I wanted you to hear Josh Montgomery's sermonette ["Blogging For Truth"] because of the theme that ran right on through it, and it should have been very clear by the time it was over that he was talking about the massive deceptions that have gone on in the world, beginning in the Garden of Eden. But they have never stopped, and that is what is driving this world even today and I want you to be aware of it.
The great bulk of the populations of the Western world are well aware that they are caught in an economic war, and at the same time that they are on the cusp of another war that portends a great deal more actual violence fueled by immigration from the Middle East. It seems that nowhere in the Western world, except in the United States, are the populations even slightly aware that it has been a deliberately-intended focus of a major cultural war, aimed almost entirely at its religion and morality and ethics. The only other area of the Western world in which there is an awareness of this is in Britain. The lack of awareness exists now because this war was already lost in the other nations of the Western world a generation or more ago. Thus, it's not much in the news.
We are now almost 14 years and one month into the 21st century and the cultural devastation is everywhere in the Western world, even though many can't see it. The religious, social, entertainment, economic, and political repercussions are severe and are impacting on almost everybody. A few people complain, but the only change is that the quality of life only gets worse.
I think if we were able to step back in time about 500 or 600 years and be able to view with discernment what was going on in the world then, and then be suddenly transported to this day and age, we would be movingly shocked at the vast decline in quality of life between then and now.
Because of the way that we have been deceptively guided to think, we have a tendency to believe that it is technology that increases the quality of life, making life worth living. But in the long run, technology's improvement in the quality of life is almost negligible.
Here is a question I want you to consider: who had the better quality of life, Abraham and Sarah, who lived in tents, or the distinguished citizens of metropolitan Sodom and Gomorrah, where they had every advantage of the world then? Mankind survived quite well without technology for most of the 6,000 years since Adam and Eve. With careful study, it would not be the technology of our time that would shock us, but the greatly deteriorated quality of life. This is because quality of life is determined by intangible spiritual factors like love, a good marriage, having hope, a firm belief in God (even if the belief is not actually, absolutely true).
For us to judge rightly, we have to break ourselves from the humanistic, evolutionist thinking that mankind is getting better and better. That is a lie, fed by Satan, to support the glittering façade of this failed world.
Do you know what "façade" means? It's derived from a French root that means "face." In architecture, it indicates the face of a building, but in literature, it means an artificial and deceptive front. The truth regarding mankind's state is 180° opposite of what the evolutionists tell us. Mankind is getting worse and worse. According to God, who certainly knows better than any humanist, we are going backwards in the things that matter most in terms of quality of life. II Timothy 3:13 says, "at the end of time, evil men and impostors will grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived." The deceit is intensifying. Be on guard.
Now that is accentuated by Jeremiah 30. God shows that we may very well be living right on into the very worst time in the history of mankind regarding quality of life, and at the same time, we are surrounded by all kinds of technological marvels, most of which we can employ to kill one another more efficiently. Now we can kill by the tens of thousands or even the hundreds of thousands in one fell swoop as we did in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. So much for the quality of life that we have to live when we have to live with that kind of a thought. The quality of life issue was craftily worked into our thinking so that it would slide right into our minds without resistance.
I'm giving this series that I've titled, "Conspiracy Theory," so that we can more clearly conclude for our spiritual well-being that Satan is leading the operations that we are living in and through.
I want you to consider this from Job:
Job 1:12 And the LORD said to Satan, “Behold, all that he has is in your power; only do not lay a hand on his person.” . . .
Job 2:6 And the LORD said to Satan, “Behold, he is in your hand, but spare his life.”
I inserted those verses because I want all of us to see evidence that while Satan is making his efforts to deceive and to destroy and they are intensifying, God also not only has His own plans for how He will use persons and nations, but Satan is limited by God. Even as Satan has the power to very quickly eliminate Job—he could have done it in the blink of an eye—he also has the power to wipe out entire nations, perhaps in the same abbreviated period of time.
Now, God's purpose will stand. Therefore, there is hope despite the fact that, though Satan's powers are far beyond man's, they are even further less than God's. But even as God used Satan before, God will use Satan and is presently doing so in order to bring the Israelitish people here in the Western world to repentance, even as He did with Job then. But we have to live in and through what God permits. God did not excuse Job, and He's not going to excuse us either. And so we can live by faith, confident that we are safe in God's hands, but we cannot live carelessly. We must not live without understanding.
What really struck me in Job's gut-wrenching trial is that Job himself—the godly man—never makes mention of Satan's involvement in what was happening to him. He seems oblivious. Satan is never even brought up until chapters 40 and 41, and when he is brought up, it's God who brings Satan up. In those chapters, He metaphorically mentions Satan in relation to Behemoth, challenging Job, "Let's see if you can overcome him." And then in chapter 41, God directly implies Satan, calling him "the king of the children of pride." "Job, can you overcome him?" In chapter 42, when Job repents, of what did he repent? It tells you in the first four verses. He repented of his lack of knowledge and understanding.
Just remember this: God is warning us in advance, and Satan's reality and his deception is not hidden from us, and we are going to be held accountable for it.
JWR/aws/dcg