This Child Was Uncontrollable Until This Happened

You clicked on the story, didn't you?

Well, I have to be honest. I made up that headline with the intention of you clicking on the story. It's a tactic often used in what is known as "click bait." These are stories with ambiguous headlines like the one above that are designed to pique your curiosity enough to get you to click on the story. Once there, the author or the site gets money from ad revenue based upon their visitor numbers.

It's a scheme, and we all fall for it. We just can't resist clicking on the story to see what it is all about. Usually, it's nothing, but you click and read and they get revenue. So the cycle continues.

Sometimes it is even worse than that. People will literally make up false stories to sway your opinion about someone or something. Usually it is politically motivated. It happens on both the left and the right.

It's the phenomena we know as "fake news." With the advent of social media, fake news has exploded. All you need is a website and a crafty headline writer, and you can generate mounds of income. All you need is some clever Photoshop skills, and you can manipulate photos to sway public opinion. Thanks to Facebook, Twitter, and others sites, you can share them over and over and over again.

But make no mistake, fake news is not a new thing. It has been around for a very long time. In fact, the Jewish religious leaders created fake news immediately after the resurrection of Jesus Christ. We see it in Matthew 28. The guards witnessed an angel come down and roll away the stone. The angel announced Jesus had risen. It was a miraculous spiritual event.

Some of these same guards, who had been frightened at the scene, instantly ran to the Jewish officials who persuaded them to tell a lie. They bribed them (and possibly Pilate) to tell a story that while they slept, Jesus's disciples took his body to claim resurrection. (Never mind the fact that if they slept they wouldn't know who took Jesus's body, but I digress.) Matthew writes that the fake news was still being used when he wrote the book.

Do a quick Google search. You will find that some secular scholars still believe this theory. It is fake news that has been spread for almost 2,000 years. Yet, it denies the witnesses of the resurrection, including 500 people at once. No one recanted the story, even when facing torture and death.

The story of Jesus's resurrection is a powerful one. Only God can raise the dead. If Jesus raised, then he is God. If he is God, then his teaching is true and authoritative. He taught that only he could save humanity and that only a relationship with him gets someone into heaven.

Jesus Christ is alive. He died for you. He rose for you. He expects a response from you.

Will you respond to Christ or just keep believing the fake news?



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