Letters From Grandpa #45

• LETTERS FROM GRANDPA
• 45

Dearest Grandchild,

Today’s letter will deal with the subject of truth. Here is a Scripture dealing with what will happen in the last days. While there are many important lessons to learn from this passage, please note, in particular, that those who do not love the truth cannot be saved: “The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with the work of Satan displayed in all kinds of counterfeit miracles, signs and wonders, and in every sort of evil that deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness.” (2 Thess 2:9-12)

As you know, Elijah’s son, H.B. is a real character. Some time ago someone said to him: “H. B., you are something else”. He looked shocked and said: “You mean I’m not a boy”.

Yes! H. B. is a boy! After 7 weeks in the womb a blood test could be taken to prove that he was a boy. After he was born a glace between his legs would convince an honest person that the blood test was accurate. H. B. is really a boy. Can you not see how destructive and confusing it would be if someone taught him to deny the truth.

Perhaps you have read in the news about Bruce Jenner. After years of being a man, he now has decided to deny the truth. The truth is that Bruce Jenner is not a girl, never has been a girl, and never will be a girl. No matter how many surgeries he has, or how many hormones are injected into his body, he is still not a girl. That’s the truth! We are living at a time, however, when we celebrate and make role models out of confused people who do not love the truth.

In a recent study, the Barna Research Group discovered that only 9% of evangelical Christians have a biblical world view. To counter this, Focus on the Family launched The Truth Project. It is composed of 13 one-hour lessons taught by Dr. Del Tackett. It is excellent! Jesus told Pilate that He came into the world to bear witness of the truth, and that everyone on the side of truth would listen to him (Jn. 18:37). Pilate didn’t listen and responded “What is truth?” Please do not be like Pilate and let the devil deceive you. Please be on the side of the truth! The Scriptures warn of those who:

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Distort the truth (Acts 20:30).

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Suppress the truth (Rom. 1:18).

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Exchange the truth for a lie (Rom. 1:25). #

Reject the truth (Rom. 2:8).

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Wander away from the truth (2 Tim. 2:18) #

Oppose the truth (2 Tim. 3:8).

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And deny the truth (Ja. 3:14).

Remember! People who do not love the truth will perish because they are easily deceived. I’m sure you have heard of the unfortunate death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. Some lied about what happened and said that he was shot by a police office with his hands up saying “don’t shoot”. The lie, “Hands up, don’t shoot” went viral. The St. Louis Rams players raised their hands as a symbolic gesture entering the field before a football game. Protesters chanted “Hands up, don’t shoot” while burning and looting businesses in the area. The phrase and the gestures were emblazoned on signs, T-shirts, hashtags, and magazine covers. On Dec. 1, 2014, four members of the Congressional Black Caucus repeated the lie while delivering speeches on the House Floor titled, “Black in America: “Hands up don’t shoot” even has its own Wikipedia page. The problem is, that when you don’t love the truth it is easy to believe a lie. No matter how many people believe the lie, it still never happened! Michael Brown did not have his hands up saying don’t shoot when he was shot. The truth is that he had just robbed a convenience store, fought for the police offer’s gun, and died with his head down charging the police officer like a football player.

Some still justify repeating the lie because they think the police need to be punished. But anyone who repeats this lie obviously doesn’t love the truth! To take it upon yourself to rectify wrongs by telling a lie is to fall into the devil’s trap. He is a liar and the father of lies (Jn. 8:44). Remember, “all liars” will take their place in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone (Rev. 21:8).

The phrase (2 + 2 = 5) dates back at least to 1813 when Lord Byron said that proving this false equation would give him greater pleasure than accepting the truth.

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Fyodor Dostoyevsky later wrote: "I admit that twice two makes four is an excellent thing, but if we are to give everything its due, twice two makes five is sometimes a very charming thing too."

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Sieyès, in his "What Is the Third Estate?" wrote: “Consequently if it be claimed that under the French constitution, 200,000 individuals out of 26 million citizens constitute two-thirds of the common will, only one comment is possible: it is a claim that two and two make five." #

The Soviet Union began its first five-year economic plan in 1928. When the plan failed propagandist Iakov Guminer supported this campaign with a 1931 poster reading "2+2=5: #

George Orwell, six years before publishing Nineteen Eighty-Four, wrote the following about Nazi propaganda. “Nazi theory indeed specifically denies that such a thing as "the truth" exists. ... The implied objective of this line of thought is a nightmare world in which the Leader, or some ruling clique, controls not only the future but the past. If the Leader says of such and such an event, ‘It never happened’ – well, it never happened. If he says that two and two are five – well, two and two are five. This prospect frightens me much more than bombs.”

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Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring, who once, in a debatably hyperbolic display of loyalty to Adolf Hitler, declared, "If the Führer wants it, two and two makes five!" Orwell wrote about this in his famous book Nineteen Eighty-Four, “In the end the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it. It was inevitable that they should make that claim sooner or later: the logic of their position demanded it. Not merely the validity of

experience, but the very existence of external reality, was tacitly denied by their philosophy. The heresy of heresies was common sense. And what was terrifying was not that they would kill you for thinking otherwise, but that they might be right. For, after all, how do we know that two and two make four? Or that the force of gravity works? Or that the past is unchangeable? If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable – what then?”

2 + 2 is 4. It always has been and it always will be. Jesus is the truth, not Hitler and Stalin. Grandpa wants you to be in heaven, and loving the truth will enable you to take a big step in the right direction.

I love you,

Grandpa Boyce