Victims and Perpetrators

   This subject is brought to my attention because I have been made aware of the fact that there will be activities going on at the Superbowl that will end up with devastating results, for the Superbowl is a place where those involved in the sex trafficking will be there to work out their schemes. I don't know all the details on this, but I know we need to be aware of what is going on. For one reason or another, young girls are being brought into this area and become enslaved. They can't get out of it without harm. We do need to be aware of this, and in prayer for God to intervene.
  Before I write this blog, I want my readers to understand a couple of things. I am for the death penalty for crimes that deserve the kind of punishment that matches. I am one who believes that laws should be strictly enforced. If people can get away with breaking the law, they will end up thinking they can get away with breaking God's law and they lose their fear of God. As a result, society loses their fear of God and 'everyone does what is right in his or her own eyes' in spite of hurting others and bringing God's judgment upon themselves.
   People develop consciences that don't work for two reasons, that I am aware of. One of them is described in Romans 1, where it talks about people who turn their backs on God 'sear' their consciences. They can do obscene things out in public, yet not even feel any shame or embarrassment. Yet, there is another reason that people seem to have no conscience, and that is what I want to talk about in this article.
   I don't want you to think that I believe that people should be excused for their sins, because they don't have a conscience. But we need to look at the cause and affect of what happens to some people, that results in a non-working conscience. How God will deal with these people on That Day, is something I do not know or understand at this point, and I am not dealing with the justice side of this today.
      I do feel very sad for people who have been harmed either deliberately or unintentionally by people without a working conscience. Innocent people, in the sense that the victim is not guilty of participating in the perpetrator's activities, become victims easily. It happens every day, 24/7. Someone gets raped. A child gets kidnapped. A parent abuses their child. 'Doctors' put in mind control programming. A wife is beaten up. A husband is taken to court and ripped off. The list is endless of things that happen to people. The statistics are staggering. Most women will have been raped or sexually abused by the time they are adults. While the law needs to be enforced, it helps us to understand what is going on as we study the cause and affect on this.
    This could even be  more complex because of the existence of PSTD. For example, when a child is traumatized, the child could develop multiple personalities. This is especially true for children six years and under. The more the child is traumatized, the more personalities he or she develops. Also, take into consideration that Satanic Ritual Abuse uses this factor in producing children with multiple personalities to their end purposes. When a child is in another personality, they are not in their 'core being' (which is the real them) but are living in a sub conscience state and developing a personality that goes with it. It is a little like hypnoses, but this subconscious state appears to be aware of everything going on. With Satanic Ritual Abuse, this is when mind control programming is put into them. The perpetrator will put into the child's mind the ability to store facts and even directions on how to do certain things. For example, if the perpetrator wants the child to learn to be militant, the perpetrator will put in the child's mind all the information on how to bomb a bus. Then the perpetrator will put into the child's mind a 'keyword' or 'trigger' to match the activity that goes with the key word. 'Follow the Yellow Brick Road' would be an example of a key word or trigger, and if the mind control programming was done correctly, the child will respond accordingly when he hears the words, 'Follow the Yellow Brick Road'. He may go into the personality that was assigned the activity, and then carry out the activity.
   Satanic Ritual Abusers know that a little girl is devastated by being raped. These little girls are horrified especially since most of the abuse comes from the hands of her father. They are not right in their minds after this. But Satanic Ritual Abusers, although they are more commonplace than we realize, are not the only ones to traumatize children. I am even seeing the results of men who were traumatized as children. They seem to have warped minds as well.
   I was talking with someone whose husband appears to have come from a family who practiced Satanic Ritual Abuse. At some point, the husband must have left his daughter with his parents, and the daughter was murdered by them. The man has severe mental problems today. He also is abusive with his own family. He was the victim as a child, and now has become the perpetrator.
   I believe these people desperately need to be reached with the Gospel. But, I am not sure that we can reach them by telling them that they need to repent. They do need to repent. The goal is to get to the point with the person that you can help them understand the Gospel. They need to be reached, and they need to want to be reached. I think medicine can play a part in helping, but, I personally believe that the church is where this kind of person will get his or her only hope.
   Many churches aren't ready to help a person in this condition. Many won't want to. Many will think that these people need the electric chair. I understand. Again, I am not writing to decide what kind of judgment these people should get at this point. I believe we need to break the cycle of the victim/perpetrator syndrome. And honestly, I don't have all the answers for this yet. But I know CCEF and other Biblical counseling places are studying this very topic.
   I remember watching a program one time, with prisoners who were guilty of rape. These men were being interviewed. By listening to their answers, I concluded that these men really did not want to be rapists. They gave advice to women to know how to protect themselves against the very crime that these men were in prison for!
   I am pondering this subject and thinking it through. I am trying to help us to see it through Biblically, so we don't stumble. What is God's mind in all of this? Even though most of us are not guilty of serious crimes, do we see ourselves as criminals in God's sight?
  I am concerned for two reasons: One of them is that we immediately want these abusers put to death. Again, I understand this, and it is not totally wrong to think this way. I think we should put them away, simply because they are dangerous to society. But, in another sense, these are the people Jesus died for. Jesus didn't die just so they could be forgiven of their sins and go to heaven when they die. Jesus died to break the chains that are holding them down. He died so that those chains would be broken forever. We talk about being set free from sin, but do we really know what that means? Sin has a hold on each of us, and when we come to Christ, we are forgiven and set free. The blood of Christ can forgive murderers. It can also break the bonds that the Enemy has put on us.
     The second reason is, with all the sexual abuse being exposed, we see the results of this perpetrator/victim cycle working itself out. While we don't want to cave into people who are victims, we need to realize that these people who are victims today will become perpetrators tomorrow. A lot of people think that if you give any grace to a perpetrator, then you are horrible. For victims, it is especially hard because the perpetrator has sinned against the victim, and the victim wants vengeance, and understandably so. Perpetrators need to be penalized. Victims need safety.
   But God sees something we don't see. I will use the book, 'The Cross and the Switchblade' to help understand what I am trying to say. NYC was being inhabited by immigrants and newly Americanized people. The people who came over here from other countries, sadly discovered that it wasn't a bed of roses here. There were no jobs for people. They lived in tiny rooms. I wonder why they even came over here in the first place. What happened was that many, many families abandoned their children because they didn't have enough space or food for them. So, they children formed groups called, 'gangs'. Gangs were made up of primarily middle school to high school aged students. They grouped together and formed a replacement for their families. They needed a sense of belonging. They were territorial. They were violent. They were murderers.
    One night, David Wilkerson, who lived in PA, opened a magazine which had an article of 7 boys who murdered a boy in NYC. He cried when he saw their pictures. God put it on his heart to go find these boys. David Wilkerson had never been to NY up to this point, but went over there to search for them and ended up in the court house during one of their trials. A man was sitting next to him, and was outspoken about how he felt toward those boys. This man said that they all should get the chair (meaning electric chair). He was expressing his hatred toward these boys for what they had done (and you can understand why) and how no one could love them. It was at this point that David Wilkerson replied 'God does'. What? God loves those boys? After what they did? Where's the justice? If you have ever read, 'The Cross and the Switchblade' you will know the outcome of the story. I don't know if David Wilkerson ever got to meet those 7 boys, but, what he did in NYC was astonishing. Gang leaders, warlords, and drug users came to Christ. Not only did they come to Christ, but they were radically changed. Many of these people were murderers. If they were dealt with immediately for their crimes, they would have never had heard the Gospel. They would have died in their sins. Some became preachers. Others were ministers of the Gospel. Hope was brought into darkness. Chains were broken. People were free to live normal lives now. And, it is still going on today. I talked with a friend who was up there preaching, and a warlord came to Christ. This warlord was continually, literally being pulled back by the powers of darkness, away from my friend. But the warlord came to the meetings and was radically saved by God's grace.
   In the Bible, we read about the story of David and Bathsheba. David already had several wives and concubines, and certainly didn't need another wife, but, when he saw Bathsheba, he wanted her too. But Bathsheba was married. Not only that, but Bathsheba got pregnant by David, so David wanted it to look like the baby belonged to Bathsheba's husband, Uriah. Uriah didn't know about all this, and was sent back into battle by David and assigned to be on the front lines so he would be killed. He was killed in battle. A prophet named Nathan contacts David. David finds out that God knows about his sin with Bathsheba. God is going to punish David for his sin. But, listen closely, as God informs David that his sin has been put away. What? Where's the justice? I like the words John Piper uses when he talks about this. He says, 'Tell that to Uriah's mother.' What would Uriah's mother have thought if she knew the whole story?
   When we hear stories like this one, and even the David Wilkerson one, we think the same thing. David did a horrible crime. Why is God forgiving him? Is God letting him off the hook? That doesn't seem fair. But isn't that what we think when we see perpetrators and abusers? Yes, they do need punishment, but they also need to know that there is One who died to pay the penalty for their sin. Perhaps if they knew that in the first place, they wouldn't have done the crimes they did. I know this is long and I hope it helps put things into perspective. No matter how bad a criminal is, God can forgive him or her, and set him or her free from the chains of bondage.
   One more story. I have a friend who lives on the other side of town. Her mother was brutally murdered by a drug user. He was caught and brought to trial. He had also murdered another woman and was on trial for that as well. As my friend sat in court, she looked him in the eyes and asked him some hard questions. At some point later, she explained that she had been so freely forgiven by God, and was able to forgive this man for his crime against her mother. Those in court because of the other woman who was murdered were not so gracious. They said they wanted him to burn in hell for what he had done. While this man was in prison, and I have heard this is a true story, he was ministered to and came to Christ. He probably really did get saved from what I was told. He also died in prison a couple of years later from a sickness.
   So, in conclusion, the point is that we, as the church, need to learn how to be ready to minister the Gospel to victims and perpetrators. They will appear in our church buildings at times. Are we willing to serve them and love them, or are we going to write them off and wish them the death penalty as soon as we meet them? Are we going to help break the perpetrator/victim cycle by patiently working with them or are we going to leave them in their sins while waiting for the law to step in and put them to an end? What would God have us to do? What has God done for us?

Dignity vs. Self-Esteem

   Why am I writing this? Because every since I have been studying Biblical counseling, I found a key component in how we should deal with people.
    People are complex beings, and the church seems to be perplexed on how to deal with them. First of all, human beings are made in God's image. That doesn't mean that God made them perfect and that people are automatically holy. But I do think that is a misconception of many professing Christians. On the other hand, human beings are sinful people living in a fallen world, ruled by a Master Deceiver. No wonder the world is such a mess!
  The way we understand people will manifest itself in how we treat others. In the world today, people are beaten down. The devil is constantly lying to us. Those who have come to Christ are targets for the Enemy of our souls. By the time we become adults, we are going to be on one of two ends of a value spectrum. We will either be so confident of ourselves, that we will be arrogant, or, we will think of ourselves as trash, and be discouraged in life. Neither view is correct, although in both, there is some element of truth.
   The world tells us that the answer to our problems is that we need to have 'self-esteem'. Is this correct? What I think the world is possibly looking for, is the word, 'dignity'. Dignity is not the same as self-esteem. Dignity is respect for human life. Self-esteem is like wishful thinking about how high and important we really are (or believe we are). Self-esteem is rooted in pride. Dignity recognizes that people are made in God's image and to destroy God's image is to be taken very seriously. Self-esteem involves flattery, whereas dignity involves encouragement. Self-esteem is the world's answer for dignity, because it cannot see what dignity is. Dignity has to do with fearing God and respecting life.
   The world teaches that man is the measure of all things. This basically means that man is at the top rank of any living being and gets to call the shots. We have seen what happens when cruel men reign. Dignity is destroyed. Manipulation is a tool that we use to get what we want. Left to himself, mankind would destroy itself.
   In the book of James, he talks about favoring the rich person, while treating the poor with less respect. By default, I think we all would tend to do this. We put value on a person, not because he or she is created in God's image, but depending on how much money he or she makes. We ignore the poor and needy. Many even show contempt for the poor. But Jesus did not even bruise a broken reed. We should do the same. We should seek out those in Lo-debar. Loving the ones in Lo-debar by Keith Collins
  Some things we can do to be proactive in this area are: Talking with children (but be careful and make sure you have a good relationship with the parents), reaching out to those of other nationalities or skin color, helping the homeless and needy (a good book on this is 'When Helping Hurts by Steve Corbett) When Helping Hurts audio When Helping Hurts Paperback at Amazon
   The reason I say that talking to children is important is simply because we don't even think to do it. We adults just communicate with adults. We don't have any need to talk to children. But children need to know they are loved and wanted. They also need to know that they aren't trash. They are human beings who will grow up with some kind of belief system based upon many things that happened in their childhood years. If they are ignored, they will sense that they are not important to society. But they will become part of the fabric of society as they grow up and get on with their lives. They need to know that God loves them and that people love them too.
   I think of the many 'racial' issues we have in our country, and wonder if the root is possibly that some people really, deep down inside, don't believe that other people are as human as they are. Look at slavery. The slaves were thought of as less than human and many, though not all, were treated as such. Then we have the Holocaust. Obviously, Hitler did not think people of certain ethnic groups were of equal value to his. Darwin, in his book, 'Origin of Species' showed that black people were less developed than white people, and that women were less developed than men. Throughout the ages, in the Middle East, women were almost always treated with disrespect. They were considered 'lower' than men. In Islam, women have very few freedoms. But when Jesus came and interacted with people, He treated women with great respect. No one in that community respected women in that way.
  So, underlying our thinking is this thought that some people are lower or lesser than others, but that is not what the Bible teaches. And bringing dignity to people does not mean that crime and other evil acts are not dealt with. If we respect our children, then we will discipline them. But we will love them through the discipline. If we show contempt for our children, we are harming them. If we manipulate them to get them to behave right, we are not helping them. We have to respect those who are weak, those who are needy, those who are physically handicapped, and children (as well as elderly people). We need to bring dignity, not self-esteem, back to the human race.
   One last thought (actually I have many last thoughts, but I will write about them another time). in the book, 'When Helping Hurts' a mistake that we commonly make is to try to do for needy people, things that they can do for themselves. When we do that, we are stripping them of their dignity. There are times when we need to send help quickly, but there are other times when we just pass out money as if it were candy. The goal would be to help people when they are in a pinch, but also help them to get back onto their feet. The best way to restore someone's dignity who is in this position, is to give them a job. There is something really therapeutic when it comes to being hired, or serving someone at a workplace.
   More on this subject later on.......