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LOST IN A LAMBORGHINI

If you’re shopping for a new car, and have a few dollars to spare, you might want to think about getting yourself a brand new Murciélago. Newsweek’s Tara Weingarten informs us that Murciélago is Spanish for “bat,” and this Italian sports car actually does look like the proverbial Batmobile. You can check it out for yourself at www.lamborghini.com, and while you’re online, you can also check your stock portfolio and see if you have enough spare change — that’s $273,000, or more than half a BILLION lira (before the Euro took over) — to get this six-speed, 580-horsepower, V-12, 205 mph dream car for your very own.

Well, why do we bring it up today? There’s one tiny piece of bad news — besides the painful price tag. Newsweek’s enthusiastic review of the new Lamborghini did point out that this hot new sports car has “a substantial blind spot off the rear passenger side.” Of course, you might be thinking to yourself that at 205 miles an hour, there probably won’t BE anybody trailing you in that passenger blind spot . . . except perhaps a black-and-white car with official state markings and a red light on top. But it’s a bit unnerving to think that with all that throbbing momentum carrying you down the Golden State Freeway, you’re essentially changing lanes BLIND. You can’t see the things you need to see in order to navigate correctly.

Interestingly, the Bible suggests that all of us traveling on the Christian superhighway have a bit of a Lamborghini problem, as it were. King David, who accidentally hit a few potholes himself, confesses that very thing in Psalm 19. Listen to this:

“Who can discern his errors?” he asks. “Forgive my hidden faults.”

We were fascinated to read this same verse as paraphrased by Jack Blanco, in his book, Clear Word. He puts it like this:

“No man can see his own faults. Lord, deliver me from BLIND SPOTS about myself.”

Are there things that are wrong to do — and we do them because we don’t know they’re wrong? That happens all the time, doesn’t it? Are there dangers lying ahead of us, and we don’t anticipate them because we don’t know HOW to anticipate them? That happens too. Nobody gets married anticipating a divorce. No one takes that first drink envisioning the horrors of alcoholism. This little Lamborghini review was tucked into the “Tip Sheet” section of Newsweek’s August 5, 2002 issue, and that same magazine ironically had a story about corporate CEOs who just couldn’t anticipate how their greed and slippery accounting would make them look in the eyes of a cynical public. Writer Kevin Naughton had this as a kicker title: “The Mighty Fall: Once they were worshiped as heroes, but now CEOs are being grilled by boards — and just wait till they see their paychecks.” “They’re the bad boys of the 21st century,” accuses Andrea Redmond, a company “headhunter” for Russell Reynolds. A man named Garry Betty, the chief executive officer for EarthLink, admits that even he is unable to predict the Enron-like bumps in the road ahead. He’s got blind spots too, and knows it. “It makes me nervous,” he says. “I would never knowingly do anything inconsistent with accounting standards, but in hindsight, plaintiffs’ attorneys can make anything look bad.”

I think it’s biblical truth that even if a blind spot isn’t your fault, the resulting pain can very much be yours! Whose fault is it that this legendary Murciélago has a blind spot? Well, that’s Lamborghini’s fault, of course. But if you get a ticket, who’s going to pay the fine? You are. If you’re in a crash, who’s going to get hurt? You will. If there’s a fatality, who will weep at the cemetery? You or your relatives will.

In the Old Testament book of Leviticus, Moses writes about some of the rules and ceremonies that governed the lives of the nation of Israel. Back then a person could unwittingly break a rule — and there were a lot of them to keep track of — and still be guilty. Notice this Lamborghini laundry list from chapter five:

“If a person touches anything ceremonially unclean — whether the carcasses of unclean wild animals or of unclean livestock or of unclean creatures that move along the ground — EVEN THOUGH HE IS UNAWARE OF IT, he has become unclean and is guilty. Or if he touches human uncleanness — anything that would make him unclean — even though he is unaware of it, when he learns of it he will be guilty. Or if a person thoughtlessly takes an oath to do anything, whether good or evil — in any manner one might carelessly swear about — even though he is unaware of it, in any case when he learns of it he will be guilty.”

Fortunately, God in His gracious kindness provided ways for that guilt to be removed. And the Bible also suggests that God is patient when people, through no fault of their own, don’t yet know the rules, or have a car with bad rear view mirrors on them. In the New Testament book of Acts, Paul was both heartened and disheartened to visit the city of Athens and discover that there were gods everywhere. There were idols on every street corner and Internet café. Philosphers sat in the coffee shops discussing 900 brands of religion – all but the true one. They even had a statue dedicated to “the unknown God.” So the good news was that these people’s hearts were essentially in the right place. But they had a great big Greek blind spot the size of the Parthenon because they didn’t know the TRUE God. They knew many plans of salvation . . . all except the Calvary plan. And so when Paul got up to preach, he very graciously said that God was aware of their blind spot. Here’s Acts 17:29-31, right from that sermon transcript:

“Therefore since we are God’s offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone — an image made by man’s design and skill.” Now notice this: “In the past God OVERLOOKED such ignorance, but NOW He commands all people everywhere to repent. For He has set a day when He will judge the world with justice by the Man He has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising Him from the dead.”

Isn’t that good? Paul is essentially saying, “Listen, folks. I know how it is for you. Because I had one of those cars too! It had a blind spot! I admit it! I was driving around, unaware of the Resurrection of Jesus, unaware of Calvary, unaware of grace! I didn’t know anything about the one true God, Ruler of heaven and earth. But now that I DO know, God holds me responsible. He outfitted my car with a new side mirror, and commissioned me to pass out mirrors to all of my friends too.”

I think the lesson for today is plainly this: God is our ally, our Friend, when it comes to the blind spots of life. The pain of sin — He hates worse than we do. The sorrows of our unanticipated failures bring grief to His heart. He wants to pass out mirrors and flashlights and GPS global positioning satellite systems; in fact, we could argue that the Word of God is exactly those things. Bible prophecy is itself a miraculous road map, flooding both our past and our future with the light of His fulfilled predictions.

What, then, is there for us to do? We want to think about that all this week, and consider what — in a biblical sense — might serve as mirrors and Windex and closed-circuit TV cameras to see around corners and up blind alleyways. But friend, we CAN do two things. We can join King David in inviting God to help us with our blind spots. “Deliver me,” he pleaded, “from blind spots about myself.” We can ask God to do the very thing He wants to do and promises to do.

And then secondly, we can take advantage of what we already know is His roadmap. The Bible tells us about our hidden weaknesses. It points out what is going to be in tomorrow’s pathway. It spells out Lucifer’s game plan. It describes the exit offramp from this world’s smooth, silky superhighway to destruction. It’s all right there, in the 66 books running from Genesis to Revelation. And while God may have kindly and sympathetically “winked” at the bumps caused before we had a Bible, or had heard about the cross of Jesus . . . there comes a time when He does expect us to be the grownup men and women of His kingdom, navigating successfully to heaven’s shores as He guides us. Paul writes about this in Colossians 1:

“Since the day we heard about you,” he writes, “we have not stopped praying for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of His will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding. And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please Him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God.” And, speaking of blind spots and potholes, he adds with gratitude: “For He has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son He loves.”