If you come to our church, it doesn't mean you have to agree with everything that I say.
I am not God.
I am not infallible.
I am not perfect.
Some things that I preach are just God's word, and then other things are things that I'm
going to state that are my opinion, just like Paul did in 1 Corinthians 7.
He gave some things, and he said, "This is not the command of the Lord.
This is my thought on it.
This is my opinion on it, and I'm going to give my opinion about internet dating or meeting
someone on the internet."
Okay, and you know, it's probably going to offend people and make people mad.
I'm not trying to offend or hurt anybody's feelings or make anyone mad, but you know
what?
I want my kids to hear this, and I want every single person that's here to hear this so
that they can at least understand that there is a danger in meeting people on the internet.
Okay?
And let me explain to you what that is.
It's that people present themselves on the internet differently than what they're really
like in real life, okay?
And this is what you have to be careful of.
And what happens is people will "meet" on the internet and then what will happen is they're
already sick of love, right?
They're already, you know, obsessed and infatuated and all head over heels before they've even
met the person in real life.
And then what happens is then when they meet the person in real life, there are all these
red flags.
But it's too late because they've already decided this person is so wonderful, this person
is so great.
You know, at least if you meet people in real life, you have a better feel for what they're
really like before you just go head over heels, sick of love, infatuated with them.
You can actually get a better feel for who they are.
You can usually know a little bit more where they're coming from.
Maybe you might know some of their family or know some of their friends, or maybe they're
a friend of a friend, or maybe they're from church.
You know, there's a little bit of more of a background there of who you're meeting.
You know, for example, I know, and I'm not going to reveal who this is, but you know,
somebody in my extended family that basically met their spouse on the internet, and when
they met their spouse on the internet, they said that they were ten years younger than
they really were.
Okay?
But, you know, and then once they go on a few dates, they reveal, "Yeah, I'm actually
ten years older than what my profile said."
Okay, but here's the thing.
He already had her on the hook at that point, right?
And they're married to this day, okay?
But you see, he lied about his age on there, and this is the type of thing that I'm talking
about, because you lie about stuff like that, and then basically by the time you're already
on the hook, you find out that all these things aren't really quite true, or that the person
isn't really quite the way that they presented themself online.
Now let me tell you a horror story.
Now this predates internet dating, this predates the internet, okay?
But this is another relative of mine, and I've got a story of something that was kind
of like the equivalent back then, just a similar thing that happened.
But this girl that's in my extended family, she one time made a phone call and accidentally
dialed the wrong number, okay?
And basically it was the wrong number, but the person said, "Oh wait, no, don't hang
up," and just wanted to chat with her, okay?
Just a random person, she just accidentally dialed the wrong number.
So this guy's just kind of chatting with her over the phone randomly.
So she chats with him and then decides to, "Oh, she'll meet him at the mall with a friend,"
because she figured that would be a safe place, it's a public place.
She's talking to this guy on the phone, he's a cool young guy or whatever, and she's going
to bring her friend with her and meet him at the mall.
It's a nice, safe, neutral zone.
I mean, doesn't this kind of sound familiar to internet dating?
You're on the internet, you meet somebody, okay, we're going to meet at the mall.
So she goes, her and her friend, and they meet this guy and they talk to him for a little
while, and the guy's kind of weird.
Oh, do you think so?
I mean, he's just like picking up on some girl that just accidentally called the wrong
number.
So, you know, the guy turns out to be a little bit weird, right?
So she's like, okay, we got to go, you know, whatever, just kind of wants to get away from
this guy.
So her and her friend, they go out and they get in the car, and they go to drive away,
and this is like, this is before cell phones, this is before internet, and she goes to drive
away with her friend, and all of a sudden, the guy is behind them on a motorcycle.
And all of a sudden, he just starts ramming his motorcycle into the back of the car, just
hitting the back of the car with the motorcycle.
You know, she's scared, she's got no cell phone, she's freaked out, just how do we get away
from this guy?
Okay, so that's all there is to the story.
You probably thought it was going to go even worse than that.
But anyway, that's my horror story right there.
But the bottom line is that I would say that it's better if you can just meet people in
real life, and maybe I'm just old fashioned, because I'm 32 years old.
And when I was dating there was no such thing as internet dating and all this stuff.
And every girl that I dated I met in real life and talked to, imagine that.
But I'm just saying young people, you need to be cautious and don't be foolish and get
all excited and get all infatuated and get all head over heels over some person that
you're meeting on the internet.
I mean you might be, you're a young lady and you're talking to some guy on the internet,
you might be talking to some guy that's 50 years old who's pretending to be a teenager.
I mean seriously, you might be talking to some weirdo, some pervert, I mean that's just
putting up photos of whoever and saying this is me, I'm this age.
I mean it happens all the time and you need to be very careful and I'm just going to tell
you right now, I will, and again don't be offended, I will not let my children take
part in internet dating, as long as they're living in my house, they will meet people
in real life.
And again, I'm not against anybody who met their spouse that way, I'm just telling you
I'm going to have that rule in my house, I can make whatever rules I want in my house,
I don't see the benefit of it, you know, I think it's dangerous and so that's my rule
in my house, my children will never participate in it.