Don't Get Caught in the Web! Maria #425 CM 3174 3/98
By Maria
Dear Family,
1. God bless you! The Internet has proven to be a tremendous tool to get out our message, and our GP Family Web site continues to get more visitors and responses every month, thank the Lord! Many outsiders have been thrilled and filled with the Lord's life-giving Words on the Web.
2. At the same time, we've received reports that some of our own Family members have been feeding from the things of the Web, the worldly wisdom and attitudes available thereon, and have been adversely affected by it. Some have developed an appetite for the pornography and perversions there. Others have gotten deeply into System attitudes and knowledge to the point that they've begun to question the fundamentals of our Family beliefs. And others, who may have originally had good motives in wanting to find helpful information on the Web, have found its subtle fascination drawing them deeper and deeper into it, and farther and farther away from the Word, witnessing, the Lord and the Family.
3. So from all we've heard, the Web has become quite a problem in some places with some people and has contributed to all sorts of ungodly attitudes. The Lord warned us of its dangers before in "Mama's News and Views, Part 3" (ML #3053:91-135, GN 682), and when we brought this situation before Him again, to get His viewpoint on it, He sent Dad with the following message.
4. {\b \i (Dad speaking:) }The Internet is like a magnet, and it's got an almost hypnotic drawing power. It sucks in and draws in everything that comes close to it. It's like a magnet that pulls those who aren't strong in the Word or the Lord into its center of knowledge. Even those who are strong in the Lord need to watch out, because the pull is so strong. It's like trying to pull apart two heavy-duty magnets that are drawn to each other!
5. The Web is a tangled mass of confusion that the Enemy has spun in order to catch his prey--just like a spider spins its web and waits for passersby to get stuck in it, and thus they're no longer just passersby, but they're lunch! The spider doesn't hesitate to gobble the insect up, because that's the spider's whole purpose--to catch its prey. And so it is with the Enemy's web--his whole design is to catch the passersby, the browsers, those who get stuck in this web of idolatry.
6. Oh yes, the Web is beautiful, just like a spider's web that shines in the sun. There may even be nice juicy drops of dew that rest upon the strands and shine like diamonds. But this is only a facade. This is only the lure to attract you into the clutches of the Web. There may be nice fun things on the Internet, and these things attract you and draw you in, but once you're in, the pull is like a magnet that's almost too strong for you to humanly pull away from. Once you're in, you're stuck, and pretty soon the Enemy's going to have you for lunch!
7. You start off very casually. You're interested in the knowledge, in the easy accessibility of the facts, stories, and goodies that are contained in this massive Web, but you don't stop there. You go on, you explore, you search deeper and lust after the knowledge of the world--that which has been carefully guarded from you young people during your life, because your caretakers knew of the dangers lurking within these dangerous vices and devices of the Devil. You dig deeper and deeper and fill your mind with polluting pornography or perverted sex, ungodly attitudes about love and marriage, witchcraft, communicating with evil spirits, the occult, and much, much more. You'll find it wasting your Word time, robbing your witnessing time and destroying your conviction! Once you've stepped into the Web, there's no limit to the dung of the Enemy that'll come flying your way!
8. Sometimes even the so-called good stuff, articles from other Christians or religious leaders, can be dangerous. I'm not saying that it's evil, but if it's something that causes you to water down your convictions and doubt our Family doctrines, beliefs and lifestyle, then it's bad for you! It's brackish water from a tainted well and it'll make you sick in the end. Or even if it doesn't make you sick, if you try to get your spiritual nourishment from it, you're gonna wind up getting malnourished!
9. You can't just feed yourself with worldly knowledge and wisdom and not suffer for it too. It's the same temptation the Devil used with Eve--fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Well, the Serpent's fruit and knowledge is all evil. It may seem pleasant to the eyes and sweet to the taste, but if you walk the path of man's wisdom without seeking the Lord, you'll find it is foolishness in the end. It's a subtle deceit, these words of men. You absorb more and more of them, and after a while you start wondering why you need to live and love and believe the way you do. They eat away at your foundation and your structure little by little, like termites do in a house, unseen. And before you know it, the house just collapses!
10. This web of worldly knowledge clouds your mind and goes to work right away to change your thought patterns. It's like you're literally linked to the computer and it goes to work on you and it starts to control you. You alone will no longer completely control what you think and feel, and the Lord no longer completely controls what you think and feel--the computer controls what you think and feel! And, if you keep it up, eventually you no longer own the computer or the Internet, but the computer and the Internet will own you and it will control you! Remember Huddersfield! Only this time, the goal is complete takeover. This time, the Devil's not gonna be content to only own a small corner of your Huddersfield--he wants it all! You start out entering into a joint ownership, but the computer, the Net, is out to own all of you. It's not going to stop at having just a small part, but it wants to take over the whole territory! It wants full ownership; it wants to control you!
11. This is Satan's propaganda, Satan's desire, to get you to stop thinking for yourself, to stop thinking the way the Lord wants you to think. Satan's whole desire is to control the hearts and minds of mankind, and with this tool of destruction, he is slowly but surely accomplishing just that. It's a tangled web he's woven, and many are falling for his trap. It's a powerful magnet that's attracting many who aren't firmly attached to the most powerful magnet known to men or angels--the Lord! If you're not firmly attached to the magnet of God, then it's only a matter of time before you're drawn to the Enemy's magnet, because his pull is very strong.
12. This tangled web of the Internet is one of his most powerful, heavy-duty magnets, and it's attracting millions and billions to its core. And sad to say, it's also attracting some of our Family members. In fact, some are pretty deeply embedded in the Web, and it's going to take a miracle to salvage some of these lives for the Lord. The Enemy's having a heyday with his little distractions and chocolate-coated poison that he has distributed to the nations, and he's not stopping anywhere. He wants complete control. He wants to rule the hearts and minds of men, and seeks to do this through sucking in those who aren't on guard, who aren't firmly attached to the magnet of God. The Lord's children have a clearer sense of what right and wrong is, and the wrong has an even greater effect on them.
13. You wonder where all of these wrong attitudes are coming from? Where do people get their ungodly views about sex? Where do people get their screwed-up ideas about relationships? Where do people get their System ideologies? Where do people get their knowledge about the dark side? Where are all of these doubts coming from? Where is your love for the lost? Where is your desire to serve God and fight for freedom no matter what? Whatever happened to the Revolution that we once had? Have our folks just gotten so damned lukewarm and cool in their convictions that they don't want to stay dropped out of the System?
14. Why are our young people hungering and thirsting after the knowledge of Babylon? Why are our kids fucking the Whore and having her babies, when they ought to be fucking Jesus and bearing His children? My God, it's really going to take something drastic to get some of our kids to wake up! That's their problem--they're asleep in the spirit, and some of them are pretty deep sleepers! What's it gonna take to get them on-fire for the Lord and dropped out once again?
15. I hated the System with a perfect hatred and I didn't want to have anything to do with the world and its ways! I knew where it led to. I knew that thriving on the pleasures of the System would only weaken me and make me useless, dry, cold, lifeless and dead in spirit! I've always tried to impart that same revolutionary spirit to my children, and I think I did a pretty good job.
16. What do you kids think this army is? Do you think that just because I'm in Heaven now, you can do your own thing and water down your convictions? If I'd heard about things like this happening when I was there with you, do you know what I would have done? I would've given you a tongue-lashing! I would've told you to "get with it, or get out!" Well, I'm Here now, but things like that haven't changed.
17. Maybe you think that I can't see the traps some of you have fallen into, the lack of conviction you have and the ungodly System things you're allowing into your lives. I can see not only in the physical, but I can also see in the spiritual. I can see that some of you are getting weaker and weaker, and if you don't pull out of the downward spiral that the Enemy's gotten you trapped in, pretty soon you're not going to make it in this Gideon's band.
18. Get with the spirit of the Family! Get with the Spirit of the Lord! Get with the spirit of the Revolution! To Hell with what the System thinks! To Hell with their views on social issues! To Hell with the Whore and all her little whorelings! You've got to get stirred up and realize that we're fighting a war, and you don't have hours to waste doing your own thing, reading System publications, watching hours of TV, playing endless computer games, fiddling around with the vices of Hell, and certainly not wasting your time getting trapped in the tangled web that the Enemy's spun to catch you and destroy your usefulness for the Lord!
19. Whatever happened to our perfect hatred of the System and her ways? Have you forgotten about the verse that says, "Come out from among them and be ye separate"? The Lord didn't say, "Wallow in the mire, but you can still stay separate." No. If you're wallowing in the mire with everyone else, how are you going to be able to reach out a helping hand to save them? You're not going to do anyone any good by getting all dirty and tangled up yourself. You've got to come out from among them and be totally, completely and revolutionarily separate!
20. This world's going to Hell, along with all of its wicked ways! The Enemy's leading the world on the pathway to destruction, and it's your job to show the world a little bit of Heaven. The Enemy knows that the little bits of Heaven that you show people are going to shine as a bright and glorious light, especially in these Last Days when things are waxing worse and worse. So don't you see why it stands to reason that the Enemy is fighting so hard to cool down your convictions?
21. He's fighting to dim your light and snuff out your fire, so that the world won't come out to see you burn. He knows that God's Spirit is going to attract the duped people he has within his clutches. He knows that God's magnet is stronger than his, and if people will only see the truth, they'll come running to find that same power, that same joy, that same freedom! Do you want to give the Enemy one more victory? He's trying to water down your convictions and turn off your light. Do you want to give him that satisfaction?
22. The Internet is one of the Enemy's weapons of destruction, as he seeks to lure you with the riches and knowledge of this world. He robs you of your time reading the Word, witnessing, loving, or being a blessing to those in your Home. He draws you into his web ever so slowly, and pretty soon you're digging deeper and deeper into the deadly depths of destruction.
23. As with all of his weapons, it looks good from the outside, and is even good and useful as a tool to get out God's Word and to warn the world of impending doom, as well as proclaim the glorious future. But deep inside there are dangerous traps which the Enemy uses to ensnare the multitudes. Remember the verses about how in the Last Days there would come a falling away from the truth, and the Enemy would seek to deceive even the very elect? (2Thes.2:3; Mat.24:24). Well, this is a perfect example of him trying to deceive the very elect!
24. Please don't you be his next meal! Please don't let him eat away at your convictions and foundation by reveling in this web of knowledge that is set to ensnare those who do not walk prayerfully and carefully within. Please stay revolutionary, dropped out, and free from his diabolical ways that we don't want to have any part of!
25. If this shoe fits, wear it! You know who you are. You know who I'm talking to. You know if I'm talking to you or not. You know whether or not I'm asking you to forsake this lust for worldly knowledge and sever all ties with the System. And if you're one of the ones I'm talking to, I pray with all of my heart that you'll have the conviction and the guts to take a stand and be counted with our Gideon's band! If not, you'll have Hell to pay in the future, and it's not a pretty sight when you become the Devil's prey! He has no mercy or justice, and only uses you as his pawn until you're of no use to him anymore. Then you're wasted.
26. So don't become the Enemy's next meal! Stay mighty close to the magnetic pillar of the Lord's power and knowledge. Stay separate, dropped out, revolutionary and single-minded, so that you can reach out and pull others toward the light! Keep your heart clear and free from the hazy distractions and brain clouds of the Enemy, so that you can pour forth the Lord's Words and quench the thirst of the world! Stay radical, uncompromising and unfaltering in your convictions, so that the Lord can use you as one of His mighty leaders of the End--and He will!
27. If you want exciting new information, the Lord's got it! All you have to do is ask Him for a prophecy, a message straight from Heaven! If you want eye-popping graphics and gorgeous colors that will send you out of this world, ask Him for a dream or a vision! If you want something that will really change the world and make a difference for the better, serve the Lord with all your heart and soul and mind and strength, loving Him and others with all that is within you, and there'll be eternal effects and Heavenly rewards! God bless and keep you whole-hearted--single-minded lovers of the lost and your Lord! I love you! (End of message from Dad.)
28. {\b \i (Mama:)} We love you, Dad! That's our Dad, who's never been afraid to tackle a problem head-on! Praise the Lord! Naturally we realize that the Internet isn't a problem for all of you and we're not saying you shouldn't ever use the Internet. Some Web sites are fine for obtaining news and information, as well as the Family sites, of course.
29. But what do you do if your use of the Internet is a problem? Well, you can either "forsake this lust for worldly knowledge," as Dad put it, by forsaking your access to the Internet or by cutting back on it. As the Charter says, and as we've brought out before, we should "resist the Devil by actively striving to minimize the ungodly and unedifying influences in our lives. These ungodly and unedifying influences could be anything that pulls us away from the Lord or pollutes our spirit, mind or heart with 'junk food' of the spirit and hinders our connection with God." (Responsibilities of Individual Members, A., pg.1.)
30. What are some practical ways you can minimize the "ungodly and unedifying influences" of the Internet? You might want to take a few moments to review the points listed in paragraph 134 of "Mama's News and Views, Part 3" (ML #3053, GN 682). I recommend that you implement point 2, which says, "I would even go so far as to suggest that your Home discuss and vote on a Home rule to govern Internet access--what reasons, who, when, and for how long, etc."
31. There are other good guidelines there too: Pray first, stay in the Word, have clearly defined goals, limit your time online, etc. And remember that our major guideline and goal should be to help others, love the lost and our brothers and sisters, and win souls. If your Internet use is contributing to that in some way, and not having a bad effect on you, that's great. If not, you'd better re-evaluate your priorities. I love you!
Mama
Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family