Christians caught in the World Wide Web
If you are a newbe to the web YOU NEED TO READ THIS! If you're an old timer, you still need to read this. There are alot of ways to get into trouble on the internet. The "web" and the "net" are very suitable nicknames for this tricky jumble of wires and data. A Christian can fall into all sorts of snares, even on the Christian Web.
Now, i'm not an internet guru, and this is not a lesson on net etiquette. There are dangers on the web, such as viruses, but there are more pressing dangers spiritually. The web is a wide open public square, open to anyone with a connection. It can be as enlightened as a stroll through an art museum, and as sinful as Burbon Street at Mardi Gras. Trouble is, on the net, you can't always be sure where you are, or who you are talking to. At least on Burbon Street, you know when you are approached by a hooker. On the web, you could be chatting with the devil himself and not know it. On the internet, the enemy can easily appear as an Angel of Light.
Rumors and Hoaxes: Like any
public square, the net is full of rumors and innuendos. Messages
get posted, forwarded, passed around, reposted, reformated,
forwarded some more, until no one knows their origin. Like urban
legends, we now have cyber legends. Heard the one about Janet
Reno calling Christians a "threat" on national TV? I've
heard it was nightline, 60 Minutes, CNN. i have checked archives
all over, nothing. i even had one report that gave a date and
show on which she made this inflammatory statement. Sorry, she
was not a guest that night on that show. i checked the
transcripts. Yet, i heard a Pastor stand up in the pulpit and
site the statement as if it were fact. And it continues to
circulate through e-mail groups. These legends take on a life of
their own.
There is a virus hoax out now directed at Christians. It claims
to report an e-mail based virus that wipes your hard drive when
opened (oooo scary) and the "subject" to look for ...
"Guts to say Jesus". 'Oh No ... this message has Jesus
in the subject ... delete it before it wipes the hard drive!'
Yes, this is a hoax designed not only to cause fear, but to link
that fear with Christian e-mail. So don't be suprised, if next
time you send an evangelistic message to an unsaved friend, they
delete it without reading, and say they are afraid of the
"Jesus Virus".
Hackers and CyberPunks: These e-vandals are just like the old fashioned kind, but instead of painting graffiti and harrasing old ladies, they skulk the back channels of the web. They spawn viruses (and hoaxes), they create browser loops and they disrupt chat rooms. Like the old time juvenile delinquint, they think this is fun, and the more disruptive the better. They are the authors of many of the cyber legends, especially the hurtful ones.
This list of dangers could go on and on, but you get the idea. So what has this to do with Spiritual things? We are to be a light to the world. This includes the internet. And that light is to be a light of hope and truth. We must be very careful not to traffic in the lies of the enemy. And lets be honest here, rumors, hoaxes, and destructiveness are definitely the tools of the enemy. By forwarding false or misleading information, we are acting as the tools of satan. We are to be a light of Truth. Anything we post, anything we forward must be beyond question. We must be sure we do not present a poor witness, the unbelieving world is taking notes.
That brings up another question. Who's who on the net? Do you know who you are chatting with? Are they who they purport to be? Chat is a big thing on the Christian Web. Christians love to fellowship. But again, the enemy loves to deceive, and his children fill our Love Feasts. Go into any Christian Chat room, the first thing you will find are some wonderful people, full of love and grace. But hanging off to the side, ready to jump on the unsuspecting newbe, you will find someone with an agenda. They have a pet doctrine and are ready to argue any point in light of their narrow dogma. Then you have the occasional athiest or would be satanist who just wants to disrupt everyone. Last we have the most dangerous lurker in our midst. The deceivers. They like to use the anonymity of the web to play games and deceive people.
Notice above i said "would be satanists". That is because the real thing is rather rare. These are mostly kids who would be better classified as deceivers. They are looking for attention, and use the shock value of satan worship to get noticed. Real atheists and satanists rarely visit Christian sites. The ones who do are often doubting their own beliefs and searching. This gives us the opportunity to witness to them the love of Christ. Unfortunately, they are often kicked from the chat room. Then, not only is our opportunity lost, but their ideas about Christians are reinforced. We have presented a bad witness.
The deceivers do the most damage to our fellowship. They draw in the most loving and caring among us, and then, once the deception is found, these saints are reluctant to open up again. They create mistrust and dampen the free and open fellowship we seek. They place seeds of doubt in our hearts, then, before we pray for someone we think "is this person for real?". You meet someone in chat that has a problem and you fervently pray for them. Next time you run across them, they are chatting with someone else and the problem is a completely different one. Soon you realize that this person is manufacturing 'tragedies' just to get attention in the rooms. They have everyone crowding around them, praying fervent prayers for phantom needs. You feel betrayed, used, and next time you are not so quick to fall on your knees. You are suspicious, reserved. The enemy has won a battle. But what do you do? KEEP PRAYING. Don't let the devil win, don't let him harden your heart. GOD knows the truth, and He will bless you for your loving care (even for a phantom crisis). GOD knows the REAL need, and your prayer for healing of a fake illness may bring about the healing of a heart.
Then we have those dogmatic lurkers (who are also a type of deciever). They are ready to dive in and rip a babe in Christ to pieces, or, with lying words, deceive them into embracing their doctrine of devils. These Sons of Perdition are wolves among the sheep, dividing the flock. They hunt the weak among us to attack and destroy. They come into the chat rooms, stirring disruption or seeking followers, but they have no love for the sheep. They spew their venom, not as correction for the lost, but to build up themselves, standing on the torn remains of the saints.
We must be careful who we fellowship with. The Scripture asks "what fellowship has GOD with Belial?" We must stand against the twisted doctrines, the hateful schizms, yet show love to the lost and hurting (even if they appear as deceivers). We are commanded to shine our light, the light of love, unto all the world, and stand as witnesses of the Gospel of Grace.
Now a last, ever present danger on the net. As the anonymity of others allows them to deceive us, so our own anonymity allows us to deceive ourselves. On the web we are alone, sitting at our keyboard, hidden behind our monitor. The net has all the carnal temptations of the world that spawned it, plus new temptations. Things we would never do in the 'real world' seem less 'sinful' online. After all, the net isn't 'real', or is it. We surf around, sometimes on the 'christian net' sometimes not. Reading things and seeing things, at times, we would never allow offline (someone might see). The enemy uses this nebulous idea of 'virtual reality' with the skill of an ancient craftsman. He convinces us that our online life is somehow detatched from the 'real' world. That the things we do online are of no effect.
This can take many forms. For those called to ministry on the web, he stirs doubt. If someone comes to Christ in a chat room, does it count? Can you pray online? Is the Holy Spirit effective over the net? He tries to get us to doubt our call, and the effectiveness of our ministry online. But the devil is a liar, and he wants to keep the web shrouded in darkness and half truths. We must break the darkness and shine the light in faith.
The enemy has filled cyber-space with his traps and snares. Adult chat rooms, casino gambling, xxx sites, dark sites full of blood and gore, the list is a deep as the Pit. You may think 'i'll never go there' but the enemy is subtle, and patient. The web draws you, bit by bit, onto the dark side. It is quite appropriately called the Web. Day after day, night after night, the ad banners pop up with images that seep into the mind. Money powers the web, and the most lucrative sites are the darkest. The internet can be a very dark place, and advertisers spend billions of dollars on ad banners they believe will draw you to their sites. The brightest minds have been hired to tempt you to sin, and the devil all the while whispers (its not real, go ahead). Soon you are off the Christian pages, surfing CNN, the WB, Fox, while the ad banners grow worse. Then you try some non-christian chat rooms, just to talk about some common interest. Slowly you are drawn away. And it is so easy to just pop back into the Christian chat, no one knows where you have been. You don't have to worry about the pastor seeing your car parked where it shouldn't be. On the net, you can chat with a missionary in the field while clicking through pages on an adult site, and no one knows. But GOD knows. And so do you.
It is easier to fall in the web than anyone thinks. Surfing the net can be like touring the Pit. We walk in a minefield. This is enemy territory, we are far behind the lines. We must remember that every minute we spend online. This isn't some 'virtual reality'. It is very, very real. Jesus said if we hate we are guilty of murder, if we lust we are guilty of adultry, the heart is the real battle ground. The internet has stronger connections to the Spiritual than the physical. It finds its existence in our hearts and minds, not just a flashing cursor on the screen. What we do here will stand in eternity, just as much as what we do in our 'real world'.