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The Guardian: An information apocalypse is coming. How can we protect ourselves?


Coat of Arms for the Spanish Inquisition

COGwriter

Censorship is becoming more obvious to many:

18 March 2018

When Google launched almost 20 years ago, its corporate motto was “Don’t be Evil”. And until last year, Facebook’s official mission was to “make the world more open and connected”.

Things have changed since the two tech giants first came online. Both companies have been accused of working behind the scenes to silence or de-emphasise certain kinds of voices.

“Censorship has changed completely and dramatically because of the internet and because of particularly these big tech companies which are basically monopolies. They can end your existence online,” says Robert Epstein, research psychologist at the American Institute for Behavioural Research & Technology. …

Google, Facebook and Twitter are all under pressure from governments … “We’re giving this kind of power to a group that is not responsible to the general public. We’re not talking about a government agency which is required to do things in a transparent way, we’re talking about a private company that does everything secretly,” says Epstein. https://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/listeningpost/2018/03/deleted-suspended-demoted-censorship-silicon-valley-style-180317111051502.html

In light of that, consider the following from the Bible:

1 Hear my voice, O God, in my meditation;
Preserve my life from fear of the enemy.
2 Hide me from the secret plots of the wicked,
From the rebellion of the workers of iniquity,
3 Who sharpen their tongue like a sword,
And bend their bows to shoot their arrows — bitter words,
4 That they may shoot in secret at the blameless;
Suddenly they shoot at him and do not fear.

5 They encourage themselves in an evil matter;
They talk of laying snares secretly;
They say, “Who will see them?”
6 They devise iniquities:
“We have perfected a shrewd scheme.”
Both the inward thought and the heart of man are deep. (Psalm 64:1-6)

The UK Guardian reported the following:

An information apocalypse is coming. How can we protect ourselves?

“In a world of complex and continuing problems, in a world full of frustrations and irritations, America’s leadership must be guided by the lights of learning and reason, or else those who confuse rhetoric with reality, and the plausible with the possible will gain the popular ascendancy with their seemingly swift and simple solutions to every world problem.”

John F Kennedy’s last speech reads like a warning from history …

The problem is, Kennedy never spoke these words. He was killed before he made it to the Trade Mart. You can only hear them now thanks to audio technology developed by a British company, CereProc. Fragments of his voice have been taken from other speeches and public appearances, spliced and put back together, with neural networks employed to mimic his natural intonation.

The result is pretty convincing, although there’s a machine-like ring to some of the syllables, a synthetic stutter.

A program developed at Stanford University allows users to convincingly put words into politicians’ mouths. Celebrities can be inserted into porn videos. Quite soon it will be all but impossible for ordinary people to tell what’s real and what’s not.

What will the effects of this be? When a public figure claims the racist or sexist audio of them is simply fake, will we believe them? How will political campaigns work when millions of voters have the power to engage in dirty tricks? …

The potential for an “information apocalypse” is beginning to be taken seriously. The problem is we have no idea what a world in which all words and images are suspect will look like, so it’s hard to come up with solutions. 03/16/18 https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/mar/16/an-information-apocalypse-is-coming-how-can-we-protect-ourselves

It is my understanding that John F. Kennedy was going to say those words, but was assassinated first. But the modern reality is that information can more easily be faked and someone made to look like they said or did something that they did not.

Consider the following:

13 But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived (2 Timothy 3:13, KJV)

While I fully expect technology will result in fake statements being attributed to me and others in the Church of God, there is another “information apocalypse” coming.

There was a certain type of one during the time of the infamous Spanish Inquisition.

Something similar, but worse is coming.

Jesus said:

4 … the night is coming when no one can work. (John 9:4, NKJV)

4… the night cometh, when no man can work (John 9:4 KJV)

In a October 23, 1980 co-worker letter, Herbert Armstrong wrote:

The Bible warns us the time is just ahead when NO MAN CAN WORK—in the Lord’s Work. We must sacrifice now as never before for this Work that we may FINISH the Work that Christ has called us to do. Pray as never before, for this Work.

The Prophet Amos was inspired to record the following:

11 “Behold, the days are coming,” says the Lord God,
“That I will send a famine on the land,
Not a famine of bread,
Nor a thirst for water,
But of hearing the words of the Lord.
12 They shall wander from sea to sea,
And from north to east;
They shall run to and fro, seeking the word of the Lord,
But shall not find it. (Amos 8:11-12)

The old Worldwide Church of God reported the following:

THE MOST important work in the world cannot be done without freedom of the press!

What is that work?

It is the work of announcing that God will restore His Government to the whole earth! But before the Government of God is restored, it must first be announced! The good news of that announcement — the Gospel of the Kingdom of God — must be preached (Matthew 24:14) to all nations (Matthew 28:19). And the nations must choose whether they will want it or resist it.

In this day, God has made the MASS media available to accomplish His work. But reaching a mass audience with the good news of God’s soon–coming Government requires the freedom to PUBLISH. Notice Mark 13:10: “And the gospel must first be published among all nations.”

Further, God lays a special duty on his messenger and Church to publicly disseminate certain warnings to certain nations. Ezekiel 33:1–7 describes God’s charge upon the watchman. When the watchman sees “the sword” come upon the land — a prophetic symbol of military devastation — he must “blow the trumpet” or God will hold him personally responsible.

This duty requires that a message warning about some very unpleasant events be published as far and as wide as possible to the latter–day descendants of ancient nations.

Similarly, when God charged the prophet Jeremiah with a message, he also had an affirmative duty from God to spread it to as wide an audience as possible. Jeremiah was given a message so important he could hardly contain himself: “But his [God’s] word was in mine heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones…” (Jeremiah 20:9).

So God’s servants really have no choice as to exercising the right to publish their message freely. Their message is not for their personal benefit — but to the whole world!

Governmental Reaction

And yet while the Bible places a duty on God’s servants, it also warns that this world — even now and in the future — will not always allow the freedom to publish.

In the past a government’s excuse for persecution was that God’s message IS TOO DISTURBING to be allowed to circulate freely.

In the Old Testament, Elijah, for example, was hauled before King Ahab for the ancient equivalent of the crime of disturbing the peace: “Ahab said unto him [Elijah], Art thou he that troubleth Israel?” (I Kings 18:17).

Elijah’s defense was that he wasn’t troubling Israel, only bringing some very distressing news from God to Ahab’s government (verse 18).

Likewise, the religious and political authorities of Amos’ day tried to subject him to “prior restraint” — from speaking his message at all — because the message he brought from God was TO CONTROVERSIAL! “Amaziah the priest of Bethel sent to Jeroboam king of Israel, saying, Amos hath conspired against thee in the midst of the house of Israel: the land is not able to bear all his words…. Also Amaziah said unto Amos… prophesy not again any more at Bethel” (Amos 7:10, 12–13). Amaziah tried to deny Amos a forum for God’s message in ancient Israel. Amos’ message was too upsetting to the political and religious establishments!

The prophet Jeremiah was even subjected to an ancient form of book burning. God commanded Jeremiah to write down “all the words that I [God] have spoken unto thee against Israel, and against Judah, and against all the nations…” (Jeremiah 36:2).
Jeremiah put the words on a roll. Eventually, however, possession of the roll came to one of the king’s top aides, who read it to the king (verse 21). After reading “three or four leaves” of the scroll, the aide, ever eager to please a now distraught king, threw the roll into the fireplace (verse 23). Afterwards, the king attempted, unsuccessfully, to seize Jeremiah for putting God’s word to writing.

Earlier, Jeremiah had already endured actual imprisonment for the content of his spoken message (Jeremiah 20:2).

In the New Testament, the authorities tried to prevent the apostles from preaching the Gospel. The apostles were forcibly brought before the council. The high priest asked them: “Did not we straightly command you that you should not teach in this name? and, behold, ye have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine…” (Acts 5:28).

In other words, the civil and religious authorities were seeking to regulate the content of their message!

In response, the apostle Peter declared the firm rule that “we ought to obey God rather than men” (verse 29). Since Peter and company had a God–ordained duty to say what they were saying, the commands of the civil government of Jerusalem were in direct conflict with God’s.

For the future, the Bible prophecy reveals that the time will come when most of this world’s nations will be led by Satan to abolish freedom of the press — and all related freedoms. Why? To prevent any publishing of God’s message from reaching any substantial number of people!

`Behold, the days come, saith the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord: and they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east, they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the Lord, and shall not find it” (Amos 8:11–12).

Elsewhere the Bible reveals how this prophesied press clampdown will take place. Revelation 13 describes a great religious–civil power that will arise in the place of the old Roman Empire. This prophesied power will not allow free speech, a free press or the free exercise of any religion — except the official religion of the state.

Why Free Press Important

The Gospel is the good news of a government that will REPLACE the governments of this world. Yet replace is a mild word! The prophet Daniel flatly declares that the Government of God will “break in pieces and consume” the nations of this world that resist Him (Daniel 2:44).

The Gospel of the Kingdom of God proclaims that there is a higher power than human government, another and divine government to whom men, whether they know it or not, ultimately owe allegiance. For this reason early Christians were accused of doing “contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, one Jesus” (Acts 17:7).

No wonder the governments of this world have historically sought to suppress the publishing of the Gospel of the Kingdom of God — for it is ultimately the news of their overthrow by Christ at His return!

Some have tried to justify the suppression of press freedom on the grounds that the free circulation of false ideas would create havoc for human government.”Lying opinions, than which no mental plague is greater,” wrote Pope Leo XIII, “and vices which corrupt the heart and moral life, should be diligently repressed by public authority, lest they insidiously work the ruin of the state.”

The key error is the failure to see the difference between the government of man and the government of God. God does not reveal the whole of His spiritual truth to society at large — only to those He calls (see Romans 8:30).

Man, cut off from God, cannot be trusted to pass judgment on whether God’s truth is, in fact, “true.” The Bible reveals that Satan has deceived “the whole world” (Revelation 12:9).

Christ said his true church would be a little flock, not a majority of the political community (Luke 12:32). Thus, no human government can ever be really certain that it can tell a “lying opinion” from a true one. Because men’s minds are limited, men must have the truth revealed to them by God. When God doesn’t reveal it, as He doesn’t to most of society, the safest course open to humans is the greatest possible circulation of ideas. The Bible supports this idea when it declares: “Where no counsel is, the people fall: but in the MULTITUDE of counselors there is safety” (Proverbs 11:14).

Even if false ideas circulate under freedom of the press, at least God’s Word will also be able to go out unhindered.

Free societies pay a very high price for freedom of the press — pornography circulates freely because human courts say they can’t really tell the difference between pornography and other kinds of writing or expression. This is a very high price — but at least it does insure the free circulation of God’s truth, as well as other religious ideas.

If you grant human government the authority to censor what is printed or spoken, you allow the government to stop any message it doesn’t approve of.

Government tried to suppress Elijah, Amos and Jeremiah; it is prophesied to suppress God’s true Gospel again in the future. The power to censor bad writing easily becomes the power to suppress good writing.

There is a reason why God began, and based, his end–time work in the country on earth where freedom of the press is greatest — and why God’s Church has grown the most, as a rule, in countries where press freedom is substantial. Since the spreading of God’s Word is the most important activity on earth — the preservation of freedom of the press is one of the most awesome responsibilities God lays on human government. (Calkins J. FREE PRESS IN THE BIBLE? Was It Prophesied? Plain Truth. May 1981)

Related to Amos 8:11-12, in a sermon on November 27, 1982 titled “U.S. of Europe is Coming,” WCG’s Herbert W. Armstrong stated:

“Anyway this whole United States of Europe, when it goes together, is going to trigger nuclear World War III. Now let me tell you what else it’s going to do. It’s going to END OUR WORK! OUR WORK WILL BE THROUGH of getting the gospel to the world. That is, very shortly after it goes into force and effect; because they will move in such a way that it will end it. And then I’ll tell you what will happen. As you read here in Amos, the 8th chapter and verse 11 of Amos. Amos 8:11 ‘Behold, the days come, saith the Lord GOD, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread … but of hearing the word of the LORD.’ ” (http://cog-ff.com/html/pcomments_07_04_08.html, viewed 10/03/13)

In a November 22, 1982 co-worker letter, Herbert Armstrong wrote:

… brethren and co-workers, the prophesied Great Tribulation (nuclear World War III) will start soon after the European unification. That means OUR WORK OF SPREADING THE GOSPEL OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD WILL BE FINISHED! We have not now much more time. Soon shall come a FAMINE of hearing the Word of the Lord (Amos 8:11). God says, work while it is day, for the night is coming when no man can work – in the Work of God! Nothing else is important in our lives, now, but this all-important Work of God. (http://cog-ff.com/html/pcomments_07_04_08.html, viewed 10/03/13)

So, the Bible tells of a time that will come when the word of God will not be found. And that would seem to be because it will be taken off the internet. In the 21st century, the internet is accessed by people in every country, and thus some type of internet restriction/suspension/site removal is coming.

Notice also the following related to some of what we have been seeing:

The existential crisis a free America is facing right now is thought control on a scale potentially worse than totalitarian tyrannies of the past and present …

Yes, you can still wear a sandwich board on public streets and “protest” – in most cases without serious consequences. But that’s the kind of expression and dissent the new elite corporate gatekeepers, what I call the “Digital Content Cartel,” Christians and conservatives would be relegated to if the corporate thought-police overlords of Google, Facebook, et al, get their way.

Their goal is nothing short of starving to death the independent media. …

America’s universities employ speech codes that would make North Korea blush. Little children are being indoctrinated from the earliest age in government schools that this nation’s heroic founders were no more than racist, misogynist, imperialist oppressors of the poor and downtrodden. Hollywood and the Big Media besiege Americans with one narrow worldview, treating with utter contempt liberty lovers and followers of the God of Creation.

Now, the “Digital Content Cartel,” that sees the world much like those other powerful cultural institutions, is in near total, hammerlock control of the means of distribution of news and information on the internet because they control more than 90 percent of the advertising revenue, search engine power and technical infrastructure that is necessary to reach massive audiences effectively.

Never before have so few controlled so much debate.

We’re in danger of losing the essential components of a free society – including the right to shout out in loud voices that cannot be stifled that we are losing our legacy of liberty. 03/15/18 http://www.wnd.com/2018/03/never-before-have-so-few-controlled-so-much-debate/#EIkj0z4Y1J4ecE8w.99

As the above indicates, we have already seen actions against those who dare to hold certain biblically-related positions that some governments as well as internet media companies oppose. We made a few related short videos:

Orwell’s 1984 by 2024? Are we getting closer to enter an Orwellian surveillance society? Might this happen next decade?
Canadian censoring of the Bible  Are you aware that Canadian government officials do not want parts of the Bible quoted? This does not bode well for Canada and those in many other lands.
Internet Control, Famine of the Word, and 666  Is the internet going to be used to suppress the teaching of the word of God?

More speech restrictions and persecutions are coming (cf. Revelation 13).

Edward Snowden calls companies like Facebook “surveillance companies.” Notice two of his Tweets from yesterday:

The Bible predicts severe surveillance (Revelation 13:16-18).

The Bible also predicts an information apocalypse related to a coming famine of the word of God (see also Preparing for the ‘Short Work’ and The Famine of the Word).

As far as how to protect oneself goes, people need to be better grounded in the word of God, become Philadelphian, and believe that Jesus will protect Philadelphian Christians from what is going to come (see The Philadelphia Church Era and There is a Place of Safety for the Philadelphians. Why it May Be Near Petra).

Faking statements with modern technology will likely also be factors in that, as well as to try to trash God’s two witnesses (see also Who Are The Two Witnesses?). Sadly, most will not do as the two witnesses teach, but will believe lies (cf. 2 Thessalonians 2:9-12).

That time is getting closer.

Some items of possibly related interest may include:

The Spanish Inquisition and Early Protestant Persecutions Was the Church of Rome really responsible for this? What happened? Here is a link to a related video sermon: The Past and Future Inquisition.
Persecutions by Church and State This article documents some that have occurred against those associated with the COGs and some prophesied to occur. Will those with the cross be the persecutors or the persecuted–this article has the shocking answer. There is also a YouTube video sermon you can watch: The Coming Persecution of the Church. Here is information in the Spanish language: Persecuciones de la Iglesia y el Estado.
What is the Origin of the Cross as a ‘Christian’ Symbol? Was the cross used as a venerated symbol by the early Church? Two related YouTube videos would be Beware of the ‘Ecumenical Cross’ and Origin of the Cross.
Preparing for the ‘Short Work’ and The Famine of the Word What is the ‘short work’ of Romans 9:28? Who is preparing for it? Here is a link to a related video sermon titled: The Short Work.
The Final Phase of the Work What is the final phase of the work? Who will lead it? Do you have the courage to support it? Here is a related YouTube video titled The Final Phase of the Work. The written article has been translated into Spanish La Fase Final de la Obra.
Who Are The Two Witnesses? What is their job? What does the Bible reveal? What has the Church of God taught on this subject? Might even Roman Catholic prophecies give some clues here? A related sermon is available: Prophecy and the Two Witnesses. Here is a related link in Spanish/español:¿Quiénes son los dos testigos?
The Snowden Leaks are Leading to the Destruction of the USA Can what happened with the leaks of what the NSA has done help the USA to be taken over? What does the Bible teach that seems to be related to this? Here is a related YouTube video titled Are the Snowden NSA leaks leading to the destruction of the USA?
When Will the Great Tribulation Begin? 2018, 2019, or 2020? Can the Great Tribulation begin today? What happens before the Great Tribulation in the “beginning of sorrows”? What happens in the Great Tribulation and the Day of the Lord? Is this the time of the Gentiles? When is the earliest that the Great Tribulation can begin? What is the Day of the Lord? Who are the 144,000? Here is a version of the article in the Spanish language: ¿Puede comenzar la Gran Tribulación en 2018 o 2019? ¿Es el Tiempo de los Gentiles? You can also see the English language sermon videos: The Great Tribulation from the Mount of Olives and Can the Great Tribulation begin before 2020? A shorter video is: Can the Great Tribulation begin in 2018?
The Times of the Gentiles Has there been more than one time of the Gentiles? Are we in it now or in the time of Anglo-America? What will the final time of the Gentiles be like? A related sermon is available and is titled: The Times of the Gentiles.
The Philadelphia Church Era was predominant circa 1933 A.D. to 1986 A.D. The old Radio Church of God and old Worldwide Church of God, now essentially the most faithful in the Church of God, which is best represented by the Continuing Church of God.
Does God Have a 6,000 Year Plan? What Year Does the 6,000 Years End? Was a 6000 year time allowed for humans to rule followed by a literal thousand year reign of Christ on Earth taught by the early Christians? Does God have 7,000 year plan? What year may the six thousand years of human rule end? When will Jesus return? 2026 or 20xx? There is also a video titled The 6000 Year Plan: Is the end of humanity’s reign almost up?

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 18th, 2018 at 3:00 pm and is filed under Prophecy, Religious News.



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