So far, we have discovered the three most-read prophecies in the Bible: Matt 24, Mark 13 and Luke 21, which suddenly became a 'global' phenomenon in the 20th century, just after the Tunguska Event. Was this the moment Satan arrived on Earth?
What followed was a sequence of events never before seen by mankind on such a huge scale. (Apart from the flood) In the early 20th century, a progression of events mirrored the release of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Conquest, death, pestilence and famine suddenly became global.
Then, conquest, war, pestilence, famine, earthquakes and signs of wonder- all the prophetic warnings of Jesus from His Sermon on the Mount climaxed and occurred in one year, 1957, the very same year man sent a satellite into space. The same year a record-breaking number of sunspots were recorded on our Sun, and record-breaking seismic and volcanic activity happened here on Earth-coincidence? More than 4,000 years earlier, Nimrod was thwarted from reaching the Heavens with his Tower of Babylon, also a coincidence?
1957 also appears to show Earth beginning to warm on several official graphs from NOAA, NASA and other scientific websites.
Jesus's prophecies suddenly began to jump off the pages of the New Testament. Conquest, war, famine, death, earthquakes, and signs and wonders from heaven. They began on a global scale from the early 20th century onward. Death could now be achieved by a new phenomenon: 'machines' on an industrial level.
Misleading/Deception
It's true to say the easiest person to deceive is oneself! But let's go back to Matt. 24, Mark 13, and Luke 21—Known as the Little Apocalypse. Three chapters all begin with Jesus warning us, "make sure no one misleads/descieves you."
Many influential people have since claimed the world changed in a subtle but forever way in the year 1914. Winston Churchill, for instance.
One of my favourite writers, George Orwell, described 1914 perfectly in his novel, Coming Up for Air:
”People living up to 1914 had something never prevalent again, ever, after 1914.” "Before 1914 people didn't think of the future as something to be terrified of as we do now, and life was “not” softer then; on the contrary, life was much harsher.” "Yes, people, on the whole, worked much harder, more people were living in poverty, but life was much better somehow." "It's like they had a peace of mind, a feeling of security; they didn't know “the order of things could ever be changed”, and nearly everyone had a religious belief and went to church." "And then boom, something changes the whole world, everything, forever.”
Seeing is believing
Let us look at that change forever, the progression: starting with the newspaper— "I believe it cos' I saw it in the newspaper, a photograph!"
1900 → newspapers + photographs + technological explosion
1914 → World War, organised government propaganda—Your Country Needs You!
1930s → radio: more propaganda . . . "I believe it, I heard it on the radio."
1940s → psychological warfare . . . Poland desperately defended itself on horseback against German tanks and bombers.
1950s–60s → television + behavioural research + intelligence operations—cold war nuclear deterent + CERN + AI + global warming . . . " I believe it; I saw it on the TV."
1970s → revelations of government deception → mass television culture + civil unrest + sexual freedom
1980s Human → machine → network → global network → personalised information → machine-generated reality.
1990s → Internet
2000s → social media; "I believe it cos I saw it on Facebook!"
2010s → algorithmic personalisation
2020s → generative AI. And the direction of travel is extraordinary. The technology has progressively increased our ability to manufacture reality.
First: words. Then: pictures. Then: sound. Then: video. Then: personalised information. And now: synthetic reality—"I can't believe it even if I did see it, because it could be AI!"
Machine intelligence.
For the first time ever, in 1914, machines were used to kill mankind. However, by 1957, humans were already looking toward machines as a way of AI.
Artificial intelligence 1957—Sputnik — space machine monitors Earth; we are on our way . . .
1960s behavioural research + surveillance + computing
1969 ARPANET—Beginning of the WWW.
1970s exposure of secret government programmes
1980s digital information
1990s Internet
2000s social media;
2010s algorithmic personalisation;
2020s generative AI. And the direction is unmistakable, as is the outcome we presume:
Did the Bible predict the internet? Because there is a temptation to say: yes, it did, but it didn't explicitly do so. We shouldn't force modern technology into ancient passages. But the Bible repeatedly describes a world where 'deception' becomes extraordinarily important. So important that Jesus uses deception/misleades at the beginning of His three prophetic warnings.
Jesus' warning in Matthew 24 begins: "Take heed that no man deceives you." Then comes the warning about false messiahs, false prophets and deceptive signs. Paul's warning in 2 Thessalonians 2 similarly centres on deception, false signs, and the rejection of truth.
Revelation 13 describes a system involving authority, worship, signs and deception. The striking thing isn't that these passages mention computers. They don't. The striking thing is how central deception is. The devil is in the details, of course.
The Biblical Measuring Stick
In 2008, I learned a valuable lesson. I had just finished reading two books, God's Final Witness and the Prophesied End-Times, by Ronald Weineland. His books warned the reader that our world would end in May of that year. I was very gullible, a newbie in Christianity and very green behind the ears, and I was convinced Weineland was correct. (I was deceived).
After reading the books, I grabbed a couple of suitcases, my wife and daughter and booked a flight to stay with friends on a Dutch Caribbean island for three weeks; better to be safe than sorry, you understand—Nothing happened, of course, but my wallet and my street-cred had shrunk considerably. But that's what happens to the normal guy in the congregation when the predicted event doesn't occur; as usual, they are the ones who suffer.
Let us look at some of the biggest examples of false prophets, deceivers:
Jehovah's Witnesses—Unwittingly, I was deceived yet again. I was baptised as a Jehovah's Witness in 2011, and in 2015 my faith could have cost me my life; more about that later.
The JW organisation famously claimed the World would see the return of Jesus Christ in 1914, 1925 and 1975, or He would begin His Millennium Rule in Heaven. It never happened, of course. Beware of false prophets—but it's more than just false prophets; it's more than just deception. And this is what Jesus meant by not being deceived: during those prophetic years shown above. Tens of thousands of genuine JW believers decided to end their university or college education, quit their jobs or stop paying the mortgage on their house. What was the point, they argued? They were going to paradise, only they weren't. Literally tens of thousands of innocent people lost their education, jobs or houses because a human being claimed to know God's future plan.
But it gets worse: last month, after nearly one hundred years of no tolerance, the Jehovah's Witness Organisation decided to change its policy of not accepting blood transfusions to allowing the individual's conscience to decide. Overnight, the rule changed. Had God changed His mind? No, man had changed his interpretation of what God had originally instructed; the Governing Body of Jehovah's Witnesses were once again flip-flopping.
It is estimated that around 50,000 deaths (including children) have occurred since 1945 because the organisation refused blood transfusions. To suddenly say it's now ok is astonishing, to say the least.
I Had My Own Close Call
In 2015, I was admitted to hospital for a run-of-the-mill keyhole operation which went badly wrong. My heartsack became infected; the hospital suddenly needed to operate. Being a JW, I told them I couldn't accept a blood transfusion; a shouting match with the surgeon ensued: "Without one, you will surely die," he screamed—"so be it." I screamed back. The shouting match went on for ten minutes. My wife had to stand between us. Eventually, under pressure, they found another way, and I'm still here to tell the story.
But deception doesn't just belong to Jehovah's Witnesses; the list of offenders is endless; let's have a look at just a few of em' . . .
Hal Lindsey — The Late Great Planet Earth and the expectation that the end would occur within the generation associated with Israel's 1948 rebirth.
1988 — the widely circulated calculation that Christ's return was imminent;
Y2K — not strictly a Christian prophecy, but heavily wrapped in apocalyptic Christian expectations
Harold Camping — 1994 and especially 21 May 2011, followed by 21 October 2011.
YouTube 2026—Type in just one of these topics and your YouTube feed will explode with content: End-Times, Rapture, Revelation, Return of Christ, Armageddon and the last days; don't take my word for it, though, it would appear everyone has an idea when Jesus will return. Luckily for us is the fact that the one source of correct prophecy is actually the Bible itself!
But I think we should preserve an important distinction: a failed prediction isn't automatically evidence that Christianity itself is false. It can, however, be very strong evidence that a particular interpreter, movement, date-setting system, or prophetic claim was wrong. And that takes us directly back to Jesus' warning: “Take heed that no man deceive you.” — Matthew 24:4
Why did millions of Christians repeatedly accept confident prophetic claims that later failed? And it's not just Christians, of course; Satan, the father of the lie, deceived himself, as did the fallen angels, leading to the flood and the destruction of the pre-deluvian world. And then there is a small matter of one billion angels who chose to follow Satan;
Here's something to ponder: Jesus warned us that the future tribulation period will be like no other time ever before on Earth; Consider this: only eight people survived the flood . . . The narrow doorway He talks of could be very narrow indeed!
We must not forget 'inverted' deception either, often bandied around by academics, scholars, influential people, and the rich. They are the ones who will tell you nothing will change; the world will carry on as it always was, so carry on as normal.
Second Peter 3: In the last days mockers will come with their mocking.
2 Peter becomes stronger with each passing generation: if generation after generation dies without seeing the promised coming, the sceptic's argument appears increasingly persuasive. For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all continues just as it was from the beginning of creation.’
For when they maintain this, it escapes their notice that by the Word of God the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and by water through which the world at that time was destroyed, being flooded with water.
But the present heavens and earth by His Word are being reserved for fire, kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.
But do not let this one fact escape your notice, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.
The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.
But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat and the earth and its works will be burned up.
Something happened in modern theology.
One major development in late-50s theology was demythologisation, especially associated with German theologian Rudolf Bultmann. The basic issue was that Bultmann and others argued that the New Testament's cosmic language — heaven, hell, demons, resurrection, eschatological events and so forth — had to be interpreted in ways that 'modern people' could understand rather than simply accepting the ancient cosmological picture literally.
It doesn't mean Bultmann simply wrote: “Jesus isn't coming back.” That's too crude. But it does mean that the traditional expectation of a future, visible, cosmic intervention by Christ was profoundly reinterpreted in parts of modern academic theology.
There is an even more interesting historical point: By the mid-20th century, scholars were openly discussing the problem of the delayed Parousia. “Parousia” is the Greek term commonly translated as coming/arrival/presence, particularly in discussions of Christ's return. The problem was obvious: The earliest Christians expected Christ's return. Generations passed. Christ didn't return. Then generations after that passed. Still no return.
Scholars therefore had to explain why the earliest Christian expectation appeared not to have happened. Commentators recognised this problem. 2 Peter, for example, notes that the delay had already led people to think the expectation was a delusion.
And here's the really interesting picture emerging. If we put these things together around 1957–59, we get a remarkable collision:
Bultmann's demythologisation; Supernatural/eschatological Christianity increasingly reinterpreted.
Graham's revival; traditional evangelical Christianity vigorously defended.
Christian Zionism: Israel increasingly connected with prophecy.
Cold War Christianity: Faith increasingly intertwined with geopolitical ideology.
Dead Sea Scrolls: new challenges and debates over Christianity's origins.
Growing secularisation: increasing pressure to make Christianity compatible with modern intellectual culture.
The late 1950s represent a major turning point in how Christianity understood Scripture, prophecy, the Second Coming, Israel, secular society and the authority of scholars.
Jude adds another dimension
Jude tells Christians: “earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.
That phrase “once delivered” is significant. The faith isn't something that needs continual reinvention by church leaders. The Christian is supposed to return to the apostolic foundation and ask: Does this teaching actually belong to that faith? Rather than starting with: “Which modern Christian group is right?” Can any modern Christian group be right? I don't think they can; Christian groups are led by humans. Yes, the Holy Spirit lives in us; we do our best to listen to Him, but we are all still sinners, human, and no man knows the mind of God. Romans 11:34.
The Governing Body of Jehovah's Witnesses, for example, has proved, many times, to be false prophets; but we can say that for just about any church or organisation run by people, we are humans and very good at getting it wrong.
We don't really need a church . . . No, the church says we need the church; the Bible says we need God!
Scripture Echoes of Indwelling• 1 Corinthians 6:19: “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you…?”
• Ephesians 3:16-17: “to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.”
• 2 Corinthians 6:16: “We are the temple of the living God… ‘I will dwell with them and walk among them.’”
• Galatians 5:25: “If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.”
Remember, a failed prophecy can often reveal the true belief of the person revealing the deception.
The following is an excerpt from Ephesians 2:
And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, (the devil) of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience.
(I wonder, just what were his former trespasses and sins?)
At the risk of sounding sanctimonious, our Western ideals have increased to a point where our very lifestyle is causing us spiritual, mental and physical pain. The very idea of modern Western culture brings us hurt, punishes us and causes remorse. Our breakneck lifestyles inflict physical injury and disease and produce frustration and hopelessness. We find ourselves in a world connected by social media; we are linked to everyone—yet the world is rife with loneliness and depression.
Suicides are at record-breaking levels and rising uncontrollably. We are indeed fighting a spiritual war, but most of us are unaware we are actually in a fight at all, deceived, bewildered and numb.
What we desire is what is killing us! Billions of people around the world have been misled, probably all of us. And since the Covid virus was announced on New Year's Eve, 2019, our world has quickly escalated into a Hollywood-type B horror movie. How did we get here?
Most Westerners, probably most of the world, are living in the 21st century with suppressed immune systems brought on mostly by their own desires. Obesity, diets rich in fat and sugar, processed foods, smoking, alcohol and drug consumption, medications, pollution, exposure to pesticides or industrial chemicals and radio-frequency radiation.
Exposure to distorted sex and violence, which is pushed into our faces at every turn, has twisted the very meaning of love and reproduction between man and wife, one of God's most beautiful gifts. We are being consumed by modern life. Our cells, proteins, and DNA are shot by our Western lifestyle. Modern medicine is contributing to ageing and is also playing a role in the development of a range of health conditions. Sickness such as diabetes, cancer, and neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s are all on the rise, and most importantly, our mental health is being compromised. In other words, we are killing ourselves, and these sicknesses are absolutely—“The Mark Of Deception!”
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