What usually comes out of our mouths are words. We have taught elsewhere that we "baptise" people with the Spirit of God when we teach the things that Jesus taught. But the "baptism" by the Devil described in the passage above is a very nasty baptism, which aims to destroy us.

Jesus said that the Devil is a liar and the father of liars. (John 8:44) What comes out of his mouth are lies, and he will use a flood of them to attempt to destroy God's people. We have experienced just such lies being told about us in recent years: Everything from us being accused of kidnapping people, to being "killers for Christ", to selling body organs on the black market, to being a paedophile ring. The bigger the lie, it seems the more people they find to help them promote it. And then, to top it off, they accuse US of being the liars.

They say that the best defense is a good offense, and that has been taken to heart by our enemies. They come out swinging, constantly accusing us of being liars, knowing that it hurts most because we are so obsessed with finding and sharing the truth. Our emphasis on sincerity and honesty (even honesty about our dishonesty) means that accusations that we are inveterate liars hit at the very foundations of our faith... in much the same way that their accusations about us opposing the teachings of Jesus do.

Even when a couple of our members felt it was necessary, a few years ago, to lie in order to get around laws in Australia which kept them from donating a kidney to strangers who were in danger of dying from kidney disease, the first thing we did after the operations had been completed was to announce publicly what had happened, and why it had been necessary to tell those lies. The result was a change in legislation in one state just weeks after the media broke the story.

However others took our honesty ABOUT our previous dishonesty to justify damning us as self-confessed liars. It is probably this hypocritical and self-righteous dishonesty about the fact that we all use decpetion of one sort or another at times which is the most insidious and harmful of all lies.

ABC-TV in Australia is presently broadcasting a series on those traits in children which make them ultimately successful as they grow up, and one of those traits is an ability to tell lies. They are actually telling parents that, if their kids can learn to lie convincingly, they stand a greater chance of being successful as adults. Such is the universal deceit that typifies the world we live in today.

So back to the prophecy. The Devil is going to tell lies... a great flood of them... about God's people in the last days. We are living in those days.

But what about the second half of the prophecy:

There seems to be some hope that the lies will not succeed in destroying us. We have this analogy of an earthquake or some kind of crater opening up in the earth just in time to swallow the flood and save us from drowning. But if the flood is not literal water, rather a flood of lies, then how will these lies be "swallowed up" and how will they prove to be ineffectual?

I don't have any definitive answer, just a lot of theories. Generally speaking, the "earth" is seen as being good in the Bible (unlike the "world", which is very often used to speak of evil people and evil ways). This planet belongs to God. ("The earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof." Psalm 24:1) So God may do something that will save us. That is one theory.

However, most of these "good" images of the earth seem to suggest the literal earth. Yet we have already assumed that the "flood" is not a literal flood, which could be swallowed up by a literal cavern opening in the ground in front of us.

There are, however, references to the earth (in a metaphorical sense) that are NOT so nice, and most of them appear in The Revelation. When it comes to Bible prophecy, many references to the earth are more in keeping with the "worldly" concept of evil... evil men... evil leaders... evil masses. This seems to be consistent with the idea that those inhabitants of this planet have corrupted what God had intended for us, by destroying the "earth" itself as well as destroying their own consciences in the process.

Even this twelfth chapter of The Revelation (See also Revelation 9:1.) talks of the Devil being cast out of heaven and thrown down to the earth. During those dark final days of the earth's history, this planet does seem to become dominated by evil.

In the previous chapter (See Revelation 11:10.) we are told that "those who dwell on the earth" rejoice over the death of God's prophets. In the next chapter (See Revelation 13:8-14.) a beast comes up "out of the earth" and "causes the earth and they that dwell therein to worship the beast whose deadly wound was healed [i.e. the Antichrist]." In Revelation 14, we read about God pouring out his wrath "on the earth" (See Revelation 14:15-19.) and about 144,000 people being "redeemed from the earth" (Revelation 14:3) In chapter 16, the "kings of the earth" try to make war with God, in the Battle of Armageddon. (See verse 14.) In Revelation 17 and 18, we hear of how the kings of the earth and the inhabitants of the earth have been corrupted by that great whore called Babylon, "the mother of the abominations of the earth". (See Revelation 17:2-8 and 18:3)

So there is a strong possibility that this "opening up of the earth" is actually something that originates in the evil system itself, even though God uses it to actually "swallow up" the same lies that it generated. I want to suggest three theories about how that could happen.

One possibility is that the media could be called upon to actually expose what is going on. Despite the widespread distortions and the rampant brainwashing that emanates from the mass media, there are times when isolated journalists have been able to champion great causes or expose serious corruption. It is not entirely unbelievable that some section of the media might want to take a genuine interest in these strange, over-the-top lies that keep pouring out against ourselves, thus digging deeply enough to expose the individuals behind them, and their own confused origins. Most of our critics have wisely stayed hidden from such public exposure simply because of the weakness of their own arguments.

Another possibility is that the courts might take on such a case, and demand evidence for the lies, as well as examining evidence against those who have been telling them. This is a more likely scenario, even though we have learned that it could easily cost a quarter of a million dollars to argue such a case even against one person. Nevertheless, a resounding success in such a case could send out a serious warning to others who would try to continue the lies.

However, there is a third possibility which seems even more likely and that is that the "earth" will end up defeating itself just by being so extreme in the lies that it tells. Through overkill all credibility may be lost. There is already evidence that this is happening in our own case.

I think Hitler has been quoted as saying something about telling such big lies that no one would think it possible that you would have the audacity to say them if they were not true. There are, however, limits to that. Lies about (or even insinuations about) us being a paedophile ring, for example, are far more unbelievable than attempts to say that our befriending a paedophile means we condone what he did. Yet some of the liars are going for just so much overkill. While many will assume that there must be some truth in it all, if they look closely enough to discover that it was mass murderers last year and serial rapists the year before, they are soon going to see through it all and know exactly what is happening.

Let's look at the implications of that.

If the "earth" in these last days mean those people who serve the Antichrist, then they will assist in telling the lies, but they will not be doing so because they honestly believe that God's people are evil. They will be doing so because they have consciously chosen to play the same game, i.e. spewing out lies which they themselves do not, for one minute, believe. And if all those telling the lies know from the start that they are not true, what is to be gained on their part (or lost on ours) by them doing so?

The strength of a lie is in its ability to get someone to believe it. While we do see more and more people telling the same and similar lies about ourselves, it is getting harder and harder to find anyone who actually believes them.

And we can take great comfort in that.