Vintage

       It was 1994.  We watched as a white Ford Bronco traveled down a California freeway.  It was followed by a plethora of police cars.  Helicopters, both police and news, hovered overhead.  Al Cowens was driving, in the back seat was his long-time friend O.J. Simpson.  Simpson was running from authorities, who had evidence enough to arrest him for the murder of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman.  Simpson held a .357 magnum to his head and threatened to take his life if the police did not let him go first to his home to talk with his mother, before they arrested him.  He finally surrendered and the real "circus" began in the form of the media trial of the century! We all remember the words of Johnny Cochrane, "if the glove, (blood soaked murder glove, found at the scene, one like O.J. was seen to have worn on many occasions), does not fit, you must acquit".  After several months of a highly entertaining court drama starring F.Lee Bailey, Johnny Cochrane; and of course who could forget Judge Ito?  There were eye witnesses who saw him leaving the scene.  There was DNA evidence found at the scene, and in his home implicating him.  But "reasonable doubt" won out, and though the evidence pointed otherwise, O.J. Simpson, I think even to his surprise, was acquitted! 

     Recently we watched as Casey Anthony, being tried for the disappearance and murder of her daughter Kaylee, faced an overwhelming amount of circumstantial evidence against her.  Her defense story changed daily.  Each story contradicting the previous!  No one could discover the truth!  Yet she too was acquitted.  She has had to resort to a life of hiding, because of the public outcry against the verdict!  Only God and O.J. know the truth.  Only God and Casey know the truth.  There is only one problem with being acquitted when you are guilty-you have to live with the guilt on your conscience.  It appears that some do that well.  But...nobody knows the inner hell that torments their mind and heart each night when they lay their head on the pillow, and all they hear are the "sounds of silence".

     The New Testament word for conscience is "suneidesis".  It means "with self-knowledge".  Edgar A. Guest spoke some very pertinent words concerning conscience in his poem Myself.

     I have to live with myself, and so

     I want to be fit for myself to know

     I want to be able as days go by

     Always to look myself straight in the eye

     I don't want to stand in the setting sum

     And hate myself for things I've done

     I never can hide myself from me

     I see what other may never see

     I know what others may never know

     I never can fool myself- and so

     Whatever happens I want to be

     Self-respecting and conscience free

Acquitted-though-guilty leads to a life of suppressed guilt and secret misery.  The writer of the Book of Hebrews brings us some good news.  The Sacrifice of Christ on Calvary's Cross did for us what the O.T. sacrifices could never do.  The Perfect Christ, on the Perfect Cross, Perfects the Conscience.  Heb. 9:14 says His blood "cleanses our conscience from dead works".  Heb. 10:2 "worshippers no longer have a consciousness of sins"  Heb. 10:22  "our hearts a sprinkled from an evil conscience", and results in "a good conscience" Heb 13:18.  Other verses tell us "He has removed our sins as far as the east is from the west" (Ps. 103:12); "placed them between His shoulder blades" ( Isaiah 38:17); "cast them in the depths of the sea" ( Micah 7:19); and "remembers them no more" ( Heb. 8:12); resulting in "no condemnation" (Rom. 8:1) and promising "nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus" (Rom. 8:39).