DAILY DEVOTIONAL – September 11, 2019
“No Work Around”
Prayer: Almighty God, You see all and know all. There is no hiding from You. If not for Jesus, Your omniscient judgement would be a terrifying fact indeed for our sinful and guilty conscience. We thank You and praise You that instead of bringing Your just wrath upon us, You punished Christ in our place. How can we but praise and worship You for such an inexpressible gift! Amen.
Scripture: Hebrews 4:13
Nothing in all creation is hidden from God. Everything is naked and exposed before his eyes, and he is the one to whom we are accountable.
Devotion – “No Work Around”
The Nielsen Ratings system is a television viewer and audience measurement system operated by Nielsen Media Research that seeks to determine the audience size and composition
of television programming in the United States using a rating system. It is the system that all major broadcasting networks use to compete with one another. The higher your Nielsen rating, the more successful you are and the more potential revenue there is to be made. Television companies go to great lengths to improve their Nielsen rating.
The technology and culture news website “The Verge” gave a special report on how TV networks have figured out a way to manipulate the Nielsen ratings system and prevent bad ratings in some instances. Apparently, it’s as easy as playing dumb, literally. And in this case, playing dumb or ignorant meant pretending you don’t know how to spell. On days when programmers know their viewership will drop, like on holiday weekends or during sporting events, they “accidentally” misspell their show’s name on the nightly Nielsen lineup – this according to The Wall Street Journal.
Over the Friday of Memorial Day weekend, for example, NBC aired NBC “Nitely” News instead of its usual NBC “Nightly” News so the holiday drop in viewership didn’t affect its ratings standing. Nielsen’s automated system counted that misspelled show as an entirely different program. By doing this, NBC managed to actually gain ratings against its main competitor: ABC World News Tonight.
NBC apparently misspelled its shows 14 times from 2016 to 2017 TV season, and it’s not the only network to manipulate the system by playing dumb. ABC did the same thing seven times with its “Wrld” News Tonite, while CBS spelled Evening “Nws” 12 times.
Playing dumb or pretending to be ignorant may be effective if you’re attempting to get around the Nielsen ratings system, however, when it comes to God’s rating system, when it comes to the judgement of the Almighty God and His Law with which He judges us and will come to judge the whole world on the final Day, there is no work around. God’s Law is a perfect law. It is a law and rule that cannot be fooled or tricked.
Nothing slips by God. He sees everything, knows everything and will judge every man and woman swiftly and without compromise against the Law and expectation of perfection He has put forth in His Word. Claiming ignorance or playing stupid with God won’t work.
“Nothing in all creation is hidden from God. Everything is naked and exposed before his eyes, and he is the one to whom we are accountable.” (Hebrews 4:13)
“The eyes of the Lord are in every place, keeping watch on the evil and the good.” (Proverbs 15:3)
“For there is nothing hidden that will not be disclosed, and nothing concealed that will not be known or brought out into the open.” (Luke 8:17)
God knows us better than we know ourselves. He knows our name. One Day very soon, when Christ returns, each of us will be called into account before God and we will be called by name. Trying to escape the judgement of God by misspelling your name won’t help!
Claiming ignorance or playing dumb is not a work around or a trick or an excuse that will work when that day comes and each one of us stands before the Almighty God and Righteous Judge. Even to those who have not heard the Word of God specifically proclaimed to them, those who have not been able to read God’s Law in the Bible, Scripture tells us that they will be judged according to the law of their conscience; according the law God has written on their hearts. The Apostle Paul tells us in Romans 2:12-16, “When the Gentiles sin, they will be destroyed, even though they never had God’s written law. And the Jews, who do have God’s law, will be judged by that law when they fail to obey it. For merely listening to the law doesn’t make us right with God. It is obeying the law that makes us right in his sight. Even Gentiles, who do not have God’s written law, show that they know his law when they instinctively obey it, even
without having heard it. They demonstrate that God’s law is written in their hearts, for their own conscience and thoughts either accuse them or tell them they are doing right. And this is the message I proclaim—that the day is coming when God, through Christ Jesus, will judge everyone’s secret life.”
Knowing God’s all-seeing eye and coming judgement should terrify our sinful nature. All of us have rebelled against God with our sin and failed to uphold the Laws and rules He has given us to obey for both our benefit and His glory. Knowing our guilt before God should cause the sinner within us to tremble. It should cause us to be so fearful of God that we repent and cry out for mercy and grace. In fact, that is the whole reason God gave us the 10 commandments and all of His Law. God’s Law was given to show us our sin, to show us God’s expectation and how we have failed. However, God didn’t give us the Law and show us our sin in order to condemn us or shame us. He revealed our sinfulness to us through His Law in order to bring us to a place of repentance and confession, and to cause our hearts to cry out for His love and forgiveness – a love and forgiveness that God has in fact given by sending His Son Jesus Christ to die as the penalty for our sins.
The truth is friends, God is a righteous God. Sin must be answered for and sins must be punished. The Good News of the Gospel is that for all of those who trust and believe and put their faith in Christ as the only True sacrifice for their sins, there is no threat of punishment; Christ took the penalty for us on the cross. For all who know Jesus, we have no need to play dumb or fear at all that final day of judgement that is surely coming. For all those who believe in Jesus, that final day will be a day of salvation and a day when we realize in full the forgiveness Christ won for us. It will be a day when we realize the terrifying wrath of God against sin that Jesus has saved us from.
You know friends, we don’t have to wait until that final day to begin to experience even now the wonderful relief and joy and love of God. Every time we come to God in honest prayer and confession and lay our guilt and sins before Him, God has promised to forgive us, to give rest to our conscience and our soul and give us peace, and the hope and assurance of knowing we are His children now and forever by grace through faith in Christ.
One of my most favorite passages form the book of Psalms talks about this very freedom and joy that comes from no longer trying to hide from God or make excuses, but rather confessing the truth to the One God who sees all and knows all. David says in Psalm 32:5-7:
“Finally, I confessed all my sins to you [God] and stopped trying to hide my guilt. I said to myself, “I will confess my rebellion to the Lord.” And you forgave me! All my guilt is gone. Therefore, let all the godly pray to you while there is still time, that they may not drown in the floodwaters of judgment. For you are my hiding place; you protect me from trouble. You surround me with songs of victory.”
Find the time today friends to have an honest sit down with our God and Father who loves you so much that He has already paid for your sins in Christ Jesus. Don’t hide anymore, but instead give all of your guilt and all that burdens your heart and conscience to Him, to Jesus. As Scripture says in 1 John 1:8-9, “If we claim we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and not living in the truth. But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness.”
God bless you my friends, and remember that God has forgiven yesterday, is with you today and has already taken care of tomorrow. Amen.
