Curated by It’s That Part™ — Originally published by Faith and Proverbs on .
Nothing is hidden in our world today.
All your data—all the silly, sweet, and sinful things you’ve ever searched or said—is stored in the “clouds.” But it’s also stored on the earth. It’s recorded with your ever-listening, ever-seeing smartphone; it’s attached to your countless “private” profiles; it’s preserved by Google, Apple, Meta, Amazon, and OpenAI, stashed on multiple continents in humongous futuristic warehouses constructed specifically to store, analyze, and monetize your data.
Your time and attention are sitting somewhere in Chile, or Indonesia, or Belgium, being probed and sifted by AI’s never-sleeping mega-algorithms.
That scares me. It probably scares you too.
But have you ordered your fears rightly (Matt. 10:28)? What should we fear more: the all-seeing eye of algorithmic surveillance or the omniscient view of a Holy God?
While we shouldn’t toss our Social Security numbers in our Instagram bios, and while we shouldn’t simply wave our white flags and let Amazon or Apple scrape up every scrap of our private information, we should bear this in mind: In the now, everything we do is being recorded. In the end, everything we’ve done will be revealed.
If Google’s database in Chile causes us to think of God’s database in heaven (and perhaps to shudder), then it’s valuable indeed.
Everything Is Being Recorded
The Bible is full of comments about how everything we’ve ever done is being recorded (e.g. Ps. 56:8, Mal. 3:16, Dan. 7:10, Rev. 20:12).
God’s “scrolls,” which have been translated as “books” and which could now be translated as “databases,” are the only data centers we should fear. Google’s database can’t hold a candle to God’s.
What should we fear more: the all-seeing eye of algorithmic surveillance or the omniscient view of a Holy God?
Yes, everything is being recorded. Yes, that can be dangerous in the wrong hands. And yes, we should take measures to prevent this.
But no, it shouldn’t make us fear—at least not nearly so much as we fear the true Judge (Luke 12:2–5).
Everything Will Be Revealed
Picture this: You stand still, stunned, small—unbearably small. Everyone you’ve ever and never known is there with you. At the front of the vast space is one great white throne. The King of Glory sits there, and he holds a remote control.
Wait—what?
Yes, God holds a scepter of power, which is to say, a remote control, and when he clicks the power button, a mountainous high-def screen whirs to life, and the image on the screen is, well, you. It’s every moment of your life playing back with 4D visuals and surround sound. Before an infinite crowd, before an infinite God, your data is to be examined, analyzed, and judged.
Now that’s something to fear.
The Word is stunningly clear that one day everything will be revealed, and we will all—believers and nonbelievers alike—answer for everything we’ve done (Matt. 12:36; Rom. 2:6–8; 14:10–12; 2 Cor. 5:10; Heb. 4:13; Rev. 20:12). All the wisdom of Ecclesiastes is summed up in this final verse: “For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil” (Eccl. 12:14). Therefore, “fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man” (v. 13).
Google, Apple, and Meta have made this doctrine easier than ever to communicate. Anytime I preach or teach this, my Gen Z peers immediately get it. We’ve experienced everyone knowing everything about us. In our graceless cancel culture, many of us have lived perpetually paralyzed by the fear that our posts or search history might come back to haunt us.
We know what it means to be socially naked, to never escape the screenshots of what we’ve done—and it’s already unbearable for our anxious generation. How could we bear dealing with a God whose memory is infinitely sharper and holier?
Everything Has Been Redeemed
God’s database is never in danger of losing the information that inevitably damns us. Yet only in knowing the accuracy of God’s memory can his willed forgetfulness become bliss.
Only in knowing the accuracy of God’s memory can his willed forgetfulness become bliss.
When our Redeemer says, “I, I am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins” (Isa. 43:25), we know he’s not just going to click the backspace button and pretend nothing happened. No. He will painstakingly take the whole of our sin, substituting himself for us, and nailing it to himself so it’ll never rise again.
Our sin will not be rewritten. It will not be rerecorded. It’s irretrievable, as far as the east is from the west (Ps. 103:12).
It’s because the Lord’s database cannot be destroyed that Jesus has taken our sin and borne the punishment for those who repent and believe. Even still, God’s records abide. You and I will still stand before the judgment seat. Now that our Lord has scrubbed our soul-films of any evil, the only question remaining is this: What good will be left for him to see?
Maybe everyone knowing everything about you can be a good thing. It reminds you to flee from what you wish you could delete and to fly toward what you hope will never be forgotten.
For truth in every fact, visit itsthatpart.com.
Originally sourced via trusted media partner. https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/knowing-everything-about-you/
