The Christian And Conspiracy Theories

Today on Fellowship in the Word, Pastor Bill Gebhardt challenges you to become a fully functioning follower of Jesus Christ. You see, there's always a conspiracy afoot. If you said to me, what do you think his greatest conspiracy is against humankind? I can tell you easily, religion. Look, I can get you to sin. What's the conspiracy behind sin? Sin is more pleasurable than God. So we want to sin.

But religion, oh man, all we do is a pill trick and replace God with something else. So there's always a conspiracy afoot. It's always there.

So I'll give anybody that. If you say, well, when you look at the world, you think there's a conspiracy afoot? Yes, there always has been. There always will be till Christ comes back. Thank you for joining us today on this edition of Fellowship in the Word with Pastor Bill Gebhardt. Fellowship in the Word is the radio ministry of Fellowship Bible Church located in Metairie, Louisiana.

Let's join Pastor Bill Gebhardt now as once again he shows us how God's Word meets our world. Sixty one percent of all Americans believe that the official story of Lee Harvey Oswald's assassination of President Kennedy is false. In fact, you can see numerous TV specials always purporting some other conspiracy. One third of all Americans believe that the United States was either responsible for or had knowledge of the 9-11 attacks and did nothing to stop it. Seventy six percent of all Russians don't believe the United States of America ever landed on the moon. And it's not just Russians.

We had a carpet cleaner who came to our house on occasion. And on more than one occasion, he wanted to let me know that this thing was all done in Hollywood and that the United States was never on the surface of the moon. But if you go back a few years, perhaps in modern times, there's never been a conspiracy quite like the Illuminati. Boy, you hear all about the Illuminati and the conspiracies that surround it. The Illuminati actually began in the 18th century, the 1700s, and it started with a professor named Michael Butter. He was a professor at to begin in Germany, and he and a group of men got together. And what they decided was they wanted to promote enlightenment thinking to the world around them. Their goal was to transform society. They didn't want a violent revolution or anything like that. They wanted to educate people. And they thought if we over the long period of time plan enough idealistic thoughts in people's heads, culture will change. The strange part is that society only lasted a few years, and then it burned out because the governments were pretty conservative then and didn't want any part of it. But the conspiracy theorists say the Illuminati never disappeared at all.

In fact, there are so many. But if you go back to the beginning of the Illuminati, they'll say the group of Illuminati actually pulled off the French Revolution. They were the ones behind the scenes that caused the great French Revolution. They also said that in the 1900s, early 1900s, they produced a fake manuscript, the conspiracy theorists did, and it was called Publication of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. And it was a group of Jews who got together and plotted a plan so that they could take the whole world over.

That, by the way, was something Adolf Hitler was very familiar with. After World War II, they said the Illuminati realized that communism would change the face of the world and those who really have power. So all of the McCarthy anti-communist movement in the United States was from the Illuminati. Today, in the article I read, the Illuminati is still active.

And in this article, it said that Jay-Z and Beyonce are part of it. We love conspiracies. A conspiracy, by definition, is a theory that explains an event or a set of circumstances as the result of a secret plot by usually powerful conspirators.

It is a theory and an unproven idea that can seem plausible. Boy, this pandemic has produced innumerable conspiracies. They are everywhere. You'll find conspiracies all over the world. And I'm not surprised by that.

And I have no interest in that. But what I do have an interest in is that conspiracy theorists are alive in the Church of Jesus Christ. I am amazed to talk to Christians who want to do conspiracy theories. They want to promote conspiracy theories. In one sense, I can understand, but in another, I can't. Let me explain this right off the bat.

There is a conspiracy prevailing and enduring. I want you to open your Bibles to Ephesians chapter 6, verse 10. Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. He says, put on the full armor of God so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil.

Then he says, let me explain what I mean by that. For, for our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. Conspiracy. There's always been a conspiracy.

Ever since Satan fell, there has been a conspiracy. You see, he says, and Paul said, I want to let you know that it's always been here. One parallel passage I'd like to go to 2 Corinthians, a few pages to your left, 2 Corinthians 10, verse 3. Again, Paul now warning the Church of Corinth. And here, Paul says this, though we live in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. We are destroying what?

Speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God. We are taking every thought captive to obedience of Christ. There's the war. There's the battle in these two passages. It's an interesting thing because he makes it clear there is a battle going on. The flesh and blood of the battle are never to be our enemies. At the very worst, they could be simply the victim of our enemy.

There is always a conspiracy afoot. Jesus said this, if you're not for me, what? You're against me.

That's just a fact. So if an idea, a thought, anything is not for Christ, then it's against Christ. And where's the source? The source is the enemy. You see, it's always been like that. Human beings are so susceptible to conspiracy that if you think about it from one point of view, the fall, how did the serpent get Eve to sin? He promoted a conspiracy and she bought it. See, it's so easy for us to buy into a conspiracy.

What did he say to her? God is conspiring against you. God knows that if you eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you'll be like him. God is lying to you because he has a conspiracy against you. You say, okay, yeah, that seems plausible, doesn't it?

And here we are. You see, there's always a conspiracy afoot. If you said to me, what do you think his greatest conspiracy is against humankind? I can tell you easily, religion. Look, I can get you to sin. What's the conspiracy behind sin? Sin is more pleasurable than God. So we want to sin.

But religion, oh man, all we do is a pill trick and replace God with something else. So there's always a conspiracy afoot. It's always there.

So I'll give anybody that. If you say, well, when you look at the world, do you think there's a conspiracy afoot? Yes, there always has been.

There always will be till Christ comes back. It's just that simple. We're so vulnerable to this. Jeremiah 17, 17. The heart of a man is desperately wicked and it is what? Deceitful above all things.

Which means what? We believe almost anything. And boy, do we love to believe in conspiracies.

We love that. There's a conspiracy going on. We deceive ourselves into this whole idea.

Conspiracies produce something. Almost always there's a future fear. I'll tell you the story and there's a future fear. You better be afraid.

What's going to happen? God speaks to this. I hadn't seen the passage before.

Go with me to Isaiah chapter 8 and verse 12. I see the Lord speaking. He says, you are not to say it is a conspiracy.

Now, could that be much clearer than that? You are not to say it is a conspiracy. He said, in regard to all that this people call a conspiracy.

And the word is kashir. And I looked it up and it means conspiracy. The people are talking about there's a conspiracy.

Now, in their case, the conspiracy is the Assyrians are conspiring against us. And they're going to come. They're going to attack us. They're going to wipe us out. They'll make us sleep. It's going to be awful.

It's just going to be terrible. He says, and you are not to fear what they fear or be in dread of it. They're afraid. You see what really feeds a conspiracy? Fear. This whole idea of fear.

I'm going to tell you what's really going on here, how bad it could be. Now, are the Assyrians the problem that the Jews are having? No. That's not the problem. You see, that's not the problem. By the way, is a pandemic the problem you're having if you're full of fear?

No. Their problem and your problem is the same. It's your relationship with God. That's your problem, not the conspiracy.

Notice what he says then. It is the Lord of hosts whom you should regard as holy. He said, and he shall be your fear, and he shall be your dread. What are you afraid of the Assyrians for? What are the Assyrians going to do to us? Only what a sovereign God allows.

They don't do anything. Remember Jesus talking to Peter? He said, Satan desires to sift you like wheat.

Wow. That's pretty threatening, isn't it? He said, don't worry about it. I pray for you. So should I be afraid of him? No. I mean, the scripture says you'll resist him. That's true. Why?

Because of God. No, no. It's a terrible conspiracy. Look what could happen to me. How bad could this get?

That's a simple question to answer. Just as bad as God allows it to be. How long is it going to last?

Just as long as God allows it to last. My fear problem is not with the circumstances. My fear problem is my relationship with God. Over and over again God tells his children throughout the Bible, don't fear, don't fear, don't fear. The reason is in our minds we always have some kind of conspiracy that makes us afraid, and we think that's really our problem. But that's not at all what he says.

He said, that's not the way this works. They are terrified of the cruelty of the Assyrians. And how could they not be? What is our future? Peace, hope, joy. That's what God told us. Here's your future.

So what are you afraid of? It's one thing that we end up finding ourselves believing in this, but there's another thing that happens that alarms me is we propagate these things. Notice what God said. It's not for you to say it's a conspiracy. Do you want that clear?

Do you want to make a bumper sticker out of it or a refrigerator magnet? God says, don't you say it's a conspiracy. And yet what do we do? Hey, have you heard?

I've got some insider information here. Now, go with me to Ephesians chapter 4, verse 29. Paul says, let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth.

Is that clear enough? Then he says, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment so that you will give grace to those who hear. Your speech should always be building someone up. Is that what conspiracy speech sounds like to you? That's how you build people up. You tell them a conspiracy you're on to. He said, no, that's the way you should speak.

That's the way it works. Look at verse 15 of the same chapter. Speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into him who is the head even Christ. Verse 25, therefore, laying aside falsehood, speak truth each one of you to his neighbor. We're all members of one another. So we're only to speak the truth in love.

We're to speak no unwholesome word or worthless word, only words that edify. Now, what's the problem when you spread conspiracy? Is it true? Let's be honest, I don't know. I mean, could you hit it every once in a while and have something true that's a conspiracy? Probably, I don't know.

Is it loving? No. What does conspiracy do? Conspiracy is designed to make people fearful of the future. So I'm going to tell them conspiracies.

Wow. If it's not necessarily true, then what is it we're spreading? Go with me now to Proverbs chapter 10. This is verse 18 in Proverbs. Solomon writes this. He said, he who conceals hatred has lying lips, and he who spreads slander is a fool.

Wow. If I'm giving you somebody in the sense of a conspiracy and it's not true, then what am I doing to that individual or group? I'm slandering them. He said, you spread slander, you're a fool. Why would you spread slander? You see, we have to be careful with this.

Go with me to Proverbs 20 verse 19. He who goes about as a slanderer reveals secrets. Therefore, do not associate with the gossip.

He not only says it's slander, but what is it? It's gossip. He who goes about as a slanderer reveals secrets.

What's the whole key to conspiracy? Want to know a secret? Want to know what's really going on?

I know. I know a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy, and this is what's really happening. He who goes about as a slanderer reveals secrets. Therefore, do not associate with the gossip.

New Testament, 1 Peter 2, 1, put aside all slander. You see, if it's not true, then it's slander, and it's gossip. Now, this is difficult in our culture because you and I know this. There are entire networks on television, and there are entire people who make their living out of conspiracies. Everything that's ever politically happened, every assassination that's ever taken place, don't even get me going on aliens.

You get going on aliens, and it's just amazing how much stuff we want to talk about. I understand that the world is compelled by this by their fallen nature, but the Church of Jesus Christ should not be like this. That's not the way we're supposed to talk in a situation like this. Look at Proverbs 14, verse 15, an interesting statement. The naive believes everything, but a sensible man considers his steps. If someone gives you a conspiracy, and they just tell you this, wouldn't it be interesting if you just said to everyone I ever told you that, okay, prove it. No, no, you can't prove it. I just know. No, prove it. You say it's a conspiracy, then prove it. Notice he says the naive believe everything.

He's referring to that in a negative way. Paul wrote to Timothy in 2 Timothy 2 23 and said, refuse foolish and ignorant speculations. Refuse those. There are so many things that we should be talking to our culture about that are true.

They're all from God. We end up finding ourselves talking about conspiracies, just like the culture does. This pandemic, I mean, think what it's produced. I mean, it produced white lies, big lies, fake news, propaganda, and conspiracies everywhere.

We should never be doing this. I want to go back to 2 Corinthians 10 5 for just a moment here and zero in on something in that verse. We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.

Is that your goal? I want to take not just my actions, I want to take every thought captive to Christ. So, with anybody tells me anything, the question I have to ask is, does this edify? Does this sound like it comes from the Lord?

You see, or is this something else? What's worse is, look, you can't stop everything comes in your ears, but you can certainly stop it from becoming part of your thoughts and ending up in your mouth. We shouldn't be doing this. We shouldn't listen that way.

It should be something different for us. Whenever you allow untrue speculations in your head, they eventually find their way to your speech and you start propagating it. And I don't know if Christians have ever really think about this during something like this.

And I know some don't because even when I talk to them, they want to talk about conspiracies. How should we think? You see, he said every thought captive to Christ, how should we think? Go with me to Philippians 4 in verse 8.

Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there's any excellence in anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things. There's my thought life. The first thing I have to say in my thought life is whatever is true. Now, one thing I can tell you about a conspiracy theory, you have no idea. It's likely false. It could be true. But the point of it is it's not necessarily true.

In fact, the odds are that most of the time it's not even close to true. But the point is he said whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, does that sound like a typical conspiracy theory to you? I want to tell you the most wonderful thing, just wonderful. I just want to tell you how great this is. Do you know what's really going on? Everything is just working great behind the scenes.

That's not what conspiracy theory is. That's what the Lord is. Well, these times are terrible. You know, this is really difficult. I've got a terrible diagnosis.

I want to tell you how bad this is. That's why I say what the New Testament says, the worst thing that could happen to you can't happen to you. Why? Because that's true.

And what do I need when I have a stage four pancreatic cancer diagnosis? I need that. The worst thing that could happen to me can happen to me.

When you're absent from the body, you're present with the Lord. That's true. And that's the kind of talk we should have. And yet, for many of us, we just get ourselves right back involved in the whole conspiracy theory idea.

He said, don't do that. We should think in a very, very different way. Drew Johnson, who wrote an article on conspiracy theory, said this. There is a soft Gnosticism that goes on with conspiracy theories, where we just want to know because we think that knowledge is power in and of itself.

But scripture would say, doing what God has commanded is actually where the power is. See, what's the appeal of conspiracy theories? Gnosticism.

What's it appeal to? My pride. I know something you don't know. He knows stuff.

Yeah. He knows what's at Area 51. He knows.

You see, there's a pride in that. People who spread conspiracy theories basically have a soft Gnosticism that this tells me I'm on the inside. You don't really know what I know.

And you feel proud about it. And there's power in my knowledge. But as Drew Johnson says, there's no power in my knowledge.

The power is only doing what God actually said to do. The appeal to pride is why we propagate them, but it's not necessarily at all what we should be about. There are conspiracy theories everywhere in the world, every culture. But we're not of the world.

Have you thought about that? We're God's children. We're not of the world. In fact, this world, according to the word of God, is in the hands of the prince of this world. So whose world is it?

Lucifer's. He's the father of the conspiracy theories. That's how he's made his living. And he gets us to believe. Thirdly, we should not propagate any conspiracy theory. We shouldn't be about that.

Our speech should be different than that. We should never fear what the world fears. There's a lot of fear in the world right now.

That's natural for them. But for you and I, we're the one group of people that should have peace. We're the group of people that shouldn't be afraid because of Jesus Christ and what he's done for us, because God is sovereign and loving. All things will work together for good.

There's so many reasons. What are we afraid of? Our speech should be filled with truth and love. It should always be wholesome and edifying.

Test yourself that way sometimes when you start talking about some things. But we end up slandering people or gossiping about them, and we don't need any truth. We don't even give it a test of truth. We just want to slander and gossip. I mean, it's a really sad thing. As I've said in the past, one of the things Christians are clever enough to do is they'll spread some slander or gossip to you and say, I'm just making a prayer request.

You see, we're just going to pray about this, but do you know what she's doing? We shouldn't talk like that. That's not how we're to talk.

Our speech is to be edifying, wholesome speech filled with love and truth. And we are to take every single thought captive to Jesus Christ. Look, I understand that conspiracy theories are interesting. That's why they're theories and they're conspiracies, but they're dangerous for us.

They take our eye off the ball. You see, they fill our mind and eventually our mouth with things that aren't of the Lord at all. Joe Carter, he said many modern conspiracies being spread by Christians were actually concocted by occultist, new age pagans or some other group dedicated to an anti-Christ or anti-Christian agenda. Ultimately, though, all slanders conspiracy theories originate from Satan. If we are a people filled with the spirit of truth, we should not be a people spreading messages from the father of lies, conspiracy theories.

I know we love them, but we have to be careful not to be part of them. You've been listening to Pastor Bill Gebhardt on the Radio Ministry of Fellowship in the Word. If you ever miss one of our broadcasts or maybe you would just like to listen to the message one more time, remember that you can go to a great website called oneplace.com. That's oneplace.com and you can listen to Fellowship in the Word online.

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