All this knowledge and information which in many cases can be used for good, is used for great evil. Genesis 6:5, which describes God’s assessment of the world in Noah’s day, is an apt description for these days as well.
"And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.”
The advances in rapid processing of information have lead to the barriers of language being largely overcome. This is contributing to what is called a “new world order”, which was considered at the recent “World Government Summit”. This summit envisioned an interconnected world, where “the internet is available for free for everyone.” Where governments would be empowered "towards a new form of leadership”. “A new world order."
Not only is the imagination of men’s hearts evil continually, they have the knowledge to make that evil become a reality. After the flood, God divided the world into nations, so that there would not be a one world order. This arrangement would restrain mankind, as it says in Genesis 11:6.
"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.”
In our day, tremendous power lies in the hands of those who control this vast amount of knowledge and information. The power to shape the world and form public opinion. In a democracy, the power is said to be of the people. In reality the power actually lies with those who form the opinion of the people; in the educators, the media and who controls what information the people see — social media applications and internet search engines. So mankind has become expert in the art of shaping the narrative, putting a spin on the story, so that it support the desired ideology.
Revelation 16 is a prophecy for our time — the time of the end. When the vision speaks specifically of the final days before the return of the Lord Jesus, it focuses on unclean teaching (spirits) going out into the world. This information (philosophy or teaching) gathers the nations to war against the Lord Jesus Christ. Revelation 16:13-16 reads,
"And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet. For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty. Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame. And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon.”
The dragon, beast and false prophet are symbols which depict the latter-day secular and religious powers which are descended from the Eastern and Western Roman empires. In other words the European Union, Russia the Vatican (Roman Church) and the Greek Orthodox Church. Currently these powers are at war with each other, attempting to dominate the new world order they are endeavouring to build. Out of the mouths of these powers have come teachings which have gone out into the world to deceive the people. The result of this great deception, will bring the nations of the world to war against the Lord Jesus Christ, who is introduced into the scene as a thief.
These verses in Revelation 16 have a great warning for us. A warning to not be deceived as we live in an age of misinformation. An age of deception. We are being warned by the Lord Jesus not to believe the media — the mouth piece of the world governments. Not to believe what we hear. Not to be deceived.
The consequences of misinformation can be seen by Eve listening to the words of the serpent, " “Did God really say: You shall not eat of any tree of the garden?” (Genesis 3:1 JPS). As a result of the serpent’s lie, sin and death came into the world. As the questioning and lie of the serpent, deceived the woman, so on a larger scale the deception of the dragon, beast and false prophet deceive the nations to come against the Lord Jesus.
Today the mass media is the tool of governments to convince the masses of its policies. Journalism today is no longer reporting the facts of an event that transpired, but subtly shaping the narrative, to suit a particular ideology. Whatever we think of the former American president, Donald Trump, it is clear the mass media was against him. The mass media has faithfully pushed the Covid vaccines as “safe and effective”, and either not mentioned or downplayed the many tragic injuries from these rapidly produced vaccines. Regarding the events in Ukraine, we have seen a very biased reporting, repeating the same message, that Ukraine is winning the war — hardly ever reporting the setbacks and defeats they have faced. This has been necessary to maintain public support for armaments and the billions of dollars being poured into Ukraine by western nations. The sanctions have also harmed Europe more than Russia and public support for them is flagging. Meanwhile Ukraine is being turned into ruins and over the last few days, the electricity supply to the country has been almost knocked out completely. All those grey Soviet era apartment blocks, blanketed in snow, are in darkness, with no heat and no electricity to power the pumps which supply water. Ukraine is turning into a humanitarian catastrophe. Not only is the mass media biased, they are virtually unanimous in their messaging, in an astounding way. Are we surprised by this or think that the media isn’t so biased? We should not be deceived. Jesus Christ in Revelation 16 is warning us that the time of the end, will be a time of mass deception.
The new CEO of Twitter Elon Musk, confirming the application's
former ideological bias.
Paradoxically the governments are waring about the danger of “misinformation”. This is of course any information that challenges the approved view. This is an age of group think, where there is one approved world view and anything else is not tolerated. Certainly not God’s view as expressed in His word. To counter “misinformation” they have set themselves up authorities to validate their opinions, called “fact checkers”. Or an “expert" is found that agrees with the governments view, so we often read, “experts say…”.
Most concerning is the continued bias in reporting regarding the nation of Israel. Of course this is to be expected from Revelation 16. The lies and misinformation of the dragon, beast and false prophet bring the nations to Armageddon — a Hebrew place. We know clearly from the Hebrew prophets that this is against the restored nation of Israel (Joel 3 and Ezekiel 38 for example). We could say it is an antisemitic invasion. At the basis of the conflict is the Roman Church’s ideological opposition to the return of the Jews and their sovereignty over the so called “holy sites” in the land of Israel. In fact the very presence of the restored Jewish nation, challenges the Roman Church’s doctrine that they are the “kingdom of God”.
This week there were two terrorist bombing attacks against Israeli civilians in Jerusalem. These remotely detonated bombs were filled with deadly nails and ball bearings, designed to inflict horrific wounds on the men, women and children riding the public transit. A young Jewish Canadian yeshiva student was murdered. Today another man died of wounds from the attack. This fits the definition of a terror attack exactly. Yet the mass media will not call this a terror attack. The BBC news article on the event only uses the word “terror” or “terrorist” when quoting the statements of Israeli politicians. These subtle omissions are one way the narrative is shaped to give the reader a certain impression of the event. The attacks are called “suspected bombs attacks”. One of the typical ways that the narrative is shaped is by seeking to portray a moral equivalence between the operations of the Israeli Defence Force to apprehend terrorists and the terrorist attacks themselves. It is presented that Israel perpetrates a "cycle of violence” and in this way one gets the idea that they bring it upon themselves because of their injustice to the Palestinians. For example in the BBC report entitled "Jerusalem bombings: Teenager killed in rare twin attacks at bus stops”, it states,
"The atmosphere feels volatile in a year of intensifying violence, as Palestinian gun and knife attacks have targeted Israelis, and Israeli military raids have killed Palestinian gunmen and civilians in the occupied West Bank.”
And again:
"This year has seen a spate of deadly attacks by Palestinians targeting Israelis, killing at least 25 people.
"Meanwhile, Israel has carried out near nightly military search and arrest raids in the occupied West Bank. More than 130 Palestinians - including militant gunmen and civilians - have been killed.”
The actions to defend civilians is depicted as being equivalent to terrorism.
Reflecting on the heading, again, it does not mention terrorism, it does not mention the perpetrators, the bombings are presented as “rare” and for those not aware it could even be thought of as a Israeli military operation against Palestinian Arabs in Jerusalem.
The BBC article also states that at the bus stop where the attack took happened, "A small protest was also taking place with a sign held by young Israeli men calling for "revenge”.”
The Israeli news site www.israelnationalnews.com reported this more accurately with the heading, "With a guitar and tears: Dozens of yeshiva students sing at scene of Jerusalem attack"
Meanwhile I saw a video of yeshiva students at the site of the terror attack, who were dancing and singing. This was not so much a call for revenge, as a song expressing confidence and looking for deliverance from the guardian of Israel. They were singing:
“People of Israel, do not be afraid, Ha’Shem your God goes with you. Brother and brother, hand in hand, Israel is one nation, and from above He is helping - the guardian of Israel!"
There is a great danger if we allow the mass media to shape our opinion of these events. Before long we may begin to speak less about the hope of Israel. We may not want to speak about the restored kingdom of Israel to our friends, or include it in our preaching. In so doing we would not be preaching the gospel properly. Many years ago John Thomas in his book Elpis Israel (The hope of Israel), wrote,
“…it is clear, that to preach the kingdom is to preach the gospel; and to preach the gospel is to preach the kingdom of God.
“This is a most important demonstration; for it enables us to determine when we hear the gospel. The gospel is not preached when the things of the kingdom are omitted. And this is one grand defect in modern preaching.”
So let us be aware that we live in an age of deception. Let us question everything we hear on the mass media and social media. Finally, let us preach the Gospel of the restoration of the kingdom to Israel with all confidence. Thanks for listening to Bible in the News. Please come back next week to www.bibleinthenews.com. This has been David Billington with you.
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