.. the text for April 23, 2020

The whole world is lying in the power of the wicked one. - 1 John 5:19

The comments in today's text focused on the failure of religious leaders to teach their flocks the truth about God and His Son, Jesus. Hosea 4:9 had this point:

It will be the same for the people as the priest; I will call them to account for their ways.

 This is a sobering thought: You can't succeed in the blame game. It won't work. This principle goes beyond religion. Let's say for example, that you're involved in some court case.  and your attorney suggests a course of action that "shouldn't be done", but your counsel tells you it will succeed because various people involved in the case will be told to lie on your behalf and will alter paperwork to put things in your favor. You say, "OK", thinking that if this gets found out, you can say, "Well, the attorney told me to do it." Whoa, there! The attorney didn't make you do anything, but you're the one who gave the okay. If he is accountable, so are you.

Galatians 6:5 clearly shows that you're responsible for your actions, and that others should respect your for your choices, however, Jehovah is the perfect Judge, and he has the right to judge and administer punishment, so we are all ultimately accountable to him, even if we "get away with it."

Think too of this: Many, many people choose to play ignorant of the things they do. They do their best to remain oblivious, and they do everything they can to avoid counsel, discipline and punishment, by lying or  blaming everyone else or  causing distractions by having the authorities (elders, police, human judges) look at someone else to punish or discipline while they slip away unnoticed.  This doesn't work. Jehovah is not distracted or swayed by anything. He is still looking at you.

Hebrews 4:13 makes it plain:

And there is not a creation that is hidden from his sight,o but all things are naked and openly exposed to the eyes of the one to whom we must give an account.

 Prov. 15:11 reminds us that Jehovah can see "the hearts of men".

Those in the world need to know the truth, which is why we do so much to broadcast it through cart witnessing and other means. When religion is destroyed, people cannot say, "Well, my religious leaders lied to me; I was fooled." They will still be punished in their ignorance. In other cases, we need to be quick to confess before Jehovah when we do wrong. Hiding it won't help, acting oblivious will not get you life in the new world. Jehovah's discipline is an expression of his love and it can only assure you of it, as it did for me a year ago.