Wake Up, Look Up

Hello, everyone. Thanks for listening to Wake Up, Look Up, a podcast where we connect events happening in real time to the gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm Zach Weihrauch. And in today's episode, we're asking the question, is your money in Cambodia? This is prompted by an article in The New York Times recently that was looking at the big business of online scams, particularly involving one company in Cambodia.

Now I was blown away by this article. I mean, I was I was repulsed, but also intrigued because I did not realize that online scamming is a business worth hundreds of billion. That's doctor evil with a b. Billions of dollars, every year. It is a well run, well organized, mafioso kind of operation that in many countries in Southeast Asia, Cambodia being one, operates right out in the open as part of a regular company.

Apps like Telegram, for example, are being leveraged in a big way to cheat people out of their life savings. And once these companies get the money, they move it from account to account. They turn it into cryptocurrency. They it becomes part of human trafficking networks. It's this really involved thing that is that is people's full time job, good smart people, accountants, people like that who know how to hide the money so that once your money is gone, what law enforcement is saying is it's impossible to get it back.

Now, this is not a financial podcast, so let me make a quick turn into spiritual realities. I I think this story is an incredible metaphor for something the Bible tells us all the time that I'm not sure we appreciate. Evil is strategic. In in Genesis four, God tells Cain that sin is like a predator. It's crouching at his door.

Its desire is to have him and to destroy him. In first Peter five eight, we're told that Satan is prowling the earth. He he's looking for a victim. Evil is ready to come after you. And do you know what makes you right in the crosshairs of online scammers like this and the evil they are perpetrating?

Loneliness. That's right. By and large, these scams are aiming at people who really do wanna believe there's someone out there in the world who will love them or wants to talk to them or needs their help. Loneliness is turning people into a target for scammers who spend all day every day sending millions of text messages, hoping for one person to need love badly enough that they'll wire money to a woman or man they've never met. Look.

I I have in mind two groups of people who need to hear this podcast. One are those of you who probably, at least statistically, are right now in an online relationship of some sorts, romantic or platonic, where you're exchanging messages with someone. You're becoming familiar with someone that you don't know but think you know. In fact, one of the ways you know you're at risk of this is you're mad at me right now because I'm offending this person you've never actually met. And what I'm telling you is that by and large, the odds are very high that person does not exist.

No matter how many photos they send you, videos they send you, listen, artificial intelligence is such they can create all that, and they do it every day. They are better at scamming you than you are at picking up on these scams. If you're lonely, listen to your pastor, go to church, get in a circle, get in a bible study. Will it be easy? No.

Might it be hard? Yes. Real relationship is messy. One of the ways you know this relationship isn't is because it isn't messy. You can keep it in a drawer even when they pretend to get mad at you and you make up.

No one's really losing anything. They are luring you in. And if they ask you for money, do not send it. I don't care what the story is. And if you have sent it, tell someone.

But those of us who maybe aren't engaged in online scams, We have to recognize that the loneliness and isolation of our friends and family and neighbors and church members that makes them an easy target is actually our responsibility. The truth is that Galatians six tells us to bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. No one around us should be so isolated and so lonely that they need an online friend in Brazil or Sri Lanka or Russia or wherever in order to feel loved. We gotta slow down a little bit and notice the person in the pew or chair or row ahead of us or behind us. Notice the person standing in the church atrium by themselves, not just because that person is made in the image of God, not just because that person is someone for whom Jesus died, but because that person is also at risk of losing it all.

Scammers are smart. They are organized. They are polished. They are coming for the weakest and loneliest among us, but we can beat them. Not by being smarter than them, they're pretty smart, but by loving the lonely person next to us.

Hey. Thanks for watching this episode of wake up look up. If you enjoyed it, please help us get the word out by sharing it with someone you think might benefit from it. And while you're here, make sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel to get further content or even download the CCC app where you'll find even more resources to help you grow in your faith and relationship with Jesus Christ.