Confronting Anxiety Meditations No.14: The world of deception
Recap: We are considering those things that impose upon our lives from outside, not things inside our thinking, if we may put it like that. Yesterday we started considering things that impose themselves on us, that are the outworking of sinful humanity, of individual despots as well as general struggles, for example of modern politics seeking to manage economies. But we also raised the red-flag warning to see things that are harmful or destructive as works of darkness to be prayed against and seen for what they are, works of the enemy to be brought down through prayer and God’s revelation and power.
Deception: But living in this world, mostly self-centred and godless, means that we have to contend with or even resist whole ways of thinking that are deception. Now deception simply means something that is believed and conveyed that is contrary to the truth. Thus all forms of atheism are forms of deception. Similarly all forms of religion that use violence are deception.
Our stating point has to recognise that ‘God is’, and God reveals truth, all that is in accordance with His creative design. Seeing the world in any other way is deception, believing in something that is false. Believing there is no God, and that all life is therefore the outworking of chance-evolution (as against God-directed evolution, say) is deception that robs people of a rational foundation of life and requires them to make even bigger leaps of blind faith to find meaning in life.
Jesus & Truth: Now of course Jesus declared, “I am the way, the truth and the life,” and went on to say that, “No one comes to the Father except through me.” (Jn 14:6) When he said, “I am the truth,” he was surely meaning, I am the very embodiment of what is reality. Now deception is not uncommon, and Jesus taught about false prophets and false teachers (Mt 24:4)and those claiming falsely to be him, and Paul gave similar warnings (Col 2:4, 2 Thess 2:11, Rom 16:17,18).
Satan the Deceiver: Meanwhile Satan is portrayed as a deceiver (Gen 3:4, Rev 20:7-10) out to con the human race into self-destruction. Sin the Bible teaches is deceitful (e.g. Heb 3:13) and thus often, especially in sexual matters it seems, the sin being observed is accompanied by deception, lies and untruths, for example, “This isn’t wrong, who says it is, who will know, what does it matter,” all lies.
Modern Tools used for Deception: It would appear we are living in a world where deception is increasingly prevailing through social media and the Internet, especially with the advent of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Our young people are almost certainly more aware of this than the older generations. Only the other day, one of my sons, using one of his networking connections, had a well-known sports person text his daughter to encourage her along the athletics path she was taking. When the text came through, my granddaughter turned to her dad and asked, “Is this AI?” He reassured her she had contact with a real athlete.
Scammers & Liars: But the point is that we now have the capability for scammers to take either your photo or voice (and it only takes them 15 seconds apparently of your voice – so don’t get drawn into conversations with strangers on your phone – they may be recording you) and turn it into video that looks just like you and sounds just like you. It is then that they seek to convince people who know you that this is you, probably to ‘help them out financially’!!!! This is technology creating deception.
Dealing with it: How do you overcome it? First of all make your family aware of these possibilities. Second, agree within the family for a secret code word and counter-word to be used when there is any question as to the identity of the person you think you are talking to (obviously only in questionable-conversation [money-based] situations.) Thus, for example, if you chose ‘shop’ and ‘farm’ as your two words, if you are not certain about the voice at the other end that purports to be a family member, you might nonchalantly said, “Did you visit the shop last week?” and if the answer does not include something like, “No, but I visited the farm,” you have reasons to be suspicious. What a day we live in.
Don’t be Gullible: These days whether on your phone (mobile/cell or house) or on the internet, we are bombarded with deception in the form of scammers seeking to get you to share your banking details with them, and the number of people who appear gullible and happy to hand them over, is quite scary. We need to educate our family, friends and church members on the threats that are out there.
A Year of Elections: The year 2024 will see something like 76 countries that are likely to be holding nationwide elections, roughly half of the world’s population, and because this is such an important feature of the modern world, we asked the AI tools on the Internet to tell us what are the common fears and so, rather than making this an unduly long study, we’ll show you the finding in the next study.
And So? For the moment, let us conclude with this comment: I believe it is arguable to say that in the past decade we have moved into a period of history where we are all more susceptible to deception than ever before seen in the world. The casualty is truth, and the ongoing outworking is anxiety. We may seek to overcome this by becoming aware of the possibilities and determining to do all we can to prevent us being casualties of these modern forms of deception.
Bible Meditation Shop 