Snake Oil

From People being sold land that’s underwater, or Madison Avenue creating ads that make you want to buy things that you don’t really want or need, all the way back to when hucksters would travel through the countryside selling bottles of elixirs called “snake oil” – all these things have one thing in common – they are all lies. Our government, our new media, Hollywood: they are all purveying the same thing at this point in time – they are spouting lies faster than they can make them up! 

So what can we do about it? How do we at least deal with this? How do we cope? The first thing we should do about it is this look to our source. Our source, of course, is God. So let’s take a look at what God has said about this (and what He said is relevant to our time now – He actually described what would go on in our generation). We are looking for what God says about all these lies and why we would believe them, so we start with John 8:43-44:

“Why do ye not understand my speech? even because ye cannot hear my word. Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.”

When you realize where all the lies are coming from, maybe you can understand the results a little better. When you are obeying your worldly father, it is just possible you could be relying on the world system you were born into.

“Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God……And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie:” 2 Thessalonians 2:3,4,11.

In other words, the more lies people believe, the stronger the delusion that the lies they believe are the truth. That is why things seem to be getting worse – more and more are believing the lies of their father – Satan (the father of lies).

In the early 1960s, I had an uncle who was a salesman of just about everything. He held auctions, he held flea markets, and he would sell all sorts of thing that he would pick up from all over the country. It was, I presume now, that it was overstocks and things that did not get sold in normal retail stores. One item that has always stuck in my mind was called – “Snake Oil”! It was a small bottle of an orange liquid. It had a snake wrapped around a pole in a garden on the bottle. I am not making this up. To a six or seven year old boy this must have been some marvelous stuff. This stuff was a miracle drug it – it would cure everything from acne to whiplash! The list of things that bottle of stuff would do covered the entire bottle. You know what? Even at six or seven I looked at that bottle and thought that was about the dumbest thing I had ever heard! What’s bad is, people would buy two or three bottle of that stuff at the time!

The point that I am trying to make this time is – don’t believe everything that that you read or that everyone tries to sell you – a lot of things that are being put to you come directly from the father of lies.

The only one that you can really believe is your Creator! God has already written the entire script out. If you read His book you will discover that a good many things that are being played out on the world stage have already been written down by Him. Listen to the creator and for goodness’ sake, please stop buying snake oil!

~AE