On the somewhat ambiguous topic of conscience and it’s real roll in our lives, Puritan writer William Gurnall writes this:

“Conscience is God’s sergeant He employs to arrest the sinner. Now the sergeant hath no power to release his prisoner upon any private composition between him and the prisoner; but listens, whether the debt be fully paid, or the creditor be fully satisfied; then, and not till then, he is discharged of his prisoner.”

I thought this was interesting because all of us have at some time or another been arrested by our conscience. And, most of us (probably all of us) have made or attempted to make private deals with our accusing conscience. Attempting to convince ourselves that we’ve been wrongly accused.

When it works, it’s almost always short lived. It won’t be long before our conscience is banging down our door again with charges against us.

When our conscience assaults us, we have to make our peace with God and his Word, not with out conscience. Of course, the truth is, that’s hard to do. Because God’s word will speak in truth that we don’t always want to hear—and when we try to make deals with our conscience, it’s a pretty good indication we know we’re in the wrong.