“But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak , they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment.” Matthew 12:36
Have
you noticed that “most” of the email forwards turn out to not be true?
Is “most” too strong a word? I have become concerned over the last few
years that many of the friends that I call “brother” will lose their
salvation over the lies they carelessly forward on the internet.
Otherwise
godly, conscientious people seem to feel no responsibility in passing
on very damaging things about “this or that.” For example how many
Christians who don’t like our president will pass on every smear that
comes their way… “hoping” it is true?
Consider this… A liar makes you into a liar when you blindly hit the forward button.
Then
someone considers you trustworthy and thinks that you wouldn’t lie… So
they hit their forward button and you have made them a liar. This time
it is because they trusted you! Then someone trusts them and so on.
Have you seen the email that swears President Obama abolished the day of prayer and instituted a Muslim service instead? Let’s use this email as an example since it is so commonly forwarded...
Most of the things in that email (now a series of emails) are either twisted or an outright lie.
Here are three fact checking links of the type you should utilize before having anything to do with an email like this one:
Fact Check
Politifact
Snopes
Did
you know that President Obama actually went to federal court to protect
his right as president to declare a day of prayer? He actually did the
opposite of what the email says… so why do Christians forward such
things?
He chose to observe it privately rather than have a public service, like the one President Bush had.
Here
is part of his actual proclamation… “I call upon Americans to pray in
thanksgiving for our freedoms and blessings and to ask for God’s
continued guidance, grace, and protection for this land that we love”
Obama, May 7, 2009:
This
photo supposedly shows Him participating in an Islamic prayer event
hosted by the White House. Actually the photo is from a state visit to
Turkey… They went to the Blue mosque in Istanbul where all visitors
must remove their shoes. Often times the photos are real but the
captions are outright lies. This is the purest/vilest form of gossip
known to man.
The
Muslim event in 2009 was independent of the White House’s effort and
occurred on public grounds west of the capital. That public ground is
under the control of the congress… not the White House.
Now
I do not want to be misunderstood… I have watched YouTube videos of
what went on there. It was bad. But it wasn’t President Obama! He
didn’t do it!
How does a Christian justify passing on such a lie?
Well…
the normal answer I received is, “I trusted the man who sent it to
me.” So if you go back to that man… “I trusted the man who sent it to
me!” and so on it goes. Meanwhile Christians are passing lies around
that rival some of the devil’s best handiwork!
For the record…
President Obama has done enough that is offensive to Christianity…
No one needs to make things up!
The truth has been bad enough! Oppose him with the truth!
Note the Holy Spirit’s warning…
“With all the deception of wickedness for those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved. For this reason God will send upon them a deluding influence so that they will believe what is false, in order that they all may be judged who did not believe the truth, but took pleasure in wickedness.” II Thessalonians 2:10-12
A
Christian must love the truth… Gossip and internet smears must not be a
part of the Christian’s way of life. When we pass on anything… we must
be sure of its validity. Once we have said it (or forwarded it)… we
have taken on responsibility of it.
We must ask… Is it true???
Jesus said… “You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.” John 8:32 Today the “Christian” element of our country is becoming known for passing on lies!
Note this process has taken various directions since the beginning of time.
Do
you recall the Holy Spirit’s explanation for “how” people bought into
the idolatry and the various vices that destroyed the ancient world?
Well they…. “changed the truth of God into a lie…” (Romans 1:25)
I would imagine there will be a lot of finger pointing and blaming the
other guy at the judgment for the various lies circulating on the
internet through the forward buttons controlled by well-meaning
Christians. Adam and Eve already tried shifting the blame… it didn’t
work!
Note the ancient mandate among God’s people is consistent with the New Testament one:
“He who goes about as a slanderer reveals secrets, therefore do not associate with a gossip.” Proverbs 20:19
How can blindly passing on twisted emails without either checking them or correcting them NOT be engaging in blatant gossip?
Where
can you check facts? There are several options… Snopes.com Another
good one is Factcheck.org . There are others… choose a couple.
Have you seen the emails stating that Snopes is owned by various democratic backers and is liberal? Actually one of its owners (Barbara Mikkelson) is a Canadian citizen
and cannot vote. The other (David Mikkelson) registered as a Republican
in 2000 but changed that status to independent in 2009… Snopes has
always been supported by advertising … totally. Here’s a link to factchecker debunking the rumors about the debunkers…Or you can read Snopes’ own rebuttal about the lies told about them.
If
you open your Bibles and compare I Corinthians to II Corinthians you’ll
quickly see that some of the Corinthians didn’t appreciate what Paul
said to straighten them out in I Corinthians. Their reaction was to
start an undercurrent to discredit him in a very similar fashion!
Yes sometimes they also get it wrong. But shouldn’t you at least do something rather than pass on a lie? What if someone trusts you?
Humor
is Humor… Many of the spoofs going around on the internet are genuinely
funny, but a Christian spreading lies is not funny! There is a
difference.
“But now ye also put off all these; anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth. Lie not one to another , seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds.” Colossians 3:8-9
Hi I am glad you stopped by our blog. These articles are from an emailing that we did several years ago. Today most of our work is on facebook
You can follow my personal page on Facebook by clicking on this link ...
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If you wish to worship with us....
Las Vegas church of Christ
709 Dora Celeste
Las Vegas, NM 87701
Our meeting times are
10am Sunday morning for Bible study.
11am Sunday morning for the worship service.
6pm Wednesday evening for Midweek Bible study.
If you wish to contact me...
yakipreacher@gmail.com
Be well
Jerry Blount
