Well, you know, last time we talked, I talked about the Babel effect and how It's just such a huge deal that that has been undone. The curse of Babel has been undone for the first time in the history of mankind. And in large part, It's because of the availability of super computer services through this device right here. And it got me thinking about Other gigantic things that have happened because of that. Connection to supercomputers in the world, that tether that we have in our phones.
And several other Issues about what we can do with that phone came to mind. And I want to talk about another one today. And I'll tell you why, but I thought the best introduction. would be to come and take a look at a particular building. That reminds me of a similar large change.
And that building is Right here. And this is that building. This is a Carnegie Library. Carnegie Libraries are special because they were built from the wealth of Andrew Carnegie, who was a Scots-Irishman. who made tons of money in the 19th century in steel.
especially in eastern Pennsylvania. At the end of his life, when he sold his steel company, he made so much money he decided he needed to give it away.
So he gave away 90% of all of his wealth. And one of the things he did with that wealth was. built these libraries. Up until that time, the only cities that had libraries were cities that had lots of money. Carnegie figured that the best way to bring people out of poverty and bring them into wealth was through education.
And so he decided to build these all over the country, nearly every community. that had petitioned to have one of these built. Was had a library built. And so here, this one here in Brigham City was built in 1914. The first one in Utah was actually built.
in Ogden in 1901. But the idea was that with his wealth, he decided that what he needed to do was make knowledge available. to the most common man. And so today what we're talking about When we talk about these devices we carry around so routinely. We're going to talk about an infinite access.
to knowledge. Of course, today the idea of coming to a building like this to find your knowledge just seems so antique, it's laughable. I mean now with the devices that we have in our pockets. If we have any questions about anything at all, everything from Can I get pizza at this time of the night to What year was the end of the Civil War? which by the way was 1865, I can find that out in a split second.
And I don't have to go to this building right here and look it up in an encyclopedia or some other referenced by. I mean, it's really pretty remarkable.
So in this age of these phones, we have almost limitless access to knowledge. Yeah.
Now the difference between what happened in this building right over here at that time So what we do today is really how you get at that knowledge, not where the knowledge is, but how do you get at it? The inventors of Google got rich because two graduate students working on their PhDs. In the late nineties, came up with an algorithm that worked extraordinarily well. to index and find vast amounts of information. It was that indexing that made it so popular.
In the libraries at the time, and if you're like me, uh You're a boomer, or maybe even a Gen Xer, you might have remembered going into these libraries to do research, and you had to find a card catalog, and that card catalog. Had all these cards that had the names of the books, and the authors of the books, and the subjects of the books. And these things you had to flip through.
Well, sometimes you would, as you use those, you'd come across a card in the card catalog that was a little darker because it had been. Touched so much, it had so much thumb still on it, and you knew that there was something special about that particular card. A lot of people had referenced it.
So you chase that down primary above all the other cards.
Well, that's what the Google algorithm kind of did as well. Instead of just indexing what was in the world of information, they looked at how many people had thumbed. that particular website. And would put that at the top of their list. And then, if you followed that top list item, which had the most references on other websites, it was very likely that was the most popular and the best place to find the information you wanted.
It was brilliant. and they made a lot of money off of that. They formed the company in 1998. And just on the basis of being able to have access, indexed smart access. to tons of knowledge.
It became rich.
So now we have that in our pockets.
Now, I'm not going to make a case for the fact that we should get rid of our phones in our pockets. I'm not going to say that at all because I use the knowledge access that we have through our phones all the time. For very good reasons, for good stuff. Like how to fix my car or how to do rudimentary skills, they're all documented. on videos so you can learn them at a drop of a hat.
So, I'm not going to say it's bad to use those things, but there is an effect that's happening that's so profoundly large, so So sh earth-shaking, I'll say. That it's just like the Babel effect being reversed, and it's close, and it's your fingertips. Knowledge is not a bad thing, and access to knowledge in this particular age has been so radically transformed. It made me wonder about how it's transforming us. Gotta move along so I don't get hit by this car.
So here's what I'm thinking about, and this is what I cover in this particular episode. is how is this gigantic influence Affecting us in terms of the access of knowledge and having it so accessible, having it so easy to do. You know, if you're born much later than me, you don't even know a world without that. What? But it has had profound effects on us.
And I think it's time for us to sit down and think through what exactly those effects have been on us. What is this infinite Access. to information and knowledge, what has it done to us? What is it? done in terms of our habits?
What has it done in terms of How we do what we do on an everyday basis. Is it bad? I'm finding my keys to get in the front door here. And does it have an effect that's actually invisible on us? That's what I want to find out.
and I want to see whether or not it has an impact. that we need to be aware of. And I want to see if it actually is telling you something. That maybe maybe even more dangerous to us. Let's consider that right now.
Okay, now what I want to do is switch gears a little bit. It's an amazing thing what this technology has done for us in terms of giving us access to knowledge. But the issue that I want to raise here isn't so much the newness of the technology and the amazing abilities we have now. But what I want to do is focus more on the knowledge itself, focus on the quality. of the knowledge.
We we all know already that not all knowledge is worth consuming.
Sometimes it can be a remarkable waste of time. But how do we biblically How do we biblically approach? knowledge And where is the access to the knowledge we get? through this device this phone device How is that changing our relationship to knowledge?
So let's look at that from a biblical perspective.
So what I'm thinking about is this. We already know that what we find on the internet is Doubtful. You have to use some common sense about what to accept and what not to accept. in terms of knowledge on the internet. But maybe maybe the internet doesn't promote the knowledge that's really valuable.
And that's what I want to get at here. And when I talk about that, I'm actually quite biased toward. Biblical knowledge and biblical knowledge about God Himself. There is no other single source volume of anything I've ever read in my entire life. that has as much impact as what I've read in the Bible.
So, when you look at stuff on the internet, you're looking at the best of humanity. With some exceptions, there are people who will. Post-biblical things online, but what I'm saying is that your phone and the internet is a channel into knowledge that represents the broad span of humanity and maybe. Maybe we need to redirect our attention toward God.
So that got me thinking about knowledge, period, especially about knowledge as it relates in the Bible.
So let me read you a couple verses as we close this out, as we think about this, and then I'll introduce you to what I'm coming towards in terms of the name of this series.
So let's talk about knowledge for a second. You know, when you look at the Bible, Uh Knowledge is not a foreign topic. When it comes to bad knowledge. In fact, let me read you a couple of verses. Jeremiah 10:14 says, And this is pretty blunt.
every man is stupid and without knowledge. Proverbs 14, 7 says, Leave the presence of a fool, for there you do not meet words of knowledge.
Well, you're probably thinking, Yeah, I've been on the internet, I know exactly what they're talking about. Um Psalm 82.5. They have neither knowledge nor understanding. They walk about in darkness.
So what man provides largely is Stupidity. It's it's it's ignorance in its in its best sentence. And the prophet Daniel had written about the end times, and God actually, in the middle of this prophecy in chapter 12 of Daniel, told him, you need to seal these things up until the end. Be because well, there's lots of reasons why because. Go But at the end of that second section, he says, God says to Daniel, you know, seal it up to the end, because in the end, and here's what he says, many shall run to and fro, and knowledge.
shall increase.
Well, we are We are there, knowledge shall increase, but many shall run to and fro. And that's a really good description of what we see going on in the internet. I mean, people just. running like crazy back and forth and spouting whatever they want to spout.
So That's very accurate characterization.
So, if that by itself biblically doesn't put you on edge about what you consume when you look at knowledge on the internet, I mean, nothing else will. And even in the New Testament, Paul, when he's talking to one of his trainees, who is Timothy, Titus is the other one. These are pastors in training, younger men. What he says to them is fascinating in terms of advice from an older man to younger pastors. And in his first letter to Timothy in chapter 6, verse 20, he says, Oh, Timothy.
Timothy. Avoid the irreverent battle and contradictions of what is falsely called. Knowledge. Verse 21. for by professing it some have swerved from the faith.
So there's the inherent danger of the internet. Be careful about what people call knowledge.
Now, what kind of knowledge is really worthwhile? What kind of knowledge do I want that will be a the most beneficial to me. And of course, the Bible's not silent on that either. It turns out that many of the writers of the Bible said that, you know, the best knowledge you can come up with is knowledge about God Himself.
So, this is in a sense knowledge outside of the box of humanism, outside of the box of humanity.
Now, let me just read you a couple of these because this should center us a little bit more on what kind of knowledge we ought to pursue. It can come through the internet. can also come from just reading the Bible.
So Solomon writes in Proverbs 1. Proverbs 1, very first chapter, verse 7. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Fools despise wisdom and instruction.
So the fear of the Lord is the beginning. of knowledge. could it very well be that the highest and best knowledge we can pursue is knowledge about God Himself? And I think that's totally true. When David wrote Psalm nineteen, he said a very similar thing.
And he said that the knowledge about God is really not that hard to come by even. Because he says it's implicit in all of nature. You can see it in nature. He says in Psalm 19, the opening stanza of Psalm 19, it's a song, by the way, this is the lyrics. He says, The heavens, the heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above.
proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. There actually is a knowledge of the Almighty that can come through his creation. And Paul uses the same argument in his opening chapter of Romans. About those who haven't heard the word of the gospel, but he says they're still without.
Um Um it What's the word? Excuse. They're still without excuse because they can see in nature something about God.
So, the knowledge of God is so valuable that indeed God has implanted it in the very way in which He has created everything that we see. We can understand who God is. Daniel the prophet. Several centuries before Jesus, in the Babylonian captivity, Daniel chapter 2, he says this, and I think this is great stuff. He says Ah.
Daniel answered and said, Blessed be the name of God, for ever and ever, to whom belong wisdom and might. He changes times and seasons. He removes kings, sets up kings. He gives wisdom to the wise. and knowledge.
to those who have understanding. He reveals deep and hidden things He knows what is in the darkness and the light dwells in him. Even without the Internet, Our best instincts in terms of pursuing knowledge is to pursue a knowledge of who God is. His character. His nature.
His love toward us, so many other things. And Daniel underscores that, being now a refugee into the Babylonian Empire, which considered itself very elite and really well understanding. But he says that God Himself gives knowledge to the wise. He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding.
So, what I'm pleading to you right now is: although lots of knowledge can come through the pipeline of the internet, Have understanding about the fact. But the best knowledge you can find. is knowledge about God Himself. And one last Point to really bring that home in John 17 when John's with the apostles in his last times, his last hours before the cross. He's praying for them in chapter 17 of John.
In John 17:3, he says. And this is eternal life. This is eternal life. that they may Know you. The only true God.
and Jesus Christ whom you've sent. This is eternal life. that they may know you.
So in fact, when we talk about knowledge of God, We're not just talking about head knowledge about Who God is. We're talking about. The very nature of what eternal life is. How do you define eternal life? And Jesus in his prayer in John 17 says, Eternal life.
is knowing God.
So that's the ultimate. That's the best knowledge you can pursue. If it comes to the internet through Bible apps, yeah, I'm okay with that. But you just have to understand that there's so much other stuff that's there. that competes for your attention.
Um Pursue a knowledge of God. And that in the end will be more valuable than pursuing any other kind of knowledge through the internet. And a lot of knowledge on the internet vies for your attention.
Now, there's a second realm of understanding in terms of knowledge, not only knowledge of God, but even knowledge about you, about knowledge about. mankind can come out of the internet. I mean now the Bible. And so God. God tries to impress upon us the fact that God and God alone, as our Creator, probably has not probably does have the best grasp about what man is like and who he is.
And this is important.
So, if you want to understand who you are, many times people will go on the internet and try and find people who are like you, and as a result, discover who they are. But God says that may not be the best source. Asking other people who they are and hence who you are may not be the best source of information, the best knowledge about you as we move into this category of knowledge that will help you and understand you. He says in Psalm 139, very famously, very famously, at the opening to this song, again, it's a song of David. He says, O Lord, you've searched me and known me.
You know when I sit down and when I rise up. You discern my thoughts from afar. God Himself is the best source of information about you, and not what you can glean from self-help sources on the internet. Also, Solomon writes in Proverbs, in Proverbs 5, 21.
Solomon writes, For a man's ways are before the eyes of the Lord, and he ponders all his paths. The Lord ponders all your paths. You need to come to him. not necessarily to experts on the internet. Again, if I come back to Psalm 139, this incredible song that David has written.
He goes down to verse 16 of the song, and he says, Your eyes saw my unformed substance. In your book were written every one of them. The days that were formed for me when as yet there was none of them that existed.
So God knows who you are. He knows who you are to the very detail. Even before you had your first days, He knew who you were. If you want to pursue knowledge about yourself, insight about yourself, Your Creator is the best place to go.
Now, the right of Hebrews, we don't know his name, we don't know his identity, actually. The writer of Hebrews says a really interesting thing because he says, in chapter four that God's Word God's Word is powerful beyond understanding, and it's more actively involved in understanding you than you really suspect. And so he says, in terms of knowledge about you, in Hebrews 4, verse 12, he says that the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing. To the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. and no creature is hidden from his sight.
But all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him. to whom we must give account. You want to understand yourself? Come to God. He knows you.
And His Word knows you. I think that's one of the biggest insights I've had as I've studied the Bible all these years. I say it's the single greatest volume of influence in my life in terms of knowledge, not only about the way things are and who God is, but even knowledge about me. Even knowledge about me, it cuts to the quick, the writer of Hebrews says, so deep inside to the most subtle dark places in you, it's like the piercing of division of soul and spirit. Very subtle.
Another place, John the Apostle writes in his first letter, 1 John 3, verse 19. By this we shall know that we are of the truth, and reassure our heart before him, For whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and He knows all. Everything. He knows everything. as we struggle with who we are and the failures that we are.
And then finally Solomon writes in Proverbs 12. If you want a new knowledge about yourself, he says this: whoever loves discipline loves knowledge. But he who hates reproof is s Stupid. Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge.
So if you want to find out about yourself, if you want to find out not only about the best of who you are, but actually some of the more nightmarish parts of who you are, Solomon writes in Proverbs, That Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge. If you want to understand. who you are. That's the best place to go. and not on the internet.
Well, now there's another kind of knowledge that we can understand. Not only knowledge about who God is, knowledge about who we are, accurate understandings about who we are and who God is. But I bring this up. There's a third category, which is knowledge about others, about what's going on in the world, the fallenness of man. I bring this up because Without ourselves knowing it, often we go into the internet.
to find damning information about people that we want to hate. This happens more, I think, in the political realm than any other. I have a pre-bias for or against, say, a presidential candidate or a congressperson or something like that, or just a notary person that. That we want to hate. And so we actually go mining for bad information about that person.
So That's a really bad habit. I find myself doing that. I gravitate toward articles or commentaries that are negative because I want to feed my negative hate about somebody that I know about in public. Oh my gosh, that's just so bad. But you but you know what?
The interesting thing is that I don't really need to do that. I don't need to cultivate my opinions, negative opinions about other people because God already knows the negatives about those people. We often feel like we're doing some kind of fundamental research on the inside in the internet when we find things that are bad about notary people. No. God knows about those people.
So, what I've found recently that I need to do is go back to the fact that God sees them. There's nothing hidden from his sight. Knowledge about those people is not something that we need to unearth because God sees all of it. Let me just read you a couple of these things because it has calmed down my. appetite for negative information about people.
So let me read this for you, Isaiah 29:15. Ah, you who hide deep from the Lord your counsel, whose deeds are in the dark, and who say, Ooh, who sees us? Who knows us? God sees you. God knows you.
You don't have to go on a campaign to find out the negatives about other people. God sees them. They're really easy. Jeremiah 16:17 says the same thing. For God says, For my eyes are on all their ways.
They're not hidden from me, nor is their iniquity concealed from my eyes.
So God sees these things. You don't have to be a hobbyist in terms of finding out bad things about other people. God, the judge of the universe, sees what's going on. and a very famous prayer of Hannah, Who is the mother of Samuel in 1 Samuel 2? She says to these people who are so nasty and so bad that you like to hunt and find bad negative information about online, Hannah's prayer says this.
She says in 1 Samuel 2.3, Talk no more so very proudly. Let not arrogance come from your mouth, for the Lord is a God of knowledge. The Lord is a God of knowledge. and by him actions are weighed, God's got injustice under control. You can calm down.
on the internet about people who do bad things. And then Psalm 67 celebrates the fact that God's on top of all of this. All this evil that surrounds us in this world. Psalm 67:4 says, Let the nations be glad and sing for joy. For you, God, you judge the peoples with equity, and guide the nations upon the earth.
So God sees everything and he's extraordinarily fair about his justice with other people, which you cannot be when you're researching how to be negative about people online.
So let me just finish with this. Um Knowledge in general. is overrated in many respects. Paul writes in the very famous 1 Corinthians 13, the chapter on love, he says, you know. If I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, And if I have all faith so as to remove mountains, but I have not love, I'm nothing.
All mysteries, all knowledge. But he says Think about the more important thing, love, verse 8 of that same chapter. Love never ends. But as for prophecies, They'll pass away. As for tongues, they'll cease.
And here's the big one. As for knowledge, It'll pass away. The lion's share of stuff that you will absorb knowledge-wise on the internet. Will pass away. He writes another letter to the Corinthian church, 2 Corinthians, in chapter 4, verse 6.
He says, For God who said Let light shine out of darkness. Has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge. Of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. He has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the Lord. of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
God's eager. To fill your mind and your heart with knowledge, and he's most eager to fill you with the knowledge of the glory of God as seen through Jesus. And again, too, Paul's prayers for the disciples that he made in many places, when he writes the church in Ephesus. Where he had spent so much time in the book of Acts, which is documented in chapter 3 of his Ephesian letter, verse 18, he prays this for them. I pray that you may have strength.
to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and the length and the height and the depth and to know and to know But the love of Christ which surpasses Knowledge. and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge. that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. The love of Christ which surpasses knowledge That's something that you want to know. And he prays again for the Colossian church in Colossians, chapter 2, Colossians 2, 2, and 3.
I pray that to reach all the riches of the full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God's mystery. Here's a good thing to know the knowledge of God's mystery, which is which is Christ. The knowledge of God's mystery, which is Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. In Christ, Are hidden all the treasures, I mean, the valuable things, the treasures. of wisdom and knowledge.
So, as I close, let me just give you a warning as we close out, and then I'll give you the title of this series that's been emerging through all this.
Now, on the internet, you understand this already, so this is something you've heard before. Number one, Satan is in this world. and he's embraced by this world. Number two. Satan's nature is to lie.
Number three. The internet The Internet will transport falsehood right alongside truth. And there's the danger. You have to be on guard at all times.
Now, some people think the answer to that is the fourth point I make here is censorship. I mean, censor the falsehoods, which leaves just the truth behind.
So censorship is justified many times on the internet. Squelching certain information, certain knowledge, because it's felt that it protects us from falsehoods. And it might in some, but the problem is, censorship can also indoctrinate us. with falsehoods. Because the competing truth is not there to battle it.
Which means me to my last point in all this. Truth can battle falsehoods. But only if it's alongside falsehoods in an unrestricted and a public dialogue. And this is how, this is why we talk so much about free speech. Truth must be alongside falsehood in order to shine a light on it.
But many times, censorship can squelch the voice of truth and let falsehoods go unchallenged. That's the danger in the internet. The danger isn't so much. What you see and what you consume in the knowledge that you read or hear about. Many times the greatest knowledge is the information that you do not hear that has been squelched, has been turned off, leaving falsehoods.
to be uncontested. That's the biggest problem. It's not what you know that will hurt you, it's what's being kept from you. That'll hurt you. Bottom line, John says it very clearly in his first letter, his first little letter in chapter 5.
He says, We know that we are from God. We are from God. and the whole world lies in the power of the Evil One.
So beware as you take a look at the knowledge on the internet. It's an amazing technology that has come into our pockets. And that's what leads me to the title of this series. I've entitled this series Pocket Messiah. Because with time we have become so attached to the Abilities that we have inside our pockets with these phones, this tether we have to this gigantic world of data and computing power.
That we get sort of addicted to it. Can you imagine a world where you don't have your phone anymore, where you can't find out information about where the nearest gas station is or where the pizza place is open tonight? And much more serious things and interesting things and pivotal pieces of information. If that's not there, where does your knowledge come from?
So a dependence is being built there. And that dependence is a dependence that really, biblically, we should only build on God and His Messiah, Jesus Christ.
So in a sense, this influence that you carry around is enticing you to treat it like you would the Son of God.
Now what we're going to do with the rest of the series is look at similar things. About the characteristics of God, because knowledge like this, omniscience, for instance, omniscience is a characteristic and nature of God that we've held for so long. But now we're starting to think. that maybe Our pocket Messiah is more omniscient than God Himself, and there's the temptation.
So, I'm going to take the next bunch in this series and talk about different characteristics of God, which our pocket Messiah is starting to. Demonstrate. And as a result, in a very sneaky way stealing us away from our dependence upon God. In reality, our ability to communicate the gospel about this loving God who loves us, who knows everything about us. But that's going to start to be impaired by the fact that people will say, well, Why do I need God when I have this?
This tells me everything I need to know. And there's a gigantic danger in that. But that is where society is going, and that's as far as I'll go on my. On my uh future speculations.
So stay with us as we look at the different characteristics of God which are now being mimicked.
Now being mimicked By this pocket messiah, and And the dangers that it can cause.
Now, as a last thing, I'm a technologist, I'm not anti-technology. Technology is a wonderful tool, and this tool can bring you great information and great knowledge. I'm just saying you have to be more selective in how you use it, and you have to watch out. About how seductive This may become So, thanks for being with us.
Next time, we'll look at another characteristic, O God, that the pocket Messiah. starts mimicking and starts to tempt us away from our relationship with God.
So thanks for listening and I'll come back next week and go to part Three. in this series on The Pocket Messiah. Thanks for watching. God bless you. Take care.
