Modern airlines

Modern airlines are truly technological marvels. For the most part they fly themselves and the pilots only have control during takeoffs and landing. The rest of the time the on-board computer systems take care of things.

However, these wonders of the age must still be programmed by people. Thus an airliner from New Zealand crashed into a mountain killing all aboard due to an input error. It was later discovered from the “black boxes” that record such things.

So, too with our consciences. They can keep us “on track” spiritually, but they must have proper input. If we feed them with bad data, they can fail and kill us just as surely as those 257 passengers died.

The way the computer systems work is that satellites or other beacons broadcast signals that are received and interpreted by the airplane’s computer. Now imagine the chaos that would ensue if these signals moved about randomly instead of coming from fixed places.

That’s much the way of the world today with its “moral relativism”. There are few if any fixed moral values any more.

Conscience is like a smoke alarm

The purpose of a smoke alarm is to warn of danger, or, by inference,
assure us that there is no danger.

Many similarities between the smoke detector and the conscience.

(#1) is that we can ignore the alarm if we want to. We do not have
to respond to it if we don’t want to. Of course, the alarms are obnoxious,
so we are motivated to do something when they go off, but as with any noise, if we get used to it, you don’t notice it so much. And the alarm will
eventually run out of juice if left alone long enough. Ditto with
consciences.

(#2) is that the alarm can be faulty. The batteries go dead, or the
sensor is bad, and it doesn’t work when it should. Obvious connection to a
conscience.

(#3) is the placement. If you put the alarm over the stove, it
always goes off, and everyone gets real tired of it. If you but it in the
basement under a pile of clothes, it won’t go off till the house burns down
around it. With a conscience, it can be overly or unduly sensitive. So it
needs to be placed, or trained, properly.

In the case of Adam and Eve, her alarm never went off, but his did…
and he removed the batteries.

Native American Indians

The early Indians (Native Americans) believed that the conscience was a triangular shaped object placed close to a persons heart.

When a person did something that he knew was wrong, this triangle shaped object (the conscience) would rotate and prick the heart, causing pain.

Each time, it would rotate again, pricking the heart, causing pain. However, they believed, that if a person kept on doing something over and over that he knew was wrong, the sharp points of his conscience would get blunt,and therefore STOP pricking his heart and causing pain when it rotated.

The smell warning

There is a government regulation requiring companies to add an odorant to natural gas. The distinctive “rotten eggs smell” of sulfur is now so familiar that we forget natural gas is actually odorless.

Just as the odorant in natural gas warns us of danger, our conscience can warn us of potential misconduct, inappropriate decision-making, a weakening when faced with temptation, and many other missteps that could introduce sin in our lives. We need to heed this warning and seek strength to resist, and improved resolve to keep a clear conscience before God and man.

A motivating story of inspiration for us all

A man is in bed with his wife when there is a rat-a-tat-tat on the door.
He rolls over and looks at his clock, and it’s half past three in the
morning.

“I’m not getting out of bed at this time,” he thinks, and rolls over.

Then, a louder knock follows.

“Aren’t you going to answer that?” says his wife.

So he drags himself out of bed and goes downstairs. He opens the door and
there is man standing at the door. It didn’t take the homeowner long to
realize the man was drunk.

“Hi there,” slurs the stranger. “Can you give me a push??”

“No, get lost. It’s half past three. I was in bed,” says the man and
slams the door. He goes back up to bed and tells his wife what happened.

She says, “Dave, that wasn’t very nice of you. Remember that night we broke
down in the pouring rain on the way to pick the kids up from the baby sitter
and you had to knock on that man’s house to get us started again? What would have happened if he’d told us to get lost??”

“But the guy was drunk,” says the husband.

“It doesn’t matter,” says the wife. “He needs our help and it would be
the Christian thing to help him.” So the husband gets out of bed again, gets
dressed, and goes downstairs. He opens the door, and not being able to
see the stranger anywhere he shouts, “Hey, do you still want a push??”

And he hears a voice cry out, “Yeah please.”

So, still being unable to see the stranger he shouts, “Where are you?”

And the stranger replies, “I’m over here, on your swing.”

Little boy caught

A five-year-old boy was roughly jerking a poodle’s leash. Suddenly his fuming father appeared and asked, “Do you want to tell me how sorry you are?”

“I don’t know how much you saw!” he stammered.