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Suppose
you saw a colony of ants building their hill in the middle of a road. They’d
have no clue that what they were doing was putting them in grave
danger. From your perspective, however, you could immediately assess
the situation, see the danger and know the proper corrective action to
assure their safety and well being.
You could do all that in an instant, but now how could
you possibly communicate that to them? If you approached them they’d
fear you, a threatening gargantuan, even more than they would the imminent
danger that they faced from impending traffic. If you picked them up
and moved them they would only be confused and terrified, learn nothing of
the error of their ways and resume what they had started as soon as you
left them alone. How could you relate to them? How could you save them?
The only real way to help them would be to come to them
as an ant yourself, a member of their own colony. Only then would you
share a common language to use as a basis for communication. Only then
could you even approach them without being regarded as a predatory threat
or a tasty meal. Only then could you describe the problem they faced in
terms that would make sense to them. As an ant, you wouldn’t have all
your human capabilities, but your insight into ant life would undoubtedly
be quite amazing to them. Some would listen, heed your warning and
seek a new life off the broad path of the pavement. Some would
undoubtedly scoff at your description of things unknown to them; people,
cars, and highways. Whether or not they listened, at least you would
have done the best you could to save them while still preserving their
freedom of choice.
God faces a similar dilemma in communicating with us.
If He were to appear before us as the omnipotent and omniscient God, we
would live in absolute terror. So what did he do? He came to us as one of
our own, God in human form, as Jesus Christ. He imparted a higher
wisdom to us on the right way to live and on the perils of straying from
His commands to us and into the broad path of destruction. Out of love, He humbled and reduced Himself to our
level so that He might teach and save us. Out of love, He leaves us
to learn and make our own choices, and bear our own consequences, yet
still whispers in a quiet voice of counsel to our souls, if we believe and
are willing to listen.
Atheists, intellectualists and even some new age spiritualists alike reason
that man may be the highest intelligence in the universe, though they have
created neither the universe nor their own intelligence. In their
pride they postulate that man has become a god, and blind themselves to
even considering that God has become a man.
"For my thoughts
are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the
LORD. "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways
higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts."
Isaiah 55:8-9
To the weak I became
weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all men so that by all
possible means I might save some.
1 Corinthians 9:22
He may speak in their
ears and terrify them with warnings, to turn man from wrongdoing and keep
him from pride.
Job 33:16-17
For wide is the gate
and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through
it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only
a few find it.
Matthew 7:13-14
For God did not send
his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through
him.
John 3:17 |