INSPIRED BY: OUR DAILY BREAD

April First is widely known as April Fool's Day, or what I like to call "The Atheist's Holiday" (Psalm 14:1; 53:1). It is a day in which folks are supposed to lie in order to trick others. Once the "sucker" has been fooled by the lie, the perpetrator shouts, "April Fools!" It reminds me of Halloween, in that it encourages sin. "Trick or treat," does not commonly mean what it implies: "either give me a treat, or I will do something you will not like." It is usually not understood as a threat, but there are always those who look for any chance to be destructive and hurtful.

In the early 1900's, a man named Goldberg tried to counter the day of trickery. He suggested that since April began with lying, April should end with a day dedicated to honesty. He called it "National Honesty Day." Obviously, it never caught on. I suspect that since the general public tends to like darkness rather than light, it did not have much appeal (John 3:19). It is possible that Christians ignored it due to the fact that they are expected to be honest every day. That kind of makes me wonder why Thanksgiving and Easter are revered so highly. Christians who understand that every day is a day in which God has blessed us, should find being thankful on one specific day equally ridiculous. And Easter, which is the name most Christians give to the day we celebrate Christ's resurrection from the grave, seems a little strange in that Jesus is still alive; the grave is still empty.

God's Word has a great deal to say about lying. God calls the telling of lies an abomination (Proverbs 12:22). Jesus called Satan "the father of lies" (John 8:44). The first sin was the result of a lie (Genesis 3:1). Jesus was tempted by Satan who, twisting the truth, tried to deceive Him into sinning (Matthew 4:1-11). Lying is evidence that the liar is living in the flesh, and not walking in the Spirit (Galatians 5:16). Lying indicates that one's heart is defiled by his sin nature (Matthew 15:18-20). Lying exposes the nature of man's unregenerate heart: it is deceitful and desperately wicked (Jeremiah 17:9). Lying is viewed by God as one of the "ten most unwanted" (Exodus 20:16). Judas betrayed Jesus with a lie; he kissed the Lord pretending to love Him (Luke 22:48). The "religious" leaders bribed the soldiers to lie about Christ's resurrection (Matthew 28:11-15). The last example I will give is found in 2 Thessalonians 2:1-12, where Paul is warning them about false teachers. He describes the antichrist as being empowered by Satan and that deceit is his greatest weapon in controlling mankind (God allows those who reject the truth to be fooled by his "silver tongue").

The truth without love is brutality; love without truth is sentimentality. Those who believe the truth should only speak the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15). Jesus is the Truth (John 14:6)!