What does the Bible say about the Internet?

11/28/21

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Sermon Transcript

Good morning. Please open your Bibles to Romans chapter 12. We’re going to be looking at a lot of scriptures this morning, but we’ll start there in just a moment.

Appreciate this opportunity to preach the word this morning. If we were asked today to describe our modern world with a single word, what word would we choose? A godless world? A dangerous world? An exciting world? A depressing world? Each of those words might apply. But I think perhaps the best description of our modern world would be that it’s a changing world. The world’s always been changing, of course, but has the rate of change ever been greater than it is today? You know, when we compare where we are today with only 10 or 20 years ago, doesn’t it make us wonder where we’ll be in another 10 or 20 years? And sometimes that change is frightening. So frightening that we might be tempted to respond by saying, “Well, we’re just not going to change ourselves.” If we can all just stay the same, then maybe we can slow that rate of change.

But for a Christian, that’s a big problem, that strategy of not changing. Why? Well, because we’re commanded to change. Yes, the Word of God is unchanging, and Christians are not supposed to be the same yesterday and today. We’re supposed to be growing and changing, becoming more like our master each and every day. And in fact, the command to change goes further than just that. Look there in Romans 12, verse 2. We’re commanded to be transformed. “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind.” So one problem with that strategy of just deciding not to change is that it violates God’s command. We must change. We must grow. We must be transformed. We must become more like Christ each and every day. But you know, there’s another problem with that strategy of just deciding not to change. It’s impossible. We’re all changing. We’re changing every day whether we want to or not. We’re all being transformed. By what? That’s the question. By the Word of God or are we being transformed by the world?

We live today in an age of constant change and rapid innovation. There is no shortage of forces out there trying to transform us. The world is always trying to change us. The world is always trying to fit us into its mold. And I want to look this morning at one of the world’s greatest tools for doing that, the internet. Has there ever been anything like the internet? What has it not transformed? Communication, politics, finance, shopping, travel, entertainment, healthcare, education, the list goes on and on. In fact, the internet has been so transformative, it’s hard to remember a time when we did not have it. And yet, of course, the modern worldwide web has been with us now for only about 30 years. I know this fact may come as a shock to some of us here today, but people were actually able to live active, fulfilled lives without the internet, without cell phones. We had these other things called libraries and newspapers and pay phones. And if you don’t know what a pay phone is, you’re who I’m talking to.

Today, there are nearly 5 billion active internet users worldwide. That’s 60% of the global population. And of that total, about 4 billion of them are accessing the internet on a smartphone, an internet connected smartphone. In this country, 5% of five-year-olds have their own cell phone. And that statistic approaches 80% by the time they’re 12 years old. And those 12-year-olds, they spend 20 hours online each week. In fact, one recent study tells us that 40% of people from age 18 to 29 are online “almost constantly.” High school seniors spend two hours a day just texting. One researcher described it this way for young people. He said their phone was the last thing they saw before they went to sleep and the first thing they saw when they woke up. And you know what? I don’t think that’s just true of young people. I think we’ll all agree that the internet is a powerful force in our lives.

Is the Bible silent on that subject? Does the Bible have anything to say about the internet? Does that ancient book have anything to say about the modern worldwide web? Well, first, the internet in one sense may not be as modern as we all like to think it is. The internet comes from a long line of transformative inventions going all the way back to the printing press. Listen to this quote, “Superficial, sudden, unsifted, too fast for the truth.” That sounds like the internet, doesn’t it? That was written in 1858 about the telegraph. Superficial, sudden, unsifted, too fast for the truth. That’s the telegraph. There has never been a shortage of transformative inventions. Ecclesiastes 1:10, “Is there a thing which people say, see this is new? It’s already been in ages before us.” So some of these modern inventions may not be all that modern.

But second, yes, the Bible’s an ancient book, but the Bible is not a dead book. The Bible has a lot to say about the internet. In fact, the Bible has a lot to say about all of the so-called modern inventions of mankind. Hebrews 4:12, “The word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword.” The Bible is living and active, and yes, it does have things to say about the internet. All of the works of man, including the internet, will one day pass away. The word of God will never pass away, Matthew 24:35. You know, we may think there’s some modern inventions out there that we just can’t live without, but one day we’ll be living without all of them. And when that day comes, we’re gonna find our anchor in the living and abiding word of God, 1 Peter 1:23. So with that introduction, here’s our question for this morning. What does the Bible say about the internet? And we’re gonna look at 10 verses.

1. Psalm 115:8

One verse that tells us something about the internet is from the book of Psalms. Psalm 115:8, “Those who make them become like them, so do all who trust in them.” Marshall McLuhan was a very famous media critic. And as famous media critics tend to do, he said some famous things. And one of them was, “We shape our tools and then our tools shape us.” But you know what? He wasn’t the first to say that. Many centuries earlier, the psalmist wrote, “Those who make them become like them.” Yes, Psalm 115 was talking about idols rather than tools like the Internet, but are idols and some tools really that different? Has there ever been an idolatry as pervasive as the idolatry of the Internet? “Internet idolatry” really? I sound a little strong, right? Well, we go to it for answers for all of our questions. We seek it first. We believe what it tells us. We keep it with us always. We panic if we lose contact with it. It’s seemingly invisible and yet everywhere. We even bow our heads when we look at it. I don’t know about you, that’s starting to sound a little bit like idolatry to me. Have we become like those in Job 12:6 who bring their God in their hand? And what is the great danger of elevating the Internet to that status? Well, simple, the danger is that we will become like what we worship. That we will become like the Internet. The danger is that I will find my own name on that list of things that have been transformed by the Internet. That’s the danger. And what would that mean? What would it mean if I became more like the Internet? Well, the Internet’s superficial, am I? The Internet’s unfocused, am I? The Internet’s unfiltered? Am I? The Internet doesn’t have an attention span? Do I? The Internet values images over words, do I? The Internet lacks contentment, do I? The Internet has a hair trigger temper? Do I? The Internet’s unforgiving, am I? Don’t just take my word for it, psychologists tell us we’re all being changed by the Internet. We’re losing our ability to focus. We’re losing our ability to concentrate. We’re losing our ability to engage in deep thought. We’re losing our ability to sit down and read a book. We’re being changed, not for the better. Is the internet shaping us? Is the internet changing us? Is the internet transforming us? What, we think we’re immune? Rather than praying without ceasing, am I checking my cell phone without ceasing? Rather than depending on God’s Word to tell me how to live, how to think, am I depending on Facebook? Do I turn to the internet for all the answers? Has Google become my guide? You know I think we often think of idolatry as just an ancient problem for an ancient people bowed down before wooden idols. No, no, no. Idolatry is a modern problem. Idolatry is our problem. 1 John 5:21, “Little children, keep yourself from idols.” 1 Corinthians 10:14, “Flee from idolatry.” Yes, we must become like what we worship, but we must be worshiping God and only God. If our cell phone is transforming us into its own image, then we need to flee from that idolatry.

2. Psalm 119:37

A second verse that tells us something about the internet is Psalm 119:37. “Turn away mine eyes from beholding vanity.” What is vanity? I think one dictionary just pegged it. This is the perfect definition of vanity. Something that is useless, pointless, worthless, and fruitless. And doesn’t that describe the internet perfectly. Useless, pointless, worthless, fruitless. Isn’t that a list, the opposite of what we’re commanded to think on? What is true and honest and just and pure and lovely and a good report? Philippians 4:8. Yes, those things from Philippians 4:8 are certainly available on the internet, but they’re pretty hard to find. And they’re usually drowned out by things that are useless and pointless and worthless and fruitless. But what’s the cure? The psalmist tells us, “Turn away mine eyes from beholding vanity.” The cure is to turn away from it, to instead incline our heart unto God’s testimonies, which in fact is what the previous verse in Psalm 119 tells us. And notice the focus of the psalmist here on our eyes. “Turn away my eyes from beholding vanity.” We have a responsibility to watch what we see, to guard our heart, and that starts with guarding our eyes. And you know what? Images have a lasting impact on us, don’t they? Christianity is a religion of words, not of images. We walk by faith, not by sight. 2 Corinthians 5:7. And how does faith come? By hearing, by words, Romans 10:17. Faith comes by words, not by images. Our society is very quickly changing from a word-based society to an image-based society, and the internet is doing everything it can to further and complete that process. God speaks to us in words, but what if no one’s listening? And worse, what if no one can understand a message conveyed in words? That’s where we’re headed. God exalts words. Satan exalts images. Jesus is the word made flesh. We must always be focused on the word and we must fight any effort to replace the word with an image.

3. Psalm 101:3

A third verse that tells us something about the internet is Psalm 101:3. “I will set no wicked thing before mine eye.” Yes, there is a lot of vanity on the Internet. But there’s a special category of vanity on the Internet that is particularly damaging, and that is pornography. Pornography. In one recent year, the most popular pornographic website served 4.6 billion hours of pornographic videos. That’s 5,000 centuries of pornography from one website in one year. That one site received 23 billion visits that year. That’s 729 people a second or 63 million people a day. By one account, 35% of all internet downloads are related to pornography. And one in five mobile phone searches are for pornography. And you know what? All those problems became much worse during the COVID crisis, during the lockdown. Internet consumption went to the roof, right along with pornography consumption. And who is watching that filth? Much of it is being viewed by children. The average age of first internet porn exposure is 11 years old. Children under the age of 10 now account for one in every 10 visitors to pornographic websites. Four in 10 teenagers admit to accessing pornographic websites on a weekly basis. The delivery mechanism may be new. The problem is not, and the Bible has a lot to say about it. 1 Corinthians 6:18-20. “Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God? You are not your own, you were bought with a price, so glorify God in your body.” How do we flee from sexual immorality on the internet? The psalmist gives us the first step. “I will set no wicked thing before mine eyes.”

4. Ephesians 5:16

A fourth verse that tells us something about the internet is Ephesians 5:16. “Redeeming the time because the days are evil.” How much time do we collectively waste surfing the internet? Wait, let me rephrase that question. How much time do I waste surfing the internet? You know, surfing the internet is not a very good way to become more like Christ. But you know what? It is the perfect way to become more like this world. You could hardly think of a better way. Am I using my time wisely when it comes to the internet? You know, I recently saw a question on an internet group that, you know, they ask questions and asked people to respond to it. And the question was this, if you could go back in time to 1950, what one thing about our modern world would be the hardest to explain to someone living in 1950? There were a lot of answers, but there was one that really caught my attention. I think this person got it. I think this is the answer to that question. The hardest thing to explain, he said, about our modern life to living in some, to someone in 1950 is this, that I have in my pocket a small device that I can use to communicate with anybody, practically anybody in the world. And I can access on this little device, the collective wisdom and history of all mankind. And yet, I use it to look at pictures of cats and argue with strangers. Yeah, that’s hard to explain in 1950. You know what? That’s hard to explain in 2021, isn’t it? When you stop and think about it, that’s just hard to explain. The internet can be a wonderful tool for godliness, can’t it? I have access on my phone to the Bible, to thousands of books and commentaries about the Bible. When I’m waiting in line somewhere I can take it up and read it if I’m so inclined. Even when driving my car it can read the Bible to me. But is that how I’m using it? Or am I looking at pictures of cats and arguing with strangers? If so, how is it a smart phone? If I’m not redeeming the time as I should, then maybe I should start with the time I’m spending on the internet. Well, why? Paul tells us in the same verse, “Because the days are evil.”

5. 1 Timothy 6:6

A fifth verse that tells us something about the internet is 1 Timothy 6:6. “But godliness with contentment is great gain.” What are the two Christian virtues that are most under attack from the internet? Aren’t they godliness and contentment? The same two we just saw in this verse. In Philippians 4:11, Paul wrote, “I have learned in whatsoever state I am therewith to be content.” Doesn’t the internet do the opposite? Doesn’t the internet teach me that whatsoever state I’m in, I’m gonna be discontent. Internet-inspired discontent. It’s so pervasive, it’s been given a name, FOMO, F-O-M-O, which stands for the fear of missing out, the fear of missing out, FOMO. FOMO has been described as an increased and pervasive anxiety or apprehension of missing out on social events or experiences that others are perceived to be having. And for many, that fear creates an addiction to social media. And here’s how one article describes its effects. Studies show that FOMO, the fear of missing out, leads to extreme dissatisfaction, has a detrimental effect on our physical and mental health. Mood swings, loneliness, feelings of inferiority, reduced self-esteem, extreme social anxiety, increased levels of negativity and depression. Did you hear it? Extreme dissatisfaction. That’s the opposite of what Paul told Timothy. “Godliness with contentment is great gain.” It’s the opposite of God’s command in the book of Hebrews. Hebrews 13:5, “Let your conversation be without covetousness and be content with such things as you have. For he has said, I will never leave thee nor forsake thee.” The fear of missing out is not a fear for the child of God. We’re not gonna miss out on anything. And that’s why we’re to be content. And that’s why we are to be on our guard against discontent. And where does the internet create that discontent? Isn’t it created in the home? How many of our unnecessary purchases began life by something we saw on the internet? Did you know that one third of all divorced couples cite Facebook as a reason for their divorce? And as for godliness, in 1 Timothy 4:7, Paul told Timothy to exercise himself unto godliness. The internet most often teaches us to do the opposite. And where does that ungodliness manifest itself? Again, in the home. We’ve already talked about that problem. If not used wisely, the internet is a great threat to the Christian home. If we want great gain in ourselves and in our homes, we need to pursue godliness with contentment. And those two things are very hard to find on Google and Facebook.

6. Galatians 6:2

A sixth verse that tells us something about the internet is Galatians 6:2. “Bear one another’s burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ.” Well, how is that related to the internet? Well, let me answer that question with another question. On what was Jesus focused as he walked among the people? Wasn’t Jesus completely focused on those people around him? The people whom he came to seek and to save, Luke 19:10. Don’t we see that focus all throughout the gospel accounts? You know, we’ve all laughed at the videos of someone, you know, walking along, looking at their phone and then stumbling into a water fountain. You know, ha ha ha. Is it a laughing matter if I can walk through a sea of people and not notice anybody? Is that the example of Christ? Jesus noticed people and we should thank God every day that he did. We often speak about the love of Christ and the compassion of Christ and the power of Christ. We also need to speak about the attentiveness of Christ. When Jesus saw someone in distress, Jesus stopped to help. We must follow that example and we can’t do that if we’re walking around with our heads buried in our smartphone. Galatians 5:13, “For brethren, you have been called into Liberty; only use not Liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another.” Yes, we have Liberty to own and use a smartphone. But that Liberty comes with a responsibility, a responsibility to serve one another by love. The command is to serve, not to surf.

7. 2 Corinthians 2:11

A seventh verse that tells us something about the internet is 2 Corinthians 2:11. “Lest Satan should get an advantage of us, for we are not ignorant of his devices.” Who owns my smartphone? Whose device is it? Well, I have the receipt somewhere, I think. So doesn’t that mean it’s my device? No, not necessarily. Paul tells us that Satan has his own devices. And if I’m not using my cell phone properly, then maybe it’s one of Satan’s most powerful devices. Put yourself in Satan’s shoes for just a moment. If he could dream up one thing to help him destroy the work of God and ruin people’s lives, what would it be? What sort of device would Satan dream up for that purpose? Well, first of all, he’d want it to be readily available. He wouldn’t want us to leave it at home on the shelf. He’d want us to always have it with us. And second, he’d want it to be operable by both the young and the old, everybody, but maybe with a special attraction for the young. And third, whatever sort of perversion or wickedness he came up with, I think Satan would want to be able to transfer that quickly to this device he came up with so it could infect everybody with it. Do we know of any device like that or are we ignorant of Satan’s devices? Do we really think Satan has no plans to use a device by which he can reach billions of people? Is Satan using that device to reach us? Is Satan using that device to hinder the work of the church? We can be certain he wants to. 1 Peter 5:8, “Be sober, be diligent, because your adversary the devil is a roaring lion, walks around seeing who he may devour.” You know, if we ever wonder whether or how Satan is at work in this world today, we should stop wondering. Satan’s attack on the home is being led by the Internet. The statistics tell us that. Satan’s attack on our children is being led by the Internet. Satan’s attack on the church is being led by the Internet.

8. Romans 6:16

An eighth verse that tells us something about the Internet is Romans 6:16. “Know ye not that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey?” You know, you’ve heard the joke. I don’t do anything unless my cell phone tells me to. The calendar tells me where to be, the task list tells me what to do, the contact list tells me who to talk to. That’s just the modern business world. But taken to an extreme, that’s a very dangerous world for the Christian, isn’t it? That’s what Paul’s warning us about here in Romans 6. I am the servant of what or whom I obey. Well, whom or what do I obey? Who pulls my strings? Who or what causes me to act or not to act? In short, whose servant am I? Is there room for God on my calendar? Is there room for God on my task list? Is there room for God in my contact list? Am I too busy for God? Am I in too much of a hurry for spiritual matters? Am I in such a hurry that I can’t even take the time to sing all the verses of “Take Time to Be Holy”? Or do other things get in my way? Oh, but wait, wait, wait, some might say. My cell phone is for my business life and my secular activities. And I like to keep my secular life and my business life separate from my religious life. Is that how God sees my life? The only life I have is my life in Christ. Colossians 3:17, “And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him.” Do you notice that word, “whatsoever”? You mean my business activities are to be done in the name of Christ? Whatsoever. You mean my leisure activities are to be done in the name of Christ? Whatsoever. You mean the things I do on my smart phone are to be done in the name of Christ? Whatsoever. It’s pretty hard to misunderstand whatsoever. “Know ye not that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom?” Have I been taken captive by my cell phone? You know, if I’d preached this sermon 30 years ago, it would have been all about the evils of television. In fact, 30 years ago, when I was living in Dallas, I heard a whole series of sermons about the evils of television. And I took lots of notes, and I even looked at those notes in preparing this sermon. But you know what? Back then, 30 years ago, our TVs just stayed in one place. They didn’t get up and follow us out of the room, did they? Back then, we were just captive to the glowing screen when we sat down in the living room. Now that glowing screen follows us everywhere. And “captive” is the right word for it. In fact, the word “captology” has recently been used to describe the invisible and manipulative way influence us. In today’s digital world, you know what the most valuable thing is? Our attention. You know what those companies are paying all those big bucks for? Our attention. But a Christian’s attention should never be for sale to the highest bidder. God wants our attention. God demands our attention. How can we say we’re seeking first the kingdom of God if God does not even have our attention.

9. Matthew 7:7

A ninth verse that tells us something about the Internet is Matthew 7:7, “Seek and ye shall find.” Where does most Internet activity originate? With a search engine. Google receives 63,000 searches per second on any given day. That’s 2 trillion searches a year. That’s 5.6 billion searches a day. That’s 228 million searches an hour. That’s 3.8 million searches a minute. “Seek and ye shall find.” Today that search will most likely be done on the internet. And what will those internet searchers find? For the most part, what they will find is a sea of confusion. A sea of confusion. Yes, the truth is out there, but it’s most often buried in falsehood. For every person proclaiming the truth on the internet, there are thousands proclaiming the opposite. Whose fault is that? Well, who is the author of all that confusion? We know it’s not God. 1 Corinthians 14:33, “God is not the author of confusion but a piece.” I think we all know who the author of that confusion is. Satan has been sowing confusion in the church for 2,000 years and he delights in creating confusion about God’s Word in God’s church. Satan was twisting the Word of God right from the very beginning in the Old Testament, Genesis chapter 3, and he was twisting the Word of God right from the beginning of the New Testament in Matthew chapter 4, and he’s twisting it today. Revelation 12:9 says that Satan deceives the whole world and confusion is one of his most effective tools for doing that. Satan would love nothing better than to bury the Lord’s church in the sea of confusion. Satan would love nothing better than for the world to view the Lord’s church as just a needle and a haystack of needles and the best way to do that is to fill the world with false churches and that is what he has done. You go on Google and you do a search on just the word church, you’ll get 1.7 billion results. Is there any wonder that there’s so much confusion in the world today about the church? We have a responsibility to fight that confusion. We must shine the light of God’s Word through the confusing fog that surrounds us in this world. If we don’t do it, who’s going to do it? Very few people today will search for us by knocking on our door. Very few people today will search for us by just showing up here on Sunday or Wednesday. Instead, their first knock will be on our website. What will they find? You know, we have a lot more visitors on our website than we do in our lobby. Let’s make sure they find what they’re seeking. And while we’re on the subject of searching, I need to make sure that I am seeking the right thing on the Internet. What does my Internet search history say about me? You know, if my dad were here, this is the point where he would say, “I quit preaching and gone to meddling.” What does my internet search history say about me? “Seek and ye shall find.” Let’s make sure we help those who are seeking the truth to find the truth. And let’s make sure we’re seeking and finding the things that we should be seeking and finding on the internet.

10. Matthew 28:19

A 10th verse that tells us something about the internet was our scripture reading this morning, Matthew 28:19, “Go ye therefore and teach all nations.” One of Jesus’ final commands to his people was that they go. And that was not just a suggestion, that was a command. But how, how do we go? Certainly some of us must physically go. Otherwise, how could we obey the next part of that verse, to baptize. Baptism is something that happens in person. But we can also go and teach without physically going and teaching, can’t we? And going into all the world to teach has never been easier than it is today with the World Wide Web. Today, you are hearing this sermon. Tomorrow, it will be available to four billion people. And what do those four billion people all have in common. They are all lost without Jesus Christ, every single one of them. And we can reach them all from right here. That’s the tremendous power, the tremendous reach of this wonderful tool that God has given us in the internet. I know that much of what I’ve said today about the internet has been negative, but there’s a tremendous positive side to the internet. There are people today listening to this at home that cannot be here because they had the internet. During the COVID crisis, we were able to do so much more because we had the internet. This, this, our congregation has a great internet ministry. The internet is a great open door for us today to reach the lost and God expects us to use that open door while it remains open. And believe me, one day that door will close to the proclamation of the gospel. It’s already closed in much of China. You know, there are people in China we could have reached with the Internet over a decade ago that we cannot reach that way today because of the government censorship. And we’re seeing that censorship here as well, aren’t we? It’s not coming from the government yet, but from the powerful Internet doorkeepers. And you know what is true about the powerful Internet doorkeepers? They disagree with everything we say. They would love nothing better than to shut us down. We need to pray every day that that great door remains open and we need to pray that while it is open we use it effectively to take the gospel to those billions of people who need the gospel of Jesus Christ. Oh but maybe we should just stick to the old ways of doing things. No, we should not. Yes, the message will never change, but we must adapt the method, the method of relaying that message to the people we’re trying to reach. Isn’t that exactly what Paul did on Mars Hill? His message was the same, but Paul relayed that message in a way that was designed to best reach his audience, didn’t he? “I have made all things to all men might by all means save some.” 1 Corinthians 9:22. We need to follow that example when it comes to the Internet. God has given us a new way to proclaim his unchanging Word. For that we should be very thankful. We’ve looked at ten Bible verses that tell us something about the Internet and I could have given many more. The Bible has a lot to say on that subject. Yes, the Bible is an ancient book. Yes, the Internet is a modern invention, but God’s wisdom is timeless. God’s Word is always powerful, always relevant. We should thank God for the wonderful tools that he has given us and which we can use to advance his kingdom here on this earth. And one of those tools is our wonderful new building that we’re building. It’s being constructed. But another of those tools is the Internet. But as with most tools, the Internet can be used for good or it can be used for evil. The Internet can be used to build things up, it can be used to tear things down. How are we using it? If we’re using the Internet in a negative way, then we need to stop. And if we’re not using the Internet in a positive way, then we need to start.

Good news, if you’re seeking salvation here today, you don’t need to log on to any website. You don’t need a user ID, you don’t need a password. You just need to walk down the aisle and obey the gospel of Jesus Christ. You must reject the digital grave of vanity and be buried in the watery graves of baptism. Have your sins forgiven, arise as a new creature with all things made new. We can help in any way this morning. Please come while we stand and while we sing.