I want to revisit this important subject of delusion mainly because it grows worse, and like a vortex, it is sucking more and more people into it.
The end of the Church age is going to see a great increase in deceivers and imposters as promised by God through Paul – 2Timothy 3:13, “Evil men and impostors will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.” There are two parts to that verse. These people will deceive others because they are deceived themselves. It becomes an ever-growing cycle, something like what the old pyramid money schemes were about.
I will be moving to climate change shortly, not because I find delight in attacking it, but because it becomes more serious daily. There are all sorts of delusions, so much so that the people of earth are getting so used to them; half the time, they don’t question any details.
We all know about commercial delusion. That is when you buy a packet of something like breakfast cereal in a showy packet, but when you open it, the top third of the package is empty. It is made to look good on the outside but has deception on the inside. I do not need to cite a lot of examples. In fact, I think we could fill pages with them.
Just one more I will mention in the retail advertising. We get here on television these infomercials screaming out at us about all sorts of fabulous inventions (actually a rehash of something already existing and made in China in a junky way. It never lasts). The way these things are presented makes you feel you are getting a huge bargain, BUT THERE IS MORE – if you are one of the first 97 callers, then you’ll get another (piece of junk) for free. “Yes, the first 97 callers will get that (piece of junk).” Of course, these commercials go on television stations all over the country at all different times, and they have no idea of “the first 97 callers.” The people who take up the offer are deluded.
SEPARATING DELUSION AND DECEPTION
There is a very fine difference between delusion and deception, but both of them are spawned from the one who was a liar from the beginning. When people are deliberately tricked, they are deceived and have been deluded. One of the very worst plagues the world has at the moment are the India scammers, and I doubt if anyone has not been contacted by them. They run scams like the refund scam and pretend to be with Microsoft, Amazon, Telstra, Norton, Romance, Internet, and a whole lot more. Most operate out of Kolkata and Delhi.
Roughly 59.4 million Americans have lost money to phone scams over the past year. Americans lost $29.8 billion to phone scams alone over the past year (from CNBC.com). Also reported in PC Magazine.
“Australians lost a record amount of more than $2 billion to scams in 2021 despite government, law enforcement, and the private sector disrupting more scam activity than ever before,” the ACCC’s latest Targeting Scams report reveals.
People are deluded and deceived; sadly, the Indian Government does very little about it. Delusion is an octopus with many arms, and scams are but one. We could include evolution, homosexual “love,” and so much of what drives this world today.
If that sort of delusion was around when I was a boy in the 1950s, people would be decrying it. Television stations most likely would not have shown it. How times have changed! People are becoming numb with the insidious delusion that is everywhere. It will get worse because God has said it will get worse!
THE WORLD HAS CHANGED
Something really changed in this world in the past 4 decades. Once, everything had to be confirmed and proven. Those days are gone. People get on TV or radio and into magazines and make the worst of unproven statements, and they are not challenged over it. Politicians lie and say what they like, and there is no media scrutiny except from a couple of pockets of decent journalists. One reason for that is the hard-left media these days that refuses to challenge any socialist or socialist agenda.
Delusion is poured out in school curricula and infused in subtle ways in all parts of life. It is said that when a frog is in water that is slowly heated up to become hot, it does not notice. I have never done that, so I do not know. If it is true, then the frog is being conditioned to its environment. People are being conditioned to the acceptance of a particular system of beliefs and, over time, come to accept them. Another way to say it is that they are being numbed into pacification. Or maybe just dumbed down.
Christians seem to be aware of these things more than other people, and that does make sense. However, too many Christians are part of the delusion, especially climate change, and I will do that shortly. What I am amazed at these days is the almost lack of critical thinking and examination from the public. It is like the public just does not care anymore. Six decades ago, when I was in secondary and tertiary education, students were trained how to think, analyze material, and make conclusions. The modern education system is all about socialism and agenda-driven humanism, and students, for some time now, cannot apply critical analysis.
Social media formulates society’s values, and we all know how that loves to promote delusion on everything.
WHERE IS THIS GOING TO END?
It does have an end, but we will not be there for it. This is the end – this is part of it.
2Thessalonians 2: 8 “and then that lawless one will be revealed whom the Lord will slay with the breath of His mouth and bring to an end by the appearance of His coming, 9 that is, the one whose coming is in accord with the activity of Satan, with all power and signs and false wonders, 10 and with all the deception of wickedness for those who perish because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved. 11 For this reason God will send upon them a deluding influence so that they might believe what is false, 12 in order that they all may be judged who did not believe the truth, but took pleasure in wickedness.”
“The lawless one” (v 8) is the Antichrist/World Ruler “whose coming is in accord” (v 9), that is, when he is revealed on the white horse of Revelation 6. “Signs, false wonders and deception of wickedness” (v 9-10) is the Tribulation period of great deception and open lies. Verse 10 says the population rejected any love of the truth. These people had been programmed in the last days of the Church age, dumbed down, and will be compliant with receiving wickedness as their love in the Tribulation.
What is left for God to do? Verse 11 tells us God will send upon them a deluding influence so that they might believe what is false. They already believe what is false, so this will be something more severe. I think it might be that they will believe the lie of the Antichrist and follow him and receive his mark. That great delusion will be enormous.
I used to think that climate change might have been that specific delusion, but I am fairly sure now that is not the case. Rather, I think the Tribulation delusion will be the acceptance of Antichrist as being Jesus Himself. Don’t hold me to that. What we are seeing in these closing days of the Church age is a delusion unlike any other that has descended on the world, for it encompasses the whole world with a fanaticism not seen before. Climate change is the modern religion of the world.
In delusion, honesty is sidelined. It spreads like a wildfire and sweeps all before it. It progresses relentlessly and is not questioned. Can you remember the nonsense that the Thunberg girl was saying? To begin with, the girl is mentally challenged, so one had to exercise great care, but no media outlet did. She had the highest billing, and, along with the deceived Al Gore, held the world stage on climate change. That is what a delusion does. It rejects logic, common sense, and the truth.
In what is known as the “Christian church as the Christian religion,” I think there is much delusion, and I claim this pertains to the now biggest factor in Protestantism. It is like the path is strewn with so much that is false, and true Christians must remain vigilant, for deception will increase. When speaking of the days in the Tribulation, Jesus said this – Matthew 24:24, “For false christs and false prophets will arise and will show great signs and wonders so as to mislead, if possible, even the elect.” It will be very hard for the saints in the Tribulation, but with Satan’s influence on the increase today, deception and delusion is on the increase in our own time. We must stand against it, and I am thinking it might mean we stand alone on a lot of occasions.
TO BE MORE SPECIFIC ON CLIMATE CHANGE
I am a life member of National Geographic (there would be very few remaining, for they stopped the applications in the late 1970s). Over the past few years, National Geographic has taken a giant step into the climate change arena, so much so that now every issue is packed with a radical climate change agenda. It is the demise of a great institution.
The August 2022 issue had a special feature called “India’s Energy Challenge,” written by an Indian now living near Washington DC. The article was alarmist, a cunning portrayal of events, but here is a paragraph from it:
“India has plenty of reasons to be worried. The country’s 4,670-mile coastline, especially the low-lying eastern coast, could be calamitous for tens of millions of people. This spring, after the hottest March on record, and extended heat wave, it sent temperatures soaring above 100° across much of the country, withering crops in the field. Droughts also are becoming more severe. Cyclones are lashing the coasts with increasing fury, flooding urban areas.”
The India Meteorological Department (IMD) has been keeping records for 122 years. 122 years is a drop in the bucket as for history and records. In July this year, many parts of Australia had the coldest July ever recorded, but you hear nothing from climate activists about that. They love only the warming and hot parts.
That is how climate change activists work. They tell lies, use distortions, use partial truths, and coat all they say with lots of alarmism and emotive language. (Not all of India had the highest temperature since 1901 – the NW section did.) The whole article in National Geographic was written that way. It is very sad, but this once great Magazine has become the play child of the radical left. If I was not a life member, I would cancel my subscription.
FINDING FROM RESEARCHERS
Just after I started writing this article, a very revealing video appeared on YouTube that was previously on Sky News Australia. “It is called “Report finds ‘no evidence’ of a climate emergency.” That is the conclusion of an International Study by Italian Researchers. This is an absolutely top video from the program and runs for 4 and a half minutes.
Sky News Australia has 2.87 million subscribers, many of them American, as Americans can get proper news of America from this channel. It is denied them from the left-wing media in the USA. This video is worth checking out.
Its URL is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7P4zyxM8zc
Sky News Australia (2.87M subscribers): “An international study has found that there is ‘no evidence’ of a climate emergency,” says Sky News host Chris Smith.
Don’t forget, Germany went down the path of climate change fanaticism and shut its power stations. Then they wanted Russian gas, but then Russia closed off the gas. Now Germany freezes. This is the stupidity of blindfolding yourself with an ideology from the WEF and unproven – a hoax. I think God is allowing us to see what a hoax/delusion is like before the Rapture, and we can appreciate how bad it will be after the Rapture, but Christians will not be here.
I was not going to make this long, and this is enough for now.
Just one closing thought – Those who deceive others are themselves deceived in the first place.