Father, we. Come before you now to. Hear your word and we pray father that you would give us years to hear it and hearts that are quick to obey it. Father, we pray that you would speak to us in your word by your spirit powerfully that you would change us that you would make us wise. To your truth. And that you would build up and and strengthen your church and we pray this all in Christ's name. Well, we continue this morning with our second series. There is a second message in the series that we began last time that we've entitled the psychology and methods of sin. And as contrasted with the mindset and fruit of the Holy Spirit. What how does in think and what are its tactics. Well this message is entitled worship me or else and you see why we read and for the scripture reading Daniel chapter three. Listen to these. True life accounts given by women who were married to abusive men. I would never in my wildest nightmares dream that my husband would ever abuse me but he did. I took our two month old son and fled after the fourth time my husband struck me. My husband is a Christian but his rage at things was unreal. And by the way we'll be dealing with that matter of let's say properly will tweak that a bit. My husband is a professing Christian right. No murderer will enter the kingdom of God. My husband is a Christian professing Christian but his rage at things was unreal and it doesn't take much to end a human life when one is in an uncontrollable rage. I received counsel that it was my duty to stay and suffer for Jesus' sake. I stayed with him then, misapplying scriptures of how I was to act. I accepted what he did or didn't do and just tried to work on me doing what was right. That's a formula for disaster. Another woman that I was beaten and emotionally abused by my ex-husband. I left for six months, but when he saw a counselor and promised reform, I returned. I was not beaten after the return, but I found out that my four-year-old daughter was was beaten, that is, and sexually abused by him as well. The pastor I spoke to, the counselor I saw, the family doctor, all Christians preferred to believe that I was lying. or at least to blame for the trouble even his divorce lawyer another Christian condemned my soul soul to hell because of my hard hearted refusal to try still another reconciliation. One of the purposes of this series is to make us wise to the tactics of sin so that we wouldn't we will never ever give that kind of advice to such a person, a victim of abuse. Even now, she continues, seven years later, no one believes the story. And at this moment, he has my daughter, thanks to a court order and gross misunderstanding of a letter she wrote to a nationally known counselor. My daughter, now 11, is reduced to the almost suicidal state I was in. She desperately wants out. Here's another woman's experience I did not leave until after his third murder attempt on me. And still I believed in a reconciliation. I kept thinking that if I would do the right thing he wouldn't get angry. He never even admitted abuse. Our marriage was so perfect on the outside that few people believe that I have been abused. and flight finally another and these are coming from by the way from a book called battered into submission in the tragedy of wife abuse in the Christian apparently Christian home written by James and Phyllis Alder and I don't know if they live in Eugene but the book was the publisher of the book is in Eugene Oregon and this account. It's been four months since my husband was removed from our home by police and most people who know about it just passed judgment on me. You don't know what it's like to wake up at three a.m. with your husband standing over you not talking not doing anything just staring at you. You don't know how guilty you feel or just plain confused when people you love don't help or won't get involved. You don't know my fears as a mother of three boys of beginning to lose the respect of my son. I can still hear my husband screaming at me. You're a Christian and God wants us together. you leave me and nothing will go right in your life forever. I hope that stories like that story the real story. I hope that those accounts and others like that will begin to excite your interest in this topic in learning about the psychology and methods of sin especially in relation to as we've seen its fundamental motive that is that being had to put that power and control over others. It's it's my opinion is not just my opinion it. Why widely discussed in in the reading that I've been doing that evangelical conservative Christianity and let's just talk about our house right evangelical fundamental conservative Christianity has plenty of dirty laundry. that needs exposure by the by the light of of Christ in this area of the seeking and striving for power and control and abuse in professing Christians homes listen to you this is a great passage Jude verses twelve through nineteen. Evil men creep into our church which referred to as love the communion here unnoticed. These these kinds of people. Jude says these are hidden wreaths at your love. Notice the secrecy hidden. Hidden wreaths at your love as they feast with you without fear. feeding themselves waterless cloud swept along by winds fruitless trees in late autumn twice dead uprooted wild waves of the sea casting up the foam of their own shame wandering stars for whom the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved forever. It was also about these that he knocked the seventh from Adam prophesied saying Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousand of his holy one to execute judgment on all and to convict all the ungodly of all their deeds of ungodliness. They've committed in such an ungodly way and of all the harsh things that ungodly sinners have spoken against him. These are grumblers, malcontents following their own sinful desires. They are loudmouthed boasters showing favoritism to gain advantage. But you must remember, beloved, the predictions of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ they said to you in the last time there will be coffers following their own ungodly passions and look at the result of these people it is these who cause divisions worldly people devoid of the spirit and before we're done this morning we'll have much more to say about this tactic of sin that utilizes to it in order to gain power and control the tactic of division divide divide and and conquer. Now we should not be surprised. I think that we are but we should not be surprised if the same thing happens in our day that Jude was speaking of here that evil deceptive cunning men who desire power and self-glory like Nebuchadnezzar right. Come into Christ Church disguised as sheep And if we thought last time second Corinthians eleven disguise as. Servants of righteousness after all their master Satan can appear as an angel of light and they come to carry out their abuse of Christ's law for their own self-glory by exercising and forcing power and control it is easy to cause divisions worldly people devoid of the spirit here then is this essential quality of sin that we spoke of last time power and control power and control and remember our thesis let's let's repeat it the psychology the mind that. The attitude and the method and goals of abusive men. Particularly as practice in their marriages and family. is a crystal clear illustration of the attitude methods and goals of sin. Furthermore the way that the abusive man functions in his closest relationship usually in his home can teach us volumes about how we can expect a wicked man to practice his evil ploys in the church and why not after all as we will learn such men's goals are the same power and control self-exaltation. We can learn about the psychology and tactics of our own sin and in particular of the enemy's emissary sent to enslave and abuse Christ people by studying and learning about the psychology and tactics of abusive men specifically once more as they exercise their abuse in their marriages and families behind closed doors where no one else knows and no one else sees and and finally all the last time we had been in its very essence. What is the last for power and control it craves to be first to be preeminent even over God and Satan I will be like the most high. Remember diatrophies that. Wicked leader power hungry leader in third John where John says I have written something to the church but Dr fees who like to put himself first. You see power and control does not acknowledge our authority. So if I come I will bring up what he's doing talking wicked nonsense against this and not content with that. He refused this is an abuser there in the church he refuses to welcome the brothers. and also stop those who want to and put them out of the church. We will be looking at a little bit later in a few moments that a fundamental weapon of sin a fundamental weapon of abusive controlling power seeking people, and we'll be looking at it in detail, but I want to mention it right now in one respect, and the weapon is secrecy. All right? Secrecy. Hidden reefs in our love feast. And so I wanted to make a mention here just briefly because it's illustrated by John's mention of diatrophies here. in in third John and what I wanted to point out here is that. Because in thrives in darkness right thrives in darkness it thrives in in secrecy that's where a lot of it of its power comes from. Wicked men make use of. Little philosophies that they've that way and we and we can accept them if we're not careful we can accept them and not even think well unthinkingly accept them and oh yeah that must be true and here's an example for it for instance. Wicked men who perpetrate their facade and masquerade as being righteous and godly fine upstanding Christians and fathers and husbands and so on like these kinds of things if you and you've heard this right. If you can't say something nice about someone don't say anything at all right. I have a whole list I'll give you some more of these in the future. I have a whole list of things like that that a couple of the books that I've been reading point to point out. If you can't say something nice about someone you must not say anything at all. Is that what the apostle John did here. What do you do he named after. He named Alexander the coppersmith he named by many and and and and and Alexander once once again. He named the shine shown the light of truth on them and their evil deeds he even announced he he writes a letter to the church where Dr. Peter and then he said and when I call him to nail. In front of in front of everyone. So, this is another deception that sin uses to hide. To hide in the darkness. Alright, well last time we left off considering the origin of true power. And we said that the Bible is plain on this. Power is only inherent in God. inherent means that it resides only in God. God is the only being in whom, well that's why he's called omnipotent, all powerful. He is the only being in whom these qualities reside by virtue of who he is, by virtue of his being. Creatures do not possess power in the in the same way that that God does and if we are to do battle with our sin. We must acknowledge that we need to humble ourselves and acknowledge this fact any position of authority is established by God and he can remove a person just as easily as he put a person into any kind of a position or office of authority in respect to power and control a creature. Creatures. Never truly possess power. As their own. It all emanates it all emanates from God. That's why Jesus told pilot you would have no authority at all over me if it hadn't been given to you by by the father and so it was in the name of. It was in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ that the apostles performed miracles it wasn't in their own name right. The apostles understood that only Christ had power go out of himself. To. to to to raise the dead and to heal to create wine from water and an active of creation you see or to feed the five thousand and create create all of that food. But it is the mindset of sin and it is certainly the mindset of a wicked abusive power hungry controlling man that he put that power by virtue of who he is. He possesses this power by virtue of who he is that it is inherent within him and therefore this explains why such a person is in incredibly. And profoundly justified in their thinking and we don't mean by justified here justified and made righteous in Christ. We mean this idea that whatever they do take Nebuchadnezzar, for example. He was profoundly justified in abusing his people, his subjects of setting up this fiery furnace and so on, throwing people into it. He's not going to lose any sleep over that. That night, it's not going to bother to bother him at all. He profoundly justified, and so is the abusive man. Furthermore, he sees himself as absolutely entitled to be virtually worshipped and served by others. And he has no guilty conscience about about this at all. This is one of the we speak in the series we're speaking about the abusive man. This is one of the fundamental differences between sinful people and a true All right all of us. I hope as we discussed the tactics and psychology of sin are going to see it to one degree or another in in ourselves and be convicted by that and have a conscience about that. The truly abusive man that these these women were talking about and what they who had whose hands they suffered. They have no conscience about this at all. doesn't bother them all they can go beat up their wife Peter to a pulp and go lay down and take a nap sleep like a baby you see. People can do this in the family of God in the church and then go home and and and sleep like a baby because they have a profound sense of justification for what they do. And a profound sense of entitlement to be served by others and to wield this power over others. And we left off last time by saying that we wanted to learn more about the various strategies and methods, weapons we might say, weapons that sin uses to demand and force that power and control that worship the fiery furnace in other words right the fiery the fiery for furnaces. Well here then we've seen it let's look again at verses one through six of Daniel chapter three and we just see a perfect picture here then of how this abuse functions King Nebuchadnezzar made an image of gold whose height was 60 cubits and its breadth 6 cubits. He set it up on the plain of Dura in the province of Babylon. Probably could have been seen for many miles. It may well be that his earlier vision that was interpreted by Daniel to him of this image, maybe rather than receiving Daniel's interpretation of his dream humbly, he decides he's going to make that. that image only this image is all of gold which represented him in the in the earlier vision then King Nebuchadnezzar sent to gather that they trapped the prefects the governor's counselors treasurer's justice magistrates all the officials of the provinces to come to the dedication of the image that King Nebuchadnezzar is set up then all those officers right they trapped prefects governors and so on again they gather together for this dedication and they stood before the image that Nebuchadnezzar had set up and the Herald proclaimed aloud. You are commanded O people's nations and languages that when you hear the sound of the hornpipe lyre dragon heart bagpipe and every kind of music you are to fall down and worship the golden image that King Nebuchadnezzar has set up. This is what in and this is what an abusive man and remember also last time we qualified most of the time I'm going to be speaking of the abuser in the male gender right for a couple of reasons. First of all most of the time in domestic situations so on the abuser is the male that most commonly and the the the wife or girlfriend is the is is the victim but certainly there are abusive women as well and so we but we we don't want to disregard disregard that at all but for simplicity sake this is what we are doing this what Nebuchadnezzar is doing here is what the abuser does. This is his tactic this is me whatever it might be. My idea, my opinion, my wants, my needs, whatever it is, you you you bow down, you bow down and and worship my glory. And if you don't, I've got this fiery furnace and you're going off. I'll see to it that you go in there unless you unless you you bow down. And so A woman, for example, who's married to an abusive man or the people of God in in in a church that is enslaved by abusive man or abusive people are in a fiery furnace faced with threats. You see, so there's this actually atmosphere and climate of of of fear. And as we will see, there are all kinds of little fiery furnaces, weapons that the abusive man is very crafty at using. Another thing that I hope that this series will illustrate to you very clearly and remind you of is the craftiness of the enemy. The craftiness of the enemy. He is subtle. He is subtle. Well, here is Nebuchadnezzar then. he is abusing his people for his own self-glory. You see his mind that plan next Sunday to look at Daniel chapter four. Let me read just a couple of verses out of it, because it illustrates Nebuchadnezzar's mindset at this point. He says in chapter four, verse thirty, he's up on the roof of his in Babylon, he looked out on the king said. Is not this great Babylon, which I have built by my mighty power as a royal resident and for the glory of my magic by his mighty power. He views himself as possessing God. He views himself as possessing power and majesty, simply by virtue of who he is. And in about 60 seconds, he's eating grass with the cows out in the field. Why? Because God, just like that, can remove that sovereignty. Just like that. Be gone. And it turns out if God had not chosen Nebuchadnezzar, to be the king and put and get and grant him that sovereignty turns out Nebuchadnezzar would have been the one of the lowliest of the lowly. That's all who he is and so he's out there for seven years learning his. Learning his lesson. When an abusive man when sin is practicing its trade. There is always an instrument of compulsion present an abusive power seeking controlling person is a threatening person. He or she wields their favorite weapons to compel through fear and force and submission. It's a panic you read about in Hebrews chapter two where Christ comes to destroy the power break the power in the works of the devil, because the devil has been holding people enslaved through through fear of death through fear of death. That's one of his his chief his his chief weapons. Now think carefully about this. Let's contrast the so-called power and threatening of an abusive man abusive person with power, real power, as it exists in Christ. Does Christ, in order to ensure his power, in order to execute his power in his creation and upon his creatures, does he need to threaten them to gain their submission? Does he need to threaten them? Think, for example, creation. What was there to threaten? There's nothing. Let there be light or else or else what? God, you see the point. God's power is resident within him. He speaks and it is. And it's and it's done. Think of the resurrection of Lazarus. Lazarus come forth or else. Oh, OK, OK, OK. No, he comes. simply because Christ possesses power. There was not some kind of threat of consequence that was required in order to compel submission to that power. Does God threaten. Yes. God threatens. We are to fear though there's a London confession says we are to fear God's threatening tremble and his and his threatening but his His threatening are not given. You see, they're given his warning. They are not given because they're somehow necessary to force compulsion to compel obedience and submission to him by his creatures. Satan, on the other hand, had to operate, for example, through fear of death and threatening in order to compel submission. You see it in Daniel three. What power did Nebuchadnezzar really have over Daniel three friends or anyone there. None. And and Daniel three friends exhibited that they understood this. Well King you know you can throw us in a fiery furnace but we're not essentially you can't make us bow down. You can't make us worship. You can't make us worship that image and if you throw us in the fiery furnace then I guess you throw in the fiery furnace but we're not going we're not going to to do this you see Christ does not need to force men to submit to him through threatening true power and control as possessed by Christ are simply announced and exercise. Christ does not need to obtain the creature's submission by threat and fear before he can exercise his power and control. He simply speaks. Speaks with his inherently powerful word and the thing is done. This is not so with abusive men. They must threaten and why, because they really possess no true power, nor do they possess true control. They must obtain submission of their victims through threats and fear before they can control them. This is incredibly freeing to understand. First of all, we need to become wise to these threatening because he's threatening to be really right. It can be something as seemingly innocuous as the silent treatment. Right. That's a threat is what that is that that that is a threat. But so we need to become wise as to what the weapons are. But we also need to become as wise as Daniel and his three friends. Right. is that, you know, you know, an abusive controlling diatrophies does not have power and control over us. They can bring along all the fiery furnace weapons they want. They do not have power and control over the people of Christ. King Nebuchadnezzar, though he was the world's most powerful king at the time, could not force anyone to bow down to the image simply by speaking the command. He needed to threaten and he needed an instrument of that threat the fiery furnace his lack of true power was made evident by his use of this wicked threat and so it is with the wicked man today. Look look at that repeat again and take a look at his weapon. I've written something to the church but I can be who like to put himself first OK power control justification in what he does entitlement to be first right like to put himself first does not acknowledge our authority. So if I come I will bring up what he is doing what he doing talking wicked nonsense against us not content with that here it is here's his threat. he refused to welcome the brother would mean the. Believers who who came to that to that church he refused to welcome the brother and also stop those who want to welcome them and put them out of your you welcome them all excommunicate you you're out of here right. that you will always find the threat the fiery furnace will always be there in some form because it betrays the fact clearly that the person does not truly possess any power than at all. So the wicked power and control hungry man always uses his favorite arsenal of weapons and we're going to be taking a look at at least one of them. on this morning and then plan to learn more about others as well and and it will really help us understand how in operate how in things and put it on guard again. Imagine how would die after the function in his family home. If he's doing this in the church you can bet He's putting himself off in the church of this great godly person. But what's it like being married to diatrophies? What's it like to be the children of diatrophies, you see? And so as we learn these things, our defenses then can go up, we can become wise about the tactics of sin, and we can prevent abusive people from enslaving us. Let's review just a bit from last time and listen again to a couple of descriptions of abuse that were given by one was by Lundy Bancroft in his book the batterer as parent and then also a Patricia Evans the verbally abusive relationship. Neither one of those people are Christians to my knowledge although I didn't bring it with me. I'll have to remember that it's very interesting in the front of Patricia Evans book. even though I to my knowledge he's not a Christian. There's a poem she has a poem that's written by a man who used to be a serious abuser of his of his wife and this poem is it's remarkable it's a it's a confession of his realization of the wickedness of his sin that he had committed And in the closing verses you can tell that he attributes his deliverance from it to Christ. And so there it is right in the right. Christ is the abusive man's only only only rescuer. There is no other deliverance from it then than Christ. But so here are these definitions and descriptions of abuse a batterer that is in in Bancroft's particular book here. an abuser who happens to exercise physical abuse as well, but don't think for a minute that even the most serious abuse is simply physical right psychological spiritual emotional lots of other even many times more serious than. Even. Physical but. a batterer is a person who exercises a pattern of coercive coercive control coercive threatening control in a partner relationship. We would say in marriage or with a guy engaged to a girl or courting a girl or whatever. Exercises a pattern of coercive control in a partner relationship punctuated by one or more acts of intimidating physical violence or credible threat of physical violence. This pattern of control and intimidation may be predominantly psychological, economic, or sexual in nature, or may rely primarily on the use of physical violence. All right, and then here's what we heard last time from Patricia Evans. Power over shows up as control and dominance. A belief in power over resembles a lens, a mindset. through which the believer, the abuser, the believer in power over others, views the world. Someone who believes in power over expects to get what he or she wants. Now remember, and with this kind of a person that we're talking about, this is not something that happens sometimes. This is who they are. This is who they are. They expect to get what he or she wants to the use of power over another verbal abuse is a means of controlling dominating and having power over another person. The verbal abuser seeks to control and dominate in a verbally abusive relationship. Only the illusion. Remember secrecy. Only the illusion of an authentic relationship exists. since the abuser needs to have power over his partner. He cannot accept her as an equal in an abusive relationship. The couple does not really plan together that would require mutuality and equality and that is something that the abusive man simply can't have power and control belong only to the Lord. We should be very thankful for that. What if the truly. power and control. What if he did? Turns out that in the universe we live in, the good one is the one who possesses perfect power, true power and control. And that's just like, whew, that is a very good thing. And it also should make us shudder because we recognize that we are fallen beings that. We would begin to try to exercise power and how easily corrupted our exercise of power can become as history as history shows how does it go absolute power corrupts and that that that kind of a thing actually I don't know if you've got the cart before the horse on that one there's corruption already there and then it wields that that. Control well let's look at the arsenal of abuse here. Christ instructs us to love one another the opposite of abuse. This is the law of Christ that we love God and that we love one another and fulfill the first and second tables of the law so that the Bible is filled with instructions like this Ephesians four I therefore a prisoner for the Lord urge you. to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you've been called with all humility and gentleness with patience bearing with one another in love eager to maintain the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. The abusive man is anything but eager to maintain the unity of the spirit as we'll see again. He thrives on division. The abusive controlling power craving man does not walk with humility. He is not characterized by gentleness or patience or forbearance. He does not seek the unity of the spirit. He must be first and if he is a religious hypocrite that is if he professes to be a Christian. He is particularly destructive. Because He will not only conduct his deceptive manipulations and abuse behind it within his home but he will do it in his church behind the facade of a profession of Christ and those who are the victims of his abuse are often very confused. As you learn more about the effects of this kind of abuse on women for example. on children. I hope that you will become more and more righteously angered about the nature about the nature of the thing because it. I've begun to kind of envision the victim of abuse. I just kind of picture a prisoner of war maybe in World War Two right and so maybe. the Nazis have captured someone in there in the dungeon hole and they drag them out and they they beat them and they use all kinds of psychological weapons against them and they brainwash them and then they throw them back in the hole that's not too far fetched of a picture of a person who is married to or an abusive an abusive kind of a person all right weapon number one. Secrecy. Secrecy. This is devastating. We've got to shine the light on it. Sin. The Bible makes plain operates in darkness. Spiritual darkness. Hey, literal darkness, right? When do most crimes? When? When does sin really come out and hit the streets of the city? Nighttime, right? Darkness. Um, so I thought it's kind of interesting, you know, How many taverns you walk into and they're just brilliantly lit. It doesn't seem to work that way. For example sin operates in the shadows behind closed doors. It thrives where there's a lack of light of truth. And so sin loves secrecy. That's why it's so subtle and manipulative and deceptive. Patricia Evans describes it. The first pattern which the partner, the victim of an abuser, may recognize in abuse, and her book is on verbal abuse, but is that the interactions which upset, hurt, or confuse her, get this now, rarely, if ever, occur in public. Now this is profound. This means that unless you are the victim, you have never seen the abuser's true character. This is why they're so dangerous. You have you have never seen the abuser's real character and method. There would have been. I'll bet there was people that were ready to run to diatrophies defense because he's the godliest man that they have ever known. Right. This happens. all all the time. If Dr. P's wife would have come and said this is the kind of guy that he is at home who would have would anyone believe have believed her. You think that you know him but you don't know him. If he is this abusive kind of person you do not know him because secrecy is part of the essence of his sin. Verbal abuse. She goes on verbal abuse like physical abuse often occurs behind closed doors. Your sins like that isn't it mine is right. Do we do it boldly and publicly. It's not the nature of sin. Even if there's a house full of people the verbal abuse may occur when others have left the room and the partner is alone with the abuser. And then all of a sudden the other people at the party are like they come back and they think what's the matter with her and he looks really great. Well secrecy is a key to the abuser's power over secrecy also intensifies the partner's confusion. An abused person is a confused person and we need to learn a whole lot more about that. Sin is a fog. It confuses secrecy intensifies the partner's confusion. The abuse may occur when a child is present. If it occurs in public, it's disguised so that others think it's in some way justified or its meaning is known only to the partner. Going public is usually a sign of escalation and or impending physical abuse. Nan married to Ned a successful executive shared this insight. I was wondering why I felt unhappy around Ned, because friends said that I was married to such a nice guy and how lucky I was. Then, as I thought about it, I realized that Ned never acted the same when they were around. And that kind of thing can take years to figure out. Ned never acted the same when these friends were around. I was really stunned when I realized that he must know what he's doing or he wouldn't keep it secret. It is a very intentional. Ned is not a person who's out of control. He is he is practicing his craft. Many of the women. Evans goes on many of the women I interviewed were told by friends or relatives that their mates were really nice. In one case the abuse was so severe and threatening it was described to the partner is a prisoner of war experience by two therapists following her divorce this woman's family still. Could not accept the reality of her experience to them the abuser was a really nice guy. The abuser had never acted the same way around them as he had when he was alone with his partner. He so began to Ananias and Sapphira. Yeah, it took God through God worked through Peter to have it revealed to him with what they really were. Nobody else. Nobody else knew you see. Well, we want to plan to deal in much more detail later on with this whole matter of secrecy. But but you must understand you must understand that this is the nature of this involves incredible deception and incredible manipulation on the part of the abusive power control seeking man. This topic really fleshes out as you see is ugliness fleshes out what Paul says in Romans three about. In the sinful nature in. Their throat is an open grave. They use their tongue to deceive. By the way, another false philosophy right on the list is. Sticks and stones break my bones, but words, how can they harm me? Words are the craft of this guy. You see, their throat is an open grave. They use their tongues to deceive the venom of ass is under their lips. their mouth is full of curses and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood in their path to ruin and misery. And if that has ever sounded too harsh to you. I hope it won't. After we see the abuser in action in his. Now consider just just a bit. What the secrecy of sin does to people. Let's say let's take an example of a whole. There's a whole family where. Secrecy is enforced because let's say let's say that isn't an abuser. You talk about confusion. You have this existence inside the walls of the home. And you have another existence out in the world or in the church or if they happen to be professing Christians And so, let's take children for instance, children growing up in that dichotomy. How are they to make sense of that? How are they, you know, in one place they hear how great dad is and in another place they see dad wickedly in action in the home. How are they to make sense? What kind of impact is that going to have? Well, it has a terrible impact. Terrible, terrible impact on them false guilt, all kinds of stuff. A child, a child that grows up in a family where he is told and expected to keep secrets about dark things, that is destruction. That is destruction to a human being. These are the devil's tactics. he is the prince of darkness and we should not be at all surprised then that he uses secrecy as one of his most effective weapons. Second King seventeen the people of Israel did secretly against the Lord their God things that were not right. They built for themselves high places idol worship in all their towns from watchtower to fortified city. Psalm sixty four. Hear my voice, oh God, in my complaint, preserve my life from the dread of the enemy. Hide me from the secret plots of the wicked, from the throng of evil doers. David knew what it was like to be abused, right? Who wet their tongues like swords, who aim bitter words like arrows, shooting from ambush at the blameless, shooting at him suddenly and without fear. they hold back to their evil purpose. They talk of laying there secretly thinking who can. Well, God. And if it and here again, we can be thankful. God sees it all. God sees it all. They can't. They think that they can keep it secret from him. But they can't. Christ is the light of the world. He is the light of truth. psalm ninety you have set our iniquities before you are secret in the light of your presence. The wicked abusive man can never he can never hide anything then at all from from God there are no secrets hidden from Christ and this should cause the Christian to rejoice. Your when Christ justified you When he saved you when he gave you a new heart and he justified you and he go and God adopted you into his family. He knew everything about you. Everything you've got no secrets from God. They'll never come a day when when you'll have to stand before God and God. That if I had known that. Right. They'll never happen. It'll never ever happen. We need to come to terms with the fact that we don't really know. We don't know the wicked deceptive power over controlling abusive man because secrecy is one of his most basic weapons. It is standard issue in his arsenal where his victims are he abuses them most often in secret. whether it be in the home in the marriage or sometimes even then in the church and therefore you can be sure of it that most people who know him are entirely do by him. This is his craft and we need to become wise to it and the Bible gives us enough instruction that we can be wise to it. Let me give you an illustration of how this works. When I was a college student and I'm studying biology. I took a class called cytology. It's not psychology, it's cytology. It's the study of the cell. And in that class, we had to make some, took some samples from plants and so on, and prepared some specimens on slides to look at them under the microscope. When you go take a class, say in biology or something, and you say you're studying the cell, you develop a kind of a two-dimensional view of the cell. Because every time you see the cell, you're looking down on it in the microscope or you see a picture of it, right? In a book, And then I can remember the time when it happened. You know what in real life the cell is not this flat pancake thing. It's more like this. You know it's 3D. It's got it's got three dimensions and I'm only looking down on it. Well as you were making specimens preparing specimens to look at them under the microscope you had to treat them or you wouldn't see them at all. You had to stain them. You had to ultimately embed them in paraffin. put them in this slicing thing called a microtome and get these little sections and then lay them on a slide and look at them. And one of the things I remember the professor telling us, he said, you know, you have to wrestle, as a biologist, you have to wrestle with the fact that when you finally get this thing under the microscope, you are not looking at it as it is in reality, in real life. You've just sliced it up. you you treated it with all kinds of different chemicals and we need to deal with the fact that you know there may be aspects of this thing that we have created that that are not the same before we intruded ourselves into it. Right. What what if it turned out that some organ in the. or in the cell didn't really exist. It was always the product of the stain that we that we put on the cell or something you talk about talk about going going wrong. As soon as you approach or are involved with a diatrophies you have just injected yourself into his world and instantly he morphed. so that in most cases you don't see him. He thrives in darkness and he thrives in secrecy. He functions behind the scenes and we need to understand that. And this is why so often when such a man sins finally come out. People who know him for years say I can't believe it. That's not the person that I knew. You're right. It's not the person that you thought you knew but you did not know them. than at all. This is how the and this is why as those women said that we we heard from here in the beginning. Nobody believes them. Nobody believes them. The church doesn't believe them. Pastors don't believe them over and over and over again. Churches and pastors and Christian counselors that are ignorant of the because they're ignorant of the abusive man on. Tactics. Give well they refuse to believe the woman. And we can end up and what happens then is we end up. Dupes of the wicked man enabling him in his wit in his in his in you see and it's a very very sad. very very sad. Situation that we don't want this church ever guilty of. From from this from this point on. What do you do we were talking about this in an elders meeting a while back and what do you do if a woman comes and says my you know my husband who you are really normal well you know the abusing me and this is happening what you do you think well let's just have them come in here and sit down and we'll do some couples counseling. Disaster. Disaster. Worst possible thing. Worst possible thing that you can do for, and for many reasons. Couples counseling is not the answer to this sin. Because he's the abuser. And he's the... She can pretend, she can think and tell herself, happens all the time, that if she only is a better wife, then he is going to change. No he's not. He's not he's not going to change or the abuser in the home happens to be the woman she's not going to change. It's there it is their sin. We need to use Christ's truth his word as the microscope the land to see into what is really is really going on then. Let me close with one final illustration you remember that nineteen verse we looked at earlier in June that speaks of. These. These wicked people that have come into the church and they're abusive people seeking power and control and self-glory and and they cause divisions they cause divisions well this this story. These paragraphs explain why causing division. promote secrecy and promote the wicked man's power and control the division in the church or division among a mother and her children or or or brothers and sisters and so on in in the whole. Abuse is inherently by nature that by nature of the thing abuse is inherently divisive family members. blame each other for the abusers behavior because it's unsafe to blame him. See this kind of a person you're not going to blame. He's not going to take any any responsibility. Dangerous to blame him. If an incident of abuse began in the home with an argument over one child's misbehavior for example then an older sibling might say Daddy screamed at mom and made her cry because he was mad that you were making so much noise. You should have listened to me when I told you to quiet down. All right. So here's the abuser practicing his wicked trade of abuse. But other people are taking the heat and arguing about it. Tom contributes further to divisiveness through his favoritism toward the children. He treats Randy like a buddy and fixes his Randy's dirt bike while ignoring Alex except when showing her off in public. Favoritism is rampant in the parenting of abusive men. They're manipulative this way. They may favor boys over girls because of their own negative attitudes toward females. They favor children whom they see as siding with them and are rejecting of those children who are sympathetic or protective of the mother. Children experience powerful emotional rewards from the abuser for distancing themselves from their mother and from any siblings who are aligned with her. My client, this is Bancroft, my clients, abusive men, exhibit a range of other divisive tactics, including openly shaming children, especially boys, for being so close to their mother. Telling family members lies about each other and making children feel like members of a special and superior club when they're part of his team. Finally, abusive men use collective punishment requiring all the children to pay a price for one child behavior which can be devastating in its ability to turn children against each other. Now why does an abuser so divisions in these ways in his family or in the church. Why do you think you'd talk about one of the divisions. What's in it for them. One reason is that his power is decreased if the family remains unified. I've had a number of clients whose partners and children have consistently support supported each other and the client is always the abuser is always bitter about driving. She's brainwashed the kids to be on his on her side. Many abusers take steps to avoid this outcome using the principle of divide and conquer if people in the family are busy fighting each other. attention is diverted from the man's cruelty or control and you can just about guarantee them that doctor fees for example promoted division in the church among the people so that if they're arguing with one another here he did it having enhanced power and control over over the same thing and so it happens in in in in the church. Well it's ugly isn't it. sin is incredibly ugly, it's convoluted, it is incredibly confusing in its effects then upon its victims. And Christ is greater than it all. So what we want to do is take the light of Christ's truth and shine it onto this mess so that we become wiser about our own. Wiser about the tactics of wicked men. I mean, think about it. And it's probably happened in the past. I'm sure it's happened in the past in years, years past in this church, right? How many times are we? Duking it out with one another in division. And we've never stepped back and ask the question. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. How do all this get started? I don't think we're going to come from a mark of the abusive power controlling person is is the sowing of division it is not the seeking of the unity of the unity of the spirit in his dark Jeremiah seventeen the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick who can understand it. Well here's the great thing. there is one who can understand I the Lord search the heart and test the mind to give every man according to his ways according to the fruit of his deeds good or bad and that's good news there there is a day of perfect justice to be executed by a perfect judge who has perfect power in himself. Let's pray shall we. Father we thank you for the light of your word for your truth. We thank you father for our ability then to take it in and see into the darkness. Father we ask your blessing on this series of study and and we pray that that you would help us to understand the tactics of the enemy. Father, we pray that to the degree that we see these kinds of things in ourselves. These kinds of thoughts and practices in our in our own self father that we would. We would be repelled by and repent of it and and that you would you would create clean heart and search out any simple hurtful way in us we might be tested repent turn and turn from. Father we pray that you would protect this church from doctor fees and and all all all other such men or or women who would come in and try to divide and destroy father we ask your Your blessing then in your protection on this church we pray father that the schemes of the enemy would be revealed in your churches. And though and the emissaries of the enemy would fall and we pray this in Christ's name a man.