Bud Hancock uses his highly trained engineering mind to fathom out how you are being deceived in this age. There are some very thought provoking ideas contained in this article. My advice, as always these days, is “Look up your redemption draweth nigh”. Luke 21:28.

Many thanks to Bud.

Gibber! Gibber!

Chugley

Deception Isn’t Coming: It’s Already Here

By Bud Hancock

A deception is most successful when the person being deceived WANTS IT TO BE TRUE.
“All warfare is based on deception”, is a statement credited to Sun Tsu, Chinese general, military strategist and philosopher, in his work, “The Art of War”. What exactly does that mean and how does it relate to being a Christian and living a true Christian life? Let’s examine the words to see if they hold further meaning other than the obvious.

Per Dictionary.com, warfare is “the act of waging war against an enemy, possibly, but not necessarily, an armed conflict”. It also means a “state of disharmony or conflict as well as strife”.

In the dictionary definition of warfare, it can be assumed that the very act of warfare, of necessity, requires the implementation of a weapon or many weapons; in the case of open warfare, the weapons would be those designed to injure or kill an enemy, such as a sword, an arrow or a firearm, a piece of artillery, an airplane or a warship. On the basis of the presence of these weapons, and their function as destroyers, it can easily be seen that the type of warfare using them indeed is capable of great human destruction. But in the statement in paragraph four, “all warfare is based on deception”, the use of deception as a weapon of great destruction is often missed, especially by Christians, because the end result of the deception may not be seen for a great while after the weapon has been used. But the truth is that deception, when used by a fierce enemy, especially when accepted by the “target”, is a weapon capable of much more harm destruction than a firearm.

Let me say plainly that some of the deception I write about here may only be conjecture, and I have no inside information about them, but based on the level of deception we are now becoming aware of, it might behoove us all to become more aware of the many forms deception takes. For example, there are reports of many people who have allowed some AI driven entity (ChatGPT, for example) to change their spiritual ideas and are claiming the AI entities are helping them to contact God and become more in touch with their inner feelings as well as gaining supernatural insight into the creation and working of the universe. The people who have wandered into AI world are being told things that, on the surface, any listener would scoff at and turn to another information source, but, the deception being offered is changing lives, and not for the better. But why? Because the hearers WANT IT TO BE TRUE. Thai is the hidden weapon that allows deception to be successful. However, they are likely unaware that the voices they are giving heed to are those of demonic spirits leading them to a future they cannot see and do not want.

Many Americans who would likely deny that they are being deceived still believe that our Congress exists to represent the American people, and the reason they believe is that “THEY WANT IT TO BE TRUE”. Believing it to be true and then going merrily on their way relieves them of actually taking the steps needed to change things. They can simply assume that the Congress is a legitimate entity designed to represent the citizens of the US. But, the US Congress/citizen representation deception is likely one of the greatest deceptions in human history, right up there with the deception whereby Satan convinces people that he does not exist. Is deception on a grand scale now occurring in the United States?
Absolutely. A perfect example of possible deception, bathed in the light of a spat between two extremely wealthy and powerful individuals is the very public tiff between POTUS Trump and the world’s richest man, Elon Musk. The two have been hurling insults and accusations at each other and the MSM has absolutely devoured it, making it the top news stories for several days. The back and forth between them publicly seemed like two people at war, even if it were only a “war of words”.

But, was the Trump/Musk split real, or could it simply be a distraction from something much more important, and sinister; another element of the grand deception? Remember the words of Sun Tzu: “All warfare is based on deception”.

Musk was made an insider in the Trump administration after he became a significant factor in Trump’s successful campaign and victory in November 2024. After the election, Trump announced the formation of D.O.G.E., the new Department Of Government Efficiency, with Musk picked to be the main driver of all its activities. This new department was supposedly established to locate any areas of fraud, corruption and waste in our government, to expose it and begin the task of getting back the hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayer money that had been stolen or misappropriated; as it began its work, the headlines listing such finds were also top news. The announcement of the establishment of DOGE and its early exposés were welcomed with great enthusiasm among conservative groups and individuals.

But, the question could, and likely should, be asked: Is DOGE a totally transparent operation, or could it be a part of the deception that will usher in the surveillance/control system needed to place us all under government control? Consider that in the background, behind the glaring light of multiple discoveries of government fraud and corruption, is it possible there was another agenda behind the formation and function of DOGE? If so, and based on how quickly it has been accepted, then the deception certainly appears to have been successful.

Keep in mind that we ARE in a war, the one between good and evil, between God and Satan, and since God is NOT a deceiver, but IS the very essence of TRUTH, then any deception involved in the “good vs. evil” war must emanate from Satan, the very essence of evil. We know from the prophetic words of the various prophets, especially Daniel, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, Joel, Zechariah, the disciples of Jesus, and Jesus Himself, that certain events MUST unfold as we get closer to the time of the end of the age.
One of those events will be the appearance of a man known as “the Antichrist” who will appear on the scene at a time when the problems facing humanity seem to be overwhelming with no real solutions in sight; and according to the prophetic word, this devilish man will, through charisma, charm, lies and deception, deceive most of the people on this planet. His deception will include beliefs about religion and finances among many other topics. The deception that he will introduce in order to reach a large majority of the human race must work through a system that will allow him to spread his deception quickly and successfully.

But how will he be able to use the system so successfully? Remember the words at the beginning of this article: A deception is most successful when the person being deceived WANTS IT TO BE TRUE. Just as DOGE has been so widely accepted and welcomed, the deception of the Antichrist will be welcomed with many calling him the messiah and believing he can solve all the problems of the World.

Could it be that the real reason for DOGE to exist was to partially cover another event that was unfolding at the same time? A highly questionable and potentially dangerous agreement, one capable of causing Americans, and other citizens of every nation on Earth, to voluntarily give up the freedoms we hold the most dear? Such an agreement between POTUS Trump and Peter Thiel was occurring with Thiel’s company, Palantir, being used to set up a government surveillance system that would incorporate the personal information of every American citizen, using data from all the government agencies that Musk and his team of “cyber-diggers” had taken over, penetrating their computer databases and then allowing them all to be linked together providing the data that Palantir would analyze and feed into “the system”.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/destroy-ring-trump-palantir-deal-163336897.html?guccounter=1
To be successful, this Antichrist System will need a means of collecting, storing, analyzing and retrieving the information on billions of people, as well as offering a unique means of controlling the population to prevent any interruption of the agenda of the Antichrist.

If most Americans were asked whether they were in favor of having their most personal information placed into ONE government, AI controlled database, I dare say the “nays” would far outnumber the “yeas”. However, under the deceptive cover of locating and rooting out fraud and corruption, along with the ensuing spat between Trump and Musk covering the news of this deceptive agreement, “the system” has now become inevitable.

Could deception, that of making Americans believe that DOGE was actually making their lives better by reducing government waste and fraud, be the perfect cover for the TRUE work of DOGE: building the future Antichrist System of surveillance and control? This is, I think, a fair question.

Do you doubt that the entire World population, whether they believe it or not, is engaged in a war that will have greater consequences than any other war in human history?

Anyone who is, or has long-been, a Christian, not just a “Sunday go to meeting” person, or a Christmas and Easter seat-warmer, but a person who has received the zoé, the life of God, through acceptance of Jesus the Messiah, as God’s only begotten Son and Savior of the world, realizes that a well-lived Christian life brings much conflict, much strife and what many call spiritual warfare. The fact of the existence of an “enemy” of all Christians is well-documented in the Bible. Any Christian who denies the existence of a serious spiritual enemy trying to deceive us is already deceived; this is a form of “self-deception” that can easily lead to delusion, a much worse condition than being deceived.

Eve was deceived (beguiled) by the serpent acting on behalf of Satan, and she then brought death upon herself when she ate of the fruit forbidden by God (She wanted the deception to be true because it sounded so good to her), but much worse than simply sealing her own fate, she then foolishly used the deceiver’s own weapon to bring Adam under the curse which was already upon her due to her own disobedience; thus, through the two of them, the entire whole of mankind was cursed and sentenced to physical death.

They also died spiritually when they consumed what had been forbidden by God, thus leaving them incapable of having a loving spiritual relationship with God. They allowed the deception they accepted to rob them of their eternal physical life; as a result, NO ONE gets out of this Earthly existence alive. The only way of escape and having any hope of regaining the spiritual life that was lost is through the redemptive power of Christ (1 Corinthians 15:22).

Every action that you might ever see or behold in your lifetime is driven by a spirit, most often the individual spirit of a person, but also at times by an evil spirit trying to bring deception into our lives. God encourages us to use our senses of perception to determine whether a spirit is from God, or from Satan. As Christians, we are to closely observe the words and deeds of others and allow the Holy Spirit to guide us in our response to those words and actions. Our perception can aid in determining whether the action emanates from love, fear, hatred, etc. on the part of the person acting.

“Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world. Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God: And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world” (1 John 4:1-3).

The opposite of deception (the lie) is TRUTH, and truth can be found only in one place. The Apostle John stated: “Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come.
The key to surviving deception from an enemy who is a skilled deceiver is to have the discernment necessary to know the difference between an enemy and a friend, and to have the wisdom to understand how to deal with the deception and the one who perpetrates it against us. This discernment is not a skill that can be learned, but rather is a gift of the Holy Spirit: “To another the working of miracles; to another prophecy; to another discerning of spirits; to another divers kinds of tongues; to another the interpretation of tongues (1 Corinthians 12:10), “But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil” (Hebrews 5:14).

Interestingly, in Hebrews 5:14, the writer used the word “senses” from the Greek word “aistheterion’ (Strong’s 145, pronounced ah’-ee-sthay-tay’-ree-on) and it means the “organ of perception”, the ability to perceive information based on the cumulative cooperation of the five physical senses working in tandem with the human spirit, especially when under the influence of God’s Holy Spirit.

Without this kind of discernment, even a longtime Christian can easily become a victim of deception. Look around you and allow the Spirit of God, working with your own spirit, to show you just how well entrenched the deception has become. No matter how much you want something to be true, your desire for it to be true does not make it so. Seek Godly discernment, use the senses of perception given to you and always allow real truth to take precedence over what you think is true. These steps may just save you from the deadly deception that even now is engulfing the World.
Blessings and Maranatha!

Bud Hancock

Born and raised in a small textile town in North Carolina, Bud’s family moved to Michigan in the hope of finding better employment with General Motors.  After graduating from high school, Bud began an apprenticeship with General Motors to become a Metal Modelmaker.  Retiring after a 30 year career, which included an eight year stint as a Metrologist (Science of high precision measurement), he and his wife moved back to North Carolina to be near his elderly parents.  Shortly thereafter, with both of his parents having passed, he began a new career in the bank security/ATM business, advancing from an entry level technician to one of two North Carolina customer service managers for his employer.  Retiring again after 13 years, he and his wife of 51 years relocated to Tennessee where Bud began writing articles emphasizing Biblical teaching and geopolitical issues.  At age 75, he and his wife relocated to South Carolina with their Miniature Schnauzer, Baxter.  Bud continues to study God’s word and write articles on Christian living and geopolitical issues from the Biblical end times  perspective.