You better be careful because your shoe’s untied! There’s also some dirt on your jacket and a spider is crawling up your leg. Tomorrow is April Fool’s Day and gags like these will make the rounds along with many on social media poking fun at politicians and other popular individuals.
This unofficial holiday is always entertaining as friends try to out-prank one another with good natured jokes. I still remember my dad waking me up and telling me the decals on the model truck I had worked so hard the day before were peeling off. Of course a quick horrified look refuted his claim and we laughed together at how he “got me.”
A fool is one who believes a lie. We often lump someone who is gullible into this category too for being so undiscerning. In this day of scams and sophisticated thefts, it can be very costly to believe certain lies.
Of course the surest way to determine the truth is by examining the evidence. A glance at your leg can reveal if, in fact, a critter is climbing north just as a rapid examination of my model quickly disproved my father’s bad news.
This method is most valuable in protecting ourselves from internet scammers and those who try to sell us oceanfront property in Iowa. Do your homework. Check the map. Examine the evidence before committing cash, energy or emotions to someone’s claims.
If a stranger promises you millions from their Kenyan bank account, you’re wise to delete that email or at least check with the Better Business Bureau before replying. And if someone says they really love you, scrutinize their actions before trusting them with your heart. By wanting something to be true that isn’t, many have become fools.
Even more costly is to believe lies that could have eternal consequences. Some say that science has disproven the existence of a Supreme Being while others deny any possibility of an afterlife. Often these types of claims are marketed in the same package and we would be wise to examine the label before we purchase them. Eternity is a very long time to be a fool.
Although some Christian beliefs must be taken by faith, this becomes much easier once one has carefully researched the many objective facts that are readily available. Consider, for instance the infinitely small possibility that our universe could have come into existence by random factors and the even smaller chance that life could have arisen accidentally. Even many non-Christian scientists now realize these claims are false.
Attempting to disprove the Creator, researchers have actually proven His necessity whether or not they believe in the Biblical One. So many processes and ratios have to be precisely tuned to very tight tolerances that even one of them would be unlikely to have arisen randomly, while all of them together is statistically impossible.
Most importantly, we must examine the claims of Jesus’ resurrection. If you can disprove that, you can dismiss His statements about both His Heavenly Father (God) and the afterlife, for He mentioned both heaven and hell numerous times. Even the best historians, investigators, and lawyers have tried to debunk the claim that Christ arose only to all come to the same conclusion that He did, in fact, rise from the dead. Most of them became Christians because of it.
To deny this event simply because it is uncomfortable or seems impossible or because His teachings condemn our behavior, is to fail to check the most important claim of all time. If it is true, dismissing it without serious research will result in an eternally foolish decision.
As we playfully trick each other this April Fool’s Day, let’s be wise enough to do what I did with my father’s joke and check out history’s most important claims that we might not end up the biggest fools of all.
Blessings, George
