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James Madison, our 4th President once said, "Conscience is the most sacred of all property."
George Will, writing for the Washington Post this weekend, says Planned Parenthood's leadership "lack the courage of their convictions."
He says, "They should drop the pretense..." in the selling of baby body parts.
Will describes the pro-abortion culture as "The Church of Choice" whose entire belief system is based on babies not being babies---"and what an abortion kills never possesses a scintilla of moral significance."
While the sensitivities of most Christians and conservatives has been rocked by what we have heard and seen out of Planned Parenthood, how can the progressive left be so callous about it---so nonchalant, vigorously defending the organization and their barbaric practices?
How have so many become so desensitized to this barbarism being practiced by public funded Planned Parenthood?
How have we lost our conscience? If, so can a seared, or dead conscience be resurrected?
George Will says, "Cecile Richards ...apologizes for the tone of her operatives' chatter...But the tone flows from Planned Parenthood's premise: Why be solemn about meat?"
Will writes, "We are wallowing in this moral swamp because the Supreme Court accelerated the desensitization of the nation" in the way abortion was advanced by their ruling in Roe v. Wade, "So today there is a limitless right to kill and distribute fragments of, babies that intrauterine medicine can increasingly treat as patients."
"Yet," Will notes during congressional debates on partial birth abortion, "three Democrats were asked: Suppose the baby's head slips out of the birth canal---the baby is born---before the abortionist can kill it. Does the baby have a right to live?"
He says two of the Democrats refused to answer the question. "The other one said the baby acquires a right to life when it leaves the hospital."
Conscience is indeed the most sacred of all property. With the loss of conscience a culture cannot sustain itself, nor can an individual find meaning in life---much less experience life and liberty, or the pursuit of happiness.
Our Founders went to great lengths to protect the individual's conscience.
What is our conscience?
The conscience is much like a built in "firewall" installed to protect you from making destructive decisions.
Without this firewall, man is prone to make destructive decisions, destroying his own and the lives of others.
The firewall, or the conscience is a gift from God our Creator. He gave it to us to provide an inner guide. In its uncompromised or unseared condition, it serves as an inner moral guide causing us to feel guilt or remorse over sin, and an inclination toward doing the right thing.
Our conscience is not "our guide," it is a rudder---an early warning system.
Our conscience must be informed.
Proverbs 20:27 says, "The spirit of a man is the lamp of the Lord, Searching all the inner depths of his heart."
The conscience is not infallible, nor is it the source of revelation about right and wrong. Its role is not to teach us moral and ethical ideals, but to hold us accountable to the highest standards of right and wrong we know.
J. Oswald Sanders said, "Every conscience needs instruction. Its delicate mechanism has been thrown off balance by the fall [of man]. Just as a bullet will reach the bulls-eye only if the two sights are in correct alignment, so correct moral judgments are delivered only when the conscience is correctly aligned with Scriptures."
Therein lies the problem.
When properly aligned the conscience serves as a kind of prosecuting attorney, convicting us when we do wrong, and assuring us when we do right.
By consistently ignoring or going against his conscience a person is in danger of "searing it."
Paul writes about those "speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron" (I Tim. 4:2).
A seared conscience is a very dangerous condition. In fact the Bible explains how a person's conscience can actually go from being your prosecuting attorney, to your defense attorney.
A "seared conscience" is dulled in its ability to help make good decisions. A seared conscience provides its owner with a false sense of comfort over wrong behavior, rather than a conviction.
This process is described in Romans 2:15: "The requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them."
This is how one's conscience becomes seared:
When man becomes his own god, he is rejecting the very purpose for which he was Created---to have a relationship with the one true God.
We are witnessing the predicted results of Marxism's cultural march through our institutions---particularly our public school system, our entertainment industry, our government and even some Christian churches.
We are experiencing the results of removing God from the culture.
I'm talking further about this on the radio today.
1. How the conscience is seared.
2. How the conscience can be stirred.
3. How the conscience can be saved.
Be Informed. Be Discerning. Be Faithful. Be Vigilant. Be Prayerful. Be Blessed.