The Internet: Friend or Foe for Christians?
This white paper is entitled "The Internet: Friend or Foe for Christians?" and our objective is to attempt to learn some of the ways in which we can guard ourselves and protect ourselves from the enemy's influence on our lives which can come through the internet.

Proverbs 4:23 says, "Watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it flow the springs of life."

And that's what we want to learn how to do in relation to the internet — how can we use the internet and still watch over our hearts with all diligence?

The Historic Opportunity
Some would say that we should abandon the internet because it is used for evil purposes.

But I'd like to suggest to you that we really can't do that. I believe the internet presents the church with a historic opportunity.

The First Century Church
The first-century church often used a particular strategy to spread the gospel. And that strategy took advantage of the circumstances and technology of the day.

Walter Wilson (to whom I am indebted for many of the thoughts and concepts in this section of this white paper), in his excellent book The Internet Church, describes the circumstances which God had orchestrated to facilitate the spread of the gospel in the first century. The Roman Empire had built a series of roads to enable them to quickly deploy their armies throughout the empire. Koiné Greek had become the common language throughout the empire. And the widespread use of writing had become the cutting-edge technology of the day.

The church's strategy was to use all those things to spread the gospel.

While the Roman Empire built their road system to allow their armies to move quickly, Christian missionaries took advantage of that road system to spread the gospel.

They would travel the roads from city to city, and when they reached a city, they would very often go to the "agora," the marketplace — the location in each city where the majority of the residents, as well as the community's most influential thinkers, gathered on a regular basis to obtain information and for social interaction. And it was there, in the midst of the "agora," that Christian missionaries would declare the gospel.

And then the apostles employed written communication in the form of letters or epistles to encourage and teach existing believers. And these letters were delivered to churches via the Roman system of roads.

Today's Opportunity
Today, the church is faced with a similar historic opportunity.

In many ways, English is becoming a worldwide language. It is the language of international business and economics.

Secondly, in many ways, it is no longer necessary to use roads or other physical means of travel to reach other parts of the world. Today, the "information superhighway" provides the means by which we can travel throughout the world.

Thirdly, the cutting-edge technology of the day, the internet, provides us with the means of communication to reach the entire world.

Finally, the "agora" of today is in many ways no longer a physical place and is much vaster than the first century agora.

The internet (consisting primarily of the World Wide Web, email, usenet newsgroups and instant messaging) is the new "agora," the "place" where an increasing number of people, and certainly where some of the world's most influential people, gather.

The internet is a "place" where people come together to:

• buy and sell;
• exchange ideas and philosophies;
• discuss political and social issues; and,
• access a wide range of information

The following statistics demonstrate the fact that the internet is fast becoming the "agora" of the modern day (we should keep in mind that statistics concerning the internet are out-of-date the moment they are released; these statistics are included only for purposes of illustration - we don't make any claims to perfect accuracy):

• Over 934 million people are currently "on the internet."
• One out of every 4.5 people in the world has been online. One out of every 1.6 people in the United States has internet access.
• 38 new users join the internet every minute in the United States alone.
• In Peru, for the price of a postage stamp, you can get 15 minutes in front of a computer in an internet café and log on to a free email account and surf the web.
• Computers are now outselling television sets in most developed countries (even when handheld devices are not counted).
• Current email volumes exceed the delivery volumes of all post offices in the world combined.
• Every second, nearly 36 individual web pages come online (just to put that in perspective, in the United States, there is a birth every 8 seconds).
• Over 5,700 instant messages are exchanged every second (that's 1.5 billion instant messages every month).
• More than ninety percent of children under the age of 13 regularly use a computer at school.
• Eighty-six percent of American students have gone online, compared to 59 percent of the general population.
• Ninety-two percent of college freshmen have internet access.
• Sixty-two percent of Americans use the web to seek out spiritual information.
• The second most popular topic in Google's approximately 200 million searches per day involve questions regarding God and Jesus Christ (2/3 of those searches come from outside the United States and in 88 different languages).

Walter Wilson, in his challenging book, The Internet Church, writes this of the opportunity which has been presented to us:

This is just the beginning of a wrenching change that is racing throughout the world. The term used to describe this change is radical discontinuity — change so fast that we have no explanation for it. If you think that all of this comes out of Silicon Valley, you're on the wrong track. This is not about human inventions or creative schemes. These developments are about something much bigger and far more dramatic. In fact these events are not about technology at all — they are about the Great Commission. Change this big is being orchestrated by God, not by man.

God is doing something big, and we had best be clearheaded about what is going on around us. The church is in the information business, and we should not be surprised that God has raised up information technology to communicate His Word to the entire world. Christians again must travel the network, only this time it is electronic. This time it is the information superhighway.

From a Silicon Valley perspective, we think we're changing history with our technology, but nothing could be further from the truth. From a Christian perspective, God is doing something historic, and we need to pay serious attention to the tools He is giving us. There is no doubt He intends for us to use them to spread His Word.

We cannot abandon the internet, because it is a core component of what the church's strategy should be to reach the world with the gospel.

Jesus never ran away from the world. He went to parties with tax-gatherers and thieves. One of my favorite quotes is by Scottish minister George Macleod, who founded the nondenominational Iona Community in Glasgow in the 1930's:

I simply argue that the cross be raised again at the center of the marketplace as well as on the steeple of the church.

I am recovering the claim that Jesus was not crucified in a cathedral between two candles, but on a cross between two thieves, on the town garbage heap, on a crossroads so cosmopolitan that they had to write His title in Hebrew and Latin and Greek, at the kind of place where cynics talk smut, and thieves curse, and soldiers gamble, because that is where He died and that is what He died about.

And that is where church people should be and what church people should be about.

In Jesus' prayer in John 17, He prayed to the Father and said, "I have given them (that's us) Your word; and the world has hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I do not ask You to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil one."

And so as we go out into the "world" of the internet, with all its stumbling blocks and entanglements, to the place where cynics talk smut and thieves curse and soldier's gamble, let's remember that Jesus has prayed for us, and continues to pray for us, that the Father would keep us from the evil one.

We should also remember that in order to speak effectively into this world of the internet, we have to speak from a platform of godly character, and that's why it's important for us to learn how to combat the temptations of online evil (pornography, gambling, hate, addictive relationships, etc.)

The State of Online Pornography
In this white paper, I'm choosing to discuss online pornography (rather than other online addictions) because it is perhaps the most rampant online addiction today (with gambling perhaps a close second - The number of gambling sites on the Net has spiked from 6,992 in August 1999 to more than 21,651 as of August 2000, while estimates of pornographic websites range anywhere from 300,000 to 1,000,000).

We should note that Christians (Christian men in particular) have always struggled with pornography. In one sense, it's nothing new. 2 Samuel 11:2 — David looking at Bathsheba from the roof of the palace.

But online pornography presents special problems for at least two reasons:

• ease of access: prior to the internet, surveys showed that men would drive an average of 50 miles to reach an adult bookstore to feed their pornography habit, but now pornography is only a few clicks away.
• privacy / lack of accountability: prior to the internet, there was always the risk that someone would see a man enter an adult bookstore or buy a magazine, but now a man doesn't have to leave his house.

The following statistics, taken from Christian Computing Magazine's video entitled The Internet — The Good, The Bad, The Ugly, are especially disturbing in their profile of the problems the Christian church faces in the area of online pornography (these statistics were compiled in 2002 - I suspect the figures might be higher today):

• In a recent survey conducted by Focus on the Family and Zogby International, 31% of men surveyed said they had visited sex sites and 37% of 18-24 year olds gave that response. Of interest to Focus on the Family was the fact that 17.8% of those who claim to be "born again" Christians and 18% of those who are married have also viewed sex sites.
• Some surveys say as many as 60% of Christian men are struggling with online pornography. Those same surveys say that 70-75% of Christian ministers are struggling with online pornography.
• While most Christian homes in the United States are online, only 5% of Christian homes are doing anything in terms of using filtering mechanisms or providing some form of accountability.
• In the secular world, over one-third of businesses provide some form of filtering mechanism or accountability to their employees. Less than 10% of Christian ministries do the same.
• In a study with only 29 percent of public libraries responding, researchers found 2,000 incidents of people, many of them children, accessing pornography in the library.
• More than half of teenagers have visited Internet sites containing pornography, offensive music lyrics, gambling or messages of violence or hate.
• More than 30 percent of spam, commercial e-mail, contains pornographic material.
• Analysts from Forrester Research say that sex sites on the Web generate at least $1 billion a year in revenue
• According to NetValue, 27.5% of the younger population in the US (age 17 and younger) visited an adult website in Septemnber 2000.

How Can We Battle The Temptations of Online Pornography?
What are some of the weapons we can use in that battle?

First of all, I should say that I don't have all the answers. But in the next few sections of this white paper, I will share with you some of the strategies which help me.

We are going to look at three different categories of "weapons" we can use in this battle: spiritual weapons, relational weapons, and technological weapons.

Spiritual Weapons
I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this category of weapon because we could spend weeks and months talking about how to combat sexual temptation in the spiritual realm.

But I do want to at least touch upon it briefly because I can tell you all about filtering software, filtered internet service providers, miscellaneous tips on how to avoid stumbling upon online pornography, etc., etc. But if you haven't settled certain issues in your heart, all of the tips and technology won't help you. These spiritual weapons are foundational in the battle we face, and so we need to at least touch upon these issues.

The primary spiritual weapons which are available to us in our battle against sexual temptation, including online pornography, are the knowledge of who we are in Christ and the knowledge of the purpose for which we were created.

An "Odd" Passage of Scripture
1 Corinthians 6:9-20 reads as follows (emphasis mine):

Or do you not know that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in the Spirit of our God.

All things are lawful for me, but not all things are profitable. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be mastered by anything. Food is for the stomach, and the stomach is for food; but God will do away with both of them. Yet the body is not for immorality, but for the Lord; and the Lord is for the body. Now God has not only raised the Lord, but will also raise us up through His power. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take away the members of Christ and make them members of a harlot? May it never be! Or do you not know that the one who joins himself to a harlot is one body with her? For He says, "The two will become one flesh." But the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with Him. Flee immorality. Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the immoral man sings against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.

Trying To Follow The Rules
I find it very intriguing that in the middle of a discussion of sexual immorality, Paul says, "All things are lawful for me." In the midst of a discussion of sexual immorality, he basically says, "There are no rules for me." Do you find that odd?

If your sole approach to sexual temptation (in reality, to any temptation) is in trying to follow the rules, I can guarantee that you're going to fail.

Let me use a common illustration to support this point. I have a seven-year-old daughter named Emily.

If Emily and I are in the kitchen one afternoon and I tell her not to take any cookies from the cookie jar because they would spoil her dinner, and then I leave her alone in the kitchen (with the cookie jar), what are her thought processes going to be like?

Emily is a very good girl. She wants to obey her mommy and daddy, so she would probably start thinking along these lines:

Daddy said I shouldn't take any cookies from the cookie jar, and I really want to obey daddy. So I'm not going to take those cookies. Taking those cookies would be wrong, and I don't want to disobey daddy by taking the cookies.

It won't be long before Emily is only thinking about cookies. And once her thoughts are fixated on the cookies, she's lost the battle.

That's why Paul says that the law is the power of sin (1 Corinthians 15:56). The law, or the rule, gives sin its energy in our lives. The law is good, but when I try to live under it, sin is produced in my life. That's why trying to follow the rule in my own strength is not the answer to battling sexual temptation. The rule is not wrong — it's just not the foundation to our success in this battle.

Resistance to Sexual Temptation
Paul defines resistance to sexual temptation, not in terms of following rules, but instead, in terms of realizing who we are and what (or who) we were made for.

According to Paul, this is who I am:

• Someone who used to be a fornicator, or an idolater, or an adulterer, etc., etc.
• Someone who was washed, sanctified, and justified (I'm not the same person I was — I'm a new creation, all things have become new)
• I am set apart for the Lord's purposes (my body is "for the Lord")
• I am empowered ("Now God has not only raised the Lord, but will also raise us up through His power")
• I have been bought with a price — I belong to Him.

According to Paul, this is what I was created for:

• to live in intimacy with Him — that's much of Paul's point when he talks about us being members of Christ, being joined to the Lord and one spirit with Him, being a temple of the Holy Spirit.

We were created to live in intimacy with God.

It's on the basis of those two basic truths — 1) that I am a new creation, set apart for Christ, empowered by the Lord, the Lord's possession; and, 2) that I was created for intimacy with Him, that we are told to flee immorality and glorify God in our bodies. If we don't resist on the basis of those truths, we're doomed to failure.

And so when I'm tempted sexually, my first response is "That's not who I am and that's not what I was created for."

This issue of intimacy with the Lord is very important, because sexual temptation is ultimately a false promise of intimacy without commitment. The problem is that there is no intimacy without commitment. Online pornography promises a solution to our loneliness, but like all sin, it will never truly satisfy.

Relational Weapons
The primary relational weapon which is available to us in our battle against sexual temptation, including online pornography, is what I like to call "covenant friendship."

This is simply an acknowledgment that you and I need other believers to whom we can be accountable. We need small groups of our fellow believers with whom we can share our struggles, and we need individuals who will pray for us in the midst of battle.

Jonathan and David: Covenant Friends I think the greatest example of covenant friendship in the Bible is the friendship of Jonathan and David.

Not long after his defeat of Goliath, David's life entered a new season. Samuel had anointed David as king. David had become Saul's minstrel. David had defeated the Philistine warrior Goliath.

And when David returned from killing Goliath, the women of all the cities of Israel came out singing and dancing to meet King Saul and they sang, "Saul has slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands." And the Scripture says that Saul became angry because they were ascribing ten thousands to David but only thousands to Saul. And Saul said "Now what more can he have but the kingdom?" So Saul looked at David as a threat and began to persecute him. This begins the period in which David is a fugitive, fleeing from Saul.

This is a crucial point in David's life. It's the outset of the major season of preparation in David's life. It's during this season of his life that David's major life-battles were won.

This is very significant. David is about to enter the most difficult season of his life — the season in which he will experience the persecution and attack of his enemies in their greatest intensity. He is also about to enter the season which holds the greatest potential for shaping the rest of his life. It is a strategic season in David's life. If David fails here, he largely fails for life. But if he succeeds here, he largely succeeds for life. And at the outset of this crucial period in David's life, God, in His grace, love and incredible mercy, sovereignly provides David with a covenant friend who will fight his battles with him.

And this is very important for you and I, because as people who face all sorts of temptations, you and I need covenant friends who will fight our battles alongside us.

Souls Knit Together
1 Samuel 18:1-4 says this:

Now it came about when he had finished speaking to Saul, that the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as himself. And Saul took him that day and did not let him return to his father's house. Then Jonathan made a covenant with David because he loved him as himself. And Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was on him and gave it to David, with his armor, including his sword and his bow and his belt.

The passage tells us that "the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as himself." One translation says that "Jonathan became one in spirit with David."

The Hebrew word which is translated by "knit" or "one in spirit" is qashar, which literally means "to bind." It refers to binding or tying something to something else.

When the word is used of people, it means that two people are inseparably bound together in love. It literally means to be chained together and speaks of inseparable devotion and undying loyalty.

Is there another person in your life (other than your spouse) with whom you have been inseparably bound together in love? With whom you are chained together? With whom you have a relationship characterized by inseparable devotion and undying loyalty? That's the type of relationship you and I need. It also bears mentioning that this other person should be of the same gender as yourself.

Verse 3 of 1 Samuel 18 tells us that not only did Jonathan become one in spirit with David, but "Jonathan made a covenant with David." They made an agreement together. They pledged and vowed and swore to each other before God their unswerving loyalty to one another. They promised unreserved fidelity and whole-hearted commitment to one another.

Andrew Blackwood, a famous expositor of this century, said this: "When (a) covenant has to do with friendship between man and man, we infer that each of them has declared his undying devotion to the other, and that they have bound their hearts together with ties of loyalty as well as love."

We're not told this in our passage, but in typical ancient Middle Eastern practice, covenants were sealed by sacrifice. The parts of the animal (or animals) which were sacrificed were laid side by side, and those who were making the covenant with each other would walk between the parts of the slain animal (or animals). This was a symbolic act by which the participants said to each other, "If we violate this covenant we are making today, may we be slain and cut in two, just as these animals have been slain and cut in two — may our blood be shed and spilled on the ground if we violate this covenant we are making today."

Now, we can't say for sure that such a ceremony took place when Jonathan and David made their covenant (although there is a fairly strong possibility that such a ceremony did take place). But what I want us to understand from this is that, in Middle Eastern thought, a covenant is a very serious thing.

The relationship between Jonathan and David was not a simple, ordinary friendship.

God, in His sovereign mercy, supernaturally and inseparably bound the souls of Jonathan and David together. They were chained together, inseparably devoted to one another. Under God's guidance, they swore undying loyalty, unreserved fidelity and wholehearted commitment to one another.

Do you have a friend like that in your life? God wants to supernaturally and inseparably bind your soul to the soul of a Jonathan — one who will support and strengthen you, one who will fight your battles alongside you.

The Two Major Roles of a Covenant Friend
In verse 4 of 1 Samuel 18, we see that Jonathan does two things which are significant, and each of these corresponds to one of the two major roles of a covenant friend.

First of all, we are told that "Jonathan took off the robe he was wearing and gave it to David, ...."

In ancient Middle Eastern culture, the giving of one's clothes to another symbolized the giving of oneself. Beyond that, we need to realize that this was not just any robe. This was Jonathan's princely robe, the symbol of his royalty.

Jonathan was the son of Saul. He was the son of the king of Israel. He was in line for the throne. But David had been anointed as king. He wasn't yet king in the eyes of man, but he had been anointed as king by Samuel, the prophet of God.

And Jonathan recognized the purposes of God in David's life. He recognized that God had called David, and not himself, to the throne. And so, in a symbolic gesture, Jonathan gave David his royal robe.

This is the first major role of a covenant friend: to discern and recognize the purposes of God in the other person's life.

Secondly, Jonathan gave David his weapons — his sword and his bow — as if to say, "I'll fight for you."

And this is the second major role of a covenant friend: to do battle in the spiritual realm on the other person's behalf.

My Experience in Covenant Friendship
Several years ago, the Lord impressed upon me that I needed someone in my life to whom I could be accountable. Someone who I could tell anything and everything. Someone who would check up on me. Someone who would pray for me.

And not only did the Lord tell me I needed a covenant friend, but He told me who that covenant friend would be.

It was someone I didn't know too well. But I knew the Lord was speaking to me.

So if I remember correctly, I asked this person if I could take him to lunch. And I related to him how the Lord had told me that I needed a covenant friend, and that the Lord had also told me that he was the person who I should ask.

He said he needed to think about it for a week or so, and then he agreed.

When we made our covenant together, we told each other everything we could think of about ourselves — about our problems, about our hopes and our dreams, about our struggles.

And that openness and the covenant we made together granted us two things, I think — things which parallel the story of Jonathan and David very closely:

• We began to be able to discern and recognize the purposes of God in each other's life; and,
• We began to sense an authority in prayer that we hadn't known before — an authority as we took part in spiritual battle on the other person's behalf. We began to pray against evil influences in the other person's life rather than simply asking God to remove those evil influences.

After a couple of years of such a covenant friendship, he moved away to a remote town in Northern California. This was before email was prevalent, and neither of us could really afford long distance phone calls, so our relationship slowly stopped having the same depth and the same covenant nature.

I'm largely without a covenant friend at this point in my life, although there is one friendship I have now which I think may be beginning to approach that depth.

These days, with email and instant messaging, and chat rooms, I think there's a greater possibility for long-distance covenant friendships. But I think I would still recommend that you look to those in your geographical area. Above all, though, ask the Lord to reveal to you who He would choose as your covenant friend.

Covenant Friendship In Action
Let's look at covenant friendship in action. 1 Samuel 19:1-6 says this:

Now Saul told Jonathan his son and all his servants to put David to death. But Jonathan, Saul's son, greatly delighted in David. So Jonathan told David saying, "Saul my father is seeking to put you to death. Now therefore, please be on guard in the morning, and stay in a secret place and hide yourself. And I will go out and stand beside my father in the field where you are, and I will speak with my father about you; if I find out anything, then I shall tell you." Then Jonathan spoke well of David to Saul his father, and said to him, "Do not let the king sin against his servant David, since he has not sinned against you, and since his deeds have been very beneficial to you. For he took his life in his hand and struck the Philistine, and the Lord brought about a great deliverance for all Israel; you saw it and rejoiced. Why then will you sin against innocent blood, by putting David to death without a cause?" And Saul listened to the voice of Jonathan, and Saul vowed, "As the Lord lives, he shall not be put to death."

Covenant friendship in action. Jonathan places himself between David and David's enemy and, in effect, says, "Go no further." And as covenant friends, we can do the same in the lives of other people. In prayer, we can say to the enemy, "Go no further in your designs upon this person's life. You have no right to affect this person's life. The Lord rebuke you. The Lord who has chosen this one for His purposes rebuke you."

Covenant Friends Provide Protection
At the end of chapter 1 Samuel 19, Saul is pursuing David to try to kill him. And David comes to Jonathan and pours out his anguish to his covenant friend. Jonathan devises a plan by which he can let David know if, in fact, Saul wants to kill David. Jonathan sounds his father out and discovers that Saul does, in fact, want to kill David. And so Jonathan takes a young boy out to the field where David is hiding, and through a pre-arranged signal between them, Jonathan informs David of Saul's plans. And so David flees.

Again, Jonathan, as David's covenant friend, provides protection and safety for him from David's enemies. And we do the same in our covenant friendships. In prayer, we provide protection and safety for the other person from the attacks of the enemy.

Prevailing in Battle in the Spiritual Realm
1 Samuel 23:15-25 says this:

Now David became aware that Saul had come out to seek his life while David was in the wilderness of Ziph at Horesh. And Jonathan, Saul's son, arose and went to David at Horesh, and encouraged him in God. Thus he said to him, "Do not be afraid, because the hand of Saul my father shall not find you, and you will be king over Israel and I will be next to you; and Saul my father knows that also." So the two of them made a covenant before the Lord; and David stayed at Horesh while Jonathan went to his house. Then Ziphites came up to Saul at Gibeah, saying, "Is David not hiding with us in the strongholds at Horesh, on the hill of Hachilah, which is on the south of Jeshimon? Now then, O king, come down according to all the desire of your soul to do so; and our part shall be to surrender him into the king's hand." And Saul said, "May you be blessed of the Lord; for you have had compassion on me. Go now, make more sure, and investigate and see his place where his haunt is, and who has seen him there; for I am told that he is very cunning. So look, and learn about all the hiding places where he hides himself, and return to me with certainty, and I will go with you; and it shall come about if he is in the land that I will search him out among all the thousands of Judah." Then they arose and went to Ziph before Saul. Now David and his men were in the wilderness of Maon, in the Arabah to the south of Jeshimon. When Saul and his men went to seek him, they told David, and he came down to the rock and stayed in the wilderness of Maon. And when Saul heard it, he pursued David in the wilderness of Maon.

The following are some important points about this passage:

• David was afraid (we know that because Jonathan told him to not be afraid).
• Jonathan again discerns and recognizes the purposes of God in David's life. He says, "My father will not lay a hand on you. You shall be king over Israel, ...."
• Jonathan again fights in the spiritual realm on David's behalf. He encourages him in God. One translation says that Jonathan helped David to find strength in God. Another translation says that Jonathan "strengthened (David's) hand in God."
• The Hebrew word for "encouraged" or "strengthened" or "helped to find strength" is hazaq which means "to be or become strong, to strengthen, to be courageous." It can also mean "to prevail in battle." Jonathan prevailed in battle in the spiritual realm on David's behalf.

The Results of Covenant Friendship
What was the result of Jonathan's prevailing in battle on David's behalf in the spiritual realm?

To find out, let's read what David wrote at this time. Psalm 54 says this:

For the choir director; on stringed instruments. A Maskil of David, when the Ziphites came and said to Saul, "Is not David hiding himself among us?"

Save me, O God, by Thy name, and vindicate me by Thy power. Hear my prayer, O God; give ear to the words of my mouth. For strangers have risen against me, and violent men have sought my life; they have not set God before them. Selah. [I can't prove this, but I believe that before David wrote the next four verses, Jonathan came to him and "strengthened his hand in God"] Verse 4: "Behold, God is my helper; the Lord is the sustainer of my soul, He will recompense the evil to my foes; destroy them in Thy faithfulness. Willingly I will sacrifice to Thee; I will give thanks to Thy name, O Lord, for it is good. For He has delivered me from all trouble; and my eye has looked with satisfaction upon my enemies."

One translation says, "my eyes have looked in triumph on my foes."

Remember that David is still being persecuted, attacked and pursued by his enemies. Nothing has changed outwardly. But he can still say, "My eyes have looked in triumph on my foes." Outwardly, his enemies are still pursuing him. But Jonathan has come and strengthened his hand in God. Jonathan has come and prevailed in battle in the spiritual realm on David's behalf. And so, the eyes of David's heart have looked in triumph on his foes.

Do you want the eyes of your heart to be able to look in triumph on the foes of sexual temptation? You need a Jonathan who can prevail in battle in the spiritual realm on your behalf. Someone who can pray against the sexual temptations you face.

Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 says this:

Two are better than one because they have a good return for their labor. For if either of them falls, the one will lift up his companion. But woe to the one who falls when there is not another to lift him up. Furthermore, if two lie down together they keep warm, but how can one be warm alone? And if one can overpower him who is alone, two can resist him. A cord of three strands is not quickly torn apart.

Technological Weapons
Under the category of technological weapons, I'd like to talk to you about four different types of technologies which can help us in the battle against online sexual temptation: filtering software, filtered internet service providers, proxy filtering, and accountability software.

Filtering Software
This is software which is installed on the computer and which will at least theoretically not allow objectionable sites to be accessed.

Examples are NetNanny, SurfControl, We-Blocker, and CyberSitter.

They work from lists of objectionable sites which must be downloaded and updated on a regular basis (the lists are maintained through a variety of means — human staffs who surf the internet, reports from users, etc.

They can be used to block chat rooms, newsgroups, search engines, etc.

These products are good for young children, but are not appropriate for older children or adults — they tend to be too easy to get around.

Filtered Internet Service Providers
An internet service provider is a company through which a person gains internet access or gets on the internet.

Examples of filtered internet service providers are Integrity Online, Internet 4 Families, Mayberry America, PK Family (which is a Promise Keepers service), Lifeway Online (a Southern Baptist service), PaxWay (from Pax-TV), Cleanweb (from iExalt Publishers), Christian-Net, etc.

And there are lots of others — too many to list.

These also work from lists of objectionable sites which are updated by human staffs who surf the internet, reports from users, etc. The difference between these lists and those of filtering software products is that since these lists reside on the ISP's servers, they don't have to be downloaded on a regular basis.

My suggestion is that you visit FilterReview.comwhich lists a large number of filtered internet service providers, complete with reviews from users, charts about the services they offer, etc.

Some of the things you will want to know are:

• Does the service block pornography?
• Does it block hate sites?
• Does it block cult sites?
• Does it block online gambling sites?
• Does it block alternative lifestyle sites?
• Does it block free hosting sites?
• Does it block objectionable email?
• Does it block objectionable instant messenging communication?
• Does it block objectionable chat rooms?
• Does it block objectionable newsgroups?
• Does it have an access phone number in your area?

Which of these questions is important to you depends on your particular situation. You may not be tempted by gambling, so that may not be important to you. Etc., etc.

Filtered internet service providers are a good, all-around solution. They aren't perfect — some sites slip through, some emails are blocked which shouldn't be, some sites are blocked which shouldn't be, for the most part, they don't work with DSL, cable, or other broadband access solutions.

Proxy Filtering
Proxy filtering is a special kind of filtering solution which is especially good for broadband (DSL, cable, etc.) access.

Some examples include Hedgebuilders (also known as A+ Filtering), FamilyConnect, as well as a product offered by Christian-Net. And I am sure there are others as well.

You must already have internet access through an internet service provider. If you want to continue to use Earthlink, for example, you can use Proxy Filtering to protect yourself.

Accountability Software
Some examples include CovenantEyes, EyePromise (from Promise Keepers), and WinGuardian.

WinGuardian is a software package which logs user visited web sites, logs all programs opened and closed, captures all keystrokes typed into Windows programs, takes screenshot images at specified times, and can automatically email out log files for remote viewing.

It's something to consider using with your children and teenagers — if they know that you will be monitoring their internet and computer activities, they are much less likely to become involved in objectionable computer activities.

Since it captures keystrokes and takes screenshot images, it can effectively monitor chat, instant messenger conversations, etc. (things which many filters don't block).

CovenantEyes and EyePromise are software packages specifically designed to be used with accountability partners (or covenant friends, as we've called them today).

The basic idea behind these software packages is that once a week, bi-weekly, or monthly, a list of web sites you have visited is sent via email to one or two accountability partners you have chosen.

There is no way around the program. Wherever you go on the web, your accountability partner will know about it.

Both services cost $6.95 per month, but are available only for Windows 95 and greater.

One advantage to these is that they are effective for any kind of online addiction — pornography, gambling, relationships, etc.

Non-Web Tips
So far, we've basically been looking at how to deal with the issue of online pornography on the web. But the web is not the only online arena in which we are in danger of being exposed to pornography.

Email
Today, we don't have to go looking for pornography because it comes to us in our email box.

If your email address is anywhere on the web (on a website, in a guestbook entry, in a newsgroup posting, etc., etc.), it will be harvested by bulk emailers who use special software to gather email addresses off of the web. This is why most people receive unsolicited email.

Here are some tips for dealing with unsolicited email, or spam:

• Don't unsubscribe unless it's an established list. If you unsubscribe, it tells the bulk emailer that yours is a valid email address. He/she may remove you from their list, but they will sell your email address to someone else.
• Set up filters in your email software. I started out by setting up filters to place emails from my family and friends in special folders. Then I set up filters to place emails from mailing lists to which I have subscribed in special folders. Finally, I set up my filter that places all remaining email in a folder called "Possible Spam." Then when I receive email, I keep the preview feature turned off (because pornographic email sometimes displays photos). After I have downloaded all of my email, I check the Possible Spam folder and delete any email which is pornographic in nature or is just general unsolicited email (I can almost always tell by the subject line of the email if it's spam).
• If you post to a message board or newsgroup, change your email address (add "nospam"). For example, if your email address is .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address), you might use an address of .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) and then tell people in the body of your post to remove the "nospam" part if they want to reply to you via email.
• Consider using multiple, free email accounts and not posting to message boards and newsgroups with your primary email address.
• If you have a website and need your email address to appear, you can encrypt your email address so that it can't be harvested by bulk emailers.

Instant Messaging
The major instant messaging applications (ICQ, AOL Messenger, MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger) have filtering capabilities and so you should experiment with setting those filters up.

In my personal experience, ICQ is the worst (it has the most pornographic spammers using it) and doesn't seem to respond to filtering.

Conclusion
I will conclude this white paper by citing the same passage of Scripture with which we began. Proverbs 4:23 says, "Watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it flow the springs of life."

The weapons which we have discussed in this white paper are crucial to us being able to watch over our hearts with all diligence in the realm of online pornography.

We must resist sexual temptation on the basis of who we are in Christ and the purpose for which we were created. We must seek out covenant friends who will join us in battle in the spiritual realm. And we must take advantage of the technological tools which are available to us to help us avoid being exposed to online pornography.