The speaker discusses three areas of concern: the growth of self-love teaching, the addictive nature of the Internet, and China's growing control of the world.
The speaker believes that the world is becoming increasingly selfish and narcissistic, with people prioritizing their own interests over others.
The speaker also notes that the Internet has become addictive, with people spending more time online and less time interacting with real people.
The speaker is concerned about China's growing economic control and its ability to manipulate individuals, companies, and governments.
The Conspiracy Theories I'm going to do something different today. It's not based on the teachings of Jesus as such, and it's very similar to something I mostly don't have time for, and that is conspiracy theories. What I mean is that I think there are things happening in the world today that are destined to come together over the next few years with pretty disastrous results, and I want to point them out. I think they are consistent with things that Jesus warned his followers about, and I think they do represent the fulfillment of other Bible prophecies, but what I'm going to say also involves some conjecture of my own. Nevertheless, I think that a lot of other people may be seeing the same things, even if they have never read the Bible. Now, there are other elements to what I see, but I will try to build my observations around these three points. 1. The growth of self-love teaching. 2. The addictive nature of the Internet and 3. China's growing control of the world. Let me start by saying that I made a prediction many years ago that so much civil and friendly behavior by merchants, especially in the West, is going to one day disappear very quickly when the merchants discover that they no longer need to be nice guys in order to make a lot of money. I said that there is a lot of forced nice behavior right now which has grown out of a Christian ethic which hardly anyone adheres to anymore. When people recognize that, they'll simply stop trying to impress anyone, because no one is interested. There is a saying, ''Hypocrisy is the homage of vice to virtue.'' Let me say that again. Hypocrisy is the homage of vice to virtue. What it means is that people do and say nice things that they don't really mean just because they believe that such behavior is a reflection of the values in most other people in society. I believe this is especially true in those parts of the world where there has been historically a strong Christian influence in the past. A lot of that politeness still exists in certain circles, but genuine concern for anyone except ourselves is rapidly fading, and it is already very close to being non-existent. As more and more people come to recognize that everyone else is only interested in what will benefit them personally there will be less and less need to pay homage to values such as generosity and love. So we will descend into a more and more openly dog-eat-dog society with every man or woman for themselves. And this is most blatantly evidenced by the narcissistic teaching that you are the center of the universe. It's being taught in schools, through the media, and even through our churches. It all about how special you are how you deserve the best how even God exists solely for the purpose of making you rich making you famous and free of all pain We are told that whether or not we bother to do our homework or pay attention in class we are still doing a wonderful job and should never be failed. Whether or not we give a damn about the feelings of others, we are unique, special people. Whether or not we are rude and arrogant, we have a right to make our own rules. And what about sports? Where are the days gone when we believed in something called good sportmanship? Now it's all about who can boast the loudest about being the best. And if you win, you don't bother to express gratitude for a little good luck or compliments to your opponents. Instead, you beat your chest and prance all over the field pretending like you are a god. Okay, so that is one aspect of what concerns me about the world today. Rampant selfishness being promoted as a good thing. Jesus said in Matthew 24 verse 12, just before he returns, Inequity shall abound, and the love of many shall wax cold. In other words, because everyone has become so obsessed with themselves, feeling empathy for others becomes almost non-existent. In an age where we have access to more and more information about the sufferings of others, The world in general has less and less sympathy for anyone except themselves. We are all prepared to fiddle while Rome burns. My second observation has to do with the addictive nature of the Internet. You don't need me to tell you that people everywhere are relating less and less with real people in face-to-face communication. That worldwide development has been pointed out by millions around the globe But the scary part is that almost no one is able to change it. We rant against it, and then fall into the same trap ourselves. And that includes me. I try to keep it under control, just using the Internet, Google, YouTube, text messaging, the social media for good and necessary purposes. But little by little, it can get away from me, and I find myself becoming addicted once again to junk, trivia, time wasters, and worse. What we have is an epidemic that is infecting the minds of literally billions of people. We know that the games and other aspects of online communication have been deliberately made addictive, and yet we still indulge. And it's not enough that a crack addict say that he wants to quit. There needs to be a plan, and a lot of determination if he is ever going to kick the habit. And the same is true with worldwide addictions to games, trivia, and porn. But where is that resolve to be found in the world today? The merchants of the world are forming a tighter and tighter grip on your soul, as they link each new account with the others, and as they use massive computers to keep track of everything you like and think and say. They use all of this to tempt you with the drugs that most match your weak spots All the information in these computers is now falling more and more under the control of government bodies which are largely unaccountable But, at least at this stage, we feel it most in our dealings with large business entities. They almost flaunt the fact that they are unaccountable. Drones in India or the Philippines become the only available face for these companies, These drones have been trained to bump you from one to another until you give up trying to rectify any injustice that you feel you have suffered at the hands of these companies. And they're becoming more and more expert in terms of confusing and deceiving the public in order to get our money. Gone are the days when you could talk to someone's supervisor, or when you could walk into a real head office and actually expect an apology, usually with some form of compensation, when the company makes a mistake. Sadly, most of the mistakes nowadays are not even mistakes at all. They are carefully calculated in order to pump more funds into their coffers directly from our bank accounts or credit cards through electronic withdrawals. And here too, the world seems to be way past the point at which all of this could be reversed. It's like the Wild West in the US during the gold rush. There is no law and order on the Internet. There is no body which can enforce rules against abuse. Even governments are proving to be powerless to defend themselves against the best hackers. And like so many cowboy movies, whoever has the fastest trigger finger is able to control everyone else. And so now we come to the third area of concern...CHINA. While the West has fended itself into more and more debt, both personally and nationally, China has been teaching its citizens to be frugal, working for a pittance so that the government could amass unbelievable wealth through international trade. With all that wealth, China has now been able to extend its tentacles into every major country in the world. And the world is pretty much powerless to stop it. You can try, for example, to outlaw Chinese investors from buying up all your real estate But when one selfish homeowner after another is offered more from the Chinese, all talk of keeping ownership local goes out the window. And with all that economic control, China has no shame about manipulating individuals, companies and even governments. In Australia, for example, China now controls the same Internet that is being used by all state governments. The federal government, having finally realized that, is frightened. And how did this happen? It happened because in recent years, government bodies had not been able to resist the low quotes from Chinese companies such as Huawei to install security and other essential services. It apparently never crossed the minds of those in charge that private companies operating under a party dictatorship consider it normal to pass on whatever delicate information they can get to the Communist Party there So what does all this add up to We have a world that has become hopelessly selfish We have powerful companies and governments which have become hopelessly unaccountable. And we have one world power which is already hopelessly in control of all the rest. Never in the history of the world has such a large-scale, sinister situation confronted the entire population of the earth and there is no plan for changing it. We are beyond prophecy now. Much of this is becoming daily news, if not recent history. I often think about that scene in the movie The Sound of Music where people sense that war and widespread political abuse were imminent and yet everyone continued to procrastinate. The Von Trapp family managed to escape, but only in the nick of time. And there's a much bigger problem today, because there's nowhere to which we can escape. The malady is global. The control is absolute. The best we can do even now is just to brace ourselves for extreme deprivation, if not imprisonment and death in the years ahead. Well, we do have the option of succumbing to the evil forces and becoming the ones who turn in dissidents to the authorities to be executed. We can accept the mark and all that goes with it, content to turn our eyes and pretend we don't see the tens of thousands of Falun Gong practitioners who have already been tortured and killed to feed the ego of the Communist regime in China. We can turn our eyes and ignore the Muslim Uyghurs who are meeting the same fate, or the members of the outlawed home churches, who were now being added to the list of people who were deemed unworthy to live in the dystopian world of Communist China. Christians have been criticized for being too fatalistic about things predicted in the Bible, yet I feel that we are at a point of no return now, even if protests might have made a difference in the past. Nevertheless, as one pastor who has been taken away by the authorities in China said before he was taken, God can use our imprisonment and our deaths as a way of telling the world that there is a greater government called the Kingdom of Heaven, a government which transcends life and which is eternal. Are you prepared to join us in our declaration of this government to the world even now, while we still have some freedom left? Please write to us at the address on screen if you would like to be put in touch with others who are living like this at this very moment. Don't forget to tell a little bit about yourself and where you live so that we can direct you to someone in your area of the world, if not in your own country. I look forward to hearing from you today.
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