We used to believe in the power of expertise.

Long ago, before the media and the academy, Hollywood and Washington, or the entire medical establishment ruined their credibility for the sake of the woke cult or cold, hard cash, we used to believe in the compartmentalization and specialization of technical knowledge. The average man wasn't expected to know everything, and this was reassuring, for no one is capable of processing a fraction of the collective knowledge the human race has acquired (let alone the knowledge not yet discovered).

Knowing that the "adults are in charge," as it were, soothes the anxious heart. We believed the doctors, scientists, leaders, educators, and businessmen knew what they were talking about and we trusted them, just like we would trust a mechanic to accurately assess our vehicles.

Then the debacle of the last decade came, where journalism died on the altar of money and hackery as tyrants came out to play in the sandbox of Covid. Like most of you reading this, it led to a profound distrust in institutions that will never (and I mean never), be regained during my lifetime. A woman who has been beaten by her husband can never fully trust that he will never do so again; so too the American people can never trust entities like the FBI or CDC until this generation passes away and we've shuffled off these mortal coils.

In the lurch of this civilizational destruction, we've been forced to become expert skeptics – begrudging jacks-of-all-trades who must now become wise on the vast subjects of medicine, science, history, governance, and criminal investigation. We see this, and rightly so, as necessary for our future survival. Trust makes society work, as an episode of the sage children's show "Bluey" so aptly teaches:

Since there is no trust, the office of skeptic reigns supreme.

But skepticism, while necessary at times, is not a virtue in its own right.

In other words, to doubt – to be a doubter (you may call it a "critical thinker") – does not make one a paragon of human wisdom, nor does it actually make one an expert. As we descend into a world where Alex Jones seems to be right more than he should be, we are beginning to forget this.

At the same time, we have the natural human instinct to draw patterns and mark out our foes. Why is all this happening? There must be a why behind it, and more importantly, a who behind the why. Our hearts testify, whether we realize it or not, that the universe is not random and there is a reason and a power behind everything.

The problem is, we tend to lock onto boogeymen that are easy to see and go with it.

Growing up, back when liberals were anti-big business, anti-war, and suspicious of government (how times have changed!!), I used to hear my liberal classmates lament about the Koch brothers and Rupert Murdoch. These men, it seemed, were responsible for all the world's woes. These classmates seemed to genuinely believe that these men held America in their thrall. The reason silly little people like me didn't agree with the liberal agenda is because I had been duped by those Republican billionaires smoking cigars in their dark money-counting rooms!

The Left still has its boogeymen (the worst is very bad and very orange), but the Right has begun to adopt more and more of its own. For years, it was mostly just George Soros (a man who has, admittedly, done a ton of damage to America).

But now the net has widened. In a world where every Fortune 500 company is woke and nearly all the rich and powerful are hobnobbing with Klaus Schwab over at the WEF and the NIH is funding the research that caused Covid, we believe that there is a legion of lizard people waiting to slaughter us all around every turn.

Bill Gates represents the perfect avatar of evil Bond villain for the skeptic. He sold us software for years at the dawn of the information age and amassed himself an empire. He used to be a bit of an icon – a geeky kid who became the richest man on the planet. He then used his wealth in part to fund a charitable foundation that aims to eradicate diseases like polio and malaria.

Of course, then we started picking up on signals about population control and fake meat and land acquisitions and Jeffrey Epstein's island and praise for lockdowns and Covid vaccines and we immediately put Gates on said Bond villain list.

That, of course, led to this week, when the news broke that malaria has been detected for the first time in 20 years in 2 American states... and everyone blamed Bill Gates, sending the story viral.

It's true that Bill Gates is not the role model that computer club kids like me once thought he was. It turns out that a fancy job title like computer developer doesn't make you morally good and billions of dollars tends to corrupt people!

Gates is a Malthusian disciple who has stumped for population control and other crazy "fixes" for the climate. He has been buying up farmland to make his vision for crickets and soy a reality. He did push hard for lockdown camps and believed from the beginning that mass adoption of vaccines was the only solution for Covid.

But Bill Gates is not a lizard overlord who foams at the mouth while dreaming of genocide. He's rather human, actually. He's a very smart individual who had no idea the kind of power money would buy him and, as Lord Acton warned, became corrupted by that power.

He's an ideologue who has quite a bit of scientific knowledge, but ironically falls into the same ideological echo chambers that he accuses others of falling into, blinding him to actual solutions to issues involving the environment or disease.

He's also been led into the noose (Proverbs 7) of lust. Whereas many men like him might only be trapped in pornography – lacking the resources to fall into sexual addiction elsewhere – Bill Gates' money has given a socially-awkward computer nerd access to the finer poisons of adultery.

There are reports that Gates held nude pool parties and was trying to initiate affairs with employees as far back as 2000. A man with that kind of sexual weakness was a prime target for Jeffrey Epstein, who made a living blackmailing the rich and powerful. It was an alleged affair with a Russian bridge player that reportedly got Gates caught in Epstein's web. Gates' wife Melinda divorced him, and while the reasons may be more complex than worldwide affairs over at least two decades, you can be sure that was front and center.

So what does all this have to do with mosquitos and malaria?

This: Don't be quick to call everything conspiracy.

"Do not call conspiracy everything this people calls a conspiracy; do not fear what they fear, and do not dread it. The Lord Almighty is the one you are to regard as holy, he is the one you are to fear, he is the one you are to dread." – Isaiah 8:12-13

Instead, test everything and hold onto the good.

One can believe that Gates is a very flawed and wrong individual without immediately thinking he's trying to make a quick billion under threat of genocide based on one headline.

Bill Gates has spent a fortune fighting malaria (mosquito-borne illnesses kill more people than anything else except abortion). I'll never have such impact, money, or intellect. At the same time, he is among the smallest of men because of his vices, hubris, and sin. I do not envy him and I am not defending him, but I can acknowledge his victories and failures without detesting him or turning him into the enemy of humanity.

For that role is already filled, and unless you know the real Enemy, you will begin to craft enemies of your own making.

"For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms." - Ephesians 6:12

"Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour." – 1 Peter 5:8

Gates may be a villain in some regards, and loathsome in more ways beyond, but when we dive into every fancy of skepticism and conspiracy to make men like him or entities like the WEF into Satan incarnate, we are no different than the leftists who call Trump "literally Hitler." We lose sight of the real struggle, not to mention the truth, while we chase conspiracy because our skepticism makes us feel superior. I saw this on social media yesterday as this story ran rampant.

You are free to believe as you will about a man like Gates (I choose to pray for his repentance and salvation), but while you are distracted writing hundred-tweet threads alleging he's purposely trying to reintroduce malaria into the U.S. as an effort to commit genocide to stop climate change, what else are you missing? And when such stories dominate the news cycle, what other stories do we miss?

More importantly, how are we contributing to the cause of the Enemy instead of advancing the love and truth of God?

That's something to think about, my friends.