Ignorance is No Excuse

 Most of us are good at making excuses for why we don't do the right thing or why we do the wrong thing. We just don't want to admit that we did something wrong, so we blame it on something or on someone else. One of our main excuses is that we "didn't know." However, when we are dealing with the Lord, we can never use that excuse and think we will get away with our sin.

The Lord has explained this to us in His Word. (Leviticus 5:17) "If a person sins and commits any of these things which are forbidden to be done by the commandments of the Lord, though he does not know it, yet he is guilty and shall bear his iniquity." That sounds pretty clear to me, but some people may say that is unfair. Let's think about why this is very fair for all of us.

God reveals Himself to all of us. We know we need to trust Him and follow Him. He inspired His Word for us to know His will. He gave us His Word so we could know what to do and what not to do. He did that because He doesn't want us to suffer the consequences of sin. He knows sin will produce bad results in our lives whether we realize we are sinning or not. He has to punish our sins to deter us from sinning more.

Also, if we could plead ignorance to God's Word and get off from the results of our sins, then, we would be very tempted not to read the Bible, not to study the Bible, and not to go to church. There are enough people who don't do these things already. God doesn't want to give all of us a reason to fail to know His Word and to be faithful in growing in our knowledge and practice of it by going to church. So He does things this way to motivate all of us to know His Word and do it well.

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Tomorrow, I intend to read Leviticus 6-8.