A major change is coming in the internet world. It has to do with something that not many of us has heard about, but it’s likely that most of us have experienced. Say, you’re exploring various sites on your internet browser, and you decide that you want to take a step back to where you came from. You reach for that trusty little icon with a back arrow that promises a return to the familiar territory of the previous site. It’s called the “back button.” But click it as you may, the button refuses to allow you to navigate away, or it sends you to sites you didn’t choose and often to sites you’d rather stay away from. Welcome to the world of “back button hijacking,” a nefarious spam practice that has become an increasing irritant to internet users. How it works is really quite simple. Every site to which we navigate is recorded on a history file. Like a resident personal historian, the back button utilizes that file to return you to previous sites you’d visited. These malicious spams simply swap out your history file for one of their own choosing. Your internet browsing is held hostage by the whims of the file’s creator.
So widespread is this problem that internet browser providers such as Google are seeking to ban the practice of back button hijacking and penalizing those sites that allow it to occur starting in mid-June 2026. That’s welcome news. No one likes their internet journey hijacked, but more importantly, no one wants to be prevented from heading back to a previous position if your current one isn’t the right place to be. From the biblical perspective, back button hijacking a practice that has occurred since the beginning of sin’s entry into human history. It’s called the disruption of the return to God called “repentance”. Repentance is the process of tracing our way back to God who loves us. Jesus told the story of the wayward son (Luke 15:18) who said when he came to his senses, “I will return to home and to my father.” To the church at Ephesus that had abandoned its first love, the Lord calls them graciously, “Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first” (Revelation 2:5). Unfortunately, the way to repentance, that is, to return to the Father is often populated by brigands of the soul: parents who block their way for their children to discover Christ; friends who ridicule a person for believing in God; teachers and educators who present confusing lies to learners to turn them from the Lord. In fact, Jesus warned those who prevent the weak and the young from following Him by leading them into sin, “It is better that a millstone be tied around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea” (Matthew 18:5,6). Paul describes the wrath of God against those who “suppress the truth by their unrighteousness” (Romans 1:19), and identifies it as the work of Satan who “blinds the minds of unbelievers so that they would not see” (2 Corinthians 4:4). The biblical caution regarding “back button hijackers”? Avoid them, warn the weak, support the seeker, pray against the hijacker (2 Timothy 3:5; Romans 16:17). As June 15, 2026 approaches, we will inevitably hear much more about back button hijacking as the ban on it comes into reality. When we do, let’s remember that the struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places (Ephesians 6:12).
