Today, there are some
very persistent people (who are
not necessarily born-again Christians), who visit on-line
chat-rooms on the
Internet, who have latched onto some well-known words and
phrases used in the
Bible like: ‘the antichrist’ ‘the man of sin’ ‘the beast’ ‘the
false prophet’ etc.
Such writers cheerfully apply any of these monikers to a
particular or prominent
person the chat-room subscribers don’t like. For instance some
modern ‘prophetic’
commentators have simply added a ‘particular’ name to a long
list of names—ranging
from Nero to Prince/King Charles—that they consider deserves
to have their
favourite label of ‘antichrist’ attached to them: compare this
with many historic
and fruitless attempts to brand certain dictators with similar
titles. Often
these ‘biblical’ labels are taken right out of context and
used willy-nilly on
whomever the writer thinks deserves them!
In one aspect these
bloggers are in total
agreement with scripture; i.e., there have been, still are,
and likely will be
many more individual’s whose names will be linked with
antichrist! Back in my parents’
day (1920–2000), Christians expected to be raptured to heaven
before a so-called
‘man of peace’ appeared on the scene, whose title loosely
referred to
antichrist.[1]
However, back in the Apostle John’s time, the appearance of an
individual
called antichrist was a rumour (i.e., you
have heard…) and it still is today! Not one, but
millions of
antichrists are on earth right now, according to John’s
criteria!
Little children, it is the last hour;
and as you have heard that
the Antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have
come… who is a liar
but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist
who denies the
Father and the Son. … and every spirit that does not confess
that Jesus Christ
has come in the flesh is not of God. And this is the spirit
of the Antichrist, which
you have heard was coming, and is now already in the
world. For many
deceivers have gone out into the world who do not
confess Jesus Christ as
coming in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an
antichrist.
(1 John 2:18, 22; 4:3; 2 John 1:7)
And so, to come back
to the realities facing us
today! Not all that we read or hear about (from seemingly
reputable Christian or
media outlets) is the truth! There is either a ‘slant’ or
a ‘spin’ that
comes with it, which fortifies our need to frequent that
‘particular source’
because it contributes to our own bias.
One well known TV
news outlet persists in
labelling its articles ‘analysis’ whereas anyone with a
modicum of discernment is
able to detect—via the ‘tone’ and ‘language’ used—that the
column is strongly biased
towards the writer’s ‘opinion’ and firmly against any
opposition to their point
of view. Polarisation is no stranger to the Media! The only way to
rectify such bias today seems
to be: get one’s news and information from as wide a variety of editorially approved media
outlets as
possible; take it all into consideration, divide it in half
(liberal and
conservative), and finally believe 25% from each half! Your
conclusions might just
possibly be right!
During the first
century or two—when Christian
doctrine was being established—the New Testament writers and
Church Fathers
were well aware of the spurious teaching that was being
fomented by false
prophets and teachers who sought to gain an audience. Today,
however, there is
much more that can be said about false teaching, conspiracy
theories, and
straight out deception—sometimes with ‘tongue in cheek’—by
already deluded
people on the Internet who are determined to portray their
twisted world view
as the truth, with the intention to heckle and deceive people,
or pit them one against
the other, so they can gleefully count the number of
‘followers’ giving them a
thumbs-up!
The public
dissent over the COVID-19 pandemic is a recent example of how
easily the general
population can be polarised and seduced into believing or
disbelieving other peoples’
opinions! The arrival of COVID-19 seems to have
surreptitiously inserted an even more virulent
virus into our
international psyche; it’s called deception
and it works via conspiracy theories that foment disagreement
and discord among
us, which in turn divides our opinion as to whether our
various Governments are
trying to keep us all safe, or impose some nefarious restraint
on our freedoms!
It is such deception that
we have
been advised to avoid in the end times, and it is incumbent
upon each of us to
be very careful about what information we consume, and pass on
to others, by observing
from where and from whom it has been brought to our attention.
False witnesses crave
company to confirm their position.
Because of the
myriad conspiracy theories abroad
at this time—which may or may not be related to the deception that will engulf the world in the end
times (according to
Biblical warnings)—the World Economic Forum has red-flagged
that the
greatest danger to social cohesion today, is the massive digital misinformation burdenbeing spread by
social media platforms
like Face-Book, Tik Tok, Twitter, Reddit and the dark web
sites like 4chan,
QAnon and others ‘unknown,’ where information is either
elevated or supressed—via
algorithms and multitudes of trolls with pages full of
controversial commentary—in
the hope that gullible people will believe their bias and
lies.
Now we have dire
warnings of a new danger to our
belief systems… AI (Artificial Intelligence) via a newly minted writing system called ChatGPT (and
others). A
recent editorial in our local paper quoted linguistics
professors and a
scientist who considered that AI is ‘a lumbering statistical
engine… gorging on
hundreds of terabytes…extrapolating the most likely… or
probable answers to
scientific questions.’
Misinformation is
not a new phenomenon, but AI and
ChatGPT etc., seem to be conduits that are perfectly designed
to mislead the
public via their biased input and crafted algorithms;
i.e., what others
have put in, is what you will get out! One thing
is for sure, if and
when AI learns to ‘think’ it will not tell the TRUTH, there
will be no FAITH
involved, and it could very well be the catalyst for the great
‘falling away
from the faith’ predicted in scripture! The responsibility
lies with each of us
to make sure that our ‘world view’ in these latter days is
filtered by scripture
and Holy Spirit derived discernment and wisdom.
The natural tendency of man is
to attempt to
"slant" explanations and interpretations to his own way of
thinking,
to promote the presuppositions he has espoused and the
preferences that serve
his own purposes. The self-orientation of man creeps into his
theological
considerations. Christians today need to be discerning so they
can recognize
the man-made "grids" of interpretation that color and taint
and bias
so much of Christian instruction today. Surely we do not want
to be blind followers
who have failed to develop our own "reasoning” in accord with
inspired
Scripture? Paul prayed for the Philippian Christians that
their "love
might abound more and more in real knowledge and all
discernment, so that they
might approve the things that are excellent..." (Phil. 2:9,10)
Blessings to all the Doves,
Maranatha
[1]This
moniker is not an actual Biblical title. Presumably such a
person is the one who makes
a ‘peace agreement’ with Israel, enabling them to build a
third temple in
Jerusalem, according to Dispensationalist doctrine!