What Do You Do With Your Guilt?

So that's the question what you do with your guilt is simply asked the question, how do you live with yourself. How do you live with your own knowledge of what you have done. That's where the link comes between guilt and guilt feeling to see you live Renewing Your Mind with RC school climbing well due to the subjective units determined by your real analysis of what a person is done with respect to a law RC puts it this way in a certain sense. All of us are under the law of God, so everything that the law says that says to all of us and what it says to us is that when we stand before the judgment seat of God. Every mouth will be quiet.

Every mouth will be stopped because under the judgment of the law of God the whole world is guilty. That's quite a verdict is in its own week here on Renewing Your Mind. We are featuring Dr. school series guilt and forgiveness. And today he addresses the question, what do you do in our last session looked at the question of guilt and of guilt feelings and I introduced that thing by speaking of the pattern that I have been having discussions with people in the context of apologetics wherein I will frequently say to people what do you do with your guilt.

The question of course is a complex question that any attorney would recognize because it assumes that there is an awareness of guilt that has to be dealt with but let's look at that for a moment today on the human level, what do we do when we break rules and regulations or the laws that the government imposes upon us and become guilty before the laws of men when we do about there several things that we attempt to do about that state of guilt from the very simple transgression to those that are agrees use and maintenance.

When I was a little boy and I went to elementary school. The teacher had rules and regulations. One of the rules was you were allowed to chew gum in class. Another rule what you want. A lot of talk to your friends in the middle of class and periodically I broke those rules and what happen if the teacher caught you breaking the rules was that she would administer her he would administer various forms of punishment ranging from having to stand out in the hall having the staying after school having the right papers.

I will not chew gum in class again hundred times are right on the blackboard honor times and if the infraction was more severe. You were sent to the principal's office, which was a foreboding type of experience and there were rules for that enterprise.

It the first time you went to the principal's office for whatever infraction you received a scolding from the principal.

A minor punishment like staying after school or so on and in addition you had to affix your signature with this large panel made of wood and if you were sent there the next time and the principal said what's your name and you told him your name and he looked on his paddle and sign your name written on the paddle, then the battle was applied to a certain part of your anatomy, and so the various punishments were in an escalating pattern and so what we did there was had a system of crime and punishment at a very simple level.

Now in the criminal justice system. We also have a crime and punishment program where there are all kinds of different levels of punishment that may be set forth for the violation of laws leading up to incarceration and even beyond that to ultimately, the application of the death penalty now. We often hear this expression in our culture by somebody who has broken the law gotten the trouble perhaps been arrested and convicted, and even sent to prison and then at the conclusion of their sentence, they released again into society and you will hear this expression that this person has paid their debt to society hear the whole concept of crime and punishment is articulated in the metaphorical language of economics of indebtedness, whereby a debt is something that is owed and can be repaid and so what were trying to get at here with this whole question of dealing with guilt is what can I do to make up for my guilt. What can I do to set the scales of justice back on an even playing I can make restitution. I can endure certain punitive measures. Now all of these things that we do at the human level of trying to deal with guilt that involve trying to make up for it or to take care of it are ways that we are trying to deal with the objective reality of the guilt not important for us to understand that the guilt that we are trying to pay for or make up for is not thereby removed. We may even have a particular crime or misdemeanor or felony removed from my record if possible. But that doesn't remove it from reality.

It has happened. I remember I got in trouble big time when I was in high school and the food line in the cafeteria.

I got in a fist fight the man I should move 6 foot seven and that I was never so happy to see the Dean fighters because they save me that the Dean was not happy about this occasion, and as a result of my breaking of the school rules. I was given a three day vacation from high school and that was a very serious matter.

In those days, particularly when admission into college was quite a competitive thing and it was not something that would be easily assumed that you could get in the school and I have a suspension of that sort on your record was not good and I remember having gone through the discipline of the three day suspension and having the occasion to have the supervising principal from the school district I had gone through ninth grade. Go to bat for me with the officials and the high school and took it on himself to request that this be taken off my record. That was a fact of pure mercy and pure grace on the part of the supervising principal and he was able to accomplish that and and this was removed from my high school transcript record which helped me enormously in terms of my application for entrance to college and so I still appreciate that it was an act of mercy, but the removing of the record does not mean that my guilt was demolished.

I still had done it and it is part of the ultimate record of my life. I broke the rule.

I paid the price and I did the crime and did the time. In this case and had it removed my record, but my guilt was not erased from reality.

Now all of these are things that we do to deal with guilt at a human level, but the ultimate question that every human being faces is what do you do with your guilt before God, because the ultimate lawgiver is God himself. And again, some people say I don't believe in God. I don't believe in his law and I will believe in his guilt. Let me just say in terms of shorthand here that your unbelief of God does not mean he does not exist and if you don't believe in his law does not mean that there is no and if you don't care about what God does about your guilt. That doesn't deal with your guilt what the Scriptures teach us is that God has published his law and he has published it plainly. Now I'm not talking about putting it on billboards or on national television. But we know that there is a record of the moral law of God contained in the written Scriptures, but you say to me, well, I've never ever read the Bible, so I can't be held accountable for the law of God that's written down there or I don't even know what the 10 Commandments are because I've never read that portion of the Bible, but the Scriptures go on to say that God has published his moral law, not only in the tablets of stone that were delivered from Mount Sinai by Moses and became part of the in Scripture related Bible but the Scriptures tell us that God has written his law on the hearts of his creatures, which is to say that every human being has an innate inherent sense of what is right and what is wrong and that God has published it in a place that you can't miss. Not in some obscure law book that is only found in the library secluded on some Ivy League campus, but he's published it in your heart know the Bible speaks of this heart at this point what is obviously in view is the biblical idea of the conscience that the conscience bears witness to this publication of the law of God in our hearts and I will come back to conscience later because that's a somewhat elusive thing but just in passing, let me mention it, that according to the Scriptures, both old and New Testament God has revealed his law to you and whether you acknowledge it, whether you like it, whether you admit to it does not change the reality that you do have some grasp of what is right and what is wrong.

This is the same kind of thing that the philosopher Immanuel Kant tried to demonstrate without appeals to the Bible or without appeals to religion, but simply with appeal to human consciousness and the universality of what Kant called the sense of the categorical imperative, and what caught in the sophisticated language of his critique called a categorical imperative be defined as a universal sense of hotness that is possessed by every moral creature, and that includes me, and that includes you. And we also know that we all have moral obligations that we have not fulfilled until the story of a personal crisis or awareness in my own pilgrimage as a human being. I was a little boy during World War II and at that time my father was overseas fighting with the United States Army air Corps and it's a little child I was deprived of the presence of my dad at home and I remember my mom working in every night typing on her typewriter. Her hair letters to my dad and when she was finished typing she would pull me up in her lap and she showed me to keys on her typewriter. One was the X and one was the and she would take my finger and show me where the key was a season that you hit this a couple times and I would affix the sexes and O's and she explained that that was shorthand for love and kisses that I would send to Michael. I also remember this is funny things that you recall from your use. Listening to the newscasts daily at noon and at 6 o'clock were part of every daily newscast was a report on the latest casualties and I hated that part of every day because every day. The radio reminded me of the vulnerable situation. My father was in even as a little boy I had some understanding that my father might not come back alive. From this hated World War II again is a little boy I remember hearing about Adolf Hitler and Mussolini and Joseph still and Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Winston Churchill and I remember going to my mother once quite earnestly say mom I have an idea she said was that I said I would like to write a letter to Mr. Hitler and to Mr. Stalin and to Mr. Mussolini, and these other people and asked him please stop this war so that my daddy can come home because it was so plain to me that what these people were doing was wrong in another sense, and you know that's a good idea, but it's not really going to work super why do they need to be hurting each other and killing each other.

What good is there in that I was absolutely night had no understanding of geopolitics or anything that goes on in international conflicts. I was naïvely altruistic that I can understand why human beings would settle their differences with violence that I got a little holder got to be 10 years old or so and I would hear the big boys at the drugstore talk about all their sexual exploits with their girlfriend is the most disgusting thing I've ever heard. I couldn't believe that these guys would be interested in such things because they were not of any interest to me, that extent and my resolve was when I get to be 15 or 16. I'm not going to be interested in the sort of things I understand about adolescence and puberty and that kind of thing when I was 10. But here's what happened. I got older I was involved in fistfights that is. I started to use violence as a means of settling differences just like Mr. Hitler and Mr. Stalin and the rest, and as I grew older I experienced the allurement of lust and that sort of thing. My behavioral patterns changed, but no one else changed my ethic, my moral expectations not simply for other people but for myself, I realize that what I did was I just did my ideals downward. I adjusted my code of behavior downward.

I adjusted my morality downward so that I could have an ethic I could live that I could have a moral code that was within reach. And secondly, a moral code that would give my conscience rest and peace and give me a good feeling about myself instead of a rotten feeling about myself nisi I was going through a crisis of self esteem because in the initial ventures of certain kinds of sinful activity was uncomfortable and I was ashamed of myself. I was disappointed in myself to see what I was doing I was experiencing a new level not only of guilt but of guilt feelings and I have since come to the conclusion that that transitional experience of growing from childhood through adolescence to adulthood was not an isolated experience in my own life, but I think everybody goes through something very, much like that so that's the question what you do with your guilt is simply asked the question, how do you live with yourself. How do you live with your own knowledge of what you have done and who you are.

That's where the link comes between guilt and guilt feeling now again when we get to the highest level of law were talking about the law of God about a law that is perfect.

A law that is never arbitrary. A law that does not simply reflect the vested interests of a particular lobby group that a law that reflects perfect holy, righteous character of God himself. That's our problem with our new before that. That's Dr. RC Sproul of the message from his series, guilt and forgiveness and I hope you'll stay with this is RC returns in just a moment to conclude our study all week here on Renewing Your Mind. We are looking at the reality of guilt that all of his face, and in this time of crisis. Our neighbors are looking for answers to the big questions of life. Questions of eternal significance. I think you'll appreciate having this series in your own library that help you answer questions like that, but also to share with family members or friends to request the audio CDs of guilt and forgiveness. When you contact us today with a donation of any amount or number is 800-435-4343. You can also find is online@renewingyourmind.org and when you do contact us. We will send you a copy of Dr. Sproles booklet. What can I do with my guilt number again is 800-435-4343 and the web address Renewing Your Mind.org.

Let me mention a helpful feature that you'll find on our website as well as our mobile app once you complete your request. All of the audio messages will be available in your learning library online. That means you will be able to listen while you wait for the CDs to arrive.

You can also listen on the go. When you access your learning library on the free like in your app will, as promised, here's Dr. Sproles of the final fly for us. One of the things that we commonly do to deal with our guilt is to deny it supposed common response of human beings to the intrusion of the upsetting and disturbing awakening or consciousness of having violated the law. The first thing we try to do is to deny it, and we try to deny it to other people and we try to deny it ourselves and if that doesn't work then the next step is that we try to justify. We try to engage in what's called rationalization. There's a difference between being engaged in rational analysis and rationalization. Rationalization is an illegitimate's furious attempt to provide a sound logical rationale for behavior that we know is wrong, but we do that and we do it all the time. Again, both denial and rationalizations serve as a kind of protection or defense mechanism to shield us from the uncomfortable assault of a guilty conscience will look at this more deeply in our next session well.

In ancient Greece. The word sin meant to miss the target. It was an arch return. I hope you join us tomorrow as RC points out that missing the mark means something something eternal. Join us for the message titled, unable to pay here on Renewing Your Mind