(What is your perception of reality?)
All throughout the course of time, the idea of magic has had an appeal to mankind. So what exactly is magic? First, magic can be the use of charms, spells, or rituals to attempt to produce supernatural effects or control events in nature. Black magic is traditionally understood to be the use of magic for manevolent (evil) purposes, while white magic is supposed to be good (healing, blessing, etc.) Do you remember Glinda the good witch in The Wizard of Oz? She represents white magic. In actuality, all forms of magic are evil. The Bible strictly prohibits the use of magic in any form, and strongly condemns sorcery of any kind. (Deuteronomy 18:9-11, Acts 8:9-13, Galatians 5:19-21)
Secondly, magic can be understood as sleight of hand or conjuring, as in making something seem to appear or disappear. This is primarily a form of entertainment. (Pulling the rabbit out of the hat, etc.) This second form of magic is what I primarily want to focus on right now, not in the sense of entertainment, but the manipulation of words, visual images, video, etc. that make things that are not real appear to be real, or the distortion of something that is real to make it appear as something that does not reflect reality.
Anyone who is familiar with Photo-Shop, a graphic image manipulation software, knows how anyone trained to use the software can drastically change any image. Many times images of models are changed to “correct” the undesirable aspects of the image. An image of an aged woman can be manipulated to make her appear much younger. Images of fast-food are often manipulated in advertisements to make the food appear more desirable. How many times have you seen an image of some new food item, a new chicken sandwich or hamburger that looks so good you want to go try it, and then realize when you get your order that the chicken sandwich, or whatever it is, it is not at all like the image that dazzled your senses, and prompted you to go get said item?
In 2 Thessalonians, chapter 2, verses 11-12 (KJV) we read these words from the Apostle Paul:
And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: that they all might be damned who believe not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.
Let’s stop for a moment and consider the word delusion. Merriam-Webster defines delusion as follows:
Something that is falsely or delusively believed or propagated.
psychology : a persistent false psychotic belief regarding the self or persons or objects outside the self that is maintained despite indisputable evidence to the contrary.
Notice the use of the word “propagated” as in “propaganda”. Propaganda is the intentional use of falsified information for the purpose of tricking people into believing something that is not true, in other words, the same thing as entertainment magic, (strong delusion). Does that sound like anything you have witnessed from many current media sources lately? It does for me. I feel like I can’t believe 75% of anything I hear on the news anymore.
When Paul starts out his sentence referenced above with the words “for this cause”, the first thing we have to ask is “for what cause?” What preceded the use of these words?
Paul is writing to a church under persecution. (Verse 4: “…in all your persecutions and tribulations that ye endure…”) Paul is reminding them of the time the Lord Jesus Christ will be revealed from Heaven with His mighty angels, the time of the end. God will bring judgement of those who do not obey the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Paul goes on to warn the church about the coming of the anti-Christ, the man of sin (or lawlessness). Aren’t we witnessing an increase of lawlessness in the United States of America in this generation? Cashless bail, the increase of illegal, cartel sponsored aliens across our southern border, increase of crime in metropolitan areas, etc.? Lawlessness is very much on the rise. It is staggering to see so many things going on in our society, that, just a few years back, seemed unimaginable.
Verse 9: “Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs, and lying wonders.” (The Anti-Christ, also referred to as “the man of lawlessness” or in some translations “the man of sin.”
We live in a “photo-shopped” world. Much of what is presented to us as fact and science is not that at all. A simple illustration of this is the recent COVID 19 plannedemic.. Basically everything we were told about COVID 19 and the subsequent so-called vaccines was totally wrong, yet was promoted as if it were proven fact. Masks did not prevent the spread of the virus. Social Distancing did not prevent the spread of the virus. All social distancing accomplished was the destruction of a previously thriving economy. The so-called vaccines, and all the subsequent boosts to those so-called vaccines did not stop the spread. The vaxxed, double boosted and triple boosted still got the virus! We were initially told that the vaccine would keep you from getting COVID 19. Joe Biden stood in front of the camera and proclaimed to the American public that the real pandemic was a pandemic of the “unvaxxed”. People who refused the vaccine lost their jobs and careers. Good, hardworking, honest people were financially ruined. Eventually Joe Biden and Dr. Anthony Fauci both got the virus, despite being vaxxed and boosted. The whole thing was a total lie that brought our economy to its knees. I am not denying that the virus is a real thing. It certainly is. But everything we were told by the so-called experts, namely Dr. Anthony Fauci was disinformation, propaganda and lies. While the average working class men and women just wanted to go about their normal lives, raising their kids, paying their bills, planning for retirement, etc. the pharmaceutical industry grew even richer, and working people were bankrupt. Despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, the pharmaceutical industry is still trying to convince people that then need to continue to be boosted year after year. Fear can make billions for unscrupulous corporations.
There are many things over the course of years that have been presented to the public as if they are fact, when, in fact, they are not. Many things ingrained in our public education system of a theoretical nature are presented as facts, and all opinions to the contrary are ridiculed and given derogatory labels such as conspiracy theory.
Monkeys to Man evolutionism has been being taught in the public education system for over a hundred years now as if it is fact. It is no such thing, and has never been adequately proven as such. If you honestly look at the evidence that is presented as “proof” of the monkeys to man evolution the actual bone evidence is extremely scant, and some of it has been proven to have been falsified. Yet countless museums and documentaries display hypothetical artistic renditions of what the so-called evolving primates to modern-man were supposed to look like, many times constructed with little to no physical evidence other that a jaw bone fragment of “something” and maybe a partial ankle bone from a mile away. That’s it!
Rermember the previously stated definition of delusion: psychology : a persistent false psychotic belief regarding the self or persons or objects outside the self that is maintained despite indisputable evidence to the contrary
When Charles Darwin wrote “On the Origin of Species” in 1859, we knew nothing of DNA and very little of biology, so a cursory observation of people and animals made the idea of primates evolving into mankind seem plausible. The skeletal structures of some primates and humans are similar in some ways. We no longer have the excuse for continuing to promote that easily disputable theory, based on our current understanding of DNA and biology. Also, the idea that “life” sprang from inanimate objects in nature is easily disproven. Yet, because the idea was so widely popularized and publicized it is now continuing to be promoted as “fact” in all of our public education systems. Careers are built on the promotion of anthropological theories. The continued promotion of this theory can rightly be defined as a form of mass psychosis: belief regarding the self or persons or objects outside the self that is maintained despite indisputable evidence to the contrary.
Quotes:
“Evolution is a fairy tale for grown-ups. This theory has helped nothing in the progress of science. It us useless.” Professor Louis Bounoure, Director of Research, National Center of Science Research
“Scientists that go about teaching that evolution is a fact of life are great con-men, and the story they are telling may be the greatest hoax ever. In explaining evolution, we do not have one iota of fact.” Dr. T.N. Tahmisan, Atomic Energy Commission
“One must conclude that, contrary to the established and current wisdom, a scenario describing the genesis of life on earth by chance and natural causes, which can be accepted on the basis of fact and not faith, has not yet been written.” Hubert Yockey, Information Theorist
“In fact, evolution became in a sense a scientific religion, almost all scientists have accepted it and many are prepared to bend their observations to fit in with it.” H.S. Lipson, Professor of Physics, University of Manchester, UK
There is a phenomenon in human behavior and belief referred to as confirmation bias. Simply stated, this is the bias that results from the tendency to process and analyze information in such a way that is supports one’s preexisting ideas and convictions. We all have confirmation bias to some degree. This phenomenon is nowhere more evident than on social media. People read and write things on social media that reflect their own preconceptions. Politicians play into this by telling people what they want to hear. That is why the internet is inundated with polls and surveys. It seems like every time I try to look up something on the internet, before I get to the page, I am first presented with some poll or survey that I have to click out of first.
The sad fact is that careers are based on the perpetuation of false narratives and outright falsehood. Many tenured professors at major universities simply can’t afford to go against the established narrative. Once a falsehood is established in the mainstream, it becomes very difficult to counter.
Many of our current ideas of outer space, or the cosmos are derived, not from factual and provable evidence, but from theories and speculation about things that we can’t experience or actually know. The industry of science fiction, in movies, novels, television shows, etc., is largely the basis for most people’s ideas about outer space. I remember going to see the movie Avatar after it first came out in 2009. It was visually spellbinding! It all appears so real! It absolutely is not. It is a total fantasy, as are all of the movies and television shows that have been made over the years, such as the original Star Trek, Star Wars, and the whole genre of outer space science fiction. The fact is, we know very little about what is “out there”. People like the late Stephen Hawking have speculated and theorized about such things as black holes in space and other strange phenomenon supposedly photographed by the Hubble Telescope and recently the James Webb Telescope. When you look up images from the James Webb Telescope on the internet you are presented with a stunning array of images. The fact is, these images are not real at all. They are digitally enhanced images of the real images received from the telescope. In other words, Photo-shopped. (Probably not actually manipulated with that specific software, but I use that term in a generic sense.) Remember what I said about confirmation bias. NASA wants to present a particular conception of space to the minds of the public, so the real images are digitally enhanced to present that narrative in stunning fashion.
If you doubt the validity of what I am saying, please read the following from Forbes.com (https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamiecartereurope/2022/07/18/yes-nasa-did-manipulate-the-webb-telescopes-first-color-images-last-week/?sh=22d603d3e41a)
Are the Webb telescope images colorized? Are the colors in space photos real? No, they are not. The Webb telescope sees in red. It’s up there specifically to detect infrared light, the faintest and farthest light in the cosmos.
How Webb’s photos are colorized
Webb’s images are moved up the electromagnetic spectrum from a part we can’t perceive into the visible light part that we can see.
They take mono brightness images from Webb using up to 29 different narrowband filters, each of which detects different wavelengths of infrared light. They them assign each filter’s collected light a different visible color, from the reddest red light has the longest wavelength) to blue (which has the shortest wavelength). They then create a composite image.
Children seem to be fascinated by dinosaurs. Movies, cartoons, books, magazines and television shows abound with a plethora of dinosaur stories and images. I remember as a child going to the local museum of science in our area. I was fascinated by the depictions of the lifestyles of dinosaurs and dinosaur models on display throughout the museum. These were, of course, all theoretical artist’s renditions of what they thought the dinosaurs actually looked like when they had flesh. We don’t know what they actually looked like because we were not there to witness any of it. There is no denying, as the skeletal remains prove, that many very large, and very small creatures that are depicted as dinosaurs actually roamed the earth at some point in the past. But we pretend we know a lot more about them than we actually do. As one article on Wikipedia states: “mounted fossil dinosaur skeletons have been major attractions at museums worldwide, and dinosaurs have become an enduring part of popular culture. The large sizes of some dinosaurs, as well as their seemingly monstrous and fantastic nature, have ensured their regular appearance in best-selling books and films, such as Jurassic Park. Persistent public enthusiasm for the animals has resulted in significant funding for dinosaur science, and new discoveries are regularly covered by the media.” In other words, there is a huge amount of money to be made promoting dinosaurs!
It is OK to speculate about things we do not know. That is human nature. The problem occurs when these speculations and theories are taught as if they are proven facts, when, often times, they are not. Over time, these unproven theories become ingrained in the public education system and are taught as if they are fact, instead of simply being presented as theories, as possible explanations for things that we cannot prove with any degree of certainty. Children grow up assuming that the adults that are teaching them know what they are talking about, so they accept things without question.
There are many more things I could use to illustrate my point: Things are not always as they seem. We should always question. Question to learn. Can something you have been taught be proven? Pure science consists of first a hypothesis. Can the hypothesis be proven with tangible evidence? Does it correspond to reality? Is a scientific experiment repeatable with consistent outcome? If not, it remains in the realm of the theoretical, not proven fact. Circle back to the issue of COVID 19 vaccines for a moment. It generally takes a very long time, after massive amounts of testing for any new medical treatment to become mainstream. These types of vaccines were new. They had no track record. They were rushed to market with little to no testing and promoted, and in some cases, forced on people. They were supposed to work, but they did not. And, sadly, they are still being promoted.
It seems to me that the time of “strong delusion” that the Apostle Paul speaks of in his letter to the Thessalonians has begun. Many things people believe to be real, are not real at all. God sends the strong delusion, not in the sense that it originates with Him. It can’t because God is incapable of lying. He sends it in the sense that, in His permissive will, He allows it to happen because people willfully abandon the Truth, which can only be found in His Word. Our society, for the most part, has abandoned the Truth of God’s word, and simply lives as evil men see fit. The only way out of this mess is for men, individually, and collectively to return to the Truth of God’s Word.
Paul writes in 2 Timothy, 4:3-4: “For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.” A myth is a made up story. Star Wars is a made up story! Would you rather hear the Word of God, or the words of George Lucas? George Lucas is not only the founder of Lucasfilm, and LucasArts, he is also the founder of Industrial Light and Magic!
Half-truths, false narratives and straight out lies are promoted for two reasons basically, money and control. I am convinced that the COVID 19 fiasco was planned as an experiment in mass social control. How far can you push people through the manipulation of fear to get them to comply with some preconceived agenda? Governments have used this approach all throughout the course of time so this is nothing unusual, but I do believe we have entered an era in human history where this has grown to fever pitch. Many people feel as if we can no longer believe anything our government, the mainstream news media, or our education system tells us.
My point to all this is that we as individuals must learn to think critically for ourselves and not just blindly accept what is being presented to us by the so-called “experts”, assuming that because they say it, it is true. Does what you have been programmed to believe line up with your own lived reality? Does it resonate in the core of your being as true, or are their questions? Examine those questions. Seek truth in all things, and live by it, even if it costs you your career, and in some cases, your very life.
Jesus said, “For whoever wants to save their life (just getting by in this world’s system of things by going along and being complacent to the lies) will lose it, but whoever loses their life for ME (meaning Christian martyrdom) will find it. What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, (power and wealth) yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul?” (Matthew 16:25-26)
Your soul is the essence of who you are. Your soul is you. You are more than simply a spirit animating a body. Genesis 2:7 says, “Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.” (A soul). We are created as a soul, but it is up to us to maintain our own soul. We can choose to maintain it with truth or with lies. The first man didn’t do so well. God verbally instructed him what to do, and the man chose to believe the lie of Satan (God’s enemy), thus forfeiting the life of his soul. When we choose to believe lies, we forfeit our own soul, so it is imperative that we choose to live by the truth, despite the cacophony of lies that we are constantly bombarded with.
How do we know the truth? Jesus also said, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:16) This may seem like a presumptuous thing for any man to say. Have you ever heard another man proclaim to be the embodiment of truth, other than Jesus Christ? I haven’t, so it would be a presumptuous thing for any man to say unless it actually is true. Anthony Fauci may proclaim that he is the embodiment of “science”, but he has nothing to back up that claim. So Fauci’s claim is hallow. As a matter of fact, he has a very poor track record. Jesus Christ can rightly claim to be the embodiment of truth because He is One with the Father, the Creator of all things. It is impossible for Him to lie. Jesus told His Disciples that He would be crucified by the hands of evil mankind, and then after three days, He would rise from the dead, and that is exactly what happened. They witnessed Him in life after His murder. NO ONE in all human history has ever done that, and never will again. The Apostles and Disciples saw Him after He was resurrected with their own eyes. They so believed the evidence of their own eyes that many of them defied the Roman government’s edict to call no man master and lord other than Ceasar, that they were willing to be put to death, and were, for their proclamation of Jesus Christ as King of kings, Lord of lords, and Master of all Creation.
Do you want to break free from the world system’s spell of lies? Personally, I am sick of being lied to all the time. I made my decision to break free when I was 24 years old, and have never regretted it, because, as Jesus also says, I have eternal life now. My earthly body will wear out and die, but I am promised a new, resurrected body, and eternal life by my Creator, the very one who gives all of us life and breath. You can be too.
Jesus, speaking of Himself, also says, “For You (meaning God, His Father, our Creator) granted Him authority over all people that He might give eternal life to all those You have given Him. Now this is eternal life: that they know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.” (John 17:2-3)
“Very truly I tell you, whoever hears My words and believes Him who sent Me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life. Very truly I tell you, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live.” (John 5:24-25)
How does one start this journey? How does one break free from this Matrix of lies? By joining a church? No, but joining a church can help encourage you in your walk of faith. By being baptized? No, but being baptized is a good way of making an open and public proclamation of your faith. By trying real hard to mend your ways and be good? No, but your nature should be so radically changed that you desire to do good. Then how?
The Apostle Paul lays it out in simple and easily understood words:
“If you declare with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord’ (open and publically declared) and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you WILL BE saved.) and “Everyone who calls on the Name of the Lord will be saved.” (Romans 10:9, 13). Not might be, if they behave perfectly, WILL BE!
Our days are growing short. Every day I live, it seems to me that things in this world’s system are growing worse, and more evil. I would never have imagined, even five years ago, that I would be living in a time when parents would willingly allow strangers to convince their precious children that they are anything other than what they actually are, mutilate their bodies with hormones and irreversible gender transition surgeries, and set them on the path to destruction.
I never thought that my life in a free and fair society would be threatened by a new government that seeks to implement murderous communist ideas on the general public.
I could go on. You get the point. The Bible warns us over and over that the Day of the Lord is coming: judgement. God, in His time, will bring things in this current world’s system to an end. Please don’t be one of the people that is swept away to eternal damnation in the lake of fire, where teeth gnash in agony, the worm does not die, and the fire is never quenched! Today can be your day to turn. None of us are promised tomorrow.
Danny's Stump 