a lie-loving people who pathetically beg for delusion and the lie-making prophets, priests, and priestesses who oblige their madness

Lying is a sin. This we know. Why else would liars be left outside the eternal gates of the city beautiful?
 
“Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city. For without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie.”[1]

Why else would the Lord warn,
 
“Wo unto the liar, for he shall be thrust down to hell”?[2]
 
But lying wears several faces. There is the manufacture of a lie. There is the dissemination of a lie. There is the reception of a lie. And there is the loving of a lie. Each of these aspects of “lying” is sin, and their practitioners subject to being “thrust down to hell.”
 
All of this was brought to my mind as I recently read the all-too-accurate reflections of a media correspondent on a sizeable segment of American culture.
 
“Brian Stelter, CNN’s chief media correspondent, whose newly released book Hoax explores how Fox News covered Trump, told an interviewer in June that the US had entered an environment ‘where the Fox base’ prefers ‘propagandistic opinion shows [rather] than any semblance of news’.
 
“‘People want to be lied to, and it’s above my head to know what to do about that,’ Stelter told the Washington Post. ‘What do we do about that, when millions of people want to be lied to every day?’”[3]
 
Just how far have American’s gone in their love of a lie, in their desire to be lied to? All the way to the valley of the shadow of death and the very gates of hell.
 
“A county coroner in the state of Missouri is honoring requests from family members to alter the cause of death on the death certificates of their loved ones who have died from COVID….
 
“Speaking to the Kansas City Star on the matter, Macon County Coroner Brian Hayes said he altered the cause of death on at least six certificates at the request of family members. Instead of COVID, he listed a different condition such as pneumonia as the cause of death….
 
“The reasons for these requests appear to be politically motivated, as these Macon County residents don’t want to admit that their loved ones died of a virus that many in the country have tried to downplay, explained Hayes, who is a Republican.
 
“‘A lot of families were upset. They didn’t want COVID on the death certificates,’ Hayes told the newspaper.”[4]
 
 This is but the slightest variation on the Book of Mormon theme:
 
“Thus there began to be a mourning and a lamentation in all the land because of these things, and more especially among the people of Nephi…. But…their sorrowing was not unto repentance, because of the goodness of God; but it was rather the sorrowing of the damned, because the Lord would not always suffer them to take happiness in sin. And they did not come unto Jesus with broken hearts and contrite spirits, but they did curse God, and wish to die. Nevertheless they would struggle… for their lives.”[5]
 
It seems preposterous, perhaps, to some, that anyone, even a single anyone, would prefer to be lied to. To consider that not one, but millions of American’s wish to be lied to might seem madness. It is madness. And the reality of it is not preposterous. There are, in fact, very, very good and reliable examples of individuals and societies that prefer being lied to. One such example comes from a source that millions of Americans deem to possess the ultimate authority—the Bible.
 
In the middle of the 8th century B.C., many prophets such as Isaiah, Micah, Hosea, and Amos boldly stepped forward to offer inspired critique of Israel’s societal injustices and gross wickedness. They warned of impending disaster as a consequence of such injustices and wickedness. While they spoke the words of God, others, false prophets all, spoke falsehood. 
 
Israel’s citizenry came to prefer the latter to the former—lies over truth. Micah says it like this.
 
“If a man walking in the spirit and falsehood do lie, saying,
      ‘I will prophesy unto thee of wine and of strong drink;’
            he shall even be the prophet of this people.”[6]
 
You see, the false prophets told the people what they wanted to hear; namely, “All is well. We are good. Our future is bright.” The false prophets manufactured and disseminated the lie. The citizenry received and loved the lie. It made no difference to Israel’s citizenry whether it was true or false so long as it stroked their egos, fed their delusions, and justified their hardened hearts.
 
It was a few hundred years after Micah’s ministry and on the other side of the globe that another nation willfully, madly, and pathetically chose, yea begged to be lied to rather than hear of and accept a true and inspired charge of a patently obvious wickedness. Abinadi boldly proclaimed the truth of a deep and abiding national wickedness. But the citizenry became “angry with him; and they took him and carried him bound before the king.” They repeated Abinadi’s criticisms of both the national government and its citizens, complaining that “he pretendeth the Lord hath spoken it.” Then came the pathetic begging, the begging that they be lied to.
 
“And now, O king, what great evil hast thou done, or what great sins have thy people committed, that we should be a condemned of God or judged of this man? And now, O king, behold, we are guiltless, and thou, O king, hast not sinned; therefore, this man has lied concerning you, and he has prophesied in vain. And behold, we are strong, we shall not come into bondage, or be taken captive by our enemies; yea, and thou hast prospered in the  land, and thou shalt also prosper.”[7]
 
As we read the citizenry’s desperate protestations of innocence and their plea for lies, we might think of a line from Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet, in which Queen Gertrude declares, "The lady doth protest too much, methinks.”
 
Like ancient Israel and the Nephite populace of Noah’s time, Americans, by the millions, today demand lies and delusions. Hell, they beg for them. When they do not get them, they yell and scream and kick and fuss. They threaten and abuse those unwilling to go along with their madness—politicians, reporters, newscasters, clergymen and women, doctors, and yes, as we have noted, coroners. They are not above attempting to intimidate even to the instigation of insurrection.
 
And like King Noah and his wicked priests who colluded with him, there are many on America’s political and media landscape who are only too happy to oblige the people and give them exactly what they want: additional and even more outlandish lies. Now, we do not know the names of Noah’s co-conspirators, who set on their high seats of gold behind a “breastwork” where they “might rest their bodies and their arms… while they should speak lying and vain words to his people,”[8] but we do know the names of America’s corrupt high priests and priestesses, who today sit under bright lights behind the all seeing eye of a modern camera lens and under domed ceilings of gilded gold. Among the most notable of these modern-day sorcerers and sorceresses of lies and vanities we might think of Donald Trump and Tucker Carlson and Marjorie Taylor Green and Jim Jordan and Matt Gaetz and Laura Ingraham and Mike Liddell and Sydney Powell and Ron Johnson and Lauren Boebert and Ron DeathSantis and Rudy Giuliani—all vying for ordination to a sort of quorum of twelve satanic apostles. These are just the sort of false prophets that millions of deluded Americans demand; beg for like the spoiled and entitled brats that they are.
 
Not only does history reveal the mad human desire to be lied to and the existence of so many who gladly feed the madness by providing the lies, but so does prophecy. Paul warned his fellow-worker, Timothy, that
 
“The time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; and they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.”[9]
 
Yes, both history and prophecy have warned and forewarned all those who “loveth” as well as those who “maketh a lie.” Americans who have so willfully fallen prey to and come to love the machinations of the “father of lies” would do well to listen to the warnings of history and prophecy, humble themselves in sackcloth and ashes, confess their sin, repent, and reverse their reprobate ways. For, thus saith the Lord,
 
“I, the Lord, have said that the fearful, and the unbelieving, and all liars, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie, and the whoremonger, and the sorcerer, shall have their part in that lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death. Verily I say, that they shall not have part in the first resurrection.
And now behold, I, the Lord, say unto you that ye are not justified, because these things are among you.”[10]
 
“These are they who are liars, and sorcerers, and adulterers, and whoremongers, and whosoever loves and makes a lie.
These are they who suffer the wrath of God on earth.
These are they who suffer the vengeance of eternal fire.
These are they who are cast down to hell and suffer the wrath of Almighty God, until the fulness of times, when Christ shall have subdued all enemies under his feet, and shall have perfected his work; when he shall deliver up the kingdom, and present it unto the Father, spotless, saying: ‘I have overcome and have trodden the wine-press alone, even the wine-press of the fierceness of the wrath of Almighty God.’”[11]
 
Even so, come, Lord Jesus!
 

[1] Revelation 22.14-15
[2] 2 Nephi 9.34
[3] “Extremist rhetoric from rightwing media and officials is ‘intensifying’, experts say,” Adam Gabbatt, theguardian
[4] “MO Coroner Says He Alters Death Certificates If Families Dislike COVID Inclusion,” Chris Walker, truthout.org
[5] Mormon 2.11, 13-14
[6] Micah 2.11
[7] See Mosiah 12.9-15
[8] Mosiah 11.11
[9] 2 Timothy, 4.3-4
[10] DC 63.17-19
[11] DC 76.103-107