Letters From Grandpa #573

• LETTERS FROM GRANDPA
• 573

Dearest grandchild,

Today’s letter will be about a Kingdom that will never end. As you know, history records thousands of kingdoms, but every one of them has come to an end. Nebuchadnezzar’s dream is a case in point. When Nebuchadnezzar was king of the most powerful nation on earth, he had a dream about a giant statue that represented four great earthly kingdoms. Each of these kingdoms is gone forever! This statue was destroyed by a rock quarried without the use of human hands. That little rock grew to such proportions that it filled the whole earth. Daniel explained that this rock represented “A kingdom that will never be destroyed. It will crush all those kingdoms and bring them to an end, but it will itself endure forever.” (Daniel 2:44) That, of course, was the Kingdom of Christ!

An angel explained to the Virgin Mary that she would have a son who would rule over this eternal kingdom. “the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.” (Luke 1:30-33)

All earthly kingdoms are established and maintained by force. When a rival nation gains enough “force” they rise to power. So the Babylonians were defeated by the Persians, and they were defeated by the Greeks, and they were defeated by the Romans, etc. At the present time we see this in the Middle East. Hamas is attempting to maintain power over the people of Gaza by force. When they could not defeat Israel, they are trying to maintain “power” by rounding up anybody who criticizes them and executing them in public. Napoleon, in exile on the Island of St. Helena, said: “Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne and I myself have founded great empires; but upon what did these creations of our genius depend? Upon force. Jesus alone founded His empire upon love, and to this very day millions will die for Him.” Every kingdom that depends on force has failed!

Someone has offered this simple, but profound, outline of history. (1) Before creation God was everything. (2) With creation came rebellion. (3) In the end of the world God will put an end to all rebellion and then again God will be “all in all” (1 Corinthians 15:24-28). Touche!

As you know, Jesus never forced anyone to follow Him! No one is tortured and forced to confess Christ. The kingdom of Christ is different! Paul observed “though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. And we will be ready to punish every act of disobedience, once your obedience is complete.” (2 Corinthians 10:3-6)

On June 6, 1944 the D Day invasion of Europe involved nearly 160,000 troops, more then 5,000 ships, and 13,000 airplanes. Paul and Silas attacked Europe with a pocket full of seeds!

Joshua Milton Blahyi is perhaps one of the most wicked men who ever lived. He was born on September 30, 1971 in Monrovia, the capital of Liberia. In his 2013 autobiography he claims that at the age of 7 he was anointed the high priest of a Satanic cult that offered children as human sacrifices. Even at that young age Blahyi claimed to receive visions regarding which of his young companions was to die. When the Liberian Civil War broke out in 1989 Blahyi formed his own militia though he was only 18 years old. His followers mined gold and diamonds to buy guns and cocaine from the drug cartels of Mexico. Believing that fighting naked protected him from death, he went into battle wearing only shoes and his magic charms. Hence he became known as “General Butt Naked.” N.B.C. News said he was personally responsible for 20,000 deaths. He told the Associated Press that he began his

battles by sacrificing an innocent child to the devil and then passing around pieces of it’s heart to be eaten by his warriors!

The Good News is that this evil man became a Christian. He is now part of an eternal kingdom. FYI he was baptized into Christ by our friend, an Australian evangelist named Doug Willis. Doug, as you may know, spent several weeks with our family when he first came to America.

After Blahyi’s conversion to Christ, Damon Tabor wrote in the March 6, 2016 New Yorker that “Blahyi’s testimony was front-page news in Liberia. Strangers hugged him on the streets of Monrovia, and journalists came from all over the world to interview him. The Daily Mail ran a profile under the headline “face to face with general butt naked—‘the most evil man in the world.’” Tabor continued that in 2009 a war crimes court issued a 500 page report bringing charges against 116 of the war’s most notorious criminals. The commission recommended pardoning 38 individuals and the fourth on the list is Joshua Blahyi.

The Apostle Paul had something in common with Blahyi – he said: ““I too was convinced that I ought to do all that was possible to oppose the name of Jesus of Nazareth. And that is just what I did in Jerusalem. On the authority of the chief priests I put many of the Lord’s people in prison, and when they were put to death, I cast my vote against them. Many a time I went from one synagogue to another to have them punished, and I tried to force them to blaspheme. I was so obsessed with persecuting them that I even hunted them down in foreign cities.” (Acts 26:9-11)

Paul wrote to Timothy: “Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst. But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his immense patience as an example for those who would believe in him and receive eternal life. Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen.” (1 Timothy 1:15-17)

Using Paul as an example, let us also make requests, prayers, intercession and give thanksgiving for kings and all that are in authority that we might live peaceful lives in all godliness and holiness” (1 Timothy 2:1-2) No one can force you to do this, but if you truly love Jesus you will!

I love you,

Grandpa Boyce