sermonette: Believe the Lie
Ronny H. Graham
Given 17-Jan-26; Sermon #1855s; 21 minutes
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For me anyway, let us begin in a little different fashion by turning to a couple of scriptures. First, let us go back to II Thessalonians 2 and we will read verses 9 through 12.
II Thessalonians 2:9-12 The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this reason God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie, that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.
Now let us flip back to Daniel just for one scripture. You better hold your finger there in II Thessalonians because you can just flip right back there. But in Daniel, we will read just one verse here.
Daniel 12:4 "But you, Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book until the time of the end; many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall increase."
I think it is safe to say that we are living in a time, at least in my short 65 years on earth, of unprecedented knowledge. Now is this the knowledge that Daniel spoke of? We certainly seem to be reaching a point where we might begin to think, how much longer or how much farther can we go in the knowledge or the information age?
Now the main topic that has come to my attention in the past, and I have often pondered, is back in II Thessalonians 2:11: that they should believe the lie. What is this lie that is mentioned here? Does this knowledge that shall increase have anything to do with artificial intelligence or AI?
We tend to think, or at least I did, that AI is something that was relatively new. But researchers have been working on this knowledge, if you will, since the early 50s. And after doing a little reading, it seems that the main investors in this project came from military interests. From the time of its inception, the researchers have had some very lofty goals, such as by 1968, they predicted that a digital computer would be the world chess champion. That did not happen. By 1985, they predicted that computers would be capable of doing any work that a man could do. That still has not happened.
Now how many of you saw that pathetic robot these researchers escorted on stage in Russia a few weeks ago? Did you catch the name of it? It was AIDOL. Immediately it popped into my head, it was not an AI doll. It was an idol. Because that is exactly what it is. That thing could barely move, and they were so proud as they flanked it on stage with a theme from Rocky playing in the background. But their simple little billion dollar idol went to wave at the crowd, and it fell flat on its face and pieces went flying everywhere.
Now as they dragged their prized possession off the stage, it was still trying to walk. I wondered, if this was supposed to emulate a human, why did not they let it get up on its own? It reminded me of a time back in I Samuel 5 where Dagon fell face down every night before the Ark of the Covenant, and every morning they put it back up and then the next morning it would be down again.
How many billions of dollars has been spent on their AIDOL in an attempt to create a human? My father-in-law once said in a sermon, I am sure many of you heard it, man has yet to create his first flea. And this robot even does not even come close.
Now, as with any project, there were several philosophers that had strong objections to the claim made by the AI researchers in the beginning. One man by the name of John Lucas said that a computer program could never see truth of certain statements while a human being could. Hubert Dreyfus ridiculed and critiqued the assumptions of AI, arguing that human reasoning actually involved very little symbol processing but a great deal of embodied instinctive, unconscious know-how. In other words, humans can think with common sense. In 1976, a man by the name of Weizenbaum published Computer Power and Human Reason, which argued that the misuse of artificial intelligence has the potential to devalue human life. Another argument presented by a man named John Searle as early as 1980 attempted to show that a computer could not understand the symbols that it uses. It just does what it is programmed to do based on the input and cannot think.
As we will see in a minute, have they now created a computer that can think? Have they now created a computer that can duplicate human reasoning or even common sense?
Most of the comments that I gave you came from the earliest days of AI researchers from the 50s through the 70s. Now, let us move forward to the present day. This particular lady puts together a futuristic view of what AI is capable of, or they are foreseeing that it will be capable of, and maybe already. Now this brief article was written by a lady by the name of Erica Orange. It is not too long, so I will read it to you. Keep in mind that this is just a scenario. The article is titled "Society Enters a State of Psychosocial Free Fall." Keep in mind this is just a scenario of what Miss Orange is speculating that AI might be capable of.
The shift in this scenario is from today's highly polarized but still shared world where groups interpret events differently to a fractured reality in which the events themselves cannot be verified, origins cannot be traced, and no authoritative source can prove what is real. Instead of opposing political narratives and conspiracy theories, society enters a state of psychosocial freefall where AI creates a series of parallel realities. It will mark a transition not from disagreement to deeper disagreement, but from disagreement to the collapse of a shared reality altogether. They do not know what reality is. Now this leads to an upending of the midterm elections. Ultra realistic deep fakes flood the infosphere one week before the election. A deep fake shows one candidate accepting a bribe from a foreign government. Minutes later, another deep fake shows opposing candidates calling for the abolition of elections. Both clips go viral before fact checkers can respond. AI instantly generates thousands of supporting eyewitness accounts, each with hyper-realistic voices, backstories, and even social profiles. In the following days, AI generated leaked documents allege voting manipulation, foreign hacks, and corrupted ballots. The public no longer mistrusts the government, they mistrust reality.
Does this sound familiar? Perhaps it has already been used. Continuing on
Democratic institutions prove incapable of responding at digital speed while verification protocols are debated. AI systems generate thousands of new contradictory narratives every hour. This erodes civic responsibility, fragmented truth, enclaves harden individuals into antagonistic tribes. [What have we been seeing on the news? People fighting.] Now citizens become more apathetic, institutional authority collapses, the vacuum is quickly filled by fast-moving authoritarian actors and ever-more powerful tech platforms that step in as the new arbiters of truth. What's a new arbiter of truth? Can we trust the computer with the truth?
What Miss Orange is saying is a little hard to follow. AI is capable of altering any situation or perhaps even creating situations to make men believe they are really happening when chances are they are just a facade. Just lies. Simply put, people will not know which way is up, what is real, what is not, who or what to believe. And as Solomon put it,
Proverbs 29:18 Where there is no revelation, the people run wild.
Chaos will abound, lawlessness will abound. Remember what Mr. Weizenbaum said, or was afraid of. The misuse of artificial intelligence has the potential to devalue human life. Perhaps it was indeed created by the prince of the power of the air to destroy human life. Or to attempt to destroy the truth of God.
This is very serious stuff, brethren. Is AI just another online encyclopedia? Is it just another search engine? Is it a mere coincidence that they named it artificial? Just to clarify, artificial means something made or produced by human beings rather than occurring naturally, a fake or a copy of something else. How many are just lies?
Now another idea came to mind. Do these two words even go together? Think about it. Artificial and intelligence. I do not think you can have both. Has mankind finally created the Frankenstein monster?
Let us get back to II Thessalonians 2, verse 11.
II Thessalonians 2:11 And for this reason God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie.
What is this lie? It is believed by some commentators that the second letter of Thessalonians was written shortly after the first one. Now it is not clear why Paul did it. But perhaps he had seen or heard something that caused him to quickly pen another letter. For the most part, in I Thessalonians, Paul seemed to be overjoyed with the newfound church and their devotion to truth. Even though they had to endure tribulation, Paul commends them as examples for all the churches that heard of their trials in believing and keeping the gospel. They were being persecuted by their own people, but it seems they were rejoicing and holding fast to the truth of God and the gospel that had been preached by Paul and his companions.
Now in II Thessalonians chapter 2, verse 2, we might just get a hint as to what was going on in Thessalonica after Paul's first letter. So let us back up just a little to the beginning of the chapter of II Thessalonians 2 and we will read verses 1 and 2.
II Thessalonians 2:1-2 Now brethren, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him, we ask you not to be soon shaken in mind or troubled, either by spirit or by word or by letter, as if from us, as though the day of Christ had come.
According to Matthew Henry's commentary, there is quite possibly two scenarios as to what might be going on here between I and II Thessalonians. One stems from the letter in I Thessalonians where Paul mentions the return of Jesus Christ, and if I count it properly, he mentions it about five times. Now Matthew Henry suggests that some may have misunderstood that Paul was saying and therefore began to think that the Day of the Lord or the return of Christ had already come or it was at least in the near future.
The other scenario is someone had infiltrated the church and had written a letter proclaiming that it was from Paul trying to draw people away from the truth. I was talking to a minister just a few weeks ago from one of the other groups, and he told me someone had come into their congregation and they were trying to convince, I do not know how many people, that the earth is flat. And this person became such a problem that he had to ask them not to come back.
Now, I got a question for you. Were they spreading lies? If the earth is flat, what does that have to do with our salvation? There are those who are out there who think that the Bible is in the wrong order and they are going to put it back straight the way it should be. What does that have to do with our salvation? I do not know about you, but through the years I do not know how many men I have met and heard people say they know who are the two witnesses, and most of them included themselves as one. One man even proclaimed that he and his wife were the two witnesses. You know what? Most of them are dead.
How many people have come through the Church of the Great God with their own agenda? Where are they now? How many are still infiltrating the churches of God with their own letter, proclaiming to be from God? I heard of at least one a few months ago who was predicting the return of Jesus Christ back in December. He missed it. How do you find out when Christ is going to return, brethren? Right here. Tell him to show you; it is not in there. Christ does not even know! And I ask you, why would you follow a man who is living on lies?
Now how many of you caught what Richard wrote in his essay a few weeks ago where he said, "Our age is marked with the stain of narcissism, and its blot has bled through into God's church to no small extent." They are out there now. The actual word narcissist is not in the Bible, but it is described as one who is proud, full of vanity, self-exalting. One person described it this way, they are manipulators. And that is what they try to do, manipulate others to get their own way. And they do these things all the while promoting humility. M. Scott Peck says in his book, People of the Lie, that they love to hide in churches. Is this what was going on in Thessalonica, or something similar?
We have just come through what man calls the most wonderful time of the year. How many lies surround the most wonderful time of the year? Santa Claus is a lie. Coming down the chimney is a lie. Flying reindeer is a lie. Worshipping God by decorating a tree is a lie. Jeremiah says in chapter 10, "Don't do it." How many of our government officials preach separation of church and state until Christmas rolls around and every major office in this world is decorated for Christmas. Celebrating the rebirth of the sun or New Year's is another lie, and on and on it goes.
How many people are waking up just a few weeks past Christmas and wondering how they are going to pay for all their purchases to celebrate the lies of man as they get ready to celebrate another lie with a bunny rabbit laying eggs.
I mention these things, brethren, because we live in a time where knowledge is increasing, but the knowledge of the truth is being distorted, suppressed, and attacked on every side. Is there any love of the truth anywhere? I certainly do not see it in the world. Do we see it in the church? The prince of the power of the air never sleeps, and he has one modus operandi: to destroy God's seed.
Now let us go back to where we began in II Thessalonians 2 and we will read it once again.
II Thessalonians 2:11 And for this reason God will send them strong delusion, that they believe the lie.
So what is the lie, brethren? I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I do not have a clue. But could it possibly have something to do with a false claim that Christ has returned? Is AI capable of falsifying such an event to deceive the masses? Ali and I saw on the news just last week that Elon Musk now has 10,000 satellites floating around in the atmosphere, and this one particular night they were going to be aligned for all to see in a certain way. Is he capable of simulating signs in the heavens, even the fake return of Christ? Something to think about.
Now let us close with a couple of scriptures in Mark, chapter 13. And I am going to be reading from the amplified.
Mark 13:20-23 (AMP) "And if the Lord had not shortened the days, no human life would have been saved; but for the sake of the elect whom He chose [for Himself], He shortened the days. Then if anyone says to you, 'Look, here is the Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed)! or, 'Look, He is there!' do not believe it; for false Christs and false prophets will arise, and they will provide signs and wonders in order to deceive, [if such a thing were] possible, even the elect [those God has chosen for Himself]. But be on your guard; be sober. I have told you everything in advance."
Let us go back to I Peter, chapter 4 and just pick up one verse here. .
I Peter 4:7 (AMP) The end and culmination of all things is near. Therefore, be sound-minded and self-controlled [be sober] for the purpose of prayer [staying balanced and focused on the things of God so that your communication will be clear, reasonable, specific and pleasing to Him].
Once again, brethren, there is no AI in this Book. And not one word shall be diminished. Do we love the truth? It might just save us from the lie.
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Sermon Topics
The Gospel
