I’ll be completely honest: If there’s one book of the Bible I find myself avoiding more than all the others, it’s probably the book of Revelation. I find it a bit tedious to try to interpret John’s apocalyptic writing: Which parts are prophesy? Which parts are cryptic coding designed to convey specific messages to Christians attempting to avoid persecution in the early church? What am I, as a Christian living in 2024, supposed to do with the content of this book?
And I’m a bit cynical. For as long as I can remember, I’ve observed people insisting that whatever major current event happens to be in process is, in reality, the fulfillment of something they read in Revelation. I’ve heard countless impassioned arguments accusing everyone from Barrack Obama to the Pope to George Soros of being the actual antichrist. Throw in a little conflict in the Middle East, and the convictions are cemented into place: “These are the end times,” they insist. “It’s impossible to deny. Jesus will return any day now. Look at all the signs. Better make sure you’re ready.”
Of course, Jesus hasn’t returned yet. And it has never made very much sense to me why the people who are so insistent on connecting these dots are often the same people buying bugout rigs and stockpiling dry goods and ammo in bomb shelters. I’ve always told my husband, “Babe, if the apocalypse comes, let me just go be with Jesus. I’ll probably be pretty useless.” The prospect of living in isolation off the grid rationing Spam and shooting strangers just doesn’t really appeal to me. Of course I’m sure I would probably feel differently if the time really came and I had to watch my children suffer, so I’m at least moderately grateful for my husband’s relentless gun habit, but yeah… I just can’t live my life consumed by thoughts about what may be coming down the pike.
Prepping for the worst will never be a lifestyle for me. It doesn’t strike me as particularly healthy in anyone I’ve met who lives this way. It seems to me that these folks are often pretty allergic to uncertainty, and their desperate clawing need to be able to predict and control what comes next leads them down some pretty wonky paths of self-deception resulting in subscription to conspiracy theories galore.
I’ve written about this before. During the last election cycle, I lost count of the number of people who texted me with warnings about updating my Iphone for fear of disrupting my access to the emergency broadcast system. They told me that the pope had been arrested in a child sex trafficking ring. They sent me photos of the Vatican saying it had gone dark and the proverbial you-know-what was about to hit the fan. They insisted that the election was stolen and that they had prophetic knowledge of the fact that Joe Biden would never reach the inauguration, as the Lord himself would expose him before that day ever arrived. Donald Trump, they promised, would be named the rightful President. And when I disagreed, they told me that I just wasn’t spiritual enough. I was seeing through a human lens, but God had revealed these things to them in the spirit. One friend even looked at me and told me that God would not be able to use me because of my lack of faith.
I wanted to pull my hair out. To make things worse, some of these people are still holding firmly to these convictions. “We just got the timeline wrong,” they insist. “Watch and see. It’s all going to unfold.”
It’s absolute lunacy, but no one wants to hear it. I don’t have a problem with people questioning everything. In fact, I encourage it. But I have a massive problem with people who claim certainty they haven’t earned, especially when it comes at the expense of reality.
And I’ve said it before; I fully understand and empathize with the widespread distrust of the mainstream media narrative. We know we’ve been lied to for years. We’ve watched it happen. I actually catalogued a bunch of the MSM headlines as they related to COVID, for example. Tell me if you notice what I notice in the messaging:
April 29, 2020: “Trump Seeks Push to Speed Vaccine, Despite Safety Concerns” (NY Times)
June 22, 2020: “The Race to Develop a COVID Vaccine: Doctors warn that releasing a vaccine prematurely can do more harm than good.” (NY Times)
September 13, 2020: “Vaccine Makers Keep Safety Details Quiet, Alarming Scientists” (NY Times)
(So basically while Trump was in office, the vaccine-related messaging was all caution and concern about the recklessness of pushing these drugs prematurely. Enter Biden.)
February 19, 2021: “The Vaccines Are Quite Safe, and the Side Effects Are Rare, CDC Reports” (NY Times)
April 1, 2021: “It’s Official: Vaccinated People Don’t Transmit COVID-19” (Fortune)
May 28, 2021: “The US May Never Hit Herd Immunity Threshhold. That’s OK” (NY Times)
July 1, 2021: “It’s Time for the FDA to Fully Approve the mNRA Vaccines” (NY Times)
(Then those pesky breakthrough cases and adverse reactions started happening, and the tune changed a little.)
July 31, 2021: “Vaccinated People May Spread the Virus, Though Rarely, CDC Reports” (NY Times)
August 4, 2021: “Fully Vaccinated Half As Likely to Catch Delta Variant And Less Likely To Infect Others, Study Finds” (Forbes)
August 19, 2021: “Double Jabbed Carry Same Levels of COVID as Unvaccinated” (Telegraph)
August 19, 2021: “U.S. Officials Reviewing Possibility Moderna Vaccine is Linked to Higher Risk of Uncommon Side Effect Than Previously Thought” (Washington Post)
You get the point. It was crazy making. The puppeteering was off the charts. People watched their livelihoods go down the toilet. They lost their jobs if they refused to volunteer as tribute for a medical experiment they didn’t trust. The government shut down their businesses and tanked the economy in the name of “the greater good.” They set up websites where people could literally report their neighbors for failing to quarantine properly. The masses were relentlessly bullied for questioning anything, and the finger wagging tune changed about a hundred times before all was said and done. It was a communications nightmare, a totalitarian nanny state unmitigated disaster for which we will probably never receive an apology or an acknowledgment of harm.
Similarly, we’ve watched headline after headline frame bearded men as women in a global gaslighting campaign to rewrite material reality in both law and medicine. We know it was a coordinated effort masterminded by really wealthy elites. We’ve got brilliant investigative journalists like Jennifer Bilek connecting all these dots for us. And we’ve been largely powerless to resist or control the social engineering crusades of the people in charge. We are right to distrust them. We are right to relentlessly question the narratives they try to sell us.
BUT…
I’m increasingly concerned about the volume of people who, in their distrust of the media and government, are falling prey to deception of an entire different variety. It’s like they’re eager and willing to believe almost anyone who confirms their biases against the powers-that-be. And that’s not leading anywhere good either.
I saw it during COVID when people started spreading rumors that the government was intentionally trying to disrupt the food supply chain to wreak havoc on Americans. Here’s an example. It’s an image I saw on my newsfeed at least half a dozen times as friends eagerly shared it to confirm their suspicions.
.The problems with this list and thinking are numerous:
1. The numbers of fires in food plants seem to be comparable to the numbers from previous years. There’s no demonstrable uptick here. It’s not a new trend. The U.S. has more than 36,000 food and beverage processing establishments in operation; fires are gonna happen.
2. Very few of these fires were determined to be caused by arson.
3. Many of these places were able to maintain their production schedule despite the fires. See, for example, the statement from JBS USA.
Truth matters. We can’t afford to play fast and loose with it just to arbitrarily grant ourselves some false sense of comfort or control. One of the primary allures of major cults is the promise of secret knowledge. People are really drawn to the idea that they can possess exclusive information that’s not available to all the lesser peasantry.
I’m seeing it play out again this week as friends insist that the video of Princess Kate announcing her cancer diagnosis is an AI fake. And they’re insisting the Baltimore bridge collapse was absolutely a cyberattack.
“We are at war, Kaeley. How can you not see it?” one friend cried. “Death by a thousand papercuts. Isn’t it obvious to you? They’re poisoning our food and trying to cut off our resources. Even members of the FBI are saying so! And Bill Gates even says out loud that he wants to reduce the population size!”
And the truth is that it’s not obvious to me. Cyber attacks on marine ports affect the IT system and disrupt communication via ransomware. What they don’t do is magically create engine failure or black billowing smoke that’s easily observable on video footage. If we are at war, who are we warring against? The government? Why should I believe that the use of pesticides etc in our produce is a coordinated government attack against the American people as opposed to crony capitalism’s desire to make millions as efficiently as possible? Why should I believe that Bill Gates is genocidal as opposed to just misguided in his deeply held conviction that the world needs fewer people?
And when I ask for evidence of any of these audacious claims, what I get are links to obscure YouTube videos featuring wackadoodle pundits who’ve been debunked about a trillion times for their demonstrably unreliable rants on important issues. I get rants about the global elite, the Illuminati, Beyonce, Soros, and, too often, “the Jews.” And I get lectures about how I’m not spiritual enough to see what’s really happening behind the curtain.
Does evil conspire against the good of the world? Of course. Evil never sleeps. The Bible specifically says that the devil prowls around like a lion looking for someone to devour. We are commanded to be on our guard and alert. God wants us to pay attention. He wants us to be aware and discerning. But the solution to lies is to be anchored in truth, which we can’t do if we’re replacing one lie with another that confirms our biases.
Question the narrative. But use the same amount of skepticism and scrutiny to question your own conclusions.
Questioning is reasonable. Absolute certainty about most things… not so much.
When Jesus does finally return, I don’t want him to find me hunkered down in a bunker with a tin foil hat on my head screaming about the Illuminati. I’m not much good to anyone in that space.
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Awesome post Kaeley.
I wish I could articulate what you wrote half as well as you do. I’ve heard all the same crazy theories, from the Earth is really flat, to the moon landing was faked, to (ominous tone) the military is monitoring and things are about to happen. And the folks who say these things very sincerely believe them.
My question is always, “Even if true, how does this help keep you/me/anyone stay focused on the Lord?” More personally, how does this change my day-to-day life? OK, the moon landing was fake, so…?
I absolutely agree that questioning what’s heard on the news is a good habit. But assuming the MSM is always lying while some nobody with a computer on Rumble is spouting the “real” truth is, to be polite, over correcting.
Worrying and prepping won’t help. Voting the “right way” won’t fix everything either. What will help is remembering that Jesus was God, died for our sins, rose again, loves us, and is in control of our lives. Come Jesus, come. Nuff said!
Oh, and re: Revelation. Check out Jon Courson’s series. We love it.
Link: https://joncourson.com/teachings/revelation