Spamming the Globe

By Chris Carpenter
CBN.com Program Director

CBN.com - On most days I feel like the most important person on earth. It is not because I work for CBN or that I am blessed to have a wife and family who loves me. I do not hold any political office. I have not found a cure for cancer nor have I developed a solution for world peace. I believe I am the most important person in the world because of what I find in my email inbox each and every morning.

Without fail, I am greeted daily by invitations from lonely house wives who desperately want to meet me. Other women write to me requesting that I assist them in solving a rather personal problem. Mortgage companies want me to refinance my house at rates the federal government would consider illegal. Colleges I have never heard of tell me I can receive a college degree in two weeks or less. Why go to a drugstore when companies are pleading with me to buy their drugs for a tenth of the cost. If you need Rolex watches at rock bottom prices, I have a guy who can get them for $10 dollars apiece. And perhaps the most striking reason for my international importance … I have numerous, yes numerous, African banks who want me to store their money for them. In return, each of them will give me a million dollars. All I have to do is give them my bank account numbers.

Without question, if I am to believe what I read each morning in my inbox, I am a true international man of mystery, intrigue, and importance. How can I be so lucky? The truth is I am not.

Like so many other people here in this country and around the world, my email account is under siege by something called spam. The spam of today is a much different animal than the Spam we always considered to be the rather inexpensive compressed lunch meat found in a decorative can. Of course we never really knew what that animal was. But that is a story for another day.

According to a Google search I conducted while researching for this article, spam is defined as unsolicited "junk" e-mail sent to large numbers of people to promote products or services. Based on that definition, spam in and of itself is not a problem. Junk mail has been around in one form or another since town criers walked door to door wearing sandwich boards centuries ago. While furniture stores feel it is their civic duty to remind us that they are practically giving away their merchandise each and every weekend, junk mail in our traditional mailboxes is just something we have learned to live with.

But here is the problem with spam on the Internet. It is rapidly taking over our email boxes, sometimes shutting them down. According to a recent article on Computer Weekly.com, Email Systems, a company that monitors the flow of spam and viruses on the Internet, says spam comprised more than 85 percent of all email traffic last month. Eighty-five percent! Translation: for every 1.5 emails you received from co-workers, friends, or family; you received 8.5 from pornographers, drug dealers, and fly by night educators.

Conversely, this is a problem not just relegated to our own country. Spam originated from at least 25 different countries during the month of August, including nations you would never believe lonely housewives or forlorn watch salesmen would be setting up shop in. Pakistan? Uruguay? Moldova? C’mon. However, spammers were most prolific in the United States and the United Kingdom, where 70 percent of all junk email originated.

Spam is a major problem that must be dealt with. I know I speak for many when I say that I did not sign on to the Internet to become an email mechanic or e-monkey. Yet I find myself spending more and more time each day tinkering with my email inbox. For every spam I delete it seems like five more appear within minutes. It is a never ending battle but far from being the most important.

The most important battle we face from spam is giving in to temptation. Relentlessly pursuing our minds through a collage of inviting words, lurid images, and deals that seem to good to be true, spammers would like nothing more than for us to buy into their service. How easy it is to just click on the link within an email and be instantly transported into a world of pornography, drugs, gambling, and greed. You’re not hurting anyone, right?

Initially drawing you into their web of discontent is a plus for spammers, keeping you there is critically important. Because once you are there you are more than likely to come back for a return visit. That is the nature of an addictive personality. Unfortunately, we all have them in one form or another.

In the New Testament book of Romans, the apostle Paul writes in chapter 12:12-13, “Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.”

Let’s face it friends, a battle is raging on the Internet for our souls. Obviously, the possibility of sinning has always been present in a Christian’s life since the early days of civilization. But it has become incredibly easy since the inception of the Internet. In the past, sinning was much more visible to our neighbors, family, and friends, but due to the anonymous nature of the World Wide Web, sinning has become virtually invisible. Or has it? It is important to remember that God still sees our sin no matter how well we cover it up by hitting the delete button.

The only was to avoid sinning is to avoid temptation. A tried and true solution is to constantly keep our eyes on Jesus Christ, study His word on a consistent basis, and here is the tough one, do everything in our power to avoid situations that could entice us to do evil. In other words, don’t click on the link conveniently located in the spam. If you do succumb and your mouse seems to be controlling you, God forgives us when we ask. However, sometimes the scars of sin remain.

The spam emails we read, the Web sites we visit, the images and video we download, all influence how we think and how we ultimately conduct your life. It is imperative that we fight evil with good, constantly remaining true to our savior, Jesus Christ.

I am an analog man living in a digital world. Hope lies not in what we behold online but rather in our beholder. Eliminate spam for a better tomorrow.

Portions contained within this article from the Transformer Study Bible.

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