Let me relate a bizarre yet true story, before I get started with my main theme. Before that… those of us who don’t know about, Charlie Chaplin, let’s put up our hands? Well, not many hands would go up, for most of us know that he was a huge movie star in the silent-picture era sending many (and often) to the world of boisterous laughter with his patented comedy. One of the by-products of his popularity-also referred to in medicinal terms, as Chaplinitis- was the look-alike contests that mushroomed around the Globe in early 20th century. Participants in many such contests would attempt to imitate Chaplin dressed as the “tramp” character, he made popular in his films.
Now this is where, it all becomes really surreal. As the look-alike contest fever was its peak, Charlie Chaplin himself entered a look-alike contest in a San Francisco theatre without the knowledge of the judges! Amazingly, he failed to even make the finals!!! So fine-tuned were the Chaplin imitators that the human judges, with all their obvious limitations could not distinguish the original from the many copies (permit me to use a photo-copying parlance here). The question is could God have made a similar mistake? NO WAY! The omniscient God (Heb 4:13) is not easily to be deceived. We may with our excellent acting, which would make an Oscar winner proud, get away with our well-hidden hypocrisies with our fellow human beings, but in front of an all-seeing God, we are bound to stand exposed.