Jiminy Cricket was the one who said, “Always let your conscience be your guide.” This could be good advice, especially if your conscience is educated in the word of God. But Jiminy Cricket’s theology is often disastrous. If a person knows nothing of the word of God, and if he is committing the same sin over and over, his conscience will become seared and be very misleading and not good to follow.
One man described his conscience as a little triangle inside his heart. When he did wrong the triangle turned, and the corners hurt. However, if he did the same wrong thing often then the corners wore off and he didn’t feel anything. That is a good description of a seared conscience.
At the Diet of Worms, Martin Luther said, “My conscience is captive to the word of God. To go against Conscience is neither right nor safe.” He could safely let his conscience be his guide. An Indian woman who had never heard of Christ and had never seen a copy of the Bible, could with a clear conscience toss her baby into the river to appease the crocodile god she worshipped. She could not safely follow her conscience.
Someone once said, “A conscience is like a wheel barrow. You can push it around anywhere you want it to go.” It is only a good moral guide when it is informed by God and His word. Atheistic materialists who try to explain everything by the evolutionary theory are at a loss to explain mankind’s inner knowledge of right and wrong. Where did human consciousness come from? Where does the human conscience come from? Those who espouse the theory of evolution don’t know.
Those who believe the word of God do know. We have a BOOK. We read that God created man in His own image and breathed into him the breath of life and man became a living soul. Human beings have consciousness, ability to think and reason, and a conscience that lets us know right from wrong.
Jiminy Cricket’s theology has a serious flaw. The theology of God’s word is the only safe theology to follow.
J.T. Parish is the Founding Pastor of Christian Fellowship Church. He further serves on the Church Leadership Council, as Chairman of the Board of World Missions and Evangelism, and as President of the School of Ministry.