Isaiah speaks of the future as if it were already present. He traces the terrible disasters about to befall his countrymen to their true cause--their ignorance of God,--in their case a wilful ignorance (Hosea iv. 6), which had betrayed them into courses of conduct ruinous in themselves, and certain to bring down the judgments of the Almighty. The history of mankind justifies us in laying down two propositions: +I. That ignorance is a terrible evil.+ To be in ignorance of the great facts of God's universe, of the great laws by which He governs it, is to be in a condition of constant peril. We are as men who wander in darkness over the great mountains; every step may be taking us further from the right path, the next step may hurl us over some unsuspected precipice. Remember what calamities--political, commercial, social--have been due solely to ignorance. [Illustrate by examples.][1] +II. That the most terrible of all kinds of ignorance is ignorance of God Himself.+ 1. _Much sin is due to ignorance._[2] Not _all_ sin, for there are many transgressions committed against full light--the worst form of iniquity. But concerning multitudes of sinners we may pray, as did Our Lord for His executioners, "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do." The most appalling of all sins was committed in ignorance (1 Cor. ii. 8). Did men truly _know_ God, they would fear, love, and gladly serve Him. For lack of a true knowledge of God, men who desired to serve Him have perpetrated the most frightful crimes (John xvi. 2; Acts xxvi. 9). 2. _Sins committed in ignorance entail terrible disasters._ That unavoidable ignorance is a palliation of the guilt of transgression is clearly the teaching of the New Testament (Luke xxiii. 34; 1 Tim. i. 13), as it had been previously of the Old (Num. xv. 28; Deut. xix. 4, &c.); and it will affect their condition in the eternal world (Luke xii. 47, 48). But here and now it does nothing to exempt men from the natural consequences of their transgressions. The man who swallows a poison by mistake is killed by it as surely as the deliberate suicide, &c.