He was right way too many times for anyone not to take what He said seriously. Every single prediction He made came to pass. It would be very serious not to heed advice He may have for those living toward the end of the world. The Man referred to is Jesus and this is His warning.

Jesus was at the end of His life and the professed people of God were plotting His life. He told them that their persistent rebellion would bring upon them destruction. Jesus said, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! Behold, your house is left unto you desolate. For I say unto you, ye shall not see me henceforth, till ye shall say, blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.” Matthew 23:37-39 In these tragic words, Jesus told the Jews that their temple would be destroyed. This was a most stunning thing to predict, but He had been right too many times before to not take Him very, very, seriously.

Herod’s temple was a wonder of the ancient world. White marble in appearance, it had the look of being impregnable. However, Jesus said it was coming down and down it came in 70AD before the onslaught of Titus and the Romans. Among those who were most stunned by what Jesus said were His disciples. Shortly after this, Jesus reiterated what He had already said, saying, “See ye not all these things? Verily I say unto you, there shall not be left here one stone upon another that shall not be thrown down. And as he sat upon the Mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying; tell us, when shall these things be? And what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?” Matthew 24:2, 3

The disciples were convinced that when the temple was destroyed Jesus would come the second time to this earth. They put the two events together. However, the two events didn’t happen at the same time. The temple was destroyed in 70 AD and Jesus has yet to come the second time. When answering the disciples two fold question, Jesus only gave one answer. That means that what He said applies not only to the events to take place around the destruction of the temple, but the same events would occur just before His Second Coming! That means that what Jesus said has a double application. What Jesus said had meaning for the people living around 70 AD and His words have meaning for us today!

What did Jesus tell us? Here we go, “And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you. For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many. And ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in diver’s places.” Matthew 24:4-7 Twice in those verses, Jesus told us to watch out for deception. In Matthew 24:11, we read, “And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many.” Finally, in Verse 24, Jesus said, “For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect.”

Whenever Jesus wanted to stress something, He would say, “Verily, verily, I say unto you.” He would repeat verily twice for emphasis. In Matthew 24, for those living at the end of earth’s history, Jesus repeated a word four times, and said, “You better watch out. DECEPTION will be so thick you could cut it with a knife. Watch out what you are told! Beware!”

Now, before going any further, let us be very clear on what deception is. Webster’s dictionary tells us, deception is “deceitfulness , duplicity, double-dealing, fraud, trickery”. Let me illustrate this for you from an experience I had when I was in the eighth grade. My junior high school had a flag football team. On our championship team, we had one play that always scored a touchdown. The reason it was so successful was because we used deception. Let me explain briefly. The flanker would spread out wide to the right of the formation. As the quarterback, me, called the signals, he would come in motion back toward me. By the time I said three, he was close in proximity to me. I would turn, lateral the ball to him, and then my two backs, Brian and Bill, would block around the left end. We ran this play twice on first and second down.

On third down, we did the identical thing. As I started calling the signals, the flanker, Kevin, would start toward me. The other team KNEW exactly what we were going to do. They started moving toward the side of the field where they KNEW Kevin would be shortly. In fact, they started smiling at me as they moved over to the side, waiting for what would SURELY occur. Well, I pitched the ball to Kevin and we started around the end as always, EXCEPT for one thing. My speedy halfback, Brian, didn’t go to block. He reversed his field, took the ball from Kevin’s outer hip, and made his way down the opposite sideline where nobody was. The other team pulled Kevin’s flags and was so happy with themselves, figuring they got us. All the time, Brian was running down the opposite sideline for a touchdown.

It worked to perfection. We had deceived the other team into believing that Kevin would carry it again around the corner, and while they were so happy, the real play was happening in a totally different area. The other side of the field was where things were happening and the other team didn’t know that! They were deceived, faked out, and tricked! And, Jesus said this would be happening down toward the end of earth’s history! He told us to watch out. While everything is being focused and centered on something, the REAL events are happening in another area of the world. Could that be happening to us today? Is the coronavirus, in which many people are tragically dying, being used today by certain powerful groups in our world to bring about their agenda? While everyone focuses on this virus, are other things happening in our world that could lead to terrible results for everyone on this planet?

Jesus told us, “Take heed that no man deceive you. For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many.” Matthew 24:4, 5 He has been right too many times to not take what He says very, very, seriously. Now, let’s weigh something for a moment. Where do we receive most of our information today? What mechanisms are used to communicate to people in the timeliest manner and to reach the most people at once? Clearly, the media is what is used very effectively to communicate to the populace. We get the great bulk of our messages of communication from the television, the radio, newspapers, magazines, and the internet. Is it possible that the media we are listening to is controlled by powerful people behind the scenes? Is it possible that these power groups are dictating what people are told in order to help the masses embrace an agenda? You know, I grew up on Walter Cronkite and David Brinkley and thought they were the finest of men. I’m sure many of us feel the same about David Muir, Katie Couric, George Stephanopoulos and Diane Sawyer today.

With Jesus’ warning ringing in our ears and the undeniable fact that media is the way we receive messages today, a statement by John Swinton hits us square between the eyes. Swinton was a preeminent journalist over a century ago. Swinton declared at a press club dinner in his honor, “There is no such thing, at this date of the world’s history, in America, as an independent press. You know it and I know it. There is not one of you who dares to write your honest opinions, and if you did, you know beforehand that it would never appear in print. I am paid weekly for keeping my honest opinion out of the paper I am connected with. Others of you are paid similar salaries for similar things, and any of you who would be so foolish as to write honest opinions would be out on the streets looking for another job. If I allowed my honest opinions to appear in one issue of my paper, before twenty-four hours my occupation would be gone. The business of the journalists is to destroy the truth, to lie outright, to pervert, to vilify, to fawn at the feet of mammon, and to sell his country and his race for his daily bread. You know it and I know it, and what folly is this toasting an independent press? We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are the jumping jacks, they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes.” (Source: Labor’s Untold Story, by Richard O. Boyer and Herbert M. Morais, published by United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of America, NY, 1955/1979.)

The quote raises the issue of whether there is not continuing truth in Swinton’s remarks, and whether some candid journalist might not be able to fairly say similar things today. Anyone who has associated closely with journalists can hardly avoid finding a ring of truth in such words, and the best evidence lies in the actual product of journalists and how well, or how poorly, it both agrees with and covers what actually happens, especially involving such things as corruption and abuse of power. Swinton declared that journalists are the tools of rich men behind the scenes. The journalists are puppets in the hands of the wealthy that control them. In order to save their job, the journalist or anchor will readily lie, deceive (there is that word), say whatever they are told in order to guide people down the path of their handlers-the wealthy of the world! Just one example of this would be the control of media by one Rupert Murdoch. His holdings over the media of this world are staggering.

So, does the world‘s wealthy have an agenda for the populace of this world? Are they using their wealth and power to communicate to this planet what they want them to know about this virus in order to carry out their agenda for this world? Are their powers above the wealthy people of the world who also have global agendas and the coronavirus is part of finalizing their plans? Does this sound like a conspiracy to you? People shy away from conspiracy today, poo pooing it as conspiracy theorists. Probably just some cuckoo heads. We will look at this in our next chapter. Jesus warned us about deception. I hope we are listening.

Continued in Chapter 2. Conspiracy

All Chapters of The Coronavirus by Bill Hughes.

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