Among the inherent spiritual and physical powers possessed by sin and which can be visible to discerning hearts and eyes are in its strength to dominate, oppress and expose to future reproach all men that are held perpetually under its bondage.
While the hold of such sinful bondage and reproach lasted, it becomes very impossible for such men to serve God acceptably. The reason for this is that the divine doctrine of acceptable service unto God has taught all men, in Matthew 6:24 saying, “No man can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold on to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon”.
Even while all such sinful men struggle to pray and perform their several acts of sacrifices, either in the thoughts of their hearts – including all meditations; in the words of their mouths – including all songs of worship and praises; or in the works of their hands – including all forms of charitable activities, while still under the dominion and oppression of sin, all such efforts, in the sight of God and in the scriptures, in Proverbs 15:8,9,26; 21:27 and 28:9, are divinely decreed to be abominations unto God and are therefore unacceptable unto Him.
And while these abominable conducts continue unabated in the life of men, the satanic spirits controlling the sins are emboldened to launch more arsenals of war as listed above by devising other strategies aimed at exposing such sinful men to ridicule.
Subduing the land
Having foreseen these avoidable scenarios, God had warned all men in advance, in Numbers 32:23, saying, “But if ye will not do so (repentance and subduing the land of their occupation before the Lord), behold, ye have sinned against the Lord; and be sure your sin will find you out”.
To repent from all known and unknown sins (of the forefathers) and subdue the land for the Lord have been the major divine responsibilities God had placed upon the shoulders of all men. In Genesis 1:28a, and after pronouncing His first blessings upon Adam and Eve, God had commanded them, saying, “Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it”.
To successfully obey and perform these divine commandments will require all men to acquire the knowledge of and master the earth’s material and spiritual environments as well as bringing its elements into the positive service of human race.
God’s charge to mankind as quoted above has shown that the material environment that needed to be subdued by men as including the earth itself as well as all living and non-living things dwelling upon it, including “the fish of the sea, the fowl of the air”. – vs 28b.
The spiritual environment, also, includes all hidden and invisible creations of God which have however been revealed to mankind through His word inspired by the Holy Spirit.
It is very instructive to discover that Satan, through the serpent - two living beings of these same material and spiritual environments, came, deceived and secured the fall of Adam and Eve, a fall which brought a stop-gap to achieving God’s purpose and a reproach upon them and mankind in general.
Of note also was the fact that God had empowered Adam and Even by the strength of His word to enable them make a good success of His divine purpose for their life. This He did by warning them in advance to ignore up-coming satanic deception, a warning which they both disobeyed to their own peril.
By the strength of this same word of God, therefore, all abiding hearts (or conscience) of men will have easy and profitable access into the realms of material and spiritual environments at all times.
Types of conscience
A conscience, however, may either be good/void of offense(s), weakly or bad/seared depending upon the attitudes of its owner to the things pertaining to godliness.
(1) Good/Void of offense
In the lifetime of Apostle Paul, he was faced with some accusers who made frivolous allegations against him, each of which had carried death sentences, before Felix, the governor, in Acts 24:5-6, saying, “We have found this man a pestilent fellow, and a mover of sedition among all the Jews throughout the world, and a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes, who also hath gone about to profane the temple”.
In allowing his rights to fair hearing, Felix had beckoned on Paul to defend himself. It is very interesting to discover that Paul’s defense was solely based upon convictions by his conscience. He had presented his defense, in verses 14-16, saying, “…After the way which they (his accusers) called heresy, so worship I the God of my fathers, believing all things which are written in the law and in the prophets; and have hope toward God, which they themselves also allow, that there shall be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and unjust. And in this do I exercise myself, to have always a conscience void of offense toward God, and toward men”.
It is on record that after several appeals by Paul to higher authorities, it was found difficult to condemn him to death because he had a conscience void of offense toward God and men.
(2) Weakly
This became manifested in the life of the Lord Jesus’ apostles during His agony at Gethsemane, in Mark 14, before He went to die on the cross. He had requested them to pray along with Him during His sorrowful state. Rather, at three different times when He checked back on them to see if they had being praying for Him, He had met them sleeping. In an originating revelation of the source of weak conscience, in verse 38, therefore, He had warned them to “watch ye and pray, lest ye enter into temptation. The spirit truly is ready, but the flesh is weak”. So people of weak conscience are those whose flesh are dominating their spirit and who could not pray off their lifetime temptations but fell into them.
(3) Bad/Seared
The origin of bad or seared conscience, sadly, has been revealed, in I Timothy 4:1-2, where the scriptures say, “Now, the Spirit of God speaketh expressly that, in the latter times, some shall depart from the faith (of Christ), giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of demons, speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their conscience seared with hot iron”.

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