There are times when the term “overwhelming evidence” is used to overwhelm reason and attempt to stall a deeper and more integrous investigation of fact.
People become overwhelmed when they are buried beneath what appears to be an insurmountable mass of evidence against them. The mass of opposing evidence is used to suffocate any attempt to defend their innocence. Many times the accumulated “evidence” are half sentences of a larger truth, innuendo, or an outright lie designed to prematurely align with the bias of the perpetrators who are rushing to judgment.
If you have ever been innocent of something and come under the weight of a mass of accusations, the first wave of accusations takes your breath away because it feels like you have no hope or remedy. Without God, that would be true. But with God, like faith, truth the size of a mustard seed has a way of working its way up through the suffocating mass to make itself known in glaring terms contradicting the well-crafted assault against your integrity.
In our world, there is a great deal of theater taking place. All actors do not perform in a stage production or in a film. Some actors hold political office, stand behind pulpits, or pen opinion pieces for a biased journalistic rag. Others are people we considered to be good friends or close business associates we trusted but we sadly discovered had joined the accusing crowd adding the weight of betrayal to our burden.
When anyone tells you the evidence regarding anything is overwhelming and the verdict is final, that should be a signal to slow down and wait for the final truth to emerge. Only the gavel of God is capable of pronouncing something final.
One of the ruses used by our enemy as well as adversarial groups is the illusion that “consensus” (mass of agreement) is proof of their assertions. We should remind ourselves:
– In Ps 2 (and elsewhere), ‘all nations’ assemble against the Lord and His anointed {but they are WRONG}
– In 1713, ‘all scientists’ believed that Isaac Newton’s corpuscular theory of light, published in 1698, was correct. 100 years later they rejected it in favor of electromagnetic waves. In 1901, Plank and Einstein offered evidence that light was quantized. {scientific consensus has been wrong about light three times in a row}
Rudyard Kipling’s classic poem “IF” advises that a good man must not be overly concerned when all hate you nor when they all praise you….. in both cases they are likely wrong.
Jesus came “full of grace and truth” and promised that we can rely upon a walk with Jesus to “know the truth and the truth will make us free” because Holy Spirit is the “Spirit of truth.”
Amen. A half truth is a whole lie.