Aug 18, 2017 /
The Internet is a technological marvel, but there is an evil side that is pervasive and sometimes hard to avoid. No one is beyond its power and pull. Listen as Rand Hummel offers practical Bible principles to help God’s people guard themselves from becoming trapped in the dark side of the Internet.
Then said he unto me, “Son of man, lift up thine eyes now the way toward the north.” So I lifted up mine eyes the way toward the north, and behold northward at the gate of the altar this image of jealousy in the entry.
He said furthermore unto me, “Son of man, seest thou what they do? even the great abominations that the house of Israel committeth here, that I should go far off from my sanctuary? but turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations.”
And he brought me to the door of the court; and when I looked, behold a hole in the wall. Then said he unto me, “Son of man, dig now in the wall:” and when I had digged in the wall, behold a door.
And he said unto me, “Go in, and behold the wicked abominations that they do here.” So I went in and saw; and behold every form of creeping things, and abominable beasts, and all the idols of the house of Israel, pourtrayed upon the wall round about. And there stood before them seventy men of the ancients of the house of Israel, and in the midst of them stood Jaazaniah the son of Shaphan, with every man his censer in his hand; and a thick cloud of incense went up.
Then said he unto me, “Son of man, hast thou seen what the ancients of the house of Israel do in the dark, every man in the chambers of his imagery? for they say, ‘The Lord seeth us not; the Lord hath forsaken the earth.'” He said also unto me, “Turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations that they do.”
Then he brought me to the door of the gate of the Lord’s house which was toward the north; and, behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz. Then said he unto me, “Hast thou seen this, O son of man? turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations than these.”
And he brought me into the inner court of the Lord’s house, and, behold, at the door of the temple of the Lord, between the porch and the altar, were about five and twenty men, with their backs toward the temple of the Lord, and their faces toward the east; and they worshipped the sun toward the east.
Then he said unto me, “Hast thou seen this, O son of man? Is it a light thing to the house of Judah that they commit the abominations which they commit here? for they have filled the land with violence, and have returned to provoke me to anger: and, lo, they put the branch to their nose. Therefore will I also deal in fury: mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity: and though they cry in mine ears with a loud voice, yet will I not hear them.”
Ezekiel 8:5–18
For more information on how to protect yourself from the temptations of pornography, pick up a copy of Rand Hummel’s book, Lest You Fall.
Rand Hummel: If you want to turn your Bible to Ezekiel chapter 8, that's where we're going to park tonight. You know, the Internet is part of life. You cannot go through a day without hearing the phrase dot com this or dot com that.
And I hope we understand that the Internet is not going to go away. As much as some of us would love to take all computers and smash them and bury them, it's not going to go away. The Internet is only going to get bigger and faster and stronger and more appealing every single day.
Actually, actually, the Internet of today is much like the invention of the telephone. Back when your pastor was just graduating high school in 1876, I found this memo. It came from Western Union in regards to the invention of the telephone. It said this, quote,
This telephone has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is apparently no value to us. Now, obviously, we could not live without the telephone today or the Palm Pilot cell phones and so forth, Although I think we could live without some of those answering machine messages.
Yeah, like this one. Hello, you're talking to a machine. I'm capable of receiving messages.
My owners do not need siding windows or a hot tub and their carpets are clean. They give to charity through the office and don't need their picture taken. If you're still with me, leave your name and number and we'll get back with you.
Or this one. Greetings, you have just reached the Sixth Sense Detective Agency. We know who you are and what you want.
So, at the sound of the tone, please hang up. If you're a burglar, then we're probably at home cleaning our weapons right now and cannot come to the phone. We live in a high-tech world.
Ladies, the day is quickly coming when everything in your kitchen will be computerized. Your refrigerator will have a scanning device. It will know what you put in, what you take out.
You could be on your way home from work. Your cell phone rings. You answer, is your refrigerator calling you?
It says, could you please stop and pick up a gallon of milk or two or three dozen Krispy Kreme donuts or something like that? We live in a high-tech world. I want you to understand there is a dark side to the Internet.
And sometimes this dark side is very difficult to avoid. You could put it this way. For centuries, Satan's been hurling fiery darts.
Today, he's gotten his hands on a weapon of mass destruction. Let me explain why I spent literally hundreds of hours on this one issue alone. In one week at camp there at the Wilds, three different teenage girls came to me, even though it was different homes, different situations, but the stories almost sounded the same.
When something like this, he said, hey, Ren, can I talk to you? I said, yeah, what's up? He said, the other night, I woke up in the middle of the night and had to use the restroom.
I was walking down the hall, and I thought I heard or saw something in the living room. When I looked in, there's my dad. And he was watching that pornography on the computer.
And I don't know what to do. A junior in high school, a boy came up to me. He said, Ren, I need to talk to you.
I've got a real problem. He said, my dad and I play this little game. When I get home from school, he has a home office.
I bang on the windows and it scares him. And the other day I got home from school, I was just ready to bang on the window. And I looked through and saw what he was watching.
I figured it had to be a pop-up or something. But then he went to another site. I really didn't know what to do, so I went in and got Mom.
And we went down to his office. Of course, the door was locked. And by the time we got in, he had the computer shut down.
He denied everything. I ran. I know what I saw.
The problem is he's not just my dad. He's also my pastor. And I don't know what to do. I started digging through the word of God trying to see what God says about an issue like this and it's not easy you take your Strong's Concordance you look up computer you look up website you look up you got to get a Dell dude you look up all this stuff and then I came across Ezekiel chapter 8 now I know
I know God did not write Ezekiel chapter 8 just with the internet in mind but we must understand that basically what God was telling Ezekiel was happening in the midst of his people is happening today in the midst of God's people. And also understanding a thousand years is but a day. A day is a thousand years.
To God, two thousand years ago was like the day before yesterday. Ezekiel was not some elderly bearded prophet. He was 25 when he was taken into captivity.
Around the age of 27, his wife was murdered. Around the age of 28, God gave him this vision. And basically, God was saying this, Ezekiel, I want you to see what's going on right now in the midst of my people. Follow along in your Bible or on the screen
as we look at this vision that God gave Ezekiel. It came to pass in the sixth year and the sixth month and the fifth day of the month, as I sat in mine house, that the elders of Judah sat before me and the hand of the Lord God fell there upon me. Then I beheld, and lo, a likeness is the appearance of fire, describing here the glory of God, okay?
From the appearance of His loins, even downward fire. From His loins, even upward, is the appearance of brightness, as the color of amber. I love that word, Amber.
That's my wife's name. Verse 3. He put forth the form of a hand. He took me by the lock of my head, and the Spirit lifted me up between the earth and the heaven, brought me to the visions of God, to Jerusalem, to the door of the inner gate, that looketh toward the north, where was the sea of the image of, say the next word, please, jealousy,
which provoketh to, say it again, jealousy. And behold, the glory of the God of Israel was there according to the vision that I saw on the plain. Then he said unto me, Son of man, lift up thine eyes now the way toward the north.
So I lift up my eyes the way toward the north. And behold, northward at the gate of the altar, this image of jealousy in the entry. Let me stop there one second. God's jealousy is not the same kind of jealousy that teenagers may have
when they fall in love and break up and fall in love and break up all in the seventh and the eighth grade. It is not the same. God is jealous not of, but for us.
Mom, Dad, God knows exactly what kind of love can reach down and grab a hold of the heart of your son and not let go. one boy I was dealing with he was 14, homeschool he said, Ran I was doing a homework assignment my mom was sitting right next to me and all of a sudden that trash came on the screen we have no idea how it got there quickly we turned the monitor off we rebooted the computer
he said, I have never seen that stuff before and I've never seen it since but I want to and you must understand Satan knows what kind of sin to throw out at our kids to try to get their heart pulled away from God. Verse 6, he said, Furthermore unto me, son of man, seest thou what they do, even the great abominations. When you hear the word abomination, you should think hate, hate, hate.
Say it with me. Hate, hate, hate. Even the great abominations that the house of Israel commits here, that I should go far off from my sanctuary.
Ezekiel, do you see what my people are doing? They're choosing to be involved in that which I hate. They're driving me out of the sanctuary.
They don't want to worship me anymore. And it's pretty tough to stay up Saturday night filling your mind with trash and then try to walk into your church Sunday morning and pretend to worship God. He goes on to say, Turn to yet again and thou shalt see greater abominations that they do. He brought me to the door of the court
when I looked, behold, a hole in the wall. And then he said to me, Son of a man, dig now in the wall. When I dig in the wall, behold, a door.
It almost sounds like a computer-generated game here. And they said unto me, Go in and behold the wicked abominations that they do here. So I went and saw, and behold, every form of creeping things, abominable beasts, and all the idols of the house of Israel portrayed on the wall round about. When Ezekiel walked in this room, there was graffiti on the walls, both words and pictures, that depicted the most incredible, perverse immorality
that was associated with the idolatrous worship. He goes on to say, There stood before them 70 men of the, say the next word please, ancients. And seriously, I'm not trying to be funny here, but you know who the ancients are?
It's you, dad, mom, grandparents. Those of us who should know better. And much of my counseling is not with the teens who are struggling, but it's with the boys who are weeping because their moms met somebody online and left them. And the dads where the girls are scared to death of their own dads
because they know what they're watching at night. The ancients. The moms and dads that should know better.
Instead, in the midst of them stood Jasnah, the son of Shaphan. Who was that? Shaphan read the Word of God at King Josiah when they had the great revival.
Jasnah heard his daddy read the Word of God. And even tonight, I'm not preaching to people who don't know God. We know God.
We know what He loves. We know what He hates. But we also choose to be involved in that which He hates. He said to me, son of man,
As I've seen what the ancients of the house of Israel do in the dark. Every man in the chambers of his imagery, in the rooms of his imagination. For they say, the Lord seeth us not.
The Lord hath forsaken the earth. There's a false sense of privacy, folks. It comes with the dark side of the Internet.
It used to be wicked, filthy, dirty old men would sneak around to adult bookstores, but no more. All your kids have to do is go home after school when mom and dad aren't back till five. And from 3.30 to 5 o'clock, I have found, is the number one time that most kids are getting in trouble.
Because all you have to do is walk in the house. Look around. Make sure nobody's there.
And just start typing away. He said also unto me, Turn to yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations that they do. And he brought me to the door of the gate of the Lord's house, which was toward the north.
And behold, there sat women weeping for Tamez. What's this? Tamez was a false god that once a year, they would come together and they would worship this false god. Every form of immorality, even to the point that they were killing their living babies
and sacrificing them to this god. When Constantine came to rule, he saw it was so vile that he abolished the whole thing. And then it says, turn to the end again, thou shalt see greater abominations.
I'm thinking, what can be worse? Every form of immorality, killing their own children. This is one of the problems with the dark side of the internet.
A book has a final chapter. A movie has a conclusion. But the Internet has no end.
It goes on and on and on, getting more disgusting and more deviant as it goes. There is no end to it. He brought me to the inner court of the Lord's house. Behold, at the door of the temple of the Lord, between the porch and the altar, about five and twenty men, again describing spiritual leaders here,
with their backs toward the temple of the Lord. and their faces toward the east, and they worship the sun toward the east. Not only did they push God out of the sanctuary, saying, we don't want to worship you. Now, because of their sin,
they're turning their back on God. And they're only worshiping that which would satisfy their flesh. He said unto me, Hast thou seen this, O son of man? Is it a light thing to the house of Judah
that they commit the abominations they commit here? Is it a light thing? Is it no big deal?
Is it a light thing? Doesn't it bother them? Is it a light thing, folks?
doesn't it tear our hearts out? When we make choices to be involved in that which we know God hates, they filled the land with violence, returned to provoke me to anger. Lo, they put a branch to their nose.
What does that mean? In the same way today, somebody can show their contempt through their vulgar sign language, they would do the same in that day. The last verse is pretty sad.
God says, I'll deal with my fury. Don't think that this does not upset God. Mine I shall not spare.
He says, I'm not going to overlook this. Neither will I have pity. And though they cry in mine ears with a loud voice, yet will I not hear them.
What does that mean? Does God forgive when we sin and ask Him to forgive us? Yes!
Does God always remove the consequences of sin? No. These people said, we don't want to worship God.
We don't even want God in our lives! So God sent a nation to take Israel into captivity. folks in America we have no concept of what that would be like man you would be nothing more than a machine told when to get up and when to go to bed what to eat and when not to eat and ladies in captivity in enslavement you're nothing more than a piece of trash to be used abused and thrown away
regards to the dark side of the internet pornography is addicting as any heroin on the market today and on the dark side women mostly are treated as a piece of trash to be used, abused and thrown away we're going to walk back through this passage and we're going to apply and see what the kids that are growing up in this world today are facing we'll look at his power his perversity, his privacy I should say his false sense of privacy
we're going to look at the price tag and what it can cost our homes and also the prevention, what we can do In regards to the power of the dark side of the Internet, when it says here, 70 men of the ancients, those who are older, those who should know better. Folks, I want you to understand there is no one beyond the power and the pull of the dark side of the Internet. No one.
Not you, not your husband, not your wife, not your parents, not your kids, not your pastor, not me. No one is beyond this. Do you realize that right now in AOL, over 40% of all Internet traffic is adult-oriented?
And statistics tell us that 70 to 75% of men who access the web have already chosen to access pornography. If I ask 10 of you men to stand up right now and then ask three to sit down, statistics would say that the other seven have already chosen to be involved in this. This is spiritual warfare.
Who is one of the strongest men in all the Bible? His name? Samson.
What destroyed his walk with God? His incredible lust for strange women. Who is one of the wisest kings in all the Bible?
His name? Solomon. 700 wives, 300 cucumber vines.
Did he have a problem? Yes. And again, because of his lust for strange women, his heart was pulled away from God.
Who is one of the most godly kings in all the Bible? His name? David.
How old was David when he sinned with Bathsheba? You ever think about that? He was about 50.
His boys were already in their mid-twenties. Did David have a heart for God? Yes.
Did David sing praises to God? Yes. Did David hate sin?
Yes. Did he choose to sin? Yes.
Wherefore, let him that thinketh he standeth, take heed. Watch out. Be careful.
Lest he fall. Watch and pray, man. Watch and pray, ladies.
Lest you enter into temptation. The spirit's ready. It wants to do what is right.
But the flesh is so weak. Speaking of the strange woman, the Bible says she has cast down many strong men. Many strong men have been slain by her.
Focus on the family has a hotline, a care line, just for pastors. And according to their statistics, one out of seven pastors, when they call, are addicted to Internet pornography. Does the Internet offer a problem for women?
Yeah. I used to say it wasn't as much with the visual and the pornography, but understanding the world we live in today, it's amazing how many girls are being pulled into this stuff also. Not too long ago, three teenage girls separate times.
Actually, one was 12. The other two were 13. They came to me crying.
I said, what's wrong? They said, I think I'm a homosexual. Why?
Because they can sneak online, they start watching this stuff, and then they start liking it. And they think that they are that way. Do you see how dangerous this becomes?
But there is another aspect to this. That's the high-tech communication. Electronic relationships are distorted.
They can get out of hand. And you don't know who you're talking to. even though you think you do, you don't. FBI did a sting operation where they had a lady FBI agent
go into a chat room reserved for teenage girls only. In that room, there were 22 other girls conversing back and forth. They had the technology to trace those lines when they did so. Out of those 22 girls, all 22 were men pretending to be girls to finally get some information on, to talk to, to get a phone number,
an address and then to attack, as we'll see in a little bit. What about the perversity? It speaks here of the wicked abominations that they do here. I'll be very discreet, but folks, do you realize that every type of perverted, wicked immorality
is online? And what are the dangers for you, for your kids, for your grandkids? Easy and anonymous access to the pornography.
Again, it used to be that an individual would have to sneak around to get to this stuff, but no more. I can hardly remember a week that goes by at camp that I don't have teens come up to me, say, Rand, I'm addicted to porn, I don't know what to do. It's epidemic.
It's so easy when parents foolishly allow Internet access with no blocks and no filters. What are the dangers, the severity of the Internet pornography? Do you realize the Internet is home to thousands of images that would be illegal to sell in adult bookstores today?
What are the dangers, the distribution of child pornography? Do you know what I do when I'm not preaching or leading a hike or running a swing or being stupid in our skid time? You know what I do?
I sit in my office or in a campsite with kids, your kids. and what do you do what do you do when you're in your office and there's a 14 year old girl whose mom's boyfriend raped her and she had AIDS and she's going to die or a 15 year old girl similar thing happened to her only she got pregnant and they forced her to have an abortion she's in my office screaming they made me kill my baby
what do you do you must understand that every single time there's any child pornography some kid's life has been destroyed some kid's life has been wrecked. The access of pedophiles to our kids today, it's a war zone, folks. I read a book entitled Safety Net, Guiding and Guarding Your Children on the Internet.
Chapter 4 is entitled Why is the Internet a Pedophiles Playground? ABC News did an article entitled Stalking Internet Pedophiles. There's a guy named Ripcord who posed as a child porn producer who met Nate DeSnay, a 21-year-old student preparing to be a kindergarten teacher. They meet in these chat rooms where the men trade in child pornography, send their images back and forth, and in this case, often encourage the further abuse of children
by increasing the demand for new images. Do you realize, folks, in America today, one in three girls and one in seven guys, it is estimated, will be abused in their lifetime? UNICEF predicts that the coming year over one million kids will be abducted for this one purpose alone.
And we think it will never ever happen to us. You've heard a lot about MySpace. MySpace is so volatile because anybody can get into anything.
And the problem is, very foolishly, our kids aren't thinking. Our teens are not thinking through this. first of all I've dealt with this many many times with different issues and schools and so forth when you say my space the reason they call it my space is because I put my favorite tv shows and my favorite musicians and I have a list of my friends and I've sat down with individuals that I
was working with trying to help in this and we'll be like 45 minutes walking through their my space where their friends are using the f word and all kinds of vulgar language and then I'll stop and wait, I'm missing something here. What's that? Where's God?
It's my space. It's my friends. It's what's important to me.
Where's God? He's not even mentioned in 45 minutes. You start putting the gospel on there, which you shouldn't be on there in the first place, but you do, and you'll see your friend list start to just disappear. What's happening is they'll put it under a little picture and put down who their friends are and where they go to school and what time they get out of school
and what I'm going to do on Thursday night. And all the guy has to do is pull up to the school, wait and see that kid, run up and say, I work with your dad, there's been a terrible accident. They told me to come pick you up.
Boom, she's gone. Do you see how dangerous this can be? One mom wrote this. She said, I've always felt pornography was bad, that it was harmful,
But I felt it didn't affect me personally. We live in a small, close-knit community. Pornography is not an issue there.
I basically felt immune to its effects. A year ago in April, my world was shattered by the effects of pornography. My three-year-old daughter was raped and violated in every manner you can imagine by a 12-year-old boy. When they arrested the young man, we were told they would surely find abuse in his background,
and this is the reason he did this to my daughter. After a thorough evaluation, they came to one conclusion. There was no abuse in his background.
But he was exposed to pornography. What he saw not only gave him ideas of what to do and how to do it, it gave him permission to treat females in a degrading and debasing manner. My family suffered as victims, but the young man who molested my daughter is a victim also.
His mother loves him as much as I love my little girl. His mother is as shattered as I am. Something is seriously wrong in this country when we protect the rights of a handful of men to make billions.
at the expense of women and children. Folks, this is the world that your kids are growing up in. And by the way, your grandkids. Some of your grandparents say,
come on, Rand, we're not going to go there. One church I was preaching this message, three grandmothers stood after the service weeping because their grandsons knew their grandma doesn't know anything about cookies and temp files and history. They would go to grandma's and get their pornography at her house.
I don't care who you are. You say, Rand, I shouldn't have to filter because we know when to stop. Okay, don't filter and have wireless.
Let some idiot pull up outside of your house and download child porn. You think the police are going to go for him? No.
They're going to come through your system. It doesn't take an action to get your testimony ruined today. All it takes is an accusation.
It just literally blows my mind that we would not be willing to filter these things to help our kids. What about his privacy? He said unto me, Son of man, hast thou seen what the ancients of the house of Israel do in the dark?
Every man the chambers of his imagery where they'd make up their gods in the rooms of their imagination. For they say, The Lord seeth us not. The Lord hath forsaken the earth.
Folks, there is no privacy. Delete does not mean delete. And your secret sins may not be as secret as you think they are.
You take a normal CD. There's a hole in the middle. Then there's a ring around that hole.
That's the index. You say, I don't want anybody to see what's on this thing. I don't want them to know where I've been.
So you quick delete. Maybe the temp files or the history. Not good enough. It's almost like taking a book and saying,
I don't want anybody to read chapter 16. So you go to the index and take a black marker and cover out the heading of chapter 16. But when you're done reading chapter 15, chapter 16 is still there.
You say, come on, Rand. Who cares? I'll tell you who cares.
His name is Satan. He does not want to just entrap you. He wants to expose you. Bring shame on you, your family, your church,
the cause of Christ. I was walking across the ball field at camp and a 17 year old girl walked up to me and said, Rand Kenai, and that's normally where they start crying. I said, what's up? And she said, well, not too long ago I went to check my email and if you're the last one on the computer just type a letter or two hit enter and boom,
you're there. She said, when I hit enter, whoa. She said, the filthiness that was on that screen. She said, part of my problem is I can't get those images
out of my mind. she said I knew it couldn't be my dad he's a deacon in our church a Christian school teacher I knew it couldn't be my mom she like doesn't even know how to boot up the computer yet I figured it had to be my friend who was over a couple weeks before maybe my sister who was off to college she said I assumed it had to be my friend so I called her
and I really was upset I said why would you do that in my home on our computer she said her friend said I didn't do that the next weekend came home to visit from college. She confronted her sister. Her sister said the same thing.
I didn't do that. The girl started to weep again. She says, it's got to be my dad and I don't know what to do. I said,
can you talk to him? She said, no, I really can't. I'm scared of him. I said,
do you want me to talk to him for you? She said, would you please? So that night I called him. I said,
this is Rand Hummel from the wild. He said, is my daughter okay? I said, she is fine physically. I gave him the story
gave me how she had worked so hard to prove that it would not, it could not be her daddy. And then I ended the conversation this way. I said, sir, either someone's sneaking in your house watching this trash on your computer, or you have got a problem.
He was quiet for a long time. And then he said this, I have struggled with my thought life for years, and now it's just too easy. Is that your struggle, sir?
There is no privacy. We're not quite done, but I want you to close your eyes, please. And with your eyes closed, I want you just to listen.
I won't even comment on what God says about secret sins. Job 34. There is no darkness nor shadow of death where the workers of iniquity may hide themselves.
Isaiah 29. Woe unto them that seek deep to hide their counsel from the Lord. And their works are in the dark.
And they say, Who seeth us? Who knoweth us? Job 24, The eye also of the adulterer waiteth for the twilight, saying, No eye shall see me.
Ecclesiastes 12, God shall bring every work into judgment with every secret thing, whether it be good or whether it be evil. Mark 4, 22, There is nothing hid that shall not be made known, neither is anything kept secret that it should not come abroad. Psalm 90, verse 8, Thou set our iniquities before Thee, our secret sins in the light of Thy countenance.
Jeremiah 16, mine eyes are upon all their ways. They are not hid from my face, neither is there iniquity hid from mine eyes. Jeremiah 23, can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him, saith the Lord?
Do not I fill heaven and earth? Psalm 94, 7, yet they say the Lord shall not see, neither shall God regard it. Understand, you brutish among the people and you fools.
When will you be wise? He that planned the years shall he not hear. He that formed the eyes shall he not see.
Look this way. There is no privacy. And even if some way you can sneak around and mom and dad and husband and wife, nobody finds out.
The eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good. What's it going to cost us? The price tag.
No one can sin and win. We can choose our sin, but we cannot choose the consequences of our sin. I promise you folks, if you play this game, you will lose.
You will lose purity of mind. You will lose your trust from your husband or your wife, your kids or your parents. You will lose your close relationship with God.
You will lose a close relationship with those who you love. Even the Ann Landers column receives between 75 and 100 letters every week describing the breakup of long-term relationships because of online romance. We live in a world that many think they can find love online.
Problem is, again, you just don't know who you're talking to. U.S. News, World Report, Saturday night you're all alone.
How is cyber dating different? The article said it's a lot different because everybody in cyberspace is tall, thin, blonde, and rich. Another article said, help, I met this woman on the net two months ago.
She thinks I'm a cowboy, a daring Hollywood stuntman. But really, I'm just a quiet, skinny accountant. Now she wants a face-to-face.
Help. Guy from England met the woman of his dreams, this gorgeous 26-year-old girl in America. He finally saved up the money to come to meet her, and he did get to meet her, but she wasn't 26.
She was 65. In prison for murder. Hey, Mom, meet my new girlfriend.
Yeah. I got an email recently from a boy. He said, Dear Rand, I caught my dad a couple months ago chatting with another lady. I followed a couple of history trails
and found that he had been sending her Internet e-cards that were kind of mushy. I approached him about it and he said he had made a mistake and it was over. I trusted him that it was.
Last week I walked by the computer. I saw him typing an email to someone. I am really struggling right now.
My parents are both Christians. They have raised me well. I really love my dad.
And I don't want to lose him to something so stupid. No kid should have to write me an email like that. Jamie was 15.
Good kid. Very quiet. She was not boy crazy.
In fact, very shy. Homeschooled. Helped teach Sunday school in her church.
Because she's such a good kid. The parents very foolishly allowed Internet access in the home with absolutely no filters, no blocks. Jamie met a boy online.
They started communicating back and forth, just talking. And then finally he asked the question, what do you look like? And she said, well, what do you look like?
And then they started to describe each other. And then they started using specific words for specific body parts. And basically from that point on it got filthy and went downhill.
Finally, the boy talked Jamie into meeting him. It was about three in the morning when Dad woke up. He knew something was wrong.
He went to check Jamie's room. She wasn't there. He quick woke up his wife.
They prayed. They went to call the police. That's when Jamie came in.
They started to hear this story. The problem is when she went to meet this boy, he wasn't a boy. He's a grown man married with kids. but because they had talked so filthy that last couple of weeks it was easy for him to talk her into going into bed with him
and she did. The police didn't even come to her house. They just went to her ISP or internet service provider and they started tracking some of the things that she had said because they were so vulgar and so filthy she was put in a mental institution for three months and basically the man got his hand slapped.
That's what we're facing today folks. what can we do what can we do to prevent this culture that we live in and we are in the world but we don't have to be of the world why behold the glory of the God of Israel do we forget sometimes that God is still there is not there is no temptation taking you but such as a common man but God is faithful is that not still in the Bible
we got a powerful God we can trust Him we can depend on Him we can ask for His protection and He will protect us I was walking across the parking lot there at the Wilds and a youth pastor came up to me not yours, okay he said, Rand I got a problem I said, what's that? he said, I've tried three different filters and each one I can figure out how to get around and get back to the junk
what do you suggest? what am I supposed to say? I took a step back and said what are you, an idiot?
Get the stinking thing out of your life. You don't have to have it. And folks, you don't.
You can live without it. If you've already got a problem in your life or your home, then you better get rid of it. We're going to look at four Bible principles.
Now, remember, I preach to teens, okay? And they are Bible principles, but hang on. I'll explain.
We're going to look at the secret agent principle, the surfer dude principle, the sumo wrestler. I'll explain. Hang on.
And then the strange one principle. Secret agents are cool. My favorite was this dude named Maxwell Smart.
He used to take his shoe off, you know, and talk into it as a phone. Secret agents sneak around so like nobody can see them. Let the words of my mouth.
Chat rooms. Emails. I am.
Text. And a meditation of my heart. Thought life.
Be acceptable on thy sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer. Don't try to be a secret agent. Sneaking around to see what you can see.
How do you do that? Accountability. Set up a plan in your heart, in your life, in your home.
I will never go online alone. Make sure your husband's there. Make sure your wife is there.
Parents are there. Kids are there. Invite the entire senior citizen from your church over.
I don't care what you do. But don't go online alone. Visibility.
Never surf in secret. Men, come on. You got your little office in your little room.
You got your little computer. You keep your door locked. Nobody's allowed to touch that.
You got your password. You're out of your mind. And even if nothing's going on, you're good to be able to be spoken of.
Your wife should be able to walk into your computer any day, any time, and check anything on it. Vulnerability. Do you remember when your kids were real little?
You used to tell them, never talk to strangers. Well, don't do it online. You see, but Rand, I'm not dumb.
We don't have to be dumb today. There's a girl in Ohio. She met a guy online, but she's smart.
No names, no addresses, nothing. Well, she did say she loves softball, was number seven. They were playing the rival team on Friday night and mentioned the name of the rival team.
All he had to do was do a Google search. Found out where the team was, went to that state, went to the game. During one of the breaks, walked over to number seven, called her over, introduced himself.
She said, how in the world did you find me? He says, no big deal. Tell you what, after the game we'll go to McDonald's.
I'll buy you a Coke. I'll take you home. And he took her and he raped her.
That's what they do. In one summer at the Wilds, I sat in my office with five kids, three of them pastors' daughters. The other two were not.
All five separately had met somebody that they met online snuck away from home. Two of them got raped. The other three chose to throw their virginity away.
Folks, this is what's happening. And we better beware. The surfer dude principle.
Surfer dudes, like, duh, like, you know, they're not really, like, you know, into thinking much. You know, duh, you know. And a prudent man perceives the evil and hides himself. if I go through that door and I know if I go through that door I'm going to get in trouble I'm going to stay away from that door I'm going to be prudent about it I'm going to be wise I'm going to stay away from the problems
but the simple pass on and are punished they just go online and start surfing don't surf you're like two or three clicks away from major sin by the way you know what the Greek word for simple is? Moros. What word do you know sounds like moros?
We're idiots. We're morons. If we think we can mess around with the dark side of the Internet and escape the consequences of sin, refuse to surf, it will keep you out of deep water.
I have the privilege to preach in Hawaii about every three or four years, Christian school there. I've got a friend named Billy Hopper, and he's a big-time surfer dude. Last time I was there, he said, hey, man, we're going surfing.
I said, what's up? He said, well, we've got these waves that are right now 15 feet high. I said, what happens if you fall off a way that's 15 feet high?
I said, it was like falling off a wall that's 15 feet high. But you won't fall. But we've got to go early in the week.
Because they say the undertow is going to kind of change towards the end of the week. And maybe the sharks are coming through. Wait, stop!
I still wear swimmies when I get in the bathtub. I'm not going surfing, okay? Refuse to surf.
It'll keep you out of deep water. Know where you're going and what you want. Get in, get it, and get out.
Got it? Good. Men, if you would go online like you shop. not like your wife shops like you shop when women shop oh man it's like they're on a mission you know they get this outfit you know they need a blouse to match everything so they go to a fancy clothing store like walmart or something like that and the first blouse they pick up it's the right
size it's the right color it's on sale it only costs a nickel but they look at every other one in the store before they buy that one yeah i've been shopping with my wife we go into a store she said i'm just gonna try a couple things on so i go over where the trying rooms are there's all these over stuffed chairs. Men sitting there said, how you doing, man? They said, fine.
We called in a pizza. You want to chip in? Said, no thanks.
I'm not going to be here that long. And like, they laugh at me. Yeah?
One of them had a little kid. I said, hey, how old's your son? He says, I don't know.
He was two when we came here. You know, that's kind of the way it is. But men, when they shop, they get in, they get in, and they get out. If you would do that when you go online, don't surf with your TV,
with your internet. Because the waves you catch might just destroy you. The sumo wrestler principle.
Let me explain, okay? Sumo wrestlers are cool. All six, seven hundred pounds of them. When they take that one foot down, everything jiggles,
even their chins. They have more chins than the Chinese phone book, you know? And these guys, they come out there, you know, and first of all, I would not like to look like one, although I'd love to eat like one. I'd get embarrassed wearing diapers in public,
so I'm not going there, okay? But what they do is they come and they get in this big circle, you know? And if one of the guys comes over and grabs the arm, and it throws him all the way out of the circle.
That guy loses. Guess what, folks? I am not going to live my life right here on the edge of the circle where one little hit and I'm gone.
You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to stay as far away from the edge as I possibly can. Don't teach your kids just to stay away from sin.
Teach them to stay away from temptation. Lord, lead us not to temptation. make it hard to sin, easy to do right.
Say it with me. Hard to sin, easy to do right. Say it again.
Hard to sin, easy to do right. For instance, I love McDonald's french fries. No, I love McDonald's french fries. But if I ate McDonald's french fries every single day of my life,
I would look like a supersized happy meal. And I don't want that, okay? So I'm going to stay away.
By the way, this principle works great with music, dress. Man, you can't prove to me that this music I'm listening to is ungodly. I can't always prove from Scripture, but it looks and sounds so much like the world, man.
I want to stay away. But you can't prove to me that this outfit I have on is ungodly. I can't always prove it.
But it looks so much like the world, man. I want to stay away. Understanding if you can keep your kids from temptation.
And mom, a big part of that is your job. Your home should be one haven that your kids and your husband can go to, knowing that he does not have to face temptation there. We live in a wicked world.
At least I can go home where mom will have the password for the computer or TV. There's no magazines laying around and mom is controlling this stuff. Make it hard to sin.
Easy to do what is right. Put you on the Lord Jesus Christ. Make not provision for the flesh to fulfill the lust thereof.
Don't make it easy to fall. Here's how you do it. Number one, protect with passwords.
Mom should have the password. Or mom and dad should split the password, especially for you young couples. Split the password so neither one of you can get online alone.
You get your computer. You sit down. He walks in, sits down, looks around the kitchen, types in Apple.
He leaves. She walks in. She doesn't know he typed Apple.
She doesn't know what they're having for supper that night, so she types in fritters. Two weeks later, he comes home from work. There's an outing door, honey, I went shopping with some friends.
I'll be home about 8.30. He's home. He's alone.
He's tempted. He's thinking, hmm. I can figure out what she was thinking.
Apple sauce. Apple jacks. Apple's peaches, pumpkin pie.
Who's not ready? Holler, I. No fritters, no internet.
No fritters, no sin. Protect yourself with the filters. I recommend the top two there, safeeyes.com and besafe.com. On the table out in the vestibule,
you'll see a sheet that your church put together. This is called a reminder. Folks, if you have Internet access and you won't filter it, then I have to assume that you don't love your kids.
I don't know why else you wouldn't. Oh, but Rand, it slows me down. Then be slowed down.
But it costs 50 bucks a year. Whoa, $50? Like, that's a lot of money compared to protecting your kids, your wife, your husband from sin? I don't understand why any parents or grandparents
would have internet access and not filter it. You say, Rand, but I've never heard of any filter that takes care of 100%. Neither have I.
85%, 92%. But the difference is you're not going to trip and fall into this stuff. Now it's almost like you've got to climb over the fence and bust the door down to get to it. there's other good programs but this safe eyes and be safe they have some great additions like they get this accountability thing where when you sign up you can put in like if your pastor had this and I'm sure he has a different kind here
but if he had safe eyes you can pick three individuals like his wife and his secretary I think they're the same person aren't they? well anyway maybe one of the deacons and every week those three individuals get an email just listing the address of every site he visited or attempted to visit. You can set up time for your kids where it locks in that it closes down after two hours per week.
Now they have some of these that you can be real-time help to your friends. In other words, if you had a friend and you were part of his accountability package, you're typing away your computer and all of a sudden you get this alert, your friend is online right now going to a wrong site. You pull out your cell phone and say, dude, what are you doing?
Make it hard to sin. Easy to do what is right. Protect with the delete button.
Even if you say, all we do is email. We even email alone with all the spam and all the trash that's out there. And by the way, when you delete, don't just delete, double delete.
So it can't even be found back in the other delete file. Now, the last principle is called the strange woman principle. Proverbs 5, it says, Remove thy way far from her.
Come not near the icon of her website. That's what it says in the Hebrew there, okay? Lest you give your honor unto others and yours to the cruel, lest strangers be filled with thy wealth. Men, if you sit down at a computer, whether it's at home or at work, and like you pull out a piece of plastic and type in four numbers, four numbers,
Four numbers, expiration date. Like you buy this stuff, you've got a serious heart problem. And you better get with one of your pastors right away and get some help.
It says, you give your honor to others and years to the cruel. For 25 years you can live for God. 25 years raising your kids, sending them off to Christian college.
25 years faithful at church. 25 years great testimony at your workplace. 25 years doing right.
One night of sin. And you get caught. What do people remember about you?
25 years of doing right or the one night of sin? You better concentrate on your relationship with your family. And you think about it, Dad, what it would be like to call your daughter in college and tell her what's going on.
You concentrate on your relationship with your spouse if you're not married to your future spouse. And what it would be like to go home and just check a couple scores and be tempted for five, seven minutes. And all of a sudden you hear something.
You look and there's your wife standing in the doorway with the tears rolling down her cheeks. You concentrate on your relationship with the Lord. Ezekiel, do you see what my people are doing?
to choosing to be involved in that which I hate. They've driven me out of the sanctuary. They don't want to worship me anymore. They've turned their back on me
and only worshiping that which satisfies their flesh. Please, I beg you, for the sake of your kids and your grandkids, don't get caught in the dark side of the Internet.
Find an issue in this transcript? Let us know at website@theegeneration.org.
Rand Hummel (@RandHummel) is an author, preacher, and camp administrator. He worked for many years as Assistant Director of The Wilds Christian Camp in North Carolina and in 2007, he was named Director of The Wilds of New England in New Hampshire.
