By Robert J. Hawkins, Jr. General World Missions Coordinator
In the early 1960s, Yale University psychologist, Stanley Milgram, conducted a study of obedience to authority figures that would impact social psychology forever. He was particularly interested in how and why Nazi workers were willing to kill thousands of innocent people. This helped him create an experiment that looked at obedience to authority figures.
Dr. Milgram had 40 participants to study, all male, with ages that ranged from 20 to 50 years. These participants would work with another “participant,” who was an actor who knew the purpose of the experiment. The actor would always be the learner in each test, and the participants would always be the teachers. The learner’s job was to “memorize” a list of word pairs.
The actor was placed in a room separate from the teacher and strapped to a chair with supposed electrodes attached to his body. In the other room, the teacher was placed in front of a switchboard apparatus, which would administer shocks at various levels to the actor. The board had an increasing voltage from 15 volts (slight shock) to 450 volts (danger-severe shock). The teacher would say a word, and the learner’s objective was to answer with the words that matched. When the learner, or actor, answered incorrectly, the teacher was ordered to give a shock, increasing the amount of voltage each time a shock was required. While the learner was not feeling any shocks whatsoever, the teacher believed he was experiencing pain, as he could hear the responses from the actor in the other room. There was also another actor in the room with the teacher who was dressed as a scientist in a white lab coat, telling him that he must continue with the experiment and that he had no choice but to continue administering the shocks.
Despite the screaming, cries, begging, then the worrisome silence from the actor in the other room, a surprising two-thirds of the participants continued to the highest shock level (450 volts), and all of those participating continued to 300 volts. These results suggest that when people are given orders, even when they believe it is putting someone in harm’s way or causing them pain, they are likely to obey, even if it violates their conscience and their most sacredly held beliefs. This is true especially when the orders come from someone they perceive as an authority figure.
Governments all over are ratcheting up the control, power, and authority they have over their citizenry. This is the spirit of antichrist, and when the satanic political leader of the last days comes on the international scene, much will already be in place for his transition to dominance over the world population. The beast is not going to wrestle this power ALL AT ONCE from the populace—HIS SPIRIT IS DOING IT EVEN NOW. He will have such access to oppressive governance that no one will be able to buy or sell ANYTHING, ANYWHERE, without the mark of the beast in their forehead or their right hand. (See Revelation 13:16, 17.) This implies that much, if not all, currency will soon become strictly digital.
We are already seeing, even in third-world countries, biometric identification being highly implemented, and payments being made by retina, fingerprint, and palm scans. As we traveled the globe around the time of the pandemic, we had to use QR codes almost everywhere we went to allow for our passage, and maybe one day something like this will be tattooed on the populace in some areas. Have you seen an increase in tattoos on men and women of all ages over the last several years? The devil has a plan that he has been slowly implementing and he is desensitizing the world for it. “Need your temperature taken? Let me scan your forehead or your right hand.”
Agricultural and livestock farms are being shut down across the globe in the name of saving the earth from the supposed existential threat of global warming. One of the largest producers of food in the world, the Netherlands, is expected to shut down approximately 3,000 farms. This is lessening the ability of our global citizenry to remain free of GOVERNMENT DEPENDENCE ON FOOD. Someone once said, “A government big enough to give you everything you want, is a government big enough to take away everything that you have.”
Leaders all over the world are promising to end the use of fossil fuels and to go to fully electric, which would put more of us on the grid and subject us to being shut down or severely restricted at the touch of a button, especially in the area of transportation. To supposedly reduce their carbon footprint, nations are working to create and retrofit some of our current cities to become “15-MINUTE CITIES,” where everything you need, every service you require, is within a 15-minute walk from your home. In some places, digital permission is required to leave your small home area. This is not about global warming—it is all about power and control—and we are the carbon they want to reduce.
Population reduction is on the global elitists’ agenda. One diabolical way this has been implemented is through certain mass vaccination programs promoted by the World Health Organization, especially in poverty-stricken nations that are considered to be a monetary drain on the rest of the world by their need. Some vaccines administered in these countries have been found to be laced with anti-fertility drugs that cause permanent damage. And here we thought the powers that be only had our good in mind! Did you know that the largest CRIMINAL FINE ever paid in the United States (nearly 1.2 billion dollars) was paid by the world’s largest pharmaceutical company, Pfizer? “BUT he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; AND WITH HIS STRIPES WE ARE HEALED” (Isa. 53:5). We have a God-given right to trust in God alone and be divinely healed by the blood of Jesus Christ—not harmed by man.
Whether real or manufactured, many governments of the world will take advantage of a crisis—a pandemic, war, global warming, or a natural disaster—and work to gain more control over their populations. Someone once said, “Don’t let a good crisis go to waste!” THE SPIRIT OF ANTICHRIST KNOWS THAT FEAR CAN BE USED TO GAIN COMPLIANCE.
As we saw in the Milgram Experiment, two-thirds were willing to give up their most sacredly held beliefs, override their conscience, AND EVEN BETRAY OTHERS TO DEATH (Mark 13:12) WHEN PRESSURED BY AUTHORITY FIGURES! Although all of those who participated in the experiment continued to a dangerous 300 volts, one third eventually refused to continue with the experiment, and some of them walked out!
Church of God, we must be, and we are that THIRD PART! TWO PARTS have already given in to the world’s pressure. They have brought harm to many, and they are dead! But the THIRD PART MUST AND WILL STAND FOR WHAT IS RIGHT, NO MATTER THE COST! During the COVID pandemic, we all did the best we could to balance obeying God and obeying our government. But is it possible we went to a dangerous 300 volts in some cases? Governments all over the world shut down church services, restricted home prayer meetings and Bible studies, ordered singing to cease, physically separated believers, and restricted free movement in our hometowns and to other cities, states, and countries. Many who refused the government-sponsored and pushed vaccines were demonized, lost their jobs, and threatened in many ways. Tragically, some of our people have never returned to be with us in our services after being gone for so long a time.
According to Romans, chapter 13, God has given us our civil governments to protect our God-given rights, to promote what is right and good, and to punish the evil—and we should submit ourselves to them. Members of The Church of God should be the best citizens of every country in which we live. But when governments become the ministers of the devil and not the servants of God, when they promote the evil and not the good, it becomes our prayerful and careful duty to resist the ordinances that go against the Word of God AND OBEY THE COMMANDMENTS OF GOD ONLY!
GOD IS GREATER THAN GOVERNMENT! “And they called them, and commanded them not to speak at all nor teach in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John answered and said unto them, Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye. For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard” (Acts 4:18-20)
“Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, answered and said to the king, O Nebuchadnezzar, we are not careful to answer thee in this matter. If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king. But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up” (Dan. 3:16-18).
“And when they had brought them, they set them before the council: and the high priest asked them, Saying, Did not we straitly command you that ye should not teach in this name? and, behold, ye have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine, and intend to bring this man’s blood upon us.
THEN PETER AND THE OTHER APOSTLES ANSWERED AND SAID WE OUGHT TO OBEY GOD RATHER THAN MEN” (Acts 5:27-29)!