“Let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.”
Hebrews 10:22
How could this be? A conscience that is evil? The traditionalists are going to faint when they hear about this! Could it be that there is such a thing as a conscience that directs man to do what is evil instead of what is good? Absolutely. Just as it is possible to have a broken compass that points east instead of north.
The Old Testament talks about men whose hearts desired nothing but evil continually (Genesis 6:5). These men were later annihilated by the flood. Think about Sodom and Gomorrah: do you think those guys were interested in doing what was right based on their conscience? They were only interested in sex with any man or woman they could find. Don’t be surprised, this is what the heart, mind and conscience of man can degenerate into.
The conscience of man can be such that instead of leading you to do what is right, it leads you to do what is evil. Again, like the Seared Conscience, you can either develop an evil conscience or be born with it. The difference between the seared and evil conscience is that a seared conscience is devoid of guilt or without regret from doing what is wrong, or the conscience itself is silent; an evil conscience, however, directs the heart of man towards evil instead of good, doing the opposite of what a normal, functioning conscience would do.
In theory: A good conscience keeps us from doing wrong because it is a voice within that directs us towards the right action.
An evil conscience desires for us to do what is wrong constantly, and because of this desire, there is no guilt associated with committing whatever evil deed your heart desires.
You would be surprised to hear that such a conscience is actually quite prevalent in the Church. Because it is easy to do evil and still walk into the assembly like there is nothing wrong. This is popular at highly liberal churches, which I tend to call “Adulterer’s Haven” churches, because many of them ignore the teachings of Christ on divorce and remarriage and allow anyone with an unscriptural marriage to enter their assembly.
An evil conscience will keep you sinning and give you no reason to change. All the popular tools of change endorsed by the Church (Guilt/Shame/Conscience/Fear) have been taken out of your toolbelt. According to them, you will not be able to progress. Without an overwhelming sense of guilt, how will you change?
This statement gives you a bird’s eye view into their ignorance of the subject. No emotion is necessary for change to occur, even though emotions can help on the path of change. However, guilt is uncommon for men, as it tends to be primarily a female emotion or one experienced by weak beta-males.
Men, you must grow, train, progress and improve with or without emotional help.
Few modern men know this. You aren’t going to feel like going to work every day, no one does, but you go anyway. No one is going to feel like working out every day, but you do it anyways. No man is going to feel like listening to and loving their wife every day, but they do it.
Men take action regardless of how they feel at the time. Regardless of all emotion, men must press on and do what is right. They must work, improve, train and move towards being the fully formed and functional men they need to be. Reject the weak man’s idea of conscience, embrace the rigid strength of discipline unaltered by feeling.
Mantra
Reject conscience, embrace action.
Application
If you have an evil conscience, you must do the opposite of what your conscience tells you to do. It is as simple as that. If your conscience is evil, it is pulling you towards evil action, so you must resist your conscience and oppose it in order to do what is right. Again, it does not matter if you feel like doing what is right, or if you want to, or what your motivation is, it only matters if you do what is right or not. What are your actions? They can be good or evil regardless of what kind of conscience you have.
Again, and at risk of being overly redundant, reject the idea of the necessity of conscience.
Conscience is a tool to be used for change, but change is possible without this tool. This is a principle fact of life. You must do what is right regardless of emotional states, including the emotional state of a conscience. You must focus and take action. Do what is right. Be a Man.
Conduct Yourselves Like Men.
