ST Excerpt Introduction

Introduction

This excerpt is from the Introduction of Shadow Truth by Larry Tate

This Is the Book Everyone Fears

■The left is afraid that their tried and proven humanist-driven tactics will be laid bare for the entire world to see.

■The right is afraid to face the fact that despite their claims to be morally conservative, they are doing little, if anything, to combat the successful leftist agenda.

■The left is afraid that the right might finally take a strong stand.

■The right is afraid to let their dim and flickering light of morality and conservatism shine.

■The admitted liberal will be mad because this book insults him.

■The hard-core conservative will be mad because he will discover just how much he is being subjected to liberal policies.

■The moderate, who is conservative on fiscal issues but left on social and moral issues, will be mad because this book exposes just how much he has been fooled into embracing the tenets of Shadow Truth. Then, there are the other self-proclaimed moderates and progressives. Most of those folks don’t really know what they are, or what they stand for. Our nation is struggling with a myriad of fiscal policies, social policies and moral issues. The so-called moderates and progressives tend to be left-leaning on one or two of those issues, and right-leaning on the remaining issues. Regardless of which way they land, the moderates and progressives will be mad because this book exposes their hypocrisy by revealing just how much they have been fooled and manipulated by the tenets of Shadow Truth deception.

What Has Happened to Us?

How have we lost control of the world we live in? We have gotten to this place, through a seemingly innocent and logical progression of societal change. We have fallen for the most cunning form of deception, something that I call, Shadow Truth.

A Word from Our Enemy

My name is Satan, which means adversary. I also have a number of titles, such as the Prince of this World and the Angel of Light. I am on a mission of utmost importance to me. My objective is to conquer, and gain possession of, the Kingdom of God.

I have already initiated a variety of plans, tactics, and strategies in order to accomplish this daunting task. In the beginning, I even made an overt attempt to overthrow God, Himself. Through cunning and craftiness, I was able to recruit a significant number of His angels to assist me in that planned coup. To my disappointment however, I found myself, and my army of renegade angels, unable to fight against God.

Not one to easily give up, I redirected my efforts to overthrow God by seeking to influence his most cherished creation—mankind. Since I was unable to conquer God face-to-face, I decided that winning the allegiance of human beings would be the best way to infiltrate and destroy God’s kingdom. I determined that if I could persuade men and women to follow me, I would effectively conquer God’s empire. What else is there other than the sun, the moon, and the stars? God doesn’t care about those material objects. Mankind is His only passion. With them on my side, God’s kingdom will finally be mine.

I have devised a number of methods of deception. I once developed a plan that involved sharing falsehoods about God, His creation, and the purpose of human existence. However, I eventually had to discard that tactic. I discovered that most people would not follow me if I tell them outright lies. Then one day I stumbled upon the ideal way to lure mankind over to my way of thinking. I have created a very effective tactic which involves ever-so-gradually moving the bar of truth into something that is nowhere near the truth.

To my delight, humans have become clay in the potter’s hand, but now I am the potter. They now follow me wherever I choose to lead them. They are like a flock of sheep going to slaughter. I have finally settled on the ultimate and foolproof plan for overthrowing the kingdom of God.

My plan is very effective. It is the ultimate deceit. Mankind won’t realize what is happening to them. They won’t even have the ability to comprehend that I am fooling them into following me. By the time they finally do figure out what is happening, I will have already conquered the kingdom of God and they will have no way of reversing the damage I have done.

What is my plan? My plan goes far beyond just fooling the average human being. My plan is so devious that it is capable of ensnaring even the most devout of Christians. I have learned that God’s followers won’t easily believe a lie, but they are always eager to embrace truth. How can I deceive God’s followers with truth? It is easy. It is sure. It is devious. Like a grand chess master, I will trap them and leave them with no possible move—no way of escape.

I’ve found the most effective form of deception is to base it on truth. Even Christians will often accept my manipulations because of their eagerness to embrace God’s truth. Starting with God’s truth as my foundation, I have built an operation of deceit. Building on that first foundation, I can easily entice mankind to believe another version of truth. On top of that, I will convince them to believe yet another truth. My plan is so clever; I should receive a prize. Oh, that’s right, I will receive a prize! I will have the entire kingdom of God handed over to me. Without even realizing it, God’s own followers will hand me the kingdom of God on a silver platter. What do I call my ultimate plan of deception? I call it Shadow Truth.

What Is Shadow Truth?

Everywhere we look, we see customs, laws, policies, and other conditions that cause us to scratch our heads and ask ourselves, how did we as a society get to where we are today? All you have to do is open the morning paper or listen to the news on any given day—the headlines are filled with events that just don’t sound right. For instance:

In 2007 one school in Maine was reported to be handing out birth control pills to eleven year-old girls without their parents’ consent. Are other schools also doing this?

More schools and communities are taking Christmas out of their holiday events, and implementing more tolerant labels for the long-held Christian tradition such as, Winter Holiday.

A town in Colorado considered banning red and green Christmas lights from city property because those bright and cheerful colors might be offensive to certain members of the community.

We hear of city councils voting to deny certain religious displays because they may be offensive to certain minority beliefs that exist in our society.

Decisions and policies are being implemented which prohibit prayer on school properties, at school functions, and in other school environments.

Some school textbooks are now being produced with no teaching related to God being the Creator of the world.

Schools are convincing our impressionable children that it is no longer important to excel in what they do, especially when it comes to playground activities, school functions, and grade achievement.

Public meetings commence without a prayer being recited so as not to offend anyone who does not believe in God.

Public meetings that do begin with prayer often prohibit the mention of Jesus Christ in those prayers.

Assisted suicide is increasingly being accepted and utilized.

Certain school systems are being required to promote and encourage acceptance of homosexual lifestyles to children.

Some churches are allowing homosexual clergy to lead their congregations.

Situations like these are occurring because today’s society is locked in the firm grip of deception. How is it that so many people in our society are falling for, and accepting, such obviously wrong policies? How is it that we find ourselves obligated to comply with, and be subjected to, such policies? How is it that we can be threatened by lawsuits if we refuse to comply with some of these newly implemented policies? How can these deceptive things be accepted by the mainstream of today’s society without so much as a whimper?

Practice Makes Perfect

How have we lost control of the world we live in? There once was a time when the culture and traditions of various nations were proudly upheld by the majority members of those nations. Many of the Middle Eastern and Muslim cultures still do so. Where the U.S.and other Western nations utilize sensitivity and political correctness to suppress the traditions and cultures of the majority segment of the nation, the Eastern nations do not permit “outsiders” to change their ways and practices. Western nations tend to permit political correctness to suppress the beliefs and traditions of the majority, and bow down to the beliefs of those in the minority. It seems that if just one person complains that Christmas displays offends him, then those displays must come down. Every time we give in to someone who says that they are offended at our culture, we are losing more control of our nation.

The popular movie, Groundhog Day, is the story of a man who finds himself repeatedly waking up to the same morning, and living the same day over and over again. At first, he finds this to be a tremendous nuisance. However, eventually he realizes that since he is being forced to relive the same situations each day, he may as well learn from his mistakes. With each passing day he discovers the actions that result in negative outcomes and alters his behavior the next time around. Finally he has a day when he handles every circumstance in exactly the right way, producing the precise outcome he wants.

Satan has a similar advantage. While he cannot relive a day, as the movie character did, he has had the opportunity to study human nature and learn from one generation to the next, those tactics that work best. He has had thousands of years of trial and error to perfect his plan. It seems that many fronts of evil appear to be compounding right now as Satan sets the stage for his end-play. He is now deceiving mankind as in no other time in history. His greatest triumph is that most of today’s people don’t even realize that they are being deceived. The deceitfulness of his Shadow Truth is conceived in the realm of darkness and shadows, which is the habitat of Satan. Scripture warns us to be wary of the darkness of evil:

The way of the wicked is as darkness: they know not at what they stumble.
Proverbs 4:19 (KJV)

And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.
Ephesians 5:11 (KJV)

For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
Ephesians 6:12 (KJV)

So justice is far from us, and righteousness does not reach us. We look for light, but all is darkness; for brightness, but we walk in deep shadows.
Isaiah 59:9 (NIV)

For look, the wicked bend their bows; they set their arrows against the strings to shoot from the shadows at the upright in heart.
Psalm 11:2 (NIV)

Is It Really Truth?

Shadows have no actual form or substance of their own—they are a faint representation of the real thing. Likewise, the idea behind the term, “Shadow Truth,” is that it has an appearance of truth, but none of the substance that comprises Absolute Truth. Shadow truth is an evil deception cleverly veiled as truth.

God’s Absolute Truth is found in the Bible and it is a firm foundation. It cannot fall; it will not fail. It is the solid ground upon which all of creation exists. God and His truth is the foundation of all that is. In natural terms, a building’s foundation is the support of the entire building. We see the building, but we don’t see the foundation because it is flush with the top of the soil. Satan, in order to be believable, builds his deceit on God’s very foundation of truth. A foundation cannot cast a shadow because it is buried in the soil. Using the same analogy, God’s foundation of truth cannot cast a shadow. Being that Satan builds his deceit from a foundation of truth, and being that anything built on top of a foundation is capable of casting a shadow, it can be assumed that Satan’s brand of “truth” casts a shadow. In that shadow are lies and deceit.

Quite cleverly, Shadow Truth was launched on the firm foundation of God’s undisputable truth. The underlying premise of Shadow Truth is to slowly and meticulously alter God’s Absolute Truth. This ingenious brainchild of Satan deceives mankind by way of its ever-so-gradual and unceasing truth-building process. Each so-called truth is constructed and derived through seemingly logical progressions of truth building. The progressions are so gradual that it is difficult, if not impossible, to discern that any change is occurring at all.

The first few progressions of Shadow Truth are likely to be just as true as the foundation of Absolute Truth on which they stand. In order for subsequent truths to be genuinely true, each must be fully supportable by Absolute Truth. However, there comes a time when a subsequent truth only has a previous truth as its foundation. As each ensuing truth is constructed, shadow truth becomes more and more unstable.

Each progression of Shadow Truth is so incredibly tiny and minute that it is barely discernable from the previous step. To be believable, the progressions that create each new truth must appear to be unarguably valid and logical. Deceit is achieved when a subsequent truth appears to be founded upon the most recent previous truth. This process continues until the final truth is actually an outright lie that is veiled as the truth.

Eventually, Satan’s desired deception manifests itself in society as a belief, a practice, a policy, a custom, or a law. Unlike where it began, the ultimate shadow truth has no basis on, or connection to, Absolute Truth. There comes a time when the foundation known as Absolute Truth no longer supports the Shadow Truth on which society is now operating. However, since mankind is so caught up in the seemingly logical and necessary progressions of Shadow Truth, they end up believing outright deceptions and lies.

After a sufficient number of progressions of building its so-called truths on top of previous so-called truths, Shadow Truth begins casting a long and dangerous shadow of deceit. Just as there is no substance to a shadow, there is no substance to Shadow Truth either. In order for Shadow Truth to be successful, most of mankind must be thoroughly convinced to believe that the resulting lie is a truth. All of this is done without people even realizing what has happened to them.

The manipulation of truth begins very slowly, and gradually builds momentum. This manipulation of truth may cross over several generations. Each new generation is raised to believe that their current level of truth is the status quo. Hence, it becomes easier and easier to continue the trend of shadow truth building. With each subsequent generation, the momentum of truth building increases at a faster rate.

Most societies are founded upon a basic set of rules and laws. Those laws typically mirror many of the laws and traditions found in the Bible’s moral code. Then, Shadow Truth’s deception creeps into society and begins altering and changing those basic truths one seemingly innocent baby-step at a time, until they become accepted policies that have little or no relationship or comparison to the original principles on which they started. The final truths have no foundation on, or connection to Absolute Truth.

Mankind should have the forethought to investigate each and every progression to see if it is still fully supportable by Absolute Truth. Due to our shortsighted nature however, we tend to examine a new truth’s merits only against the merits of the previous truth. On the surface, Shadow Truth seems to be the right thing to do. This is due to the fact that it is crafted and designed to look good, sound good and feel good. Shadow truth appears to be based on perfectly sound logic.

The key to Shadow Truth’s success is that it starts out by coming to the rescue of genuine societal problems. To do so, it must have its beginnings on the foundation of Absolute Truth. In that way, it has the ability to deceive the masses. Each subsequent and evolving step of Shadow Truth is built on top of a previous Shadow Truth. People tend to accept each of these seemingly logical progressions because they appear to be completely valid and trustworthy. Each new step is such a small step, and such a logical step that is difficult to find any fault with the logic of the progression. Each new step is so incrementally small that is difficult to realize that it is in fact, evolving at all.

Absolute Truth is like the house that will continue to stand because it is built on a rock. Conversely, Shadow Truth is like the house built on sand, and is destined to fall.

24Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock: 25And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock. 26And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand: 27And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it.
Matthew 7:24-27 (KJV)

There is only one Absolute Truth. It was established by God before He created the world. Then there is Shadow Truth, which is being twisted and fabricated by Satan. Without a proper foundation, Shadow Truth is destined to fall, but not before it causes irreversible damage to mankind. Today, the entire world is traveling merrily along on the treacherous pathway of Shadow Truth that is being constructed by Satan. All societies that insist on blindly following Satan’s deception will eventually fail.

We need to realize that Shadow Truth is a series of deadly attacks against every aspect of our society. In order for the ploy to be successful, mankind must be thoroughly convinced to believe that they are improvements rather than attacks. Satan’s task is to cause us to believe that his attacks are actually needed changes and improvements in our society. We must be so deceived that we actually embrace each attack even as it is hitting us in the face.

The above excerpt is from the copyrighted book, Shadow Truth by Larry Tate