The Seared Conscience. What is it?

Our conscience is God's built-in warning system. Did you know the Bible speaks of a 'seared' conscience in 1 Timothy 4:2? The conscience is the God-given moral consciousness within each of us (Romans 2:15). If the conscience is “seared”—literally “cauterized”—then it has been rendered insensitive. Such a conscience does not work properly; it’s as if “spiritual scar tissue” has dulled the sense of right and wrong. Just as the hide of an animal scarred with a branding iron becomes numb to further pain, so the heart of an individual with a seared conscience is desensitized to moral pangs. We can be happy when it hurts us, but very worried when it doesn't! 

When we continue to turn away and ignore sound Biblical truth and the instruction of Gods voice over months and years on end, we make it harder each time for the Spirit of God to speak and reach us. Our conscience becomes "seared." Paul identifies those who have a seared conscience in 1 Timothy 4:1–2: “The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron.” Notice! The God-given voice through moral consciousness within each of us slowly fades, but not the voice of deceiving spirits taught by demons. That's unnerving. 

In Timothy's passage, we learn three things about false teachers who lead others into apostasy: 

 1) they are mouthpieces for evil spirits, since they declare “things taught by demons” 

2) they are hypocritical liars, since they wear a mask of holiness but are full of falsehood 

3) they are unscrupulous, since their consciences have been cauterized. 

This explains much. How can false teachers lie with no shame and spread deception with no remorse? Because they have seared consciences. They are past feeling that lying is wrong. Earlier in the epistle, Paul speaks of the “good conscience” as opposed to the seared conscience. “Advancing God’s work,” he says, comes by faith, and love “comes from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith” (1 Timothy 1:4–5). A good conscience has the capability to tell right from wrong and is free from guilt. A person with a good conscience maintains his integrity. He enjoys fellowship with those who “walk in the light, as [Jesus] is in the light” (1 John 1:7). 

The lies of the devil are repugnant and offensive to the one with a good conscience. Rather than follow the lies of apostates, he will “fight the battle well, holding on to faith and a good conscience” (1 Timothy 1:18–19). Proverbs 6:27 asks a rhetorical question to illustrate the consequences of adultery: “Can a man scoop fire into his lap / without his clothes being burned?” To paraphrase the question in relation to false teaching, “Can an apostate dispense the fiery lies of hell without his conscience being seared?” Sin has an effect on our conscience too. Because sin causes hearts to grow hard, especially continual and unrepentant sin. Now we know that “if we confess our sins, [Jesus] is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins” (1 John 1:9). However, if we don’t confess our sins, they have a cumulative and desensitizing effect on the conscience, making it difficult to even distinguish right from wrong! And this sinful and hardened heart is equivalent to the “seared conscience” Paul speaks of it in 1 Timothy 4:1–2. 

Scripture makes it clear that if we relentlessly continue to engage in sin, there will come a time when God will give us over to our “debased mind” and let us have it our way. The apostle Paul writes about God’s wrath of abandonment in his letter to the Romans where we see that godless and wicked “men who suppress the truth” are eventually given over to the sinful desires of their hardened hearts (Romans 1:18–24). Combine a hardened heart with a seared conscience, and that makes for one really blind person who doesn't even know how miserable they are. Sin has them in a false world of contentment and pleasure. Here is a personal testimony worth watching.

  Until He Comes. -Pat-