The Internet Never Forgets. But God Does.

Viral Shame and the Sin That’s Worse Than Adultery

You might be living under a rock if you missed the viral “CEO gets outed for affair at Coldplay concert” news story yesterday.

It was everywhere.

TLDR: A CEO and his head of HR were caught in an embrace and when the cameras panned over to them, she gasped and hid her face, and he quickly ducked down to avoid being seen.

And then the Internet did what the Internet does…

• The video went viral.

• People stitching their hot takes on Reels & TikTok.

• Memes.

• Jokes.

• Cruelty.

• Shame.

I think about story in the Bible where a crowd of people were ready to stone the woman caught in adultery. But in 2025, it’s not just a local crowd of onlookers…. it’s the entire planet.

Yes. 100% adultery is a sin. It has devastating consequences for everyone involved.

It’s also one of the sins that’s socially acceptable to shame. We as a Western society have unspoken rules about how we rate, categorize, and see different sin.

When it comes to adultery, it’s perfectly acceptable to verbally crucify the sinners. We do it under the guise of “protecting” or “supporting” the victims who are hurting.

It’s the same thing with pedophilia. Murder. Hate crimes.

The response to grievous sin is a desire for justice, and rightfully so. However, I would argue that Internet fervor can hardly be called true justice. It’s more like a combination of righteous indignation, gossip, and “phew I’m at least not as bad as that guy/girl.”

It’s an attempt to soothe our own not-enoughness by looking at someone else and getting reassurance that at least we’re not THAT morally depraved.

We call it a desire for justice and yet at its root, it’s pride.

Yes… justice is a necessary part of love and safety.

A world with no justice is terrifying.

We may not all be adulterers or murders, but I’m going to make a fairly bold (and Biblically supported) statement that I pray everyone hears:

Pride is far more dangerous spiritually than any other sin.

The natural consequences of sin like adultery/murder are hard and horrible. We see it tangibly in victims and suffering which is why we respond to it so viscerally. Pride doesn’t produce that visually (except in more extreme cases), so we miss it.

But pride is the sin that keeps us unable to see our own need for mercy.

I guarantee that one of those two people on that Coldplay camera are feeling a need for mercy and grace. They KNOW they have done wrong. They are bearing the consequences of it.

Ironically it might (who knows) be the thing that turns their entire life around.

But the keyboard warrior sending memes and laughing at the pain of someone else’s sin, who sits and thinks “I want justice and punishment because I would never do such a thing” is playing with the sin of pride that might not appear to be dangerous, but is the most dangerous sin of all.

A heart that thinks it doesn’t need the breathtaking mercy of God.

In Isaiah 43, God is telling Israel - “I am the author and the finisher of this covenant. You have DONE nothing to earn it. I started it. I will finish it.”

“But now thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you... they shall not overwhelm you... the flame shall not consume you.”
- verses 1-2

“I, I am the Lord, and besides me there is no savior.
I declared and saved and proclaimed... and you are my witnesses.”
-verses 11-12

“I am he; there is none who can deliver from my hand;
I work, and who can turn it back?”
-verse 13

“I, I am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake,
and I will not remember your sins.”
-verse 25

Isaiah 43

The most stunning part of this passage is that God is saying He will “blot it out”. That isn’t just like taking an eraser to a sentence on a piece of paper. If you remember in school, depending on the type of pencil eraser you had, you definitely saw the residue of the words that were on the page.

To blot out means to vanish. As if it was NEVER EVEN THERE. Harry Potter level disappearance.

And then He says, “I will not remember your sins”. Divine forgetfulness.

The Internet never forgets. The news cycle will continue on but it will live in the archives for his/her children, family, spouses… forever.

But in God’s economy, when a heart repents, He forgets it even happened.

If you’re sitting in pride and righteous indignation about this man and woman’s crime, you might be annoyed at these verses. It rubs against that sense of justice we all have. Make them pay, it says.

We feel that because pride hides the truth… that we are the same as that CEO and that head of HR.

Maybe we don’t cheat at a Coldplay concert, but every single human being on this Earth is FULL of grievous sin and wrongdoing, no matter how you look at it.

We ALL deserve punishment when out from under the work of Jesus.

And when you REALLY understand that, what Jesus did at the cross becomes the most stunning act in all of human history.

The perfect intersection of God’s justice and His mercy.

God is just. He hates sin. He must deal with it.

And HE did.

The response of every human heart is to repent and ask for the gift of salvation through the atoning work of Jesus on the cross.

When you really understand the lengths He went to to satisfy justice and extend mercy…

When you are able to humble yourself out of a prideful stance and recognize you are just the same as that CEO who is getting stoned by the entire Internet…

When you see that God is the one who initiates redemption, brings healing to the victims, executes perfect justice, and blots out and forgives all sin from a heart that is repentant…

The story of the Coldplay concert and the affair hits different.

It’s sad. It’s painful. It’s hard. It’s got longstanding consequences.

I pray that both of them don’t let pride keep them from the redemptive work of Jesus.

I pray that the spouses of this affair would be comforted by God’s deep love and know that He is just.

I pray that the children would feel held and safe in the arms of a perfect Father who is faithful forever.

And I pray that the Internet - humanity - would understand that with every stone you throw, you begin to harden your own access to mercy through pride.

xx