For God’s Sake: I was surprised at being hacked; God was not.

Curious, I clicked on the notification and discovered that a hacker had created a new page in my account from which they were conducting business. My indignation quotient skyrocketed, but unbeknownst to me, it was about to enter the stratosphere.

That afternoon, my bank called to tell me that they had successfully blocked two suspicious transactions but a third one for $400 got through. The card that had been hacked was my debit card, so the money spent was mine!

Two years ago, when I first started running paid ads, I inadvertently used my debit card instead of my business credit card – they look identical. I quickly realized my error and corrected the method of payment. Nonetheless, the hacker found the card info and quickly spent over $1,000.

My bank’s quick response prevented greater loss but put me in trouble with Facebook for the non-payment of over $750 in charges. I was livid.

Resolving the fraudulent charge took only a short, face-to-face meeting with a sympathetic employee at the bank. Resolving my Facebook issue took two weeks of lengthy chat sessions and phone calls, but it is resolved.

I suppose that the first hacker to ply his malicious trade was Satan when he tempted Adam and Eve to sin against God. After God had spoken creation into existence, he stooped down and lovingly created the first man and woman in his own image and likeness. God had scarcely declared his creation to be very good, when Satan slithered in and hacked it.

God had given the couple one commandment, to not eat the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden, “for on the day that you eat of it, you will surely die.” Satan enticed them with the juicy lie that, not only would they not surely die, but they would become like God. They ate and experienced death, spiritual death; they and their billions of descendants were separated from God and under his just wrath. Further, they and the rest of creation were now infected with the corruption of sin.

I was surprised at being hacked; God was not. For his own purposes and glory, he sovereignly ordained it and ordained a way to resolve it before it ever happened. God’s resolution was to send a Savior, his only Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, who was born as a man, lived a sinless life, then bore in our place his Father’s just wrath against our sins.

The proof that resolution was now available was Christ’s glorious resurrection.
Satan’s hack is resolved for those who will put their faith in Christ alone. Mine was resolved April 2, 1984.