Conscience & Conviction

Samuel Annesley

Our conscience is a silent reasoning of the mind that approves with delight that which we judge good, and disapproves with grief that which is evil. God has placed this in all men as a tribunal. It pries into all our actions both towards God and man.

Your conscience is your best friend. There is no greater riches, pleasure, or safety, than a good conscience.

Norman Clifford 

The witness of conscience in man’s soul was the means by which all natural knowledge of God was sustained. The presence of conscience meant the presence of God’s witness and ambassador in the soul of man ever reminding him of his responsibility towards God. (Romans 1:19-20)

Richard Sibbes  The Soul's Conflict With Itself

The worth of God in Christ is never discerned till we see our lost and undone condition without him, till conscience flies in our faces, and drags us to the brink of hell. 

C.H. Spurgeon

A natural conscience touched by the Spirit of God may do a good deal in the way of showing a man his faults. It may thus make him uneasy and may bring about a reformation of life. But it is only the Spirit of God that, to the full extent, convinces a man of sin so as to bring forth repentance, self-despair and faith in Jesus. 

The Holy Spirit does not come to make sinners comfortable in their sins, but to cause them to grieve over their sins! He does not help them to forget their sin, or think little of it, but He comes to convince them of the horrible enormity of their iniquity! He comes to make sin appear sin and to let us see its fearful consequences! He comes to wound so that no human balm can heal!

Learn in confession to be honest with God. Do not give fair names to foul sins; call them what you will, they will smell no sweeter. 

The Treasure of David on Psalm 19: 12-13 "Cleanse Thou me from secret sins." 

Obadiah Sedgwick

(Sinners) take great order and care to cover secret sins with some plausible varnish which may beget a good opinion in others (and to deceive themselves).

Richard Capel

He that will sin, and when he hath done will say - not to comfort his (conscience), but to flatter himself in his sin - that it is but (his) infirmity.

William Mason  "A Spiritual Treasury for the Children of God" 

Happy souls, who, under a sense of peace through the blood of Jesus...will not give a softer name to sin than it deserves lest they depreciate the infinite value of that precious blood which Jesus shed to atone its guilt.

Octavius Winslow  Daily Walking With God  on Proverbs 28:13 "He that covers his sins shall not prosper; but whoever confesses and forsakes them shall have mercy." 

A sense of guilt upon the conscience invariably occasions distant views of God. The moment Adam became conscious of having sinned, He hid himself from God's eye. He sought concealment from the endearing presence of Him who had been used to walk in the cool of the evening through the bowers of Paradise, in sweet and confiding communion. It is so now! Guilt upon the conscience, sin unconfessed, imparts misty, gloomy, distorted views of God. We lose that clear endearing view of His character which we once had. We dare not look up with holy, humble boldness. We misinterpret His dealings; think harshly of His ways...  

Horatius Bonar

Man's good opinion of himself makes him think it quite possible to win God's favour by his own religious performances; his bad opinion of God makes him unwilling and afraid to put his case wholly into His hands. The object of the Holy Spirit's work (in convincing of sin) is to alter the man's (sinner's) opinion of himself and so to reduce his estimate of his own character that he should think of himself as God does, and so cease to suppose it possible that he can be justified by any excellency of his own. The Spirit then alters his evil opinion of God, so as to make him see that the God with whom he has to do is really the God of all grace.

Joseph Alleine

It is one thing to have sin alarmed only by convictions, and another to have it crucified by converting grace. Many, because they have been troubled in conscience for their sins, think well of their case, miserably mistaking conviction for conversion.

J.C. Ryle  Holiness  "Thirst Relieved!"

John 7:37b  "If anyone is thirst, let him come to me and drink."

http://www.gracegems.org/Ryle/holiness18.htm 

It is not when we begin to feel good — but when we feel bad, that we take the first step towards Heaven.

 "Only come to Me, poor anxious soul," our Lord seems to say, "only come to Me, and your spiritual anxiety shall be relieved. I will place in your heart, by the power of the Holy Spirit, such a sense of pardon and peace, through My atonement and intercession, that you shall never completely thirst again. You may have your doubts and fears and conflicts while you are in the body. But once having come to Me, and taken Me for your Savior, you shall never feel yourself entirely hopeless. The condition of your inward man shall be so thoroughly changed, that you shall feel as if there was within you an ever-flowing spring of water."

A.W. Tozer  Renewed Day by Day

I consider it a good sign that some people are still asking questions like these in our churches: “What should happen in a genuine conversion to Christ?” and “What should a man or woman feel in the transaction of the new birth?” If I am asked, my answer is this: “There ought to be a real and genuine cry of pain!” That is why I am not impressed with the kind of evangelism that tries to invite people into the fellowship of God by signing a card. There should be a birth within, a birth from above. There should be the terror of seeing ourselves in violent contrast to the holy, holy, holy God!

Unless we come into this place of conviction and pain concerning our sin, I am not sure how deep and real our repentance will ever be. The man whom God will use must be undone, humble and pliable. He must be, like the astonished Isaiah, a man who has seen the King in His beauty!