Some Thoughts From Proverbs 24

Proverbs 24:12 cf 25:21

¹² Apply your heart to instruction
    and your ear to words of knowledge.

^25:21 for the drunkard and the glutton will come to poverty,
    and slumber will clothe them with rags.

There is a lot of talk about free-will, but little attention is given to responsibility. The writer of the Proverbs is greatly concerned with responsibility, how it is assumed and how it is evaded.

In verse 12 he examines one way of dealing with responsibility and informs you can't evade responsibility by claiming:

A. Ignorance. God who knows the heart is the One you are attempting to deceive.

B. Denying involvement. The fact of knowing includes involvement. Failure to know apparent need is the flimsiest excuse.

C. Disinterest. This is guilt by self-accusation. In human society the need of our neighbor met by disinterest is the sin of hate. There is no neutrality with the Law. Either you love your neighbor or you hate him. You have no choice whether you are to rescue his ox

No one will ever evade God’s claims upon him by claiming ignorance, for there is no one who does not know more than what he does.