by Tara Floyd

Created on: June 07, 2008

Bypass Both Intellect and Morality and Awaken the Conscience

In Exodus 20, God set His laws in stone and Moses carried the tablets to his people. It didn't take long for man to realize that God's law would condemn them all to hell. We know these laws as The Ten Commandments.

God made it clear that to break even one of those laws meant that the guilty party was condemned to die. The laws simply could not be kept by man.

Fast forward and you see the life of Jesus, the Anointed One, the only One to keep the laws perfectly, challenging the Pharisees and the Sadducees daily with His words of wisdom. The two groups pointed out many times that they were keepers of the law and Jesus repeatedly showed them time and again that they couldn't. Angry, they planned to kill him.

What was it about Jesus that caused such chaos on one side and such humbleness and then celebration on the other?

It's simple; Jesus didn't speak to the intellectual side of man. He (as well as His disciples later) circumvented the intellect and spoke to the conscience. Suddenly, everyone was equal. The Pharisee stood on the same level ground as the lowliest shepherd. How did they handle such humiliation?

The conscience (meaning with knowledge') testified against them. In fact, the conscience testifies against all of us during this day and age. And it is the conscience that will point very clearly to the need for Christ. Someone had to pay the penalty and God didn't want it to be us

The conscience almost gleefully points out that we have put many, many things before God in our lives. The conscience points its finger at the man who admits to lying just once, helping him to realize that once a liar always a liar. One lie breaks one law. Get the picture?

The conscience pokes at the woman who lusts after the married man and it prods the thief in the garage of a home that does not belong to him.

The conscience doesn't care if you've a Harvard degree or if you dropped out in 8th grade. It doesn't discriminate and it clearly doesn't stop convicting until the bearer collapses in brokenness, suddenly realizing he's a condemned man or until the conscience is silenced forever by the hardened heart.

The conscience doesn't aim for either the intellect or morality. The conscience stomps around the head at night preventing rest for the weary . The conscience doesn't sleep unless it's cleansed of the garbage, the sin, that inhabits where it lives.

Jesus' death on the cross and the resurrection three days later finished what the law started all those years ago on Mount Sinai. And He didn't share His Gospel by talking and sharing with the ego-driven upper echelon of society. He shared His Good News by talking to the consciences of the fishermen, the harlots, the tax collectors, the shepherds and the widows. He showed them by His faith in the Father that it is only through the conviction of the mind and heart by the conscience and then the therapeutic cleansing blood of His body would save a man from certain death.

And it was only then that the conscience would finally allow its bearer rest.

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