What Are the Spiritual Dangers of Technology?
00:00:00.000 | It's pretty hard to overstate how the computer altered all of our lives.
00:00:08.720 | And as I listen through old sermons, I'm struck by how quickly John Piper knew that
00:00:12.560 | they would, knew that the microprocessor would change all of our lives, bringing computers
00:00:17.000 | into our homes and then eventually bringing smartphones into our pockets.
00:00:21.000 | He saw the implications of this computer revolution decades ago, way back when he was shopping
00:00:25.980 | for his first computer in the early years of his pastorate.
00:00:29.080 | He explains some of those implications in a sermon from the spring of 1984.
00:00:34.600 | Our new digital powers would be bewitching, he says.
00:00:37.920 | Our gadgets would take hold of our affections.
00:00:41.020 | Computers would bring tremendous blessings to our lives, but they could also corrupt
00:00:44.980 | our hopes and our affections.
00:00:47.960 | Here's Pastor John explaining how from 36 years ago.
00:00:52.500 | Last Thursday, the day I usually take off, Noelle and I took about three hours out of
00:00:59.480 | our day off to go visit computer shops downtown Minneapolis.
00:01:04.480 | Thought I would poke around to see if there might be some kind of word processing equipment
00:01:08.720 | I could someday afford, and it was an amazing experience.
00:01:13.660 | My first foray into the big world of computer life.
00:01:18.540 | Went to the library first and read the latest Consumer Reports on word processing, and then
00:01:23.920 | we visited four stores and came home with a big sack of colorful brochures.
00:01:31.240 | Computers are like sex, I discovered.
00:01:36.840 | There's something in us that they can hook into and hold onto.
00:01:43.740 | Computers are like a romance or an epic or an adventure which has come true right before
00:01:50.060 | our very eyes.
00:01:52.100 | They combine mystery and power and precision and beauty.
00:01:57.620 | They're exciting, they're new, they've got open-ended possibilities.
00:02:02.340 | Our culture is going to be irreversibly transformed by the microcomputer revolution.
00:02:08.500 | Every one of you will have one in your home by 1994 because prices are going to fall,
00:02:14.260 | the uses are going to expand, it'll be as common as the telephone, I don't doubt.
00:02:19.460 | But for now, they are strange and wonderful things.
00:02:24.660 | And one of the effects that they can have on Christians is to make Christians begin
00:02:30.120 | to feel that spiritual things aren't very real or exciting.
00:02:37.540 | They can't compare to these wonders.
00:02:41.260 | You can touch a computer, you can see a computer, it'll talk back to you, it'll solve your
00:02:49.820 | problems instantaneously.
00:02:51.860 | It is a powerful fascination.
00:02:56.020 | But the Bible speaks largely of unseen things.
00:03:01.860 | They don't force themselves onto your senses.
00:03:05.660 | They talk about things often way off in the past or way off in the future sometimes.
00:03:11.900 | You've all experienced it, haven't you, with a new gadget or toy or appliance.
00:03:16.900 | Either you bring it home or you come home with a bundle of literature all about it,
00:03:21.540 | literature half-read about word processing.
00:03:26.380 | How easy is it to take it and lay it aside and with all your heart open the Bible and
00:03:33.780 | listen to the voice of God?
00:03:36.540 | Let me ask another question to put beside that one.
00:03:39.460 | If you were laid low with kidney failure this week and a congested heart and were told by
00:03:48.940 | the doctor three days at the most, unless we use extraordinary measures and we don't
00:03:55.740 | think that would be wise, which would you prefer?
00:03:59.900 | Would you ask your family to sit by your bed and read the latest program developments of
00:04:07.940 | IBM or the Bible?
00:04:11.300 | What's happened?
00:04:12.300 | What happens in those minutes after the doctor walks out of the room and leaves you with
00:04:17.500 | the imminency of your death?
00:04:20.340 | What happens to that gripping fascination of RAM, ROM, CPU, CPM, PC DOS, multicolor
00:04:29.340 | monitors and perfect writer and profit plan?
00:04:33.500 | What happens?
00:04:34.820 | What happens is that here at the end of your journey through the valley of life, the haze
00:04:41.680 | of the computer craze just gets blown away.
00:04:46.740 | And all of a sudden you see, perhaps for the first time in your life, the lucid reality
00:04:52.180 | of the mountains of eternity just ahead.
00:04:57.460 | You look back on that fog falling away into the valley and you wonder how you could have
00:05:02.860 | been so entranced, so captivated, so swallowed up in the mechanical functions of a man-made
00:05:10.660 | machine.
00:05:12.420 | You look ahead and you see the spectacular peaks and the awful ravines and the unapproachable
00:05:18.180 | crags of those mountains and you wonder how that could have played such an insignificant
00:05:24.780 | role in your life.
00:05:28.620 | But not only the mountains ahead, in this short distance that you have to traverse between
00:05:36.060 | your hospital bed now and those mountains, you look off to the side.
00:05:40.820 | And on this side you see thick green grass and trees with luscious fruit and crystal
00:05:49.060 | streams and darting fish and a huge white dove hovering midair over it all.
00:05:58.780 | Then you look to this side and you see a wasteland of half-eaten corpses and cracked riverbeds
00:06:06.900 | and dry ashes and lurking in the midst of it a huge, gaunt, hungry lion with his shoulder
00:06:16.620 | blades sticking up through his mangy fur and his big eyes looking you right in the face.
00:06:23.220 | And all of a sudden in one immeasurable moment you discover what life has been really all
00:06:29.500 | about in the midst of all the hazes of computers and trinkets and toys and cars and houses
00:06:36.700 | and business.
00:06:38.380 | The real issue of life becomes real clear, namely a battle for your soul between the
00:06:47.100 | dove who gives life and the lion who destroys.
00:06:52.220 | So this morning I've come to proclaim to you that whatever has entranced you, whatever
00:06:57.860 | has captivated you, whatever enthralls you, if it dulls your sensitivity to the mountains
00:07:05.340 | of eternity, if it somehow encloses you with a haze so that you don't feel what is really
00:07:12.340 | at stake every day in your life between the lion and the dove, it's an illusion from
00:07:20.100 | hell.
00:07:22.100 | I want us to see Christ in combat today so that our lives can be cleared away of whatever
00:07:31.940 | haze is blinding us to the combat that we face.
00:07:37.740 | People sometimes ask, "If Satan is real, why do we see more demon possession and exorcisms
00:07:43.580 | in America?
00:07:44.580 | How come we just hear about that from Indonesia?"
00:07:47.540 | I've got an idea.
00:07:49.460 | Satan holds American Christianity so tightly in the vice grip of comfort and wealth that
00:07:56.180 | he's not about to tip his tan with too much demonic tomfoolery.
00:08:01.140 | What Satan fears most, Bethlehem, is an outpouring of the Holy Spirit that causes you and me
00:08:07.220 | to say with Paul, "I count everything as refuse in order that I might know the power
00:08:16.580 | of his resurrection and the fellowship of his agonies becoming conformed to him in his
00:08:27.180 | death."
00:08:29.780 | Paul's statement is relevant for the smartphone age and for all the bewitching technologies
00:08:34.420 | of our age today.
00:08:36.300 | This sermon was preached 36 years ago on March 18, 1984 in a sermon titled "Christ in
00:08:41.660 | Combat – Defense by the Spirit."
00:08:44.160 | You can find it and listen to the entire sermon at DesiringGod.org.
00:08:47.620 | Thanks for listening.
00:08:49.580 | If you haven't done so, get our new episodes as we release them by subscribing to Ask Pastor
00:08:53.320 | John in your favorite podcast app in Spotify or by subscribing to DG's YouTube channel.
00:08:59.020 | To find all 1,500 of our past episodes or to submit a question of your own, go online
00:09:03.260 | to DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn.
00:09:04.260 | Well, I'm recording this in the midst of a pandemic shutdown of our cities and our
00:09:11.500 | states.
00:09:12.500 | I haven't gathered with my own church in weeks.
00:09:14.980 | But the next question on the docket is one about church dress codes, and I trust that
00:09:19.300 | we'll eventually gather together and be reunited again and dress codes will be an
00:09:23.940 | issue.
00:09:25.200 | To prep for that reunion, we have a question up on how we should best dress for church,
00:09:29.980 | and it's a good one.
00:09:30.980 | It's a good episode.
00:09:31.980 | It's up next time.
00:09:32.980 | I'm Tony Reinke.
00:09:33.980 | We'll see you on Friday.
00:09:34.140 | Friday.
00:09:34.640 | [BLANK_AUDIO]
00:09:41.440 | [ causal link in description ]