A few years ago, I was delivered from a terrible ideology. I will briefly tell you my story, and then offer some more general thoughts about the subject.

If you currently subscribe to this ideology, I can guess how you might feel when you read this. Probably very scared and uncomfortable. Can you please still read it though, and seriously consider it, for my sake? I probably know what you are going through and I commend my love to you. I will not take cheapshots at you by calling you crazy. No, I actually want to have a real, edifying conversation with you. I want you to know I can relate to you. I’m not trying to win an argument here….I’m trying to win people.

In short, I hope that this post will help to cure and prevent this ideology in your own mind and in the minds of your loved ones.

FYI, I’m going to be pasting in numerous verses, but I’m not going to paste in or even cite all the verses supporting my claims. The post will just go too long. What I would LOVE is for you to challenge me on some claim you think is unbiblical, and then I will give you the verses.

So, here’s our roadmap for today:

• My story
• Conspiracy 101
• Sheep and goats
• Judgment day is coming
• Do your job
• The American Revolution
• Conclusion

My story

My parents brought me up in the church, and I will be forever grateful for that. As an adult, I have expressed my gratitude to them for this and for countless other things they did for me.

However, they also inculcated me in conspiracy theories from a young age. Over time, I became paranoid. I didn’t plan for my future like I should have. My conspiracy theories lessened my evangelical impact. And I made many bad decisions as a result of this ideology. People close to me got hurt.

Eventually, my ideology (in conjunction with my other flaws) created such a crisis in my life that I did a real reevaluation. I let go of the conspiracy theories. I realized that the only real reason I held on to them so long was because of my attachment to my parents.

I don’t want you to go through what I went through. My prayer is that God would use this post to help my readers get past their conspiracy theories WITHOUT going through a personal crisis. Through God, I know this is possible.

Conspiracy 101

Before I get into all my objections to this mindset, I should describe the mindset itself. I’ll just try to paint a general picture of it, with the acknowledgement that there are infinite variations of it. So here are some common features of the conspiracy theory mindset:

• There’s a Conspiracy to take over the world
  • Bankers are pretty much at the top of the org chart
  • Personnel at the highest levels of government, medicine, industry, the education system, etc. are also involved
  • They meet in various forums such as:
    • The CFR
    • The Bilderbergers
    • The Trilateral commission
    • The Club of Rome
    • Skull and Bones
  • Part of the plan is to significantly reduce earth’s human population
• 9/11 was an inside job
• We are always only a few months or years away from the Conspirators enacting the last part of their master plan
  • The last part of the plan is to use a manufactured crisis to herd us into FEMA camps
  • Social security numbers will be an essential tool in this part of the plan

Sheep and goats

This post is supposed to be a message of comfort, but unless you understand the concept of sheep and goats, you’ll think I’m crazy for calling Judgment Day comforting. If you carefully read what I am about to say, then the next section will make a lot more sense and, God willing, will actually comfort your heart. I want you to truly understand why all the conspiracy theories don’t bother me.

I’ve already talked about my views on salvation in my Doves’ eyes post and my 3…2…1…blastoff! post, but I’m going to summarize some of those ideas here:

• Everybody inherits an evil nature through Adam
• God chooses a vast number of people to be his elect
  • AKA his sheep
  • God gives them a new nature via his Holy Spirit in regeneration, without relying on the gospel
  • All the sheep go to heaven, not by their works, but by Christ’s
  • Because they have a good nature who have sin still squatting in their souls, they are essentially good people but sometimes they do evil
• The sheep will not necessarily hear the gospel in this life
  • They may live their whole lives in the sad bondage of a false religion
    • Islam
    • Buddhism
    • Atheism
    • Etc.
  • But they go to heaven anyway, because Jesus chose them, loves them, and died for them
• The people not chosen to be elect are goats
  • They are pure evil
  • They will go to hell

In contrast with the above bullets, if you are a Christian who thinks there’s something you have to do, say or believe in order to get into heaven, the topic of Judgment Day may be a lot more uncomfortable to discuss. You may be too busy wondering if you checked the right box.

I know this raises tons of questions, and we are going to drill into those, but not all of them today. For now, let’s talk some more about the concept of sheep and goats.

Whereas we hear in so many pulpits “If you just believe, you can become a sheep. Your legal status can be changed from not a child of God to child of God”, Jesus takes it in the completely opposite direction:

John 10:26

But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you.  

Read it again…it’s very short. He does not say that if you believe you can be my sheep. He says your non-sheep status is the reason you don’t believe. So, only sheep can believe. So, being a sheep precedes believing in Jesus. Again: Only sheep have the capacity to believe in Jesus.

If you are a follower of Jesus, you need to understand the concept of sheep and goats.

Sheep are everywhere; all Christians are sheep, but there are non-Christian sheep as well. If you look at the Matthew 25 passage about sheep and goats, you won’t see ANY mention of the sheep going to church or praying the sinner’s prayer. But you will see that they showed love to others. They did not earn their salvation by showing love; their charity just gave evidence of their identity. If you are still not convinced, read this:

1 John 4:7

Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and EVERY ONE THAT LOVETH IS BORN OF GOD, and knoweth God.

TheFormOfTheFourth, are you saying good people go to heaven and bad people go to hell?

Yes, that is exactly what I am saying, but I’m getting it from Jesus:

John 5:28-29

Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, And shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation.

Don’t worry! I’m not saying we don’t need to evangelize! This whole blog is basically an evangelistic effort. But my efforts are aimed at bringing precious, wounded lost sheep into the fold, not trying to help people decide to get saved from hell. The people I am aiming for are already saved from hell! They just don’t know it yet. And I always assume people I’m dealing with are sheep, unless there is a massive amount of evidence to the contrary.

Goats are evil. God did not make them evil. They inherited an evil nature from Adam. God simply leaves them in their natural state. These are the people who are truly evil. There IS a difference between being flawed like King David, and being pure evil like, perhaps, queen Jezebel or Charles Manson.

Judgment day is coming

Thank you SO much for reading the foregoing thoughts. Now, I think we can, by God’s grace, properly address this topic of conspiracy theories.

After spending my childhood in conspiracy theory culture, I picked up on the theorists’ deep-seated thirst for justice. This thirst for justice resides in all of God’s sheep, to some extent. Consider:

Proverbs 11:10

When it goeth well with the righteous, the city rejoiceth: and when the wicked perish, there is shouting.

When the wicked people get killed, people are shouting for joy. Isn’t this why revenge movies are so popular? Yup, my dad was a huge fan of this genre.

Where this thirst for justice drives us off the rails is when we decide the timing of that justice is up to us. It’s not:

Romans 12:19

Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.

See, part of the reason I no longer have any interest in conspiracy theories is that, even if some of them are true, I know judgment day is coming for the wicked. In some cases this is temporal:

Proverbs 11:31 (temporal judgment in theory)

Behold, the righteous shall be recompensed in the earth: much more the wicked and the sinner.

2 Kings 9:33-37 (temporal judgment in practice)

³³ And he said, Throw her down. So they threw her down: and some of her blood was sprinkled on the wall, and on the horses: and he trode her under foot.

³⁴ And when he was come in, he did eat and drink, and said, Go, see now this cursed woman, and bury her: for she is a king’s daughter.

³⁵ And they went to bury her: but they found no more of her than the skull, and the feet, and the palms of her hands.

³⁶ Wherefore they came again, and told him. And he said, This is the word of the Lord, which he spake by his servant Elijah the Tishbite, saying, In the portion of Jezreel shall dogs eat the flesh of Jezebel:

³⁷ And the carcase of Jezebel shall be as dung upon the face of the field in the portion of Jezreel; so that they shall not say, This is Jezebel.

But any temporal punishment pales in comparison to what God has prepared for the wicked in eternity:

2 Thessalonians 1:6-9

⁶ Seeing it is a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation to them that trouble you;

⁷ And to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels,

⁸ In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ:

⁹ Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power;

Matthew 25:41, 46

⁴¹ Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:

⁴⁶ And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.

In light of all this, don’t you think you should have more peace in your heart?

When we think about what God is going to do to the wicked, we should say, “Wow, God actually DOES care about the things wicked people are doing to us. He is very angry about it. Look at what he has in store for them.” Child of God, this should make you feel intensely, deeply loved and valued.

Don’t get me wrong…I’m not encouraging sadism. But I’m saying there is great comfort in knowing a day is coming when all wrongs will be made right, when the idea that we live in a moral universe will be vindicated once and for all, when the good guys will win.

That’s right: The good guys win in the end. Now do you see why I talked about the sheep?

No, we don’t always understand God’s timing. We don’t totally understand why he suffers certain things to happen to us. But we know he is keeping tabs on the wicked. EVERY evil thing they do is being meticulously tracked. From a hateful physical assault on the righteous, all the way to a mere malicious thought against the righteous, there is a book being filled out as we speak.

So, I ask you: do you honestly believe we are supposed to be going on websites all the time, reading conspiracy books, and constantly digging in, trying to expose all these conspiracies and plots and scandals? Given that God himself is tracking these people all the way down to their thoughts, I see God grieved in his heart as he watches us frantically trying to gather evidence, to get the word out, to rail on various supposed masterminds of the Conspiracy.

Maybe you have never heard hell preached as good news. But that is clearly what the Thessalonians passage is saying. I wonder if there is a theological problem some of us have that prevents us from accepting this as good news. In other words, the stuff I just said may be hard to process if you don’t truly believe in salvation by grace. This is why I talked about the sheep and goats above.

You may also think to yourself, what if we had prayed more? what if we had evangelized more? What if we had lived better lives? Could we have led some of these wicked people to Christ? Is it really OK to say the “good guys” win in the end, given that we are all flawed human beings? I say yes…as long as we understand that all our goodness comes from God, and that he never intended to save or evangelize the goats.

So, I am not going to debate you about 9/11. I doubt it was an inside job, but let’s assume it was for the sake of argument. I’m NOT naive and I am fully aware that powerful people sometimes do incredibly evil things. If it was an inside job, God knows ALL the details of it. He knows more about it than the most tenacious conspiracy theorist. And every goat that was involved in the plot will be recompensed for the thousands of people who tragically perished that day. And ohhh, how refreshing and liberating that is.

If you are NOT a conspiracy theorist, I hope you noticed that, using Bible truth, I sidestepped the endless debates about explosives residue, “Pull it”, the conditions under which steel fails, etc. This is important, because you know what? All of us, conspiracy theorists or not, need to come to grips with the concept of powerful people doing evil things and getting away with it for some period of time. Republicans rail on evil powerful Democrats. Democrats rail on evil powerful Republicans. Maybe conspiracy theorists are not the only ones who can benefit from this post.

Do your job

I think at this point we need to distinguish between obsessing over conspiracy theories and doing your job, because I don’t want to be misinterpreted. The Jezebel passage above described how Jehu executed God’s vengeance on Jezebel. So, yes, there was human agency there. But this was Jehu’s job. God gave him a clear assignment. Similarly, if some FBI agent is investigating 9/11 as part of her job, and she discovers hard evidence of a coverup, she should pursue that evidence. Again: you should do your job.

And what if there really is a coverup, and that agent gets silenced/retaliated against, and the truth does not get out? Do the conspiracy theorists get to chide me because I’m not on the websites, talking to my neighbors, helping to get the truth about this agent out to the world?

No.

No, because I’m not responsible for all the evil that goes on in the world. I’m responsible for doing my job. And my job has nothing to do with investigating 9/11. It has do with the church I go to, my family, my friends, this blog, and my secular employment (and yes, I do read the news and vote). Dear friend, let me suggest to you that 9/11 is probably not your job either. But don’t worry about 9/11….because the Judge is watching.

One last thought on this subject…if you think that delving into conspiracy theories is your calling in the same way that this blog is my calling, I challenge you to give me the Biblical example that best resembles your claimed calling. I could cite countless Biblical examples that closely resemble what I’m trying to do here. Here is one:

Nehemiah 8:8

So they read in the book in the law of God distinctly, and gave the sense, and caused them to understand the reading.

The American Revolution

I’m guessing some of you are thinking, “TheFormOfTheFourth, you are too apathetic! If there were too many people like you, we would still be under British rule!”

First of all, I am guilty as charged…I am too apathetic. I confess that I should be praying more for our leaders. I should be working harder to be a better husband. A better father. A better Christian. But don’t call me apathetic because I’m not going on conspiracy websites…that’s not my war! I am fighting a war….yes, I am fighting a fierce battle, my friend. I’m fighting for Biblical truth. I’m fighting for my children’s peace. I’m fighting for my marriage. I’m fighting for my Christian witness. I’m even fighting for you, via this blog. But my fight has nothing to do with 9/11 or bankers. Please listen, dear friend: The same enemies arrayed against me are also arrayed against you; are you sure that you are focusing on the right battlefront?

Second of all, I took civics in high school, so I know a few things about the Revolution, but guess what, high school was a long time ago!  I am not an expert on the Revolution, and never was. At the same time that I let go of my conspiracy theories, I also allowed myself to no longer be an expert on the Revolution, the Federal Reserve, mainstream medicine, etc. Boy, that was a relief!

I do believe a country should fight back if it is invaded. I also believe that we should submit to authority, unless that submission causes us to actively or passively sin. And sometimes the law of love trumps lower laws (see Hebrew midwives).

So, if you want to talk to me about the Revolution, tell me your specific question, give me some historical context, and maybe I will try to answer. But I feel no obligation to offer any sweeping opinions on the subject.

Conclusion

God is monitoring the activities of evil people more closely than you ever could. And he will wreak a devastation on them that you cannot conceive of in your most horrible nightmare. So, relax and be happy.

Fight the good fight.

There are other things I would like to say about this, perhaps in future posts. Here is a teaser:

• Worrying about conspiracies does not fit the pattern of the early church at all
• The weapons of our warfare are not carnal
• The preoccupation with conspiracy theories hurts our Christian witness
• I may not have covered all possible reasons people get involved in conspiracy theories
• Endlessly investigating conspiracy theories is not equivalent to:
  • Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s anti-Nazi activities
  • Peacefully assembling and petitioning for a redress of grievances

Rest easy, brothers and sisters. The Dies Irae is coming.