Beware of a Seared Conscience

The title of today's message is, Beware of a Seared Conscience. Beware of a Seared Conscience. I have in front of me today a best-selling book, and it's actually titled, I Heard You Paint Houses. I heard you paint houses. It's not only a best-selling book that was written around 2005-2006. It is going to be one of the biggest movies out next year. It's one of the most expensive movies ever made. It's entitled, I Heard You Paint Houses. Martin Scorsese is going to direct it. Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, it's a top. It's one of the most expensive films ever made, and it's taken them nine years to make it. I bring this out because the book is the story written by Charles Brandt as he interviewed this individual called Frank Sheeran. Frank Sheeran. Frank Sheeran was born in 1920. He died in 2003. Frank Sheeran grew up during the Depression. He grew up, as any young person would, in a poor situation. His family was immigrants. He struggled in school like many, many. But he was a pretty happy-go-lucky young man. He was Irish. By the time he was 18, 20 years old, he was six foot four, weighed over 200 pounds. He was a good-sized guy. But he enjoyed life. Even at a very young age, he learned to dance and was quite a ballroom dancer. He was ... enjoyed all types of sports. He played many sports. And the thought of this thing from his mind at that time was violence. But he, like so many young men back in the 1940s, enlisted in the Army World War II. Frank Sheeran has the distinction that no other soldier had of serving 411 days in combat duty. That's four times larger than the average person or young man spent in combat. That means you were under constant barrage. You were all 411 days under fire or charging. When the war was over, he came back to change, man.

He brings out in his book many details that the military did not want, even told today. One of his jobs as a large individual, and he became very proficient with arms, was he killed many, many men. He even killed prisoners of war that would give themselves up. As his army commanders actually gives their names and so forth in this book, it would be prosecuted for that today if they were still alive. They were told, we can't carry these German soldiers. Take them back and excuse them.

That's one of the words they would use. Frank Sheeran developed a mind that we would never want to develop. I had no intention of giving this sermon on Frank Sheeran. I had heard about the movie, but it wasn't until my brother gave me the book that I started reading it and felt empathy, as we heard about in our sermonette. Being able to have empathy for this young man, that his whole life was changed by these events, by the life that he lived, to where he thought no more of taking a human life than he did squashing a bug.

When Frank got out of service, came home, he had a hard time finding work. So he picked up the trade that he had learned in the military, and he became a paid killer, an assassin for not only the unions, but also for the mafia. The book is going to be about, and the movie will be about, his best friend that he cared very much for, Jimmy Hoffa.

And yet, at the end, he killed Jimmy Hoffa and describes in the book his best friend. Still considered him a best friend, but he did what he was told to do. It is a very sad story as he looked back on his life and gave an account of all the things that he did, and wanting to change. But he was 83. The author quotes him in the book as saying during this time, it was the time I first developed a callousness to taking human life, he said.

And the author understood that a person like Sheeran was desensitized to something previously they abhorred. But he had learned these skills. He had learned this action, this job. And as he looked back on it, his answer was, as so many others, war is hell. And that's just the way it was. People can develop a warped sense of morality. A mental condition takes place in people like Frank. It can take place even in people like us.

If we become desensitized, uncompassionate, lose all empathy or sympathy for others. The mental condition takes place, psychologists call it a seared conscience. A seared conscience, which taken to an extreme, as we have in this example in this book, Frank. An extreme conscience, searing, is to become what is known as a psychopath. A psychopath to define it is one unable to tell the difference between right and wrong. It may sound simple, but to them it's not.

They have warped their minds so much that they can't tell the difference between what is normal in society and what's unacceptable. Psychologists look at people who are psychopaths and find many of them had warped their minds even as young children, had come into a life where they would torture or kill little animals, and their mind became unsympathetic towards even the cries of an animal. And the searing of the mind begins to take place to where later on they act out as they become adults with humans, and it's no more difference than a bug of killing another human.

Most psychopaths cannot be reformed or rewired because they live so long in such a warped state that they cannot comprehend normal behaviors. It's just not possible. We are to beware of a seared conscience since it is on this road. Now, am I worried about people in our congregation being psychopaths? No. But a seared conscience is something that's mentioned in Scripture that we need to be made aware of. And I want to today to go into that to help us understand that we need to look at step one to never get to step five so that we can head off maybe some of the thoughts, some of the scarring of our minds that can allow this warped mindset in us.

A psychological test question from the behavioral science of the FBI. And I'll read this because not because I'm trying to shock you or hit your mind off. Wait a minute, I thought this was a Sabbath. Aren't we going to have peace? This is an actual test question that is given. And when I first read it, I'm going, that doesn't even make sense. And after reading, I'm thankful that it didn't make sense because only a warped psychopathic mind, as they said, 99% of those psychopaths answer this question correctly. The question is posed a woman while at a funeral of her mother met a man whom she did not know. She thought this guy was so amazing. She believed him to be the dream guy so much that she fell in love with him right then and there. But never asked for his number and could not find him. A few days later, she killed her sister. What was the motive? The answer, she hoped the guy would show up at the funeral.

Now, that to us is so far out there, right? And that's good. That's good that it's out there. The human mind, brethren, is one of God's greatest gifts to us. But it must be protected. Our conscience is the most precious of our mental gifts. Oh, it's nice to be able to memorize things. It's nice to be able to have wonderful recall. It's nice to be able to figure out problems as our minds go into an engineering mode or a mathematical mode. That's great. But the most precious thing for us should be and needs to be our conscience. Our conscience.

It distinguishes, our conscience should distinguish. Let's say, let's make sure it does distinguish between right and wrong. It should guide us. It should guard us. It is something we learn at a very young age. What enters our mind?

Your conscience can and should be your lifeline to life. How you relate to others. How you can understand others needs to be that lifeline. Go with me if you will. Read from the New King James Version to 1 Timothy. 1 Timothy 4.

1 Timothy 4, verse 1, says, now the Spirit expressly or explicitly says that in latter times, I think we might be living in those, that in latter times some will depart from the faith. Means that one time they were in the faith. They will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits, prince of the power of the air. So we heard in the sermon, we're influenced. It's out there. And doctrines of demons speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron. Their own conscience seared with a hot iron. Seared in the Greek is the word katarazo. Katarazo. It's where we get the word kataraz. A medical term. And it's a medical practice or technique of burning a part of the body to remove or close off a part of it. Instead, close off a part of it as they will cauterize part of your body.

Had I portioned my body cauterized. When I had a skin cancer on the back, removed. And they, strange as they cut this out, and even though they did in the area, it wasn't until they used the iron, the cauterize could smell the skin burning as it's pulled together. But that was to hold the skin together and to keep infection from coming in and sealing the wound. But there's always a downside because that does build kind of a wall, a protection for this area.

But we are talking today about a seared conscience. Our conscience does tell us between right and wrong. It helps us to decide, should I do this or, oh, wait a minute, maybe I shouldn't do this.

If we develop a seared conscience because we're not born with it, not born with a seared conscience, we are headed down a dark, dark path because sooner or later we will begin to decide for ourselves without anyone telling us, without any instruction manual that tells us between right and wrong. We will make those decisions ourselves, and we will begin to sear this conscience when we start seeing wrong as right.

Spiritually, we begin to break down our lifeline with God. When we start to develop a seared conscience, it's talked about in Timothy here.

We break that lifeline that God has with us as He talks with us. We have all experienced here where we really couldn't decide, and then all of a sudden God puts it in our minds, and we're so glad and we thank Him. But every one of us has done something where our conscience is telling us, don't do it, and we do it anyway. And we so regret that, hopefully. We regret and we learn from that experience. But you see, there are others who do not learn from experience, and that's where it becomes a danger. A danger to us. See, spiritual scar tissue, because when you have an operation, or you're cut somewhere, or they do this, and they go in and do the operation, and when it starts healing back over, you have scar tissue that builds, and it makes it hard to raise your hand, if you raise your arm, until you have to stretch it out, and the scar tissue never goes away. Well, there's... and it hardens your body. Sometimes even there's a cut. You can rub that side, or you can stick it with a needle, and you don't even feel it, because there's so much scar tissue. With athletes, they get hurt, and they have surgery after surgery, and there's scar tissue after scar tissue that sometimes they don't even know. When they have really messed their knee up. Scar tissue. Well, we, brethren, can develop scar tissue, spiritual scar tissue, to where we put up a wall, or we begin to be hardened towards things that didn't used to be hardened towards.

Spiritual scar tissue numbs you to a sense of right and wrong. Become numb. It doesn't affect you like it used to. We can begin to lose feelings towards others. We can become calloused in how we answer people, how we work with people, how we interact, how we help people. I'm amazed, because when I was younger, I laughed at my face. When I was younger, I laughed about older people.

Oh, they're just old. Now I'm old.

And getting up out of bed, or having, as Jeff did some work, he said, this week doing floor, and now he's sore. He used to be, when you were 20 years old, you didn't think anything about it.

But we can begin to look at people, and they're not really people.

And that is a scary thought. That is starting to begin a serious searing of the conscious. And it can start with us with sin. To where we become, where we care less about what is right and what is wrong. In certain areas of our lives, God knows them. Thankfully, we don't know each other's, because we might be shocked. But God knows. But He still wants to work with us and reform us. Constant reform. To bring us back. Bring us back to normal. Bring us back to His thoughts.

I found this to be a strange thought, because Jesus is not here today. Jesus was to meet me. This happened about two years ago. Jesus was to meet me for lunch at Applebee's, I believe it was. I think Neil's smiling. He knows my story, I think I might have told him. I don't think Mary knows this story, so I'll be. So I was waiting in Applebee's an hour. It was one in the afternoon, nobody was there. It's over near Pembroke, where you guys live. And I was sitting by myself, looked at the phone for a while, waiting, well, maybe He's going to get here. And there was a young lady sitting over about two booths down. Basically, the only people in there, sitting there a little bit longer, and then she gets up and she walks over to my table. She wanted to know if I needed some company.

And I said, well, no, I'm waiting on. This young man is coming. And she said, well, if you don't mind, I'll wait just until he gets here. Okay. So she sat down. And she said, what do you do? And I handed her my card. I'm a pastor. And she was a hooker.

And she started to get up. And I said, oh, you can sit. I said, I might have some questions for you. Do you have any for me? And she talked a little bit. And then I said, how did you end up? You're a young lady, young enough. Is this what you wanted to do when you were 12 years old? And so we had a conversation for probably 20 minutes or so. She's a part-time stripper. And then she doesn't thought I might want some company. That's what she meant, company.

And hearing her tell it, she is so scarred, so much scar tissue, that the sex act to her is just no more than clipping her fingernails. And this was developed over time. She wasn't always that way.

And it stuck with me. I said, well, because then Jesus actually walked through the door. And I said, here's my friend. And she goes, well, I won't take up any more time. I said, well, if I can ever help you, you have my card. Because we did have a conversation about God and what he expects and what's going to happen. And, you know, is there life after death? And, you know, am I going to burn in hell? 10 minutes, we covered a lot of that. But she said, well, thank you, pastor. And she got up and went over. Jesus walked up.

Because up to that time, I didn't notice that she was dressed like one, but of course, did.

But, brethren, it is scary thought when our minds can be so seared between right and wrong. Isaiah 5 verse 20 says what? Woe to those who call evil good and good, what? Evil. There we're getting into, you know, God is actually talking about what? A psychopathic mind. A mind that's gone so far, too far. Woe to those who call evil good and good evil. Okay. Are you sure you know what is good and what is evil? I feel like I do. But do you feel like this country knows between good and evil? No. And has that shift taken place? Has the conscience of America made a large, a long shift over the last 30, 40, 50 years? I would say so.

Between good and evil.

900,000 babies were aborted last year in America, and they celebrated it because it's actually down from over 1 million a couple years ago. In 1973, when they passed Roe versus Wade, there was no sonogram in 3D that could actually show you the fetus, and you could actually see the child smile. Could actually have fingerprints. And yet today, what is the thought in America? It's not right and wrong, it's what? It's a woman's right to choose. And she needs that right to choose, whether she wants to kill a child or not. And that's the big debate. I don't want anyone telling me what I can't do with my body. But yet America, does she want to be a hooker? If she walks out here and says, well, I can do anything my body that I want to, why would she be arrested if she's having sex for money?

Where are we as a country? Well, we know where we are headed as a country, and it's not very good, but it is so important that we, as God's people, we profess to be His people, that we can be and should be the conscience of America. Oh, I don't want, no, we need to be the conscience of America because America has a seared conscience.

It is what we need to do. It is a responsibility that's actually been handed to us because you said you are His, you're Christ, and this world needs us. It needs a conscience that's not seared. You know, a warped view of life can happen to any and all of us. As a young child, you can develop a habit of lying. Okay? We know right now, okay, lying's wrong. It's one of the Ten Commandments, right? And most of us say, well, no, we shouldn't lie, but yet we have terms like little white lies. Desensitizes us to learn. You learn as a young child, if you're going to get your bottoms banked because you did this unless you lie. Then you're going, hmm, and you try it the first time and you don't get spanked because you lie. You're going what? Ah, I'll lie again and lie again. What happens to your conscience more and more? It gets tempered. That's why it's so important that the young children, that you teach your children right and wrong and you teach it, even though it's like I said, they may go away from it, but it's there. It's there. Grandparents, it's there because they will listen to grandparents a lot easier than they will listen to their parents a lot of times. Very, very important. The person who habitually gives himself over to sin loses the ability to feel the pain of sin. If we habitually do something, what if it's lying? Pretty soon, we just lie. I remember working with a lawyer on time, and he was a good lawyer, but he said, my job is to get the person to lie, get them on the stand. And as he worked with me as an expert witness in a case, he said, the other lawyer is going to get you to lie. I said, there's nothing to lie about. This is the truth. He said, truth is just however you want to turn it. He said, his job is to get you to lie. And it is amazing that even the legal system today, the police, the lawyers, the FBI, anybody else can lie to you and tell you that this person did this, and they told that you were there. Flat out lying. And it's okay. And the law says it's okay. This is something that we need to look at personally, individually. As one writer put it, our conscience should be called the secret inner voice of God. Is it? If it's not, you got some work to do. We have some reforming to do.

What has happened to us as a nation? Many of you remember what, last year or the year before? I think we had two. The hurricane that came through. Everybody buttoned down the hatches, closed up their windows, put your coverings on and everything. But you remember that when your TV was still working, you were watching the storm coming through. And here, I remember there was a dollar general. No, there was a shoe store. And so here, while everybody's waiting for the storm to pass and these 80 mile an hour winds are coming through and rain and everything, and here you had people looting the stores. The shoe store, these people kicked in the windows and they went in and they didn't grab a shoe. They grabbed all kinds of shoes. And by the time it was done, they stripped the store of all the shoes in a hurricane. There was no conscience that this is wrong. Where are we going? Where are we going to go?

I was raised when they had protests over some area in Missouri over a police shooting, and the people protested and they burnt down two of three of their own stores that service them. I, you know, we're, and today's stealing is, it's not, none of us would leave our cars unlocked, right? Definitely don't leave your doors unlocked at home. Why? Because somebody's going to steal. And if you do, if they do and they come in, the police are going to go, what's wrong with you? What's wrong with you for not locking your doors?

Go with me to Titus. Titus 1. Titus 1. Titus 1 and verse 15. This is a beautiful, beautiful verse. Titus 1 verse 15. Paul's telling Titus, as this new young preacher that Titus was, he's trying to give him instructions about teaching the church and taking care of a sound church, but verse 15, he says, to the pure, all things are pure. To the pure, all things are pure. What does he mean then? We walk with blinders on? No. We're not looking for an escape clause. We're not looking how we might break that law because this happened over here.

This person lied to me, so I'll lie to them. I heard once before, well, my wife cheated on me, so I'm going to get her back. See, that thought doesn't enter a pure mind, a mind that's set on and directed and guided by God. You're not looking at the effects of everything else. You're looking at the law of God. To the pure, all things are pure, but to those who are defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure, but even their mind and conscience are defiled. That's why it's so important that we protect our minds, that we make sure we do not have a seared conscience because you'll go from seared to a defiled mind. Haven't you seen guys? Guys, I know you've seen them. Haven't you seen guys that any woman walks by, they lust, they look, and they make it obvious? Yes? They don't care, right? You've seen them, and it's like their mind can't go and say, that's a sister in Christ. That someone may need my help. No, their minds have gone from being seared to defiled, to where their thoughts are constantly uneven. Go with me back to 1 Timothy, 1 Timothy 1. 1 Timothy 1, verse 18. 1 Timothy 1, verse 18, from the New King James Version. This charge I commit to you, son Timothy, according to the prophecy previously made concerning you, that by them you may wage good warfare, having faith and a good conscience. Having faith and a good conscience. I think it's very important that we have this faith. I want to read this from the New Living Translation. 1 Timothy 1, verse 18. Timothy, my son, here are my instructions for you based on the prophetic words spoken about you earlier. May they help you fight well in the Lord's battles. Cling to your faith in Christ and keep your conscience clear, for some people have deliberately violated their conscience. Deliberately violated.

How close to the edge do you like to walk? How close do you go over to the cliff? You might have seen in the last few weeks in Google News, there's two or three people that fell off. One fell off a 700-foot cliff and another one fell off a 900-foot cliff. They got so close to the edge, and then I gotta stretch because I want to do this selfie. I bring that up because how about us? How close to the spiritual cliff are we? Do we like hanging on the edge? Look at me. That is dangerous. That's why Paul told Timothy earlier in the chapter that love comes from a pure heart and a good conscience. We need that pure heart. Haven't you seen people that their thoughts are so pure? God wants us to be that way. He wants our conscience to be clear, not bogged down. That's why He gives us forgiveness. What I'm saying is if a member remains in sin long enough, they can reach a point where they are no longer influenced by the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit can't work with them. I've seen it. I've experienced it. And most of you have to, to be honest with you. It's something we have to work at. Christ never said this was going to be easy. In fact, He said the path was going to be difficult. Difficult as it would. But we can over-conquer. But we must make sure that we do not quench the spirit, as Paul wrote to the Thessalonica church in 1 Thessalonians 5 verse 18. Do not quench the spirit. Don't strangle it. Don't do that. But when our conscience begins to be seared about certain sins, and it may not, it may just be one or two sins, but we need to be aware of that and make sure it doesn't, we don't quench that spirit because God can no longer work with us. We're not listening.

Sin, brethren, can never be taken lightly. You didn't. Yet it is in this world. In fact, it's hardly ever mentioned. Oh yeah, this person has a problem, but they don't talk about sin. Because the blood of Jesus Christ was shed because of sin. And I guess that's why the writer of Hebrews said in Hebrews 3 and verse 13, he warns us that we can be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin, because sin is deceitful. Oh, I'm not hurting anybody. Oh, yeah, that really doesn't hurt anybody. It's kind of like the old thing about taxes. How many people cheat on their taxes? According to the polls, only 12%. You believe that? How many cheat on taxes? I do, I do. No, I'm not going to say that. But what does it hurt? That's where we kind of go with some of those things.

You know, they just did a poll of over a million people in Canada. Someone sent me those results yesterday. And in Canada now, 85% of the people in this poll condone same-sex marriage.

Would you? But wait a minute, it's two people love each other.

A conscience being seared of a nation. As I wrap this up today, I'd like you to consider the cases in the Bible of a seared conscience. A seared conscience by called-out ones, by God's own people. And they're in there for our example, to make sure that we do not become seared. That our conscience is so hardened that we don't feel it anymore. We don't feel sin. It's like the young lady that I met at Applebee's. She didn't, she doesn't even in her mind that is wrong. That is wrong. This is way of life, because pretty soon it becomes habitual, and then it becomes what? A way of life. And yeah, it's normal, as Bruce said, it just becomes normal. We have to make sure this tells us, don't make things normal. Don't make sin normal. Are we going to sin? Yes, every one of us. But realize when we do it. I'll give you the first example of King David. All right? You read the story of 2 Kings 11, where he was like our Frank Sheeran. He was a man of war. So much so, God says, you've shed so much blood. I don't want you touching the temple.

But David had been around men. Men would give their lives for him at any time. He was used to men dying around him, that he thought nothing of covering up an issue or a problem or a sin by having one of his men killed. You're right. His own body gone. So sinned him up and had him killed. And time went on that a baby was born. So much time went on that it's finally that the prophet had to come to him and say, here.

A lot of stuff went on from there to here, to the end, when Nathan came. But his conscience had been so seared over that time. We see it in the story of when he was to claim Mackel, the wife of Saul, after he killed Goliath. And he went there and saw it and said, no, no, no. I'll tell you, you still lack one thing. I want you to go out before I give her to you. And I want a hundred force games. Philistines. And David went out that night. Did he bring a hundred force games? Two hundred. And they're not force games. These are lives. He just went out and took 200 lives. Give us none. You want a hundred? Here, I'll give you two. So you see, even the searing of his conscience, a man after God's own heart, can happen to each and every one of us. Take the example of Samson. Samson was a judge. Next thing you know, he was what? Going to prostitutes.

And yet, he was a judge. People came to him and said, wait a minute, my wife committed adultery. How do you judge? When he was doing the stuff, his conscience was seared.

God calls it a stony heart, a hardened heart, and it's dangerous for us. It's dangerous concerning sin that we don't get that hard heart that we realize when we sin. Because it says there is a sin that leads to death, and that sin is the one that's not repented of, as 1 John tells us. We all have an awareness of the sins in our lives. Some of us can say, oh, God, you know as we repent, you know I have a weakness in that area. You know I have problems there, right?

We cannot let sin become habitual. Subritual sin will lead to the searing of our conscience. So I told you about a seared conscience, brought it up to you, what it was, how it exists in the Scripture, how Paul talks about it, and he wants to make sure that we're aware that we do not develop this seared conscience. So how do you deal with it? What's the answer? I don't have one answer. One answer, and that is in James 4. James 4, verse 7 and 8, and you can write it down. I wouldn't necessarily turn there because it's very easy. These are things that run through my mind to make sure I don't have a seared conscience because, hey, I'm just as susceptible as anyone here, if not more so, to getting a seared conscience. This helps me more than any. I run these three things through my mind, not in the order in which they're in. The first one is submit to God. I must realize I must submit to God. Those 10 commandments are not 10 suggestions. I must look at the 10 commandments. I must read them because pretty soon you go, I know that, and we begin to lose that. So the first one is submit to God. That's where it starts. The second is draw near to God, and He will draw near to you. Now, I know there's another one in its place, but I need to submit to God, go back and look at His Word. But draw near to God, and He will draw near to you. The Greek word means to drag because sometimes we have to drag ourselves back to Him. When we send... there's times I don't want to enter that room and go pray, because I haven't been near what He expects me to be. And I have to draw near to Him so that He will draw near to me. How do I draw near to God? It all starts with His Word, studying His Word, going back to that and drawing close to Him through prayer and talking. That's how I draw near to God, because I realize when I pray, I talk to God. When I read His Word, He talks to me, but I need to draw near. Submit to God, draw near to Him, and He will draw near to you. And the third three easy steps, resist the devil, and He will flee from you. And I have to say out loud too many times, no. No. Satan, not today. Not today, because it's a daily battle of sin. So, Father, brethren, I ask that you be aware of a seared conscience, and not that we just are aware of it, but that we become not only saints of God, not only children of God, but we become the conscience of America.