The conscience is God’s voice of righteousness within man. It is a part of the spirit, and its function is to rebuke everything that is not of God and against righteousness. It is a prosecutor, and it restrains man from doing anything that falls under its jurisdiction.
Believers are often fearful of their conscience! Those whose hearts are right obey the correction and guidance of the conscience; those whose hearts are not right try to bribe their conscience and silence its accusations. But can the conscience be bribed? The conscience cannot be bribed. After believers have tried their bribe, they think that they no longer need to heed the voice of their conscience. Actually, the voice of their conscience is only confused and drowned out by other voices.
Many times, our conscience tells us clearly through intuition what is God’s will, where it lies, and what it requires of us. But we are reluctant in submitting to it! The one thing that the flesh fears the most is the will of God. One can say that the flesh fears nothing other than God’s will. Since the mind of the flesh does not like God’s decisions, it is naturally unwilling to obey them, and the conscience has to urge a person on. When the urging becomes ineffective, the rebukes of the conscience follow. This feels terrible! If one allows his conscience to work, his heart will become uneasy, and he will feel terrible! This is truly unbearable. In order to avoid the condemnation of the conscience and, at the same time, continue to disobey God’s will, one has to bribe the conscience.
In this lies all the mistakes of a believer. He does not seek a solution that will deliver him from the condemnation of the conscience. Rather, he tries to confuse and mix up its voice with other voices in order to minimize its pricking power. But the best way to be free from the condemnation of the conscience is to remove what the conscience condemns and obey God’s will in all things. Anything else will cause the believer to offend the Lord even more.
How numerous are the excuses! When believers do not obey God’s will, their conscience condemns them. What then can they do? The only thing they can do is to explain, argue, and give reasons and causes for their present disobedience. This is a bribing of the conscience. Believers behave this way because they think that if they can explain the reason for their actions to others and themselves, their disobedience to God’s will, in turn, will become His will. Little do they realize that this can never happen. Nevertheless, realizing that the condemnation of their conscience is difficult to bear, they try every means to stop it. If they cannot obey God’s will, they appease themselves by giving reasons for their disobedience to God, hoping to blunt the cutting edge of the knife and minimize their own hurt. On the one hand, the conscience condemns. On the other hand, the flesh is unwilling to obey. Consequently, the only solution is to use many reasons and explanations to quell the conscience, telling it that the way they have taken is the right way and that there is no reason for it to continue the condemnation.
There are other ways to bribe the conscience. One of the ways is through labor. If one is unwilling to obey God, he will try to substitute God’s will with greater and more numerous works, as if the increased labor can take the place of God’s will. Many believers try to suppress the condemnation of the conscience through busy activities. They are afraid to think and afraid to quietly listen to what their conscience is saying. If they listen, they feel uneasy. They are willing to suffer, work, and labor in their mind and bodies apart from God’s revealed will. By working in this way, they have no time and are able to ignore the corrections of their conscience with peace. Even if the conscience is able to slip in some unpleasant remarks, they are able to answer on the basis of their work and bribe it into silence. “Are not these works equally important? Are they not equally good? Are they not important? Do they not bear fruit?” When the conscience is repeatedly drowned out by these sounds, it becomes difficult to hear its voice anymore. From this point on, the believers build up a defense and are free to disobey God.
It is very serious to bribe one’s conscience. But one bribes his conscience in many of the small things that occur in his daily life. The most common example is the reading of the Bible in the morning. The conscience condemns going to work in the morning without first reading the Bible. However, many believers fail in this matter. If they do not read the Bible, they feel uneasy. But they are unwilling and not interested in reading it. For this reason, they mindlessly open the Bible and read one or two verses, counting that as their reading of the Bible. This silences the voice of their conscience. This bribes the conscience with one or two verses and stops its condemnation.
Are not many prayers offered up in the same way? This is especially true in the case of making supplications for others. If one does not pray for others, he feels condemned in his conscience. Reluctantly, he makes supplications for others by calling their names one by one, like taking roll in a school. This type of reading the Bible and praying for others is not for the purpose of reading and supplication, but for the purpose of silencing the accusation of the conscience. If the conscience did not speak, this type of reading and prayer would have stopped long ago. But since the conscience is diligent, one realizes that he cannot let down at all and instead has to bribe his conscience with half-hearted works.
The same is true of the gospel work among many workers. When some feel emotionally low and physically weak, they become lazy in preaching the gospel. But many times, sinners are placed before them and need to be saved immediately. If these workers remain silent for a long time, the conscience will voice its usual accusation. Under such circumstances, they reluctantly speak a few words about salvation to others in order to bribe their conscience. They think that by speaking, they have fulfilled their duty and that nothing more can be said against them. Whether or not the conscience still accuses them is a secondary question. The serious matter is that believers would even consider answering the interrogation of their conscience with such half-hearted acts. Once they engage in such careless acts, they become self-satisfied and feel that they have not neglected their duties. Alas, how many self-proclaimed “not guilty” verdicts are in fact deceptive! How can these works expect God’s blessing? How can teachings that do not touch oneself touch sinners? Those who do not sow in tears will surely not reap in joy.
Shall I mention one more thing? In the matter of material giving, there are more bribes of the believers’ conscience. They may be loath to offer, even though they will be accused by their conscience if they do not offer to the Lord. The best way to take care of this dilemma is to offer just a little to bribe the conscience so that the conscience will know that some money has been offered. Since what should be done has been done, there is no more reason for the conscience to nag. Many times, an offering of a few dollars to the poor is not done out of a love for the poor, but to silence and bribe the conscience. Actually, unless an offering results in a painful touch of the heart, a pain of joy to the extent that his flesh feels some kind of pain, the offering cannot be considered as a real offering.
We have mentioned but a few examples. In a believer’s daily life, he bribes his conscience in many other things. He either reasons and argues with the conscience or uses other means to substitute for the demand of the conscience. Such acts are too frequent! This explains the fallen and shallow nature of a believer’s spiritual life. Brothers, do not think that our knowledge of the Bible is too small and that we do not know God’s will in many matters. I will readily admit that this is true. But if our knowledge of the Bible is shallow, this is all the more reason to obey the “inner voice.” Undoubtedly, we are still not clear about God’s will in many things. But why will we not act on what we already know? Bribing the conscience is proof that we know what we ought to do and that we know God’s will, but we are unwilling to do it. This is why we bribe the conscience.
Brothers, it is important that we obey God’s will faithfully. Before we do this, we must have a sincere willingness to do God’s will. Everything else is futile. We are not after success, the world’s recommendations, or even peace in our conscience. If our goal is only to secure the peace of our conscience and we fully abide by God’s will, we are still bribing our conscience. We must see the greatness and solemnity of God’s will. We must obey God’s will for the sake of God’s will. The voice of the conscience merely shows us where we have left the track of God’s will. If, while we live in this world, we do not live for God’s will, we are indeed selfish! Are we afraid of the accusation of our conscience more than of our disloyalty to God Himself? We should be afraid of acting contrary to the will of God. Regrettably, we live in this world for our own pleasure. Even when we obey God’s will, it is for the purpose of making ourselves feel comfortable! Because disobedience to the will of God results in the accusation of our conscience, the loss of peace and joy, and suffering to our heart, we reluctantly go along with the leading of our conscience, hoping that this will recover our joy. Oh, how selfish this is! This bribes the conscience.
We have to have a fresh evaluation of God’s will. We have to exercise a deeper rejection of our self and have a more severe dealing with and deeper hatred for self-deception. If we would give up our act of bribing the conscience and live in God’s will day by day, we would find ourselves living in a new realm.