Title: The Seared Conscience / Topic: Holiness & Repentance

Today’s Reading: 2 Kings 8; 2 Kings 9; 2 Chronicles 21; 1 Timothy 4

Scripture: 1 Timothy 4:1-2
1 The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. 2 Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron.

Observation: What is a person like who's conscience has be "seared as with a hot iron?" What is a seared conscience? As I thought about these questions, I thought of all the really bad people that are out there, like terrorists, molesters, drug traffickers, and the like. Surely, these are the kind of folks that have a seared conscience. I did a Google search on "seared conscience" and came up with about 163,000 results. The first two were of interest to me as they are a two-part sermon by the late Rev. Charles Finney. As I read the words of Finney, I realized that a seared conscience is not limited to the obviously sinful people. The fact is that in our time, a seared conscience is common to just about everyone, even for those who consider themselves Christians, including me.

Application: Read Finney's words with openness -- the links are at the end of this application section. To me much of what he says borders on the extreme (but that may be partially due to the loss of Godly standards that is our common experience). What does ring out loud and clear from Finney's words is a challenge to laxness. There are moral aspects to so many areas of our lives that we give no moral thought or concern to whatsoever. This must change! These include important personal and social issues, personal productivity and performance, personal duty or health, matters of time (wasting time, punctuality, etc.), money and material things, prayer, attitudes regarding church and our personal spirituality, and many more.

It's is time to rethink our casual approach to virtually every area of our lives and seek to have God's truth and power come to bear in a real and tangible way.

These sermons are not easy reading but are worth your time and effort to look them over. I encourage you to click on the links and spend a minimum of 10-15 minutes on each.
Read Finney sermon part 1. Read Finney sermon part 2.

Prayer: Lord, help us to apply truth to every area of our lives and to allow ourselves to be lifted to a high moral standard in everything we think, say, and do. Forgive us for being inattentive to the details of our lives and for being careless about holiness. Lord, help us to be holy without legalism and earnest without fanaticism. May we live with our consciences sensitized to Your Spirit.
This I pray in Jesus’ name, Amen.