God has told us that His people are destroyed for lack of knowledge (Hosea 4: 6). Even so, many Christians declare that they can’t be held accountable for that which they don’t know. Stopping their argument there, though, is a dangerous excuse. More attention needs to be given to what’s further said in the verse.

The lack of general knowledge by itself isn’t what destroys. If it were, that would be ridiculous. There’s an abundance of information that we don’t know and can’t possibly know. So God goes on to qualify His proclamation in the same verse. He says that destruction will come to those who reject knowledge. In other words, His people who will perish are those who reject the opportunity to gain knowledge when it is right there before them.

In the same verse, God then specifies the knowledge that all of His people should know. It is the knowledge of His law. That would be the Ten Commandments pointing to what is sin. In fact, the whole of chapter 4 is about God’s charge against and His intention to punish His people for their transgressions (sins) against His law.

Destroyed, will be those who forget God’s law and, therefore, don’t act in accordance with it. Destruction will also come to those who know the law, but refuse the opportunity to consider and accept the law’s clear teaching when it’s presented as a contrast against man-made wisdom and tradition (case in point, the 4^th commandment).

There is no excuse to be lacking in this most important area of knowledge. The opportunity to know and understand God’s law is obtainable. The instructions are almost everywhere available right there in the handbook of life— the Bible.