PTNews
March 2017
Published 10 times annually
(Examining Current Events in the Light of Bible Prophecy)
All Bible references are from the KJV
Living in a Culture of Deception
“And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe [the] lie: That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.“ 2 Thessalonians 2:11-12
By Mike Wingfield
You and I are living in a world full of deception. Every time our phone rings we have to be concerned that someone is trying to take advantage of us. When we stop at a stoplight, we see people standing on a corner holding up a sign trying to convince us to give them a donation. We have all heard that some of these people are professional liars who are trying to dupe us into supporting their sinful habit. We have all grown tired of politicians who parade lies before us to get our vote. We have all been deceived at the grocery store, only to discover when we go home that we purchased more air or box than the product we thought we were getting. We have all been given promises by our family and friends, only to be disappointed when they fail to keep their word — for the fourth time in two weeks.
We are surrounded by liars. These include those in the media, political arena (international, federal, state, and local), educational and scientific fields of the academic world, medical profession and pharmaceutical industry, FDA, and the spiritual frauds that parade themselves as messengers of God. In order to survive and thrive in this kind of world, we must rely upon the wisdom that comes from the Bible. The discernment between lies and truth comes only when we hold everyone and everything up to the standard of truth — God and His revelation, the Bible. God is a God of truth. He cannot tell a lie! Therefore, only the Bible can give us wisdom to strip away the deception so we can clearly see the truth!
Unfortunately, we live in a world where many people do not know the truth. They do not want to know the truth. They want to live and promote their lies to their own selfish advantage. Adolf Hitler, who was the leader of the Nazi Party and chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, is a prime example of this fact. He searched for lies to promote His goals and promoted them with great passion. He once said; “If you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed.” (http://www.goodreads.com) download the .pdf file 
Many Americans’ lives are currently being dominated by the eight following big lies of our time: 1. Our world is the present result of billions of years of evolution. 2. Islam is a religion of peace. 3. The unborn fetus is only the tissue of the mother. 4. Homosexuality is genetically hardwired into people. 5. Socialism is better than capitalism and democracy. 6. The U.S. constitution calls for a separation of church and state. 7. Man-made emissions are the major cause of dangerous levels of global climate change. 8. The Bible is not reliable. You can add many more to this list. However, these lies are repeated by certain people to promote their self-centered agenda. All of these lies and liars stand in direct opposition to God and the Word of truth.
Most people in our culture are not convicted of their sinful lifestyle of lying. They are like those mentioned in 1 Timothy 4:2 who have departed from the truth and are “speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron.” They love and believe their own lies.
The message of the Bible is clear. God hates all lies and deception. “Lying lips are abomination to the LORD: but they that deal truly are his delight.” (Proverbs 12:22) In Proverbs 6:16-19, God lists seven things that He hates. Two of these seven are the sin of lying. God says that “a lying tongue , and … A false witness that speaks lies” are “an abomination unto him.” (Proverbs 6:16-17, 19) This solemn warning comes in Revelation 21:8: “all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.”
Why does God hate lying so much? Lying goes against God’s character of flawless truth. According to the Bible, God is the “LORD God of truth.” (Psalm 31:5) When Jesus prayed for us in His high priestly prayer, He requested that we might know that His Father is “the only true God.” (John 17:3) These declarations are filled with meaning that is essential to our faith. It means that the God of the Bible is the only genuine God. All other gods really do not exist. They are fakes and frauds created by Satan and his demons. To say that God is true also affirms that God is all that He needs to be. As God, He is infinitely perfect and complete within Himself.
To say that God is true is to acknowledge that His words are reality — the way things really are. The Bible is God’s statement about the reality of His character, words, and actions. While praying, Jesus said to His Father, “Thy word is truth.” (John 17:17) This proclaims that Bible is God’s revelation about reality, which is grounded in the very nature of God. If God were to lie, it would be the end of the God of the Bible. Notice that Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” (John 14:6) Truth and life are married to each other in the very nature of God. God and His Word are the flawless, eternal, universal standard. This truth is replicated throughout God’s creation. The material universe is anchored in the unchanging nature of the God of truth. The creation is filled with complex order. The DNA structure of organisms, the atoms in all elements, and the millions of galaxies exist in a predictable order. Without this order the creation would cease to exist. Likewise, the moral standards recorded in the Bible are grounded in the very nature of the God of truth. God’s declaration of good and evil is based upon His unchanging, eternal nature. Therefore, God’s moral standards are for all people of all ages. God has designed His creation to self-destruct when these moral standards are violated. Obedience brings life, while disobedience brings death. (Deuteronomy 30:15-19) This is a foundational truth that is being ignored or challenged in our day. When man attempts to alter or modify God’s truth, he is making arrangements for his funeral and ultimate sentence on the judgment day.
When people lie, they are putting themselves, and all others who hear them, in jeopardy of believing and following a deadly falsehood. We become what we think. “For as a he thinketh in his heart, so is he.” (Proverbs 23:7) When we lie, we are opposing God and His truth. And, we are joining rank with the author of lies, the devil. Speaking of the devil, Jesus said: “He as a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.” (John 8:44) Those who endorse a lifestyle of deception and lies are promoting Satan’s kingdom of darkness! They are promoters of immorality, wickedness, and death.
According to the prophetic Word of God, the end of this age will be characterized as a time of dangerous spiritual deception! In Matthew 24:4-5, notice Jesus’ first response to the disciples’ question about the end of this age: “Take heed that no man deceive you. For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ: and shall deceive many.” In verses 24 25, He continued: “For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect. Behold, I have told you before.” According to Romans 1, when a culture has departed from God and has descended to the spiritual point of no return, they will change “the truth of God into a lie.” (verse 25) They invert reality. They are unknowingly, attempting to alter the foundational nature of God, making Him a liar! This is at the heart of Satan’s efforts to defeat and dethrone God. In the beginning, when Satan tempted Eve, he basically called God a liar. (Genesis 3:1-5) The Lord has made thousands of prophetic statements about Israel at the end of the age. Satan’s goal is to destroy Israel so that God’s Word will fail, making God a liar. So, when people lie, they are joining with the father of lies.
Recently, Pope Francis began promoting the lie that the God of the Bible and Allah are one and the same. This is a lie! The stated character and goals of God and Allah are very different. They cannot be the same. He also stated that the Bible and Koran are both divine holy books. Anyone who has seriously compared the doctrines of the Bible with the doctrines of the Koran knows that making these claims is absurd! These kinds of lies illustrate the dangerous climate of deception in our times. These lies are promoting the damnation of millions of souls on earth.
Satan has a master plan of deception for the nations at the end of this age. In the final book of the Bible, Satan is known as the one who deceives “the whole world.” (Revelation 12:9) Satan’s deception will be so successful, that the Lord will lock him away so “that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled.” (Revelation 20:3) Satan and his demons will be bound and cast into the bottomless pit for the entire millennial reign of Christ on earth. However, “when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, And shall go out to deceive the nations…” (Revelation 20:7-8)
Satan’s greatest hour of deception will take place with his false messiah – the Antichrist. His appearance will be accompanied by “lying wonders.” (2 Thessalonians 2:9) He and his false prophet will perform many miracles that will deceive the entire world. (Revelation 13:11-15) As a result, the overwhelming majority of the world will believe the Antichrist is God, and consequently, they will worship him. (Revelation 13:8)
Friends, we need to understand that this growing spirit of deception in our age is preparing our world for the greatest lie perpetrated upon mankind since the Garden of Eden. Our world is being conditioned to believe the lie of the Antichrist that will take place during the Tribulation Period. In an amazing text, written by the Apostle Paul almost 2,000 years ago, the Lord revealed to him in 2 Thessalonians 2:8-12, three reasons why the world will believe the damning lie that the Antichrist is God. While these verses will take place during the Tribulation Period, we are now experiencing a culture of deception that is laying the foundation for this dangerous period of time. Let us examine these three reasons that will promote this deception:
Reason #1: They Love their Sin
All pleasure is not sinful; but all sin is filled with pleasure for self! There is pleasure in sin “for a season.” (Hebrews 11:25) Because of its temporary gratification, sin always has an appeal to our sinful nature that is bent on pleasing self rather than believing and obeying God. Sin is “the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.” (1 John 2:16) We live in a world that is suppressing “the truth in unrighteous.” (Romans 1:18) According to Romans 1:18-32, the culture that suppresses God’s truth to cling to its sinful pleasures will reach a point where their conscience is “darkened.” (verse 21) As a result of a seared conscience, God will give over this generation “to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonor their own bodies between themselves: Who changed the truth of God into a lie…” (verses 24-25) The end result is lesbianism (verse 26) and homosexuality (verse 27), accompanied by a physical penalty [sexually-transmitted diseases] (verse 27) due to their defiant rebellion against the moral truth of God. The proliferation of this kind of lifestyle in the last days will create “perilous times.” (2 Timothy 3:1) These dangerous days are attributed to a self-centered lifestyle that leads people to be “lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God.” (2 Timothy 3:4)
This kind of society that is bent on the pleasures of sin will set the stage for the lawless one, the Antichrist. Notice that in 2 Thessalonians 2 it is revealed that those who will be deceived and follow the Antichrist in the Tribulation Period will do so because of “all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them.” (verse 10) Verse 12 clearly indicts them as those who “had pleasure in unrighteousness.” Friends, it is clear that we have arrived at this hour!
Reason #2- Their Lack of Love for the Truth
Another reason why the terminal generation of the Tribulation Period will follow the deception of the Antichrist is because they have no desire to believe or know the truth. (2 Thessalonians 2:8-12) These people are described as those who “received not the love of the truth” (verse 10), and “believed not the truth.” (Verse 12) These people ignore their conscience and God’s revealed truth because they have made a willful decision that the pleasure of sin is more important to them than knowing and submitting to God’s truth. Eventually, they arrive at the place where they hate God and His truth. (Romans 1:30) They are filled with wickedness, and militantly begin to defend their immoral lifestyle. (Romans 1:29-31) Furthermore, they become “despisers of those that are good.” (2 Timothy 3:3)
The knowledge of God’s Word is the only lifeline for mankind living in a world of sin. If you do not know God’s truth, then you do not know the standard of truth to which everything must be compared. We do not think like God. God says, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:8-9) God’s truth is infinite. Our thoughts are not only limited, but greatly flawed by our sinful way of thinking. God says, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked.” (Jeremiah 17:9) The Bible declares, “There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.” (Proverbs 14:12)
If we do not know the Bible, we are in big trouble. Being surrounded by liars and lies, if we do not know the truth, we are vulnerable to follow the way of sinners, rather than the way of God. Read Psalm 1. The Apostle Paul prayed that the early church believers would be filled with the knowledge of God. He said to them, “[I] do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; That ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God.” (Colossians 1:9-10)
We live at a time when the church is departing from the proclamation of the Word of truth. Pastors are twisting and minimizing the Scriptures, replacing them with philosophies, psychology, and entertaining stories. (2 Timothy 4:1-4) Their congregations do not hold them accountable because they do not know the Scriptures and therefore enjoy a message that does not bring conviction and repentance, to reconcile them to a holy God!
The Biblical illiteracy of our age is frightening! Professing believers and the general public that do not attend church do not know the Bible. Concerning this, Albert Mohler states: “Fewer than half of all adults can name the four gospels. Many Christians cannot identify more than two or three of the disciples. According to data from the Barna Research Group, 60 percent of Americans can’t name even five of the ten Commandments.” (http://www.albertmohler.com/2016/01/20/the-scandal-of-biblical-illiteracy-its-our-problem-4/) This crisis of Biblical illiteracy has prepared our world for the deception of the Antichrist.
Reason #3- They are Lost in Spiritual Darkness
The passage under consideration, 2 Thessalonians 2:8-12, is not speaking about those who are lost and reject the truth during the church age before the Rapture. Notice that verses 8-10 are one sentence. This is clearly a text that is speaking about developments connected to the Antichrist during the Tribulation Period. Consequently, this text should not be used to teach that those who reject the gospel before the Rapture cannot be saved during the Tribulation Period. It is best to compare this passage with Revelation 13-14. In both passages people have believed the lie of the Antichrist and worship him. In each passage the Antichrist is a promoter of lying wonders and miracles. In both texts, those who accept the lie are damned and cannot be saved. Revelation 14:9-11 makes it clear that anyone who will receive the mark of the Antichrist, the number of his name — 666, is damned and cannot be saved.
In 2 Thessalonians 2, those who are “damned” (verse 12) are those that “perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.” (verse 10) This Tribulation generation will have been so deceived that they willfully and defiantly reject the truth they will have heard from the 144,000 Jewish evangelists (Revelation 7:1-8), and the flying angel. (Revelation 14:6-7) These messengers from God will have given the gospel to all the nations in all languages before the Antichrist introduces himself to the world as God and forces his 666 number upon all of the them. At some point during their defiant rebellion, the Lord will justifiably “send them strong delusion, that they should believe [the] lie: That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.” (2 Thessalonians 2:11-12)
Friends, it is not just a coincidence that we are witnessing global anarchy over the demand of those who are passionately living for the pleasure in their sin. Those who are planning a New World Order are helping to promote this lawlessness. They are fueling radical Islam and those bent on sexual freedom to foment this rebellion against law and order. This is what is behind the orchestrated revolt against the newly elected Trump administration. Those who are playing along with the socialists in this opposition are attempting to destroy America in order to create a socialist New World Order that will be politically married to Islam. When this happens, it will in effect roll out the red carpet for the Antichrist and his kingdom of darkness.
As true believers in Jesus Christ, we need to be driven to the Word of God. We are children of the light, not of the darkness. It is time for the church to wake up and stand up for the truth. We need to be salt and light in this world. (Matthew 5:13-16) We will be hated and rejected, but we must stand for the truth. The words in Ephesians 5:8-14 seem to be so appropriate for this time. We must redeem “the time, because the days are evil.” (Ephesians 5:16)
Be ready for the shout that will take us out!
Rebellion against God’s Way
At the present hour we are witnessing a global rebellion against God. Whatever God has commanded, the nations are determined to do just the opposite. While this is nothing new, we are now witnessing a rather new form of rebellion that is unique to this age. When God judged the people of the world at the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11, He scattered the various newly created language and people groups around the globe. Each newly formed group lived with those who had a common language, similar physical traits, and related customs. This arrangement continued for thousands of years until this modern era. With the advancement of modern travel and communications, we are witnessing an amazing melting of the boundaries that divided the nations. Once again, man is becoming one in his final attempt to overthrow the sovereignty of God.
When Daniel interpreted Nebuchadnezzar’s dream about the final one world kingdom, he depicted it as having 10 toes of iron and clay. In his interpretation of this analogy, Daniel wrote: “And whereas thou sawest iron mixed with miry clay, they shall mingle themselves with the seed of men: but they shall not cleave one to another, even as iron is not mixed with clay.” (Daniel 2:43) In other words, through massive immigration and intermarriage the people of the world would attempt to erase the curse of God that separated them at the Tower of Babel. On the surface this is happening, but just as Daniel wrote, the melting pot of the nations is creating great turmoil, violence, and war among the nations. For example, the current displacement of the millions of Middle Eastern refugees and their flight to safety among the nations, especially in the West, is creating a radical change in the social, religious, political, and economic status of the nations. All of this is setting the stage for the final chaos that will lead to the formation of the final New World Order, headed by the Antichrist.
Israel’s Choice: Self-Destruction or War
According to the current issue of Israel Today, a publication from Israel by Messianic Jews, Israel is facing a very difficult choice. As the nations demand that Israel remove itself from the land that God promised them, especially the holy city of Jerusalem, Israel must choose between appeasing the nations and self-destructing, or eventually facing war.
“Either Israel will destroy itself under pressure from the nations or war will break out as a consequence. The international community will never recognize Israel’s biblical right to Judea and Samaria [the West Bank] because of their own political and moral restraints.
‘We should not give up our right to the Land of Israel because of the nations,’ said Cabinet Minister Naftali Bennett who heads the national Jewish Home party. ‘We are not serving the nations; instead we are standing on behalf of biblical justice to be allowed to live in this land.'” (Israel Today, “Self-Destruction by order of the nations,” March, 2017, p. 4) We know this will ultimately bring the war of Armageddon.