It is not that often that I hear the Lord give me permission to do a certain thing. This morning in the early hours of Friday 4th August as I was waking Jesus told me to “Go hard on it.” Go hard on what? This is what I will begin to write and perhaps speak about as well audibly at some point.
The subject? Spiritual child abuse.
If there is one thing that upsets God more than any other thing it is when a little one is abused in any way. Unfortunately most of the people that I would like to read this would never read it because they have been driven far away from Jesus by such spiritual abuse. But the one’s that call themselves “Christian” are my intended audience.
I have fathered 6 children in my life. Two were aborted when I was a teenager so they never got to be indoctrinated by me or the church. I have wept over this murder of my own children many times and yet I must put it all into Jesus as He hung on the cross carrying my sin into death.
One of my remaining four children is from my first “marriage” which ended in divorce. She was only three when we separated and then divorced a year later. I became a believer in Jesus when that happened and as I threw myself into the Bible and witnessing to people I also shared the “Gospel” message with my little daughter until she was about 12 years old.
Then the three remaining children of the four are from my current “Christian marriage” which began in 1996 till now.
As many Christian parents have done we taught them the things of the Lord and the Bible. They were home schooled for some of their school years as well. They also had some years in a Roman Catholic school which was what my wife wanted instead of the heathen State High School which had many drug and sex problems among the students.
Some of that Christian content scared the living daylights out of our children but we did not know it.
We never played secular music at home only Christian music. We filled our book shelves with Christian only content. Some of that Christian content scared the living daylights out of our children but we did not know it.
We went to Pentecostal churches and then to a Fundamental Bible Baptist church during the formative years of their lives. The whole nine yards of “When you die you will go to Heaven and be with those you love or to a burning Hell with other wicked sinners” was ALWAYS before their eyes, ears and hearts.
As a result of being subjected to such a message our children were traumatised. They grew up with so much fear which they hid from us their parents. They could not tell us what the nature of that fear was – How could they we were the perpetrators of it.
They loved us as their mum and dad….but deep down inside they loathed us for the message of fear and torment we beat them with.
Do you think it is any different for you? You believe in Jesus and love God….but this god of yours will send your loved one’s who do not believe in His Son to eternal torment where they will be burned alive forever and ever. You are ashamed of that aspect of your god and wish it were not so.
As a result of this abusive message of eternal torment fear is what motivates you as a Christian–Not love. Fear drives you to do things for this Lord who may send you to the fires of Hell beneath if your performance is not up to his standards.
This fear is deeply buried and not detected because it is covered over by your “truth” and your “correct doctrine” which effectively firewalls the fear safeguarding it from detection.
The probing that I present to this evil in your soul is setting off alarm bells so that you will shut down on me in case what I say causes you to change your view on such an important doctrine as eternal punishment in a literal burning fire.
Your fear tells you in an instant — without you even being aware it happens so quickly–that if you were to give up such a view as eternal doom for unbelievers and sinners that you would be ostracised from your group of friends at church and be considered a heretic.
Thus fear keeps the upper hand and people like me are ridiculed and shunned while you go on with your hellish fear intact worshipping a god that may or may not send you to his torture chamber.
You sing psalms of God’s mercy enduring forever—yet inwardly you know it is not true….for most will not receive this mercy even in this short life…and then taste of His anger and wrath forever and ever.
You say that “Mercy triumphs over judgement” but your belief in eternal suffering contradicts this….so there is an internal denial and covering over of this monstrous incongruity. You engage in abusing your self willingly all because you are afraid of what might happen if you stop believing the “correct doctrine”.
Then when you have your own children you teach them this hideous message. Your child being young and open to whatever you teach them because they TRUST you receives this tare into their subconscious–into their heart.
This tare then begins to send it’s roots down into the Christian soil you are raising them in. The roots find bitter waters as their life goes on. The images of this Hell beneath that you have described for them feeds their life. You assure them that they wont go there if they put their trust in Jesus.
But when they go to pre-school they quickly discover that little Joanna does not believe in Jesus nor does Andrew and Mike. Their little heart is full of anxiety because of this. They suffer from it at night….”Andy, Joanna and Mike will go to a burning place of fire and torture forever If I do not tell them about Jesus!!!”
Your child comes home from pre-school and tells you that we must pray for her friends because none of them believe in Jesus!! You are inwardly satisfied that because of your teaching your little disciple is concerned for the Lost ones around her. Well done.
But this fear does not stop with her friends salvation it spreads to other areas of her life. As she grows she encounters her own problems and temptations. She falls down into some sin of her own and BANG!! The eternal suffering tare planted within springs into action like a Venus fly trap and she is terrified now that she herself will go to this place or never ending torture.
She goes along to church with you her parents and knows that she must conform to her mummy and daddy’s beliefs or she may upset this god they believe in. She goes along outwardly but inwardly she knows that one day when she gets older she will run away from her abusers and try to get free from this fearful god they abused her with.
As time goes on she does just that…and for their part her parents imagine that their daughter is like a prodigal — a lost child–a backslider who needs to repent and come back to church. They cannot see that they are the cause of all this. They cannot see that the same evil mechanism is at work in their own hearts and was put in there long ago by other well meaning Christians.
Jesus said it like this when He was speaking to the Pharisees…
15 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel land and sea to win one proselyte, and when he is won, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves.
Matt 23:15
“Jesus said “Woe (or Alas) to you” uttered in grief or denunciation. He knew that these people would suffer and were suffering because of the tares sown in their hearts which drove them daily in their religious performance.
You make your children and converts TWICE AS MUCH subject to WOE and MISERY as yourselves. Why? Because your children are trapped by the fear of disappointing you! They love you!…They want to respect you!….But to do that they must choose to believe your doctrine.
You think they have rejected Jesus when they reject your doctrine….you are blind. Jesus is actually trying to deliver them from your doctrine and if need be–from you!!
God does not coerce people with tyranny and fear. But your god does.
Our Jesus is the Saviour of all people especially those who believe….but nonetheless He is still the Saviour of ALL PEOPLE.
That means that Jesus will indeed draw ALL PEOPLE TO HIMSELF so that ALL PEOPLE shall one day believe in Him.
God is not fearful that so many will be lost from Him forever. He is totally confident that all people shall be saved. God does not believe any wicked doctrine that consigns billions of His own creation to a lost eternity. In fact it never even entered His mind.
The tare of eternal punishment is being bundled together with other similar lies to be burned up in His pure light so that the whole world will come to see the goodness of God and His good intentions for all people.
All those continuing on in their sin and harming others shall face the same pure light of His unending love for them and BE SET FREE. All the earth shall rejoice when they remember and turn to the Lord Jesus.
God shall triumph mightily over his foes through the Redeemer Whom He sent for that One paid for the sins of all people so that all people were forgiven all their sins. That One –The Redeemer of our soul — is the atoning sacrifice not only for our sins but also for the WHOLE WORLD.
His blood HAS atoned already so that God is not seeing sin for He already judged it on the body of His son. God has reconciled us all to Himself through the successful death and resurrection of Jesus. If that is not true then Jesus death was for nothing!
If eternal torment is true then Jesus death is a sham.
I know what I believe and it makes me glad.
Let go of such wicked ideas that souls that sinned shall still have to pay for their sins forever and ever without end. Jesus said IT IS FINISHED.
It is only religion that desires to keep it going otherwise what will they do? God loves all and He saves all-Period.
