Did you have a mother that reminded you from time to time that, “Hey, be sure your sins will find you out?” I did.
Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #181 of Discerning What Is Best, a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, and a Christian worldview to current issues and everyday life.
“Be sure your sins will find you out.” My Mother quoted this verse from time to time in my youth (Numbers 32:23).
A lot of Mothers have quoted this verse, and with good reason. They were trying to tell their teenagers that doing bad deeds rarely remain secret for long. Sooner or later, as they say in the halls of justice, “The truth will out.” So, our mothers’ point: we’d better take care to do right and do well if we wanted a good reputation and a bright future.
But we now live in the Cyber Age, which is to say, “of, relating to, or involving computers or computer networks (Internet).” We now have social media and the sources of Good and Evil are doing ongoing surveillance in our lives. And technology makes us more vulnerable than ever to our own foibles and bad judgment.
Nearly everyone is walking around with a smart phone. In a pocket, on his hip, in her purse is a mobile camera, audio recorder, and high-resolution video camera. And all these phones are linked to social media, so what’s captured can be posted in seconds for a worldwide audience.
In a nutshell, this means that what was once-private is private-no-more. Private has gone public at warp speed.
Celebrities are especially susceptible to missteps, which are almost instantaneously writ large for the world. They’re more susceptible not because they’re necessarily more inclined to stupidity or bad behavior (though this is debatable). No, they just spend their lives trying to be relevant and create photo ops, so they’re literally plugged in more than the average citizen.
-The leaking of several alleged DMs where he said he was "100% a cannibal," Armie Hammer was dropped by his publicist, dropped by his agent, and dropped out of multiple projects.
-Roseanne Barr lost her TV sit com job after several racist tweets surfaced.
-Mel Gibson’s self-destructive , drunk, racist rants hit the news not once but thrice, all recorded for posterity.
-Alec Baldwin infamously berated his then-11-year-old daughter on her cell phone voice mail.
-Baywatch star David Hasselhoff apparently asked his then-16-year-old daughter to video tape him if he got drunk, so he could later see for himself how bad his addiction had become. Her video of her half-naked, falling-down drunk father slobbering over a hamburger is difficult to watch. But watch it we may on the net.
Celebrity brushes with social media infamy are legion, many of them resulting from unexpected photos or videos of them with someone other than their spouse, thus resulting in later divorce.
But celebrities aren’t alone. Not a month goes by without some new story of a kid (immature by definition) going too far—naively or with malice aforethought—posting content online that, whoops, proves to be illegal, or just stupid.
One high school youth posted pictures of his teenage peers engaging in sexual encounters at a party. Dumb? Yes. Naïve? Probably, but also criminal because the photographed individuals were underage. Now this young man faces jail time, a record, and a damaged life.
Another college youth posted video online, this one featuring him singing sexually risqué lyrics seemingly in front of a group of elementary school children. Turns out, he’d edited his song into an earlier video of the children, so they hadn’t actually heard the song, yet were still pictured in the video. It was a joke, he said, but parents, school officials, and local authorities weren’t laughing. Now despite his apologies he faces criminal charges for posting pictures of minors in a “sexual situation.”
Teens, even “tweens,” are not just texting but “sexting,” meaning they’re sending suggestive words, pictures, and videos of themselves to others. Aside from the moral concerns raised by this practice, these youth are engaging in behavior that makes them vulnerable to sexual predators, stalkers, criminal indictments, or simply embarrassment and broken relationships.
And don’t forget, because the Internet won’t. Whatever is posted online lives in perpetuity in cyberspace. Even more so if it becomes popular, i.e., “goes viral.” The posted material can be accessed, reposted, hyperlinked, and downloaded indefinitely.
Or it may “go away” only to return a few years later when the content originators or participants are applying for college or graduate school, interviewing for employment, dating or getting married, or running for office.
Remember too, if police can track perpetrators’ online activities, other people can track yours. Emails are discoverable in lawsuits. Individuals have lost their jobs, some in ministry, when their online history was later for some reason revealed.
Country clubs and athletic clubs ban cell phone use in locker rooms because illicit photographs have been spirited from these “private” domains. Suspicious wives are using Google Street View webcams to catch husbands visiting paramours.
Scanners pick up local phone conversations.
Ostensibly for marketing purposes, corporations now snoop legally into a wide array of once private but now online personal data. We leave electronic fingerprints online, this information is digitized, and it can be sold. Certain companies also conduct what’s called “data mining,” selling their research capabilities to anyone willing to pay.
Who you are is on the grid. Google your own name and see what comes up.
Since 2003, social media like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter or X, YouTube, and more have made telling our story ever easier.
Social media has put a culture that’s already predisposed to exaggerated self-expression on steroids. If anything, social media seems to encourage our human penchant for narcissism, for proclaiming “I am here,” “I am somebody.”
Beginning with Boomers, my generation, and especially the later generations, we seem to crave publicity in any form. We must be on stage, on camera, on air, online.
This is the genesis of “reality TV.” It’s a driving part of our psyche, our therapeutic need to express, confess, and profess.
Millennials and the younger Generations, Z and Alpha, are even more inclined to say or do anything for the camera, as long as they get their moment.
They don’t have to work at it. I’ve shared in this podcast before that nearly everywhere we go we are now on camera. Atlanta remains the most surveilled city in America. Virtually everywhere we go we’re now on one of a ubiquitous array of ground or satellite cameras. Nowhere is “safe” from the prying eyes of the technological grid. You’re on the grid whether you want to be or not.
Well, how you process all this is up to you. It is still, praise God, a free country.
But surely it would behoove us to remember how the wisest man Solomon summarized life:
He said,
“Now all has been heard;
here is the conclusion of the matter:
Fear God and keep his commandments,
for this is the duty of all mankind.
For God will bring every deed into judgment,
including every hidden thing,
whether it is good or evil.” (Ecclesiastes 12:13-14).
What’s utterly amazing is not that Tiger Woods’s proclivities came out a few years ago, but that they took so relatively long to do so in this no-secrets era. But, still, his experience is a reminder of many a mother’s injunction, “Be sure your sins will find you out.”
Well, we’ll see you again soon. This podcast is about Discerning What Is Best. If you find this thought-provoking and helpful, follow us on your favorite podcast platform. Download an episode for your friends. For more Christian commentary, check my website, r-e-x-m as in Martin, that’s rexmrogers.com. Or check my YouTube channel //www.youtube.com/@DrRexRogers" style="color: #96607d; text-decoration: underline;">@DrRexRogers for more podcasts and video.
And remember, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm.
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