Bro. Gary Burns, now asleep in Christ, put the problem: “I just don’t understand why God would take [such a good brother or sister] from us in their prime.” And he gave the answer biblically and triumphantly. We read about Stephen in Acts 7 and we are comforted. We know, in some dim way, “as in a glass darkly,” why Bro. Gary died in the terrible way he did. And it was terrible, make no mistake. Leukemia is not a nice way to die. But then, as Gary himself would point out, neither is crucifixion. Golgotha may have had a garden, but it was not a pretty place. They called it Skull Corner.
My problem is tougher. Like most fundamental questions in the universe, Job asked it before me: Why does God bother giving light to the miserable? Why bother keeping bitter people alive? What’s the point of life when it doesn’t make sense, when God blocks all the roads to meaning? (Job 3).
Gary’s ordeal lasted a year and a half. A friend of mine has been eight years with a very rare disease that is totally disabling and has a host of unpredictable symptoms. Her body is wasted and deformed, as good as dead. But her mind lives on in her skeletal frame, with little sign of dementia, constantly tormented by the effects of the disease, desperately wanting to communicate.
She is in a special center for nursing people with rare diseases. I decided to visit my friend in this place. The experience was spiritually challenging. However can these ‘angels of mercy’ labor so gently, so tenderly, so kindly with anyone when there is hardly any response. Some patients seem to be in a hopeless stupor (we can’t tell!). Most are, or seem to be, brain dead. My friend is twisted and trembling, but alert as a deer in the forest, anxious that the nurse may forget her pills (she takes ten different powerful prescription drugs every day). The consultant says she could last another four years like that. But why’? Am I wrong to pray — God forbid?
Paul told the Colossians, There’s a lot of suffering to be entered into in this world – the kind of suffering Christ takes on. I welcome the chance to take my share in the church’s part of that suffering. He reminded the Corinthians, Isn’t it wonderful all the ways in which distress goaded you closer to God? You’re more alive, more concerned, more sensitive, more reverent, more human, more passionate, more responsible as a result. So there’s a possible answer to my Why? My friend may be suffering for me, so that I will be more caring and compassionate and less self-centered. Just as Jesus did for us all.
But perhaps there’s another answer too. My friend’s favorite cry is, What shall I do? But she can’t do much at all except to pray. Let’s be honest: in an active community like ours, with so much to do, most of us are too busy to pray. People like my friend can be the powerhouse of the brotherhood. The prayer of a person living right with God is something powerful to be reckoned with, James tells us.
Very little that goes on in our brotherhood escapes my friend. Some things excite her. Many things depress and trouble her. All she can do is pray. I have a feeling that she is needed right now, and that realization does take away some of the awful pain of visiting her.
As Bible Christians, you and I are in a totally different and unique religious category. We are required to live not by ritual, custom or precept, but by our conscience, by God’s spirit within. The work of the law must be written in our hearts. Faith must work by love. We must have a good conscience.
Conscience a powerful word
Significantly, the word “conscience” occurs only in the New Testament. There it occurs 33 times in ten different books. As brothers and sisters of the Lord, we can have a weak conscience, a convicted conscience, a pure conscience, a good conscience, a guilty conscience, and a purged conscience. We are warned about having an evil conscience and a defiled conscience.
But if we have no conscience at all, or a conscience seared into insensitivity, we are utterly lost and unredeemable.
A challenge to live by
Living by conscience rather than a rulebook is not easy. It doesn’t come naturally to man. The ‘world’ must have legislation that is enforceable and enforced. The alternative is anarchy. Retribution must be swift. Justice delayed, says the ancient maxim, is justice denied. But as Christians, we do not need legislation (Gal. 5:23). Our conduct should be far above it.
Very sensibly, we are required by any ‘worldly’ institution to provide full disclosure of our worth, and in many cases disposal of saleable assets, before receiving financial assistance. It ought not to be so amongst us. When seeking financial assistance, we should be ready to provide all relevant information with a good conscience (Acts 4:32 to 5:4). To withhold information from our brothers and sisters is to lie to God.
If we are to sign a legally enforceable contract, such as marriage, mortgage, or terms of employment, we should keep its terms “for conscience’ sake” not just because we are bound by the contract (Rom. 13:5).
It is a regular and sometimes required practice for brothers and sisters to sign formal legal contracts. This is not against any law of God. If we sign a contract we should keep the contract. A good conscience toward God requires that we act in good faith. “A conscience void of offence” is a worthy goal! Of special importance we note that the good conscience of Paul was “toward God and toward men” (Acts 24:16). We have godly obligations and we have human obligations. As disciples of the Lord, both must be kept and carried out in “good conscience”. A good conscience “void of offence” is a precious possession.
Paul tells us that we must be “circumcised in heart” (Rom. 2:29). That is a Jewish way of saying that we must have a tender and sensitive conscience (I Tim. 1:19).
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One