The Vanishing Conscience

Author: John MacArthur

Are you losing your ability to recognize sin? Are you becoming a person who finds it easy to shift blame, deny guilt, or excuse moral failure in yourself or others?

In this challenging yet compelling book, John MacArthur encourages you to confront the culture's flight from moral responsibility. With sound biblical truth, this book shows how and why sin must be dealt with if you are to live in a way that pleases God. With clarity and insight, John MacArthur provides you with solutions for attaining a personal holiness that can take you from living a life of blame and denial to one of peace and freedom.

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Part I: A Sinful Society

1. Whatever Happened to Sin?
   • Guilt Bashing
   • No Guilt, No Sin
   • The Sin-as-Disease Model
   • The Wrong Prescription
   • The Victimization of Society
   • Disease-Model Therapy Invades the Church
   • The Futility of Denying Our Guilt
2. The Soul’s Automatic Warning System
   • What Is the conscience?
   • The Conscience Holds Court
   • How the Conscience is Cleansed
   • Overcoming a Weak Conscience
   • Keeping a Pure Conscience
   • Recovering the Doctrine of the Conscience
3. How Sin Silences the Conscience
   • Hardened by the Deceitfulness of Sin
   • First the Bad News
   • The Conscience Evident Within
   • The Downward Spiral
   • The Death of the Conscience

Part II: The Nature of Sin

4. What Do You Mean “Totally Depraved”?
   • The Blind Faith of Self-Esteem
   • The Church and the Self-Esteem Cult
   • The Sanctification of Human Pride?
   • What Is Man, That Thou Art Mindful of Him?
   • Understanding the Doctrine of Total Depravity
   • All Have Sinned and Fall Short
5. Sin and Its Cure
   • The Scandal of Sin
   • Nature of Human Depravity
   • The Theological Problem Posed by Evil
   • Sin and the Cross of Christ
   • God So Loved the World
   • You Must Be Born Again
6. The Conquered Enemy Within
   • The Danger of Perfectionism
   • Perfectionism’s Key Error
   • How Does Sanctification Work?
   • Shall We Continue in Sin?
   • Freed from Sin—Or Are We?
   • It Is No Longer I Who Sin

Part III: Handling Sin

7. Hacking Agag to Pieces
   • God’s Anger Against Amalek
   • The Folly of Partial Obedience
   • Life in the Spirit
   • Death in the Physical Body
   • What Is Mortification?
   • How Do We Mortify Sin?
   • Strike Sin at Its Head
8. Handling Temptation
   • Can We Really Overcome Temptation?
   • The Means of Temptation
   • The Nature of Temptation
   • The Extent of Temptation
   • The Escape from Temptation
9. Keeping a Pure Mind
   • The Danger of a Sinful Thought Life
   • Watch Over Your Heart
   • How the Mind Sins
   • Discerning the Thoughts and Intents of the Heart
   • Taking Every Thought Captive to Obedience
10. Holding to the Mystery of Faith with a Clear Conscience
    • Sin and Shame
    • Sin and Psychology
    • Sin and the Church
    • Sin and the Christian
    • Sin and God

Appendix 1: Gaining Victory over Sin—A Closer Look at Romans 6

• We Being Raised Yet Stink
• Know
• Reckon
• Yield
• Obey
• Serve

Appendix 2: An Appeal for a Good Conscience

• Outward Ritual Is Not Enough
• Appealing to God for a Good Conscience
• The Advantage of a Pure Conscience

Appendix 3: Searching Your Conscience

• Why People Live in Sin Without Knowing It
• How to Discover the Unknown Sin Within
• How to Examine Yourself
• Search Your Conscience for Secret Sins
• The Danger of Unforsaken Sin

Endorsements:

". . . a wake-up call and an alarm to jolt the sleeping church. Not all will like it, but all should read it. In this day of morality by majority, self-centered ministry, and twilight-zone theology, a clear word like this is long overdue." —Dr. Adrian Rogers, Pastor, Bellevue Baptist Church

". . . a clear and prophetic word that we must hear and heed." —Dr. Joseph M. Stowell, President, Moody Bible Institute

"With the clarion call of a prophet, MacArthur points us back to something we have forgotten: the value and importance of a clean conscience." —Greg Laurie, Senior Pastor, Harvest Christian Fellowship