deception

This week we saw the power of deception, the power of God, the power of sin (Dolly, G3, Nepal)

Posted on August 28, 2026 by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

The week of August 21-28, 2026 was an incredible week. It was chock full. We had a death of a uniformly beloved, long-term celebrity, a ministry scandal and fall of leaders that shook the reformed world, and a horrifying natural disaster.

Since God is sovereignly in control, and allows or directly causes all things to happen, and for the Christians, for their good to those who love Him, let’s see what we can learn from these incredible events. We never want to just say “goodness that’s awful” move on without thinking of the heaven above, salvation of others, and our own lesson we can learn. Jesus above all.

Dolly

Southern singer, movie actress, and icon to drag queens Dolly Parton died this week. She was 80 years old. She often spoke of “my faith”, “God”, and ‘living out my beliefs’. To that end, she was consistently kind to all, generous to many, and loving as a state of being. She was gracious under fire, humble, and never put a foot wrong. Never said a wrong thing (in the world’s eyes), and did so while being witty and charming- all for over 60 years in the public eye.

But was she a Christian? It’s heartbreaking to even have to ask. We don’t want to know. We want to say ‘of course she was’ but the evidence of her lived-life says otherwise. Unless she had a change of heart in the end, of course, the evidence over her life in her words and actions, while kind and loving, were not based on the sacrificial death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, but of a God she made up in her heart and a spirituality that doesn’t match His.

It’s easy to say, “Sure, Hitler wasn’t saved” but it is very hard to look at a nice person and say “Well, maybe not.” Because there are only 2 camps, God’s, and satan’s, we shrink back to think Dolly maybe was in satan’s camp. But remember, only two roads.

Dolly was self-deceived that the God she clung to was the God of the Bible. People claiming her as a sister in Christ are deceived by substituting kindness and generosity for repentance and faith. Let’s take a look-

In 2005, Dolly wrote a song called “Travelin’ Thru” for the movie Transamerica (about a male who wants to change genders to a female, and his heretofore unknown son who turns into a gay porn star). She said her motivation for writing the song was to change minds, “Some people are blind or ignorant, and you can’t be that prejudiced and hateful and go through this world and still be happy. One thing about this movie is that I think art can change minds. It’s alright to be who you are.” (Source).

‘Who we are’ are sinners deserving of God’s wrath.

Al Mohler on Dolly and the movie Transamerica, The Duchess of Dollywood Speaks — The Very, Very Open Mind of Dolly Parton

Ken Ham: Where will I (and Dolly Parton) spend eternity?

Justin Peters: What is a Christian? (Was Dolly Parton a Christian?)

Pastor Grant: What did Dolly Parton believe about The Bible?

Dolly publicly stood as an ally for gay and transgender people, which is against God’s standards. She was also immodest, posing for the cover of Playboy Magazine, and wore revealing clothes often.

Do not be deceived and do not fall under the power of deception. Be clear-eyed about what faith is and isn’t. Measure a person’s words and actions against the Bible in God’s words, not against our fallible human standards of love, kindness, or generosity.

G3

Oh, G3 Ministries, you break my heart. I attended the G3 Conference twice and I loved both times. I met wonderful people, had great conversations, and was wowed by the quality of the teaching and preaching. I was thrilled at seeing 5000 the first time then nearly 8000 people the second time come from all over the nation to worship God. I was struck to tears when singing with thousands of others to Jesus. I was mainly happy to see what God can do, raising up so many for His name.

What I didn’t know was that at the center of it was sin. The edges were good, but the center was rotten. “Things fall apart; the center cannot hold” to quote the famous line from “The Second Coming,” a 1919 poem by Irish poet William Butler Yeats. And the center did not hold.

Last year the president of the conference and lead pastor of the church that organized it was outed as a hypocritical sinner. He was forced to step down. This was last year. But then last week, his peers at the church and the Conference were outed as maliciously divisive accusers and liars. The main people behind the church that put on the conference, were sinning unrepentantly and maliciously. Be careful, your sin will find you out. Sadly, when it’s a bunch of pastors who were on one side of their mouths speaking in Jesus’ name and for His glory, and on the other side of their mouths reviling & slandering a brother pastor in Christ anonymously, it’s worse when it’s found out. Titus 2:5, 1 Timothy 6:1, Romans 2:24, 1 Peter 2:15 all are warnings to do right, so the name of God will not be blasphemed or reviled.

Measure a person’s words and actions against the Bible. As we have seen with G3 leaders and their church pastors, sin is deceptive. And it’s everywhere, even where you least expect it.

Nepal flood

Far away across the world and atop the earth’s highest mountains, villagers dwell in vertical lives. Their mountainous buildings and constructions amid the heights with no horizontal ground are amazing achievements. Carving out lives and thriving where the air is thin and the borders are close takes human ingenuity.

And it was all washed away in seconds. A glacier collapsed high above them and its meltwater rushing down the unsuspecting villagers in its wrath and speed astounded those who survived and filmed the spectacle. We watched as it was happening, amazing in itself. Boulders the size of buildings tumbled down amid rushing waters with the speed of a jet as if they were a mere matchstick. Mountainsides were re-shaped in an instant. Solid buildings of concrete and sturdy structure collapsed like a house of cards.

People recorded the disaster and the commonest refrain on social media as we watched horror unfold with mouths agape was: “We are nothing before the power of nature.”

Imagine the global Flood. Imagine the coming Tribulation!

We are puny humans, worms in the dust. We are at the mercy of powers of ‘nature’ and ultimately the power of God which we cannot understand. We get a glimpse when building-sized boulders tumble down as a feather, with the rushing waters defying our comprehension, carving our new channels despite all the endeavors of man to have held it back.

To my mind this week was about power. It made me think of the power of God, the power of deception, and the power of sin.

In The Attributes of God by AW Pink, we read in chapter 9 about the Power of God

WE CANNOT have a right conception of God unless we think of Him as all-powerful, as well as all-wise. He who cannot do what he will and perform all his pleasure cannot be God. As God hath a will to resolve what He deems good, so has He power to execute His will.

“The power of God is that ability and strength whereby He can bring to pass whatsoever He pleases, whatsoever His infinite wisdom may direct, and whatsoever the infinite purity of His will may resolve…As holiness is the beauty of all God’s attributes, so power is that which gives life and action to all the perfections of the divine nature. How vain would be the eternal counsels, if power did not step in to execute them. Without power His mercy would be but feeble pity, His promises an empty sound, His threatenings a mere scarecrow. God’s power is like Himself: infinite, eternal, incomprehensible; it can neither be checked, restrained, nor frustrated by the creature.” (Stephen Charnock).

The only safe spot on earth is in the arms of Jesus, after repenting of our sin and believing in his death, burial, and resurrection.

theology

The Antichrist will conquer by flatteries

Posted on November 3, 2022November 3, 2022 by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

Many people are curious about the coming antichrist. Predicting who he might be by name is not a great idea, but the fact that he will come, that he may be alive on earth right now, and the certainty that he’ll conquer most of the world when sin reigns, is an absorbing thought.

The Antichrist, one man, also called The Beast (Revelation 13:1), predicted to come and who will be not only energized by satan (as Hitler was) but actually indwelt by him, is sobering. (Daniel 11:32, ESV)

We think of war as with horses and guns and more lately, planes and bombs. But war is not only overt, but covert. There have been many wars in human history where blood was shed. But also many others where the war was with the mind and with words. There was the Cold War, for example, where spies and intrigue and undercover ops battled against forces of evil, and they against the forces of good.

The Antichrist will pursue war, and the Tribulation will be a time of war, but of both kinds. Yes, there will be bloodshed, but the other war will be covert. The Antichrist will seize kingdoms by intrigue and flatteries.

I want to focus on the flatteries today.

He shall seduce with flattery those who violate the covenant, but the people who know their God shall stand firm and take action. (Daniel 11:32)

2 Thessalonians 2:9 said he will be full of “lying wonders“.

Romans 16:18 reminds us that the everyday false teachers “For such people are not serving our Lord Christ, but their own appetites. By smooth talk and flattery they deceive the hearts of the naïve.”

Flatteries, when insincere, are a deadly weapon used by evil people to deceive and gain advantage over the naïve.

How does a person gain control by flatteries? How can even one person fall victim to conquering by this method, never mind the whole world? I am always interested in how words are used. We hear much today of ‘misinformation’. I studied the Cold War’s war of propaganda, and also the birth of advertising at the onset of the twentieth century. Flattery is another name for smooth speech, and it can draw the unwary in as much as belligerent speech pushes people away.

When Areopagus Newsletter came to my inbox a few weeks ago and I read about the origin of flattery, and its power, I immediately thought of the Antichrist and the Daniel verse that says he will conquer using this method. Here is The Cultural Tutor with an explanation of ‘flattery’.

Areopagus by the Cultural Tutor, issue XVI. Rhetoric=

The Ancient Greeks did an awful lot of thinking. Sometimes it seems like they thought of everything. Indeed, it is quite frustrating when you think you’ve managed to put a name to a new concept, only to discover that one or more Athenians already discovered and explained it far better than you ever could, two thousand before you were even born.

Kolakeia is one such concept. Its literal meaning is flattery, but in the context of rhetoric it refers to flattery with ulterior motives. The idea is that, by praising somebody, you can distract them from what you really want. We all like to hear good things said about us, but the trouble is that this can affect our clarity of thought.

If somebody begins by telling you how brilliant, helpful, or hard-working you are, then you’re probably more inclined to agree with what they say next. We tend to trust the people we like, and we are naturally drawn to like people who also like us. Kolakeia is, therefore, a smokescreen.

But the Ancient Greek and Roman rhetoricians did not approve of kolakeia. They saw it as a deceitful and improper form of speech because it persuades by manipulation rather than dealing with reason or rational arguments. It subverts the listener and allows the speaker to exploit them. This is most apparent in political speech, whereby populist politicians can endear themselves to the people by praising their virtues and, having done so, make an unjustified claim which the people are thus more likely to support.

Contrast that with somebody who does not use kolakeia and instead appeals to the rationality of a crowd. That is much harder to do, because you are inviting people to think critically and therefore exposing yourself to the possibility that they might simply disagree. It’s more honest and better (for all involved) in the long run, but much less common than we might wish.

So watch out for kolakeia. It’s been around for over two thousand years and it isn’t going away any time soon.

–end Areopagus Newsletter by The Cultural Tutor–

No, it’s not going away any time soon. In fact, manipulation by flattery will be brought to history’s highest point and most evil use when the Antichrist begins to use this covert method to gain power.

Paul reminded us in Romans in just every day daily life of the power of flattery to deceive. During the time predicted to come when all the world will hate Jesus and war against him, that there will be one leader taking over all the world (except the nation of Jordan and except the hearts of believers) who will do so by smooth speech, flatteries, and intrigue. It does a Christian well to always be on guard in discernment to effectively parse true words from false.

false christians, theology

The Worst Danger

Posted on October 31, 2019October 31, 2019 by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

I’ve been in danger before. I’ve been stalked by a serial rapist. Gypsies surrounded me in Ecuador and and slashed my pants trying to get to my wallet. The Storm of the Century tossed my boat on its side like a matchstick. I’ve been trapped under a raft in white water rapids. I’ve been inches from a lightning strike that fused the sand on the ground into glass next to my feet.

Most of those dangers were unexpected and unknown. I didn’t see them coming. Continue reading “The Worst Danger” →

discernment, Uncategorized

Mail call #3: Why can’t people who follow false teachers bear to hear disagreement about them?

Posted on November 29, 2016November 29, 2016 by elizabethprata

Occasionally I receive email, blog comments, or Facebook messages asking questions about various topics and issues within the faith. Here is a question I received recently about false teachers and the people who follow them.

Q. Are they truly deceived and cannot bear to hear any disagreement about the theology of their beloved [false] teacher?

A. The scriptures say that in the latter days (now) “For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions,” 2 Timothy 4:3.

Note the action here. The false teachers are not accumulating followers. It’s the believers who go out and heap up false teachers for themselves! These false teachers like Joyce Meyer or Beth Moore would not exist if they had no followers (because there would be no money- the Bible’s explanation for the reason false teachers go into the false teaching business). The people who heap up these false teachers cannot endure sound teaching. It’s that simple. There is some sin in them that clings to what the false teacher is offering that will not allow them to endure the full truth.

When the false teacher’s aberrant theology is pointed out to the follower, the follower shrinks back in anger and defensiveness, the need to protect their pet false teacher rising hard and fast in their darkened heart. We will go to great lengths to protect our sin.

This good quote from Tom Ascol is the antidote for falling into the sin of heaping up a false teacher:

Mature Christians are those whose lives are marked by such stability that they are not easily led astray by teachings and practices that are contrary to the Word of God. On the contrary, mature believers are “growing up in every way” into Christ. —Tom Ascol in Tabletalk Magazine

The way to avoid being tossed by every wind of doctrine and landing in partnership with a false teacher in the sin-dance is to stay grounded in the Word. Read it, study it, and meditate on it.

Charles Spurgeon had some things to say about the false teachers-

He who does not hate the false does not love the true; and he to whom it is all the same whether it be God’s word or man’s, is himself unrenewed at heart. . . . substituting for honest manliness a mass of the tremulous jelly of mutual flattery.

Oh, if some of you were like your fathers you would not have tolerated in this age the wagon loads of trash under which the gospel has been of late buried by ministers of your own choosing. You would have hurled out of your pulpits the men who are enemies to the fundamental doctrines of your churches, and yet are crafty enough to become your pastors and undermine the faith of a fickle and superficial generation. I cannot endure false doctrine, however neatly it may be put before me. Would you have me eat poisoned meat because the dish is of the choicest ware? It makes me indignant when I hear another gospel put before the people with enticing words, by men who would fain make merchandise of souls; and I marvel at those who have soft words for such deceivers.

~Charles Spurgeon, sermon “Under Constraint,” 1878.