My Conscience Is Not Enough; Nor My Experience

My conscience is not enough to give me knowledge of my sins, neither is the experience of misery enough to give me knowledge of my misery. 

There are a number of reasons for this. 

• In the first place, the word “know” means more than just know about sin. 
• It carries with it the idea of acknowledging sin before God. 
• This is something that my fallen nature refuses. 

Even though my conscience may accuse me of doing wrong, 

• I naturally suppress this knowledge (cf. Romans 1:18). 
• Though I may know about my sin, 
• I refuse to acknowledge it in humble repentance before God. 

In the second place, 

• things such as sickness and death are sufficient to tell me that there is misery, 
• but they cannot tell me why there is misery.

Still further, 

• although my sins and misery should be apparent to me from what I experience in daily life, 
• my mind does not register the signals that come to me. 

That is because my mind has become impaired through sin. 

• Scripture says that the mind of fallen man has become darkened and senseless (cf. Romans 1:21).
• Because of this mental darkness, 
• I do not come to know my sins by what I experience in life.

Another reason for having to learn about my sin and misery is because we are all alike. 

• All of us are conceived and born in sin. 
• All of us are by nature corrupt. 
• All of us are the same. 

And if all are the same, I conclude that this is normal. 

• If we all had six fingers on each hand, we would think that this is normal. 
• We would not know better. 
• In like manner, all of us are depraved. 

Thus I tend to think that this is natural. 

• Imperfection is a part of humanity. 
• “To err is human,” they say. 
• Yet it is not; imperfection is abnormal. 

God created me perfect 

• but I have become depraved through my fall into sin. 
• This teaches me that I should not judge the correctness of what I do by looking to what most other people do. 
• Sometimes I say, “everybody does it!” which seems to imply that it must be acceptable. 
• However, what society in general accepts or what our church friends accept is not necessarily what God accepts. 

Adapted Excerpt From Van Delden's Only By True Faith