Last month, my wife and I took our first-ever cruise and toured the SE coast of Alaska. Not having ever had much of a desire to take an ocean cruise, I will admit the trip exceeded my wildest expectations and it was an incredible blessing to experience. We set sail out of Vancouver, and two days in to the voyage, I received some kind of text ‘warning’ from AT&T that messaging and calls from the cruise ship were not covered in our plan. Don’t ask me why, but I really did not give it much thought.

I do remember getting a follow up text encouraging us to reach out to AT&T and on the third day, I got a message saying our service had been suspended until they heard from us. In hindsight, I was thankful for that action because they were trying to keep us from incurring added and unwanted extra charges. We were able to use the ship’s wi-fi and resolve the problem by paying some extra fee to cover us for the week. Had I continued to ignore such warnings, and our service had not stopped, there’s no telling what that month’s bill would have been. But in the moment...I was ignorant of the mounting cost as I continued to text with family and post pics from my phone on social media.

Ignorance will oftentimes lead to unnecessary suffering and heartache. Several times in scripture we are told by Paul: “I don’t want you to be ignorant, brethren...”. And I’m assuming here we all know what the word ‘ignorant’ means – where one is without knowledge on something. There are many things I am ignorant of and there is no shame in admitting that. You might say the more we learn, the less ignorant we become. But I bring this up because God made it known that His people are actually ‘destroyed’ for a ‘lack of knowledge’. (Hosea 4:6). People suffer needlessly simply because they have never been taught, learned, or maybe even dismissed the opportunity to learn some things. I mean, the list could go on and on dealing with a range of topics as to why people suffer - from personal hygiene, to eating habits, to disregarding civil and traffic laws, etc. Ignorance is certainly no ‘badge of honor’, because in the end, ignorance can lead to more harm than good, despite the old saying that ‘Ignorance is Bliss’.

And yet, God makes it known that His people...are the ones being destroyed due to ignorance. In fact, if you read the rest of that verse in Hosea, He ties it in with the fact that undesirable things happen when His people disregard or ‘forget His law’. Because friends, regardless of your personal beliefs on various matters, like gravity for example... just because you may be reluctant to believe in the ‘law of gravity’ or even disagree with it, does not exempt you from the law itself. Does that make sense?

I only bring this up and will continue on tomorrow with this train of thought, but you need to be made aware of something. God always gives plenty of warnings regarding His judgements and coming wrath. And when it does come, there is an interesting element to the response (or lack of) by many people who are suffering from it- they don’t even recognize it at the time.(Jer. 8:7) How many times do God’s people end up twiddling their thumbs in the dust of their misery, shrugging their shoulders and telling themselves ‘there’s a reason for everything’...yet are ignorant as to what the reasons are as to why they are in the predicament? You might visit Isiah 42:23-25, Daniel 12:8-10, Matt. 24:39 7:22-23 and Luke 17:27. Meet me back here tomorrow?