REVISED
There is so much pain in the world that I wonder why there are not more suicides reported! How do men, women and children bear the pain? This is an area of grave concern to me personally because of the incredible deliverance God gave to me. The reason for this article is because of a recent incident in the church where someone approach someone with the wrong attitude that almost caused a person to leave the church over issues that many are dealing with, but it seems no one wants to deal with it.
This article will deal with several categories of abuse. I know this is not sexy to many but to some who are sick they literally get off on the pain and suffering they put other people through including some in the church. At one time in the past, we would not have had this conversation because most people recognized the evil associated with and agreed to call a spade a spade. But today we are dealing with an area that too many want to sweep under the rug and not talk about – ABUSE!
Let me list a few of the 100 or so areas of abuse:
Sexual Abuse
Verbal Abuse
Physical Abuse
Human Sexual Trafficking
Church Abuse
Idiot Mouth Syndrome
Animal Abuse
Elder Abuse
Child Abuse
Mental Abuse
Family Abuse
Physical Abuse
Bullying
Emotional Abuse
Rape
Molestation
Incest
In this article we will focus on just a few areas of abuse, but please be aware that there are many and I will continue to write about abuse until the Holy Spirit tells me not to. God is against abuse as we find in 1 Corinthians 6:9 (KJV) 9 Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, the beginning of the verse makes it noticeably clear that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God, so if you do not inherit the kingdom of God you must inherit the kingdom of the Devil. Who wants to inherit the kingdom of the Devil?
It is a rhetorical question because no one in their right mind wants to live with the Devil aka, Lucifer for eternity. It is enough I believe to live here on earth with those possessed of the Devil in the world and oppressed by him in the church. There are those who think that Lucifer or the Devil does not have power, but he has enough influence to cause some men and women to “ABUSE!” one another. Jesus brother says it this way: James 1:13-14 (KJV) 13 Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man: 14 But every man is tempted, when he(she) is drawn away of his own lust and enticed. The enticer is Lucifer or the Devil and our flesh when see what we want or think we need it.
We must remember there are three factors that cause us to sin:1 John 2:16 (KJV) 16 For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. One or all these things can cause an individual to practice the sin of “ABUSE!’ People must stop saying the devil (Lucifer) made them do it, more than likely it is the flesh that causes one to act out one of the many actions associated with “ABUSE!” Some people are just mean spirited, evil, some people were abused so they abuse and some just act on the spur of the moment.
You may wonder why I deal with the tough topics all the time; it is because I am a PK = Preacher’s Kid who suffered through an immense amount of abuse in the church from a young baby to a young adult age 21 when I left the so-called holiness church to go to the Baptist church to serve God and do my dirt until the Holy Spirit convicted me to serve him in the beauty of holiness. You must understand I received the Lord Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior at age 11, I was water baptized and spoke in tongues according to Acts 1:8, 2:4 and 2:38. I had it, but it did not have me until I fully surrendered my life to the Lord Jesus Christ.
The crux of this article is to expose, uncover and reveal the evilness of “ABUSE!” When people abuse others and they do not think anything about it, it shows that they are callous and uncaring whether a non-Christian or Christian. When you use your mouth as a razor blade you might as well purchase a 45 caliber or 25 caliber gun and simply shoot your victim to death spiritually. The tongue without the help of the Holy Ghost is a deadly member according to James 3:5-6 (KJV) 5 Even so the tongue is a little member, and boasteth great things. Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth! 6 And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity: so is the tongue among our members, that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire of hell.
Let us explore overviews of the categories mentioned above:
Sexual Abuse is yet happening in our society as documented by the many articles and reports printed in local newspapers and other media. It appears you can go to most newspapers and find an article on sexual abuse. Recently it seems many of the articles are about male and female teachers having sex with their underage students. The many articles that disturb and annoy me are those where we find pastors male or female having sex with people from their congregation.
Verbal Abuse is a form of abuse where one party of a conversation allows their mouth to get the best of them by the way they talk to the other party. We have heard it practiced in churches by husband and wives angry at each other and/or their children.
Physical Abuse is where some is maimed or killed by another party as a way of taking out anger on another party. My cousin in 2006 was murdered by her baby’s daddy along with three of her children. The baby’s daddy tried to kill himself, but the authorities arrested him before he was successful at suicide. These stories appear in Facebook, Twitter, and other social media.
Human Sexual Trafficking is where young and old people male and female have been herded into working as sex workers many under the threat of losing their life. These people are usually coerced into working in the sex market and were either abducted or enticed by a pimp (male or female). There are now several deprogramming groups training people and former sex slaves how to readjust to society.
Child Abuse is the syndrome we see on a national level where a parent or guardian has abused a child by any number of strange means the least of which is spanking. Some parents have locked their child in a cage, others do not feed a child for weeks and others find all kind of strange and painful things to do to their children.
Idiot Mouth Syndrome is where someone just says anything that comes out of their mouth without thinking or knowing who they are speaking to. This syndrome is especially distasteful from those whose mouths are like razor blades to cut and maim whoever they talk to. The words cut and destroy the person’s spirit.
Animal Abuse appears to be on the rise for whatever reason and the abuse results are being reported on social media networks. Animal abusers do all sort of ghastly things to animals thinking that no one will find out. Contrary to that notion animal abuse in many cases when caught and discovered are punishable for exceptionally long sentences in jail or prison. Why hurt an animal that cannot speak back?
Elder Abuse has been going on since bible times and is a dastardly behavior. For a child to abuse an elder parent by starving them, hitting them, stealing from them, lying on them, taking their property, causing them to prematurely die and such like. Not every son or daughter are practicing this behavior thank God.
Child Sexual Abuse is often timing an adult having sex with a child who has not consented but was coerced or manipulated into having sex with that person – a father, a mother, a brother, a sister, an aunt, or an uncle! There is a states and countries that are considering lowering the age of consent so that pedophiles may have their pick of young people for sexual liaisons legally. What is this world coming to?
Mental Abuse is one of those abuses that was dealt an awful blow when President Ronald Reagan effectively gave order to close the mental institutions in America because of the drastic budget cuts. So, there are many mental patients on the streets of America with and without medical coverage. Then there are those who are mentally challenged that do not believe anything is wrong with them. Many families in America have one person in their family who suffer from Bipolar disorder and refuses to take their medicine consistently. Family members whatever you do, do not give up on your family member who needs to take that medicine faithfully. Too many have committed suicide or gone out and killed someone when they were not on their medication. Love and pray for them that healing and deliverance will come!
Domestic Violence is physical, verbal, and mental abuse.
Bullying is the use of force, threat, or coercion to abuse, intimidate, or aggressively dominate others. The behavior is often repeated and habitual. One essential prerequisite is the perception, by the bully or by others, of an imbalance of social or physical power, which distinguishes bullying from conflict which is how the Wikipedia defines it.
Emotional Abuse as defined by Womenhealth.gov:
Unfairly accuses you of being unfaithful all the time
Prevents or discourages you from seeing friends or family
Tries to stop you from going to work or school
Gets angry in a way that is frightening to you
Controls how you spend your money
Humiliates you in front of others
Threatens to hurt you or people you care about
Threatens to harm himself or herself when upset with you
Says things like, “If I can’t have you then no one can.”
Decides things for you that you should decide (like what to wear or eat)
Monitor what you are doing all the time
Rape is the unwelcome sexual prowess not agreed to by the person raped. Physical overpowering of a male or female to have sex they did not agree to have or even want.
All these behaviors have been committed by someone in the world and someone in the church. The reason it is so disheartening is because you expect people who say they love Jesus and have been born again to have gotten over their sexual inappropriateness. But if a person absolutely loves Jesus but they have not gone through the deliverance process they are still prey for the Devil to use them. If you believe that a Christian cannot be possessed of the Devil but can be oppressed by the Devil you are more than likely correct. Whatever the exact place of the attack whether in the body or the spirit it still has a major impact on the person until healing and deliverance takes place.
We must remember that some denominations believe once you have received Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior you are saved and ready immediately for heaven, then there are those denominations that believe you must speak in tongues and be baptized a certain way to be saved and on and on their many believes. Whatever the believe the person must at some point acknowledge they are no longer a soldier for the Devil but once they acknowledge the Lord Jesus Christ as their savior “something happens to them!” They are no longer the same person but a child of the living God.
When you become a new creature in Christ all things passed away and everything is new on the spiritual level and you must take charge of your flesh/body to bring it in alignment with your spiritual person. If there is no reconciliation of the spirit, body, and soul then there is turmoil in one’s life. I believe this is how some people are in the church because they have not taken charge of their flesh. It is out of control. We have seen and met some of the people who act so holy around other believers but as soon as their favorite vice shows up, they change. They are saintly one moment, however their behavior for example is as a pedophile or adultery the next moment or they are acting out one of the abuses listed above.
These situations must be address to the church world as a whole or there will be continued explosive situations like the Catholic church has experience over the last number of years. The Catholic church has paid out billions of dollars because they refused to deal with the situation of abuse. The Christians that have established recovery type groups are to be commended and those that have ignored the epidemic need a shaking up to take positive steps to implement communication and ways to confront the epidemic.
Here are a few ideas to start the dialogue in the church and church communities:
Periodic sermons from the pulpit on Sunday about abuse
Start recovery groups
Establish team gatherings where communication can flow, and long solutions apply
Setup mentor programs based on need and types of abuse
Let there be free exchange between followers of different congregations
Create safe zones in churches where people can come and receive the love they need, the teaching they need and the fellowship they need
Churches that have certain strict teaching that is Bible based need to be mindful that Jesus loves the sinner but not the sin and that if God sent someone to that church to be saved do not run them out of the church before God completes His work on them
Churches might want to explore and understand the principle of “Choice” found in Deuteronomy 30:19 and see how that fits in with their concept of how God sees humankind’s behavior
Churches need to remove filters that divide and destroy and install systems that truly embrace and understanding yet maintaining their spiritual heritage
Churches should consider recommending Christian counselors that may or may not be a part of their denomination or non-denominational congregation
This epidemic is only going to get worse and have a serious impact on church people if it is not taken seriously and dealt with immediately
There are too many people sitting in churches who are in pain, abused, and suicidal. Unfortunately, we are not seeing the statistics of the many in church who have committed suicide.
Are you willing to step out of the box with your church or congregation or following or whatever you have and become proactive about this epidemic of Abuse? With the advent of social media and all the electronic gear it is so easy to invade someone else’s space and know information non-pertinent as well as pertinent. To my knowledge there is no reason for anyone not to know what is going on in our society and especially not know when family and friends are on social media telling all. From time to time, we have seen people on social media telling some of the most intimate of details of their life. More than likely, they are telling it because it is a way to relieve their pain.
Those who share their pain openly are the rare breed; it is those family members and friends who do not share their pain that need our help. These individuals do not feel love by family and society. The spirit of rejection has overtaken many of them and they feel totally outcast and left out. When individuals who are not sincere approach them or individuals who lack empathy attempt to come to their aide oftentimes, they can see through the phoniness of the person. I believe the worst offenders are those ministers who from the pulpit make statements to the whole congregation like: “Just get over it!” or “It was just your father!” or “Just think about something else!”
Those arrogant comments by preachers and such are almost more damaging than the original trauma. The reason these comments are so damaging is because individuals when abused go to the church for consolation and not to receive another dagger in the open womb. When individuals hear comments that are not edifying it has the force at times as if re-abusing them. It is like they open the womb afresh. Sensitivity training is needed for those who have not personally been abused and do not know the depth of the pain and agony. Without the feeling of the pain that comes from abuse I believe it is impossible for a person to really know the depth of the pain nor how far reaching are the aftereffects. It is best for those who have not had a personal experience with abuse to seriously seek the Lord how they can best help the abused. We must remember that death and life are in the power of the tongue and many people have used their tongue to further destroy rather than bring life.
What is needed are those who will step out of their comfort zone and be advocates for the abused. Those who will stand up and be counted as a supporter of the abused and empower those who have been delivered to help those who have not found the strength nor the will to move to a place of healing and deliverance. One of the many promises in the bible that is giving to all believers is found in Philippians 4:7 (KJV) 7 And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. This passage is a promise to all believers who surrender to the Holy Spirit.
To have the peace that passes understanding is available to all who will receive and believe what God has promised.
Are you one that will be a healing touch for someone abused?
Are you willing to show love and kindness to an abused brother or sister?
Will you stand with the abused for righteousness and justice?
