One day an actress tried to take her tiny white poodle through customs. She knew it was against the law, but because poor little dogs suffer away from their masters, she tried to smuggle him through, covering him up under her coat. Smiling her prettiest, the actress "sailed up" to the customs barrier. Everything went splendidly - until her "coat" barked! We laugh at people trying to fool fallible humans, but some try to fool the Infallible God: "Then came the word of Jehovah unto Samuel, saying, 'lt repenteth me that I have set up Saul to be king: for he is turned back from following me, and hath not performed my commandments'... And Samuel came to Saul; and Saul said unto him, 'Blessed be thou of Jehovah: I have performed the commandment of Jehovah' ... And Samuel said, 'What meaneth then this bleating of the sheep in mine ears, and the lowing of the oxen which I hear?'" (1 Sam. 15: 10-14).

God told Saul to smite the Amalekites, utterly destroying everything, both "man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass" (1 Sam. 15: 3), but he thought that his way concerning religious instruction was better than (or at least as good as) the Almighty's way. Amazingly, Saul twice claims that he had obeyed the voice of God and had gone the way that the Lord had sent him (15: 13, 20). But (instead of a dog) sheep bleated and oxen lowed to call him a liar! Objective facts are hard for even a king to get around. No one ever gets "so big" or powerful that he or she can ignore "obeying the voice of Jehovah" (1 Sam. 15: 22). When we reject God's objective word, He will in turn reject us (1 Sam. 15: 23).

Like the movie plots involving the so-called "Perfect Crime" wherein the perpetrator thinks he has planned every move and every "cover-up" so perfectly, we actually believe we can avoid a day of reckoning! On a vacation trip to the mountains a man and wife from Vermont met a quiet, pleasant couple from New York. All four of them had a great time together. Later, the gentleman from Vermont made up an album of snapshots he had taken of the other couple and mailed it to them in New York. The gift was never acknowledged, until one day a big-city lawyer appeared and asked the man if he had prepared the album. "Sure," was his reply. "Did they get it?" "Oh, it was received all right," said the lawyer, "and I'm representing the man's wife in the divorce suit. You see, she wasn't the woman in the album!"

Are you trying to fool the Infinite God? Do you really think that you can hide personal sin from the One who formed you in your mother's womb (Psa. 139: 13) or from the One of whom it is said that "there is no creature that is not manifest in his sight: but ail things are naked 'and laid open before the eyes of him with whom we have to do" (Heb. 4: 13)? Are you really irrational enough to believe, even for a moment, that the Bible is wrong when it declares a "day when God shall judge the secrets of men, according to my gospel, by Jesus Christ" (Rom. 2: 16)? If you know that the Bible requires belief (John 3: 16), repentance (Lk. 1q3: 3; 2: 38), confession of Christ (Matt. 10: 32-33; m. 10: 9-10), and baptism for the remission of sins (Acts 2: 38; 22: 16) then why not DO these things if you haven't? If you know that you are an unfaithful Christian, why not come back today by repentance, confession, and prayer (Acts 8: 13-22)? "But if ye will not be so, behold, ye have sinned against Jehovah; and be sure your sin will find you out" (Num. 32: 23). Come back home to the Lord today!

-Terry M. Hightower