Internet God’s Way

Introduction

And our Savior Jesus Christ. And so I’m so glad to be with you today. And I know that you’re glad to be here. And I believe that God is glad that we are here if we are here for the right reasons. If this is a reflection of the fact that we have submitted fully unto God and not just a check in the box that we want to we want to fill. I want to make a couple of announcements before I begin the sermon. The first one is regarding uh community Bible study that Greg and I conduct. Uh it’s in a Starbucks inside of Super Target off of Orange Avenue. It’s on Grant Street. And um it’s every Tuesday night at seven. I’ve announced this before, but I want to continue to keep this before you all.

Uh, not because I think you need it, but because you you might come across people that you’re interested in teaching the Word of God to, and maybe they’re not quite comfortable with coming to church yet, and they would be more comfortable coming to a coffee shop that’s more casual, it’s more laid back. The topics that we study are for new people, they’re for beginners, and we’ve tried to make them uh uh as palatable as we can, but we also we don’t hold back on the truth either. Don’t think that. But uh that’s every Tuesday night at seven. And if you ever want to pop in and just see what it’s like, and one of you asked me uh a while back, is it okay for me to bring my friend who who is uh interested in studying to that?

And I said, Are you kidding? That’s that’s what we’re there for. So absolutely. We want new people there. So be conscious of that and keep that in mind. Maybe if you’re not quite comfortable teaching people yet in evangelism. People say, Well, I just don’t know how to teach. And so that stops you from your progress of trying to reach out. Don’t let that stop you. Do what the woman at the well did. Bring them to the source that can do the teaching. In that case, it was the Messiah. In this case, it won’t be quite that good of a source. It’ll be Greg. And it’ll be me. Notice I said Greg first. Second announcement I want to make is in regard to the Bible bits. Many of you are already familiar.

This is a daily email sent out that you can sign up and subscribe for. And it’s called Bible bits because it’s short and simple. It’s about a hundred words, usually a little bit longer than that, actually. And it’s five days a week, just a thought for the day. You can read it in about 30 seconds and just kind of get you going. But even if you’re not interested in that aspect of it, I want to point out another feature of this, a tool that I think is going to be helpful to you if you’ll start utilizing it. It’s one that I utilize. At the bottom of the articles, of the Bible bits articles, is a link to today’s reading, whatever day that is. Monday through Friday.

And if you click on that, it’ll take you right to Bible Gateway where it’s already set to have those select scriptures up to read. And it’s usually two readings from the Old Testament and one reading from the New Testament. And it is designed so that you can read through the entire Bible in a year by reading five days a week. And so it’ll take you ten minutes a day. But by having that to show up in your email inbox, it’s a constant daily reminder. Oh, I need to make sure and do my Bible reading today. And so that’s what I use. I just click it, I click on the link there, it takes me right to the Bible reading, read through that. And brethren, if we’re not reading through our Bible constantly, then the Holy Spirit is not filling us, and we are not being renewed.

Our minds are not being renewed, and we grow stagnant. And those stories of the Bible, they grow kind of rusty in our minds. We don’t remember them quite so well anymore. So we need this, we need this. And you might say, well, I’ll wait till January. Don’t do that. Start now. It doesn’t matter where you are, just start now. And the idea is to continue to do this year after year after year. So I want to encourage you to do that. If you want to sign up for Bible bits, there is a sign-up sheet in the for you. I want to continue talking today about a topic that I started a couple of weeks ago and on the media. And I think this is going to be my last lesson on it.

1. Unbridled Access to Sin

So, but Greg preached a lesson also on Facebook, right along that same line of that same topic. Today I want to talk to you about the Internet, God’s way. Now, truly, the Internet has a potential to do a lot of good for Christians. We have a very good website, and through Facebook and different avenues, you can accomplish a lot for the kingdom and spread the word. That’s a good thing. But the internet also has tremendous potential for harm. And so we’re going to look at some of those dangers, and we’re going to talk about how to avoid those dangers. The first pitfall that we want to look at this morning is unbridled access to sin. And the key word there is unbridled. Whether it be immodesty or lasciviousness or lewdness or pornography or profanity or blasphemy or misinformation or graphic real life gore, instant correspondence with perverts and atheists, and the list goes on and on.

And the shocking thing about this is just how quickly and how accessible it is. Even for young people. Our children walk around with these devices that can access just anything. Anything that they want to see or listen to or read. Online access to extreme filth is instant, private, easy, free, uncensored, unlimited, available 24-7, and often accidental. That is a bad combination. I mean, this is like the problems of TV and movies on steroids. This is tenfold of the problems I talked to you about with TV and movies. Because there is nothing to stop this. It’s just terrible. So we must therefore be extremely careful not to make one false step. You remember last time we talked about Proverbs 4 and verse 23, my lesson on TV and movies, that is.

Proverbs 423, it says, keep or guard your heart with all diligence, for out of it spring the issues of life. Everything comes from our heart. So we need to guard it. We need to protect it because it’s like a spring, and whatever flows from it, those are the issues. That’s the streams, okay, of life. And whatever we do in life, in our words, actions, and thoughts, comes from what we have implanted in our heart. And we want to implant the Word of God in there. And we want to protect our heart from the wickedness of coming in. Because garbage in, garbage out. Well, in that same context, and actually, what I want to do is I want to read more than what I have on the outline.

I want to start back in verse 20 of Proverbs chapter 4. My son, give attention to my words. Incline your ear to my sayings. Do not let them depart from your sight. Keep them in the midst of your heart, for they are life to those who find them, and health to all their body. Watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it flow the springs of life. Put away from you a deceitful mouth, and put devious speech far from you. Let your eyes look directly ahead, and let your gaze be fixed straight in front of you. And then we have verses 26 and 27. Pay attention to this. Watch the path of your feet, and all your ways will be established. Do not turn to the right nor to the left.

2. Pornography, the Number One Danger

Turn your foot from evil. Turn your foot from evil. The feeling of this passage is very much that we need to have focused intensity on righteousness and on right living and on following the commandments. And the idea is that if you take your eyes off of that goal and you lose focus of your path, that it’s easy to slip. It’s easy to come off of that path. So we have to be diligently careful in all ways and manners of life. But I can think of no better example of the time that we need to remember this than in the way that we use the internet. We need to watch diligently. Number two, pornography. Pornography is the number one danger of the internet. And there are a lot of dangers, but this one’s the worst.

I want to give you some statistics from Covenanteyes.com. Internet pornography alone is a three billion dollar per year business. Billion. Three billion. It’s huge. Nine out of ten boys were exposed to pornography before the age of 18. And many way before 18. Six out of ten girls. 68% of young men and 18% of young women view pornography at least once per week. That is staggering. Seven out of ten young men out there in the world, maybe even here within the church, hopefully the statistics aren’t the same. But if you meet a young man, chances are he views pornography on a weekly basis. This is a plague. I mean, this is really scary stuff. And so it’s a lot worse for men than it is women, but it is a problem for women as well.

And it’s not just the home computers, the desktop and the laptop, but now we carry around our internet everywhere we go. And so you could just be somewhere totally disconnected from any plugs and totally disconnected from any parents and totally disconnected from anybody and be in your own room or whatever and start searching for things. One in five mobile searches are for pornography. Did you hear that? One in five across the board, period, of mobile searches are for pornography. That is huge. Twenty-four percent of smartphone users admit to having pornographic material in their mobile handset. In fact, somebody in here might right now have that phone on your hip and it’s got pornographic material on it. I surely hope that’s not the case. But it wouldn’t surprise me in a group this big with as big of a problem as this is, because I saw another statistic that 50% of men who claim Christ claim that they are addicted to pornography, according to Covenanteyes.com.

That’s pretty significant. Lust is a sin. In Matthew 5, after Jesus said, You have heard that it was said you should not commit adultery, he said in verse 28, but I say to you that whoever looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery in his heart. The Pharisees were only interested in the wooden exegesis of the law. Well, it’s just the sin. It’s just the action. That’s what I should say. It’s just the action of adultery that is wrong. That’s all they were concerned about. But Jesus says, no, you’re missing the real point. The point isn’t just the action. The point is the attitude and the desires that lead to the action. And it is the attitude that’s just as bad as the action.

When you have that attitude of looking at a woman with lust for her, you’ve already done it in your heart. So how are you any better than the guy who’s already done it? Well, you don’t have the physical consequences. That’s the only way you’re better. But you’ve sinned just the same. You’ve sinned just the same. So it’s a sin to lust. Did you realize that? It is a sin to lust, whether you’re a man or a woman. And so what we need to do is we need to make a covenant with our eyes. Job, in responding to his friends who were charging him with doing wrong, and that’s why you’re suffering. He was asserting his innocence. And he says in Job 31 and verse 1, I have made a covenant with my eyes.

How then could I gaze at a virgin? That’s an interesting thought, isn’t it? To make a covenant with your eyes. So say to your eyes, eyes. We’re going to make an agreement here. Okay? I’m not going to let you look at bad stuff. And eyes say to your body, body, don’t look at bad things. Now we’re not going there. It’s a covenant, it’s an agreement. And so we just need to make that, make our minds up, men and women, to not gaze upon a virgin. After Jesus talked about the sin of lusting after a woman, then he said in verses 29 and 30 that if your right eye causes you to sin, cover it up. No? What did he say? He said, pluck it out and cast it away from you.

For it’s better for you to lose one of the parts of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, tie it behind your back. No. Cut it off. For it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. That’s powerful. You say, why would Jesus talk about that? Because if this was literal, then we’d all have no eyes. And we’d all have no hands, and we’d all have no feet and no tongues and no ears. We’d be pretty in bad shape. But it’s not literal. His point is go to extremes to rid yourself of lust and sin. That’s the point.

You do what you have to do to stop this problem of pornography. And parents, we do what we have to do to stop the problem of pornography that our children have. Even if it means we don’t have smartphones and we don’t have internet anymore in our house. Amen?

3. False Religious Information

Number three, false religious information. False religious information. The internet is full of lies from atheists, from agnostics, from false teachers of all stripes. And boy can they make their arguments sound good. Boy, can’t they, you know, look good on a stage. But it’s lies. And so what often happens is our young people are not getting answers from their parents about the questions they have. They have questions. They have evidence questions. They have moral dilemmas. And sometimes they don’t feel they’re getting good answers. Because sometimes we may not be giving them substantive answers. Oh, well, that shouldn’t be a problem. You shouldn’t worry about that. Just ignore that. We need to give them substance. Because what happens is they hear what their friends are talking about, and they go and they look up this Richard Dawkins that I heard my friends talking about.

I want to hear what he’s got to say. Or some other person. And they watch a YouTube video, a three-minute YouTube video, and they come away going, I don’t believe in the Bible anymore. After a three-minute YouTube video, because it’s slick and it sounds good. And that’s what happens. I mean, this is reality, brethren. Such misinformation has the appearance of wisdom. But it is utter foolishness. And we need not be so easily deceived. Remember that the Galatian Christians were deceived? And Paul says to them in Galatians 3 1, you foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. We need to be so firm in our faith and in our understanding that we are not drawn away by every wind and doctrine, by every wave and doctrine.

4. Prideful Display of Self

Number four, prideful display of self. Prideful display of self. Is this a problem in internet usage? No. Nothing wrong with Facebook in and of itself, but social media like Facebook encourages a look at me attitude, as Greg very effectively talked about a couple of weeks ago. Look at me. Look at what’s going on with me, and look how good looking I am these days. Have you noticed? And let me show off my body. Because I want everybody to see. Immodest photos are the norm. It’s shocking what Christians put on Facebook as if there was anything different from doing that than walking down the street dressing that bikini. Because it’s out there on the world wide web. And I know only your friends can view it. But it’s out there for the public to see.

And there’s no difference. In 1 Timothy chapter 2, and in verses 9 and 10, we learn a principle that certainly applies to dress. Likewise, I want women to adorn themselves with proper clothing. Modestly and discreetly, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly garments, but rather by means of good works, as is proper for women making a claim to godliness. So I kind of said that wrong. It’s not just a principle that applies to clothing. It is directly talking about clothing. But it is a principle that applies not only to overdressing, but also to underdressing. If it’s a look at me attitude, then it’s the same either way. Whether you’re overdressing to just show everybody, look at just how fancy I am. Do we detract from our godliness?

If that is the approach. If we remove clothes to draw attention to our bodies, do we detract from the glory that is only Jesus? I think we do. We need to seek to glorify the Lord, not ourselves. Only Jesus Christ, as Paul said in Galatians chapter 6 and in verse 14, but may it never be that I would boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom, or through which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world. If there’s anything we need to boast in, it doesn’t need to be in ourselves and in all the great things that we’re accomplishing, or in the great way that we look. We need to boast in Jesus Christ. And in whatever way we present ourselves to the world, it needs to be a way that points to Jesus and to say, He is the one that’s glorified here.

5. Illegal Downloading

If the way that I dress detracts from that, then the way I’m dressing, whether too much or too little, is inappropriate for a Christian. In fact, it is sinful. Number five, illegal downloading. Might step on some toes here. Because this is one we do without realizing it. Copyright music, movies, games, and so on, are easily downloaded illegally. You don’t really have to even know much of what you’re doing to do it. Well, the website said that all this music is legal. A lot of times that’s a lie. You can’t just believe it just because the website says it, right, folks? So you’ve got to probe a little bit. Usually copyrighted material isn’t out there for free because somebody had to labor to produce it. They deserve the money that comes from selling it.

And so we need to pay for it. A lot of Christians have a lot of illegally downloaded music and movies on their devices. And they see no problem with it. But if they were the ones producing that material, they would see a problem with it. They would say, those people are stealing from me. And that’s what it is. Illegal downloading is theft. And it might be the one and only way that Satan gets Christians to steal is through illegal downloading. It’s definitely the main way. Because we’re not going to walk into a store and steal something, are we? But to steal something online, that’s different. No, it’s not. It’s really not. It’s not only a crime because it violates the law of man, it is a sin because it violates the law of God.

6. Constant Distraction

In Ephesians 4 and verse 28, we can apply this to illegally downloaded media. He who steals must steal no longer. But rather he must labor, performing with his own hands what is good so that he may have something to share with one who has need. Number six, constant distraction. Constant distraction. Now I’m going to go ahead and tell you, this one is one that I’m still working on. Because if there is any distraction in my life, it’s having this thing on my hip all the time. Most of us have internet access 24 7. Not just because we have Wi-Fi in our home, but because we carry around these devices that through the cellular company that we are a part of, we have internet access all the time, just about anywhere we are.

That can be a nonstop distraction. And temptation. I mean, think about it if you have a temptation of pornography, and 24 7, you’ve got the ability to tap just a few little things, and voila, there’s your heart’s desire. What a tool of Satan that is. You see, it’s dangerous. But going to the idea of distractions, distractions have the potential to choke the word. When Jesus taught the parable of the sower, he said in Luke 8 and in verse 14, the seed which fell among the thorns, these are the ones who have heard. And as they go on their way, they are choked with the worries and riches and pleasures of this life and bring no fruit to maturity. Now I want to ask you something. Is there anything inherently wrong with any kind of worries with riches, with pleasures?

Is that inherently wrong always? When does it become wrong? When it becomes overt. When it becomes in excess, when it takes the place of God. This passage is talking primarily about these are distractions that can pull us away from God. They can choke the word. And certainly, internet enabled devices can be a distraction that can choke the word. I mean, really. How often should we be praying when we’re doing this? Or reaching out to the lost, maybe the person sitting right next to you instead of doing this. You ever notice how often people do this? I don’t see how people walk anymore. They’re going to run into stuff. I saw a video one time, you know, one of those dog cones. And it was that people were starting to have those installed because there was this problem all the time, and all of a sudden they couldn’t do this anymore.

So they just started looking up and discovering, oh, there’s a world all around me. People even drive and hey, I’m guilty. I’ve done it. And I’m working on it. Doing this all the time can be a distraction. That can sometimes we’re more dedicated to our games and devices than we are to God. And that is a shame. It’s a toy. It is a tool. It is a device that can be useful, but don’t let it pull you away from God. In Luke 21, 34, Jesus said, Be on guard so that your hearts will not be weighted down with the dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of life, and that day will not come upon you suddenly like a trap. So we can certainly apply that to any distractions of life that can weigh us down, and then that day will come upon us suddenly.

Conclusion

I think in the context here, it’s the destruction of Jerusalem. But if that day be the final day or the day of your death, don’t let it come upon you suddenly. Be prepared. We should therefore carefully limit our use of all internet enabled devices. And I know my wife is saying amen right now to that. So. Now let’s finally talk about some practical suggestions. These are not rules that the Bible says you have to abide by, okay? These are Adam Willingham’s personal practical suggestions based on the biblical principles that we have looked at. Take them with a grain of salt, but please take them and consider them. Number one, I would encourage us to only use websites that we know and trust.

It’s probably only a handful for a lot of us. For me, it’s only really a handful. I don’t use a whole lot of different websites. And so use the ones that you know are going to be clean and that you know aren’t going to have all that trashy advertising on the side. And, you know, there’s a danger of just surfing the internet. Just, well, let’s check this. Let’s check this out. Check this out. You can fall into a lot of wickedness in that way, not even intending to. Secondly, never allow your children. I’m going to start that over and emphasize. I want everybody to listen. Never allow your children uncensored, unmonitored internet usage, period. That is my standard. That’s my suggestion. Okay? And you take that and do what you want, but I believe that that should be an absolute thing that we that we make a rule of.

Think about it this way. We would never let our children go to someone’s home where there would be an X-rated movie playing in the living room. Sex predators trying to build relationships with our child, atheists and homosexuals trying to convince our child of their way of thinking. Bullies crushing our child’s self-image. People walking around wearing very little, if any, clothing, people cursing profusely, and on and on. If you knew that stuff had a very real possibility of happening at a friend’s house, well, no, you wouldn’t let your child go over there. But when we turn our children loose with an uncensored, unfiltered internet, and nobody’s watching over them, then that wickedness lurks around every corner. It’s just like we send them over to that house with all that stuff going on.

All they’ve got to do is open the door, and there’s wickedness there. Open that door. There’s wickedness there. Turn the corner. There’s wickedness there. It’s everywhere.

Parents do not be naive. And I’m talking to myself. We, as parents, do not need to be naive. The internet is a world of iniquity. And your child will be exposed to filth if you let them use an unfiltered internet. But I trust my child. You shouldn’t. You shouldn’t. But my child is good. My child, you don’t understand my child is unique. I understand that. But would you trust your child, turning them loose with an M16 that’s fully loaded that for some reason didn’t have a safety installed? Be careful with this M16, honey. I’m sure nothing will happen because I trust you. You know, really, we shouldn’t even trust ourselves. Do you trust yourself? I don’t trust myself. I want to put guards against myself slipping up.

Or accidentally finding or stumbling upon something. See, if we can’t even trust ourselves, then how can we say, well, I trust my children with an uncensored, unmonitored internet. Brethren, that is foolish. And if you think that your children will not do it and hide it from you, you just might be lying to yourself. You just might be lying to yourself. Let’s hope that’s that’s not true. Next, activate parental controls on all of your devices.

And it won’t filter out all of the stuff. Nearly all the stuff, but it’s a starting point. Activate parental controls. Well, I don’t know how. Well, Google it. You know, or ask somebody who can help you. Number four, never do, and this is my rule. You may not like this one. Never do image searches on search engines. Now it’s one thing to use a search engine. But then if you’re looking for a particular thing and you click on images, because I want an image to use for this or that, that’s very dangerous. Especially if you’re not on safe search. Now, if you’re on safe search, it might block most stuff. But still, it’s not foolproof. I use a lot of images for my preaching and my Bible bits, but I never ever go and do a Google image search because it doesn’t matter what you type in, you go and type in flowers, and something’s going to pop up.

So, number five, install filtering software on all your devices. And I’ve experimented with different softwares, and the one that I have found that I think is the best is called K9 Web Protection. It doesn’t slow my computer down. It is free and it’s used in thousands of schools. It’s been around for a long time. It’s well established. And it works for Windows and it works for Mac, and it even now works for the browsers on Android and iOS devices. Just the browsers. So it’s not uh quite as you know as good on your devices as it is on your computer. But just go and Google K9 web protection. It’ll take you to their website and uh download for either Windows or for Mac. And then it’s neat.

You can go and check and see exactly what websites were visited or attempted to be visited and what time and how many times all internet activity on that computer will be revealed through this service, through this software. It’s pretty amazing. You can set the categories to block. The default is it protects against all adult content, security threats, and sexually suggestive sites, but you can change it to high or moderate or minimal. You can customize it and make it how you want. And I find that to be uh very beneficial. So that then after the parent has gone and set this, or the wife has set this, or what be it, uh, and then somebody goes and tries to visit a certain site that isn’t uh allowed, then it’ll simply block the site.

Simple as that. And then the parent can actually go and see when that attempt was made. Uh, another thing I really like about this software is the safe search. It forces safe search on Google and Yahoo and everything. It forces it across the board, and you can even set it to redirect to K9 safe search, which is uh, you know, even more restrictive. One other feature I like about this is it force you can uh tell it to force YouTube safety mode. I mean, if there is a website where stuff can be stumbled upon, it’s YouTube. And that’s a website that everybody uses. Uh so it forces YouTube safety mode, and then it even has the option to have advanced YouTube filtering that attempts to filter individual videos and thumbnails.

And so it doesn’t mean it’s still wide open, you can just use YouTube however you want, but uh it’s gonna take some of those dangers away. My final suggestion would simply be if necessary, get rid of the internet altogether. I uh I saw a movie, some of you probably seen it, fireproof, and this man on the movie has a real problem with internet pornography. And he finally just gets fed up and ready to change, and he takes his computer outside and he throws it down in the grass and he takes a baseball bat and he beats that thing to pieces. And you might think, well, what a waste of money. But if it is preventing you from sinning habitually, then that action right there could save your soul.

Now, it might not be something that severe. Say you keep your computer. Just don’t have internet. Well, I can’t live without the internet. Well, you might not be able to go to heaven with the internet if you can’t overcome the temptations. So let’s do what we have to do. Let’s pluck out our eye. Let’s cut off our hand and let’s go to heaven and not hell. Watch the path of your feet. And all your ways will be established. Do not turn to the right nor to the left. Turn your foot from evil. Would you bow with me in a word of prayer? Our Father God, we are sorry that we’re sinners. We’re sorry that we continue sometimes to make excuses and to allow ourselves to get pulled right back into Satan’s grasp.

We put ourselves right in harm’s way. Even though we pray, Father, lead us not into temptation. We jump right in front of the temptation. Forgive us for our foolishness. Forgive me. Help us, Father, to do better. Cleanse us and purify us. And Father, help us as parents to carefully monitor our children and to help them to stay away from the filth that will only ruin their lives. It is through your Son that we pray. Amen. Thank you so much for your good attention. If you’re not