John 8:43-45 Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word. (44) You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies. (45) But because I tell the truth, you do not believe me.

Domestic abusers never change. Your RASN is not going to change. And when we are speaking of RASNs, we do not mean people who have at one time or another reviled, or said something abusive, or acted selfishly against their conscience. No. Those are sins we all have committed. We are talking about people who are characterized by these things. A reviler is a reviler because reviling is the essence of who he or she is. A narcissist is a narc because that is the heart of their being.

And what I have concluded is that people like this are under divine judgment. A judgment of blindness. They are like the enemies Jesus squared off with in the scripture above. They didn’t understand Him because they couldn’t. Why? Because they hated what He said. They could not bear to hear and admit the truth. People like this are people whom God has “handed over” to their sin, to the mastery of the devil, just as Paul says in Romans 1.

This is why I always say that RASNs don’t change. They have been handed over to the power of their sin.

Romans 1:24-25 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, (25) because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

Romans 1:32 Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.

When a person refuses to believe the truth which God has revealed to them, at some point God’s judgment sweeps down upon them so that they get what they want – no truth. They can no longer hear truth. They will not receive it. God sends a strong delusion upon them as judgment:

2 Thessalonians 2:11-12 Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false, (12) in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

This is why it is pointless to imagine that if you could just sit down with your RASN and reason with them, surely you would be able to get through to them and they would see their sin. But that is a fantasy. A fiction. We all would like a “happily ever after” ending where Darth Vader finally turns from the dark side because Luke got through to him. But that is Hollywood. It is a fiction that has no correspondence to reality.

If we are ever going to be free of a RASN, we must face up to these facts, else we will actually be opposing what God had decreed in his judgment. Those whom God has given over to their delusion are simply not going to hear truth. They have crossed a line, and they are there to stay.