travelling in Scotland from Stirling to Glasgow where he intended to take a ship to America in 1838.

Also making the journey on the ship was The Rev. John Thomson of Dysart in Fife. As they travelled Rev Thompson and noticed how filthy the mouth of the shipmaster was.

He gathered quite a crowd about him and related stories in the most profane manner.

Rev Thomson began to pray that he might have an opportunity to speak with the man holding onto scriptures such as:

Matthew 7: 7,8  ‘ Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.

Mark 11: 24 ‘Therefore I tell you whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.

Well surprise, surprise, the shipmaster eventually sat down right next to the minister.

The shipmaster with a foul mouth planted himself right down next to the minister. Rev Thompson didn’t miss the opportunity and asked, "Do you think that swearing confers any bravery on man?" The shipmaster said that he did not think it did. The minister then followed up by asking if the man thought that swearing was sinful. The shipmaster replied that he thought it was sinful because the Bible said it was sinful. He even knew the passage, "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain: for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain." He said referring to Exodus 20:7 and Deuteronomy 5:11.

The minister then encouraged the man to repentance and left the man to ponder his sin.

He paced the boat for about 15 minutes and returned to find the man in tears.

The shipmaster had been in a French prison and had made a vow to serve God with his whole life if he got out. He hadn’t exactly kept his promise to God.

Now this is not a message on swearing its’ about conscience!

This shipmaster was broken when confronted with his sin.

This is how we should all react when confronted with sin. It should break us.

When we see our sin, whether it is revealed to us by another or whether we discover it for ourselves, we should be broken.

However, if I am honest with myself and I think if you are honest also, we will all have to admit that our response to discovered sin is not always what it should be. This is the result of what has traditionally been called a seared conscience.

We should ask the Lord speak to us through our conscience as this shipmaster did and that our conscience does not become seared and unresponsive.

The shipmaster had the very response that we also should have to our indwelling sin when we become aware of it. Sanctification is a process and is not something that we master in this life. We must be ever sensitive to the process of weeding out sin and putting on the righteousness of Christ.

A great part of that process is remaining sensitive to the prodding's of the Holy Spirit upon our conscience as we become aware of areas in our lives where we miss the mark. Let us seek to be sensitive to such prodding's this week