Media malpractice is not new, but it has escalated by riding piggyback on the coronavirus. The pandemic has been pounced upon by media misinformation folks as a useful tool to control the populace. It has become a WMD—Weapon of Mass Destruction or even a psychological Weapon of Masked Deception. The trajectory is the same.
Each year the English language dictionary adds new words that have leaped into common use or have acquired a new meaning. “Infodemic” is one of those words. Combining the word info- with epidemic, we have a dire description of the fake news and disinformation that engulfs us like a smoke screen.
We are forewarned that the biblical “end times” will be characterized by deception. “But evil men and seducers will grow worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived” (2 Tim. 3:13). 2020 is a prime example.
Infodemic is defined as “a massive amount of widely and rapidly circulating information about a particular crisis or controversial issue, consisting of a confusing combination of fact, falsehood, rumor and opinion.”
We live in an age of accelerated, instant technology for communication. We are bombarded with information designed to influence us, to brainwash us. We are left to sort out what to believe or reject.
What does “deceive” mean? It means “to cause someone to believe something that is not true, typically in order to gain a personal advantage, to trick someone.” Synonyms give some shades of meaning: “beguile” stresses the use of charm and persuasion; “delude” implies deceiving so thoroughly as to obscure the truth. To be misled implies deliberately leading astray.
In more colloquial expressions it is to “be taken for a ride, led down the garden path, sent on a wild goose chase, be given the runaround.” In the simplest of terms, to deceive is to lie. All of the above are implied by the word “infodemic.”
Walking Differently
The Word of God gives us warning that especially “in the last days,” the followers of Jesus would be deliberate objects of falsehoods. Intrigue is meant to pull us away from our steadfast faith, stifle our witness, extinguish our light and cancel our saltiness. We are warned not to be like naive children “tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive” (Eph 4:14b, KJV).
The Living Bible amplifies the verse to say, “forever changing our minds about what we believe because someone has told us something different or has cleverly lied to us and made the lie sound like the truth.”
Make no mistake, the not-so-hidden agenda of the forces of darkness in society is first to silence us with masks and behavior mandates, isolate us from the public square, restrain the strength of our assembling together, eventually to render us “nonessential” and annihilate us. No one is exempt from their efforts. They are out to deceive “even the elect” (Matt. 24:24, MEV).
Who Is Behind Infodemic Deception?
The most visible actors in this stealth drama are primarily the media whose bread and butter depends on digging up “facts” that could be manipulated to be favorable to their handlers. They are politically tainted paparazzi who act as if they “have a permit to carry a concealed [psychological] weapon.”
Unless we have a clean Christian filter for our ears and guard what we allow ourselves to see and hear, we are sucked into their vortex. By not reporting fairly and fully, the media decides which issues to puff and which issues to play down or quash. They determine what is black and white, true or false, which stories to cover, which to cover up. It is propaganda pure and simple.
To help us swallow unusually large capsules of deception and psychotic delusion, our mouths have literally been masked against any objections. The mass population, we who inhabit “America the Beautiful,” are being subjected to a snow job of disinformation pushed upon us by “unnamed sources.” We are not allowed to question “alleged facts” because they are playing a head game in which lines between true and false are indistinguishable. We are expected to accept media pronouncements at face value.
In the pretense of advancing the common good and to be protected, we are held hostage as if we were kidnapped and gagged. Let’s not be deceived: this is not a happenstance made up as they go along. It’s a systematic deception and well-planned political control to pave the way for a silent takeover.
Behind the media are the powerful, but secret ones, hidden in plain view. They are the muscular ones pulling the strings who dictate national and global agendas. They are the ones who wear the ultimate mask, wear a cloak and carry a lethal dagger.
And behind these world power-manipulators? The evil one himself, the devil with minions of evil spirits at his command, the prince of this world (John 16:11). His agenda is to control the nations of the world before Jesus returns and power is snatched out of his dirty hands.
At the most personal level “they” are us. When we fall for the lies and pass on hearsay, swallow the rumors, believe the propaganda without doing our own research or checking sources, we may be self-deceived. Our hearts, too, are deceitful and we are prone to be gullible, unless we are clad in the full armor God provides.
The devil is behind the curtain of all deception. He is constantly in our face, “the accuser of the brethren.” He is pursuing us, and we can’t outrun him. Jesus has our backs. If He had not won the victory for us by His death and resurrection, we would be among the casualties on the battlefield of our minds.
The evil one is also using his wiles to confuse Jesus’ followers. Let us pray for and welcome the genuine and be aware of the counterfeit—whether from outside or from within the Christian community. The authentic will be increasingly evident because we are in the end times, and Joel 2 calls for the prophetic to come from men and women, young and old, at all levels of society.
Matthew 24:24 (MSG) says, “If anyone tries to flag you down, calling out, ‘Here’s the Messiah!’ or points, ‘There he is!’ don’t fall for it. Fake Messiahs and lying preachers are going to pop up everywhere. Their impressive credentials and dazzling performances will pull the wool over the eyes [deceive] even those who ought to know better. But I [Jesus] have given you fair warning.”
To publicly declare prophetic words as from God is a serious act of obedience to be offered with humility, recognizing that the interpretation of the details and the time and manner of fulfillment may not be immediately understood.
In these days of infodemic, when many trumpets are blaring uncertain sounds [unclear, indistinct, unrecognizable, garbled, even deceptive] (1 Cor. 14:8) please, Lord, give us the Holy Spirit’s discernment to recognize what is of the flesh or of the Spirit or of the evil one, so we can recognize the certain sound of the last trumpet heralding Your return! {eoa}
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