Conscience

I heard this in a sermon on the radio and wanted to write it down so I'll remember it, but thought I'd share it too. It's part of a Bible study on 1 Chronicles (which starts with nine chapters of genealogies- oof). 1 Chr 1:1 starts at the beginning of all our geniologies: Adam.

The speaker, Damian Kyle, makes the point that the author of Chronicles starts broad with Adam because we all came from Adam. It is because of Adam's (& Eve's) fall that we are all sinners and it is through Adam's descendants that God orchestrates His plan for our salvation.

This is a key point in sharing the gospel: that we are all sinners and can't scrape up enough good in ourselves to provide our own salvation. We need Jesus to pay the price for our inherited sin.

(Somewhat paraphrased, but still the content belongs to Damian)

Some people will ask, "why do you think I'm a sinner? What physical proof do you have that I am a descendant of this Adam that the Bible talks about?"

Paul gives a simple answer in 1 Corinthians 15:22- In Adam, all die. The fact that we die, we all die, proves that I am tied into that ancient garden. Death is evidence that we are a descendant of Adam and Eve because death is the consequence of their fall.


(this is the good part!)

Some people will still say: You can't prove what the Bible says by using the Bible! What proof is there outside of the Bible that I am tied to this Adam and Eve?

Outside of the Bible our proof is inside our bodies. Man is not something inferior becoming something superior, like evolution says, but we were designed as something superior and have become something inferior.

The proof is our conscience.

Paul wrote about it in Romans 2:14-15. God has given each one of us a conscience, an intuitive knowledge – a knowledge that we're born with, of right and wrong. We know that murder is always wrong, adultery is always wrong, stealing is always wrong, lying is always wrong. Not murdering is always right, not stealing is always right, not lying is always right. So we have this intuitive knowledge of right and wrong. It's worldwide. You don't have to teach it. You go to any tribe, kindred, tongue, nation in the world and it's inside of us.

The interesting thing about our conscience, inside of ourselves, is that our conscience is higher than the standard of our practice Nobody lives up to their conscience. Nobody lives practically, a life that is as high as the standard of their conscience. Paul says in Romans that this testifies to the fact that our conscience is not something that came from us, but it is something that has come from God. It is God given; it came from One that is higher than us.

So this broad gulf that exists every day of our lives between what we know to be right and wrong and the life that we actually live. That gulf between those two places is like a neon light that is blinking to each one of us in this world declaring:
*you are fallen**you are fallen**you are fallen*
*You once began as something superior*you have fallen from that superior into this inferior condition*


One of the great things about walking with the Lord for a while is you realize that everything in the world testifies to the truthfulness of God's word. The blessings of obeying, the curse that's on disobeying; how we're made, the whole thing. Only God the Creator could know us so well as He knows us and has provided for us.

All of this evidence ties us back to Adam.

I just loved this picture of God built inside of us. I'd never thought of our consciences in that way, but I suppose it is why people like to say that 'humans are basically good'. Our consciences are better than we have the capacity to live up to on a daily basis. I think that I like this example so much because it is part of what I was trying to get at with this post but Damian gives a better example of how God's law is written on our hearts.