As anyone familiar with the mentality and tactics of the abuser knows, false repentance is a common ploy of such people. They can be very convincing. They have changed. What they did was wrong, but they are finished with it forever. If their victim will only forgive them, all will…
Read MoreJeremiah 12:6 ESV For even your brothers and the house of your father, even they have dealt treacherously with you; they are in full cry after you; do not believe them, though they speak friendly words to you.” I have begun a new sermon series on the book of Jeremiah.…
Read MoreBut that is not the way you learned Christ! — assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to…
Read MoreAs we write about abuse, as we speak about it and give counsel to abuse victims, the subject and question of ANGER frequently comes up. It arises in various ways: Victims who are Christians are conflicted because they are angry, yet they think that it is a sin to be…
Read More2 Thessalonians 1:6-10 ESV 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…
Read MoreActs 19:18-19 ESV Also many of those who were now believers came, confessing and divulging their practices. (19) And a number of those who had practiced magic arts brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all. And they counted the value of them and found it…
Read MoreWhen in hearing the Word preached, and sins reproved in the congregation, some hearers misapply the same. As for example, the minister reproves the sin of swearing, of drunkenness, or any such sin; then someone guilty thereof, does not only surmise, but also breaks forth into this speech: Now the…
Read More1 Kings 3:25-28 ESV And the king said, “Divide the living child in two, and give half to the one and half to the other.” (26) Then the woman whose son was alive said to the king, because her heart yearned for her son, “Oh, my lord, give her the…
Read MoreJohn 3:7 ESV Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ With some frequency I receive reports from domestic abuse victims/survivors about how they were directed to various types of short term programs that promised a cure for their marriage. A common name for such…
Read More1 John 2:4 ESV Whoever says “I know him” but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, Years ago I was at a wedding where the presiding pastor was from a large "happening" church. (I have long since concluded that all that…
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