With camera phones and other technology, privacy is fast becoming a thing of the past.
Just one hundred years ago, such a question would have been meaningless. Today, with cameras in watches and cellphones, private remarks and momentary indiscretions caught on video or voice recorder, flash around the world instantaneously.
If, in less than a hundred years, we have come so far in our ability to recover what is said and done, think what a civilization 1,000 years in advance of us might be able to do. It could well be that in such a civilization no word, or deed could escape investigation. For all we know, the inhabitants of such a civilization may have learned to extract subtle imprints from the very brick of houses or the stones in the fields.
In point of fact, we have good reason to believe that an infinitely advanced civilization exists. Whoever designed the universe and its life had immense technical skill and finesse.
As a Christian, I believe that designer was God. I believe also that he issued the following warning against hypocrisy: “There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed or hidden that will not be made known. What you have said in the dark will be heard in the daylight, and what you have whispered in the ear in the inner rooms will be proclaimed from the roofs” (Luke 12:1-3).
When I think of this warning, I tremble. Believing that God has infinitely advanced recording capabilities, I have sought to live my life as an open book; and yet I know I have gossiped, expressed half-truths, misjudged peoples’ motives aloud and stumbled in other ways that I wish could remain permanently hidden. They won’t be—although God promises me that at some point my record will be permanently expunged and He will remember my sins no more.
But what about hypocrites who lie, cheat, impose on others and deliberately do wrong while cunningly pretending it is all for good? God’s hidden recorders are taping them now and the recordings will be played on the day of judgment.
