A good friend wrote a blog post warning about the dangers of blogs to deceive and to destroy, if possible, even the elect.

I couldn’t have agreed more with my friend’s post, and while reading it the lyrics of a hymn wafted through my mind. This hymn had been written in a time when the hymn’s writer was in mortal danger both physically and spiritually.

“And though this world with devils filled should threaten to undo us . . . “

Obviously, I’m a blog writer, and so I wondered if something that I’d written had inspired my friend’s warning, so I texted her to ask, and she said that nothing I’d written was what she was describing in her post.

My friend’s assurance was a relief to me, and I asked her to tell me directly if she ever sees something in my writing that she finds deceptive. She said that she would.

I didn’t tell my friend this, but I’d had two recent close calls in my blog writing with what my friend was describing and both kind of scared me . . . but that’s a good thing.

This internet to which I’ve connected myself to write, and specifically the whatever it’s called on which I write my blog, this artificially intelligent thing that uses algorithms, whatever the hell THEY are, to review my writings and to make recommendations to me and my readers at the bottom of the .com whatever it is on which I’m writing recently introduced me to two fellow human beings . . . at least I think that they are human beings . . . and the websites on which they write their respective blogs . . .

but to me they were devils . . . and specifically “she devils,” in disguise.

One of the recommendations that my own .com whatever it is made to me at the bottom of one of my recent posts that was about “All The Way My Savior Leads Me” was for the blog of a woman who is aptly described in chapter seven of the ancient “Book of Proverbs” in what some call The Holy Bible.

How my .com whatever it’s called connected my post about Jesus Christ with a come-on blog for sexual temptations is kind of beyond me, but it did.

If you’ve never read chapter seven in the Bible’s “Book of Proverbs,” go there now and do so. It’s a pretty damned good bit of advice you’ll find there for the day and age in which we live.

Moreover, if you’ve never read The Holy Bible, do that too. That’s the best advice that I can give you.

Anyway, I told my beautiful bride about the seductress that got thrown at me at the bottom of my blog post by this .com algorithm thing on which I write, and I decided never to look at what’s at the bottom of my posts again . . . until I did.

The next time it wasn’t a seductress waiting there, but a witch, a highly intelligent, very well educated, articulate, interesting professing “pantheist” like I used to be before meeting my possibly imaginary Friend, Jesus Christ, who assured me that He was God and I wasn’t but wanted to be my Friend nonetheless.

In the comment section of a post about the existence of “evil” that the pantheist wrote, I dialoged a bit with my new acquaintance. I tried to tell her about my possibly imaginary Friend, but she didn’t seem interested. However, neither was I interested several times when someone had tried to tell me about Jesus Christ before I finally was.

Anyway, I told Karen about the pantheist blogger too, like I had told her about the seductress, and we prayed for both of them. Assuming that these other bloggers are actually human beings and not just some damned machines . . . or devils . . . our prayers can’t hurt them, but, rather, will do them good.

I’d like to end this post with the full lyrics of the hymn that was wafting through my mind when I read my fellow blogger friend’s warning about blogs because it’s a good one. It’s a metaphor about the security that I and all believers have in my possibly imaginary Friend, Jesus Christ, because ultimately . . .

He is our only Hope!

A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing
Our Helper, He amid the flood of mortal ills prevailing
For still our ancient foe doth seek to work us woe
His craft and power are great and armed with cruel hate
On earth is not his equal

Did we in our own strength confide, our striving would be losing
Were not the right Man on our side, the Man of God’s own choosing
Dost ask who that may be? Christ Jesus, it is He
The Lord of Hosts His name, from age to age the same
And He must win the battle

And though this world with devils filled should threaten to undo us
We will not fear for God hath willed His Truth to triumph through us
The Prince of Darkness grim, we tremble not for him
His rage we can endure, for lo, his doom is sure
One little word shall fell him

That Word above all earthly pow’rs, no thanks to them, abideth
The Spirit and the Gifts are ours through Him who with us sideth
Let goods and kindred go, this mortal life also
The body they may kill, God’s Truth abideth still
His Kingdom is forever