Strange that this morning before church I opened the pages of John McArthurs book:The Vanishing Conscience and read the preface which follows: We live in a culture that has elevated pride to the status of a virtue. Self-esteem, positive feelings, and personal dignity are what our society encourages people to seek. At the same time, moral responsibility is being replaced by victimism, which teaches people to blame someone else for their personal failures and iniquities. Frankly, the biblical teachings about human depravity, sin, guilt, repentance, and humility are not compatible with any of those ideas. The church has been far too willing to embrace the fads of worldly opinion—particularly in the area of psychology and self-esteem. Christians often merely echo worldly thinking on the psychology of guilt and the importance of feeling good about oneself. The adverse effect on the life of the church can hardly be underestimated. Nowhere, has the damage registered more than in the way professing Christians deal with their own sin. In speaking to Christians around the country, I have seen a disheartening trend developing for at least two decades. The church as a whole is growing less concerned with sin and more obsessed with self-exoneration and self esteem. Christians are fast losing sight of sin as the root of all human woes. And many Christians are explicitly denying that their own sin can be the cause of their personal anguish. More and more are attempting to explain the human dilemma in wholly unbiblical terms: temperament, addiction, dysfunctional families, the child within, codependency and a host of other irresponsible escape mechanisms promised by secular psychology. The potential impact of such a drift is frightening. Remove the reality of sin and you take away the possibility of repentance. Abolish the doctrine of human depravity and you void the divine plan of salvation. Erase the notion of personal guilt and you eliminate the need for a savior. Obliterate the human conscience, and you will raise an amoral and unredeemable generation. The church cannot join hands with the world in such a grossly satanic enterprise. To do so is to over throw the very gospel we are called to proclaim. This book is not merely a lament about society’s deplorable state or the damage we see caused by sin all around us. Nor is it an attempt to stir Christians up to tackling the impossible task of restructuring society. Awakening the church to the awful reality of sin is my only point of concern. That alone would have a positive effect on the world. Is social reconstruction even an appropriate way for Christian to spend their energies? I recently mentioned to a friend that I was working on a book dealing with sin and our culture’s declining moral climate. He immediately said, “Be sure you urge Christians to get actively involved in reclaiming society. The main problem is that Christians haven’t acquired enough influence in politics, art and the entertainment industry to turn things around for good.” That I acknowledge is a common view held by many Christians. But I’m afraid I don’t agree. The weakness of the church is not that we’re too uninvolved in the politics or administration of our society, but that we too easily absorb the false values of an unbelieving world. The problem is not too little involvement but too much assimilation. As I noted in a recent book, the church is fast becoming like the world in several respects. Those most active in the social and political realms are the first to absorb the world’s values. Social and political activists cannot have any worthwhile impact on society if their own consciences are not clear and strong. “Reclaiming” our culture is a pointless, futile exercise. I am convinced we are living in a post-Christian society—a civilization that exists under God’s judgment. As we will note in the early chapter in this book, abundant evidence suggests that God has abandoned this culture to its own depravity. Certainly He is not interested in superficial moral reform for an unregenerate society. God’s purpose in this world—and the church’s only legitimate commission—is the proclamation of the message of sin and salvation to individuals whom God sovereignly redeems and calls out of the world. God’s purpose is to save those who repent of their sins and believe the gospel—not to work for external corrections in a morally corrupt culture. If that sounds the least bit pessimistic or cynical to you, it isn’t. Scripture predicted times exactly as these: In the last days (2 Tim 3:1-5,13) 2Ti_3:1 This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. 2Ti_3:2 For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, 2Ti_3:3 Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, 2Ti_3:4 Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; 2Ti_3:5 Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away. 2Ti_3:13 But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived. God’s purposes are being fulfilled no matter how vainly people strive against Him. Titus 2;11 assures us that God’s grace appears, bringing salvation tin the midst of the lowest human depravity, teaching us to live “sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age” (v.12) There is great hope, even in midst of a wicked and perverse generation, for those who love God. Remember, He will build His church and “the gates of hades will not prevail against it” (Matt 16;18) He also I able to make all things work together for the good of His elect (Rom8:28) Christ Himself intercedes for His chosen ones, people who are not of this world even as He is not of this world. (Jn 17:14) What is His prayer? “I do not ask Thee to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil one….Sanctify them in the truth; Thy word is truth” (vv.15,17) As believers, then, out duty with regard to sin is not to try to purge all society’s ills, but to apply ourselves diligently to the work of our own sanctification. The sin we need to be the most concerned with is the sin in our own lives. Only as the church becomes holy can it begin to have a true, powerful effect on the outside world—and it won’t be an external effect, but a changing of hearts. That is the focus of this book. This is a message for believers--Christians who are aliens and strangers in a hostile world (1Peter 2:11) It is an appeal that we commit ourselves to biblical thinking, that we see ourselves as God sees us, and that we deal honestly with our own sin. To understand how to deal honestly with our own sin, we must first fully understand the problem. Part 1 of this book describes the decadent state of contemporary society, how sin has been treated and consequently how the conscience has been affected. Part II examines the nature of sin. Part III provides practical solutions to gaining victory over sin………..Three appendixes provide additional treatment of topics that are central in this book. Appendix II looks at the apostle Paul’s instructions for gaining victory over sin as outlined in Romans 6. Appendixes 2 and 3 provide modern renderings of sermons in the 17th century by Richard Sibbes and in the 198th century by Jonathan Edwards. The sermon by Sibbes examines 1 Peter 3:21, and particularly the phrase “an appeal to God for a good conscience.” It also highlights the advantages of a pure conscience. The sermon by Edwards examines why we may live in sin without knowing it and suggests ways to search our conscience to identify and arrest sin. These 2 sermons are included for two reasons. First, they offer helpful advice to Christians who want to deal seriously with sin and sharpen their consciences. Second, they reveal in a graphic way how differently the church once regarded sin—and thus how far contemporary Christianity has sunk. The church desperately needs to recover some of our ancestor’s holy dread of sin—or we will enter the 21st century severely crippled. My prayer is that this book will help prompt evangelicals to turn again with new appreciation to the biblical doctrine of human depravity, sin, and the role of the conscience, leading to personal apathy, carelessness, shamelessness and self centeredness that worldly thinking has begun to breed among Bible-believing Christians. My most earnest prayer is that individual Christians who read it will be encouraged to reject such worldly values and instead nurture “love from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith” (1 Tim.1:5) John McArthur (1994) I would appreciate your thoughts on this. This book was one of my Moms favorite book and I inherited it from her.
Posted on: Sun, 10 Aug 2014 20:15:15 +0000
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