Think of the artifices which men use to try to pacify their consciences and take away their transgressions. Think of the Roman Catholic church which tells sinful men and women that they can assuage their guilt with a few Hail Marys and Paternosters. How insulting this is to the Lord! How it turns him into a petty minded being who is satisfied with trivial and inadequate outward expressions of piety which mean nothing. He is portrayed as one who cannot see beneath the surface or read the true intentions of the heart. These false physicians of the soul leave men drowning in their sins and gasping for spiritual breath.
But think of the secular equivalent to this. Do you feel uncomfortable at what you have done? Do you sense that you are totally unprepared to stand in the presence of God? Go and watch a football match; go out for a good meal; go and listen to a pop concert; do these things and forget about your troubled conscience. That will work! The quack’s remedy does not begin to recognise the magnitude of the problem. How hard it is to truly convince the conscience that guilt has been taken away! What does it really take? It takes God’s justice to be satisfied; he himself must define and provide the sacrifice for sin. It takes the blood of the Lamb of God. It takes his suffering on Calvary to bear away our sins. It takes his rising from the dead for our justification. It takes our repentance and faith in trusting alone in what he has done, and yielding our lives to him for eternity.