In my search for meaning in life, a cult, a semi-cult, and the occult -- one after another -- came to tempt me. When one failed to recruit me, another came to take its place. Satan has a whole range of fake spiritualities for those who are spiritually minded. I tested them all, and rejected them all, in my search for truth.
In the end, through a spiritual crisis, I cried out to Jesus and He sent down the Holy Spirit. When the Spirit fell on me, the Bible came to life and I devoured every page.
Twenty-two years later, as I re-read it, I marvel again at the truths it contains. The Word of God makes the best sense of life. When we interpret life through the paradigm of the Word, things fall into place.
Now, at the beginning the year, I start at Genesis. And in Genesis 3, we see when all our problems began.
I notice the woman is alone -- or if Adam was with her, he was strangely silent and passive. Snake was cunning. He took God's instructions and reinterpreted it to her until she was convinced it made sense and Snake was right. This is perhaps the first recorded instance of brainwashing.
The woman's paradigm changed: at first, she thought God was good. Now, God is selfish, and with-holding good from her. With a change in mind, came a change in direction. She took the fruit, and ate.
Snake is still active in the world today, in thousands of different forms. But his aim is still the same: to brainwash mankind to take the fruit, and eat.
When I was browsing the Web, I came across the forum, Internet Love Scams. And in it, I read the real-life stories of many women, looking for love, who fell for Snake's charms instead.
The stories are similar: they are lonely -- many recently widowed or divorced, looking for a relationship with a good man. Some of their friends have even met their husbands online, so they go into the world of online dating, full of hope. And they meet their "ideal man" -- romantic, loving, endearing, good-looking, rich -- but is always in one crisis after another, where for some reason the man can't get a hold of his money, but always needs the woman's money to help him out. And of course, the man says he would pay her back. But of course, the woman never gets her money back...
Some are tempted by their "ideal man" to engage in internet sex. After all, aren't they "in love", and aren't they going to marry some day? And when they discover that their "ideal man" never existed, the photo they saw in the online dating profile was stolen from a modelling agency, and that they've been led to believe a web of lies, they are shamed, shattered, afraid to tell their family and friends.
They've lost their money (this may include cars, houses, jobs in their all-consuming desire to please their internet "husband), their time, their trust -- even their trust in themselves -- and some even lost whatever sexual wholeness they had.
(Because I'm in the inner healing and deliverance ministry, I know that those who engaged in internet sex have become heavily demonised as well. All the symptoms they described are that of people who've invited the demonic into their life.)
And the only way they can get their healing is to confess their shame, and sometimes their sin, in the anonymity of an internet forum where they are comforted by many others who have also fallen in a similar way.
The woman -- alone and unprotected -- in a pattern as old as mankind itself, meets the Snake, and falls for his charms. To her utter shame and dishonour.
But God is always in the redemptive business. As I read the forum, I'm amazed at the love and comfort these victims offer one another. When my counsellor friend asked me why I liked the site, I said: "Because it's full of love."
The woman falls. But the love and support of others heals and redeems her. And behind all that, the love of God.
