Devoted to the Propagation and Defense of New Testament Christianity
VOLUME 19
December 7, 1967
NUMBER 31, PAGE 12a

Does Your Conscience Need Adjusting, Setting Or Cleansing?

Pryde E. Hinton

If I stubbornly, willfully, or for any cause, refuse to change my watch and clocks to the old time, I shall miss many appointments, meetings, etc. I shall be completely out of mesh with all human activities around me.

Concerning his life before his conversion to Christ, Paul said; "I verily thought with myself that I ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth" (Acts 26:9; but one ought to read the whole chapter). See Acts 23:1; 22:3,4; etc.

My watch usually keeps "good time." But sometimes it causes me to miss appointments, and other things of importance, because it runs either too fast, or too slow, or not at all. It needs something done for it. Perhaps, repairs, adjusting, setting, or cleaning. Once the self-winding mechanism got out of working order, and had to have a new piece put into it. No matter how good a watch one has, if it is set incorrectly, it always gives out the wrong time. It's important to set it by the Standard.

So I take my watch to a good jeweler when it fails me, and get it repaired, adjusted, cleaned, set by the Standard, etc. When I pass by a place that has a Naval Observatory Time Clock, I compare my time with it, and if needed, I set my watch — never try to change the Observatory Clock!

I have a good conscience, I think. But sometimes it leads me astray. It sometimes needs to be repaired, adjusted, cleaned, set, etc. Each day I try to look into the Perfect Law of Liberty, and set my conscience by it, as nearly exactly as I can.

I have been deceived into thinking I was right, when I was wrong; but of course I did not know it. If I had known it, I would not have been deceived, would I? And the New Testament warns us against being deceived: I Cor. 3:18; Gal. 6:7; I Cor. 6:9; Matt. 24:24; Rom. 16:17,18; Eph. 4: 14 — use your own concordance, and see how many New Testament passages warn against our being deceived!