Second Friend Day - Elmer Towns

3. You must obey your conscience. Your conscience is a moral regulator that flashes
information to the brain. It tells you what it thinks is right and wrong. Like the thermostat
upstairs, when things get chilly it starts the furnace in the basement. The old adage "Let your
conscience be your guide" is true only half the time. When your conscience tells you something
is wrong, it's a sin to go against your conscience. The conscience is pure at birth, reflecting the
image of God in which you were made. The conscience tells man it is wrong to murder, steal
and lie. You have the moral law of God branded in your heart. God recognizes the moral law
that He has implanted within man and you sin when you violate your conscience.
This applies even to questionable things. A young man's father had been an alcoholic and
the boy grew up hating the misery that was brought upon his family by alcohol. In restaurants he
was careful not to purchase food with any taste of liquor. Because of his conscience he felt it
would be wrong to violate his convictions, even though other Christians thought nothing wrong
with wine-flavored cooking sauce.
On the other hand, when your conscience tells you an action is right, it cannot always be
trusted; the conscience can be "seared." This pictures a hot poker burning a scab on the skin.
"Having their conscience seared with a hot iron" (I Tim. 4:2). You sear your conscience by
continually going against its instructions. A Bible college dean became emotionally involved
with a coed. Even though the Scriptures explicitly forbid adultery, the dean disobeyed Scripture
and his conscience. When the president found out the situation and brought the dean to dismiss
him, the dean tried to justify his sin because Abraham and David had concubines. The dean had
seared his conscience and wanted to make sin acceptable.
4. You must not harbor impure thoughts. We live in a "girl watchers" age. Some
men enjoy thumbing through Playboy Magazine or walking the beaches to look at the bikinis. A
lot of wives know this and mistakenly say, "It's all right to window shop; just don't touch."
Sinful thoughts involve more than sex; the whole issue of lust is involved. Some men
dream of money and the lust of "things" consumes their mind. Some women spend so much time
watching the soap operas that the lust of illicit happiness eats them up.
Eve lusted in her mind before she sinned by eating the forbidden fruit. "But I fear, lest by
any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtility, so your minds should be corrupted
from the simplicity that is in Christ" (II Cor. 11:3). The first step toward sin is usually not the act
but our minds thinking about the act.
Lust is similar to the thought processes that lead a person to buy a new car-. He feels he
can't afford the price, but he starts "just looking around." He enjoys sitting behind the wheel. As
he drives the old car, he mentally picks out new cars, whereas he hadn't been aware of the late
models. Subtly, his mind tells him everything that is wrong with the present car and he begins
searching for ways to finance the new car. When he's hooked, he signs a 36-month time payment
plan. "Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God; for God cannot be tempted with
evil, neither tempteth he any man: But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own
lust, and enticed" (James 1:13-14).