How can we know if we have been deceived? One pithy little saying goes something like this, “The deceived don’t know they’ve been deceived because they are deceived!” They are blissfully ignorant. We are describing the rise and reign of the Antichrist. These are his methods. Deception will be his stock and trade. He will be the greatest con man in all of history. Many will be deceived by his charismatic personality.
Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits. 1 John 4:1
They speak like the world, and the world hears them. 1 John 4:5
The Devil Will Deceive Them 9-10
The lawless one is coming.
The Antichrist will be a political leader.
It will be unpopular and perhaps against the law to criticize him.
Antichrist is empowered by Satan himself! ἐνέργεια energeia
Energia is used of Satan’s supernatural power, “working” vs 9.
Energia is used of God’s supernatural power, “strong” vs 11
Satan brings powerful deception, God sends powerful delusion!
Antichrist has exceptional and effective power δύναμις dunamis
Antichrist can do signs, σημεῖον semeion like a miracle worker.
Antichrist can do lying wonders ψεῦδος pseudo, like a con man.
He will use a method called “unrighteous deception.”
The world will believe these signs, miracles and lying wonders.
They will not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved.
God will Send them Strong Delusion 11-12
The difference between what Satan does, and what God does:
The Devil sends a strong deception. God sends a strong delusion.
Deception is a lie meant to convince people that what is false is true.
Delusion is the inability to distinguish between what is false and true.
God allows men who reject the truth to be blissfully ignorant.
They did not retain God, so he gave them up to a debased mind. Rom 1:28
God set it up so that the cause and effect of deception is delusion.
Is God the creator and originator of evil?
God created us with free will.
Angels and man chose to sin.
God is not responsible for their evil behavior.
“I make peace and create evil.” Isaiah 45:7
“Evil” is better translated “calamity, trouble or Judgment.”
God often brings calamity to those who disobey.
God does send delusion to those who disbelieve.
The natural man does not receive spiritual things, nor can he. 1 Cor 2:14
They not only believe the lie, but they find pleasure in it.
Don’t be deceived. Don’t allow the news media, partisan politics, or worldly philosophies to mislead you… because they will betray you. Jesus made one simple statement that you must embrace: “The truth will set you free.” What is the truth? Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the father except by me. There is only one way to keep from being deceived, and that is to embrace the truth of the Lord Jesus Christ.
How can we know if we have been deceived? One pithy little saying goes something like this, “The deceived don’t know they’ve been deceived because they are deceived!” They are blissfully ignorant.
In the last decade we have been inundated with fake news. Fake news is so slick that it is difficult to tell the difference between what’s genuine and what’s not. And we have had the rise of the fact checker. And when I say fact checker, I mean censor. These fact checkers censor any story that doesn’t fit their narrative.
The mainstream media generally have an anti-biblical agenda. Mainstream journalists have a worldview very different from our own. It’s not just the way that the news is reported but the selection of the news stories themselves that can distort our view of reality.
A survey done by Reuter’s concluded that over 56% of Americans believe that major news outlets exaggerate their reporting and slant their coverage in order to entice us to keep watching,[i] and to convince us of their narrative.
That is the purpose of deception. And that’s why years ago, I made the decision to step away from the daily news. Instead, I choose to catch up on global events when they interest me personally. I think there’s some good biblical advice here in 1 John 4:1-6:
Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God, for many antichrists have gone out into the world… They are of the world. Therefore they speak like the world, and the world hears them. 6 We are of God. He who knows God hears us; he who is not of God does not hear us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.
Sadly, deception is not only part of the media, but also central to the exercise of power. Politicians frequently propagate exaggerated promises and falsehoods to manipulate the masses. They spout statistics and records that are spurious in order to get elected and get their agenda passed.
The interesting thing is that within the last decade, psychologists have discovered a new phenomenon: our logic can become hijacked by emotion.[ii] If you inject an explosive crisis, whether real or manufactured, into current events, you can more easily manipulate the masses, because emotions muddle the mind.
Career politician, Rahm Emanuel once said, “You never want to let a serious crisis to go to waste.” And what I mean by that is that it is an opportunity to do things that you could not do before.[iii]
Some people have coined the term Mass Formation Psychosis to explain the phenomena. It’s a controversial idea. But basically it attempts to describe how a large-scale trigger event like an explosive terrorist attack or a rapidly spreading contagion can cripple and change the beliefs and behavior of an entire population, of an entire world!
The suggestion is, that subjecting the population to repeated fears, dangers, stress and propaganda is the fastest way to manipulate them. And it results in Psychosis, where people lose contact with reality so that HOW they perceive the world is abnormal, having difficulty understanding what is real and what is not. The idea is, that given the right conditions, you can make people believe and behave however you want them to, whether it is based on fact or fiction. That’s what we see going on today.
We are describing the rise and reign of the Antichrist. These are his methods. Deception will be his stock and trade. He will be the greatest con man in all of history. Many will be deceived by his charismatic personality.
The Devil Will Deceive Them 9-10
The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved.
The lawless one is coming. Don’t doubt it. The Antichrist will be a political leader. He will likely be a member of a political party. He will rise through the ranks of his party, to leadership in his country. From there he will rise to the world stage. Doubtless, in our own country the Republicans or the Democrats, or both, will support him.
There will come a time when it will be unpopular and perhaps against the law in our country to criticize him. The country will be polarized against those who speak out against him. It will be no different than it is today. If I were to speak out against the policies of President Biden, or ex president Trump, I’d get heat from one person or another. There is always someone who will suggest that I am involved in partisan politics. When you critique their party or their politician it always generates a lot of heat.
If you think it’s bad now, wait until antichrist. He is empowered by Satan himself! The word “working” or work in verse 9 is ἐνέργεια energeia. We get our word energy from it. Electricity or lightning is incredibly powerful. Antichrist is energized or indwelt by Satan himself, making him the most powerful politician of all time. Energia is a word that is only used of supernatural power, whether of God or of the Devil.
You cannot see it in the English, but the word energia is used twice in these verses. Once of the energia of Satin in verse 9, and once of the energia of God in verse 11 using the word “strong” as in strong delusion. Satan brings powerful deception, God sends powerful delusion!
And being energized by Satan, this man has supernatural powers that set him apart from every other leader. POWER, δύναμις dunamis, from which we get our word dynamite. These are particularly explosive, persuasive and effective powers. He can do signs, σημεῖον semeion and lying ψεῦδος pseudo wonders, τέρας teras – fake miracles. He’s a con man. He may make predictions that come true, or perform miracles transcending the common course of nature. He will be somewhat of a celebrity miracle worker. Perhaps he will be like Darth Vader or the evil emperor in Star Wars.
He will use a method called “unrighteous deception.” As if the word deception isn’t unrighteous in and of itself, it is in this verse modified by the use of the word unrighteous; Particularly underhanded, despicable, sneaky and devious deception.
Perhaps he will use AI and Deep Fake technology to deceive the world. Did you know that we are so far advanced today, that they now have the capability of staging events like the Presidential Debate, so that if they wanted to they could make it appear that Trump and Biden said whatever the devil they wanted them to say, and you would think, looking at the video, that it was truly them. And they can do it live!
Deep Fake Technology – How dangerous is it? – Invented in 2014 – to make people look like other people (using something called Generative adversarial Networks). One expert said, “Two years ago if someone told me something like this would exist, I wouldn’t have believed it. Whait till you see what’s next? Deep fakes blur the difference between fact and fiction. Everything you see can now be called into question making you doubt everything you see. Experts say that by 2026 as much as 90% of online content may be synthetically generated using artificial intelligence and deep fake technology.[iv]
And yet the world will believe these signs, miracles and lying wonders, because they will not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved.
Do you see how this is telling us, don’t trust media, Hollywood, politics and the current world system, because it is leading right into the hands of the coming antichrist.
Is it possible for us to be misled by political leaders, experts, the media and researchers who repeat the same mantra over and over, day after day? Is it possible to change the beliefs of a society by changing the narrative, repeating lies and doing repeated shows and commentaries to prove that black is white, up is down and good is bad? That is what Antichrist will do.
God will Send them Strong Delusion 11-12
And for this reason God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie, 12 that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.
I want you to see the difference between what Satan does, and what God does. The Devil sends a strong deception. God sends a strong delusion. What’s the difference? Deception is a lie meant to convince people that what is false is true. Delusion is the inability to distinguish between what is false and what is true.
In other words, when man refuses to believe the truth, God allows them to be blissfully ignorant. It is a spiritual principle. When You reject the truth, your mind becomes delusional. God made it that way. It is a natural and spiritual law.
For example Romans 1:28 says, “Because they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them up to a debased mind.” Man rejected the truth, God allowed them to face the consequences of their beliefs. God set it up so that the cause and effect of deceit is delusion.
Now for some, this may bring up the question, If God sends delusion, “Is God the creator and originator of evil?” How can something exist if God didn’t make it? As one Roman poet opined, “Had God designed the world, it would not be / A world so frail and faulty as we see.”
We need to ask the question where evil came from. The first mention of evil is with Satan, and next Adam and Eve. God created both angels and man without flaw. He created them with free will. Angels and mankind chose to sin. Does that mean that God is responsible for their evil behavior?
That is like asking you, are you responsible for your children’s behavior? Well, yes and no. Yes, I am responsible, in that I am going bring on the consequences for misbehavior. But no, I am not responsible for my child because they are an independent agent who is responsible for themselves. They must learn to be responsible. You cannot create free moral agents, unless you give them the opportunity to do evil.
The origin of evil is found in Angels and Adam.
But what about Isaiah 45:7 which God says, “I form the light and create darkness, I make peace and create evil; I the Lord do all these things.” How do you reason that one away.
It is always important to look at the meaning of words and context. As for the meaning of the word translated “evil” it is better translated “calamity, trouble or Judgment.” Does God ever bring calamity to those who disobey, or judgment to the sinful? Or darkness to the deceived? Yes he does. And in the context of Isaiah 45, God uses an evil king, Cyrus, to bring calamity and judgment on the nation of Judah for their evil.
So God is not the originator of evil, but he does send delusion to those who disbelieve so that they are happy in their ignorance. And we find a similar statement in 1 Cor 2:14 that the natural man does not receive spiritual things, nor can he, because they are spiritually discerned!
This delusion, or inability to reason, leads sinful mankind to embrace a lie, that they are good enough on their own, and don’t need to receive Jesus as Savior.
In fact they not only believe the lie, but they find pleasure in it. This is what’s going on today. People are embracing ungodly and perverse lifestyles and taking pleasure in them, and celebrating them. If you doubt the truth, you allow error. If you allow error, anything goes. And if anything goes, then, anything goes including the truth. And that is how you flip a society on its head.
Proverbs 14:12-16 tells us that “There is a way which seems right to a man, but the end of it is destruction.”
Don’t be deceived. Don’t allow the news media, partisan politics, or worldly philosophies to mislead you… because they will betray you. Jesus made one simple statement that you must embrace: “The truth will set you free.” What is the truth? Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the father except by me.
There is only one way to keep from being deceived, and that is to embrace the truth of the Lord Jesus Christ.
[i] https://www.crosswalk.com/faith/spiritual-life/how-can-christians-watch-the-news-with-discernment.html#google_vignette
[ii] https://955thefish.com/articles/faith/spiritual-life/how-can-christians-watch-the-news-with-discernment
[iii] https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/717228-you-never-want-a-serious-crisis-to-go-to-waste
[iv] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S951cdansBI