day no. 14,658: walk by the light of your fire

Donald Grey Barnhouse made an interesting point the other night on a podcast I was listening to while running on the treadmill.

He referred to the popular wisdom of, "let your conscience be your guide," and systematically revealed the shallow tomfoolery of believing and advocating such a mantra, particularly in light of what we know from Scripture.

We imagine our consciences are like sun dials. We assume it is calibrated correctly and situated in such a way as to work properly. We believe it can gauge the situations around us accurately and make sense of what comes at it. It's shadows, in other words, are accurate representations.

But this analogy is missing one very important detail. According to Scripture, we are born in darkness, not light. A sun dial does not work in utter darkness. Whatever benefits can be gained from it in daylight are lost completely in darkness. It casts no shadows in a world consumed by shadow. The minds of the lost are too dark to shed light on the conscience or provide it opportunity to process.

Furthermore, in addition to being completely without the sun, those in darkness have a fancy for producing artificial lights. These flashlights may be pointed at the sun dial to produce shadows, but since the source is subjective to where it is held, the shadows produced thereby are equally as subjective. Since there is no fixed sun to shine, the artificial lights produce results in keeping with the desires of the one holding the torch. We quickly realize we can manipulate the shadows by changing the angle from where we stand.

All that to say, our consciences without Christ shed zero light on the moral quagmires of life and we frequently fall headlong into them. The most devastating indictment here is not that we have no light, (while that in itself is quite horrendous) but that we, living in darkness, feel like we can see just as rightly with our candles as we could have with the sun. We fail to realize that the sun dial says 12 because we're standing at 6. Or worse yet, we know we  the sun dial says 12 because we're standing at 6, yet acting as though 12 were true objectively true outside of our influence.

Isaiah 50:10-11

Who among you fears the Lord

    and obeys the voice of his servant?

Let him who walks in darkness

    and has no light

trust in the name of the Lord

    and rely on his God.

11 Behold, all you who kindle a fire,

    who equip yourselves with burning torches!

Walk by the light of your fire,

    and by the torches that you have kindled!

This you have from my hand:

    you shall lie down in torment.