♪[Theme music]♪
>>John Bradshaw:
This is It Is Written.
I'm John Bradshaw.
Thanks for joining me for
part 5 of our five-part series,
"Conspiracy, More
Than Just a Theory."
We're looking at the
greatest conspiracy of them all,
the conspiracy to bring down
the government of God
and to cause Planet Earth
to fall finally and forever
into the hands
of a fallen angel.
This conspiracy is actually
quite easy to see through,
but like most
modern conspiracies,
your ability to see this one
for what it really is
correlates with your desire
to actually want to do so.
Look around the world.
Standards are down.
Violence is up.
The amount of people
in the United States
who claim no
religious faith at all
has risen more than 250 percent
in the last 25 years or so.
While the internet can be
a tool for great good,
it's also a toxic wasteland.
Morality as we used to know it
has been turned upside down.
It's evidence that
there's something going on
behind the scenes.
There's a spiritual
war taking place,
a battle for the soul
of every person alive.
The Bible says in the
book of Revelation,
"Rejoice, ye heavens,
and ye that dwell in them.
Woe to the [inhabitants] of
the earth and of the sea!
For the devil is come down
to you, having great wrath,
because he knows that
he has...a short time."
The less time he has, the
more furiously the devil works.
What that means for us
today is that you have
an increasing amount of people
departing more and more
from solid biblical principles.
Now, you might expect that
as knowledge increases,
that as we march down
through the stream of time,
that people would actually
trend towards believing
what makes sense, what's true,
and what's accurate.
But in this massive
universe-wide conspiracy,
that's not what's happening.
Now, I'm going to give you
an example of that
in just a moment, but first,
let's take a look
at another modern-day
conspiracy theory.
♪[Subdued dreamy music]♪
When I was a kid growing up,
we had in our
family home a globe.
I was fascinated by that globe.
Far-off countries and
continents and vast oceans.
And like every other globe I had
or have ever seen, it was round.
It was a representation
of Planet Earth,
and it was spherical,
like a ball.
Every photograph that you have
ever seen taken of Planet Earth
from outer space--
and there have been countless
thousands of them taken--
shows that this earth is round.
But in spite of what most would
believe is scientific evidence,
photographic evidence,
eyewitness testimony,
the flat earth movement
is alive and well.
It was on the brink of dying out
when the internet was born.
And with the advent of
Facebook and then YouTube,
there's no shortage of people
willing to share their claims
that the earth is not spheroid.
A number of very high-profile
people have come out
and stated very publicly that
they believe the earth is flat.
In fact, there's a
surprising chorus of voices
around the world stating
that, in their opinion,
the earth is not a sphere.
And why do they think that?
Well, they believe it's all
a conspiracy led by NASA
and other government agencies.
What about those photos
that we've seen from space?
It's showing us, we thought,
the earth is round.
Well, they say
they're all fakes.
So could it be true?
Has NASA spent the last 60 years
fabricating false research,
staging fictitious missions,
creating thousands and thousands
of fake photos and videos
all in the name of a hoax?
Not likely. In fact,
no way in the world.
You don't have to look
very hard to find major holes
in the flat earth theory.
But there are people
just like you and me
who believe it wholeheartedly.
There's a reason I'm in
beautiful Washington state.
I've come here to talk to a man
who is fully persuaded
the earth is flat.
His name is Mark Sargent.
Mark, let me begin
by asking you this.
>>Mark Sargent: Yes.
>>John: How did you get into,
how did you come to embrace
the idea that the earth is flat?
>>Mark: Boredom,
sheer conspiracy boredom,
and that, and that is not
a lie, and by that I mean
I was into just about every
conspiracy you can think of.
And I wasn't a tinfoil
hat-wearing, you know,
Ted Kaczynski type guy.
I was, I had an opinion on
just about every conspiracy.
And every conspiracy person
knows about flat earth,
and they all hate it.
It's terrible.
Everyone knows--it's
like flat earth is silly.
Uh, it's ridiculous.
And it was one of
my bucket lists.
It's like, okay, I can
shut this thing down.
And so that's what I
wanted to do, and I said,
"I'm going to look at flat earth
for the first time ever."
And I clicked on a
flat earth video on YouTube
and immediately had a
visceral response to it.
Nine months later,
uh, beginning of 2015,
I was, I was beside myself.
I couldn't prove the globe
in a court of law anymore.
So I made a series of videos
called "The Flat Earth Clues,"
put them out to the internet.
I said, you know what, the
internet's smarter than I am.
tell me where I went wrong.
And everybody
came back and said,
"You know what, you
may be on to something."
And here we are,
four years later.
>>John: So, many people are
going to say--here's the earth.
>>Mark: Right.
>>John: It's a very small earth,
if this was the earth.
>>Mark: Right.
>>John: But here's the earth.
This is what we grew up knowing.
>>Mark: Yeah.
>>John: So--
>>Mark: Right.
>>John:
...explain to me how that--
>>Mark: How is--
>>John: ...isn't that.
>>Mark: Yeah, how is this globe
not what we think it is?
>>John: Correct.
>>Mark: And I'll give you some
short, the crib notes of this.
Uh, mainstream science says
that we are exactly this.
We are this tiny little rock
covered by a thin sheen
of water, which is covered
by a thin sheen of,
of smoky atmosphere that's
spinning around the universe
in five different directions,
and we are absolutely
meaningless,
we have no purpose in life,
and we're an accident.
Flat earth community
says the exact opposite--
that you're not this, that
you're more something like this,
which is a flat enclosed world
with the North Pole
at the center
and the outer rim being
made out of a continent
called Antarctica,
that we're covered in some
sort of dome-like structure,
that it was made by
the Creator, or God,
and if it was made
by the Creator,
then we absolutely have purpose.
And this is what all cultures
believed in at one point.
Up until really about
500 years ago,
just about every culture you
could think of drew this image,
instead of this.
And it was only science that
came along later that changed it
from this to this.
>>John: So why do you think
science would have done that?
The, the understanding,
as I understand it,
is that there are
people who, who,
who know the earth is flat--
>>Mark: Right.
>>John: ...claim, however,
that it is spherical.
Why make that claim?
>>Mark: Well, [sighs]
500 hundred years ago,
I can't exactly tell
you why they said it,
but what I'm saying here is
even our best and brightest,
even our best scientists
didn't know until about 1960
what the world
actually looked like.
So, the big question is,
is that, if you,
the best and brightest
figured out in 1960,
would they tell people?
If they've been telling people
for 500 years that it was this,
they say mathematically this
is what it should look like,
and then 500 years later in 1960
it's not this, but it's this--
would you tell people?
No, no, you wouldn't
because at that point
the major institutions
that you've built up
over the last five centuries
are in jeopardy,
so you have to keep this a
secret for as long as possible.
>>John: So you think that
science just feels like it has
too much to lose because
it would be embarrassed
about its last
so many years of--
>>Mark: Way, way more.
>>John: ...teaching?
>>Mark: Way more than that.
What I'm talking about is,
is three-fold, meaning--
think about what
would happen
if all of a sudden
the UN announced that,
"Oh, yeah, by the way,
this is what it looks like."
Think of what might happen.
Uh, first thing
would be academically.
Uh, every university
in every country--
we're talking
astrophysics and astronomy--
would have to shut
down tomorrow.
And they would not reopen.
The remaining
physical sciences--
geology, hydrology,
biology, archaeology--
you'd have to be retooled
from the ground up.
That's every university.
That's just academically.
Economically, world markets
would have to shut down
for several months
just to figure out
what this means exactly.
You know, I mean, come on,
if Donald Trump caught
pneumonia tomorrow,
the markets would react.
Imagine what would happen
if you showed them this.
But the big thing
is religiously,
which is the five major
religious houses of this world,
uh, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism,
Islam, and Christianity.
You're all of a sudden giving
them leverage against science,
and you're asking them
to show restraint.
Not an easy thing to do
because science would
come back and say,
"Okay, so you were
wrong about this;
what else are you wrong about?
Let's revisit things like
carbon dating, evolution,
the Big Bang theory,
dark matter."
It goes on and on.
>>John: I'm really fascinated
that you connect the flat earth
with creation.
>>Mark: Yes.
>>John: And it seems that you
connect the spherical earth
with Darwinism and evolution.
>>Mark: Yes. Yeah,
very, very much so.
Uh, science built their
institution off this icon.
Everything that they do
is based off of this.
This is where the, this
is their starting point.
>>John: So, we've sent
satellites to Jupiter
and through, almost through
the bands of Saturn
and so on and so on.
>>Mark: Right.
>>John: What are they
sending back?
What are we seeing from
the Hubble Telescope?
>>Mark: You're seeing
what they want you to see.
And that's a great question
because what I mean is
every space story comes out,
and we've been seeing a lot
more of them recently
in the last few years.
Ever since we started
doing our thing,
there have been something--what
I call "space beat" stories.
They don't care if you
even read the article.
All they want you to do
is glance at the headline
because if you glance
at the headline,
and you even register the
words, just for a second,
it's all the same thing,
and that is,
"Hey, there's a thing on Mars
that could be a face."
"Hey, there's a
hexagon on Saturn."
"Hey, we're
reclassifying Pluto."
And so on and so on.
It's all the same thing, and
that is, "You're on a globe."
It's just reenforcement
for the globe.
They're trying to keep this
as secret as long as possible,
and it's only now
starting to fall apart.
>>John: So, are the
other planets spherical?
>>Mark: They don't even exist.
They're just lights in the sky.
If you go to a planetarium,
and you look up at Jupiter,
and you have a pair
of binoculars,
well, does it make
Jupiter more or less real?
It's like, well,
it doesn't matter
because I'm in a building.
It's like, yeah, who's
to say when you walk out
of that building you're just
walking into a much bigger one?
That's all we're really
talking about here,
a giant Truman Show,
a giant structure with walls
and a floor and a ceiling.
>>John: As you were
researching this,
you said it took you nine
months to arrive at the position
you now find yourself in.
>>Mark: Right.
>>John: What were the
difficult questions
where you said, "Ooh,
the, the round earthers
have really got
a good point here"?
>>Mark: So, on a flat earth
model, for example,
the, probably the
weakest point we have--
and it's not that weak
because there's nothing
we can do about it--
is the Antarctic sun.
Meaning, if the sun and
the moon are traveling around
like mobiles above
a child's crib, uh,
and the North Pole's
at the center,
well, the Antarctic coastline
can't get 24 hours of sun
unless you have
multiple light sources,
or there's something going on
with the light sources
that we don't know about,
and that wouldn't surprise me.
Remember, the technology that
we have now that we're using
at this point is still
not that advanced.
We've only had HD
televisions for 20 years.
So the Antarctic sun is
probably the, the, the worst,
but compared to all
the other points we have,
doesn't even begin
to balance the scales.
>>John: So, tell me about
the flat earth community.
How big is this community?
>>Mark: It's huge.
There's, there's so many
millions of people in this.
I, I'm scared to even,
uh, suggest the numbers.
Meaning, uh, and I didn't
even know how big they were
until a survey came out by
a research company in Britain
called You.Gov--but not
affiliated with us in any way.
They're a scientific
research company.
They wanted to prove
it for themselves,
so they polled 10,000 Americans
to see who was believing in this
and who wasn't.
And the number that really,
really jumped out at them
was the, uh, 18-
to 24-year-olds,
was a full third were
believing in this model.
And that's what has scared
a lot of scientists
to where there were scientific
people that were coming out
and making articles, saying,
"Well, it's obvious that
You.Gov did bad research."
It's like, what are you
talking about? It's your guys.
[Scoffs] Why are you
attacking your own team?
It's like, "Well, they
obviously did it wrong.
The numbers can't be
30 percent, 34 percent
for 18- to 24-year-olds;
it cannot be."
It's like, yeah, it is.
I'm, I'm absolutely
guaranteeing that
because not only am I talking
to the 18- to 24-year-olds;
I'm talking to the
12- to 17-year-olds.
They're contacting me daily
and trying to get me
to do things with them.
>>John: Mark, thank you,
really appreciate your time.
>>Mark: Thank you.
>>John: Thank you very much.
So is the earth flat?
No. It isn't.
But more and more people these
days are believing that it is.
So does it really matter
what you believe?
Well, yes, it does.
I'll have more about that
in just a moment.
♪[Music]♪
>>Announcer:
Many nations are mentioned
in the prophecies of the Bible,
but what prophetic role
does the United States play
in earth's final days?
Will freedom always ring?
Be sure you get your free offer,
"The United States
in Bible Prophecy,"
presented by
Pastor John Bradshaw.
This DVD presentation
explores what the Bible says
about the United States
in prophecy.
To receive this free DVD,
call
800-253-3000
or visit us online at
iiwoffer.com.
>>John Bradshaw:
Thanks for joining me today
on It Is Written.
This is "Conspiracy,
More Than Just a Theory."
So you've got people who
believe that the earth is flat.
Well, how do we know it isn't?
Eyewitness accounts.
You've seen the photos,
and people have been up there
and seen the spherical earth.
Does it matter what you believe?
Well, you might debate that
one way or the other
when it comes to
the earth being flat,
but what about spiritually?
Does it really matter
what you believe?
Look at this with me.
It's Revelation 19,
starting in verse 11:
"And I saw heaven opened,
and behold a white horse;
and He that sat upon him
was called Faithful and True,
and in righteousness
He doth judge and make war.
His eyes were as
a flame of fire,
and on His head
were many crowns;
and He had a name written, that
no man knew, but He Himself.
And He was clothed with
a vesture dipped in blood:
and His name is called
The Word of God."
Goes on for two or
three more verses.
It's the return of
Jesus to the world.
Paul wrote about that same
event in several places.
Here's how he described it
to the church of Thessalonica:
"For the Lord Himself
shall descend from heaven
with a shout, with the
voice of the archangel,
and with the trump of God:
and the dead in Christ
shall rise first:
then we which are alive and
remain shall be caught up
together with them
in the clouds,
to meet the Lord in the air:
and so shall we ever
be with the Lord."
Does it matter what you believe?
Well, absolutely, as far as
that affects your readiness
for the return of Jesus.
What you believe
impacts how you live.
Satan knows better than anyone
that Jesus is coming back
to the earth, and he doesn't
want you to be ready for that.
He's even prepared
a huge deception,
a huge issue at the close
of time that will cause
masses of people to lose
their way spiritually.
Revelation 13:3 says,
"And I saw one of his heads
as it were wounded to death;
and his deadly wound was healed:
and all the world
wondered after the beast."
Now verse 8:
"And all that dwell upon the
earth shall worship him,
whose names are not
written in the book of life
of the Lamb slain from the
foundation of the world."
Then later in the chapter:
"And he causeth all,
both small and great,
rich and poor, free and bond,
to receive a mark in their right
hand, or in their foreheads:
and that no man might buy or
sell, save he that had the mark,
or the name of the beast,
or the number of his name."
If you were to read that
without any sort of view
of the big picture,
it might sound as farfetched
to you as the idea
that the earth is flat,
or that Bigfoot exists,
or that chemtrails are
poisoning the planet,
or that aliens are
being kept at Area 51,
or that the moon landing
never happened and was faked.
But when you look at the
Bible, there's no doubt.
It's all leading to
the return of Jesus,
and when Jesus returns,
time is up for the
inhabitants of Planet Earth.
Revelation 22:11 says,
"He that is unjust,
let him be unjust still:
and he which is filthy,
let him be filthy still:
and he that is righteous,
let him be righteous still:
and he that is holy,
let him be holy still."
There will come a time
that it will be too late;
salvation will no
longer be on offer.
It's important to be
ready for Jesus' return.
As Jesus Himself
said in Matthew 24,
"Therefore you also be ready."
What does the ending of
this great conspiracy mean
for people on Planet Earth?
Well, one day
there'll be no more sin
and no more of everything
bound up with sin.
Revelation 21:4 says,
"And God shall wipe away
all tears from their eyes;
and there shall be
no more death,
neither sorrow, nor crying,
neither shall there
be any more pain:
for the former things
are passed away."
No more death,
no more funerals,
no more surgery,
no more illness,
no more violence,
no more crime.
No more.
Not forever.
The Bible says we'll live
in a place where the streets
are paved with gold.
Revelation 21:21 says,
"And the twelve gates
were twelve pearls:
every several gate
was of one pearl:
and the street of
the city was pure gold,
as it were transparent glass."
The tree of life will be there.
"In the midst of
the street of it,
and on either side of the river,
was there the tree of life,
which bare twelve
manner of fruits,
and yielded her
fruit every month:
and the leaves of the tree were
for the healing of the nations."
A world without sin,
which means a world,
a universe
without the devil.
Ultimately, sin and
Satan will be no more.
That's God's plan for the world.
And of course, it's
God's plan for you.
God wants you to be saved.
John 3:16 tells us that
"God so loved the world that
He gave His only begotten Son,
that whosoever believeth in Him
should not perish, but
have everlasting life."
Peter wrote that God is "not
willing that any should perish,
but that all should
come to repentance."
That's 2 Peter 3, verse 9.
Not that everyone
will come to repentance,
but that's God's will.
It's what God is striving for.
It's what His Spirit works for.
It's why angels minister,
to turn you towards heaven
in one of the last days
of the earth's history.
But the devil works: temptation,
distraction, self-interest,
pride, skepticism,
and on and on and on.
So what is it that
God is offering?
In just a moment, I'm going to
answer that question for you.
I'll be right back.
♪[Music]♪
>>John: Thank you for
remembering that It Is Written
exists because of the kindness
of people just like you.
To support this international
life-changing ministry,
please call us now at
800-253-3000.
You can send your
tax-deductible gift
to the address
on your screen
or you can visit us online at
itiswritten.com.
Thank you for your prayers
and for your financial support.
Our number again is
800-253-3000,
or you can visit us online at
itiswritten.com.
[Howling wind]
>>John: The ground shook.
♪[Dramatic music]♪
Lightning flashed.
[Thunder crashes]
There was thunder.
[Thunder rumbles]
God gave His Ten Commandments,
writing them on stone,
delivering them to Moses
to take down from the
mountain to the people.
Are those Ten Commandments
still valid and relevant
for us today?
Join me for "Great
Chapters of the Bible,"
our ongoing series
on It Is Written,
as we look at another
great chapter of the Bible,
Exodus chapter 20.
Written long ago, but is it
relevant for us today?
And if Exodus chapter 20 is
relevant for you and me today,
how does God want it
to impact our lives?
We'll dig deep.
Exodus chapter 20, another
great chapter of the Bible.
Don't miss it.
Brought to you by
It Is Written.
>>John Bradshaw: Thanks for
joining me on It Is Written.
A moment ago I asked
you to think about
what God is offering you--
that is, offering you and me
and, in fact, even
the whole world.
The answer is simple:
God's offering freedom.
On the other hand,
what's the devil offering?
The devil's offering slavery.
You see it when people are
free to have a good time,
and then they wake up hungover
or sick or in jail
or deeply ashamed.
The devil has convinced people
it's a bright idea to live
independently of God.
Or worse, that they
can claim to believe,
while that belief doesn't
really change their lives--
people who call themselves
Christian while their actions
definitely say otherwise.
They might have
fooled themselves;
they haven't fooled God.
There's not a person alive who's
smart enough or strong enough
to defeat the devil.
This conspiracy
against the God of heaven,
against His government,
against His Word,
in this conspiracy
you've got on the one side
human beings who have been
weakened by 6,000 years of sin,
who live in a world that is
marinating in wickedness,
and on the other side,
you have a fallen angel
who once dwelled in
the presence of God,
and his followers who
also are fallen angels.
What chance do we have?
Well, thank God,
we have every chance.
While human beings are under the
death sentence that sin brings,
the Bible says in
1 John 1, verse 9,
that "if we confess our sins,
He is faithful and just
to forgive us our sins,
and to cleanse us from
all unrighteousness."
God will forgive
you of your sins.
"There is therefore now
no condemnation to them
which are in Christ Jesus,
who walk not after the flesh,
but after the Spirit."
Romans 8, verse 1.
Then Jesus Himself will
fill you with His presence.
The Holy Spirit brings the
personal presence of Jesus
into your life.
Paul wrote in Romans 6:18 that,
"Being then made free from sin,
ye became the servants
of righteousness."
God frees us from
the power of sin,
enabling us to live His way
and not our own way,
to live lives characterized
by love and not selfishness.
Paul said that if
anyone is in Christ,
that person is a new creature.
"Old things are
passed away," he wrote,
"behold, all things
are become new."
Second Corinthians 5:17.
With faith in Jesus,
you can live confidently as
you look forward to eternity.
He died for you.
He's your Mediator in heaven,
and He'll keep you
through His power.
And He's coming
back to the earth
to end this whole
terrible thing
that the devil has
pressed upon the world.
There's a massive spiritual
battle raging in our world
right now, but not a single
person needs to end up
on the wrong side of this.
If you've sinned,
God will forgive you.
If you're weak, God
will strengthen you.
In fact, He says
that His strength
"is made perfect in weakness."
If you're a failure, God
will give you success.
If you're new to faith in God,
He pledges to grow you and
nurture you and guide you.
And God says He'll
never leave you,
and He'll never
ever forsake you.
>>Announcer:
Many nations are mentioned
in the prophecies
of the Bible,
but what prophetic role does
the United States play
in earth's final days?
Will freedom always ring?
Be sure you get your free offer,
"The United States
in Bible Prophecy,"
presented by
Pastor John Bradshaw.
This DVD presentation
explores what the Bible says
about the United States
in prophecy.
To receive this free DVD,
call
800-253-3000
or visit us online at
iiwoffer.com.
>>John Bradshaw: I'm grateful
that throughout eternity
sin will never rear
its ugly head again.
And through all eternity we'll
be in the presence of Jesus.
If it's hard to imagine
what that'll be like,
it won't be hard
for much longer
because surely Jesus is soon
to return to this world.
Now, the question is,
will you be ready?
Let's not make the mistake
of looking into the future
and saying, "I don't know if
I can be good enough then."
It's not a question
of being good enough.
It's a question of accepting
Jesus as your Lord and Savior
and claiming His
goodness as your own.
When you've done that,
you grow in His grace,
and you just keep on
growing in His direction
and grow towards His kingdom.
If you claim Jesus as your
friend, as your Savior,
as your Lord, you're
claiming everlasting life.
You're claiming readiness
for Jesus' return.
Let's accept that
readiness from Jesus now.
♪[Soft music]♪
Our Father in heaven,
no, we're not good enough,
no, we're not righteous enough,
not righteous at all,
and so we claim Jesus,
not presumptuously,
but in faith.
We claim Him, saying thank You
for His righteousness.
And thank You for changing us
from the inside out,
for making us what we
could not make ourselves.
Friend, are you willing
to accept Jesus?
I'm sure you are.
He's willing to accept you.
When we say "amen"
in just a moment,
I want you to say "amen"
knowing that heaven is yours,
that your name is written
in the book of life
and that when Jesus comes back,
gravity will lose its power
over the soles of your feet,
and you will go up.
Our Father, we thank You
for the reality of Your love,
of Your goodness,
and of Jesus' return and
of eternity with You.
We thank You in Jesus' name.
Let's say together:
Amen.
Thank you.
Thanks for joining me.
I'm looking forward
to seeing you next time.
Until then, remember:
"It is written, 'Man shall
not live by bread alone,
but by every word that proceeds
from the mouth of God.'"
♪[Theme music]♪
