Mark Giordano - Class 3 - Comfort in Abuse - Retribution in the Kingdom

Automatically transcribed. Accuracy is good but not perfect, and words are sometimes wrong. Trust the audio over the text.

1. 0:03

   The third classroom brother marks series on the God of All Comfort, is entitled comfort in abuse and retribution in the Kingdom of the mark. Brothers and sisters, thank you for bearing with me through this one of the roller coaster ride of emotions and joy, is in the future. it’s going to get a little bit darker now for this one, but it’s important because of the pervasive. Factor of this particular problem. It’s the kind of we’re speaking now about comfort in abuse and the recompense for in the Kingdom. And abuse is one of those kinds of things that don’t really hit you until you come face-to-face with it and then it becomes a penetrating nightmare.

2. 1:09

   Consuming her things from direct personal experience with another sister. In our Alicia, one that I grew up with new all her life and had no idea what was going on in the background of her life, but it’s important because like I said, it’s a pervasive problem. But it’s also a problem that God is very much aware of and his recompense in the kingdom, is going to cover abuse at all levels.

3. 1:39

   And you think about it. There are despotic rulers of Nations who are abusive to the to all the peoples in their regime. So, abuse starts at a very high level in the Spiritual hosts of wickedness in high places in the world and works its way all the way down into homes, where horrible things are done and people are helplessly bound to their own personal nightmare abuse is the 9 million pound gorilla in the world. Gorilla, that’s very hard to see, but it is there. So, because of what the sister went through, and because I know, statistically, and factually the level of pervasiveness of this problem.

4. 2:33

   I felt that it was important to bring this segment to Ecclesia it’s because in the Norfolk Ecclesia we had to do something about it and we’ll go over that when we get into our remarks here news is I want to show you the scope of the problem in the world its domestic abuse is known as the invisible prime.

5. 2:56

   It involves child exploitation which Professionals in the field regard as Optional, homicide other words, it destroys someone emotionally. The problem is so pervasive that you either know, someone who is suffering from abuse or you have known someone or you yourself, or suffering from abuse or you may even be hiding abuse covering it unwillingly or willingly covering it. But in any case, it’s pervasive enough for all of us to have come into contact, unless you’re very young. And just having yet with someone who is, Is being abused or has been abused.

6. 3:36

   The British a British crime survey said that abuse affects 1 in 4 women. And 1 in 6, men, 30 is an average of 35 assaults against a victim before they call police and this can take place over years of time. These statistics are kind of horrifying just to consider as many as 70 percent of homeless women report, domestic abuse.

7. 4:04

   We’ve already spoken about in Sister Dawn’s life but she’s not the case. That will present in the testimony today right now. It’s generational. And abused children themselves grow up to be abusers in child. Exploitation, the statistics are now one in three girls and one in five, boys are exploited before. They are 18 and the me to the movement is evidence of this.

8. 4:31

   The problems with the Olympics, the problems in colleges that used to be a problem Day, School centers of particular problem. In the hierarchy of the Catholic church and its cover-up of abuse. All of those things affect these statistics of every, this is common knowledge in the news these days in our lives. So I don’t have to kind of impress you with the legitimacy of this statistic, 90% of the victims, know the perpetrator in some way.

9. 4:59

   And 68% of the perpetrators are in the family. 95% of the people who are abusers used churches or religious as covers. 2.9 Million cases were reported, are reported in the US every year. We’re going to talk a little bit about reporting because not reporting is almost as much a problem as the abuse itself.

10. 5:29

    One perpetrator can have as many as 300 victims in a lifetime. We kind of have a sense of that in the news. These are things. We don’t want to think about. So we’re going to put all this into a scriptural context and think about it in. From the Vantage of God’s perspective because there’s always an advantage in God’s perspective. We know a sister who suffered from decades, literally from Decades of unrelenting peace.

11. 6:01

    And she’s not the only one and Ecclesia. I was shocked one time there was an old, this is just an example as an aside, there’s an old older sister who had been widowed for many years in her life. She lived to be, I think a hundred years old. But sometime around time, she was in her late, 70s or 80s.

12. 6:20

    She got upset over something that had happened. It was not relevant to anything that we would. We would need to About here. But she told me in the emotion of the moment, she said I was on the floor on my hands and knees, and my husband had a gun to my head. So don’t Don’t tell me about that.

13. 6:39

    And, and when you hear someone say something like that, you don’t appreciate really what they must have actually gone through when that happened in a situation.

14. 6:51

    So speaking, now that was just an aside. Speaking of the sister whose testimony is in this part, she went through Decades of unrelenting abuse and we didn’t know about it, we used to say that she was only happy if she’s miserable and we had no idea what was making her so miserable. I don’t know.

15. 7:07

    India until her husband moved into our Ecclesia as a baptized member and spent eight years. They’re using the Ecclesia as a cover for his abuse. And because he was in our equation because christadelphians are so close in it. We kind of found out about this in somewhere around fifth year for the next three years.

16. 7:28

    Tried to work with it. We had been working with their marriage and all kinds of different ways for the whole eight year period. He was in there came in in a marital crisis. And left and a mirror crisis but it was a really prevailing problem and it consumed practically the entire equation, particularly consumed our lives on the arranging board and sister Jean and I as we got closer and closer to his family and discovered more and more and more about what was under the surface, being glossed over with guys of spiritual. Spirituality.

17. 8:10

    This is a brief description of much more. There’s much more actually on the website that you can go and read everything she that you might want to hit would be a value to you if you wanted to identify the kinds of things that people going through, because you have a suspicion that something’s going on. It’s someone’s life that, you know, otherwise you probably don’t want to read any anything about this, but this is what she says.

18. 8:32

    About her Terror and her exhaustion. My body is really giving out. It’s a simple statement but it’s not an understatement in her case. It’s getting harder for me even to work though. I know that I have to what her husband had done to her among many other things and her children is, he had consigned her to a life of work where he wouldn’t pay the bills.

19. 8:53

    Because he knew that if he forced her to work as a cleaning person in people’s homes that she would bring enough income home to defray the burden that he, otherwise would have to spend his money on. He kept his money in the dark and the Background and it just consigned her to a life of enslaved her to hard labor. My physical body may not be able to handle it right. Now, if the work comes, I will certainly do it. Somehow all these years of abuse affected me mentally, but now is affecting me physically.

20. 9:24

    The stress is just making me feel so very drained. This evil man has got to be stopped before he kills me and my kids. That’s the part that’s highlighted in the section because everyone in his family thought that he would eventually kill them. So the other among the other things that he did was he suspended the family in Austin fear of physical harm, he never really followed through with it. But every made everyone in the family certain that he was capable of it and all but promised it by his behavior and his tone, the things he would say to people. He also had a collection of guns so that made it all the more believable.

21. 10:04

    So this raises a question, I’m going to go too far into what she suffered. Maybe that’s sufficient to say it was decades of time. We got very close to it. It it overwhelmed our lives in To extricate her from this condition. But then we started thinking about all the factors that are involved, some of them are practical, many of them are scriptural, and some of them are ecclesial. So I’m going to go through a series of components in this particular part that will deal with each of those considerations in.

22. 10:33

    The first, big question is with women who suffer from abusive husbands and the focus here is on men who are abusive, there are women these days that are just as abusive, but this particular segment, On these were men. And so the question is, why women stay with a man who is abusive and we go down this list, you’ll see why they do and how this could even fit into the Matrix of a christadelphians, Ecclesia, because of the threats to harm the victims of the loved ones of the pets. In this case, there was a pet and the threat was always there to harm any of these are so real. That the family, the woman is literally suspended in fear, she’s Frozen, she can’t do anything because she knows that she does.

23. 11:12

    Someone else is going to pay the price. So, It’s sort of like the kids and the pets become hostages for his for her her secrecy, there are threats of suicide or attempts. So if there’s a threat of suicide you don’t want to kill somebody who’s abusive to you who says he’ll kill himself if you tell.

24. 11:33

    So you know there’s its it gets into a very confused set of emotions and feelings. They be. They believe that the abuser will actually take their children from them and if you’re a mother Children of the most important thing in your life as a mother and the thought of someone, especially an abuser, taking them from you, and subjecting them to his full control is unimaginable to a woman. And so this restrains, her there are religious reasons and think of how this would play out in a collegial life in the truth. If we know that God said, he hates divorce and if the only way you can extricate yourself from an abusive, Of condition is to divorce them or two separate.

25. 12:18

    Sometimes these things will bother the religious side of your conscience. Believe in the abuser will change. As promised, but never kept in. This is a constant theme with people with men who are abusive, they promised change, they come back to you with tears, they’re sorry. But it happens over and over again. How many movies, how many stories? I mean, even magazine articles point this out, this is classic their self playing.

26. 12:43

    And this is something that this particular sister had grown in up in, in her family where it over these three decades from her early youth to the time. This was finally finally ended for her. She blamed herself because the abuse involved, mental, and emotional accusation. That was so pervasive in her mind, it literally brain brainwashed, her into believing that she was the reason that he had to treat her that way. So, self-blame keeps women from leaving, they have limited Financial options.

27. 13:19

    This is certainly true. In the case, in our Ecclesia, she couldn’t really. She never really thought she could support herself. She’s make enough. In a month to pay the mortgage, while he used that money for his own escapades elsewhere, believing that violence or conflict is normal? What happens in some of these families is the violence is, so, constant and pervasive in the family that it becomes normal for them.

28. 13:44

    It’s hard for us to imagine those of us who live in peaceful lives, where the characters are driven by spiritual principles to imagine something getting this bad inside a home, but you can imagine if it’s as pervasive as As the statistics show, how how, what grief there is in heaven, in the purview of all households in America, say nothing of the countries and Facilities, where there’s abuse on a higher level where the god of love watches. This miserable torture of merciless torture inside, homes believing the sanctity of marriage and the family also is another reason why when it is day they have limited or no housing options.

29. 14:26

    And and housing options that are provided by the city of a state. Don’t seem to be adequate. A lot of times they can, they can find other reasons to explain the abuse. They blame it on something else or alcohol or finances. They have a very low self-esteem. That’s usually the kind of woman that ends up in an abusive situation, the fear of the unknown or change is enormous, because changing all change involved, lost someone once said, so they can see them losing everything in their life, in their, in their accumulated surroundings and the props of their life and the little things in there.

30. 15:04

    That have that are representations of deeper meanings all that appears to be lost in the change or a fear of isolation. They don’t know what will happen if they live in a strict Ecclesia and a divorce results in some form of isolation. There’s that fear. There’s a fear of being isolated, simply by the circumstance, embarrass me and shames.

31. 15:28

    Another reason, women don’t leave, believing, no one can help and this is a very deep seated. Belief because they’ve lived in it for so long. There never has been any help, they become convinced that help is not available. There are cultural beliefs, there’s denial and there’s pressure from friends and family to stay. There’s economic dependence and there’s also this very strange irony that.

32. 15:51

    She she still loves him. She feels like she loves him even though he treats her like this. Very pervasive condition in the pity of these women’s lives. So in this particular sister’s case, the only way she could cope is in the comfort that was provided to her from her faith. And there are many different ways in which that Comfort came to her. She would listen to tapes of Chrissa Delphine talk. So if you’re a speaker and you speak about these things and there’s a woman out there who’s suffering like this and she picks up your talk that will come into her life as a comfort. She’s very close to her Bible and did an amazing job of raising her children in spite of the circumstances and stayed very Very close to the scriptures and they came into her mind and constructed, an anchor of comfort. The Ecclesia was another form of comfort Chiefs. She came assiduously every Sunday, she came to, as many classes, she could get out to not too many in that case but the exhortations and the the sympathies and the hugs and kisses and the arms around her all provided her, with some measure of comfort that comes from the hand of Christ as it treats.

33. 17:02

    Those whom he touches through the contact with brothers and sisters. This is what she said. In all of that I’ve been in the truth since I was 15 years old, but I’ve never really seen and felt felt it until the worst adversity in my life. And this is that wonderful Paradox that were speaking about in this whole series of comfort being manifested in Affliction as a result of an in contrast to affliction. So she says, once I put complete trust in God, you know there was no arm of Flesh, it failed or pressure and gave him the steering wheel of my life.

34. 17:43

    Then and only then could I have peace within so how in this circumstance and she’s been desperate. Almost as long as we’ve known her, how could she find peace within unless you can actually use the knowledge of God instead of the knowledge of Good and Evil which was the prevalent knowledge of Herbalife. Use the knowledge of God to bring that piece into your thinking that then becomes the source of comfort and peace. I know that God knows where we were going and how to get there. This adversity has been too hard for me to physically mentally and spiritually, handle alone.

35. 18:17

    In that is not an understatement. In every aspect of what she’s describing their physical mental spiritual, she could have added emotional. It’s been too difficult for her to manage alone. So she but she wasn’t alone and she had she had a group of believers who are around her gradually becoming more and more aware of this and who were supplying, the kind of support he needed. And friends, she had friends who were themselves wives of abusive conditions in their marriage and they came to her rescue. Once I completely gave him that his God, the wheel then. So many blessings started to happen. Two years later when I updated this last fall. She said the storms are settling down. Now this is because the scoffer was driven out of the Ecclesia. There’s a we’re going to see this later on in a verse drive, a scoffer out and abuse will cease. We drove them out of the Ecclesia. And by effect, she drove him out of circumstances. Drove him away from her, which gave her a bit of a rescue the storm.

36. 19:24

    So she says, the storms are settling now and in the most wonderful way. Once she was a cleaning lady for these people and they had a house available because the woman that was was getting old and who she cared for in her cleaning. Could no longer sustain herself, manage her own life and her house alone.

37. 19:44

    So, this is the daughter and son brought her in. They happen to be very loving, kind religious people and they had mercy on this woman gave her a place to live her and her daughter. So it was a Deliverance that was supplied. We saw this, it was Like by the Lord. Should the spirit as it operated in the minds of several people who weren’t even in the truth.

38. 20:08

    But so penetrating was the spirit of Christ in this world that he had enough of an effect on their hearts to provide a place for this woman to live and it’s actually a bit nicer than the place. She was living in that she had to leave. So she says the storms have been extremely heavy but they’ve taught me and my family to truly rely totally and completely on God.

39. 20:31

    They taught us to be patient. No matter what they taught me to pray. Like I’ve never prayed before truly am. So very blessed and thankful for our God, that has never ever left my side through these heavy storms. But instead been with me with his arms around me and my family the entire time, how could a woman Conger, that kind of thought, unless she understood it to be true in her life. And that is in every sigh that God gives us providentially. All the anchors of strength that he provides by his word. Don’t ever give up, but keep trusting believing in pray without ceasing.

40. 21:05

    God loves us all so much and he will guide you through every storm. You are going through now. And in the future, when I asked her, what is the verse that anchors? Your hope? She said this and we know that all things. Imagine it’s what are all things in her life? Jack threatened with violence being yelled at being denigrated being belittled to the point where you feel worthless, scaring your children, to believe that it’s normal for them to expect to be killed to be murdered.

41. 21:34

    These are all the things that she said. Work together for good. For good, what? Good good in the form of the direct intimate, knowledge of the hope that God sets before us? That’s the good. It’s in the strength to endure. We love God and those who are called, according to his purpose. So God’s response in a condition like this, in an abusive condition.

42. 22:04

    Is General sweeps, the entire human race and all of its dispensations as one whom his mother comforts. So, I will comfort you. And once again, what does God do? He ties it to the promise of Abraham, the promise of language Promised Land Throne of Christ, and to that area of land, which will be the capital of This World In His Kingdom. So I will comfort.

43. 22:32

    You you shall be comforted in Jerusalem. It’s got a very clear about the Comfort. He offers, it’s a comfort that he will provide when he redeems Jerusalem and when Jerusalem is redeemed, the world will be redeemed. So in all this experience, the Norfolk Rafflesia came up with a policy. The reason we came up with the policy is what I mentioned earlier. Reporting is part of the problem and to Serious part of the problem not recording.

44. 22:58

    That’s why people are arrested and they go to jail for not reporting. That’s the issue. They have the Catholic church right now that they don’t think there’s been enough reporting going on. And so the abuse gets to convey gets continued in Virginia. There’s only three states left at the time. We looked into this, I think Four states.

45. 23:17

    And I’ve recently been told that there are three states left now that do not have a law, that mandates church leaders and Elders to report when they have Reasonable Suspicion of abuse, that’s a very serious problem. You can know why it’s a law in so many states, Virginia, the state that we live in does not have a law that mandates church leaders.

46. 23:39

    So we spoke to a lot of people about this, in the course, of our involvement with it, and we were told it would be a good idea for You to develop a policy since you live in a state where it’s not mandated by law, develop a policy, where the church mandates itself, its own leaders to report when there is reasonable, Reasonable Suspicion of abuse.

47. 24:00

    It’s this serious. In God’s eyes, whoever causes one of these little ones to who believe in me to stumble, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea, this is the kind of offense that abuse is when there’s a selfish father and a Donna narcissistic man in the family. It’s a millstone level offense.

48. 24:24

    What he does to the children. That man is a brother and he’s not being reported. This needs to be uncovered and dealt with, and the Ecclesia is not. The equation has rolled do it, but it is the equations role to report it. If you can do something about it within without going to the judges of the world, then Paul’s advice is to do that because he says to the Corinthian Ecclesia, you need to judge these things internally but where you can’t do that. It’s necessary to report.

49. 24:51

    So we The policy and I’m going to introduce some aspects of the policy. It’s a little big. So we don’t have time to do it in the confines of this part. But this is a is was entitled in Norfolk. Collegiate policy was passed in a special meeting on Family Services pertaining to abuse and exploitation, which is read the first paragraph of it. So you get an idea of what this policy does. Just going to say upfront, this policy is available on the internet for you to copy and download in your Collegiate. If you feel like you’d like to take the step if you if you have dealt with this in the past and though you may deal with in the future you can download this and use this as a template for whatever policy you want to write and we did it deliberately with that in mind not only just for the benefit of our Affairs in the Ecclesia.

50. 25:37

    Why the occlusion needs a policy on this subject? The creation of this policy stems from how our having officially opened the counseling services for the Norfolk Ecclesia, in which, our members are financially supported to receive qualified counseling for a specific. a period of time where their trials are beyond the scope and ability of our own members to provide sufficient resources, for help, In other, in any other case, we’ve got all the resources that we have in a collegial life that we have as individuals in the particulars in that Ecclesia. But there’s a limit this is when that limit is exceeded, we acknowledge that brothers and sisters are subject to the same proclivity to send is All Mankind. And provision should be made to Aid victims of abuse and exploitation, recognizing that this abuse could come from outside or, from within the body. And I don’t need to go far past that point to remind you that we know of cases, where this is in the body. This is an overview and I was going to bolt these off, it has an introduction, it defines abuse. Obviously it has gives a list of relevant. Scriptures it Goes with the state’s laws are including signs of recording, and I’m going to add right here. All this is meant to have a practical basis of dealing with this, when it is otherwise.

51. 26:53

    So, so sort of unreachable, especially in protecting of the sanctity of a family and a family organization. We have a victim, first priority, I would love to talk to you about that. And if you want to know what that means, we can take that up in a later conversation. Reasonable Suspicion is as Opposed to proof.

52. 27:14

    We need to explain what that is because a lot of people think that if you have a suspicion you can’t use it because we’re not supposed to be supposed scripturally. Speaking we’re not supposed to be suspicious of one another but reasonable suspicious is a different suspicion is a different thing. It’s when they’re all kinds of things that are wrong, you know, something’s wrong.

53. 27:32

    These are the signs that something’s wrong but you have no proof. What’s required in the state reporting is not proof. The state then looks for the evidence and seeks the proof. While they go. What they go by. Nipple suspicion and nobody is indicted on the basis of Suspicion. So all this does is set up a condition in which people who have the authority to do. So can probe deeply into a family’s life and discover if there is in fact abuse, there’s a consequence to Fellowship obviously.

54. 28:00

    So we put that in there. There’s a need to protect people with whatever conscientious confidentiality may be involved. And that’s on the principal in the Bible of covering and on one hand, covering sent on the other hand, exposing sin. So we do both in a collegial life. If your have been on the arranging board, you know, the need to cover sins when they when you become aware of them.

55. 28:23

    And, you know, the need sometimes to bring those sins into some kind of public awareness. Although we don’t like to be judges and we don’t want to be involved in that. We all recognize that we are in training in a collegial life for a time when we, we judges worldwide helping create It’s rule from his throne but being in all parts of the world in situations where the experience.

56. 28:44

    I think we had in principles of judgment will be applied in that day, but perfectly applied by those of us who are brought into the Royal administration of Christ’s throne. Practical restoration and evidence of change are two things that become very involved in this. If there’s repentance gets involved, and fellowship is a question. I went to, there are five steps that we developed in this that show repentance that become evidence of real repentance. Instead of just having somebody with loud crying and Tears. Like Esau make a repentance that leads to death instead of one that leads to life because they don’t mean it. The repentance of Esau and the tears of Esau, and you’ll see lots of Tears with these sorts of perpetrators, but we had to do is figure out how we can identify what real repentance is in.

57. 29:37

    This doesn’t only involve abuse and involves everything, where a question of repentance needs to be determined answered and I’m going to. So I’m going to take some just a few minutes and go over that with you. So these are the two things that we’re going to look at directly relevant scriptures. Relating to abuse and Reporting abuse and the exposure of it and five steps that identify real repentance. This is a very useful tool for arranging boards and for anyone women who are older, women who are canceling, younger people parents, who are counseling children. You want to really identify a real repentance. This is how you do it.

58. 30:22

    So we’ll take a look at that closely, firstly, the relevant scriptures. It’s interesting to note that when Paul lists in Galatians 5, The Works of the flesh.

59. 30:37

    Many of them, if not half of them, relate to abuse. When you think about adultery. So there can be unfaithfulness that results in abuse or they could be rampant, repeat adultery, because that is concomitant with abused. uncleanness and all forms part of a selfish man lascivious – which is, of course, what happens when a man begins to be hostile to the object of his affections that wife that he promise to love and honor and cherish all the days of their life, lasciviousness turns that love into hatred and he can be very cruel to the one he promised to love variance, which is constant disagreement in contention, You know, that the Bible says women can be contentious, so men can be abused by women and families were contention is the problem and contention is a form of abuse, the Bible word for that.

60. 31:33

    In some cases, in the New Testament, is the old with older word is variance and variance. Just means a variance of view that turns into an argument variants and emulation go hand-in-hand, and I getting that right now, that’s the next turn, but wrath and strife. The Strife is basically an effect of the Wrath And then murders and drunkenness and revellings are also all apart of global condition of abuse in a family. And such like, of which, I tell, which I tell you before, as I have told you in time past that they, which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.

61. 32:12

    So the goal, if an abuser in an Ecclesia is discovered is to bring him to a state of restoration. This is in the context of restoring somebody who was given over to fleshly impulses, and sometimes abusers can be restored. So, the goal is that, but if they can’t, you have to drive an abuser from you because it’s only then that the abuse will cease.

62. 32:36

    And we all know this subtle delicate distinction in judgment that that we labor. So, Hard to get, right? And the demands of righteousness. When we feel so unrighteousness in the context of those, the unrighteous in the context of those demands, It goes on to say that the fruit of the spirit and this is where you find out what completely dispels, the pasta the potential for abuse and a family. You marry a woman, she should be a sacred thing to you. You’ve received the approval of the Lord for taking you in her into your care.

63. 33:12

    You promise to love and honor and cherish her all the days of her life. And then you should as her spiritual head, bring into your relationship with her and into the family. You should bring love and joy. And peace. You should be a person who has his hand on the thermostat that controls the temperature in the room. When it’s too hot, you cool?

64. 33:37

    And it wants to cool. You warm it up and IT Supplies. The piece that makes everybody in the family. Feel secure, instead of scared to death, that something bad is going to happen soon. And long suffering, which means there’s a lot of patients involved in gentleness. Which means not being heavy handed and harsh with people not speaking harshly to children and not The one you love with hard words and hurtful terms gentleness is all pervasive in disposition and tone and speech and all of us need to learn how to do this, because it doesn’t come naturally to us.

65. 34:14

    We get baptized, we don’t automatically become gentle. Men are not gentle just because they turn boys into adults. We have to learn how to be gentle because otherwise we have a lot of force in our character and we apply that Force to A woman. It can be overexerted, just like that. And so gentleness is the thing which we learn, that offsets all that, and goodness there should be goodness in the home. The father should bring goodness to his wife and to his children and faith and meekness and Temperance. He should be able to admit when he’s wrong and not insisted. He’s always right?

66. 34:47

    And not, not act, like he, there’s never anything wrong with thinking or always be right in his own eyes. All these things are fleshly impulses that destroy marriages that that all the components of Use so Brothers, I know you agree with all this and I know you would like to practice it. And I know many of you probably do in some measure, but the exhortation is always there for all of us to temper the flesh to put the reins on our cells and and treat the beauty of the love that are wife offers us in the self-sacrifice that she brings into the marriage treat that with the utmost of care.

67. 35:27

    It’s sacred God gave it to you as a gift because he knew it wasn’t good for you to be alone. Treat her. Like you really mean these things. And if you need to get better at it, than do everything in your power, to make yourself better at it. And if that doesn’t work apologize, at least but don’t make apology. The thing that the pattern rules the day. Change is the thing that needs to be made. In this context, he says against such, there is no law. These are the components of a happy family that is Abuse. The fruit of the spirit.

68. 36:01

    It obviates abuse. That’s the first scripture. Another scripture is auxiliary council is actually scripturally Justified as christadelphians. We have no confidence in the wisdom of this world, but there are certain areas where this world applies its wisdom to things that we kind of also can’t control. So, in Proverbs 11:14, he says, where no counsel is the people fall, but in the multitude, You have counselors their safety and maybe a multitude of counselors in your equation. There may be multiple Council counselors in a Consortium of the cliches in your region.

69. 36:38

    And you may not have enough Council among Brothers to solve, the problem at hand. So you have to find a counselor who does have enough experience and who will not go against what you believes. There’s a big conversation up front that says, this is what we believe, we don’t want any Council to counteract this, we won’t don’t want the wrong, kind of advice, and you have to be specific.

70. 36:59

    With the counselor when he agrees and he says, well we would never do, this will support what you believe? Then you have a cancer, you can work with especially if he sees into the understands the problem. So that’s auxiliary Council on the basis of that principle. And then there’s another verse that that kind of says that exposure would be uses is Justified, its in Ephesians 5, try to learn what is pleasing to the world.

71. 37:21

    Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness but instead expose them I’ve seen a case or a brother They took part in the unfruitful works of darkness by supporting and defending the abusive brother and he thought he was the Christ Image in this, but instead, he was, he was actually taking part in his unfruitful work. That was defending him in every regard. Had no confidence.

72. 37:49

    Anything, we were trying to do and just counteracted everything we did. He was a brother who thought he was behaving like Christ, but I’m not going to analyze why this happened in his mind, but he actually, I did this so I’m saying it’s possible. That’s the way it happens. You become sort of self-deceived in a savior image and you don’t really apply what needs to be applied in the problem instead.

73. 38:09

    It says, expose them for. It is a shame even to speak of the things that they do in secret, but when anything is exposed By the Light becomes visible, for anything that becomes visible is light and it’s very painful thing to expose these unfruitful works. But when you do the pain is like surgery, you go through a period where it really hurts.

74. 38:29

    In order to get well, the healing follows the remedy and the remedy can frequently be involved with very painful conditions. There’s another aspect of this and that’s obedience to the laws of the land. So, in your state, let’s say in Pennsylvania, I think it must be in Pennsylvania. That reporting is mandated to church Elders. Then it’s important for a glacial use of state law and it becomes necessary in the context of these The scriptures declare these things and exhort and reprove with all authority. Let no one.

75. 39:03

    Disregard, you remind them to be submissive to the rulers and authorities, to be obedient to be ready for any honest work. And what we are talking about when we expose abuse is we’re using an honest work to uncover a very dishonest. One, very deceptive dark hidden dishonest work. So to counteract that with honesty and I’ve been told there’s a brother in California, who is a Director of of a counseling center and we had lots of conversations with him along the way and he said, you know, when a family is used to hiding everything and they live, kind of in the shadows of covering cover up, nobody will admit anything to themselves or anybody else. And they are used to basically lying about families conditions at home.

76. 39:48

    He said to take that family and start operating on a level where the truth is out. On the table, he said, is an extraordinarily painful experience for a family and many Of them don’t survive. It, it’s so painful to work with truth. When you’re used to covering it up with deception, not willingly.

77. 40:07

    But as a necessity, if that’s the case. Then there’s judgment against law. Breakers in scripture, in Romans 13. Paul says, let every person be subject to the governing authorities for there is no Authority. Except from God, those that exist have been instituted by God, especially, I think, Child, Protective Services must have been instituted by God to protect their children, wherever this can be done, because they become a threat to evildoers.

78. 40:35

    So he says, therefore he could resist the authorities, resist Oregon’s appointed and those who resist will incur judgments. So this is the principle that even sounds a little bit stronger in defense of going to authorities and seeing, if you can do whatever it takes to stop this problem, because it kills children emotionally and can’t result actually in worse things than that. So that’s the scriptural basis for our having a policy on it. I’m going to turn your attention to evidence of change because that’s the big question when you’re looking for a Penance. And if you need to repent, then this will also help. You understand what it is.

79. 41:14

    That actually applies to repentance. So you see the practicality of this when we look at the list, there are five steps in Repentance that provide evidence of a change of heart, that’s what repentance means. If there’s been a change of heart, the big question is if somebody is crying like Esau and they have a great tears.

80. 41:33

    They really don’t mean it. How can you differentiate between somebody that begging for forgiveness and appealing to all the grace of the Cross? But remain unrepentant as compared to someone who is begging for forgiveness, will all the same tears. But they are willing to follow a process that proves that their repentance is genuine, that’s what we’re looking at here. So Step One is they have to be able to say what they did was that was wrong.

81. 41:59

    Is that simple? This is what I did. That was wrong. A person is not repent. It has a very hard time finding in his heart. What? He did? That was wrong. He’s always justifying himself. If he’s narcissistic, he can’t do anything wrong. He’s right in his own eyes, he never did anything wrong.

82. 42:13

    So this is critical to understand what I did was wrong. If somebody has honest about that but you cannot tell them what they did. That was wrong and then have them say well, I’m so sorry about that because they that doesn’t prove anything you just let them know what they’re supposed to say. They have to do the work of their own repentance. So you ask them.

83. 42:34

    Let us know when you understand what you did. That was wrong. You don’t tell you, don’t give me any hints because a clever person. Who Waits way human, you know, how human nature Works. Given the slightest little hint, no, reflect that, right back to you and say, well, this is what I’m doing is wrong.

84. 42:48

    So you don’t want to tell them, you want them to discover themselves, then they should say why it was bad for them. What they did was wrong bad for them, they should also They correspondingly y, it was bad for the person they hurt if they can’t do that. A person is narcissistic as a mental disorder or right in his own eyes were is given over to his proud, his bride. He doesn’t know why it was bad for him and he couldn’t possibly say why it was bad for somebody else. Because he thinks what he did was good for them. And what they did was bad for him, what they did was bad for him, not other way around, what I did with that, for the person I hurt.

85. 43:23

    So they’re all confused. They can’t they can’t come up with this unless a genuine, if they’re genuine. You’ll hear straight answers to these questions. Step 4, what I will do to ensure that it will never happen. Again, I know, one example, that was given to us was a man who was in this process had to promise that he couldn’t go within five miles of the ocean front.

86. 43:45

    As he got near anyone, had a bathing, any woman that had a bathing suit on. He be tempted to his problem. I don’t think we never did find out what that was but he could his promise was he would stay outside. We know another family where there was abuse Or condition that needed needed changing and they had the whole family had to get rid of their phones. Nobody in the family, could have a phone in the house. It’s a problem.

87. 44:07

    They were trying to solve and that’s what they did to ensure. That the problem that is in this case, it was a loss of a little girl would never happen again. They didn’t lose her. They saved your butt to prevent that from ever being a threat. Again, they had to get rid of their phones.

88. 44:20

    You think, if you’re serious about something about solving a problem, you’d be willing to apply the simple things. They’re required in this list and the last one is what I will do to make restitution to the person. I heard. I think Esau did that with Jacob. I think he made restitution to When Jacob came back and they hugged and they shared livestock together and it didn’t turn, he saw his heart but he did repent of his intent to kill his brother, his anger.

89. 44:50

    So once again, if you want to download the Ecclesia abuse policy, this will be in the PDF file that you can download from your website or you can remember this meant design.com comfort, you will see the abuse policy. If you’d like to use that as a template in your Ecclesia, to extend the influence of what we’re talking about here Beyond today, then you’re welcome to do. So in scriptures, there’s this problem of abuse is identified, for example, in in Abigail’s relationship with nabel, neighbors described, as a, as an insufferable fool, David was going to kill him and a bit me.

90. 45:27

    I saved his life but this is the description of him. I think we would all probably agree. He was probably abusive. The man’s name was nabal and his His name was Abigail, the woman was intelligent and beautiful with the Mana KB was harsh and evil in his dealings. He is such a worthless fool. Nobody can talk to him and that sounds to me, like he was right in his own eyes.

91. 45:49

    He was probably narcissistic. So this was Nable and yet and yet, what’s the power of spiritual things? How does it take everything and become unnatural to what his fleshly and, and turn it around and say? But there may be hope here, this is what she did. She tried to save his life. He had got an ending up judging him on the spot then but she his wife was so wonderful.

92. 46:15

    She tried to save it and certainly one of the king’s favor she had no guile. This is the point about guile and guileless – there are a lot of women that are kind of guileless or helpless that makes Chic vulnerable. So those of us who are humble before God and humble before men have a certain level of vulnerability.

93. 46:36

    I’m not going to spend a lot of time on this but I want to tell you that dr. Thomas was such an one he was a little sheep in his own right to and he entrusted to sail his property twice in his life. Once a house, a very nice house in Richmond. And another big farm around Chicago to this to to an agent to sell for him.

94. 46:57

    And in both cases, the agents old house and absconded with the funds, he bought a house and trusted an agent to sell it. I lost the entire value of his property because the agents told phones right out from under him. So you tell me that isn’t a vulnerable, a Meek and spirit that turns vulnerable to a devious mind even dr. Dunn’s with all that strength.

95. 47:22

    Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death says David. I will fear no evil for you are with me, your rod and your staff. They comfort me. So being vulnerable sheep. How does God’s rod and his staff Comfort us? The rod is there. It’s a device that Shepherds used for protection and guidance and be away a wolf or a hostile animal. They guide the Chic with it.

96. 47:47

    So protection and guidance are two of the things that we get. Life in the truth from a high priest and from God’s word the staff is for Rescue and Corrections of protection and guidance. Rescue and correction are the things that a good shepherd and we are in the care. In this fold of a very good shepherd.

97. 48:07

    Those are the things that we get from him. The way, the little crook worth. I don’t know if you ever do this, but it’s just big enough to fit around the hook of a sheep. And if a sheep gets caught in a Thicket Shepherd, can grab a sheep with, with his the hook.

98. 48:22

    Around the Sheep’s hook and and pulling that the rescue him from getting stuck and I think she probably gets stuck a lot. My impression is that brother does Dev Des mansur told us that she /, so dumb that they will die inside of water rather than ago and taking a drink. Shepherd has to call them to the water and and get them to drink. We’ve them to water and make them drink because they are otherwise, so innocent and vulnerable that they will die inside of water.

99. 48:50

    Drinking it on there. So sheep need Shepherds and we are supposed to be sheep like, that, doesn’t mean we’re done. It means that we need to be led and rescued and protected and corrected by Our Shepherd, so protection and rescue Comfort cheap when they are helpless. And that’s why Jesus said, pray this lead us not into temptation and Deliver Us from Evil.

100. 49:18

     This is something Solomon said about the oppressed and vulnerability of abuse, according to Solomon again, I observe all the acts of Oppression being done under the sun. Look at the tears of those who are oppressed, They have no one to comfort them. Power is with those who oppress them, and they have no one to comfort them. And Jesus was oppressed like this. He was abused by the Pharisees.

101. 49:45

     And the people who hated in the people who despises his Assumption of Authority, or they thought was an assumption of wrongful, some Assumption of authority and It’s as if him I look for pity. Found none. He was abused and he couldn’t find any making true. What Solomon observes here. Justice please for correction, so we love Justice along with Christ.

102. 50:13

     He’s he’s the purveyor of justice and and this verse says, Isaiah says wash yourselves cleanse yourselves, remove your evil Deeds From My Sight stop doing evil learn to do. What is good? Seek Justice? Correct the oppressor God may work with both. You remember, he worked with another abuser. And actually put him into prominence and Ecclesia life.

103. 50:37

     He took the Apostle Paul who was murdering his brethren, And he caught him up short. He changed his heart and he turned him from an abuser into the man who set the world on fire with the Light of Christ. So there is hope for both. God may work with both the poor and the pressure have this in common the Lord gives light to the eyes of both.

104. 51:00

     So there’s also a balancing Q in this whole message that says, if there’s any way we can, let’s go to work to see if we can turn abusers, heart into a loving heart. David foreshadows Christ abuse when he says how long O Lord, will you hide yourself forever? Remember, Lord, the ridicule against your servants. In my heart, I carry abuse from All Peoples, how your enemies have ridiculed Lord, and how they have ridiculed. Every step of your anointed, may the Lord, be praised forever. And this is, is what happened to David. He speaks of it, I think prophetically of Christ saying of both of them, They Carried abuse in their heart, and if you’ve come across it in your life, you will also carry it in your heart and you will be ridiculed. Solomon’s advice about abuse and we mentioned this earlier as drive out, a scoffer and strife, will go out and quarreling in a peaceful cease.

105. 51:57

     Whoever corrects a scoffer will get himself abuse and he who refused a wicked man. Incurs injury, do not reprove a scoffer, or he will hate you, the balance on that is that when we were working with this abusive family Gene, and I have put a deadbolt lock on the door every time he went in the house, and we knew that if this man came to the door, I told Jean.

106. 52:16

     Don’t ever open it, he’s dangerous. I was in court one day and I told Clerk. I said if I get murdered, this is the guy that did it. I was, I was vulnerable to this whole thing, and that’s what solemn is talking about. You gonna correct the scoff or you’re at risk. Paul addresses separation and abuse is another thing that occurs where somebody needs to a woman needs relief, but if the unbelieving partner separates, let it be. So, in such cases, the brother or sister is not enslaved. God has called you to peace.

107. 52:46

     When there is no peace at home, you have Paul’s opinion that it’s okay to separate with the view of restoration Reconciliation. And if separation is only way, you can breathe at night, to go to sleep, then it becomes an essential part of healing. Then in the end, once again, there’s the side of what will happen in the Kingdom of this is a message to take the time to make.

108. 53:13

     I know we’re getting a little bit long here. It’s been a long day. Three in a row for me, three in a row for you. Same three in a row, but this is so important that I could end here, but I’m not going to because this is an aspect of God’s judgments. In the Kingdom that are critically important and it’s a message that comes to us from Malachi two fathers.

109. 53:34

     It’s a message to father’s. So if this was a verse, it would say, instead of saying coastlands, listen up what we’re saying? Here is father’s. Listen up. Not a father yet. You still need to listen because you maybe one day a message for husbands and fires God’s. Judgments are spoken of in two senses Fire Light. The light is what led did you through the Wilderness? The fire is what consume the animal animal flesh. So, these are both aspects of God’s protection and his judgment against flesh.

110. 54:09

     This is how God will deal with abusers, who tortured his beloved in his little ones in the Kingdom. There’s fire and there’s light. The fire. He said Malachi is going to burn up. The wicked will be like, stubble the light will heal. The faithful. These are God’s judgments operating on those who have tortured and those who were tortured. Both are his recompense.

111. 54:34

     In other words, the payback he says a fire behold. The day comes that will burn as an oven and all the proud. Yea, he all that do wickedly shall be stubble. It’s what you have to look forward to. If you knew the truth. You, you are responsible for your knowledge and you thought that you could Escape God’s judgments. The wicked will be among those who he turns this. Double the data comes, we’ll burn them up, saith the Lord of hosts and it shall leave them.

112. 55:02

     Neither root nor Jam no branch and there is comfort in this will see tomorrow. There’s comfort in this for people who’ve suffered at the hand of his abuse on the other hand, he says, going to burn the wicked up on one hand. So those are my calves that are held in a stall for a sacrifice and then cut up and burned with fire.

113. 55:21

     If it’s a bull, it’s totally. If you’re a man like a bull then there was a plenty message. At Milan, the sacrifices because the bull was totally consumed. Bull flesh and it was consumed so much for bullies. But then on the other hand he says, but unto you that fear, my name shall the sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings and you shall go forth and grow up as calves from the stall.

114. 55:46

     So there’s two animals here. One set of animals are burned up by God’s judgments and the others, go and dance in the morning. So, glad to be out and free from the stall. They’re no longer bound up by even by a stall, there’s no judgment in store for them. They dance. I love you ever seen little calves dance, but it’s just the sweetest little thing that kicked their legs up. They jump up and down and go this way and that and they’re just so happy to be out there in the morning sun. Well, that’s a picture of saints when they’re delivered in the kingdom.

115. 56:15

     And you you who are Saints will tread down the wicked for they should be asses under the ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I shall do. This says, the Lord earlier he had sent said this Mark these words When I come, I will draw near to you and judgment. And this is a very Stern.

116. 56:35

     I’m putting my finger out like a Stern Schoolmaster, but I think God’s finger is a little bit more Sterner than mine and this is also the spirit of Christ in judgment. I will be a swift witness against deceivers, their abusers against adulterers, their abusers against Liars, they’re also abusers, And against those who oppress workers, widows and children, against those who turn strangers away.

117. 57:08

     Do not fear me, says the Lord of hosts these men. They should fear God. If they don’t know that, there’s nothing to fear. But for those of us who know God, we think we can get rough at home and get our way through being rough, being angry being harsh, thing for feign, being cruel with our words, being putting fear in the hearts of our wives and our children. I says you should be fearing me.

118. 57:32

     I’m something to be afraid of and I will deal with you when the time comes, that’s God’s message. The day is coming, I shall burn them up. On the other hand, you shall go forth is casual install, but unto you that fear my name, Shall the sun of righteousness? Arise with healing in his wings. You shall go forth and grow up as calves in the stall. We hold I will send you Elijah.

119. 57:58

     This is the message and this is this is where we’re going to make the point. So listen up if you get a little bit tired wake up right now and go ahead and listen to this point in the context of what we’re saying because this is the end here and of the message and it’s the point, it’s the bottom line. If you want to call it that behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and Dreadful day of the Lord is great.

120. 58:20

     For those people who’ve been conserving him and it’s dreadful for those people who have been And he shall turn. This is the work of Christ in the world and this is the work of his administration. When you go forth to the nation’s and become a blessing to them, he shall turn. The hearts of the father’s to the children and the hearts of the children, to their fathers, lest I come, and smite the Earth with a curse. In other words, what he is saying here is that the problem. This is a last verse of the Old Testament. The problem with the whole world, the problem that Jesus ultimately came and Solve it as sacrificing will resolve further fully when he’s on the throne of his father David. This problem is that fathers are selfish and children are rebellious, and they’re probably rebellious mostly because the fathers are so selfish.

121. 59:09

     And this is the problem with the whole earth. Otherwise he wouldn’t have said, lest I come and smite the Earth with a curse? I don’t mean to sound to sound like I’m yelling at you about, but I think maybe that point needs to be that way. Because if you have anger in your bosom, You can remember that anger rests in the bosom of the fools. I have it in mind and I have to work very hard to keep it down. I hate the anger, the anger has to stop it. Its destructive is the thing that causes abuse and it’s the problem here that Elijah will correct. First in Israel on the rest of us will correct when we bring Christ righteous law to the whole world into the hearts of men and women who are parents in that day. So that all the families of the earth will be blessed and blessed with peace.

122. 59:57

     Jesus blessed with happiness, blessed with joy and love and all those good things that are promised to us in the fullness of God’s word, that will be the prevailing tone of this world in the day that this particular problem is resolved