You may have managed to hide your actions from your spouse, your parents, your friends, and your colleagues. To the outside world, your reputation remains completely intact. Yet, despite successfully keeping the secret from everyone else, you still find yourself staying up late, lying awake at night, feeling deeply bothered by what you did.
Why does this happen? If no one else knows, why can't you simply enjoy your secret? It is because you cannot hide from yourself. Your conscience is a built-in courtroom that you can never escape. In that courtroom scene you act as jury, defendant, prosecutor, and judge simultaneously.
The Voice You Cannot Silence
Many people experience this, especially when left alone with their own thoughts, and they hate it. It drives them to seek distraction and entertainment. As we speak, millions are on their smartphones — indeed, you may be reading this from one now. People chat with friends or strangers, scroll endlessly, play mindless games, watch short videos — anything to avoid being alone with that little voice inside, reminding them of what they have done. Men have always gone to extremes of alcohol and other substances to drown out this internal strife. The desperate human need to escape oneself explains, at least in part, why so many become addicted to both legal and illegal drugs.
This internal voice is, of course, your conscience. It is not some accident of nature or byproduct of evolution. The Torah tells us that God created man in His own image, endowing him with knowledge, righteousness, and holiness, and placing him above all other creatures (Genesis 1:27). Yet through sin we lost our original righteousness. God declared of the generation of Noah:
Genesis 6:5
"the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually"
And Scripture concludes plainly: "there is no man that sinneth not" (I Kings 8:46).
What the Conscience Is, and Where It Comes From
Yet even in our fallen condition, God has not left us without witness within us to His holiness. He has placed a conscience inside every man — a judge living within, bringing sin to mind and testifying that we are accountable to Him. King David knew this weight intimately. He wrote:
Psalm 32:3–4
"When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long. For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me"
And again: "my sin is ever before me" (Psalm 51:3). The conscience is God's voice within, confirming what Scripture declares from without.
There Are No True Atheists
This is why no man is truly an atheist at the deepest level. David wrote: "The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God" (Psalm 14:1). This is something a man only tells himself to silence the voice of God in creation, in Scripture, and in his own conscience — but he knows inwardly that it is untrue. If your conscience is bringing to mind your sins, do not seek to explain it away with modern psychology, psychiatry, or positive thinking. No evolutionary theory can explain the conscience away; no entertainment can drive it into the ground forever; no substance can dislodge it permanently. It will always return. You may wound your conscience so that it no longer functions as it should — but that is like ripping out a smoke alarm because you cannot bear its sound. Your conscience is the alarm God has placed within you, warning you that judgment is coming.
The Standard by Which We Will Be Judged
The Torah itself tells us the standard by which we will be judged. God gave Israel His law at Sinai — the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:3–17) — and the whole of His law flowing from them.
These commandments do not merely govern outward actions. They penetrate to the heart. Sinful anger is the seed of murder; a lustful look is adultery of the heart. You have committed such sins in your heart: every time you hate someone unjustly, you commit murder in your heart; every time you look at a woman with lust, you commit adultery in your heart, and so on. The Prophet Jeremiah declared:
And the Prophet Isaiah, speaking in the name of all Israel, confessed: "we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags" (Isaiah 64:6).
Here is the honest reckoning your conscience is pressing you toward: before a holy God, none of us has the righteousness required. Not one. King David, a man after God's own heart, pleaded: "enter not into judgment with thy servant: for in thy sight shall no man living be justified" (Psalm 143:2).
God Did Not Leave Us With Only a Verdict
But God did not leave us with only a verdict. He provided an answer.
The Prophet Isaiah foretold of a servant who would bear the iniquity of the people, be wounded for their transgressions, and through whose suffering many would be made righteous. Read Isaiah 53 slowly, and ask your conscience whether it does not recognise the one being described:
Isaiah 53
"Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.
He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken. And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth.
Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors."
The Answer Your Conscience Has Been Pointing To
This servant is Jesus of Nazareth, the Messiah of Israel. He is the one of whom Isaiah wrote. He lived without violence and without deceit. He was despised and rejected. He was numbered among transgressors at his death. He was buried in a rich man's tomb. On the third day, he rose from the dead. He is the offering for sin that Isaiah foresaw — the one through whom God justifies many, not on the basis of their own deeds, but on the basis of his.
If your conscience accuses you — and it does, because it is telling you the truth — the answer is not to silence it, medicate it, or distract yourself from it. The answer is repentance: turn from your sin, and turn to Jesus the Messiah, who bore the iniquity of his people so that they might have peace with God.
As Isaiah also wrote, in words the Messiah himself claimed as his own mission (Isaiah 61:1–3):
Isaiah 61:1–3
"The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn; to appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he might be glorified."
The Divine Courtroom in the Human Heart
The New Testament explains further how the conscience works in all of us and our thoughts act as a courtroom, either accusing or defending us. Romans 2:12-16: “For as many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law: and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law; (for not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified. For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves: which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another;) in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel.”
We see a vivid example of this inner courtroom in the life of Felix, a ruler to whom Paul preached (Acts 24:24-25): “And after certain days, when Felix came with his wife Drusilla, which was a Jewess, he sent for Paul, and heard him concerning the faith in Christ. And as he reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come, Felix trembled, and answered, Go thy way for this time; when I have a convenient season, I will call for thee.” Here Felix trembled because his conscience disturbed him. He knew from Paul’s preaching that he himself would have to answer to God, who is most Holy, one day, and that he stood guilty before him, and as such, would be judged. Felix had no righteousness before the Lord, and his own conscience testified to that.
The Piercing Power of Truth
Like Felix, many people try to run away or delay facing the truth. This trembling occurs because the Scriptures work hand-in-hand with our inner voice. The Word of God exposes everything we try to keep hidden, stripping away our defenses until we stand completely transparent before our Creator:
“For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” (Hebrews 4:12) One reason why this happens is because men’s consciences confirm to us that what we hear from the Bible is fully true, even when their minds work to constantly deny it.
But there is hope.
A Settled Conscience and Peace with God
Jesus, knowing that we were sinners, still died for his precious people, and welcomes all who despair of their own unrighteousness, and realize their need for the righteousness of Christ. May your heart be broken over your sin. And may you receive gladly the good news that your own Prophets foretold — that God Himself has provided the righteousness you lack, in the person of His servant. Trust in Jesus the Messiah, and receive what David prayed for and Isaiah promised: a settled conscience, peace with God, and a soul looking forward with joy to eternity in His presence.
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