The Tragedy of Overriding Our Onboard Warning System!

In 1986 two Russian electrical engineers were performing an unauthorized experiment in Chernobyl's nuclear power plant. In order to conduct their experiment they had to manually override six separate computer-driven alarm systems! They ignored every single one. The result was an out of control nuclear reaction called meltdown. This was the largest and deadliest industrial accident in history. It's consequences and cost in human suffering and death continues today.

God has placed, in the spirit of every individual, a God-created, law-driven onboard alarm system called conscience. It's an invaluable, though not infallible, God-given, guidance and warning system. Many people believe that the conscience was given to us to help us make decisions between right and wrong. That is a false assumption! The conscience will only resist any deviation from the truth, or the right and the wrong, it knows.

In the mid 1950’s near Ashville, NC, an adult male walked into the police station and openly confessed to a murder he had committed 13 years earlier. He gave the deceased person’s name and related to the authorities how he had murdered this person by shooting him in the back of the head with an arrow. The police reviewed his story from their files and found that the local coroner had ruled the deceased man’s death to be from natural causes. However, when they dug up the dead man’s remains, they found a hole in the base of his skull made by an arrow. The murderer was brought to justice, not by the police, but by his own conscience. Just what is this powerful voice that God has placed within man?

The word conscience is referred to by name 31 times in 29 verses in the New Testament.

What is this alarm system like and how does it work? Someone said our conscience is that still small voice that makes you feel smaller still." One little boy said, "Conscience is the thing that makes you tell your mother before your sister does."

Conscience is the vocal cord of the human spirit. It's the eyes of the spirit, the windows or skylight of the soul. It's every person's companion forever! It always warns us as a friend before it punishes us a judge. It has something to say about every decision, invitation, thought, word, and deed of any significance at all.

Conscience is that God-given ability to evaluate one's own actions and respond emotionally to that action - either commending or condemning, accusing or excusing. It tells me that the highest I know demands that I do what I know. It may be wrongly informed or poorly informed and hardened or deadened. It can be seared and temporarily silenced.

In a succinct biblical summary, the conscience:

• Is God-given
• Bears moral witness
• Accuses or defends
• Can be weak, defiled, or seared
• Must be shaped by truth of God’s Word
• Can only be cleansed by Christ’s atoning work
• Serves as a guide for godly living - but not as the final authority

Out text discloses that even though a man may be a wicked King, shameless, sensual, hen-pecked, and given to every kind of sinful excess, he still has a conscience. Herod Antipas, governor of one-fourth of Palestine, is the classic example of the tragedy of overriding the alarm of conscience that was exposed to the message of Truth, and then to the Messiah, who is the Truth! Herod stands as a lighthouse that flashes the warning, "Stop! Look! Listen! Don't follow in my steps!"

The Accusations of a Disquieted Conscience

 1. Biblical Truth will Stir the Conscience with Legal Conviction that is Fearful and Fascinating - Mk. 6:16-18

“For it was Herod who had sent and seized John and bound him in prison for the sake of Herodias, his brother Philip's wife, because he had married her. For John had been saying to Herod, “It is not lawful for you to have your brother's wife.” 

Herodias was the daughter of Aristobulus, another son of Herod the Great (who had 10 wives); so when she married Philip, she was marrying her own father's brother. What precipitated the arrest of John the Baptist was that Herod Antipas (another of Herodias's uncles) talked Herodias into leaving her husband (his brother) in order to marry him (Mark 6:17), thus compounding the incest, as well as violating Lev.8:16. John was outraged that a ruler in Israel would sin this way openly, so he rebuked Herod severely (Matt.14:4). For this, Herod imprisoned and later killed John (Mark 6:14-29).

But note the confusing, conflicting response of Herod to the preaching of the Prophet John the Baptist. He wanted to kill him and to keep him safe. Matthew's account of this story declares in 14:5, we read, “And although he wanted to put him to death, he feared the multitude, because they counted him as a prophet." Then Mark 6:20 reads, "for Herod feared John, knowing that he was a just and holy man, and he protected him. And when he heard him, he did many things and heard him gladly."

Someone said, "The truth will set you free, but it will first make you miserable."

Herod, under legal conviction of conscience, knowing he was guilty of breaking God's law, and feeling remorseful, probably did what so many do today, go to church for a while and let the preacher lash them with the Truth as a form of penance. He then left John, the Prophet/preacher, and probably did some religious stuff - a few good deeds, maybe pardoned a political prisoner, or sent some food to the street kids, etc.

Many today, having the onboard alarm system of their conscience sounding off, are like the man who wrote and anonymous letter to the Internal Revenue Service enclosing a hundred-dollar bill which he said he owed the government. The letter read, "This has been on my conscience so much that I can't sleep at night." He then added, "If I still can't sleep, I'll send the rest I owe!"

Every alarm of conscience, every exposure to the Word of God is sincere and is to be taken seriously.

2. Moral Cowardice Will Suppress the Conscience in Order to Avoid Losing Face – 6:16, 26

Herod feared John the Baptist was back from the dead to exact revenge. He feared the Jews, his wife, his political bosses. He feared losing face and embarrassment before his peers. In fact, he feared everything and everyone except God! He was a moral coward. We read in Rev. 21:8, "But the fearful, (moral cowards) and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone: which is the second death." When referencing the fearful, John is not speaking of natural timidity, but of that cowardice which in the last resort chooses self and safety before Christ.” (Leon Morris)

Herod, for fear of a woman, for fear of his reputation, for fear of his political career, for fear of his peers - and for a lack of fear for God - damned his soul forever!

3. Lustful Desires will Silence the Conscience by Overriding its Limited Condemnation – 6:21-23

Herod didn’t know what to do with John, but unfortunately his Jezebel knew exactly what she wanted. Herodias “held a grudge against” John and “wanted to kill him.” But her weak husband kept him safe in prison, so any assassination plan would have to be put on hold. Herodias felt that “the only place where her marriage certificate could safely be written was on the back of the death warrant of John the Baptist” (Wessel, “Mark,” 670). All she needed was an opportune moment.

Herodias had been condemned by John as a treacherous and adulterous woman. How far she is willing to go to get revenge is truly amazing.

Herod threw a birthday party for himself and invited the important people of his little kingdom. Herodias’s daughter enters the room filled with drunken men. There is little doubt she was sent by her mother, and there is little doubt Salome (we learn her name from Josephus’s writings) danced seductively and greatly appealed to the lustful passions of these unregenerate, pagan men.

Most likely she was only in her teens. The daughter of Herodias and Philip, she was also Herod’s stepdaughter and niece! This is how low Herodias stooped. She cared more about the head of John the Baptist than she did the dignity and reputation of her daughter.

Salome’s dance pleased Herod and his guests. Parroting the language of Esther 5:2-3, he utters a proverbial saying that binds him to grant a generous gift for her performance. Herodias, an ungodly woman used ungodly means to get what she wants, and in God’s mysterious providence, she succeeds.

Salome goes to her mother and says, “What should I ask for?” The unhesitating response is, “John the Baptist’s head!” “Immediately she hurried” to tell Herod. Not surprisingly, Herod was sad but spineless in his response. He could not afford to lose face in front of his guests, so the executioner is immediately sent and John is beheaded. The executioner brings John’s head into Herod; Herod directs it to Salome; Salome then gives it to Herodias. It’s done and John is gone!

Herod feared displeasing his wife and losing face with man more than he feared God. Pride took him down, just like it did Satan and Adam. Herodias feared and hated John because he was right and she knew it. John was a nuisance to her conscience and a cancer to her reputation. He had to go. His head on a platter would solve all her problems, or at least she thought so.

If you give yourself a chance to sin, there's a good chance you will.  If you inflame your passions, the white-hot heat will cause a meltdown of your onboard warning system, and you will do what you thought you never would do.

If Herod had released John as he knew he should have (after all, verse 20 says he protected him and went to hear him in the privacy of his cell), he never would have had the chance to murder him.  If he had not had lewd entertainment at his feast, he would not have made his rash vow.  But Herod left the door constantly open, and one day he found himself walking through it.  

If David had gone to work that spring like a king should have (2 Sam. 11:1-2), he would not have been on the roof at the wrong time, or lusted after Bathsheba, or committed adultery with her, or impregnated her, or arranged for the death of her husband.  If Solomon had not intermarried with the pagans (1 Kings 11:1-3), he would not have had his heart turned away from God.  If husbands would not allow themselves to be alone with women in improper places, they wouldn't find themselves cheating on their wives.  If wives would capture their wandering thoughts of romance and flee compromising positions with men, they wouldn't get sweep off their feet in immorality in a moment of supposed love.

The Awakening of a Dormant Conscience – Mark 6:16 

“But when Herod heard of it, he said, ‘John, whom I beheaded, has been raised.’” 

The reports that Herod was hearing concerning the message and the miracles of the ministry of Jesus and his disciples, fell upon his ears like a clap of doom. It terrified him. In his mind he probably saw the bloody, gory, head of John the Baptizer laying on the silver platter – perhaps with eye lids still open and eyes still speaking with the cold stare of death – “It’s not right! It’s not right!” Herod’s conscience prompted him to cry out, “This must be John whom I beheaded!”

You see, conscience may be bribed temporarily but never bound permanently. Sinning produces a guilty conscience. This is unavoidable. It will meet you in the dark, in the day, in your dreams. Conscience will rerun the memory to past events. It will project to the mind the image of future judgment. It will activate the imagination and make it see ghosts of dead men.

Permit me to give a historical illustration of a real king whose guilty conscience tormented him to an early grave. Charles IX became king of France in 1560 at just 10 years old, after the death of his older brother, Francis II. Because he was so young, real power rested with his formidable mother, Catherine de’ Medici, who ruled as regent.

France at the time was deeply divided between Catholics, who held traditional power, and Huguenots (French Protestants), who were growing in influence.

These tensions soon exploded into open violence that tore France apart by the French Wars of Religion (1562–1598).

After an assassination attempt on a key Protestant leader, Charles authorized a targeted killing of more Protestant leaders. What followed spiraled completely out of control thousands of Protestants were massacred in Paris. Violence spread to cities across France. The killings lasted weeks. This murderous event is known by historians as the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre

After the massacre, Charles IX was never the same. His behavior changed markedly. He suffered intense guilt and paranoia. Contemporary accounts describe him as deeply disturbed, plagued by severe insomnia, nightmares and remorse, fits of nervous agitation. He began to see conspiracies everywhere. Allies were no longer trusted, and former enemies were feared even more. He experienced hallucinations and fixation on blood.

Charles the Ninth’s life is tragic because he had violated his conscience. He was destroyed not by ambition, but by the knowledge that he had crossed a moral line he could never uncross. He died in 1574 at just 23 years old.

The Actions of a Deadened Conscience – 6:24-27

Prideful Decisions Will Sear the Conscience so that it Eventually Loathes Christ - Lk. 23:8-12

Killing the Messenger is easier than hearing the Message! Neither Herod nor his wife, Herodias appears to have had issue with the fact that John's words were biblically based; they just had issue with the words themselves. But not liking God's revelation has never been grounds for dismissing it. 

It's Easy to Try and Save Face before Your Peers and in So Doing, Lose Your Soul! -6:26 - Pride goes before destruction. Pride causes teenagers to take the dare of sin rather than risk the affair of being shunned by peers. Men follow through on promises that should have never been made in order to save some supposed reputation.

There may be the terrors of strong conviction, where there is not the truth of a saving conversion. This Herod, who had this notion concerning Christ, afterward sought to kill him (Luke 13:31), and set him at aside as a nobody (Luke 23:11). He will not be persuaded, though it be by one risen from the dead; no, not by a John the Baptist risen from the dead.

Herod began by fearing John, hearing his message, but neglecting to act upon it. He ends by mocking Jesus (Luke 23:8-11

Herod missed his chance to do the right thing.  The only time this "Herod" comes up in the Bible again is in Luke 23:8-1, where he presides over part of Jesus' trial. We find him quite eager to hear Jesus, but only because he wants to be entertained. Jesus remains completely silent in regards to Herod’s questions. As soon as he sees that Jesus won't sing and dance for him, he mocks him a bit and sends him back to Pilate.  He shows no sign of the guilt we see in Mark 6.  He had become hardened in his rebellion. All the lights had gone out on the road to hell. Jesus said, "If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!" (Mt. 6:23)

"In the greatest of irony, Luke 23:11-12 records, "And Herod with his soldiers, after treating Him with contempt and mocking Him, dressed Him in a gorgeous robe and sent Him back to Pilate. Now Herod and Pilate became friends with one another that very day; for before they had been at enmity with each other."  Two ruthless men and former enemies now built a friendship around the common bond of rejecting and crucifying the Son of God!

Don’t linger in your sinfulness until you are no longer bothered by it! Do not over-ride the onboard warning system of your conscience that is being exposed to the truth of God's Word!

Finally, Always Remember that the Onboard Alarm of your conscience may be Temporarily Silenced in this World, but it will be Energized Eternally in the World to Come!

The unsaved person may live so wickedly and vilely in this life until his conscience is seared and no longer pains him. But the moment he dies his conscience will be sensitized and his memory is energized and begin its eternal task of accusing him. The unbeliever will remember every sermon that they ever heard which warned them about coming judgment. They will recall every song that they heard sung about the love of Christ and the blessedness of His salvation. They will remember every prayer that they heard prayed for their salvation; every tender privilege that God gave them to be saved.

Conscience will stir up bitter memories, tormenting remorse and agonizing despair, forever.

The old hymn pleads, "Let not conscience make you linger, nor of fitness fondly dream, all the fitness he requires is to feel your need of him!"

One of the great promises of the gospel is the cleansing of the conscience. “How much more will the blood of Christ… cleanse our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.” (Hebrews 9:14)

I join with Charles Wesley as he wrote:

I want the tender conscience, quick
To feel its slightest smart;
And swiftly flee from all that’s ill,
And turn to Thee with all my heart.