The truth is simple and easy.
Yet, the simple answer is nearly always the right one. A missionary to the South Sea Islands found himself one day trying to explain to the natives the nature of hail. There is neither hail nor snow nor sleet on the islands. There are really but two seasons—the dry and the wet. When it is wet it rains. The missionary tried by many various roundabout ways to make the natives understand that hail is frozen raindrops. The natives knew nothing about frost. They had no previous knowledge with which to associate his explanation. And, as you know, we cannot understand anything new unless we can tie it up with something that we already know.
The missionary became desperate. Finally, he thrust his hand into a bowl of rice standing on the floor, lifted a handful, and allowed it to fall again in a shower to the ground. "Hail," he said, "is like that." Instantly the natives got the picture. They saw the raindrops turned white and hard, and pelting the earth in their fall. The simple explanation went home.
Jesus's explanation of God.
Now, Jesus's explanation of what kind of being God is, is even more simple and clear than is this illustration of what hail is like. But men have strayed into the worshipping of many different kinds of God, because they have refused to accept the simple truth.
Near the close of His mortal life on the earth, Jesus delivered a very excellent farewell discourse to His disciples. It is full of words of cheer and comfort. Amongst other things Jesus said:
"I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also: and from henceforth ye know Him, and have seen Him.
"Philip saith unto Him, Lord shew us the Father, and it sufficeth us.
"Jesus saith unto him. Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father?"
The meaning of Jesus's answer.