The Diseases of Conscience, Part 2

Driving home: I'm speaking of a conscience that has ceased to bleed as it ought, and ceases to send signals from living nerve endings to the depths of the soul.

Martin uses his personal experience of having thick callouses from construction work and being able to run needles through them without pain or blood to illustrate how a calloused conscience ceases to 'bleed' or send signals of spiritual pain when sin is committed.

I can remember when I did construction work. And at the time of my life where I was trying to make sure to myself as well as to others that I was a man, and couldn't quite grow a decent mustache, as some of you are attempting to do, or a decent beard, and mustaches and beards were not as much in vogue in my day, I can remember how proud I was of my callouses that I got while doing construction work. To me, they were a sign of my emerging identity as a man. And one of the ways I used to show off my callouses, they were as big as nickels on every joint here across my hands from doing constructio...

6:15 - 6:57 Read in full sermon

Driving home: And his heart smote him. He no sooner cut off his garment and had opportunity to reflect upon what he had done as an act of disrespect for the Lord's anointed but what his conscience smites him and brings him into a stat…

He compares a healthy, tender conscience to the sensitive skin under the arch of one's foot or on the inside of the arm, contrasting it with calloused skin that feels less pain, to emphasize the sensitivity lost in a calloused conscience.

When he had a healthy conscience. When there were no callouses upon his conscience. When his conscience was as tender as the skin under the arch of your foot. And as tender as the skin on the inside of your arm.

14:33 - 14:52 Read in full sermon

The point: Examine if you still feel fear and shame after telling a lie.

Pastor Clark's anecdote about a South American murderer who initially felt horror but eventually found delight in killing illustrates the extreme end of a calloused conscience, where repeated sin hardens the heart to the point of perverted pleasure.

but no longer Pastor Clark told us an incident while we were meeting for prayer before the service that is chilling but it's true he knew of someone in South America or in Mexico who was a murderer by trade and he said the first time he stuck a knife into a man and felt the trembling body and the death twitches and then felt the body go limp he was full of horror the first time his hand was the instrument of wanton murder he no doubt felt as if hell itself were about to open up and swallow him but his confession was he did it so often that he came to the place where he actually found personal ...

33:54 - 35:22 Read in full sermon

The point: Examine if you still feel shame after angry outbursts, watching inappropriate content, or any other sin.

God's description of Israel having a 'harlot's forehead' is used as a metaphor for a conscience so dulled and calloused that one can parade their sin openly without shame, having lost the ability to blush.

when men can sin and incur guilt and feel no shame Godward or manward of a calloused conscience at this point though Adam and Eve had sinned they had not yet calloused their consciences you see Adam beginning to put a callous on it when God starts to indict him and he starts to shift the blame you see Eve beginning to develop a callous on her conscience when she shifts the blame yes the callous is tame but as it were the reflex response to sin and guilt was shame and where the conscience is healthy that will always be so and one of the terrible things about a calloused conscience is its inabil...

50:02 - 51:31 Read in full sermon