Do RASNs Grow Worse with Time?

Hebrews 3:12-13 Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. (13) But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.

Sin, persisted in, grows stronger. You see this for example in children as they grow up. If they are allowed to persist in sin – lying for instance – they may well become habitual liars. And so it is with RASNs (revilers, abusers, sociopaths, narcissists).

If you have known a narcissist for a long period of time – let’s say from the time they were a young adult – you have probably seen this diabolic evolution. Now you can think back and realize that the evil was present in seed form, hard to detect at the time. The symptoms had begun but they were perhaps subtle. But after the passage of some years, that sin is very evident – which means you and others suffer at its hands.

Cain’s jealousy and resentment of Abel began, when? We don’t know precisely but we do know that it came to a point of murder. It grew like a deadly cancer. Finally, Cain’s hatred of Abel’s righteousness (see 1 John 3:12) came to deadly fruition.

Does the wickedness of the domestic abuser, for instance, grow over time or does the abuser simply keep it disguised at first? Probably a bit of both.

James 1:14-15 But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. (15) Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.

One thing is certain, time is not going to heal such wickedness. If anything, the passage of time simply sees it grow stronger.