The Cracked Acorn: The Battle

When I was growing up, at church, the preacher would remind us that a battle was raging.  It was the battle for our souls.  The pulpit was pounded, and supporting scriptures were quoted. The battle still goes on and will never stop.  The enemy is very clever and does not rest as we do.  While we sleep, computers around the world are gathering information.  Companies are interested in what we eat, wear, and buy.  How we use what we buy is their main concern.  They are establishing a predictable profile about all our society’s needs. The expanded markets want to reach our material and spiritual desires.

You may think that you are a private person. This would be true if you lived up a muddy road on the side of a 12,000-foot mountain and made and grew all you needed.  Of course, you could not have a telephone or a cell phone or have any neighbors. Electricity would be a no! no! You would have to limit your connections to the outside world.  The postman would put your mail in a post office box if you knew anyone with the P.O. address.  This sounds good, no junk mail.  I have left out one item that has invaded our homes: the personal computer (PC).  This is a wonderful machine that does not “compute” but lives for e-mail and surfing the internet (the world wide web).  You turn it on, and the world is your oyster if you like oysters.

Any personal device is like a child.  It requires attention.  It needs “medical” care.  It needs protection.  It will require you to seek out professional people to solve its quirks.  It is a daily or weekly task to run scans using expensive software that you had to buy after you bought your “cheap” computer.  This is necessary to keep hackers from slipping you a “Mickey” and putting it on the landfill heap.  You have to make sure that the adware, the spamware, the spyware, and the firewallware are doing their jobs or every stroke of the keyboard and every file on the hard drive becomes public knowledge.

Information can influence the individual about what to place before the “window of our soul.” I saw this in a religious bookstore the past holiday season.  The gospel now appears in many books, CDs, and videos.  I was looking for a replacement Bible.  We had decided that recovering was more expensive than purchasing a new one.  On this very busy mid-morning shopping day in a large store in Manassas, I was amazed by the many translations and versions that populated the one Bible stand.  I was even more amazed that out of the many prospective buyers, I was the only one shopping for a Bible.  I could have picked one and stretched out on the floor and read it from cover to cover.  All eyes were turned to LEFT BEHIND and PASSION OF THE CHRIST and books about the lives of the TV evangelists.  Surely,  I knew what Jesus felt when he saw what was going on in the temple.  No one was interested in a good, sturdy-covered Bible.  Ah, to be sure, the internet, etc., has done its job well and spread the gospel of the vast available warehouse of sugary religious Twinkies.

12 For the word of God is living, and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow and quick to discern the thoughts and intents of the heart. 13 And there is no creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and laid open before the eyes of him with whom we have to do. (Hebrews 12)

There’s a book that surpasses the sages, A volume of wisdom divine; And the glory that gleams from its pages, No splendor of earth can outshine. “Tis the light which will guide is to glory, The Sword of the Spirit of might; And to dwell on its beautiful story Is of heaven the sweetest delight. ‘TIS THE BIBLE! THE BIBLE! OUR GUIDING STAR THAT LEADS FROM EARTH TO HEAV’N, THE BIBLE! THE BIBLE! WE LOVE THE PRECIOUS BOOK OF TRUTH WHICH GOD HAS GIV’N. (#502 Sacred Selections)