After Adam and Eve had eaten the fruit, their eyes were opened, and they saw that they were naked. Their conscience told them they had sinned; they knew that they had violated God's command to not eat of that tree. When God spoke to them, their guilty conscience made them try to hide. But God found them, so Adam said, "I heard your voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself." The first thing so many people try to do today is like this; to hide that sin, and think this will somehow hide us from God's wrath. But what a terrible price they had to pay for that one sin. They were cast out of that beautiful garden in Eden, no longer to eat of the tree of life, but only having pain, sorrow, toil and tears. But this is true of all sin. How many people will cry after they must pay the price, "It wasn't worth it!"

We have another example of this in Genesis 37. Joseph tells his father and brothers about his dreams, that they will all bow down to him someday. His brothers become jealous of him, and when he came to them one day, they caught him and cast him into a pit. When a caravan of Ishmaelites came by, they sold him to them and Joseph was sold as a slave in Egypt. They even deceived their father into thinking Joseph was dead. Many years later, they still had guilty pangs from their consciences for this wickedness. When they had to come to Egypt for food, they had nothing but problems, and in Gen. 42:21, they said one to another, "We are truly guilty concerning our brother, in that we saw the anguish of his soul, when he besought us, and we would not hear; therefore is this distress come upon us." How many years they must have been tormented by their consciences, but there was no way to go back to that day and change what they had done. Just because of their jealousy, that one moment of revenge certainly cost them dearly all those years. In John 8, Jesus was teaching in the temple, when the scribes and Pharisees tried to test him. They brought a woman taken in the act of adultery, and asked Jesus to decide her case. "The law of Moses says she should be stoned to death, but what do you say?" There were plenty of others there that they could have asked, if they were sincere in their desire to settle this question; elders at every gate, priests everywhere throughout the temple, or even the Jewish Sanhedrin.

But they were really only trying to trap Jesus. If he said stone her, he was placing himself above the Romans, who alone could pronounce the death penalty. If he said not to kill her, he would be accused of being against the law of Moses. When they continued to ask Jesus, he said, "Let those who are without sin be the first to cast a stone at her." The law said that two or more accusers must cast the first stone. Jesus added the one requirement that the accusers be without sin. This could not be met, so in John 8:9, we see, "And they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last: and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst." There was no doubt that the woman was guilty. But so were the accusers; they just hadn't been caught in their sin, as she was. So Jesus told her to go and sin no more.

We see another example in Matt. 27:3-4, when Judas had betrayed Jesus to the Sanhedrin. Judas, when he saw that Jesus was condemned, repented himself, and brought again the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, Saying, "I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood." And they said, "What is that to us? see thou to that." His conscience told him he had made a serious mistake, and he tried to change it by returning the money. But it was too late; nothing could be done; Jesus was condemned to die. Judas cast the money at their feet, then made another serious mistake: he went out and hanged himself.

This tragic story gives us some insight into his conscience. Like so many people, he fought it by reasoning, to justify himself for doing evil. No one can do anything that their conscience condemns, but they can feed it false information, so that they call evil good, and good evil. Judas had excused himself in betraying Jesus, but now his justification falls apart when Jesus is on the cross. Now Judas is willing to listen to the good side of his conscience, but it's already too late.

I can't help but feel his conscience also told him that hanging himself was not the right solution to the problem, either. But he had made a practice of ignoring his conscience so many times before, this made it easier to do it just one more time.

This is like those described in 1 Tim. 4:2: "Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron;" How many other people, like Judas, have seared their conscience? Those who say there is no God; to those who admit there is a God, but He's too busy to be concerned about us; or those who try to justify themselves in sins, rather than confess them, and repent of them; who say, "The devil made me do it", or blame bad genes or heredity, or make other excuses. But this is the nature of man, as we see in Jeremiah. 6:15. "Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? nay, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush: therefore they shall fall among them that fall: at the time that I visit them they shall be cast down, saith the LORD."

But our desire should be as described in Heb. 10:22: "Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water."

Or in 2 Corinthians. 4:2: "But have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully; but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God." And in 1 Tim. 1:5. "Now the end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned:"