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| A Kernel of Truth © Copyright 2000, 2006 – David Todeschini – all rights reserved
You can get a copy of this sermon by clicking this link Many of my readers will instinctively know that what I’m about to say here is the unbridled facts about human psychology and human nature, and it has many examples in the Bible, Classic literature (most notably Shakespeare’s Othello), secular history, and in countless cases in out modern courtrooms. The core consideration or postulation here is simply this: Truth is in the eyes of the beholder, and people’s perceptions can be easily manipulated so that they’ll believe literally anything!
The common denominator of all of the most tragic deceptions ever perpetrated is that they all had a bit of truth in them, to lure the person (or the public) into the deception. A lie sprinkled with a bit of the truth to make it believable is called “a covert negative”. This is the technique which is to cast doubt in someone’s mind about the truth. This technique is more subtle and nefarious than a straight-up lie, and was used in the first recorded incident of Satan’s deception in the Book of Genesis, chapter 3, when Satan tempted Eve in the Garden of Eden. He said, “…thou shalt not surely die.”[1] A clearer example is found in Matthew, chapter 4, where Satan is tempting Jesus in the desert. The tempter invokes the challenge, “If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread”[2] The key word here is “If”, and if that challenge were to be accepted, so would the inherent doubt that went along with it. Satan already knew the truth of the matter. Jesus, however, in a man’s body, out in the desert, hungry and tired, was susceptible to the same temptations as we are. Jesus had the human nature we all have, and he was able to resist “The Father of lies”[3], because He knew His enemy well. Covert negatives are a particularly insidious technique to manipulate us out of character and into sin – Be “on point!”
A lie covered by or accompanying a bit of truth is another means used to manipulate our perceptions and steer them away from the objective facts. The Bible is full of examples too numerous to mention, but the tragic Heaven’s Gate[4] suicides is one worthy of mention here. The bit of truth here is that comets and heavenly phenomena are historically and scripturally portents of Divine intervention – especially the apocalyptic descriptions in the Book of Revelation. The lies that followed literally in the ‘slip-stream’ wake of the Hale-Bopp comet, caused members of the cult to believe so fully in this abject nonsense, that they planned a mass-suicide around the apogee[5] of the comet’s appearance in the sky, recorded videotaped goodbyes to their families, and (obviously) believed in total, utter nonsense so fully, that they drank cyanide and died in their beliefs. Had they read the Bible instead of listening to their demented “leader”, the tragedy could have been avoided. A misdirected and misplaced “faith”, to be sure, for the Bible tells us: “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen”[6], and there is no doubt that this was “faith” – only the facts of that faith were based on a hoax – perpetrated innocently enough tongue-in-cheek by an amateur astronomer who posted a joke about a UFO ‘slip-streaming’ the comet. However, the tragedy does not end with the 39 people who died, for after the hoax was publicly exposed, some cult followers expressed regret that they “missed the opportunity” to be among the dead who would be “risen first”[7] at the second coming. Tragic. Pathetic. What a waste!
Politicians who lie to the voters in order to get elected, the government in general, the news media, and our court system, is replete with similar deceptions – the most notable in recent history of which is the Warren Commission cover-up[8] of the John F. Kennedy assassination, and the real reason that the American people were made to endure the 10-year protracted agony of the Vietnam War. Because people fail to learn from their own history, the deceptions are being repeated, and we are presently engaged in another, worse quagmire in the Middle East. I cover these things extensively in my book: “Land of Childhood’s Fears – Faith, Friendship, and the Vietnam War”,[9] which was published on the 30th anniversary of the end of that conflict.
The court system is no different – you only have to read Isaiah 59 to see that it is nothing new. “Truth” and the apparency[10] thereof, has indeed “fallen in the street”. No one tells the truth in court anymore.[11] The system is breaking down, and no one and nothing can be trusted. One only need look in a good Bible Concordance[12] under “lies” to find hundreds of parallels to our modern-day society. By far, the biggest lie ever perpetrated on the American people is the US Supreme Court decision in Roe vs. Wade. [13] The most beloved president since JFK, Ronald Reagan, along with co-authors C. Everett Koop and Malcolm Muggeridge, devoted a book to this most sensitive subject: “Abortion and The Conscience of A Nation” [14]. Through our acceptance of lies over the truth, the American people have brought upon themselves, a terrible harvest of misery and death. By collective denial and failure to tenaciously preserve that which was lovingly crafted into the founding documents and entrusted to our care; by removing God from the picture and embracing the secular humanism of the 1960s, we have brought upon ourselves the natural and inevitable consequences:
“I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live”.[15] Clearly, collectively as a nation, we have by our apathy, indifference, and denial – chosen death. We have brought it upon ourselves. Had we lived by God’s laws instead of Man’s law, we would not be in the state we are in. Had we not permitted ourselves to be contaminated by the idea that we could change the consequences of infanticide by giving it another name, there would not now be over forty million souls aborted and disposed of as medical waste, crying out to the Lord to be avenged. We would not have the crime rate we have, perpetrated by our youth with what psychiatrists call “flat affect”.[16]
Somehow, by some means, we must stem the tide of this ubiquitous evil, and do everything in love as the Lord commanded. We have to start somewhere, and who can speak with more authority among us than prisoners? Who can command more attention than a convict or an ex-convict who stands before the masses repenting his sins, pleading with those presently being tempted not to travel down this seemingly easy path? Who among us in society is a more credible witness than a Born-Again sinner who has turned his life around by the grace of Almighty God? My brothers and sisters in Christ, take these words to heart:
“Bring my soul out of prison, that I may praise thy name: the righteous shall compass me about; for thou shalt deal bountifully with me”.[17]
It is not a requirement that you be well-versed in the Bible – that will come as a necessary consequence of good intentions. Love the Lord with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. Do that, and you need not worry about the law. Do everything in love and share Christ’s good news. Everything that’s good will follow in its wake – and that is a promise directly from God.
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