The gift of a guilty conscience

Can you imagine clearing over $300,000 for a day's work? Not for brain surgery or cleaning sewers, but for acting. Whew. There are taxes, agent and manager fees, and other expenses. Still, it’s not bad. As long as you don't have to compromise your values.

In 2012, actor Angus T. Jones, who played Jake Harper on the sitcom Two and a Half Men, reaped the whirlwind when he said this about the raunchy show:

“I’m on Two And A Half Men, and I don’t want to be on it. Please stop watching it, and filling your head with filth. … If I am doing any harm, I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to be contributing to (Satan’s) plan. …You cannot be a true God-fearing person and be on a television show like that. I know I can’t. I’m not OK with what I’m learning, what the Bible says, and being on that television show.”

Now, I’m no legalist, but Jones was right. Have you seen the show? I watched some episodes when Charlie Sheen was on it, and my conscience bothered me every time. I couldn’t imagine being a Christian and actually uttering those lines. After a biting-the-hand-that-feeds-him backlash, Jones apologized for “showing indifference to and disrespect of” his colleagues. His character was written out of the show at the end of last season. (Actor Kirk Cameron apologized to his Growing Pains co-stars years later for some of his behavior when he first became a Christian during the show’s run.)

Jones is back in the news this week, and his remarks are bound to upset even more people. “I was a paid hypocrite because I wasn’t OK with it and I was still doing it,” he said. “I really want to come into the light because I know that is where the healing is, and I’ve seen God do amazing things.”

God indeed does amazing things. One of these things is our conscience. Mine is strong. It sometimes keeps me awake at night. There are things I know I need to resolve and make right. Until I do, they will weigh on my conscience. As the Holy Spirit convicts us of sin, God speaks to us through our conscience. If you ask Him to reveal sin in your life, He will.

Before the resurrected Christ ascended to heaven, He commanded the apostles not to leave Jerusalem and to wait for a gift. “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins,” the apostle Peter said, “and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:38).

The Holy Spirit is also a guide and a teacher. Most of all, this third person of the trinity glorifies Christ. Whenever any Christian speaks the truth of God and witnesses to the world, the unbeliever can’t receive it until his eyes and ears are spiritually opened. Pray for the lost, even as they unleash a storm of anger against you.