Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. When anger enters a relationship, abuse often follows.
All too often the end game is divorce, the sad finale to half of all marriages. Today, how to find healing when we're abused, healing from the hand of Jesus who himself was so cruelly abused. From the Moody Church in Chicago, this is Running to Win with Dr. Erwin Lutzer, whose clear teaching helps us make it across the finish line. Pastor Lutzer, I can't imagine abusing my wife, nor can I imagine any believer doing so. Could it be that demonic activity plays a role when abuse enters a marriage? Dave, it's not only demonic activity. The simple fact is that abused children grow up and they tend to be abusers. And you know, it actually is a mental illness, of course, in some sense, but it is a crisis in our homes in America.
I'm speaking about this with a very heavy heart because I've known many instances in which a man, for example, in church seems to be very righteous, maybe even involved in ministry, but at home he is abusive, and at least in some instances uses scripture to justify what he is doing. And that's why I like to emphasize to people that if that's you, go for help. But these messages are very critical and this is the second to last day that we're making this resource available for you. What it is, is these messages in book form, along with questions, also links to the messages.
Would you consider helping us financially even as you invest in this ministry? We're very happy to send this resource to you. Here's what you do. Go to rtwoffer.com.
It's rtwoffer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337. I'm going to be giving you that contact info again because remember, this is the second to last day we're making it available. The topic today is abuse. And I need to tell you that abuse occurs in all kinds of families.
Good families, supposedly good, as well as the ones where we might expect it. As a pastor, the letters that I received that are most heartbreaking, sometimes I'm almost unable to read them, are stories of abuse that people write to me, sometimes asking me for counsel or simply wanting prayer. Women in destructive relationships, children growing up in homes where there is division and strife and all kinds of abuse.
And it's everywhere. Yes, there is physical abuse, slapping, hitting, kicking, whipping, shoving, pushing, punching, intended to humiliate and intended to control. And then there's also verbal abuse, which can be even more destructive, swearing, name-calling, obscenities, belittling, downgrading, shaming.
It's all there. And then I think of that terrible thing called sexual abuse. What we need to do is to realize that when a child is sexually abused, he or she will believe that their only value to adults and to others is their sexuality.
So as a result of that experience, they will tend to mimic again the type of abuse that they received as a child, even as they go into adulthood. Just recently received an email from someone who told me the story of a woman whom I came to know many, many years ago who was actually visiting this church. She had two children. Her husband died and she remarried. Now she has a 20 year old daughter who had a child out of wedlock. And now the daughter confesses what the mother suspected, namely that her stepfather had sexually abused her for nine years. Now, just think of this situation that the mother is in. Her husband now is in jail, thankfully, where he should be. But on the other hand, she is the breadwinner on the home.
She's about to lose her house and she's spending her time in a job trying to earn a little bit of money at Home Depot stacking shelves. I read that and I thought, what a broken world in which we live. The stories, of course, are endless of men seducing young boys to go into homosexuality. We could go on in terms of what all that means, but we must hurry. Now, the devil, of course, plays a tremendous part in all of this because you see, you and I are born with a desire to be valued. And if we are not valued, we will find that value. The sexually abused child will find that value in destructive sexual relationships. We all want to mean something to somebody and abuse goes right to the heart of who we are. And the devil likes it because he wants us to think that we are junk, that God doesn't love us, that we're damaged goods and we have no future.
That's the lie of the devil. What are some of the characteristics of those who are abused? Well, of course, there is oftentimes rage and anger. And because this rage and anger is unacknowledged, because it's unacknowledged, what you have is, of course, all of it lying there that's going to come out at some point in a future relationship. You also have numbness of emotions. After all, you had to turn your emotions off. You couldn't deal with the pain. And because you couldn't deal with it, you had to simply shut down emotionally and check out. And that's why abuse carries on from generation to generation. Here's an angry man or it could be an angry woman. Here's an angry man. And when he abuses his children, he has no feelings for them.
He does not enter into the pain that he's doing. It's all fully justified in his own mind. So you have those characteristics. And then in addition to that, you have a great deal of guilt, because remember, the abuser always blames you. It's your fault for what is happening. And then if that isn't enough yet, you also have a tremendous amount of shame.
And so you hide in the shadows, you hide from your friends, you hide from yourself, and you even hope that you can hide from God. What about the characteristics of the abuser? One of the great and first characteristics that I have listed is number one, he doesn't think that he is an abuser. Maybe he was brought up in an abusive relationship and he thinks that's the way it should be. More likely, he simply justifies what he's doing.
So he lives in denial and you can't reason with him or her, at least very well. Another characteristic is that he is very narcissistic. And because of that narcissism, he blames others. You made me hit you, he says, it's your fault that I'm swearing at you. It's your fault that I broke your wrist. It's always your fault because of his narcissism. He takes no responsibility for what he's doing. And then of course, oftentimes he's charming. You have to understand that abusers sometimes are charmers, difficult story to tell, but frequently when abuse happens and someone is pointed out that he was abusive, I don't believe that he could be abusive. Look at how nice he is.
Yes. Remember it is not important for him to be good, but it is very important for him to appear good. And so he can be charming and helpful and be the kind of man that all the other women in the church wish that they had married.
And then there's another characteristic and that is filled with self-righteousness filled with self-righteousness because you see, he's the only one who has a standard. You know, the reason I slapped that kid is in my home, it's not going to be this way and you deserve to be punished because you know, you overspent and so he'll holler or he'll hit and on and on it goes. A word to those of you who are listening as abusers, whether it's here in the sanctuary, whether it's by the internet, whether it's radio or you're hearing this message on CD, I have a word for you. Would you really get help real soon?
Real soon. I mean like by tomorrow because it's never going to get better. And don't you dare believe that lie that you're going to change because you won't. You've told yourself the lie before and you don't have the power to, and if you have been abused, please do the same thing. Get for help. Received a letter from a woman who said, you know, I'm in an abusive relationship.
She said, I had to leave. I went to a woman's shelter where all of the abused women are and she said, I discovered that there they were abusing their own children. Break the cycle in the name of Jesus. Well, we have some work to do today and so what I'm going to ask you to do is to pray. Pray that God will speak to us. Pray that all of the defenses and the rationale that an abuser or someone who is abused might have might be broken down in the presence of Jesus who loves us and died for us. Would you join me as we pray? Father, I ask in Jesus name that Satan who loves abuse because he's a lover of evil, may his power be broken. May those who are bound in shame and in hurt, may they come out of the shadows into the light of your word and the light of your presence and may there be transformation Lord, speak and may each person right now pray that you will speak to him or to her and to me in Jesus name. Amen.
Amen. Now I know that it takes a great deal of effort and time to overcome the effects of abuse. I know that that's why we have this hotline ministry called set free, but on the other hand, I want to jumpstart the process.
I want to help you on your journey today. And to do that, would you take your Bibles please and turn to Isaiah chapter 52, Isaiah 52. We're going to very quickly walk through what Jesus did for us, and then we're going to apply it to the situation of abuse and we'll see its relevance. Normally we think of Isaiah 53, but I'm beginning at 52 and then we'll get into 53. 52 is speaking about Jesus in verse 13. Behold, my servant shall act wisely. He shall be high and lifted up and shall be exalted as many as were astonished at you. And now it describes why they were. His appearance was so marred beyond human semblance and is formed beyond that of the children of mankind. Let's stop there. First number one, the abuse that Jesus received.
Imagine it. His form was so marred that he didn't look human. It says in two different ways in the text we've read. When the soldiers were beating Jesus and people walked by, the question wasn't, is he the son of God? The question was, is that a human being?
That was the question. As a matter of fact, Jesus was so beaten and Mel Gibson's movie helps us here. Jesus was so beaten that people probably walked by and said, what is that thing that you are hitting? Jesus experienced abuse. And the Bible says now that he shall sprinkle many nations, probably a reference to his, his position as a priest to give healing and forgiveness.
The sprinkling of water was symbolic of forgiveness. You can also translate it. He shall startle many nations. Either translation works because people are going to be surprised and because kings, the Bible says their mouths are going to be closed because the whole issue is they're going to look back and say, oh, you mean he was the Messiah, that man that was so ordinary. Oh, we can't believe it because they had no idea whom they were beating abuser. I have a word for you. You have no idea who the child is that you are abusing. No idea who that little girl is that you are sexually molesting. You have no idea created in the image of God. Special to God. Oh, I know Jesus was in an entirely different category, but the principle applies. Jesus was abused and the people who did the abusing in one level at one level, didn't know who they were hitting. Let's go on now and look at the rejection of Jesus.
This is in chapter 53. If you're underlining your Bible as you should from time to time, notice that the Bible says in chapter 53 verse three, he was despised and rejected of men. Why was Jesus rejected?
A couple of reasons right in the text. First of all, because of his background for he grew up before him like a young plant and a root out of dry ground. Jesus came from Nazareth.
That was like being born in the projects of Chicago. It was, it was the place where, well, people asked, can any good thing come out of Nazareth? The genealogy of Jesus was suspect. And you see, because of that he was a root out of dry ground. You wouldn't expect Messiah to be born in a genealogy that contains the harlot Rahab. And then you have of course also Uriah, his wife Bathsheba and David.
And you wouldn't expect that a root out of dry ground. Who is he? Can any good thing come out of Nazareth? So he was rejected because of his background. He was rejected also because of his appearance. You'll notice it says in the middle of verse two, he has no form or majesty that we should look at him. He didn't come looking like a king. And then it says this, and there is no beauty that we should desire him. I love Jesus, but I want to tell you frankly that there's no evidence in scripture that Jesus was handsome or that he was striking in his appearance. He was very, very ordinary. There was no beauty that we should desire him.
I mean, if you talk to him, I'm sure that his beauty came out and you realize that you weren't talking just to a human being. But in the run of things, he was not, he was not, you know, the most handsome person. He wasn't the one that you would choose.
There's no beauty that we should desire him. He was also rejected because he was a man of sorrows. You'll notice verse three, a man of sorrows. After all, who wants to be around a man of sorrows? We want to be around people who are happy, happy, happy, but he's a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.
And that's why we sing man of sorrows. What a name for the son of God who came, ruined the sinners to reclaim. Hallelujah. What a savior. What a savior. And so for these reasons, Jesus was rejected. Now he was abused.
He was rejected. Now I want us to look at the burden that he carried. And for this, you know, we'll go of course to verse four. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. Yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted, wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our inequities. Wait a moment.
What's happening here? Look at Jesus there in the garden. Look at his sorrows. Look at his grief. Is that his grief? No, that's my grief. That's your grief.
He's dying for us in our place. You'll notice it says he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our inequities, crushed for our inequities. What about that iniquity? What about those transgressions? Those weren't his transgressions. Those were my transgressions.
Those are your transgressions. He was dying for sinners. He was dying for us. That's what Jesus was doing.
That's why Rembrandt, when he painted his wonderful picture, the raising of the cross, he painted himself as one of the people crucifying Jesus. And that was theologically right. We are in this text. I was there when they crucified my Lord. I was there. I'm there in the text, my transgressions, my sorrows.
He bore all that. No wonder we have dysfunctional families. Look at what it says in verse seven. It says, well, let's look at verse six. All we like sheep have gone astray. We've turned everyone to his own way. The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. You know, sheep, they'll be going along and they'll be following the shepherd and one sheep is following the other and one ornery sheep gets off the track and goes in this direction. All the other ones follow.
And that's the way it was in some of your homes. The father got off the track and to drink and immorality and the whole family began to take that direction. We've all scattered, but the good shepherd is there. By the way, always be impressed with the accuracy of scripture. You'll notice it says here, the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. There was no iniquity in Jesus. You'll never find that in the Bible, that iniquity was laid on him. God reckoned my iniquity and my sin and my shame and he laid it on Jesus so that his grief, his sorrow and his shame and his iniquity was all mine.
And if you have the faith to believe it, it was also yours. My friend, this is Pastor Lutzer. May I speak to your heart very directly? We're living in a day in which addiction is one of the major challenges among young people and of course it's destroying marriages. But there is hope. I'm holding in my hands a letter from someone who wrote, your messages have touched my heart when I was in my twenties.
Since then, God has helped me resist temptation and resist committing a sin that leads onto death. This is the second to last day that we're making a resource available for you that I think will be of help for your marriage and certainly the marriage of others whom you know. For a gift of any amount, we're making these messages available to you in book form. The book has transcripts of course of the messages. It also has some questions, some links to these messages.
Here's what you do and I certainly hope that you have a pen or pencil because this is critical. Go to RTWOffer.com. That's RTWOffer.com or pick up the phone and call us at 1-888-218-9337.
Let me give you that info again, RTWOffer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337. It's time again for you to ask Pastor Lutzer a question you may have about the Bible or the Christian life. When God said, I hate divorce, he knew how much damage is left in the wake of divorce.
A listener named Patrick is faced with a difficult dilemma. He writes, my wife committed adultery which led to a divorce. She would not consider reconciliation even though that was what my heart desired. It pains me to think that I will not be free to remarry because of her offense.
Is this what the Bible teaches? Well, Patrick, this is Pastor Lutzer of course answering and if I had time, I'd like to sit down with you and discuss your situation and find out exactly what led to the divorce, why your wife left. I know that you're saying she committed adultery but at the same time, I would like to know whether you had children and so forth but given the bare bones that you asked about, I'll give you a short answer. First of all, let me say that if your wife committed adultery, in the minds of many people including myself, this does not mean that you could not marry again.
Seems to me that the marriage bond has been broken particularly if your wife were to marry the man that she was involved with. So I suggest that you go to your pastor and have him give you some direction and thought so that you are under his authority and you are doing what your church and your denomination and particularly your pastor believes you should do. But second, what I want to stress is this, this isn't the end of the world.
There are many different people who've had to go through life single, some by choice and some because they did not find anyone to marry or perhaps they were not found attractive. So bear in mind that there are others who have been where you are and they have been able to navigate everything in their lives successfully. Here's the bottom line, God gives us the resources that we need to glorify his name. And in your particular situation, whatever that circumstance is, grace is available for you to glorify God. So with that note of hope, I conclude my brief answer. Thank you Dr. Lutzer for those helpful words.
I trust that Patrick has found them helpful as well. If you'd like to have your question answered, you can go to our website at rtwoffer.com and click on Ask Pastor Lutzer. Or you can call us at 1-888-218-9337.
That's 1-888-218-9337. You can write to us at Running to Win, 1635 North LaSalle Boulevard, Chicago, IL 60614. Running to Win comes to you from the Moody Church in Chicago to help you understand God's roadmap for your race of life. Next time our current series ends as we find the path to healing God has made available for all in marital distress. Thanks for listening. For Pastor Erwin Lutzer, this is Dave McAllister. Running to Win is sponsored by the Moody Church.
