When Your Conscience No Longer Bothers You

“Stolen water is sweet,
and bread eaten in secret is pleasant.”
Proverbs 9:17

One of the most obvious traits of the fallen human nature is the desire to get away with something. Sin is all the sweeter if it is stolen and carried out successfully in secret. It is a joy and a delight that they’ve succeeded in putting one over on anyone who would have disapproved. They spend time planning out what they want to do, and how they can do it without being caught. This is the fallen human nature, and it is manifest everywhere. It is common to the cultured man as well as to the lowly. They have created a talent within themselves, they put a smile on their faces, and speak with endearing words in order to hoodwink the naive who believe them; they delight in their craft.

What mankind doesn’t keep in mind is that they can never pull one over on God. In his eyes they get away with nothing. He knows their every deed, and he knows their every thought. He knows how evil they are, and there is nowhere they can go to escape his presence.

“Where can I go from your Spirit?
Or where can I flee from your presence?
If I ascend into heaven, you are there;
If I make my bed in hell, behold, you are there.”
Psalm 139:7-8

The delight in sin is fleeting. When a man on his deathbed looks back over his life, he realizes that he gained nothing lasting through all of his self-will and deception.

“Vanity of vanities,” says the Preacher;
vanity of vanities, all is vanity.
Ecclesiastes 1:2

He stands ready to meet his Maker and he knows this is not going to go well. There will be no pretense here. He’s facing the end result of his life of deceit, and stares into the fires of hell.

“But he does not know that the dead are there,
that her guests are in the depths of hell.”
Proverbs 9:18

Throughout our journey, throughout the days of our lives, the Spirit of God woos the sinner. He brings the sinner under conviction when he sins. The conviction stings the conscience for awhile, but having been ignored, the conscience grows dull. Someone said to me once, “It bothered my conscience terribly at first, but now it doesn’t bother me at all.” That is what happens as a person continues in defiant sin. When a person persists in sin the conscience grows dim until it bothers no more. When it bothers no more, that person has been GIVEN OVER to a reprobate mind, the conscience seared, the heart hardened.

“And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge,
God GAVE THEM OVER to a reprobate mind...”
Romans 1:28

“...speaking lies in hypocrisy,
having their own conscience seared with a hot iron...”
1st Timothy 4:2

How can one know that he’s lost? It’s when the conscience doesn’t scream anymore, when the awareness of sin is no longer there, when it no longer bothers him.

This is a call to repentance. To anyone not born again, if you can still “hear” the call, turn to the Lord Jesus Christ your Creator and surrender your life to him. There is no sin so great that it cannot be forgiven, he is waiting for you with outstretched arms.

But that won’t be the case forever. The signs of the day of judgment, the great Tribulation, are all around us, shouting to us, announcing to us the end of the day of grace. Prepare yourself, for the day of separation is almost upon us and the door is soon to close. Come while it is still possible, don’t take a chance thinking you’ll come later, that won’t happen, God is not mocked.