Conspiracies and Spiritual Blindness

I have been criticized for voting for Bush.

 

I'm with you, C4K, and I agree with LarryN. This comes up in my ministry sometimes. I tell people if they have a book by Texe Marrs to throw it away because not only is he a conspiracy nut but his info on the New Age is often very inaccurate.

To me, a conspiracy is by its nature self-refuting. A conspiracy by definition is a secret, so if we know about it, it's not a conspiracy anymore.

Remember all the dire predictions of Y2K? I put that in the same category as the conspiracy junk (and many of the same people were involved) and it turned out to be what saner people had been saying all along - nothing! And those people who sold books on it did not even apologize to all the people they misled. Sad.

 

You raise a good question, C4. There's no truth to that, most of the credible work on this subject has been done by non-Christians. In fact, much of the real scholarship has come from the political left. Based on what I've seen, most of the "Christian" sources are not credible, to me anyway. They may have the right idea in some cases but it's easy to make general statements about 'powers' behind the scenes and speculate about it, and quite another thing to support it with the voluminous mound of empirical evidence that is required, and have all that blend in perfectly with recorded history.

Of course not. 9/11 aside, the idea that Christians who claim to "see" this or that eschatological event are more spiritual than others is immature, if not ridiculous. Even if a Christian is gifted by God with special discernment for today, it is no more (and probably less) spiritual than the little old lady who God has called to be a prayer warrior. I suspect many people who are into prophecy and current events are in over their heads.

It blessed me just to read that. Amen.

Absolutely agree.

Regarding the conspiracies themselves, most of them (and the information they produce) are wild or unsupported, thus without credibility and should be avoided. But there is credible information, much of it empirical evidence with supporting scholarship, available today that has the ability to shed much light on the inner workings of the Enemy. And I suspect that God has called and is calling a very small remnant of His people and gifting them with the necessary tools to provide hard, accurate, and USEFUL information to His church at the appropriate time. Needless to say, if we're not in the end time and the Lord's coming is not in sight, all such effort will be a waste. Yet if we are close to His coming then many things will be happening and circumstances will be changing fast, and good, accurate, information will become very handy. And this information will always ring true, check out, and line up with scripture. In any case, I honestly believe this is a DANGEROUS ROAD that should be avoided unless the Holy Spirit is SPECIFICALLY leading someone in this direction, in which case He will have equipped His child for it. Without going into detail, I don't think it's possible to overstate that. "Yea, though I walk through the valley and the shadow of death"....

As the brethren above have hinted, most Christians should be primarily concerned with winning souls to the Kingdom and doing what God has given them to do. God will protect His people who are doing His work and I might go as far as to say, for all practical purposes, Christians need not concern themselves with the details of this stuff, if at all. Abiding in Christ solves everything, it seems, regardless of whether the rapture is next week, at His Second Coming, both, another time or times, or all of the above. I believe God will see to it that His children get the proper information at the proper time.

For sure, we all should "watch and pray", but the Lord has not called every worker to a "watchman" ministry. The average Christian has no trouble watching the news and observing current events and movements such as the New World Order and other things that are fulfilling scripture. Given everything that's happening a curiosity of eschatolgy is perfectly understandable, and maybe desirable. But 'tracking down the enemy' should be reserved for those who are called to do that, IMHO. And organized, worldly, 'powers' behind the scenes are just one part of the puzzle, anyway.

I personally believe that the deception and error which is currently rampant, if not epidemic, in the church today is what Baptists and other Christians should be watching for and praying about, as I hope I've made clear in other recent threads. IMO, it is that "spirit of antichrist", increasingly on the move, that represents the real threat to the true Christian right now.

 

Yours is my choice for being the best responce here. God has a plan (we vary greatly on this board about the details) and His plan is the only one that will win out. Remember how the ardent doomsayers felt that the Y2K computer glitch would be somewhere between a catastrophe and the end of civilization as we know it?
These theorists come and go. Being familiar with scripture, as well as common sense should be utilized when these theorist come up with something.

Greater is He that is in you, then he that is in the world.