Unholy Charade - Jeff Crippen

Unmasking the Domestic Abuser in the Church

Author: Jeff Crippen Page 44 of 88

The Disguised "Friend"

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On August 16, 2021

In Getting Free, Supporting Victims

Psa 55:20-21 My companion stretched out his hand against his friends; he violated his covenant. (21) His speech was smooth as butter, yet war was in his heart; his words were softer than oil, yet they were drawn swords.

One of the characteristics of the wicked which I have seen repeatedly over the years is the seemingly instantaneous transition from our best friend to our worst enemy. In fact a transformation has not occurred. Such a person has always been an enemy – disguised as a friend.

When a wicked person determines that we can be “of use” to them…they use us. And the typical way this goes is that they approach us as a genuine friend. And they sure seem like it! They want to be around us. They invite us to do things with them. They compliment us and encourage us. They profess their loyalty to us and they even stand with us against enemies.

But then…

…the transformation. This can happen years into such a relationship, or it may happen on the honeymoon as many of you know whose abuser was a spouse. Literally and almost unbelievably they become our enemy. Overnight! One day they are our loyal friend and the next morning…it’s over. How can this be?

Well, let me tell you. The fact is the friendship was always a disguise. It was motivated by a desire to use you for some evil purpose. They use you as a vehicle to ride to some desired destination on – fame, popularity, wealth, feeding their desire to control (yes, they controlled you in ways you may not have even seen). Paul mentions this wicked business in Galatians:

Gal 4:17 They make much of you, but for no good purpose. They want to shut you out, that you may make much of them.

In some moment of time, these kind realized that you were of no use to them any longer. Perhaps Christ’s light in you was shining too brightly and threatening to expose them. Perhaps your growth in Christ was taking you in the path He calls you to and they wanted no part of going along with you. But their decision was made, and they cast you off. Cold. Heartless. Without conscience. As if your “friendship” never existed, as if all the history of your life with them was erased. And really, it was erased by them. If you doubt that, just run into them a year later or so and you can tell that they treat you like a total stranger, as if they had never known you.

This is the devil’s work. These are the methods of his servants. It turns out, they never loved you at all. And knowing this is wisdom.

More on Revilers I Have Known

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On August 11, 2021

In Abusers

Mat 5:11-12 “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. (12) Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Reviler is the biblical word for an abuser. Other words are used in Scripture to describe the evil that abusers do, but this title “reviler” gets to the heart of it. You see that little root in the word – “vil” – which reminds us of related terms like “villain,” or “villify” or, hmmm…. “vile.” A reviler is vile. Anyway, what a reviler does is to make the innocent be the villain. And they do this by accusing. Revilers are accusers and that evil is part of the very nature of the devil himself:

Rev 12:10 And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God.

I have known revilers and so have most all of you. The ones I have known are those who parade as Christians. They were church members and most often they put themselves off as the most pious and holy saints to be found anywhere.

Reviling is in the reviler’s nature. It proceeds from the devilish heart that defines who they are. They don’t have to really even plan the reviling attack – it just spews out of their mouth from their heart. The attack comes as we say “out of the blue.” Things can be going along quite pleasantly – some dinner or other church event, some gathering of friends – and then here comes the arrow. Sometimes in secret, sometimes in front of everyone.

  • I remember when you said I was to blame
  • You had no right to spend that money
  • I think you sinned when you told Jack to stop being mean to his wife
  • I know why you are taking that college class
  • I know why you bought that car
  • You are a very hard person to talk to
  • You didn’t come and visit me when I was sick

And on and on and on the list could go. Every single one of these statements is used by the reviler to accuse. To blame. To guilt and to attack.

Think about what this business of reviling requires. Most of us would be very hesitant to say such a thing, even if it were true. We season our speech. Of course the abuser counts on this and uses our hesitancy against us, knowing that we most often won’t expose his evil by speaking of it. But the reviler enjoys reviling. It gives him a rush of power and he loves it. He loves to see the hurt that his words inflict. He assaults with his speech and he loves to launch those arrows.

This is why the Lord says that a reviler will never see the kingdom of God. Revilers are going to hell along with their father the devil. Perhaps in the lake of fire for all eternity they will be reviling one another and trying to put the blame anywhere but upon themselves.

Don’t try to fix a reviler. You will only find grief for yourself and your efforts to “help” will be regarded by him as a weak spot for him to reviler you further.

Additional Reading:

Another Look at the Abuser as Reviler

More Thoughts on Imprecatory Prayer

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On August 9, 2021

In Biblical Teaching

Psa 3:7-8 Arise, O LORD! Save me, O my God! For you strike all my enemies on the cheek; you break the teeth of the wicked. (8) Salvation belongs to the LORD; your blessing be on your people! Selah

Our friend Lynn has more excellent thoughts to offer here on the subject of imprecatory prayer – something that most churches and professing Christians today believe is “unloving.” Well, the Bible doesn’t share that conclusion and Lynn explains why. Many thanks to her:

To those who are against imprecatory prayer, I’d like to know what is your hesitation in praying or teaching others about the importance of practicing imprecatory prayer? That God may take negative action against the wicked and punish them for their wickedness? Don’t you want God’s perfect justice to take place and the wicked to be punished for their sins in this life? Don’t you want his justice to come to fruition in the lives of those victims who were abused by evil people masquerading as fellow believers?

If your answer is yes, then you must embrace imprecatory prayer. It is the offensive weapon God gave his people to use to bring about his justice in the earth. It is our part to play in the spiritual war engaged between the kingdom of darkness and the kingdom of God.  The other deterrent to injustice is the civil authorities. Only one weapon guaranteed to never fail us is prayer.

How long must the oppressed wait for their injustice to be remedied? How many men, women, and children need to come forward with their stories of abuse at the hands of professing Christians – albeit pastors, volunteers, or elders – before the church will wake up and act like the body of Christ it professes to be? How long will you deny the oppressed the tools – like imprecatory prayer – and the support they deserve as fellow heirs in Christ, Christian?

This is one of the reasons I know that most of the professing Christians aren’t. They will not make the sacrifice required to support the victims because it will cost them time, money and energy that they’d rather invest in things that make them feel good. They’d have to be willing to patiently walk with people who have stared evil in the face and need help recovering from it, because their trauma is soul shattering and destructive. 

What’s worse? Not believing a victim and allowing the abuser to remain among you to prey on other members in your church or removing innocent people and casting them out of the church? 93 to 98 times out of 100 the victim is telling the truth about the abuse.  Popular opinion is that they’d rather endure the abusive person than to accidentally remove an innocent person.  It is foolishly wicked to allow abusers to remain in church. The old adage of innocent until proven guilty is one of the excuses given to why they tolerate evil.  They misunderstand its meaning and how it relates to church governance.  While it is instituted by God in the Bible, most pastors misinterpret the 2-3 witnesses believing if they don’t have at least 2-3 victims, then it didn’t happen. 

Witnesses don’t need to be people. They can be physical things, digital correspondence like email or text messages, or abuser withholding funds, forced isolation, or signs of emotional trauma manifested by the victim, to help corroborate the victim’s story.

What I see in Christianity today is a strong bias against victims. Those in positions of power are so afraid of accidentally maligning an innocent person – as if Christ’s name will somehow be destroyed if they expose the abuse and show support for the victim – that they side with abusers most of the time. Why do they do this? Greed. Cowardice. Power. Control. Ego. Love of self more than love for God and his people. 

When they are confronted with the story that the victim shares, their first reaction is to not believe the victim because that doesn’t fit with the person they know and love or minimize it as if it’s not that bad. 93 to 98 times out of 100 the victim is telling the truth. Think about that for a moment. Every time a church doesn’t remove an abuser from its membership when the abuse comes to light, it is adding to the number of victims the abuser can harm and becomes complicit in the abuse by allowing the evil person to continue to harm more people. 

God does not take it lightly when his children are mistreated. There will be hell to pay for those that remain unrepentant of their allegiance to the abusers when they are standing before him giving an account of their life.

Is it possible that sometimes God refrains from intervening on the behalf of a victim because He hasn’t been invited into the situation to take action? Vengeance is his. Imprecatory prayer is our way of asking him to enact that vengeance on our behalf. Expressing your pain and frustration in prayer is a good thing, but a better thing would be to ask Him to intercede on your behalf for the injustice you suffered in order that He may get the glory and credit that He deserves.

Imprecatory prayer is a lamentation of God’s people in the face of injustice.  It is them crying out to God from their place of pain asking him to act on their behalf and bring about the destruction of their enemies for the pain and destruction they’ve caused. It is a reminder to God of how his people trust and rely on him to bring about vengeance and enact perfect justice.  Much of the time it includes asking God to curse the wicked, which many professing Christians shy away from because they fail to understand what cursing is, and assume all cursing is sin. It’s not. 

Who/What are we to pray imprecatory prayers against?

Abusive people and institutions in our midst

Reprobates, false teachers, false prophets

Governments that are failing to govern justly and disobeying God’s law

God’s enemies – the devil and his children

Our sinful flesh

Many pastors shy away from imprecatory prayers because they are uncomfortable with the idea of asking God to curse those who have abused, betrayed, and defrauded them or their brothers and sisters in Christ. They’ve bought into the idea that it is unloving, ungodly, unChristlike to do so. But that’s not what scripture shows us. 

The Psalms are filled with imprecatory prayers. Hezekiah prays an imprecatory prayer. The Lord’s Prayer includes imprecatory language. Paul calls for a curse on all those who are false teachers and prophets ask God for them to be damned. Paul specifically mentions Alexander the coppersmith and asks God to deal with him for the harm he’s inflicted on Paul. 

Not all imprecatory pray specifically calls for the cursing of the wicked. “Come quickly Lord Jesus” is an imprecatory prayer.

Imprecatory prayer is the primary weapon God gave his people so they can ask God get them justice where there has been injustice. Prayer is how we take part in the war between God and satan. Taking imprecatory prayer away from Christians is like asking them to fight the enemy with plastic swords against their steel blades, and then being surprised when they get even more wounded in battle.

I know the reasoning many professing Christians use for not wanting to pray imprecatory prayers is that in their minds it contradicts Matthew 5:44’s instruction to bless those who curse you. The greek word for bless in Matthew 5:44 is eulogeo (https://biblehub.com/greek/2127.htm) – it’s where we get the word eulogy from – and means to confer what is beneficial. 

Conferring what is beneficial would include telling the truth about a person’s words and actions.  Correct? It is not asking for health, happiness, and prosperity for the abusive person. I think much of the time we make assumptions about what we think the words in the Bible are supposed to mean. That it can cause us trouble as we read scripture. We are looking through our own 21st century lens, and it completely skews the actual meaning.  The other reason is that most professing Christians don’t actually study their Bible and take the time to learn about what the words mean and in the context in which they are placed. They rely on other people – usually their pastor or a famous Bible teacher – to do the work for them, many of whom are wolves in sheep’s clothing. That’s why false teaching spreads so rapidly. Spiritual laziness and having their ears tickled results in dead churches.

By not understanding what it means to “bless” those who curse or persecute you in Matt. 5:44, it can cause us to respond in damaging ways for ourselves and those we have influence over. We assume that blessing means we are to only speak positive words designed to bring about health, happiness and prosperity to the person we are speaking to or praying about, when that’s not really the true meaning of the word. 

What if the verse means that when you bless an enemy you are to confer what is beneficial to him/her? That could happen in the form of a rebuke of their sin and to pray imprecatory prayers in the hopes that the negative consequences they experience will bring about genuine repentance? That blessing we are instructed to extend to our enemies includes how we speak about them to others. We tell the truth to others about our enemies, so it is beneficial for them to know and make their own judgement call, instead of asking God to give them health, happiness, and prosperity. 

What glorifies God more, praying imprecatory prayers against our enemies or praying health, happiness, and prosperity on them? 

Think about that for a moment. Nothing godly will come from praying God grant his enemies health, happiness, and prosperity while they are alive. It only feeds their delusion that their evil behavior is acceptable and gives them more ways to harm their victims. I want you to think about this. When you pray health, happiness, and prosperity on abusive people you are asking a holy, righteous God to reward your abusers wicked behavior.  Is that a godly decision on your part, to ask that wickedness against yourself be rewarded? I think not. So if you feel compelled to pray for your abuser(s), I’d encourage you to pray to God that He will quickly bring about the promised consequences for their evil actions and a just end to the wicked person for the sake of his holy name that is being maligned at the hands of these wicked people.

You may be wondering, can imprecatory prayer be used wrongly? 

I suppose it’s possible. It depends on how it is taught and what’s the intention of the person who’s praying it. What matters are your motives when you pray them.  Wanting justice that results in very bad things happening to your abuser is not sin. Denying justice to victims of abuse who have suffered for years, probably decades, at the hands of their oppressors is.

Let’s say someone does pray an imprecatory prayer and curses an innocent person? God knows that. He’s not required to answer that prayer and invoke that curse. Proverbs 26:2 tells us that like a fluttering sparrow or a darting swallow, and undeserved curse does not come to rest. So even if your abuser does pray a curse against you because you will not give into their demands, God will deal with them for that. It will be another sin added to their growing list of sins that they will spend eternity being punished by.  If you pray an imprecatory prayer against someone who turns out to be innocent (it’s highly unlikely, if not impossible, to happen with abusers), as with any other sin, repent to God for your actions and seek forgiveness from the target of your imprecatory prayers.

So instead of being afraid to invoke curses against God’s enemies who are abusing you, boldly pray imprecatory prayers knowing that God knows your heart and will not punish you for seeking justice for your abuse via prayer. If it’s an undeserved curse, it will not land on the recipient. If it is, it will be brought before the Lord and He will hear it and act in his perfect time and according to his perfect will. That prayer will be added to past prayers of the saints until the cup of God’s wrath is complete and he pores it out on the wicked in final judgment.

So I encourage you to stop living in fear of being judged for praying imprecatory prayers against your abusers. God’s not mad at you for it. Those who oppose it and reveal their true colors demonstrate the states of their hearts. By standing against imprecatory prayer, they are showing you that they are not your friends, allies, or brothers or sisters in Christ. Take heart. God is for you. He hears the cries of your heart, sees your tears as a result of the evil you’ve endured, and collects each one and stores them in a bottle and records them in His book in heaven. They are evidence that God collects and catalogs for the final judgement. They are a witness to the pain you’ve endured at the hands of evil people and will testify against your abusers in the courts of heaven.   

May you be strengthened and encouraged by this article, and be free to pray imprecatory prayers against your abusers to your hearts content.  Grace and peace be with you.

 

Abuse of Pastoral Authority is Rampant

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On August 4, 2021

In Churches/Church Response

1Pe 5:1-3 So I exhort the elders among you, as a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, as well as a partaker in the glory that is going to be revealed: (2) shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you; not for shameful gain, but eagerly; (3) not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock.

It is amazing to me how often I receive reports from Christians regarding the abuse of power on the part of their pastors. Power abuse occurs whenever someone exercises authority that God has not given them. Such pseudo-authority is always evil and its intent is to fleece the sheep for personal gain of some kind. The Pharisees in Jesus’ day were a prime example.

These are the kinds of things that are happening in the churches and of which I have credible reports:

  • A domestic abuse victim goes to her pastor for help, shows him one of my books, and he orders her to destroy the book and throw it away. She is not to read it, he commands her.
  • Abuse victims are told that they must obtain the permission of their pastor/elders before they can divorce their abuser. Many times this requirement is disguised and very covertly exercised. “Meet with us and we will discuss your case and your options. We love you and we want to help you.” Yeah, right.
  • Church leaders insist that the abuser is a Christian and order the victim to remain in the marriage because “she is a sinner too.”

Recently when I was telling my wife about how a pastor commanded an abuse victim to destroy her copy of my book on domestic abuse and how he ordered her not to read it…and how she obeyed these illegal and wicked commands…my wife said “how can anyone think that a pastor can control people like this?” It is shocking. But the answer is this – they have essentially been brainwashing their flock with false teaching and lies. And when people sit under that kind of abusive false shepherding evil, they often end up believing that if they disobey the pastor, they are disobeying God and incurring His wrath.

Another person told me recently that he lives in fear that he will be thrown out of the church if he disobeys his pastor’s orders. Such a place is no church – it is a toxic environment to be left in the rear view mirror.

Christians and truly Christian churches and true, authentic pastors do have authority. We have Christ’s authority to expose and rebuke evil. If you read the letters to the seven churches in Revelation 2-3 you will see several commands by Christ that the churches are to expel false teachers that they have been permitting to be in their midst. Look at 1 Corinthians 5 for Christ’s command that we expel a so-called Christian who is walking in habitual, unrepentant sin. And of course this authority from Christ is the basis of godly, right church discipline as outlined in Matthew 18. But notice – this authority is authority over evil, not over the victim of evil. I suppose you could say that we also have a positive authority – the authority of scripture’s promises and truths which we can proclaim and believe with authority. But this authority as well is for the good of Christ’s people, not for oppressing them.

So to anyone who might read this article and who realizes that they are in a church where the leaders are wielding abusive authority that of course God has never given them, leave. Or stand and fight if that option is open to you. But don’t just go on living in a toxic environment that is disguising itself with Christ’s name. It is not better. That is to say, it is not better to remain in a place where the air is poison that to get out of it and breath pure air.

Info: Here is a link to an Excellent Bible course by G.K. Beale

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On August 2, 2021

In Blog News

Those of you who follow out midweek Bible studies on the Gospel of John and on Revelation, will recognize the name G.K. Beale. He is my favorite theologian and his books have helped me tremendously in my understanding and study of the Bible. This link is to a series of lectures he has given on the big story of the Bible and how the Bible progressively tells this story from Eden lost to Eden regained in the New Heavens and Earth.

https://www.biblicaltraining.org/biblical-theology/greg-beale

The Lie of Toxic Positivity – A Guest Post

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On August 2, 2021

In False Teaching

Luk 16:25 But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that you in your lifetime received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner bad things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in anguish.

“It’s all good and you need to get your negative thinking straightened out!” That is the lie of toxic positivity. It is toxic because it is poison to the soul like all lies are. It denies evil rather than being wise to it. It calls evil, “good.” Yes, God works all things together for the good of those who love Him, but the TP people twist this truth to guilt and shame and deny.

The following is an excellent essay written on this subject by one of our blog followers and online church members. Many thanks to her for writing and shining more light on this common “just keep on the sunny side of life” business. Here she is:

Recently you were preaching about toxic positivity.  That got me to thinking… 

Why in Luke 16:25 does Jesus say that the poor Lazarus was being comforted by Abraham, while the rich man was in hell?  I mean, if Lazarus was supposed to always “count it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials…” then shouldn’t Lazarus’s life have been one big rollercoaster of joy because of all his trials?  Why would he need to be comforted after all the terrible things he suffered here on Earth?  The “you be joyful right now you loathsome sinner” crowd would say that Lazarus should have been over-the-moon to have been “chosen by the Lord” to suffer all that he did.  And according to them, Jesus should have been calling Lazarus out for his sin of “bitterness,” since he could not transcend his circumstances to reach a higher “joy” plane — either by using positive thinking, “keeping an eternal perspective,”  practicing some sort of christian-y Zen, or aggressively ignoring everything that was happening to him and forcing a smile.  


Like I was told by my “c”hristian counselors — while being stalked by my ex, my church putting me under church discipline and shunning, being thrown under the bus by my own lawyer, medical providers taking me to court to sue me for medical bills “himself” had not been paying for years, losing my home and everything I ever owned, “himself” confiscating our joint checking and savings accounts (even though I paid into them), “himself” refusing to pay child support, me having to move back in and live with my abusive parents, being harassed and shamed by my abusive brothers, losing my job, losing all my friends, and my daughter’s genetic, chronic illness suddenly making the full force of its brutal self known in her body — I was counseled to focus on their “train analogy” to help me find joy.  You see, the engine is your thoughts, the coal car is your actions, and the caboose is your feelings.  If you’re in a bad state, just think happy thoughts.  Change… your mind. Change your mind, change your life!  Repeat/(chant) pieces of verses from the list they gave me.  You know those memes… “if you’re feeling this, then read that piece of verse,” those things that go around on Facebook.  Happy, holy thoughts will get the engine turned around and get it heading in the right direction. And it will start to pull everything else onto the “right” track.


Then, make yourself do happy actions.  Make yourself sing praise songs (but not in the choir anymore because they kicked me out of choir and all ministry).  Read good Christian books (but only from their “selected authors and publishers” reading list).  Cook or bake (but don’t indulge the flesh or self-medicate with food).  Exercise (but don’t do it from the sins of pride or vanity).  Take extra good care of my kids (but do not inform them about abusers’ tactics, do not discuss their fear, rage, and anger for what “himself” had done to them and what pastors and church kids were still doing to them, do not read to them what I was learning from *secular* [*whispered tones*] Lundy Bancroft or have them listen to *angry* Jeff Crippen sermons on becoming wise to evil — because, even though they were heavily abused too, it was all just me “dumping my baggage” on my 17, 15. and 13 year old kiddos, poisoning them against the father who they “secretly loved [they didn’t — they were afraid he would carry through on his threats to kill them and collect their life insurance to pay off his credit card debts], and who they secretly wanted to see often [they were terrified of even seeing his vehicle across a parking lot], but I made them too afraid to say their secret desires out loud.”)  


But, if I think (their prescribed) happy thoughts, do (their prescribed) happy actions, then eventually my feelings would be dragged around into the opposite direction, get aligned to the “correct” position, and my happy train would get on the right track, and I would be joyous all the time.  Pain and suffering, even that of my kids, would no longer affect me!  My problems would melt away in the light of my eternal perspective….  Blush toxic positivity *squee….!!!!*   


All that to say, Jesus tells his disciples that Lazarus is being comforted in Paradise for all the trauma he went through.  And Jesus holds this formerly miserable man up as an example of righteousness in His parable — someone resting blissfully now and eternally.  Jesus did not use him as an example of failed faith or failed joy.  To quote the kids nowadays, Jesus “ain’t even mad” that Lazarus needed comforting and was being held in the arms of his father-in-faith, Abraham.  So if Jesus makes a man who needs comfort after trauma, out to be the protagonist — the hero, if you will — in His parable, then why does the “toxic positivity” squad think that they know better than the Lord they say they serve?

A Common Evidence that Most People Don't Care

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On July 28, 2021

In Supporting Victims

2Ti 4:14-15 Alexander the coppersmith did me great harm; the Lord will repay him according to his deeds. (15) Beware of him yourself, for he strongly opposed our message.

This is a very illuminating scripture for a number of reasons and I have written about it more than once. In this case I want to focus on its application to a very common scenario created by acquaintances (I won’t call them friends) of abuse victims. Here is how it works.

Some event is coming. Maybe a wedding, or a funeral, or a graduation or family thing. And what happens? People who know what the abuse victim has suffered, and who know WHO the abuser is, invite the abuser to the event anyway. I have had this happen to me many times. A wedding. A funeral. A so-called family reunion. And I do not go. Then I am criticized for not being there. Why didn’t I attend? Because I knew that evil, wicked people who hate me and who have caused all kinds of suffering were invited to come and they would have absolutely no qualms or shame about attending. I drew some personal boundaries some years ago and resolved that I will never be put in such a situation again.

Now, why are these evil people invited? Well, I can tell you. Because the people who invite them simply do not care. They do not care about the wicked abuse that has happened. They do not care about the victim. They just don’t care. They want to maintain friendly relations with the abuser because they do not want to take a stand and pay the price that the victim has had to pay.

And there is something else they don’t care about. They do not care that the Lord Himself commands us to have nothing to do with such evil people. We are to expose their evil and separate from them. If they are the pretend Christians then we are to put them out of the church (something that is rarely done by local churches today).

So here it is, allies of the evil one. The Lord Jesus says plainly that if we who claim to follow Him do not love His people and if we do not hear and obey His Word, then we are not His sheep. He doesn’t know us. He will not have us. If anyone invites an abusive, evil person who has done harm to others…if you invite them to your birthday gala, or to a wedding, or whatever the event might be – you simply do not care about the victims of such people.

And Christ does not care about you.

Let's Talk about "Peace"

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On July 26, 2021

In Counseling

Isa 9:6 For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Christ is titled the Prince of Peace. We look forward to the fullness of His kingdom in large part because there will be unending, complete and final peace. Every single aspect of war and conflict, sin and hatred, racism and injustice will be gone forever. Peace is a beautiful thing that in reality none of us have ever known in its full glory.

And when it comes to this evil business of abuse that we deal with, we are confronted by various “experts” who claim to hold the key to giving us peace. There are numbers of ministries that focus on this issue of peace. Some are worse than others, but most all of them raise my suspicions. Over and over again victims who go to them for help end up being put on trial. They are told that “well, God wants peace restored in your life so here is what YOU need to do.” That sort of thing. The problem is that so often what the victim “needs” to do is to make peace with her abuser!

Now, think this through. How does the Prince of Peace establish peace? Even now, but on that Day also when He comes again? How does Christ fill the creation once again with peace? I can tell you:

2Th 1:5-9 This is evidence of the righteous judgment of God, that you may be considered worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are also suffering— (6) since indeed God considers it just to repay with affliction those who afflict you, (7) and to grant relief to you who are afflicted as well as to us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels (8) in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. (9) They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might,

There will be no negotiations with the enemy. Only full and complete destruction. The wicked will be cast into the Lake of Fire and we will never ever see or hear from them again.

And I want to tell you that THIS aspect of peace, that is to say, this business of HOW Christ is going to fill the creation with peace, is swept under the carpet by most supposed “abuse ministries,” churches, and pastors today. In other words, the “peace” they promise via their various programs and formulas is a false peace. As our friend Lynn has recently said in her post on Hezekiah’s prayer, there is no place for imprecatory prayer in these people’s system. As a result, we see that the Christ they serve is not the Lord Jesus of the Bible. He is a watered down version who loves everyone the same and what Paul says in 2 Thessalonians is, well, not worthy of this Jesus they serve.

So beware. Most “peace” that is promised by this myriad of “Christian” ministries is a false peace. Abuse victims are not going to have peace until they are able to be free of their abuser and that means that in this present life, absolute peace is not going to be achieved. The amazing thing about the New heavens and New Earth that we who are in Christ are headed for is this:

Rev 21:4-8 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” (5) And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.” (6) And he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment. (7) The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God and he will be my son. (8) But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.”

See it? The former things will have passed away. That means a whole lot more than we realize. It means that those triggering memories, all that PTSD, all of it – will be gone! Every tear. Every aspect of death. Gone. And why? Not only because of our new resurrection selfs, but because the wicked will have received their portion in that burning, eternal lake. We will never see them again. Will we think of them again? I don’t think so. And that is real peace.

Fruitless Searches for a Church, and Our Online Outreach

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On July 21, 2021

In Churches/Church Response

Frequently I receive emails from Christians, most of whom have been or are being abused by an evil spouse and further oppressed by their churches for daring to expose the abuse and request justice…I receive emails from them in which in part of their story (by the way, I never tire of hearing your stories and you don’t need to apologize for them being long), includes their fruitless searching for a sound local church where Christ’s Word is genuinely taught and practiced. A church where the pastor and people are born again and really do love one another. A church where, well, where this is happening:

Heb 5:14 But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.

And so they look. They try. They get their hopes up and then Wham! There it is. The same old, same old, yada, yada teaching about how God loves everyone the same, how we are to love everyone the same, how all of us are sinners just like our abusers, how marriage and divorce are…., and you know how to complete that sentence. They find themselves traumatized once again, they get in the train wreck over and over, the fog of confusion grows thick once more, and the search goes on.

I can tell you that people like this search for YEARS and keep coming up empty for the most part. Once in a great while they will succeed and find the real remnant flock, but increasingly it seems that the odds of that are growing to the same as winning megabucks.

Recently I wrote a response to just such a person – a searcher – who had found our online outreach. One of you suggested that I post it here as a blog article as it may help others as well. So, here it is and I hope that it does help-

Dear ________:

I was thinking about what you said regarding the corrupt state of the churches today and how in your area there is a church on every street corner, but they are all just counterfeits. I can assure you that your analysis is quite accurate. I don’t say this so I can be self-righteous or because I am one of the types who just loves to run down other ministries and claim that I am “the only one” who has it right. I have seen those kind before and I never want to be like that.

But the truth of the matter is that the churches for the most part with rare exception are exactly as you describe. Over the years I have corresponded with people who have found my books or our blogs and livestreams of sermons and Bible studies, and they report exactly what you are saying. They looked and they looked and they looked. They tried and tried and tried…to find a sound church. Some of them even moved to other areas, and one in particular went to your area looking. Always the same. Usually sooner than later, their hopes were dashed as they realized the preaching and teaching was fluff. It was not sound, solid biblical truth taught AND applied. Sin was tolerated in the church. The pastor and other leaders really didn’t care about the people. When real truth was spoken, the person was shut down – it was too much of a threat to the system. And so these people moved on in their search.


One friend of mine in another state went through all of this. She was even a counselor on staff at a large church. But eventually they fired her for exposing wicked abusers sitting right in the pews and calling for them to confront that sin. They refused and they fired her. So she kept looking for a church. One after another. And then she wrote to me and said “I have been looking and looking, and it suddenly hit me – I have a church and a pastor.” And by that she meant us and our online outreach to the people of Christ who have been scattered by wolves. She plugged in as a member of our body online, follows the services and the Bible studies, communicates with me to share her questions and comments, and she is doing great. 


My purpose in writing all this to you is to encourage you by sharing with you that you could move to a new place (but as you say, you have no idea where), you could keep looking in those brick buildings on every corner for the real thing, in the end the common experience of the real Christians I know is – you are going to come up empty. At best what you are going to find, unless you happen to be as lucky as a lottery winner! – is shallowness and superficiality. Trite teachings that please the unregenerate person in the pews. God loves everyone the same. All of us are sinners just the same. God knows we aren’t perfect and He forgives us. We need to always forgive and reconcile with others. Salvation is easy. Most everyone who says they are a Christian is. And on and on it goes.

One person put it like this: “After listening to your sermons and Bible studies over the past few months I’ve realized that I have had no in depth teaching in the church I was in. Even the small groups I have been in there over the years have felt like the person leading was unqualified or it was nothing more than the nonsense of collecting everyone’s thoughts on verses – “what does that verse mean to me” – and it was useless.”

And this matter of no in depth preaching of the Word is not just a matter of shallowness in objective doctrine. No. It creates an environment where evil can take root, grow, parade as light, and attack the sheep. I see the online outreach to people like yourself as a valid, real, church. A ministry to the people of Christ who are scattered. We have been joined by wonderful people whose faith is real in Ohio, Tennessee, Indiana, Illinois, California, Michigan, Oregon, Scotland, the Netherlands, and more. And they love it.  They  communicate with me and in some cases now with one another. 
I write all of this just to encourage you and to let you know that you are very welcome to be a part of Christ’s church through these means without having to wear yourself out looking and being disappointed or hurt over and over again.

All you need do to join us is to let me know. If you are a real Christian who loves the Lord and yearns to know Him better and to obey Him better, then you are welcome.

Blessings in Christ,

Jeff

A Rotten Apple…?

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On July 21, 2021

In Biblical Teaching

…there is more danger that the bad will damage the good than hope that the good will benefit the bad.

[Matthew Henry]

We like to give apples to the deer that come into our yard. I buy bushels of them that are on the brink of spoiling. In each box we will find one or two rotten apples and you can see how that spoilage will be spreading to the rest.

Now, it seems to me that we are being told in our churches that we need to be mixing it up with rotten apples in order to make them healthy. “Forgive the bad apple. Be reconciled to the rot. Your goodness and health will wear off on the bad and they will be healed.” That kind of thing.

But we do not see this in Scripture. In fact, what we do see is this-

2Co 6:17-18 Therefore go out from their midst, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing; then I will welcome you, (18) and I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty.”

In agreement with the Apostle Paul, Matthew Henry summarized the truth in the quote above. Associating in a “yoked” way with the wicked is much more likely to damage the good than for the good to benefit the bad. And this truth is not just limited to marriage (as this Scripture is typically solely applied today). Paul actually had the pagan trade guilds and their associated idolatry in mind when he wrote this. The Corinthians were trying to have their cake and eat it too by continuing to be “members in good standing” with the guilds (a kind of trade union), even though to do so required participating in Babylon and its idolatries.

The reason so many professing Christians today are “restricted in their affections” to Christ’s true people (as the Corinthians were toward Paul) is because they have not “come out from among” this evil present world which is Babylon, the kingdom of the devil. To do so would mean experiencing the sufferings and losses that Paul and other real believers experienced. They balked. They were in danger of “receiving the grace of God in vain” (see 2 Cor 6:1).

Christ calls His people without exception to come out of Babylon. To reject participation in and acceptance of the religious, economic, and political system whose theology is written by the prince of darkness himself. We are not instructed to be a healthy apple whose mission is to be in the same bushel box with the rotten ones. No. We are to come out from among them, and then and only then will the Lord be a Father to us.

And that is the reason why so many genuine Christians today, who are following Christ, who have separated from the idolatry that parades even as Christianity, are experiencing suffering in their daily lives. But then we also experience something else – salvation. Knowing the Lord and being known by Him.

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