Christians Need to Exercise the Discernment of Proverbs 14:15 While Surfing the Net

Proverbs 14:15 says "The simple believeth every word: but the prudent man looketh well to his going."

There's the false statement that says, "It's on the Internet so it must be true."  In the past, you can also have, "There's a book about it so it must be true."

While I do appreciate the Internet which can allow the Gospel to be preached or to keep in touch with fellow Christians on social media but Satan has always found a way to infiltrate knowledge.  If he can do it with print media in the past, he can use any medium of communication that should have been for God's glory alone for his cause.  We live in the fallen world.  Nothing is left untouched by sin. While God gave man the gift of science and knowledge, Satan finds a way to pervert those gifts especially if it's in the hands of sinful man.

I remembered how a pastor I listened to once said that the Internet itself is not evil but the misuse of it is what is evil.  Sad to say but as knowledge increases then so do sinful activities.  While today's smartphones and tablets could be used to store Christian applications such as the Tecarta Bible or use to entertain yourself with Christian sermons via applications but it can also be used to harass people, view pornography, send malicious images or harass people online.

Many people tend to have the wrong thinking that because it's on the Internet, then it's true never mind that lies have been spread on media even before its dawn.  If lies were not spread before the Internet, I wouldn't see the need of Martin Luther to get his pen and write against the lies of Johann Tetzel or the Roman Catholic institution's doctrines.  There wouldn't be the need for Gospel writers to preserve copies of the Scriptures in several pieces and distribute them.  Lies and truths are spread on every form of communication and the Internet being made by man is no exemption.

The same can also happen with websites that may go ahead and claim to be Christian discernment ministries.  Just because a website's name sounds Christian does not mean it is of God.  Many times, just any Christian can make the mistake of trusting a website without fully investigating it.  A lot of so-called Christian websites are focused on conspiracy theories, sensationalist headlines and other dirty tactics just to get attention rather than to spread the truth.