Ignorance Is NO EXCUSE!

Have you ever been questioned about something and had someone say to you, “Ignorance is NO EXCUSE!”  Maybe this is something you even heard from your dad or mom when having to give an account for some action.  You might try pleading ignorance with a police officer who has stopped you, yet it is likely that if you broke the law you will still be fined for what you did.  In an information age like the one we live in today, it is becoming increasingly clear that ignorance just isn’t a sufficient reason to excuse any action or especially a lack of action.  We must learn to grow up and use the minds GOD has given us.  We must learn from our own mistakes and from the lessons others have learned throughout history.  We must stop ignoring the reality we see or simply turning away and trying to forget what we find uncomfortable.  Ignorance is NO EXCUSE!

From my own experience with tragedy I have and even am learning that the way many people deal with conflict or something uncomfortable is to simply ignore it.  Ignoring something does not make it go away.  Problems do not simply disappear.  Some problems will be resolved or even eliminated through additional discovery, yet most often things become more complicated and problematic until attention is given to apply a particular solution.  A spill may dry up, but it will not go away until cleaned up; left alone, it may even cause a stain.  Dirt on the floor may be covered up or “swept under the rug,” but it will still be there until removed.  A mess in your room doesn’t go away if you simply want it to disappear or throw it all in a pile or in the closet.  Ignoring something that is out of order simply cannot make it become more ordered.

Certainly, we cannot know everything about all there is to know.  With technology rapidly expanding and communication with others increasing and becoming easier, we are realizing that there is simply not enough time to even try to know everything.  We are Not GOD and we should not try to act as if we are.  Our tendency is to be puffed up in pride with knowledge or to even absorb so much information that we become numb and fail to act on what we do know.  With knowledge comes responsibility.  When you choose to not live up to the knowledge you do have, you are essentially saying, “NO!  I want to be ignorant; I want to have an excuse.  This is a very dangerous place to be.

GOD Himself has Created this world and even the person that you are.  He has ordered His Creation, though now marred by sin, and wants us to lead well ordered lives.  He has revealed Himself and His desires in His Word—the Bible.  He does not want us to be ignorant and He has left us with the responsibility of “putting knowledge to work” (as the Virginia Tech slogan promotes).  “Willing ignorance” is worse than not knowing in the first place.  Consider what the Apostle Peter says in reference to people ignoring the evidences in Creation and the second coming of Jesus Christ (2 Peter 3:5-7):

“For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.”

Please do not plead ignorance.  The ultimate Judgment day is also coming soon.  Today,

more than ever, Ignorance is NO Excuse!