Surrounded by sin

Sometimes I have a hard time figuring out if the internet is a good thing or a bad thing. I remember back when the media meant television news, newspapers, and magazines. I remember when things like school shootings happened and people would say that if the media wouldn’t sensationalize it there’d be less people trying to harm others for the attention it brings them. Let’s face it…such an act forever immortalizes the offenders name.

But today it’s not just the news media that sensationalize everything. Now it’s them plus social media. The people that used sit in coffee shops, living rooms, and businesses discussing things they’d heard in the news now plaster it all over the internet. By the time something hits the news so many people have commented on it and posted it that it’s nearly impossible to miss.

That’s a good thing when pictures of missing children and the like are being shown. It’s okay when it’s being used to share stories and further truths. It’s bad when it’s being used to support and encourage sin. Even the reports that start out as informative seem to quickly dissolve into a free-for-all where everyone has a comment on what happened.

People today seem to think they have the right to tear people’s lives apart simply because they have an opinion on what happened. When a person has to stand face to face with someone to discuss something the conversation at least stays in the realm of understanding that you are talking to another person. When it goes online it becomes a screen that you’re speaking to. It’s easy to forget that there’s another person on the other side of that screen.

Like everything in life the internet can be used for good and bad. We live in the information age. Information is available to us like it’s never been available at any other time in history. This is great when we need information on health issues, weather forecasts, and accessing Christian articles that might otherwise have been available to only a few. But it’s bad when it’s used to further sin.

Idolatry comes in many forms. The internet is but one of them. Used as a tool it can be very effective and helpful. Used to hurt others it can be a way to break one of the top commandments. Used to further sin…it’s just more sin in a fallen world.

And we are living in a fallen world. If a person pays any attention to any form of media today it’s impossible to avoid all the sin. Sin before us, sin surrounding us. It’s so prevalent that it seems if we wake up in the morning it’s delivered to us.

I’ve seen t-shirts that say something to the effect of …I want to be the kind of person that when my feet hit the floor in the morning the devil says oh no she’s up. Maybe we need a t-shirt that says….Sin wants to be so prevalent that when their eyes open in the morning there’s no way they can avoid it.

Every year from about August until sometime in the first couple of weeks in November Halloween rolls around. Without fail, every year, seemingly earlier and earlier out pop all the evil decorations. Going to the grocery store becomes a challenge. There’s no way to drive through town, to walk through a store, without seeing some sort of climbed-from-the-grave horror guaranteed to offend sensitive souls. It’s sin run rampant.

And it’s celebrated.

It’s honored.

It’s revered.

It’s seen as nothing wrong with this, it’s just innocent fun. Well, there is something wrong with it. It’s not just innocent fun. It’s promoting that which the Lord hates. It’s looking upon sin without seeing it as such.

That’s one holiday. One brief time during the year. Bad as it is…it does have an end. Not so the sin we encounter daily. What of all the sin being promoted through the media, being forced on us whether we want it or not? What of the sin that overflows from Hollywood and into our children? What of the sin that is seen in our own homes if we own a television or computer? What of the sin that arrives on our phones through text messages from people we don’t even know?

It’s paraded before us as something to be encouraged and celebrated. It’s there…wherever there happens to be.

My husband and I were looking at a Christian news site and even there sin was so rampant that I told my husband looking at the news is just depressing. What good is there in news articles? I’m not asking what the good of knowing the news is. I’m asking where the good articles are. Where are the stories that promote the things Christ stands for? Where are the articles that applaud someone for standing up for what is right?

It’s not in the news. At least it isn’t in the main stream news. My grandmother has said many times that she wouldn’t want to have to raise children in today’s world. For someone that can remember what life was like in the depression our modern world has to look pretty bad. My grandmother raised children in a time when children were taken from their homes if their parents lived together without being legally married. She grew up in a time where right was pretty much right and wrong was wrong. Sin existed. It has existed from the fall of Adam. But there were times past when it was reigned in more than it is today, when it wasn’t so exalted.

We are now in the time when Halloween is paraded before us whether we like it or not. We are forced to look at monsters, so-called zombies, ghosts, ghouls, skeletons, and whatever other manner of evil the fallen world can think up. If we dare to open our door to a knock on Halloween night we may well find ourselves face to face with a demon or Satan himself.

And that’s all done in what’s supposed to be fun.

I fail to see the fun in sin whether it’s in the form of lying and stealing, disregarding the things the Lord says are sacred, or celebrating a holiday. Sin is sin no matter how it’s portrayed.