Last week, I read an article about how courts are going away from eyewitness testimony because it is so inaccurate. In fact, the article claimed that most eyewitness testimony is based on what people think they saw rather than on what really happened and that, when studied, the details are very often fabricated.
To test this theory, I asked the congregation to look at a picture of a group of men. I left the PowerPoint slide up for approximately five seconds and then asked a series of questions like, “How many people in that picture were wearing red shirts?” “How many people were wearing glasses?” Not surprisingly, I heard all kinds of answers. Some people were right about certain details but not about others. Some were certain that they were right only to find out that they were wrong. Others simply guessed (One man kept saying “Fourteen” no matter what the question was). The information that I received was certainly inaccurate.
That leads to a scary thought: If second hand information is almost always inaccurate, what does that say about our knowledge of God? If I am relying on others to tell me what God is like, how do I know that they are telling me the truth? How do I know that the picture that I have been given of God is the right one? Wouldn’t it be great if, at some point, God described himself in his own words? Fortunately, he did.
When Moses was receiving the second stone tablets containing the Ten Commandments, it says that God proclaimed his name to him and said, “The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness’” (Exodus 34:6). That is God’s description of himself. (In fact, that exact description is used six more times in the Old Testament).
We have a God who loves us more than we can imagine. We have a God who gives us more than we deserve. We have a God who is simply waiting for us to come home. We have a God who is ready to remove our sins “as far as the east is from the west” (Psalm 103:12).
When Moses heard God’s description of himself, he responded by saying, “Let my Lord, I pray thee, go among us” (Exodus 34:9). He wanted to be near that God. I imagine that people today would respond in a similar manner if they were given a similar picture of God.
We have a compassionate, gracious, slow to anger, loving and faithful God who is on our side.
Any other picture is misinformation.
To test this theory, I asked the congregation to look at a picture of a group of men. I left the PowerPoint slide up for approximately five seconds and then asked a series of questions like, “How many people in that picture were wearing red shirts?” “How many people were wearing glasses?” Not surprisingly, I heard all kinds of answers. Some people were right about certain details but not about others. Some were certain that they were right only to find out that they were wrong. Others simply guessed (One man kept saying “Fourteen” no matter what the question was). The information that I received was certainly inaccurate.
That leads to a scary thought: If second hand information is almost always inaccurate, what does that say about our knowledge of God? If I am relying on others to tell me what God is like, how do I know that they are telling me the truth? How do I know that the picture that I have been given of God is the right one? Wouldn’t it be great if, at some point, God described himself in his own words? Fortunately, he did.
When Moses was receiving the second stone tablets containing the Ten Commandments, it says that God proclaimed his name to him and said, “The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness’” (Exodus 34:6). That is God’s description of himself. (In fact, that exact description is used six more times in the Old Testament).
We have a God who loves us more than we can imagine. We have a God who gives us more than we deserve. We have a God who is simply waiting for us to come home. We have a God who is ready to remove our sins “as far as the east is from the west” (Psalm 103:12).
When Moses heard God’s description of himself, he responded by saying, “Let my Lord, I pray thee, go among us” (Exodus 34:9). He wanted to be near that God. I imagine that people today would respond in a similar manner if they were given a similar picture of God.
We have a compassionate, gracious, slow to anger, loving and faithful God who is on our side.
Any other picture is misinformation.
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