We Are Not Computers!

We Are Not Computers!

             This morning I was playing a game of chess with my electronic reader. I believe I could have done better, but in my hurry I moved rapidly, which is not advisable if you want to win and are in a jam. Frankly, I wanted to see what would happen if my reader computer would win. And so it did and to my surprise…across the screen came these words, “Sorry, you lose”. I smiled and almost asked my victor, “Are you really sorry?” I knew the answer, my electronic reader was not sorry for anything, it has no feelings, it is a device with no soul, no spirit and it’s body is glass, plastic and chips powered by electricity through a battery system. Deep Blue was a chess-playing computer developed by IBM.  On May 11, 1997, the machine won a six-game match by two wins to one with three draws against world champion Garry Kasparov. Kasparov was so upset that he demanded a rematch on the grounds that Deep Blue had cheated! Now make no mistake, Deep Blue felt nothing. Deep Blue did not call up Deep Pink rejoicing and suggest they celebrate over dinner.

            Dr. Stephen Dirks of Stanford, one of the early inventors of the computer said he modeled the computer after the human mind. Machinery can often do what humans can do, except they cannot love, feel or build a frame of reference from experience. In the non-personal age we live in, I have a concern. Much shopping is done online. Go by a fast food restaurant and you may see more people in the drive through than inside. People are hired and fired through the internet. Social networking is done in crowded rooms while personal conversation is ignored. Teens have committed suicide after a group of their peers have bullied them online.  Mass gatherings are orchestrated by cell phones from everything from performing Handel’s Messiah in a mall to leading a revolt that overturns a dictator. Much good has come in this world of high tgechnology, however please afford me to leave you with three pieces of advice:

1. Don’t lose touch.

            Hospitals often provide an email service so that we may send an email or an electronic card with electronic flowers and fireworks should you so desire.  A parent need not attend the local parent/teachers meeting to find out where your child stands, you may conveniently go on line and find out your child’s grade average and homework assignments. Before you rejoice over obligations that are taken care of by proxy…may I tell you that research has been shown that people who receive the human touch heal faster than those who do not.  Let me share with you some insightful verses of Scripture: “And the whole multitude sought to touch him: for there went virtue out of him, and healed them all” (Luke 6:19).

“…they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover” (Mark 16:18). “And it came to pass, that the father of Publius lay sick of a fever and of a bloody flux: to whom Paul entered in, and prayed, and laid his hands on him, and healed him” (Acts 28:8).  From Luke 6:19 we find that people believed that to touch Jesus was to receive from Him “virtue”. The Greek word for virtue is: “δύναμις” (dunamis) which can be translated into English as meaning: force, miraculous power, might, power, strength, wonderful work, moral power and excellence of soul, power and resources arising from numbers, power consisting in or resting upon armies, forces, hosts. If you notice the root of this word is where we get the word “dynamite”. Dynamic power came from a mere touch form Jesus. We see there were times that our Lord healed without His physical presence, but more often than not He would travel to the crisis and lay hands on people who needed healing.

            When a man is ordained, hands are laid upon him: “Neglect not the gift that is in thee, which was given thee by prophecy, with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery” (I Timothy 4:14). Laying on of hands was so prevealent in the early church that it became doctrinal. The Bible speaks “Of the doctrine of baptisms, and of laying on of hands, and of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment” (Hebrews 6:2).

            God our Creator knows how we are “wired” for he wired us, if you please. He said in I Corinthians 7:1, “Now concerning the things whereof ye wrote unto me: It is good for a man not to touch a woman.”  Now in the next verse, God explains through Paul, “Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband” (I Corinthians 7:2). The touch is so powerful that God has saved the embrace between man and woman for the married couple.  Sometimes all it takes for a husband and wife who have become distant from one another to respond favorably is to take a walk together hand-in-hand. 

2. Be sensitive of your conscience.

            We can program our computers to do wonderful things and just as easily we may program computers to dredge out the depths and filth of this wicked world and display all manner of evil opportunity for the curious mind.  If I beat someone in chess, even though I am glad to win, I can from my heart say, “I’m sorry you lost.” When I taught my children to play chess, I trained them in such a way to be better than Dad. By the way, most any of my kids can beat me. And I have no problem putting my hand across the table and say, “Well done.”  On a much more serious note, should you begin to delve into areas that you have no business experimenting in, listen to God speaking through your conscious. Don’t dismiss a casual flirtation with someone on the internet as not being evil because they are not in your presence. Don’t think the images you pull up will not make an indelible impression on your impressionable mind.

            Recently Northwesten Universtity professor J. Michael Bailey, allowed an unspeakable display of fornication to take place before the watching young eyes of his students. He said in a statement released Wednesday that, "the university supports the efforts of its faculty to further the advancement of knowledge." Later the college president said they did not endorse this activity, although this type of class should not have been allowed on any college campus to begin with.  I think of musicians that are now singing to thousands of youth to embrace their alternate lifestyle as something they were born to be. Keep in mind if any of us embraces the original sin nature we were born with to the rejection of Christ, we go to Hell. The leading actors in Hollywood are now clamouring after roles where they may pretend to be homosexual. As a pastor who loves his flock; as a citizen who loves his country and as a Christian who loves his God I beg you please don’t program yourselves for sin!  We are not computers! As we sense conviction of wrong, flee the wrong and embrace the right. The consequences for not doing so is revealed in I Timothy 4:2, “…having their conscience seared with a hot iron”. Listen to the still, sweet voice of the Lord that says, “…but yet I would have you wise unto that which is good, and simple concerning evil” (Romans 16:19).

3. Take a deliberate sabbatical from technology.

            Make the personal visit with someone who needs you. Turn off the internet every now and then and read, meditate, or muse. Muse means to be absorbed in thought. Amused is the same word with a prefix, liteally meaning, “no thought” or “absence of thought.” America is “amusing” herself to death. We need to be inflamed again with the fires of revival. The Psalmist said, “…while I was musing the fire burned…” (Psalm 39:3).  The last stanza of the song, “Take Time to Be Holy” says, “Take time to be holy, be calm in thy soul, each thought and each motive beneath his control.” Resist being controlled by our age and submit to the calming control of God.