John Piper, the founder and teacher of DesiringGod, predicted and preached about the spiritual dangers of technology and smartphone 35 years ago.
In a recent podcast episode posted on DesiringGod, the sermon of Pastor John preached in March 18, 1984, titled "Christ in Combat: Defense by the Spirit" was introduced by the host with the question, "While computers bring tremendous blessings to our lives, how will it also corrupt our hopes and affection?"
In the sermon, the reformed theologian and pastor found his first impression of computer "combination of mystery and power and precision and beauty" just like sex, a romance, an epic adventure.
"Our culture is going to be irreversibly transformed by the microcomputer revolution. The uses are going to expand and it will be common as the telephone, I don't doubt." Pastor John said.
One of the effects that they(computers) can have on Christians is to make us begin to feel that spiritual things aren't very real and exciting," He shared with concern.
"The Bible talks about things often way off in the past or way off in the future," "You can touch and see a computer. It will talk back to you and solve your problems instantaneously. It is a powerful fascination." He added.
However, he questioned, "If you were laid low with kidney failure this week and a congested heart, and were told by the doctor, "You have three days at the most unless we use extraordinary measures, and we don't think that would be wise," which would you prefer?, "Would you ask your family to sit by your bed and read the latest program developments of IBM or the Bible?"
He answered, "At the end of your journey through the valley of life, the haze of the computer craze just gets blown away."
The pastor named the life of the computer technology era "a battle for your soul between the dove who gives life and the lion who destroys."
"Whatever has entranced you, whatever has captivated you, whatever enthralls you, if it dulls your sensitivity to the mountains of eternity, if it somehow encloses you within a haze so that you don't feel what is really at stake every day in your life between the lion and the dove, it's an illusion from hell." He emphasized.
"I want us to see Christ in combat today, so that our lives can be cleared away of whatever haze is blinding us to the combat that we face." He added.
He warned, "Satan holds American Christianity so tightly in the vice grip of comfort and wealth, that he's not about to tip his hand with too much demonic tomfoolery."
"What Satan fears most, Bethlehem, is an outpouring of the Holy Spirit that causes you and me to say with Paul, "I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish . . . that I may know [Christ] and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death" (Philippians 3:8, 10)."
You can find his 36 year old prophetic like sermon here and find out more about his wonderful statement about all the bewitching technology and smartphone ages.
