Is the devil really telling you to keep scrolling?

Have any of you been seeing memes like these on social media? I've seen several over the past few days. All of the ones below, in fact, were shared by one friend on Facebook.

They appear pious on the surface. Because it is true that Satan would like nothing more than for God's people to be quiet and silenced, to not speak boldly the truth of the gospel message, to cower zip their lips so as to avoid being mocked or laughed at.

The problem is, these memes seem to suggest that Jesus wants you to share this image, and Satan wants yoo to keep scrolling without sharing it. 

But there is absolutely no gospel content in these memes to make them worth sharing! 

None. Zero. Zip. Zilch. Nada. Big, fat goose egg.

 

These memes are nothing but spiritual and emotional manipulation, shaming, and abuse.

On one of these posts I saw shared, the text portion accompanying the image included hashtags with names of Hollywood and music industry celebrities, which was nothing but a deceptive tactic to try to get the post displayed to more people, because those hastags were popular. That kind of decption in online "marketing" is dishonest and not of God. 

Sharing that particular post would have actually involved participating in the sin of deception. So I definitely kept scrolling (after saving the image for this article, that is). So, did I displease Jesus and please the devil by not sharing something based on deception? Or was my scrolling past it—which, according to the meme itself, was what Satan wanted—actually the action pleasing to God, because I refused to be suckered into using deceptive means, which come from the evil one?

Now, I will share good content that actually communicates a truth about God and what He is doing in the world, or material that gives a clearer understanding about the message of Scripture. In fact, I even take the time to produce content that I hope accomplishes those goals.

But sadly, too often I see a social media post that has a really good message of truth until it gets to the final sentence or two, which are along the lines of, "Too many people will be afraid to share this," or "Why don't posts like this ever go viral?" The very fact that they contain such manipulative wording is likely the main reason they're bot getting shared, because thinking Christians refuse to be spiritually manipulated by such tactics. 

So share things about Jesus that truly impact you, that actually speak truths found in God's word. But don't pass along images like these whose sole purpose is to make you feel bad if you don't share. That's not the way of Jesus.