From The Pastor’s Heart OP-ED BY DR. ROBERT KENNEDY
I have heard many people wondering how the president of the United States, who lost his bid for a second term more than six weeks ago, can be still claiming that he won.
Even though he has lost his challenges to the recounts, court filings, and the Electoral College, he is still proclaiming that he won. Millions of individuals have followed the president down “the rabbit hole” and have accepted the proclamations that he won. The president has raised nearly $300M for his SuperPAC under the contradictory pretext that he will make a comeback in 2024.
If you are wondering how people can be so easily duped, let me remind you, if you have forgotten, that our world is getting ready for the greatest deception it has ever known. The world was just about at the same point before the first Christmas. Jesus was about to be born, and here is what the Bible said that would happen before he came, “For, behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people: but the LORD shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee.” (Isaiah 60:2 KJV)
In relating the passage to Christ’s first advent, some commentators talked about the delusions, moral degradation, social dislocation, and rebellion at their height. One commentator says the very priests and ministers appointed to carry forward spiritual education in the Jewish nation had lost their way. The deception of sin had reached its height. All the agencies for depraving the souls of human beings had been put in operation.
People were living miserable lives. Many had become victims of satanic cruelty. Many were bewildered and deceived, moving along as if they were in a gloomy procession to death without hope of life. The commentator referenced quoted directly says:
Satanic agencies were incorporated with men. The bodies of human beings, made for the dwelling place of God, had become the habitation of demons. The senses, the nerves, the passions, the organs of men, were worked by supernatural agencies in the indulgence of the vilest lust. The very stamp of demons was impressed upon the countenances of men. Human faces reflected the expression of the legions of evil with which they were possessed. Such was the prospect upon which the world’s Redeemer looked. What a spectacle for Infinite Purity to behold! – (DA 36.3)
I do not think that I need to say more about the historical darkness connected with Christ’s first coming. Instead, I invite you to give careful attention to what is happening around us at the moment. Look at the level of deception as we find it now. Are you still wondering about how the president and the millions are still believing that he won? Are you still asking why so many millions still do not believe that the COVID-19 is for real? Yes, if you are wondering, let me remind you that The Great Deception is coming.
Many agents are doing a lot to create “fables,” “fake news,” “tricks,” and “hoax” of all kinds. Those who are keeping score on the president of the United States suggest that he is inundating us with a “Tsunami” of falsehoods and misinformation. The claim that the president has been telling a flurry of lies, on an average of 50 per day.
One day during the first wave of the COVID-19, the president told a reported 62 falsehoods. After stating that the president passed 20,000 falsehoods and misinformation in tweets and public assertions, the counters have concluded that millions of people have accepted the “cult” of lies. In effect, the minds of millions have been turned away from truth, righteousness and justice.
If you are asking why deception has become so normalized, I offer three reasons.
Self-deception – This is the worst form of deception because it is the effort to see the world the way we wish it to be rather than the way it is. Psychologists say, “When people have a self–deception, they use their hopes, needs, desires, theory, ideology, prejudices, expectations, memories, and other psychological elements to construct the way they see the world.”
Ignorance – Even though more knowledge and information are available to us, it is a fact of interest that so many have subjected themselves to ignorance. They listen to, look at, or likely read or take sides with a little information that might suit them, but stay away from anything that might enlighten and challenge them. “Where ignorance is bliss,” they say, “it’s folly to resist.”
Secularism: To explain this concept of secularism, I use a quote from one of my favorite author named quoted above who states in a different context:
When Satan’s bewitching power controls a person, God is forgotten, and the man who is filled with corrupt purposes is extolled. Secret licentiousness is practiced by these deceived souls as a virtue. This is a species of witchcraft…There is always a bewitching power in heresies and in licentiousness. The mind is so deluded that it cannot reason intelligently, and an illusion is continually leading it from purity. The spiritual eyesight becomes blurred, and persons of hitherto untainted morals become confused under the delusive sophistry of those agents of Satan who profess to be messengers of light. It is this delusion which gives these agents power. Should they come out boldly and make their advances openly, they would be repulsed without a moment’s hesitation; but they work first to gain sympathy and secure confidence in themselves as holy, self-sacrificing men of God. As his special messengers they then begin their artful work of drawing away souls from the path of rectitude by attempting to make void the law of God. (AH 330.1)
Let me conclude this brief reflection on the coming of the Great Deception by offering a caution in the words of the apostle Paul that says, “Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows.” (Galatians 6:7).
