Christians cannot be deceived? You've probably heard that, and usually by someone in a cult that's about to pass around a big steaming mug of Fool Aide, or another group that loudly spittles that "global warming" is a hoax (and at the same time bellowing that the birth pangs of the world have begun and all the hilatious weather is a sign of the end -- um, but, you know, they cannot quite make the connection between a man-made global warming [hint: a product of sinful man's greedy, nasty, uncaring behavior to a planet God entrusted to them, to people, to care for, you know, as stewards?] and end-times weather!). These folk are SAVED (usually that, in all capitals) and they have a mindset that they are right and the whole world around them is wrong. But, um, uh, maybe they've been, uh, you know, um, may I say it? DECEIVED? Duh. What's this world coming to, is what I'd like to know.
The Golden Crown.
The King loved his subjects with all his majestic heart. He loved them desperately even though he saw them going astray, and so he fashioned a gift for their welfare, a free gift available to all, a gift to last forever, to help them now and save them in the end. An exquisite Golden Crown that glimmered with its own light – wherever anyone was, at whatever time, the subject need only think of the King, and the Golden Crown would appear before their waiting gaze. It was theirs, even the most lowly peon, a gift from the King to them.
The Golden Crown would magically fit itself to the subjects head, and once donned it improved the subject’s thinking and reasoning, eyesight, appetite, protected his or her health, made the subject’s sleep sweet, his communication enduring words of affection, and opened like a ticket the secret passage that led to the King’s Gala Ball. Anyone choosing to don the crown gained admittance to the grand Gala Ball where they could meet and embrace the King.
It was the King’s desire that every citizen of the Kingdom accept the free gift of his Golden Crown, but he desired that each citizen choose the crown of their own volition, in love of the King, for the good of the Kingdom and the betterment of their own life.
In a cave on the outskirts of the Kingdom there lived a great magician who once was the King’s most loyal subject. This wizard now detested the King and the Kingdom, and it was his consuming passion that he thwart the King wherever and whenever possible, and this wizard never slept. He kept his sharp, powerful mind – an intellect worlds greater than even the most clever subject of the Kingdom – he kept this intense intelligence focused on the objective of thwarting the King, and his magic was powerful (unfortunately for the wizard, even his greatest works eventually turned into ash and dust).
This is what had irked the wizard in the first place, that his own magic was not real and alive as was the wonder-working miracles of the King. He could never possess his own authority, could not the wizard, and he possessed no true power of his own, only a dim reflection of what the King owned, and what the King allowed him. But still, his magic was powerful enough to transfix the minds of any subject that freely chose to watch the wizard’s magic tricks.
And the wizard traveled everywhere in the land performing his special magic shows. The people gathered wherever the magician magically appeared. They adored watching his magician’s assistants, beautiful damsels all, and the subjects also adored the free drinks of ale and spice beer the wizard distributed, and his flashy purples robes laden with moons and stars. The wizard knew his art, and a magnificent artist was he – his stage patter was eloquent and sweet, his words were words of liquid persuasion and molten lullabies of wisdom. The simple subjects, some of them very fine citizens, drowsed at the magic shows, their eyes crossing, the spicy beer churning their dreams, the undulating ale turning their brains upside-down inside their own heads.
And the people forgot about the King. Even those subjects that desperately loved the King, some of them freely chose to remove their Golden Crown so that they could better enjoy the antics of the mysterious wizard.
The King issued warnings across the land, do not go and see him. The wizard is no friend of the King. The wizard will steal your crown. The wizard will deceive you. His time is short in the land, soon his sentence will fall upon him – and like a hungry lion he stalks the land seeking whom he might devour. Do not listen to him, for he will persuade you with his powers.
The King urged the people to remember his own special day he had gifted them at the beginning, a day in which to gather in the King’s name, on his day, to concentrate on the King and his good edicts, and share the glow of the Golden Crown among those that yet could hear the King. Resist the magic, and remember the King’s gifts, the original gifts, the gifts of the King. Gather together in remembrance of the King.
Many subjects listened closely to the King. They understood the danger in visiting the magic shows on the outskirts of the land. They did not go and see him, and they told their neighbors the truth about the false friend of the king, the deceiver, the wizard, the hungry lion stalking the land. Others did go and see the wizard but recognized the dangers as soon as they experienced the wonders of the magic tricks, and they turned and fled as the gathered crowd laughed and pointed at them.
Those that heard and obeyed the King gathered together to encourage each other in resisting the magic, and remember the King.
The wizard trained assistants and taught them his persuasive skills, even telling them that he was a friend of the King, that poor interpretations of the King’s warning were traversing the land, that the poor subjects just did not truly understand the wizard, nor the King, and that the new assistants would be serving the King as well as performing splendid magic shows.
Of course, some of the new assistants, the acolytes, understood exactly who the wizard really was, and they knew they were not truly serving the King. But this did not matter to these intelligent acolytes, the fact that they served not the King. Because they were given great power, and beautiful damsels served them as magic assistants, and they grew very rich off the innocence of the subjects who gathered to celebrate the King (or at least the king-supposed, another king, not the true King).
On the other hand, many of the acolytes of the wizard were none too bright, and they fully believed that they served the King, despite directly disobeying the words of the King. They also grew wealthy off the innocence of the subjects of the Kingdom, people drawn to the splendid parties, the magic shows, the spicy beer and the ale. These acolytes praised the King, but they did not know him. They spoke his name and offered up their earnings with laughter and glee, but they did not know whom they truly served, and praised, and celebrated.
The King issued warnings across the land, proclaiming both kinds of acolytes false friends of the King – do not go and see them. They will persuade you to take off your Golden Crown. They will take your money in false celebration of the King. The words of the acolytes do not agree with the words of the King.
But the people were simple. The citizens were confused. The subjects looked back and forth between the King and the wizard, and their spokesmen. Many of these puzzled peons were certain that the King was the wizard, and the wizard was the King. They exchanged their love for hate and their hate for love, and they were certain they were doing right. That they were blessed by the King even when they served his enemy.
In his greatest achievement, his most masterful illusion, the wizard created a duplicate of the Golden Crown. Whenever a subject thought about the crown, not only would the crown appear, but its twin – the wizard’s duplicate – appeared as well.
The King’s Golden Crown appeared as it always appeared, clean, beautiful, glowing from within, its own light shining in the land. The wizard’s crown, on the other hand, twinkled and sparkled, it flashed on and off, it was rimmed with winking lights of red and green and white, and when the subject reached for it, the false crown knocked them over backward, it tickled them and made them laugh, it whispered in their ear that they were special, it made them feel six inches taller, and it also made them feel better than the other subjects, that they in fact were the True Subjects of the King, capital letters and all. The crown of the wizard told the people that all the King’s decrees were old, were passed away, that now they could listen to the crown and receive new and improved decrees!
The King greatly desired to reach the peons, to save them from their deadly mistake. He handpicked great men of valor to take news and decrees directly to the people. Knights of the Kingdom rode forth on great steeds to warn the subjects of the false crown and inform all that the King’s decrees had not passed away. The true Golden Crown gave clarity of vision, it did not confuse and blur as did the wizard’s crown. The true Golden Crown dropped a subject to his knees as he realized the goodness and greatness of the King, and realized his own unworthiness, his own impurity – whereas the crown of the wizard pushed people over backward, made them silly and think that they were Kings themselves.
The King loved the people and his crown was one of free choice, for always. The King absolutely never forced a subject to wear his crown. Subjects could don the crown, and if they changed their mind about the King they could freely remove their crown as well.
The acolytes of the wizard, however, taught that once their crown was donned, it could never be taken off, their free choice was vanished forever, that once a king, always a king. And the acolytes of the wizard taught the poor people that the crown of the wizard was the True Crown, all other crowns were boring, old-fashioned, and dead. Forget the decrees and don our prettier crown, it glows in the dark, and while you are pondering the mysteries, give us your bag of gold and we will perform magic tricks for you!
We are Kings! You are Kings! Once a King, Always a King.
Do not obey the old decrees of the King, for they have been replaced by something far better. Obedience is become evil, and folly is righteousness and liberty.
The Knights, however, told the truth. They exposed the false words of the acolytes. But the people looked between the Knights and the acolytes and the people saw that the acolytes wore fine clothes, the purplest robes, flashing sparkling sundials upon their wrists; and the people looked again upon the Knights, whose armor was dented, whose clothes were humble, whose bears were rough and faces chapped from riding in the weather.
The acolytes said: “Speak, people, and believe, and as Kings yourselves, you shall issue new edicts, new rules and laws and words that far surpass the elder King’s decrees, the decrees which have passed away. But speak positively, confess only positive words, and believe upon them, and they shall be reality!”
“The truth is not always positive,” the Knights replied. “But the truth is the truth and it is what is important, and you cannot change the truth no matter what your mouth confesses, be it positive, or be it negative. Seek the truth, people, and it shall set you free!”
“This is a new day!” the acolytes cried. “The King set apart a day in days of old, a day to remember him. But now the King has improved, and so there is a new day! The King has changed his mind, and on this new day, this day today, we shall party and drink ale and beer and have magic shows like never before!”
“The King has blessed the acolytes,” the people cried. “Hail to the acolytes! The Knights are poor and accursed of the King.”
The people laughed at the Knights and would not listen to their warnings. Then they grew angry with the Knights, who spoke against the acolytes, who spoke such negative words of judgmental condemnation, words against the fun-loving wizard. The people threw tomatoes and clods of soil at the Knights. Stop judging the acolytes, stop judging the wizard! They are doing good, they are liberating us from obedience, and what we hear from them is good, they offer us hope, they offer us a higher seat than the King previously offered us, and thus we know the King is not the king, and that the king is the King!
King! King! King!
It was simple really, the people could know the truth because the acolytes spoke good things, happy things, whereas the Knights kept saying “don’t do this” and “the King never said that” and “obey the King not his enemy” and “if they don’t agree with what the King has already said there is no light in them” and “the King does not change his mind and what the King has set in place is set in place.” Everything negative, everything strict, everything old, and not a bit of it fun.
Finally, when the Knights would not shut up their mouths that spouted negativity, all these old rules and laws and days, the people pulled the Knights from their horses and buried them alive in the mud. And they danced upon the high mounds, praising the King, although they in reality praised the wizard, their mouths saying many positive things about the negative, negative things they had done and were now doing.
Then they had a great party, anointing each other with spicy beer on this new day of days, bright under the glowing sun. The people cooked the Knights’ horses on barbecue spits while gurgling their happy ale, and the acolytes did many, many fine tricks to the delight of the people, and everyone, one and all, young and old, stuffed themselves upon the horse meat. And the people were happy, waiting for the great riches that the wealthy acolytes promised them. The people waited for the King to come and swoop them into a giant sack and take them away to a new kingdom.
Tell us more stories! Interesting stories! EXCITING stories! Keep telling us tales, it is like our ears are itching, we want the strange new stories so, so, so badly, badly, badly. Please tell us! Please tell us! Please tell us!
The acolytes and the wizard had taught them many strange new tales, and the people shouted these tales now. They told the stories back and forth, even memorizing the strange, bizarre, wonderful, wonderful, wonderful stories!
They cried out: “King! King! King!”
The people thought that they were safe, and yet they were not.
The people thought that the wizard was the King. The people were not correct.
The people believed that the acolytes were friends of the King, and the people again, again, again were wrong.
The people were told and taught many tall tales, all of them they fully believed to be true, but none of which were true. Some of the tales were close to the truth, but all of them were slightly wrong, slightly twisted versions of the King’s old edicts and rules. The people were taught by the acolytes that they could not be deceived, that they were proof-positive straight-a wunderkinds, Kings themselves (generally with a small "k") and everyone else around them were wrong, wrong, WRONG!
(Generally with a lot of repetition, repetition, repetition!)
(Generally with a lot of repetition, repetition, repetition!)
(Generally with a lot of repetition, repetition, repetition!)
The people were lost, and they did not know it.
Lost, lost, LOST.
“I am the King,” the wizard announced somberly, doffing his tall pointed hat to the mulling peasants and peons, acolytes and anointeds who danced and pranced about his cave. The light reflected off the wizard's shiny bald head, and all the people squinted and held their hands up. How bright, that light! It was out of sight! Wow, did he just say . . . that he was the . . . KING? The people were shocked. This, the King? Was it true?
Really?
Hadn't they always known it to be true? Really?
And they cheered, for here was the King, their beloved monarch. The one who cared for them and protected them and kept their lands clean and safe.
“You ain’t seen nothing yet,” the wizard declared, winking at the people. He snapped his fingers and his miraculous version of the Golden Crown appeared before the people. The crown twinkled and sparked, flashing and sparkling – the people sighed.
Then they laughed.
The wizard flung his version of the crown upon the people, and they laughed uproariously and fell backward. They were tickled to death (not literally, but later many of them would wish that it were indeed literal, this death induced by laughter).
The wizard grinned and nodded and entered his cave, well satisfied and delighted his machinations were progressing better than even he could have ever hoped. But there was more, oh yes indeedy doo, doo, doo! More, more, more!
The acolytes danced, casting twinkling crowns upon the people, and the people praised the wizard all the while believing him King. And the people, listening to the new tales of the acolytes, began to burn the forests and foul the waters of the rivers with their own personal waste. They threw dung upon each other, all the while crying: “King! King! King!”
They believed, the poor people did, that if they could destroy the Kingdom, then the King would come and carry them away to a better place. The acolytes swore this was true -- destroy the land, and the King would come and create a new land! The King’s true edicts had assured the people that they must care for the trees, the rivers and the earth of the kingdom, but the people now believed that obeying the King was a great evil. They came to believe that destruction was good, that disobeying the King's edicts was good, and that the destruction that they were creating was the fulfillation of the acolytes wonderful prophecies!
The people called good evil and evil they called good.
The King was not happy.
The fine Knights of the King were buried in the mud. His subjects ignored his decrees, they ignored the warnings spread across the land, they were leaving his Kingdom to dance about the wizard’s cave, and most of them thought they were still serving the King! The edicts issued by the King’s own mouth were now trampled underfoot and called evil. The kingdom itself disintegrating because the subjects did not obey the King. The King had issued decrees, and then he sent out his Knights, but the people would not listen.
The King said accept. The people rejected.
The King said obey. The people rebelled.
The King said remember. The people forgot.
The King sighed, not pleased, not pleased at all, but loving his subjects as fiercely and deeply as ever he had before.
A loyal few, just a mere Remnant, remained loyal to the King. These loyal subjects accepted, and obeyed, and remembered. They attempted to reason with the deceived peons. They attempted to care for the land as the King's edicts commanded. They attempted to care for their own bodies, as the King told them they should.
The happy, dancing people who thought they were following the King, did not appreciate this small band of loyal Kingsmen, this Remnant. Everything that went wrong, the people claimed the Remnant were at fault, because they maintained the old edicts, they wore the plain Golden Crowns, they did not giggle and fall down when the acolytes did their tricks. Whenever the acolytes played their pipes the Remnant did not dance.
Don't put us back under the old edicts!
The peons wanted nothing to do with the King's edicts, because they had something new, the ale, the beer, the dancing, the fancy new clothes!
And the Kingdom kept getting worse. Black smoke hung on the horizon. Children breathed the air and grew sick. Waves crashed and roared and drowned many a fisherfolk. Great winds swept up and leveled hovels, carried away people. And the ground often shook ominously.
The day of his Gala Ball swiftly approached but the people were not learning the King’s dance. Instead they were hopping and prancing, falling and laughing outside the wizard’s cave or worse yet busily destroying the King’s kingdom. Many of these deceived peons did not participate in the destruction of the King’s Kingdom, but they did nod their heads in approval, as the quicker the Kingdom was destroyed the swifter the King would return to stuff them into a big black bag.
“They will listen to my son,” the King said, desperate in his love for the people. He summoned his only son to the throne. “Will you undertake this mission, my Son? Do you love the people enough to provide a tunnel for them to reach me, in time for the Gala Ball?”
“I do love the people,” replied the Prince, “I love them enough to offer my life for them, my Father, if it be your will – if there is no other way.”
“Go, and offer the people the Golden Crown. Tell them again of the Gala Ball, teach them the dance, and if the people know me, my Son, they will know you. Build them a tunnel to survive the grim punishments I must allow upon the Kingdom because of the peoples’ vile acts, the people who do these things in my name, these poor folk who never learned to love the truth. Bid our Remnant enter the tunnel, my Son, and promise them that you shall meet them on the other side.”
The King and Prince then embraced, for they knew terrible events waited upon the horizon, and something horrendous must occur before they would see each other again. And the King wept at his Son’s departure, knowing that what his Son must suffer would surely change him for all eternity.
The King shook his head sadly. Because he KNEW. He knew that the people would even reject his own Son, the Prince. And very few would accept the tunnel that the Prince created. Very few would enter that tunnel.
Only a small number, his Remnant.
Oh yes, the wizard would convince the vast majority of the peons that they were wearing the King's Golden Crown, that they were in fact inside that very tunnel the Prince created for them. That they were serving the king, that they were doing good, all the while lying, deceiving, destroying, and pigging out.
But they were deceived. Sadly, they were even taught that they could not be deceived (how else could they be deceived, without believing lie after lie after lie). Sadly, the people did not love the truth.
They took the word Truth and turned it inside out. They spit on the word.
They laughed. Oh yes, the people laughed, they celebrated, and they did the opposite of what the King gave as life. They should have known better, the peons really should have -- but they didn't.
This happened, long, long ago in a land far, far away. It really, truly did. It happened. I promise. And now, it is happening again. Sadly, again, again, again. The very same King, the very same wizard, with a whole new bunch of acolytes, and very, very few knights. With lots and lots of people who think they are wearing the Golden Crown, but are sadly, sadly deceived.
Only a very few still obey, only a very few, a veritable Remnant, even remember. Still, a few, only a few, REMEMBER.
The King weeps.
* * *
Can Christians be deceived? I mean from the inside, from inside of Christianity its very self? "Global Warming" is a misnomer (e.g., the name is misleading). Think about it. The planet is an ecosystem -- one put in place by God Himself. Any kind of ecosystem, you tamper with it, throw it off kilter -- and you set off a terrible chain reaction, which ultimately destroys the ecosystem! THINK. Would you put dishwashing soap in your brand new Ferrari? Would you put too much oil in your car? You will throw off the system, and it will burn itself up. The winters will get more severe, the weather will grow more and more savage: tornadoes, earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, typhoons. Wow, just think about it.
It's something, about sense, you know? It pretty much makes sense. Anyone can do it -- THINK, I mean. You just have to make an effort, to see through the propaganda, the slogans, buzz words, "thinkless" speech, knee-jerk reactions and angry, bitter rhetoric. Try it, thinking, what have you got to lose in a crazy, crazy world?
What's this world coming to, anyway, is what I'd like to know.
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...Just Trying to Make Sense in a Crazy, Crazy, Loony-Tunes World.
Just give Thinking a chance.
THINK. Think your own thoughts.
Use the MIND that God Himself gave you, the thing that makes you unique, the thing that encompasses YOU, your mind, your noodle, your "heart" as the Bible calls it. Think with it, it's what God wants you to do. If you only think the thoughts of other people, you are not doing what you were designed to do. THINK. Or at least think about thinking, that would be a good start.
Sense is not evil. Common sense is a good thing, and perhaps not as "common" as the cliche. You think you can't figure it out, but that is because you haven't ever tried. God gave you a brain for a reason, and it is your responsibility to USE it.
Is tradition more important than what the Bible actually says?
When God says don't put this in your temple, is it okay to disobey Him?
Will the Holy Spirit even reside in a defiled temple?
Is the world, created by God, really something we can afford to disdain? Rape, pillage, plunder and deplete? Wipe out the animals? Cut down the trees? Greed is good, right?
When God says He is coming back to destroy those who are destroying the Earth, is He just bluffing?
Why do those on the left, who don't believe in God, say we should protect the planet? And those on the right, who claim to believe in God, say the world isn't important?
Society is robbing you of thought. Ads and gurus and the very worst of "teachers" are right now sapping your very soul. Aspartame and sucralose and Acesulfame K and splenda and MSG and high-fructose corn syrup and perpetual bombardment by cellular phone rays and the worst of nutrition-free diet is all adding up to rob you of your very ability to THINK. But you can yet do it. Exercise your gray matter.
Society is robbing you of thought. Ads and gurus and the very worst of "teachers" are right now sapping your very soul. Aspartame and sucralose and Acesulfame K and splenda and MSG and high-fructose corn syrup and perpetual bombardment by cellular phone rays and the worst of nutrition-free diet is all adding up to rob you of your very ability to THINK. But you can yet do it. Exercise your gray matter.
The Golden Crown would magically fit itself to the subjects head, and once donned it improved the subject’s thinking and reasoning, eyesight, appetite, protected his or her health, made the subject’s sleep sweet, his communication enduring words of affection, and opened like a ticket the secret passage that led to the King’s Gala Ball. Anyone choosing to don the crown gained admittance to the grand Gala Ball where they could meet and embrace the King.
