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Don’t Fall For Satan’s Bluff

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Don’t Fall For Satan’s Bluff

On August 11, 2021, the UPI reported the story of a Singapore woman, Xi Yan who contacted the animal wildlife agency ACRES, to report a cobra in her home. The wildlife experts asked her to describe the snake to them. However, she was unable to do so. She couldn’t see the cobra. Xi Yan could only hear it hissing from inside the wall of her home. So the ACRES personnel asked her to place her phone against the wall, hoping to identify it by its sound. 

When the woman complied, the experts immediately recognized the snake’s hissing. It was that of an equatorial spitting cobra – perhaps the most venomous of all cobras. ACRES dispatched a dangerous animal extraction team to the woman’s house right away.  

However, when the extraction team arrived, they weren’t able to find the cobra. But they did locate the source of the hissing. However, it wasn’t an equatorial spitting cobra that was hissing. Instead, the extraction team found an Oral B electric tooth brush that had gone haywire. A relieved but embarrassed Xi Yan explained that water had leaked into the tooth brush’s battery compartment and was shorting it out. 

No harm was done, but it’s worth noting that even the experts were fooled on this one. And, as has been demonstrated many times before regarding our expert-substantiated fears, even they can be wrong.  

Remember, back in the late 1960s, Dr. Paul Ehrlich predicted the starvation of billions in his book, The Population Bomb. Yet, the billions never starved. Back in the late 1970s, expert meteorologists were predicting the onset of another ice age. It didn’t happen, either. 

Throughout the Cold War the experts were predicting a nuclear holocaust. Hollywood took up the cause and made a ton of “end of the world” movies. These included On the Beach (1959), Panic in the Year Zero (1962), Fail Safe (1964), The War Game (1965), Special Bulletin (1983), War Games (1983), Testament (1983), The Day After (1983), Threads (1984), When the Wind Blows (1986), Miracle Mile (1988), By the Dawn’s Early Light (1990), and Deterrence (1999). Granted, there have been some close calls. But the fact remains, the “inevitable nuclear holocaust” never happened.  

Nor have any of the dystopian foretellings predicted by the experts ever materialized. Consider the list of failed prophecies drawn up by economics professor, Dr. Mark J. Perry. 

1. 1967: Dire Famine Forecast By 1975
2. 1969: Everyone Will Disappear In a Cloud Of Blue Steam By 1989 (1969)
3. 1970: Ice Age By 2000
4. 1970: America Subject to Water Rationing By 1974 and Food Rationing By 1980
5. 1971: New Ice Age Coming By 2020 or 2030
6. 1972: New Ice Age By 2070
7. 1974: Space Satellites Show New Ice Age Coming Fast
8. 1974: Another Ice Age?
9. 1974: Ozone Depletion a ‘Great Peril to Life’ (data and graph)
10. 1976: Scientific Consensus that the Planet is Cooling, Famines imminent
11. 1980: Acid Rain Kills Life In Lakes (additional link)
12. 1978: No End in Sight to 30-Year Cooling Trend (additional link)
13. 1988: Regional Droughts (that never happened) in 1990s
14. 1988: Temperatures in DC Will Hit Record Highs
15. 1988: Maldive Islands will Be Underwater by 2018 (they’re not)
16. 1989: Rising Sea Levels will Obliterate Nations if Nothing is Done by 2000
17. 1989: New York City’s West Side Highway Underwater by 2019 (it’s not)
18. 2000: Children Won’t Know what Snow Is
19. 2002: Famine In 10 Years If We Don’t Give Up Eating Fish, Meat, and Dairy
20. 2004: Britain will Be Siberia by 2024
21. 2008: Arctic will Be Ice Free by 2018
22. 2008: Climate Genius Al Gore Predicts Ice-Free Arctic by 2013
23. 2009: Climate Genius Prince Charles Says we Have 96 Months to Save World
24. 2009: UK Prime Minister Says 50 Days to ‘Save The Planet From Catastrophe’
25. 2009: Climate Genius Al Gore Moves 2013 Prediction of Ice-Free Arctic to 2014
26. 2013: Arctic Ice-Free by 2015 (additional link)
27. 2014: Only 500 Days Before ‘Climate Chaos’
28. 1968: Overpopulation Will Spread Worldwide
29. 1970: World Will Use Up All its Natural Resources
30. 1966: Oil Gone in Ten Years
31. 1972: Oil Depleted in 20 Years
32. 1977: Department of Energy Says Oil will Peak in 1990s
33. 1980: Peak Oil In 2000
34. 1996: Peak Oil in 2020
35. 2002: Peak Oil in 2010
36. 2006: Super Hurricanes!
37. 2005 : Manhattan Underwater by 2015
38. 1970: Urban Citizens Will Require Gas Masks by 1985
39. 1970: Nitrogen buildup Will Make All Land Unusable
40. 1970: Decaying Pollution Will Kill all the Fish
41. 1970s: Killer Bees! 

42. 1975: The Cooling World and a Drastic Decline in Food Production
43. 1969: Worldwide Plague, Overwhelming Pollution, Ecological Catastrophe, Virtual Collapse of UK by End of 20th Century
44. 1972: Pending Depletion and Shortages of Gold, Tin, Oil, Natural Gas, Copper, Aluminum
45. 1970: Oceans Dead in a Decade, US Water Rationing by 1974, Food Rationing by 1980
46. 1988: World’s Leading Climate Expert Predicts Lower Manhattan Underwater by 2018
47. 2005: Fifty Million Climate Refugees by the Year 2020
48. 2000: Snowfalls Are Now a Thing of the Past
49.1989: UN Warns That Entire Nations Wiped Off the Face of the Earth by 2000 From Global Warming
50. 2011: Washington Post Predicted Cherry Blossoms Blooming in Winter  

Sometimes our fears are valid, but far more often, the enemy who terrorizes us is a powder puff. Since fear is one of Satan’s greatest weapons against us – without any real power to harm us directly, he must constantly bluff his way to success against Christian believers. This is why we are called upon to resist the devil when he tries to intimidate or bluff us into disobeying God. If we stand up to him, his only option is to flee (James 4:7).  

It’s somewhat significant that this story of the equatorial spitting cobra took place in Singapore. That’s where the biggest bluff in history took place. This happened when, on February 15, 1942 (after just one week of fighting) British General Arthur Percival surrendered his well-equipped force of 90,000 soldiers to General Tomoyuki Yamashita and his poorly supplied Japanese force of 23,000.  

Yamashita won the day by his empty threats, to which Percival succumbed. As a result of giving into the enemy’s bluff, nearly ten thousand of British soldiers perished while building the Burma-Thailand railway. Up to 50,000 civilians in Singapore were slaughtered by the Japanese army during its occupation. Percival’s surrender represents the worst military catastrophe in British history. 

Never allow the devil to bluff you with fear. It will cost you dearly if you do. In contrast, to Satan’s lies, God has a perfect record providing for and guarding the souls of His saints. Yes, trusting God has never failed. As David wrote in Psalm 34, “I sought the LORD and He answered me, and delivered me from all my fears. Those who look to Him are always radiant; their faces are never covered with shame. …O taste and see that the LORD is good. Blessed is the person who takes refuge in Him” (Psalm 34:4-5, 8). 

 

PRAYER:  Dear Lord Jesus, train me to put my fears aside and to trust in You and in Your infallible promises. Guard me, dear Lord, against falling for the devil’s wicked lies and outrageous bluffs. Remind me that he is the father of lies and a murderer, but You have come that I might have life and have it more abundantly. Amen. 

 

(Information from:  https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2021/08/11/singapore-ACRES-suspected-cobra-electric-toothbrush/6421628705654/; https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/the-14-most-frightening-films-about-nuclear-holocaust-just-fyi; https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/50-years-of-failed-doomsday-eco-pocalyptic-predictions-the-so-called-experts-are-0-50/; https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryofBritain/The-Fall-of-Singapore/; https://www.britannica.com/event/World-War-II/The-fall-of-Singapore) 


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