Sliding Toward Sodom

You’ve probably heard the quote, “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.” It’s usually attributed to Joseph Goebbels, propaganda minister in Nazi Germany. Ironically, Goebbels said something like that as an accusation against his British enemies—he didn’t admit that it applied to him or his own nation. And it was British Prime Minister Winston Churchill who famously said, “In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.”

Is a lie acceptable when a “good guy” tells it? Is truth “so precious” that we should prefer a lie? Our world is certainly confused about truth and falsehood, honesty and lies. Indeed, absolute truth is under assault—thus we have “Your truth is not my truth.” However, we are thankful that those who design the planes that transport us from London to New York live in the real world of absolute aerodynamic laws. Engineers work with laws that are unchangeable. Any honest and thinking person understands this. It is only in the realm of human behavior that truth is considered fluid while absolute law is rejected.

Of course, the impact of a lie is dependent on the extent to which it can be spread. During World War II they had to rely on word of mouth, telegram transmission, radio broadcasts, and other means we would consider archaic. Their tools were limited, though effective. Imagine, however, if they were alive today, how Nazi propagandists would salivate over today’s tools for spreading lies: the Internet and social media. Never in the history of mankind have there been greater tools to generate falsehoods, spread conspiracy theories, and advance political agendas.

To maximize the impact of deception, one must go one step further. All available effort must be expended to shut down and suppress any dissent from the lie. While Hitler’s propaganda used the power of the state to promote his agenda to the German people, the Nazi regime also suppressed dissent. Opposition was not tolerated. “Cancel culture” was often brutally exercised by the Nazi state.

Consequences of Loss of Trust

The danger we face today is much greater, as the sources of falsehoods and conspiracies go well beyond the state but clearly do not exclude the state. Over the last two years, we have seen a loss of trust in academia, media, and government. It is not that our institutions did not already have credibility issues, but has that trust ever been so low as it is now? As Wallace Smith reported in his February 2022 Tomorrow’s World magazine article “The Credibility Crisis,” citizens have without doubt been misled on numerous occasions by once-respected institutions and individuals.

One could discuss with good reason why The New York Times is mistrusted by many and when that mistrust began, but note this headline, originally from MSN.com: “New York Times Issues Messy Correction for Error-Riddled Covid Story.”

“An earlier version of this article incorrectly described actions taken by regulators in Sweden and Denmark,” Thursday’s correction noted. “They have halted use of the Moderna vaccine in children; they have not begun offering single doses. The article also misstated the number of Covid hospitalizations in U.S. children. It is more than 63,000 from August 2020 to October 2021, not 900,000 since the beginning of the pandemic” (October 8, 2021).

Not surprisingly, it is easy to find the original “error-riddled” article—but good luck finding the correction from the Times. Was it a case of sloppy reporting by Apoorva Mandavilli, or was it a blatant attempt to control the narrative in favor of bias? One would not expect such sloppiness from a reporter honored with a Victor Cohn Prize for Excellence in Medical Science Reporting as recently as 2019.

All of this raises the bigger question of what is going on in our world. Western culture is being transformed by lies before our very eyes. What is behind this transition? What happened to truth? Ordinary people are baffled by what they see as seemingly insane decisions by their leaders. We often hear, “Nobody can be that stupid,” indicating that people suspect an agenda at work. Who is behind it? And what is the endgame?

Some blame the globalists: George Soros, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Klaus Schwab, and anyone associated with the World Economic Forum. Anthony Fauci and big pharma are accused by numerous conspiracy theorists, such as those behind a June 27, 2022 Internet post where we are informed—or misinformed—that “The Globalists Plan to Kill 90% of Humanity.” This Tomorrow’s World article is not intended to verify or debunk such an astonishing claim, though it is difficult to believe. On the contrary, we are here to point out what few understand: All these individuals, no matter how evil, arrogant, greedy, humble, or well-meaning, are mere pawns.

What is clear is that there are names—known and unknown, famous and obscure—behind a radical transformation of Western culture, and there is little doubt that their ultimate target is to cast away traditional values, many of which derive their authority from the Bible. This explains why there is a war on traditional roles within the family and on any rational understanding of what it means to be male or female.

The War Against God

The confusion we see today did not start during any of our lifetimes. Celebrated philosophers such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Karl Marx were anti-God rebels through and through. Charles Darwin provided a theory to explain creation without a Creator, though in truth it does no such thing. The evidence of God is found all around us if we will only open our eyes and use the intelligence given to us. The facts do not support macroevolution. Despite claims that the geologic record proves evolution, that record shows just the opposite, and geologists know this. Even Darwin himself recognized this as a problem. But the greatest obstacle for evolution is how non-living material came to be alive. How could the impossible happen—how could the first cell feed itself and reproduce? And don’t let anyone deceive you—there is no such thing as a “simple” cell. Even bacterial cells are anything but simple.

Only in recent decades have we learned just how complex life is. One who has some understanding on the subject is prolific writer and self-proclaimed evolutionist Bill Bryson. How is it that he—and he is far from alone—maintains faith in a theory no one can prove? How is it that he and others believe that blind chance and a freakish accident can do what no human intelligence can replicate? Note this amazing statement by Bryson in his 2019 book The Body:

No matter what you pay, or how carefully you assemble the materials, you are not going to create a human being. You could call together all the brainiest people who are alive now or have ever lived and endow them with the complete sum of human knowledge, and they could not between them make a single living cell, never mind a [human being].

Bryson then goes on to speak of the “miracle of life” but cannot explain it. So, who is it now who trusts in faith and miracles? Scientists bristle at the characterization that they have faith in “blind chance,” but the outspoken Richard Dawkins contradicts that by titling one of his books in support of this outdated theory The Blind Watchman. The desire to live without a greater power declaring truth and standards for right and wrong drives people to trust in the impossible.

Each of us must choose one of only two explanations for life’s origin: that it is the work of a higher intelligence, or that it is the result of blind chance. Sadly, many of the self-proclaimed educated of the world have chosen the latter. Once you remove God from the picture, every man is left to himself to decide right from wrong, what is the best course and what is not. This war against God is the result of mankind’s innate hostility to godly values. “Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be” (Romans 8:7).

Can we not connect the dots between the Western world’s increasing rejection of God and the drift toward confusion and disaster upon disaster? Can we not see that the man who stands for nothing will fall for anything? When generation after generation of adults are fed the lie of a chance existence and that there are no absolute moral truths to live by, why are we surprised by a generation of rudderless children?

The Sodom Slide

Consider how far our world has strayed from biblical truths. Note this February 2021 headline from CBS News: “1 in 6 Generation Z adults identify as something other than heterosexual.” The report went on to explain, “Nearly 16% of Generation Z adults, who were between the ages of 18 and 23 in 2020, identify as LGBT, according to the poll.”

Consider how rapidly the values landscape is changing. Only a year later, in February 2022, Axios.com carried this headline about the latest poll: “The number of LGBTQ-identifying adults is soaring.” The article continued, “One in five Gen Z adults identify as LGBTQ—and that number is only expected to go up, according to a Gallup poll released Thursday” (February 19, 2022).

Many shake their heads at how Germans in the 1930s could so easily be misled into a war that brought devastation to much of the world, including their own beloved country. However, any thinking person ought to be asking the same question about our slide to Sodom in the twenty-first century. Hitler’s propagandists would be proud of the effectiveness of today’s, even though they did not share the same agenda. Back then, they only had radio, the printed word, and educational institutions—today we have all three, plus the Internet, social media, and television to spread every kind of falsehood.

The Internet is a lying machine. Not only does social media promote the anti-God agenda under the deceptive guise of inclusion and tolerance, but it also promotes every conspiracy man can imagine. Worse yet, algorithms direct people further and further down their own chosen rabbit holes of deception, as each person thinks he or she is following the right rabbit.

Like Sheep to the Slaughter

Human beings tend to follow the crowd, no matter where it leads or who is leading. If a celebrity sports a mohawk, so will his followers. Put a nail through your tongue and others will do likewise, though this ridiculous fad has thankfully faded. Not so when it comes to tattoos. Once they were the stamp of drunken sailors on shore leave, but today we see men and women at all levels of society flaunting them. Why not, if you have no supreme authority in your life? But if you do have respect for the One who gave you life, it might do you well to read what He has to say on the subject (Leviticus 19:28).

Without a supreme God to guide them, people are turning to bloggers, podcasters, and social media in general for information and validation. How easily we are manipulated without a moral anchor.

Much of academia has been taken over by propagandists who promote casting off all restraint, just as predicted: “By swearing and lying, killing and stealing and committing adultery, they break all restraint, with bloodshed upon bloodshed” (Hosea 4:2). These godless educators started in the universities, transitioned to high school, and are now going after those as young as five years old, indoctrinating and confusing them as to whether they are boys, girls, or something entirely different. Anyone who does not toe the line is “cancelled.”

Why, if it is all about tolerance and inclusion, are biblical values not tolerated and included? Whoever stated it, he or she did so succinctly: “It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent.”

Growing up has always been challenging, as individuals search for where they fit in the grand scheme. But today, it is worse, as there are plenty of peers and opportunists to show you the way, to validate you with a social media “like” and an “atta boy” for following the latest trend, no matter how destructive. How else can we explain the proliferation of those identifying as LGBTQIA+?

The Truth Sets You Free

The prophet Isaiah, knowing that truth, righteousness, and justice would be lacking in this present God-rejecting world, wrote of the condition of his people:

The way of peace they have not known, and there is no justice in their ways; they have made themselves crooked paths; whoever takes that way shall not know peace. Therefore justice is far from us, nor does righteousness overtake us; we look for light, but there is darkness! For brightness, but we walk in blackness! We grope for the wall like the blind, and we grope as if we had no eyes; we stumble at noonday as at twilight; we are as dead men in desolate places. We all growl like bears, and moan sadly like doves; we look for justice, but there is none; for salvation, but it is far from us…. In transgressing and lying against the Lord, and departing from our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood. Justice is turned back, and righteousness stands afar off; for truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter (Isaiah 59:8–11, 13–14).

Nevertheless, there is hope. Jesus said, “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:31–32). The truth is the enemy of lying propaganda, “the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”

Jesus said of those who follow Him, “They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth” (John 17:16–17). Yes, the truth sets us apart from the course of this world. While academics, media, corporations, governments, and even clergy promote behaviors unacceptable to God, those who understand that there are absolute moral truths, who have a moral anchor and strive to live that way of truth, are restrained from behaviors that bring confusion, suffering, depression, and despair.

This does not mean it is ever easy to live in this world. Clearly, it is not. As Isaiah said, “So truth fails, and he who departs from evil makes himself a prey” (Isaiah 59:15). Cancel culture can be painful, but standing up to it has an eventual reward. Truth will win in the end. As we have quoted, “The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie.” In today’s context, the lie can be maintained only for such time as the modern propagandists can shield the people from the moral, economic, and cultural consequences of the lie.

The consequences will come—in fact, for those with eyes to see, they are already here. So will come the rewards, both now and in the future, but those who would attain those rewards need foresight and courage. True Christianity is not for the weak, but for the courageous!