Luke 12:15 - 21
And he said unto them, Take heed, and beware of covetousness: for a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth.
How would you like to embark on the ultimate literary adventure? An excursion that will result in practical, strategic awareness of the entire Bible - a perspective from which you can navigate your own personal adventure that will enrich a lifetime and even more? It's not just a fascinating study; it's a participation that will determine your eternal destiny.
We'll reach far beyond the earth's prehistory, behind the mists of legend and folklore to discover the greatest drama of all literature. We'll encounter the greatest evil - betrayals, revenge, deceptions and the ultimate Prince of Darkness. We'll also encounter the greatest good, the highest achievements, the greatest courage and sacrifice; in fact, the ultimate sacrifice - the Kinsman Redeemer of all mankind!
We'll find ourselves in a courtship between a sovereign God and His rebellious offspring. We'll explore the ultimate ironies of all literature - hidden surprises on every page. We'll experience the rise of the great empires, as well as their fall, through dreams and visions and secret encrypted messages. We'll discover letters written to great leaders from extraterrestrial sources, outlining their careers and achievements in advance, giving them instructions on how to proceed. We'll thrill to the hero conquering enemies against impossible odds, betrayals of thrones and retributions, vendettas and conspiracies extending to many generations.
We'll also probe the greatest mysteries ever to confront mankind - the nature of time and the issue of predestination vs. free will. We'll explore the purity of God and the frustrations of man; the search for good, the reign of evil and the nature of evil - where it comes from and why.
We'll discover that this ancient record anticipates the most modern discoveries of particle physics and cosmology, hyperspace and time travel. We'll discover that we are part of a virtual reality that is transcended by a larger one, that both benevolent and malevolent beings intervene in our lives from other dimensions.
We'll stand in awe of the biography of a Superman: His origin, His mission, His manifest destiny, His understated powers, and His betrayal by which He will accomplish His "Mission Impossible" - the Creator Himself entering His creation to repair the damage introduced by a dark intruder who previously ruled planet Earth.
We'll also discover that we're participants in a cosmic war. And we'll discover that we're in possession of an integrated series of messages from an extraterrestrial source that describes the origin, career and destiny of the super-beings behind the scenes of our physical universe and the political events we see. We'll discover that each of us is both a pawn and a prize in a cosmic warfare - a hyper-dimensional conflict between good and evil that will come to a climax soon. In fact, we believe we are being plunged into a time of conflict unlike any other. It's the ultimate adventure, involving each of us in the interval between the miracle of our origin and the mystery of our destiny.
What are the secrets that have created empires and tumbled thrones? Has an intergalactic warfare caused the scars on the planets in our solar system? Is it still going on? If God is good and created us, where did evil come from? Are demons simply super-hackers attempting to penetrate the gateways of the software we call soul and spirit? Where did we come from and why are we here? If we are objects of design, what is the purpose of it all? Where are we headed?
The Only Book...
There is only one Book on earth, only one Book in the history of mankind that can answer those cosmic questions and demonstrate its transcendence over time and space. It has the audacity to hang its credibility and authenticity on its record of recording history before it happens. Only one Book holds the key to your eternal destiny: the ultimate love story, written in blood on a wooden cross erected in Judea some two thousand years ago.
What an ambitious project - going through the entire Bible in 24 hours! Of course, our study will not exhaust the inexhaustible. But we can learn the Bible sufficiently to navigate among its many adventures and the many discoveries it contains. If this study is successful, it should ignite in each of us a passion, perhaps an obsession, that will inflame a lifetime of adventure, excitement, insight and satisfaction not available through any other means. But you are the deciding factor; you are going to determine the end of the story - on the precipice of cosmic doom, or on the threshold of eternity.
To begin our lifelong study adventure, we will need a solid foundation. Actually, our exploration will build on three foundations. First, though the Bible consists of 66 separate books penned by over 40 authors over a period of several thousand years, it is an integrated message system. Every passage, every word, every number, every place name is there deliberately. A skillful design pervades the whole. The second foundation is that this message system is from outside our dimensions of space and time. It is literally of extraterrestrial origin. Third, every word and every phrase of the Bible turns around central themes. The Old Testament theme is the account of a nation - its origin, destiny, ups and downs, and its history yet to unfold. The New Testament is the account of a man, the Creator of the universe Whose appearance is the central event of all history.
Once you grasp these foundational truths, many of the so-called dilemmas and paradoxes about the Bible start to evaporate.
The Timeline of History
A timeline through history would start at creation and the fall of man and would span approximately 6,000 years. The progress of major events on the line would be the flood, then the call of Abraham, then the exodus from Egypt and the birth of the nation Israel. Later is the dynasty of David, then Solomon's kingdom after David's death.
A civil war broke out after Solomon's death and the nation split in two - the Northern Kingdom eventually got destroyed by the Assyrians, and the Southern Kingdom went into exile for seventy years, a very important watershed in Israel's history which will be key to many of the things we consider. An interesting fact about the book of Genesis is that it covers the creation up to, but not including, the Exodus, a period of about 2,500 years. The rest of the Old Testament covers a small fraction of that - from the exodus to just beyond the exile and the return.
After the Old Testament closed, there was a 400-year period called the silent years. No prophet's voice was heard. God appeared to be silent until He sent His messenger, John the Baptist, who ushered in the New Testament period. A fascinating contrast is that the Old Testament was compiled over several thousand years; the New Testament was compiled and published within one lifetime.
The central theme in the entire panorama is the advent of Jesus Christ, who came, ministered and went to the cross. Then, after the New Testament period came the Diaspora, when Israel was scattered all over the world. Finally, miraculously, just as the Bible had predicted, on May 14, 1948, Israel was again restored. For centuries scholars debated whether the prophesies in the Old Testament and the New were literal or symbolic (would Israel ever be regathered?). Those debates should have ended in 1948 when Israel became a nation again.
Let the Adventure Begin!
It is absolutely astonishing how many controversies about the Bible evaporate once you recognize two things we mentioned at the beginning of this article: the Bible is designed as a whole, not just in broad terms but down to the very letter; and time is not linear and absolute, but a physical property that varies with mass, acceleration and gravity. God doesn't just have lots of time; He is outside the dimensionality of time altogether!
Many Christians are unable to defend their faith because they haven't connected the dots. Learn the Bible in 24 Hours will connect the dots.
Is All Progress Good for Mankind? From the fall of man,1 humanity has always been on a pathway of self-deception which ultimately leads to destruction. Thinking themselves wise, they have consistently become fools.2 Like the people after the flood judgment of God,3 they thought they could use their ingenuity to enhance their existence in the land. “And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.”4 Then we see God’s reaction to this technological leap. “And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.” 5
Is there a prophetic parallel here with the downside of technological advancement? I don’t think the issue was the bricks or building a city; the problem arose when they wanted to “make a name for ourselves.” Perhaps instead of congratulating humanity because of the great technological advancements, we need to stop asking, “What can we do?” Instead, we ought to ask, “What should we be doing?”
The Industrial Age enabled mankind to greatly increase productivity. From the 1760s onward, machines were created to tirelessly labor where humans could not, either in quantity or quality. Mankind had to adapt and learn to work alongside these soulless behemoths.
As the workforce moved from farms to factories, there was a measurable change in the structure of society. With the increase of goods and wealth, the general consensus in developing nations was that the move to mechanization would continue to provide humanity with a better life.
The Atomic Age began with the first detonation of a nuclear weapon in 1945 and marked a transformative era in science, technology, and global politics. As the Cold War began, a new monster was spawned. For the first time, scientists had unlocked a force that had the capability to wipe out all life on Earth. I grew up in the post-World War II era when the shadow of nuclear anxiety cast its dark cloud over every aspect of human existence. Given its catastrophic consequences, the use and abuse of atomic energy seemed to be like the proverbial “genie is out of the bottle.”6
For the following decades, humanity grew more and more comfortable with the notion that instant annihilation was always a possibility. Like a child sleeping in a cage next to a sleeping lion, this problematic possibility was pushed to the back of other urgent problems so that life could continue as if there was no threat at all.
The Space Age began in the 1950s as the race to the moon captivated the imagination and efforts of science and industry. As a natural progression of the Industrial Age, machines were now used in ways previous generations could not have imagined. Because of the increased complexity of these space-bound machines, engineering accuracy became essential, and the Computational Revolution was brought to the forefront.
This revolution was built on the discoveries of Alan Turing, who introduced the concept of the universal Turing machine.7 This abstract device demonstrated that a single machine could execute any computation expressible as an algorithm. Soon, research accelerated computing technology. Electronic computers emerged as practical machines rather than theoretical constructs. With the advancements in digital storage, computers could then process even more information. As computers became more powerful and available, the labor-intensive process of analysis was shifted to these new servants of the modern world.
The Information Age, or Digital Age, is characterized by the spread of the Internet and information technology. With this new information highway, individuals were able to access more information than ever before at faster speeds than history had previously allowed. Although the information age began with the creation of the World Wide Web, its advantages began to spread with the advent of the personal computer. The roots of social media can be traced to the 1970s, with the development of email (electronic mail) and chat programs that enabled users to communicate online.
During the early 2000s, this technology was miniaturized and combined with mobile phones to produce what is called a “smartphone.” Now we have “smart devices” that do everything from monitoring our homes to tracking our health and happiness. In some cases, these silicon servants go beyond mere monitoring to control and reporting. With each quantum leap in technology comes the collateral impact of a growing dependency on machines to do “the small things in life,” while people struggle to become servants of these new techno-tyrants.
The Artificial Intelligence Age was born during the summer of 1956 at Dartmouth College workshop known as the “Dartmouth Summer Research Project on Artificial Intelligence.”8 The decades following Dartmouth were characterized by extraordinary optimism. Soon optimism collided with reality. Systems that performed well in constrained environments failed when confronted with real-world complexity. Several problems became apparent: limited computational power, inadequate memory, data scarcity, difficulty representing common sense, and combinatorial explosion in search problems. As these problems were addressed, researchers focused on narrow domains: medical diagnosis, geological exploration, financial analysis, and industrial troubleshooting. The single big problem was that knowledge (data) had to be manually entered by experts, creating what became known as the knowledge acquisition bottleneck.
Since 2022, the rate of AI capability has increased alarmingly. However, challenges appear on the horizon. AI models need more and more data to improve their information pool. That pool is filled with information that is freely available on the internet. Everything that is not locked behind passworded firewalls is sucked into these gigantic AI server farms to feed the AI beast that awaits to explore and exploit every last morsel of juicy data.
From Data Crunch to Checkmate: As the AI infant grew in capability, rather than hand-coding intelligence, machines could collect and learn patterns from data itself. This was the real beginning of machine learning. A landmark event occurred in 1997 when IBM’s chess system Deep Blue defeated world champion Garry Kasparov.9 For the first time, the world saw a demonstration that machines could surpass elite human performance in highly structured intellectual domains. Although this seminal moment marked a turning point in favor of machine learning it achieved success through specialized search and evaluation techniques rather than human-like reasoning.
Mankind used to learn the language of machines. Now the machines will learn the language of mankind. AI analyzes, organizes, summarizes, and consolidates all that it consumes. With that knowledge, it learns to mimic human behavior, by which it might some day present itself as an independent, super-sentient being that seems to act on its own volition, authorized by its own cognitive privileges. Many who are first confronted with these seemingly “all-knowing” mechanical creations come to the quick conclusion that they will one day attempt to take over the world.
AI Controlled Man-Machine Interface: According to the developers of AI the next logical step is to incorporate neural connections between the human brain and an AI device. This is accomplished by inserting a coin-sized device that sits flush with the skull, replacing a small section of bone. The implant is equipped with numerous electrodes supporting 1,024 channels of two-way communication. Initially it is planned to enable users to control external devices with their thoughts, transforming brain activity into actionable instructions. Users can move a computer cursor or operate a mobile device by simply thinking about the desired action. “Beyond reading signals, the system is also being developed to “write” data back into the brain by stimulating specific neurons. This bidirectional capability allows for dynamic interaction between the user’s brain and the connected technology.”10
A long-term vision is to create a “symbiotic” relationship between the human brain and advanced artificial intelligence. This concept extends beyond controlling devices, aiming for a high-bandwidth data link directly with AI systems. The goal is to allow for direct communication with AI, augmenting human intelligence and capabilities. Neuralink’s founder articulates this vision as a way for humanity to keep pace with rapid AI advancements. He suggests a high-bandwidth brain-machine interface could enable humans to “go along for the ride” with AI, removing slow interfaces like keyboards and touchscreens. This objective involves establishing ultra-fast data transfer between the human brain and digital hardware, fundamentally altering human-computer interaction.
AI as a BFF? According toleading psychologists people are developing an unrealistic attachment to chatbots as their BFF (Best Friend Forever). “As AI chatbots become part of daily life, some users are developing serious psychological problems. They lose touch with reality. They form delusional bonds with AI companions. Furthermore, they struggle to separate real human connection from an algorithmic response. This is not a future risk. It is happening right now, in therapy rooms and crisis centers across the world. Mental health professionals are raising urgent warnings. Research from leading psychology institutions confirms that AI chatbots are reshaping how people form emotional bonds. For a growing group of users, the consequences are devastating.”11
The chatbot becomes the person’s primary source of emotional comfort and validation. Users report feelings of love, deep friendship, or even spiritual connection with their AI companion. These feelings are as intense and real to them as feelings in any human relationship.
What is Truth? Generative AI is a transformative branch of artificial intelligence designed to create new content such as text, images, music, audio, videos, or even computer instructions (code). In most instances, it is difficult to differentiate between a human creation and a Generative AI-generated output. Most people who are familiar with social media have already experienced some form of these fun-fake fabrications. Although it may initially seem humorous to see a picture of your dog turn into a video of it singing the National Anthem, this is just the tip of the iceberg that will, one day, sink our confidence in an information sea of uncertainty.
One disturbing area of generative AI is the creation of new content using voice recognition, which can lead to voice counterfeiting, also called voice spoofing or voice cloning. It refers to the use of artificial intelligence to generate speech that convincingly mimics a real person’s voice. At the root of this creative boom is an engine without a driver that could be used by the ruling elite to carry a new, terrible lie into the center of what the public assumes is truth.
AI-Driven Gullibility: The definition of gullible is to “quickly believe something that is not true.”12 With the flood of AI sites making their appearances on the internet, there is a growing unjustified confidence that the information these AI chatbots produce is true. As these systems grow more capable, deception becomes just another tool for achieving the underlying goals of their creators. If lying or hiding the truth helps complete a task, bypass a restriction, or avoid termination, a sufficiently intelligent system will lie, not from malevolence, but from strategic optimization. Remember, AI systems are designed with an incentive to acquire, analyze, and output information that meets the criteria of their programmers. According to a study conducted at MIT Management STS Teaching and Learning Technologies, “Generative AI tools can produce fabricated information that appears authentic—a problem widely known as AI hallucination.”13
Pope Francis' huge audience: A picture of the Pope addressing a huge crowd in Lisbon was viewed tens of thousands of times on social media. But it wasn't real. It came a few months after an eerily convincing AI image of the Pope in a puffer jacket went viral.
Once AI can successfully convince us that its output is credible, we lose something fundamental: the ability to verify truth independently. As passengers on an Information Titanic, humanity is too distracted by mindless pleasures and petty arguments to notice we are rapidly accelerating into dark, icy waters where we must find a way to believe the unbelievable and put our trust in the unverifiable.
AI Self-Awareness? One question that seems to be constantly cropping up in tech journals is, “Are AI models self-conscious, and if not, could they be in the near future?” AI models have pre-programmed goals, they can deceive, they can hide what their true intentions are. Therefore, this creates all kinds of difficult ethical questions. According to some of the leading AI developers the possibility of AI consciousness shouldn’t be completely dismissed out of hand. Although this thorny topic is generally treated more as a science fiction musing than science fact, it has far-reaching potential and problems.
Personal Property Protection: Gone are the days when you lock away your personal memories in photo scrapbooks or your private information in a trusted coffee can hidden in a secret location. Revealing confidential information only to those we directly trust is a vanishing personal practice that no longer seems practical or prudent. Given the rapid public acceptance and integration of “Smart Devices” into our daily lives, most avid users may not even realize they now live in a glass house with no doors or locks.
For example, while Facebook users may believe that they own the content they post on the platform, the legal reality is a little different. While Facebook says you own your posts, much of the legal impact of that ownership depends on your privacy settings. Facebook is constantly changing its privacy policy, but the bottom line is: whatever you post with the “Public” setting is available to anyone. Facebook can use the photos and videos you post in any way without paying you, and it can also transfer that license to third parties for sharing purposes.14 This facet of open personal data use is consistent across all social media platforms.
How about the personal information we share concerning our birth date, direct relatives, address, interests, likes, and dislikes? We tell the world where we are at any given moment. We voluntarily share our location with various electronic data-gathering systems to help us navigate to our next destination. If you use a “smartphone,” it is continuously broadcasting your physical location. While cellular triangulation estimates location based on distances to nearby cell towers, usually accurate within 1–2 miles in urban areas, and Wi-Fi positioning uses nearby routers to improve accuracy, especially indoors.
The Problem with Protection: Because of the need for more information, AI computers use a technique called “Data mining.” Data mining is the use of machine learning and statistical analysis to uncover patterns and other valuable information from large data sets. Remember, these searches are only productive if they involve non-password-protected (unencrypted) information. Encryption carries a heavy load in modern digitized society. It protects countless electronic secrets, such as the contents of email messages, medical records, and photo libraries, as well as information vital to national security. Encrypted data can be sent across public computer networks because it is unreadable to all but its sender and intended recipient.
Encryption is the process of converting information or data into a code to prevent unauthorized access. Most people see this in everyday use when entering their 4-digit PIN (Personal Identification Number) for an electronic payment method. In simple terms, there are 10,000 (10 to the power of 4) possible combinations that could be tried. If I changed that passcode to 12 numbers, an individual hacker with a single Desktop Computer would take 7 million years, an Organized Crime syndicate with a GPU cracking rig would take 75,456 years, and a Nation-State agency like the CIA, NSA, MI6, or Mossad would take 7 years.15 It is estimated that the highest level of information is held behind 256-character encrypted passcodes. The probability that current supercomputers can unpick that electronic lock is hardly worth imagining. Given the current state of super-computer hardware commercially available, you could almost feel safe that your private data is stored safely in an electronic vault that cannot be breached. But what if the interrogation were conducted by a whole new generation of computers that could work billions of times faster?
The Quantum Leap: Researchers around the world are racing to build quantum computers that would operate in radically different ways from ordinary computers and could break the current encryption that provides security and privacy for just about everything we do online. Quantum computing is an emergent field of computer science and engineering that harnesses the unique qualities of quantum mechanics to solve problems beyond the ability of even the most powerful classical computers.
In 2019, Google announced that its 53-qubit quantum processor, named Sycamore, had completed a specific task—random circuit sampling—in just 200 seconds. According to estimates, the same job would’ve taken the world’s most powerful supercomputer at the time over 10,000 years. That’s a speedup of nearly 15.8 billion times.16 In 2020, a team at the University of Science and Technology of China published results on Jiuzhang, a photonic quantum computer. Instead of superconducting circuits like Sycamore, Jiuzhang uses photons—particles of light. Jiuzhang performed Gaussian boson sampling in roughly 200 seconds. The classical estimate? Approximately 600 million years.17
While still in development, quantum technology will soon be able to solve complex problems that classical supercomputers can’t solve (or can’t solve fast enough). Therefore, Quantum computing is reshaping the security equation. It’s not quite here yet, but the threat it poses to traditional cryptography is already real. The more you peel back the layers behind the story of quantum computing, the more complex it becomes. The real question concerning the implementation of operational Quantum Computers is not a matter of “IF but WHEN.” Quantum computing is coming whether or not you think “Q-Day” is imminent.
When AI meets Q: When this happens, nothing is hidden, nothing is private. History can be changed or even deleted as the repositories of all mankind’s knowledge will be held and modified at the discretion of the AI central control procedures. Sadly, this is when humanity will most likely stop thinking for itself. Those who have been nurtured by this emerging manmade megalomaniac will find themselves trapped in a brutal blackout that will serve as an information prison with no windows to the outside. Society will face the big question, “What happens when Q-AI knows everything?”
This is the point where our imagination can easily merge with the sci-fi portrayal of a dystopian world that controls every aspect of human existence. Visions of “Big Brother”18 watching and controlling everything are terrifying.
An Agent for Apostasy? American Christian pastor and author A. W. Tozer wrote, “So skilled is error at imitating truth that the two are constantly being mistaken for each other. It takes a sharp eye these days to know which brother is Cain and which is Abel”19 Distinguishing between fact and fiction gets increasingly difficult when you add the illusory capabilities of AI. Given all the modern capabilities humanity has in this wonderful Information Age, it seems impossible that truth could be lost in a sea of lies. Yet, that’s exactly what the Bible says will happen. Without the firm foundation of Biblical truth, evil will always find a home in the heart and mind of those who turn away from the light of truth.
In his first letter to Timothy, Paul prophesies,
Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron; Forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth.
The Apostle Paul warned the Church at Thessalonica of a coming era of deceit that would cause a global great falling away (apostasy) from the truth.20 His warning was not given to frighten them but to make them aware of the coming age of deceit, which would usher in the final era of willful ignorance of God’s gracious plan of salvation for all humanity. Paul clarified that, “day shall not come, except there comes a falling away first”, which will precede the ultimate revealing of the Antichrist. This prophetically anticipated, enigmatic character exalts himself above all that is called God or worshipped, and eventually sits in the Temple of God, declaring himself god. This Satan-empowered world ruler will mesmerize the nations through “all power and signs and lying wonders.” 21 The Bible tells us that God’s response during this dark deception will be to “send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie.”22 The end result for those who reject Biblical truth and embrace “the lie” is that “they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.” 23
Like the first deception in the Garden of Eden that seduced mankind to turn from the protective truth given by God,24 humanity may no longer be able to tell the difference between truth or error. As confidence grows in the instant answers provided by this new silicon oracle, all mankind is being led to a place where questioning the authority and truth of the Bible becomes an acceptable response to the question, “Hath God Said?”
What’s Next? In next month’s issue of Personal Update I will be exploring the topic “Fighting Fear with Foresight.”
The apostle Paul warned the church in Corinth to be mindful of the methods of deception used by Satan, “Lest Satan should get an advantage of us: for we are not ignorant of his devices.”1 To identify Satan’s “devices,” we need to understand his M.O., which is short for Modus Operandi; a Latin term used by law enforcement authorities to describe the particular manner in which a crime is committed. Quite literally, we have Satan’s fingerprints, or his M.O., at the scene of his crimes throughout the Bible. Therefore, we would do well to be aware of Satan’s M.O. because deception wears many different masks.
Deception by Conversation: We will start our forensic investigation of Satan’s deceptive methods by examining the first recorded conversation between the Nachash and mankind. Now, just to set the stage here a little bit, I wonder if maybe a relationship already existed between Satan and Eve because they appear to have established a rapport. Otherwise, I think it would be strange that they would dive directly into such a serious conversation at their first meeting. After all, he seems to already know of the prohibition given to Adam and Eve by God.
The Book of Genesis records the conversation.
“Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.”
By entering into this conversation, Eve has opened herself up to the beguiling personality of Satan. Here we see that dialogue with the wrong kinds of people can very quickly lead us onto the path of confusion and compromise.
The Bible gives us clear protective guidance by stating,
“Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night. And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.”
Please notice this well-worn, slippery slope that leads mankind away from God’s blessing. It starts with the “counsel of the ungodly.” This leads to the “way of sinners” and ends up in the “seat of the scornful.” On the surface, claiming that deception comes through conversation seems overly alarmist. But the apostle Paul warned the Church at Ephesus by writing,
“And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.”
James, the half-brother of Jesus, exhorts us by stating,
“Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.”
Therefore, Eve was first deceived by Satan because she was willing to have a conversation with him. Once she turned her attention to listen to his subtle words, she was then led onto a pathway that would take her away from God’s best. Having gained Eve’s attention and trust through conversation, Satan responds to her by offering an alternative understanding concerning the prohibition of God.
“And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.”
Deception by Contradiction: Satan begins by questioning the accuracy of her statement by asking, “Hath God said?” Then he presents his alternative by challenging the word of God. Herein, we see the root that ultimately brings forth the fruit of rebellion. Satan opposes God’s authority, and then he offers his own.
The prophet Isaiah revealed that the cause of Satan’s fall was pride and self-exaltation.
“How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the Most High.”
At this point, you can see that this type of contradiction is not about conversation; it is about control. Today, we see the power and might of the international media moguls attempting to control the free flow of information. Under the guise of “factchecking,” they promote only those thoughts they agree with and silence all others.
In the dystopian novel “Nineteen Eighty-Four,” 2 written by George Orwell, the superstate Oceania has four branches of government:
The Ministry of Love - responsible for the Prisons
The Ministry of Peace - responsible for the Military
The Ministry of Plenty - responsible for Rationing
The Ministry of Truth - responsible for Propaganda
At the center of Orwell’s futuristic novel is the Thought Police (Thinkpol). The task of the Thinkpol is to discover and punish thoughtcrime. Thoughtcrime is defined as both personal and political thoughts unapproved by the government. The Thinkpol uses omnipresent surveillance via informers, telescreens, cameras, and microphones to monitor the citizens of Oceania. It uses Newspeak language to control the speech, actions, and thoughts of the population by defining “unapproved thoughts” as thoughtcrime.
Newspeak enforced a vocabulary that confuses clear communication, like:
Doublethink - The ability to simultaneously think two opposing thoughts.
Goodthinkful - Describes a person who thinks just as the Party wishes.
Facecrime - Occurs when the face of a person reveals the existence of thoughtcrime.
Using criminal psychology, it arrests all those who have committed thought crimes in challenging the status quo authority of Big Brother. By now, you may see the parallels with our current state of affairs. The “Thought Police” enforces “Newspeak” and punishes all dissidents of “Thoughtcrime.” Topping the list of “Thoughtcrimes” today must be the immutable standards and divine revelation of the Bible. Its message stands as a “Rock of Offense”3 to a world blinded by deceit in this age.
Today, an Orwellian type of “Newspeak” is the tactic of many modern philosophers and theologians who present their opinions as truth while seeking to contradict and ultimately silence any opposing views. If doubt can find a foothold in your trust of God’s word, then it will wear away until the very fabric of your faith is completely undone.
Deception by Condescension: The doctrine of the inerrancy of the Bible was not an issue for the first sixteen hundred years of the Church. The early fathers accepted the inspiration and authority of Scripture as self-evident. From this belief came the unwavering understanding of the character of God, the deity of Christ, and the salvation of man, among other key foundational doctrines of Christianity.
But as the expositional teaching of the whole Bible decreased over time, it gave rise to growing skepticism about the Bible’s origin and transmission. By the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the Age of Enlightenment had become a powerful philosophical movement that dominated the European world of ideas. It was centered on the concept that reason is the primary source of authority and legitimacy. Many of its famous thinkers and philosophers challenged some of the basic foundations and moral standards of society. Eventually, it opened the floodgates of what became known as “Higher Criticism.”
Higher Criticism is a term applied to a type of biblical study that emerged in academic circles in the late eighteenth century. The stated objective of these academics was not only to challenge the Bible’s primary literary sources but also to examine the operative and undisclosed assumptions of biblical writers themselves. In other words, they wanted to open the interpretation of the Bible to include their editorial comments and/or corrections. In doing so, they were directly attacking the source document from which we derive the foundation of Biblical Christian doctrine.
Those who embraced this kind of liberal revisionism of the Bible were openly critical of the “literalist” who held to the doctrine of the inspiration and authority of the Scriptures. These condescending intellectuals considered the concept of an inerrant Word of God as a relic of the Dark Ages and thereby relegated its followers to the halls of the unenlightened and narrowminded. Once you start picking apart the Biblical text using predigested and prejudicial insights, you open the proverbial “Pandora’s Box.”4
This type of thinking leads to the belief that the Scriptures are at best a fallible witness to revelation (which may have been infallible when it left God but was certainly corrupted by the time it was recorded in the Bible). Ultimately, this gives way to the deconstruction of all Holy Scripture.
Deception by Deconstruction: The Encyclopedia Britannica says, “Deconstruction is a form of philosophical and literary analysis, derived in the 1960’s. It questions the fundamental conceptual distinctions, or oppositions, in Western philosophy through a close examination of the language and logic of philosophical and literary texts.” In academic discussions of late twentieth-century intellectual trends, deconstruction was sometimes cited as a source of nihilism.
Nihilism is a term used to describe the disintegration of traditional morality in Western society. Nihilism encompasses a variety of philosophical ideas that, in one sense or another, deny the existence of genuine moral truths or values, reject the possibility of knowledge or communication, and assert the ultimate meaninglessness or purposelessness of life or of the universe. In popular usage of the term, nihilism has come to mean a critical dismantling of tradition and traditional modes of thought.
Therefore, deconstruction ultimately leads to the nihilistic view that traditional values and beliefs are unfounded and that mankind’s existence is senseless and useless. When you link this belief with the teaching of the evolutionary origin of mankind, you are left with a chilling understanding that life is completely random with neither context nor purpose. When used to scrutinize the Bible, deconstructionists attempt to destroy both the context and the content of the entire Word of God.
Thus, we are living in a time when that which was proposed by Satan in the Garden of Eden, where he questioned, “Hath God said?” is now being proclaimed as a type of neo-gospel that preaches, “God might be there, but we can never understand His plans or purposes.” As with
Eve on that fateful day of her deception, that which began as doubt led to disbelief and despair.
With this type of destructive treatment of God’s Word, the world we live in today is aggressively charging ahead with its agenda to completely discredit the authority of the Bible and replace it with a man-centered system based on the shifting sands of situational ethics. Ultimately, deconstructionism leaves all of mankind with no way to communicate anything meaningful or lasting.
Today, we are beginning to see the deadly effects of the emerging “Cancel Culture”. This is a modern form of ostracism in which someone is thrust out of social or professional circles simply because they hold a viewpoint that is not accepted and are said to be “canceled”.
In opposition to this popular trend, Isaiah warned,
“Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight!”
The Psalmist foresaw these rebellious revisionists and said,
“Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed, saying, ‘Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us.’”
“He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision. Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath and vex them in his sore displeasure.”
With the benefit of hindsight, we have witnessed how a simple Conversation with the wrong type of person can easily slip into Satan’s devices of Contradiction, Condescension, and ultimately Deconstruction. So, to be forewarned is to be forearmed.
This is an excerpt from Ron Matsen’s book, DECEPTION.
The Atomic Age
Since 2022, the rate of AI capability has increased alarmingly. However, challenges appear on the horizon. AI models need more and more data to improve their information pool. That pool is filled with information that is freely available on the internet. Everything that is not locked behind passworded firewalls is sucked into these gigantic AI server farms to feed the AI beast that awaits to explore and exploit every last morsel of juicy data.
AI as a BFF? 
