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Mesmerized by Deception

Introduction

In his closing remarks regarding an impeachment attempt of President Trump, Rep. Adam Schiff said: “You can’t trust this president to do the right thing – not for one minute, not for one election, not for the sake of our country – you just can’t. He will not change and you know it. A man without character or ethical compass will never find his way.”[1]

• These were not only deceptive charges but actually bordered on slander.
• The Senate later showed that the House impeachment vote was based on fabricated legal indictments. The President was acquitted.

Yet thousands continue to be mesmerized, believing that those charges were correct. Through practice and experience, the Left knows that repetitive false stories can drive emotions to accept them as truth. This can numb one’s thinking, making it impervious to reason, even to objective facts and logic. These techniques have created a “haze of deception that enshrouds our nation.”[2]

• It is stunning how easily people are misled. Tragically, many have limited contact with objective sources.
• The more that truth and right are misconstrued, the darker the understanding of reality.

Jesus addressed the disciples about deception on the Mount of Olives. The psychodynamics of the Olivet discourse are profound. Christ didn’t want future reality to be tarnished. Before He detailed several apocalyptic events, He warned the disciples – and us: “Take heed that no man deceive you” (Matthew 24:4). Man would tinker with the meaning of the future – beware!

• Falsehood enslaves us – it takes us into a black world of deceit. It is less violent than what terrorists fight for – but it is still slavery! It is a slavery of the intellect. We become enslaved to error, evil and fantasy and call it truth and freedom. (Flurry, Gerald; The Philadelphia Trumpet, April 2020, p. 11.)

  Know with precision, the facts. That requires careful study.
• Be endowed with spiritual discernment
  (I Corinthians 2:14) – an absolute requirement.

Paul, in addressing the Thessalonians regarding Christ’s Second Coming, alerted them – and us: “Don’t let anyone deceive you in any way, for that day will not come until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the man doomed to destruction” (II Thessalonians 2:3 – NIV). A deceiver of unprecedented power will be disclosed – clearly leading a religious rebellion against God’s requirements.

In writing to Timothy, Paul additionally noted that in the last days perilous times would come. He then listed why. Among the reasons, people would be “without natural affection” [hard-hearted], “truce breakers,” “false accusers” and “traitors” [deceivers].

• Within those signs, he even noted that they will even penetrate the religious world – the “church.”
• Truth will be altered through mesmerizing compromise. Trustworthy individuals will be difficult to find.

This echoes the Biblical record of Satan’s modus operandi. In an almost unimaginable war in heaven (Revelation 12:7) between Michael (Christ) and His angels and Lucifer (Satan) and His angels, the latter was expelled from heaven (12:8-9). He took with him one third of that heavenly host: “Now the dragon’s tail swept away a third of the stars in heaven and hurled them to the earth” (12:4 – NET). Those giant minds, those angelic beings, who followed the devil, were willfully deceived, being in the stunning light of His presence!

• Satan’s “tail” swept them away from their loyalty to God!
• In prophecy a tail is seen as behind or in the back. It is “hidden.” It symbolizes deception (9:10). Demonic creatures noted in Revelation 9:1-11 are highlighted as using scorpion-like tails to deceive.

The earthly record of Satan, that “old serpent,” began at the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. The same deceptive tactics used in heaven led to Eve’s fall. We imagine:

“Eve's curiosity was aroused. Instead of fleeing from the spot, she listened to hear a serpent talk. It did not occur to her mind that it might be that fallen foe, using the serpent as a medium. It was Satan that spoke, not the serpent.”[3]

“Eve was beguiled [charmed, captivated] by the serpent, and made to believe that God would not do as he had said…. Her experience stood arrayed against the positive command of Jehovah, yet Adam permitted himself to be seduced [allured and snared] by it.”[4] She was mesmerized by deception.

Deception’s Lethal Power
 

Hitler believed that if you tell a lie and repeat it long enough, the masses would believe it. “… in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, … Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation. For the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying. These people know only too well how to use falsehood for the basest purposes.” [5] His leadership was energized by these convictions.

• Sixty million people died because of Hitler.
• He worshiped at the shrine of an evil power and a warped reality.

Hermann Rauschning met several times with Hitler before the war. He left Nazism to resist its malignant barbarianism. In his provocative book, Hitler Speaks, he recalls:

1. “Hitler talked a lot about the ‘psychology of lying.’”[6]
2. He said: “What you tell people in the mass in a receptive state of fanatic devotion will remain. Words received under a hypnotic influence are radical and impervious to every reasonable explanation, … ‘We are now at the end of the Age of Reason’; ‘A new age of magic interpretation of the world is coming, of interpretation in terms of the will and not of intelligence’; ‘There is no such thing as truth either in the moral or the scientific sense.”[7] The masses will accept a different reality through iconic deception.’”

A recent tragic “alteration of truth” occurred in February 2020 when a young Wuhan Chinese physician, Dr. Li Wenliang, sounded the alarm that a new coronavirus infection had been confirmed. Instead of an appreciative and urgent response, he was reprimanded by local authorities for making “untrue comments” and “severely disturbing the social order.” That twisted reality. He died shortly thereafter of Covid-19, as has thousands since.[8]

His alarm could have saved tens of thousands of lives had it been heeded. China’s deception and denial impacted adversely the whole world. At the time of this writing, over 260,000[9] have died of this infection globally.
 

Devoid of the great axioms of Scriptures, self-serving minds drive leadership behavior into destructive paths. The wonders of honor, grace, integrity, and caring become rare commodities. We have been warned: “The principles of truth impressed upon the heart, line upon line and precept upon precept, will produce right action. The Bible contains the searching maxims which God has given to guide men and women, youth and children, through the conflicts of this life to heaven. The prayer of Christ was, ‘Sanctify them through Thy truth: Thy word is truth.’ [John 17:17].”[10]

• The world needs principled and wise leaders who are driven by Biblical standards.
• But how resistant are progressives to them!

Ugly Falsehoods

Left-wing politics in America has batantly created a web of lies that is playing into the minds, especially of young individuals. On a recent Democratic presidential campaign stump, it was stated that this nation was filled with rampant racism and white supremacy (in a nation that is least racist), that the dangers of climate change were imminent (which is false), that there is a cry for the need to adopt many gender identities (totally against God’s creative plans), and to promote women’s reproductive rights (when killing babies is said to be a “right”).[11]

This false image of a demoralized America came under the powerful progressive agenda that America needs greater citizen “rights” (at a time when politicians are restricting religious freedom in the name of Covid-19). The truth of what America really requires is being warped as it reaches impressionable, immature minds. It plays on greed – a universal, self-serving drive.

On April 8, 2020, Pope Francis added an unwarranted suggestion that the coronavirus pandemic could be nature’s response to minimizing the climate change crisis.[12] He used a religious power to create a geopolitical PR opportunity. Nothing factual, simply seizing a vulnerable moment for the world to be attentive to an agenda he calls a “social gospel.”

With dishonest reporting coming from media networks beholden to that largest “Christian” church, societal confusion is destabilizing truth and intelligent choice! Examples:

Culturally, there is an epidemic of men who are sure they want to be women, scores of political leaders who want to eliminate America’s borders, protect criminals, dismantle law enforcement and call for jailed criminals to be released back into society. What is right has become vague. All this chaos makes it ripe for a charismatic leader to bring in tyranny under the guise of restoring cultural stability – which the Bible explicitly says will occur near the end (Revelation 17 and 13)!

For many people, restrained by a moral conscience, such an agenda is counter to reason and driven by evil. There are many “social” excuses forwarded to explain (even defend) such trends. However, our growing chaos, which is splintering society, is coming close to what occurred just before World War II in Europe under Hitler.

Those with an intact moral conscience, however, are not deceived.
 

• Respectable individuals are loyal to a duty that is higher and greater than themselves. They hear and honor what Christ said: “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:6).
• This fidelity to higher Christian principles, common to so many, is the basis for all time-honored, genuine morality and societal harmony, along with its byproducts, individual rights, and liberty.[13]

Painfully, the intensity of resistance to these values was predicted: “And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another” (Matthew 24:10). When individuals are at war with God, they assume the prerogatives of God. The Godless “Left” has assumed the role of defining “truth” and what is best for America. Their spirit is a manipulative, mesmerizing force, trying to remold a society that has historically worked so well.

• Why? To temporarily “make something new,” to “do something publicly,” to quiet the underlying guilt of their dreadful hearts.
• Through deception and coercion, they are trying to bring into existence a “superior reality” that is demonic. Its end is always regressive.
• The rejection of God means that they have concluded that our culture and nation are better void of Biblical ideals.

Other Gods

Organized religion is waning, except mainly belief systems that appeal to emotions and/or promise good earthly fortune.”

• Additionally, many people are looking for “churches” that are neutral in lifestyle requirements – and
• Which have a mixture of tradition and alternative worship experiences – many of which minimize referencing God or standards.
• The “alternative” worship that seems most attractive is a lively and a deeply sensory experience with minimal commitments.

The fictional faith that was observed by the “good individuals” in Star Wars (Jediism) was also magnetic, becoming the fourth largest religion in the UK in 2001. It had 400,000 followers. In the U.S., its adherents were unknown because it was not considered a religion, and therefore, not counted, yet it was assumed the following was huge. Such mysticism still attracts tens of thousands toying with the occult.

• Perhaps the most fascinating and tragic of all modern trends is the “spiritualization” of geopolitical issues.
• Culturally, they are promoted as a “system of right,” which has no other “God” beyond the issue.
• Like a church, they are trying to bring a sense of “community.”

One such “church” has the “witness of climatology,” invented to foster greater commitment to planet earth.[14] It, however, requires coercive measures to work.

Another matter of mounting interest is the declaration that political “Leftism is a religion,” recently identified as “the world’s deadliest religion” because human life is so easily sacrificed.[15]

In early “October, 2019, Pastor Robert Jeffress, head of the 13,000-member First Baptist Dallas Church and part of President Trump’s Evangelical Advisory Board, said of today’s Democrats: ‘Apparently the god they worship is the pagan god of the Old Testament, Moloch, who allowed for child sacrifice.’ Other conservatives have pointed out the same thing – that the modern phenomenon of Americans killing their babies, one every 30 seconds, for the sake of having a ‘better life’ is strikingly parallel to the ancient practice of sacrificing newborn children to pagan gods like Moloch in return for supposed blessings and prosperity.”[16]
 

“Attorney General William Barr pointed out the haunting religious dimension of leftism during a November 2019 speech to the Federalist Society in Washington, D.C.: ‘In any age, the so-called progressives treat politics as their religion. Their holy mission is to use the coercive power of the state to remake man and society in their own image, according to an abstract ideal of perfection. Whatever means they use are therefore justified because, by definition, they are a virtuous people pursuing a deific end.’”[17]

David Kupelian brilliantly observes:

“As far as its moral code, the left is in total rebellion against the Laws of God as laid out in the Holy Bible. This is no exaggeration. The left systematically violates the Ten Commandments all day, every day. Some examples:

• 6^th COMMANDMENT – ‘Thou shalt not kill’: In today’s America, more than 3,000 innocent babies each day are slain in their mothers’ wombs, thanks to the legalization of abortion which was entirely the work of the left.
• 7^th COMMANDMENT – ‘Thou shalt not commit adultery’: The ever-metastasizing ‘sexual revolution’ that started in the 1960s, including the Pandora’s Box of tragedies and disasters it unleashed is, once again, entirely the work of the left.
• 8^th COMMANDMENT – ‘Thou shalt not steal’: Whether one calls it ‘socialism,’ ‘wealth redistribution’ or ‘free healthcare,’ ‘free college tuition,’ ‘guaranteed annual income’ and so on, it amounts to stealing from one group and giving the spoils to another – in exchange for power over everyone.
• 9^th COMMANDMENT – ‘Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor’: The left violates this commandment continually with its nonstop accusing, denigrating, defaming, demonizing, lying about, boycotting, and suing conservatives, Christians and others who oppose their destructive policies.
• 10^th COMMANDMENT – ‘thou salt not covet’: What we euphemistically call ‘socialism’ is entirely dependent on encouraging, promoting, and enlarging envy and covetousness among the population. Hating ‘the rich’ is literally the basis of left-wing revolutions. (Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has repeatedly insisted that billionaires should not be allowed to exist.)

“Nevertheless,” Kupelian goes on to say, regardless of the sinful behaviors that are justified, encouraged and blessed by the religion of leftism’s high priests, there is still an overwhelming need to feel virtuous and moral.

“Whereas sincere Christians’ desire for restored innocence, or redemption, from a life of sin and brokenness is fulfilled by being ‘grafted in to the true vine’ of Christ through repentance and faith, for the hard left, redemption is obtained by being initiated into the cult of victimhood.

“Being a victim is the closest thing the left has to innocence, and this strange form of ‘redemption’ is currently sweeping the country.”[18]

Rush Limbaugh said on his radio program October 16, 2019, alluding to the Democratic leadership supporting the Freedom from Religion organization: “They don’t believe in God, don’t believe in Jesus, don’t believe in heaven or hell. They don’t believe anything exists beyond themselves.”[19]

What Started this Divide? Notice these profound insights from Christopher Caldwell, senior fellow at the Clairmont Institute:

The Vietnam War created a “class system.” The student deferment program led to an elitist group for those attending colleges and universities. With the unpopular war, which we lost, those who were sent became a disfavored class. That is why so many troops were unwelcome when they returned to America’s shores!

Additionally, a dangerous “partisan polarization” had started with the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It divided the country. It gave birth to a “second constitution.”

• It did not pull the country together but apart.
• The mechanisms that were established to end segregation gave Washington authority to override democratic institutions.

Though set in motion as temporary laws that were narrowly focused, they remained and have become the most powerful part of government.

• It concentrated unprecedented power in Washington.
• It created new crimes, outlawing discrimination in every walk of life (public and private).
• It changed the meaning of the freedom of association (First Amendment).

It established agencies to hunt down those “new crimes.” “It exposed every corner of American social, economic and political life to direction from bureaucrats and judges.”

• A system of racial preferences for non-whites emerged.
• From employment to student applications, decisions were based on race rather than qualifications.

These liberal “principles” soon moved to women’s rights, illegals as a favored class, gender diversity, inclusive liberal voting laws, all leading to Constitutional compromise. Emergency powers were granted judges and bureaucrats to override the Constitutional orders.

1. Such emergencies could be declared on a “moral basis” (people suffering, they are poor, they don’t have the right treatment, or they don’t have enough food). They are “victims,” therefore, someone is to blame. They need the government’s help.
2. The educational system became bent on training young minds in “gender fluidity,” immoral behavior or the freedom to live as one desires, blocking the possibility to resist this because it would undermine their civil rights. Christian convictions and living in a morally stable society were minimized or rejected. [20]

An irrevocable change has come to the very character of this democracy. Tragically, there will be no turning back! (Revelation 13 predicts where this will lead – another study). Coercion into an even more warped mold lies ahead.

“When human beings reject God’s truth, they start worshiping their own opinions. They start thinking like Satan. When this type of thinking becomes entrenched enough, people stop even caring about the difference between true and false. They start trying to magically ‘create reality where no reality is.’ …

“SUCH REASONING PAVES THE WAY FOR TYRANTS! Tyrants hate facts and truths that limit their power.”[21]

A Ploy to Deceive

In mid-February 2019, Pope Francis asked thousands in Saint Peter’s Square to pray for the leaders of all the up-and-coming Bishops’ Conferences. They would be meeting, according to the Pope, in an “act of forceful pastoral responsibility to discuss protection of minors in the Church,” a veiled wording for the Church’s sexual exploitation of its young parishioners.

• Cardinal Theodore McCarrick had recently been found guilty of serial homosexual abuse. A “change” must come into the Church’s structure at the highest level to deal with this problem, thus this “pastoral committee.”
• Yet, Francis had been slow to act on McCarrick’s case, having known of his crimes at least five years previously. These types of “conferences” have become a façade to make it appear that “something is being done.”

They are doomed to failure because of the extensive homosexual culture in that Church.

• Condemning the abuse, claiming to sympathize with the victims without addressing its root causes, has only perpetuated the problem.
• Glossing over each crime has become the norm for over 20,000 cases. Yet, the Vatican City State has no policy on its books to protect children or require reporting of sex crimes to police.[22]
• Despite the window-dressing, Pope Francis uses notorious homosexuals as his advisors and collaborators.[23]

An “icon for morality” rises no higher than the depravity it is surrounded by. Yet, Rome is still looked to as a center for morality. People are blinded by its deception. Its wealth, marvelous architecture, power, and mystical-looking priests have mesmerized the masses.

“America – How You Need Help!”

A quiet revolution is underway to adversely change the United States by the end of 2020. American freedom is at stake. Conservatives, Republicans, and Christians, along with President Trump, are enemies to the deceptive radicalization within the United States.

• A disturbing blight on truth persistently comes from ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, the New York Times and The Washington Post, as their deceptive passion promotes “fake news.” Their programing and articles give little context to their “facts.” In each narrative there is an obvious lack of a comprehension as to the nature of evil!
• The powerful Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) also has an “unseen deceptive hand,” impacting this nation. It spends millions to manipulate public opinion toward socialism. They collaborate with Google, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Amazon, and Apple – together, all functioning as an evil cartel.[24]

They are supporting an agenda that includes the elimination or alteration of conservative internet news sites.[25] Will Christianity be culled out or attacked next? Many have recently noted the radical left-wing change that the once conservative Matt Drudge’s news site has made in the past few weeks.

In addition, through hoaxes, the SPLC has now identified nearly 400 conservative sites (many religious) as being involved with their definition of “hate crimes.” This has strengthened the power of the elites. They often reference their “list,” influencing cultural thought and clothe liberal news with a “moral superiority” over what is right.[26]

The Covid-19 Deception

As the concern for Covid-19 virus out of China (first identified in November 2019) grew, Chinese authorities ordered Covid-19 virus samples to be destroyed. Then the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Hua Chunying, began to blame the United States for the virus.

• Instead of focusing on the need for a global pandemic effort, The World Health Organization’s (WHO) Director-General, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, in turn, began to gloss over China’s human rights concerns.
• He applauded Beijing’s handling of the pandemic.

Then, many national leaders (globally) began to question why Tedros delayed so long in alerting the world’s countries of the virus! It has now become apparent that China itself was complicit in announcing the crisis. Then the WHO deepened the coverup. This helped politicize the pandemic. Many Chinese whistleblowers were detained; some have disappeared.

• As China knowingly misled the world –
• Tedros publicly praised that country for its “transparency.”[27]

Adding to the plots and ploys is the deceptive smear by the Democrats of the President that “Trump wasn’t prepared to handle the virus.” Both Joe Biden and Michael Bloomberg inappropriately claimed that the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the National Institutes of Health were defunded by President Trump, making it impossible to meet the Covid-19 crisis.

• An AP Fact Check showed that Trump actually had increased funds for both agencies.
• Complementary Johns Hopkins University said that the United States was the most prepared country in the world for the pandemic.

Then that left-wing party switched tactics and claimed that Trump “didn’t act quickly enough.” Reality shows that within three weeks of the virus detection in the U.S (January 31, 2020), Trump declared a national “public health emergency.”[28]

Political deception is more than the promotion of party issues – one group is pushing an agenda, clearly aimed at undermining democratic ideals within America.

The Trajectory

From a passion to “remake” America, projecting blame on anything but the cause, and through deceiving minds, the “deep state” demonstrates how it thinks – which is devoid of God’s Spirit. The type of change they want repeatedly echoes from history, “It never works, and ends in misery!”   

“Satan is at work now as he worked in Eden, as he has worked through all successive generations. The archfiend knows well with what material he has to deal. He knows the weak points in every character; and if these weak points are not … [addressed], he will display his infernal wisdom in his devices to overthrow the very strongest men, princes in the army of Israel. All along through successive generations are wrecks of character which have been destroyed, because the soul was not garrisoned. And now as we near the close of time, Satan will work with masterly activity to undermine principle, and corrupt moral character.”[29]

Reflect: It is not always what we desire but what God permits in earth’s final saga. Christians must fully understand that Scripture is clear: The forces of evil will seem to be winning as we approach the end of earth’s history. In fact, they will have controlling power – for a short while. We are witnessing an early and significant sign that the end is approaching.

Prophecy of apostasy and action of the antichrist before Christ comes.

• “… shall wear out the saints of the most High” (Daniel 7:25).
• “He shall destroy wonderfully, and shall prosper and practice, and shall destroy the mighty and the holy people” (Daniel 8:24).
• “And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect’s [God’s chosen – Mark 13:20] sake those days shall be shortened” (Matthew 24:23).
• “And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations” (Revelation 13:7).

The Biblical examples are numerous. It is important to observe that God makes it abundantly clear that those horrors are time limited! An earthly utopian world will not occur until there is a new heaven and a new earth (Revelation 21:1). Peter passionately asks us to refocus our hopes when he says: “Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness” (II Peter 3:13).

• God’s desire is that His pristine, yet painful, plan will have redemptive value – for eternity.
• His method of operating perfects a dependency on Him!
• It develops character and resolve that will permit us to soon enjoy the company of angels.

This world’s apocalyptic saga has not yet been completely unfolded. God simply desires us to accept what He has planned, temper our hopes with His revealed will and studiously merge with what He has so graciously shown lies ahead.

• God works miracles on the heart through suffering and uncertainty (James 1:2-3, 12).
• Those miracles will, in turn, bring to many the conviction that the eternal hope through a Savior offers the greatest security.
• At the end, Christ and His followers win! Stay faithful!

Franklin S. Fowler; Jr.; M.D.
Prophecy Research Initiative – non-profit 501(c)3 © 2020
EndTime Issues…; Number 237; May 7, 2020

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