[AI translation] We have before us a brief, dramatic description of a terrible spiritual event in the Word we are reading. King David tells us what stormed through his soul when he did something that God's law says, "Thou shalt not do." So when he went against the will of God. What happened was that he saw a strange woman, the wife of one of his generals, he couldn't resist the urge, he had the power to take her away from her lawful husband and marry her. Who would have dared to speak against him, for he was the king?! Behold, he had at last what he desired, he had attained what he hoped would make him happy, and yet he was not happy! He could be happy now, and yet he could not be happy! Why? Because there was a mysterious voice within him - an unpleasant, painful, disturbing word: the voice of conscience. This is what I would like to talk about now, the turmoil of conscience, or, as they say, the pangs of conscience.What is conscience? There are two completely opposing opinions circulating among people. One is that conscience is the word of God in man. It is something that has remained as a divine light, a ray of light, even in the darkness after sin. This theory, derived from ancient Greek philosophy, is still widely held today. A woman once said, "Please, I don't need a pastor, a church, a Bible, because my conscience tells me exactly what the Bible or the church could tell me. The word of conscience is quite sufficient for me." Well, this is obviously wrong, because conscience certainly has no role in man's life to replace God and His Word. Well: everyday experience shows that this opinion is not true either.
So what is conscience? What does the Bible say about it? First of all, it says that it is something that belongs to our human existence, a typical human phenomenon. Nowhere does it say that God has a conscience, nor did Jesus ever have one. Nor is it said that other creatures: angels, devils or animals have such a spiritual function. Conscience, then, belongs specifically to the human being, or, to be more precise, to the being of fallen man, fallen man! And even if the Bible does not give a precise definition of conscience, it very much shows it in its terrible functioning. From the very first pages, where the sin of the first pair of men is described, we read how man was terrified of God, how he hid from Him wherever he could. This flight, this fear, which he did not have before the sin, is closely connected with sin and conscience. And immediately afterwards, the first fratricide, Cain, laments lamenting after committing his sin: "Whoever finds me will kill me". And he flees, he hides. From whom? Is he being chased, wanted by the police? No! Chased, driven by his conscience. His conscience makes the world a narrow place for him. We see here the dynamic, volcanic eruption of conscience as sin enters the world. And it is this same volcanic force that makes the happiness King David has achieved unenjoyable! Even his full royal power, his public esteem and public love, are not enough to silence this constantly disturbing thing in himself: his conscience. He has no peace from it!
Who among us does not know this cruel condition?! Perhaps you have mistreated someone long ago who is dead, or perhaps you have a memory of some secret sin, marital infidelity, foeticide. No one blames you, no one knows: yet, as if a great, dark, threatening shadow followed you everywhere! You cannot get rid of it! In vain do you try to calm yourself, in vain do you try to trivialize it, something gnaws at you, something eats at you from within! Neither you nor anyone else can talk it out of you! It is then that you see how right the Bible is when it teaches that we humans are made to look to God. So our uninterrupted communion with God is the true balance of our human life. Just as a dynamo is meant to be saturated with electricity, a flower is meant to be touched by sunlight, a heart is meant to be filled with love, so human existence is meant to be filled with LIFE. The only time our life takes its proper path, its true path, is when it takes the path of God. This is the famous saying of Augustine: "Thou hast made us for thyself, and we are restless, until we rest in thee". The purpose of your life, the sole purpose of your creation: to find God and live in Him! As your eyes are made for light, so you are made for God.
Once, in the engine room of a ship on the Danube, I looked at a flywheel of immense size and power, and I wondered if that wheel did not turn on its own axis, it would destroy itself and the whole ship. Only if it spins around its centre is it constructive and productive. Then it is true to its essence. Well, the Bible clearly states that the centre of human life is Christ: it is in alignment with him that life comes to its rhythm, its harmony. And if our life revolves around something else, that is, if it falls into sin: it becomes eccentric, destroying itself and society. This is what David expresses in these words, "Blessed is he whose iniquity is forgiven, whose transgression is covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute iniquity, and in whose soul there is no guile." (Ps 32:1-2) Blessed is the creature who lives in harmony with his Creator: he is in a state of equilibrium. We are never more ourselves than when we are fully with God. We see ourselves, the true self that God created us to be. It is the conscience that shows how true this is. A guilty conscience means that the balance has been upset.
Conscience is an instinctive sense of fear arising from a separation from God, from the meaning of our human existence. Conscience is like an incriminating witness: it speaks when we are in conflict with God in some way. You know, don't you, that bodily pain, for example, is a signal, a warning to the whole organism: "Watch out, something is wrong!" But it's not just in our stomachs, or in our heads, or in our nerves, that we can have this signalling pain, but also in our souls. And it is the pain of the soul that signals trouble: it is the conscience! Yes: conscience! The shadow of the sin committed! The very fact of conscience shows that the God-consciousness in man is an all-conquering feeling. Conscience is the bad feeling that I am never alone. Somebody sees, Somebody knows, Somebody knows everything that only I know, and will hold me accountable one day! I will be held accountable because I have the right and the power.
We also see from this description how one tries to deal with this inner turmoil. That's how David tried to do it. Here is what he says: "While I held my peace". What? His sin! What that inner voice accuses me of! Yes, that's what one always wants to do to him: hide it, don't talk about it - because others don't know -, lie low, hide, calm oneself, stall for time, in case this unpleasant voice will pass, go to sleep. He tries not to listen to it, not to hear it, to run away from it, in case it will go away on its own. Then time will make everything right again, then it will calm down, and the inner disturbance need not be taken so seriously. This attitude can be felt in the phrase: "While I was silent". It may work for a while, but it's like holding back the flow of water with a dam. The result, however, is that it bursts forth with even more elemental force and overwhelms everything. This is what happened to David. Here is what he writes: "While I was silent, my bones were hardened from wailing until the end of the day. While day and night thy hand was heavy upon me, my strength was failing, as in the heat of summer." (verse 3-4) He was literally sick. Even his bones ached. The life force was almost gone. If David had been taken to the clinic at the time, he might have been diagnosed with high blood pressure, or too low, circulatory problems, improper stomach acid, or some kind of severe nervous depression. And what gave him all this? None other than a mental imbalance. For if it is true that happy is the man who is at peace with God, it is also true that unhappy and mentally ill is the man who is in conflict with God's will.
Such can be the influence of conscience even on a man's physical health! Where does conscience lead? To physical and spiritual torment, to the halls of hell, to the shadow of weeping and gnashing of teeth! Some to sleepless nights of torment, some to wasted days, some to despair, some to the locked ward of the Lipót Field, Judas to suicide. For man is made for communion with God, and cannot endure life in conflict with God! And the sin that separates us from God will sooner or later take its revenge. The revenge of sin is conscience! You cannot escape it. But then, conscience is a terrible pernicious thing in man, isn't it?!
But it is not. Let us look again at Psalm 32. "As long as I kept silence," says David, "it was unbearable, it drove me to hell, that is, until I relieved my conscience in the way God advises. But when I had surrendered, when I had nowhere to hide and flee, when I had 'confessed my iniquity to thee, my sin was not covered. I said, 'I confess my iniquity to the Lord - and you have taken away the burden of my sins.'" (Psalm 32:5) This is the only thing you can do: confess your sin to God. To tell Him everything truly, unveiled, with the humility and holy sorrow with which the prodigal son returned home: 'I am no longer worthy to be called your son', with the feeling that I deserve punishment, everything that hurts, everything that is wrong in my life - and I deserve much more punishment from God! Yes: that is what this self-surrender means to David, "I have confessed my iniquity to the Lord". It is difficult to get to this point, a painful spiritual operation, like cutting open a swollen boil in the body and squeezing out the pus. It hurts terribly, but it's good for you.
And so conscience is like a dark background in a painting, from which the picture the painter wants to portray stands out all the more. Thus conscience becomes a tool to help one hear the sounds of the gospel all the more clearly. So that the reassuring colours of forgiveness of sins may be all the more apparent. Remorse helps to beg for forgiveness. An aching, tormented conscience helps to form the background in which the cross of Jesus Christ on Calvary becomes plastic, alive, vital for man. Conscience leads us into the halls of hell so that God can call us back to the gates of heaven. Once David has come to the point of confessing his unrighteousness to the Lord - of opening the tomb - he cries out, at once amazed and happy: "You have taken away the burden of my sins!" So at once he is freed, he breathes a sigh of relief, at once everything is put right again.
How is this possible, since it was sin that made him flee from God! What he was hiding, concealing! What made him an enemy of his Creator! Yes, but if you confess that sin to God in true repentance, you will suddenly see that the ugly, hateful thing has been "covered up", covered by the redeeming, holy blood that was shed on Calvary. That debt that weighed you down almost to hell is released because Jesus paid it all for you when He died on the cross. What is done cannot be undone, only forgiven! And that is exactly what God does! He takes the burden of your sins off you! The Scripture says: "Whose soul is without deceit" - that is, whoever repents of his sin, not with the ulterior motive of sinning again, and not with the ulterior motive of repenting again, but whose surrender to God is sincere and genuine - to him the gospel is given: God will take away the burden of your sins!
In conclusion, let me just say that, therefore, the only refuge from God is to God. If you have understood this, you have understood everything. And if you do, you are saved, you are saved, you are redeemed! From the threatening, fearful, powerful but just God, man can only flee to the Saviour God, known in Jesus Christ, to the cross of Calvary. Only there! That is how our flight becomes our homecoming. Remember this: from God, you can only flee to God, to the arms of his fatherly Father in Jesus Christ!
Amen
Date: 17 June 1956.
Lesson
1Móz 4,3-16