No Provision for Willful Blindness

 Those who have an opportunity to hear the truth, and yet take no pains to hear or understand it, thinking that if they do not hear, they will not be accountable, will be judged guilty before God the same as if they had heard and rejected. There will be no excuse for those who choose to go in error when they might understand what is truth. In His sufferings and death Jesus has made atonement for all sins of ignorance, but there is no provision made for willful blindness. . . .  
    
We shall not be held accountable for the light that has not reached our perception, but for that which we have resisted and refused. A man could not apprehend the truth which had never been presented to him, and therefore could not be condemned for light he had never had. But if he had opportunity to hear the message, and to become acquainted with the truth, and yet refused to improve his opportunity, he will be among the number of whom Christ said, "Ye will not come to me, that ye might have life." Those who deliberately place themselves where they will not have an opportunity of hearing the truth, will be reckoned among those who have heard the truth, and persistently resisted its evidences . 
    
Light That Has Shone, Will Condemn.--None will be condemned for not heeding light and knowledge that they never had, and they could not obtain. But many refuse to obey the truth that is presented to them by Christ's ambassadors, because they wish to conform to the world's standard; and the truth that has reached their understanding, the light that has shone in the soul, will condemn them in the judgment.

     Judged According to Light.--Men will not be judged for light they have never had. But those who have kept Sunday, whose attention has been called to this error, but who would not open their eyes to behold wondrous things out of the law, will be judged according to the light that has come to them (RH Sept. 13, 1898).  {5BC 1145.5}

How Gods People turn from light .---A long preparatory process, unknown to the world, goes on in the hearts of God's people before they commit open sin. There is first a gradual decline of spirituality; God is not cherished in the thoughts; prayer is neglected; selfish thoughts and feelings have a controlling power; carnal desires slowly but surely gain the ascendency; and a spirit of proud self-sufficiency takes possession of the soul.
    Had the children of Israel, as they journeyed, called to mind the wonderful deliverance which God had wrought for them in breaking from their necks the yoke of Egyptian bondage, had they dwelt upon the many precious and miraculous revelations of divine power in their behalf, they might have strengthened the courage of the faint-hearted and unbelieving, and thus averted the terrible judgments which had fallen upon them. But light had become darkness to them, and darkness light. Egypt looked brighter and more desirable than liberty and the land to which God was leading them.
     Thus it is with many professed Christians at the present day. They become weary of self-denial and humiliation. They desire an easier path, in which there is less self-restraint, in which there is no necessity for a constant, individual effort. Their hearts are ever pleading, "I pray thee, have me excused." They have no love for duty, no affinity for wholesome restraint and discipline. They act over the experience of ancient Israel, in doubting and murmuring. They dwell upon the objectionable features in their experience, and with their spiritual sight dimmed, everything pertaining to their religious life wears a dark, forbidding aspect. They begin to turn toward the world, as the hearts of the Israelites were constantly turning back to Egypt. In conversation, in dress, in deportment, this class manifest a conformity to the world. How dwelleth the love of Christ in them?  {ST, October 21, 1880 par. 6}