2 Kings 20:19 — Then said Hezekiah unto Isaiah, Good is the word of the LORD which thou hast spoken. And he said, Is it not good, if peace and truth be in my days?

Numbers 32:23 — But if ye will not do so, behold, ye have sinned against the LORD: and be sure your sin will find you out.

I think we all know that if we do something we shouldn’t, sooner or later we’ll get found out. It’s not just the clear Biblical statement of the principle that makes us aware of this certainty. Our own experience confirms it. So how come we so often behave as though we have never learned the lesson? Here’s a couple of examples of what I mean.
I wonder if, like me, you’ve been appalled at the mess at the Veteran’s Administration?  According to a June 9 report by the Associated Press:

More than 57,000 U.S. military veterans have been waiting 90 days or more for their first VA medical appointments, and an additional 64,000 appear to have fallen through the cracks, never getting appointments after enrolling, the government said Monday in a report newly demonstrating how deep and widespread the problem is.
It’s not just a backlog issue, the wide-ranging Veterans Affairs review indicated. Thirteen percent of schedulers in the facility-by-facility report on 731 hospitals and outpatient clinics reported being told by supervisors to falsify appointment schedules to make patient waits appear shorter.

It’s not just the failure in performance that’s appalling, nor even the cover up, but the stupidity that seemed to believe that the truth would not out.
Then there’s the scandal at the heart of manufacturing industry. Another news report, this time from the New York Times of June 5:

A sweeping internal investigation of General Motors released on Thursday condemned the company for its decade-long failure to fix a deadly safety defect, one that led to “devastating consequences,” including at least 13 deaths.
The report, written by the former United States attorney Anton R. Valukas, set off the dismissal of 15 G.M. employees, including a vice president for regulatory affairs and a senior lawyer responsible for product liability cases, and forced broad changes in how the company handles vehicle safety.
The report illustrates in unsparing detail how employees across departments neglected for years to repair a defect and issue a recall, despite a mountain of evidence that lives were at risk.

Yet again, a dreadful case where people who surely knew that there were problems taking no action, as though they believed that somehow the truth would never emerge. Between us, I’m sure we could find many instances of this peculiar blindness. What’s behind it? I think Hezekiah’s response to Isaiah reveals the truth. When he was rebuked for his boasting to the Babylonians and warned that it would cause the Babylonians, one day, to invade and take all his treasure back to Babylon, his response was “that’s fine, as long as it’s after my time”. So many people, I think, believe that as long as uncomfortable revelations can be delayed past their time they won’t have to worry. Not only is their confidence in the here-and-now misplaced, as the two stories above reveal, they forget the hereafter. How much better it would be to remember Paul’s warning and promise to the Galatians:

Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting. And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not. (Galatians 6:7-9)