Nobody knows my secret life, so who am I hurting

Jeremiah 17: 9The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick;

who can understand it?10“I the LORD search the heart and test the mind,

to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds.”

Today’s technology has made things much more accessible, our lives are suppose to be simpler, more productive and made the world smaller. Years ago, if you wanted to talk to someone across Canada (my own country) you had to wait till Tuesday night for Toonie Tuesday (unlimited long distance for $2 per call. We’re going back to the late 80’s on this one. Otherwise calls were something like $.50 per minute. And that was from a home phone.

Now aeroplanes and jets have made travel around the world much easier and faster. Centuries ago, it was a 3 – 4 week trip to cross the Atlantic Ocean, if you made it across at all. Now, my wife and I have gone to Mexico and Cuba (from Moncton, New Brunswick) and it was a 5 hr trip to Mexico, and a 4 hr trip to Cuba.

Cars travel at high speeds so you can get to other destinations much faster. Call someone now, use Skype or Facebook to talk to people around the world for cheap. No long distance charges since it’s included in your internet package.

There’s also something else that has been made much more accessible. Sin. Years ago, if a man wanted to cheat on his wife, he had to go to a bar, club or whatever and physically meet a woman, talk to her, get her number and try to hide it from his wife. All while explaining where he went the night before if that was hidden as well.
If someone wanted to see pornography, they had to get in their car, go to the room of shame (my friends and I called it that, mostly because we were jealous we were too young to get in) and physically take the video to the counter (either in shame or proudly). Take the tape home and watch it. Then there was the fear of someone home finding it before you brought it back.

For child porn, it was the same thing. If an adult had the mindset towards children, you pretty much had to know someone in that industry/circle since you definitely couldn’t go public with that. And you had to have your own photo developing room since you couldn’t take that film to the nearest photo lab. They would have reported you with the first picture.

Now with the internet, we can all be someone different at the keyboard. We can search how to make bombs to kill people, shop for guns to kill. Search all the free porn till our sinful hearts are content. Download all the movies we want illegally. Bully people on Facebook, twitter, and others. We can meet other groups in child pornography all around the world and by the time we get caught, we have already damaged countless children.

And here’s the scary part, we can do all this in the privacy of our own home and no one has to know about it. We simply go to the delete history feature in almost every browser and remove any evidence we were ever looking at. If someone wants to cheat on their spouse now, there are thousands of dating sites on the internet where you can search for someone that visually appeals to you. You can get a prepaid cell phone under a fake name so that you can keep in contact with your lovers and your spouse doesn’t know the difference.

The internet, cell phones, TV’s, cars, everything has made getting access to sin so much easier with much anonymity. If we’re even a bit careful, we can do so many things now without anyone ever finding out.

The problem with the above is that we are deceiving ourselves more than ever in the past. People were much more moral in private since they didn’t have all these venues. Their heart has always been sinful, but at least it was much more difficult to act out on their fantasies. Imagine writing a love letter to a mistress, and keeping the corresponding one back from your spouse if she checks the mail box first. With email, there are hundreds of email addresses out there, just create one only you know about, and a password and you’re set.

Now the depravity of man’s heart is being exposed more and more since he can stay hidden from the public eye.
The problem is, it’s not just the sinner that knows his activities. God also knows the sinner’s activities. God searches the heart and soul of every man, so nothing is hidden from Him.

Dear friend, if you are one that is struggling with anything listed above, or anything else for that matter and no one else knows about it. You’ve kept it secret from your family and friends, but you know you’re guilty