May 23, 2024 Show with Vince Wood on “Ministering to Survivors of Abuse”

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Live from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of founding father James Wilson, 19th century hymn writer

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George Duffield, 19th century gospel minister George Norcross, and sports legend

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Jim Thorpe. It's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors,

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Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

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Proverbs chapter 27 verse 17 tells us iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

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Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

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And now, here's your host, Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon,

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

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This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Thursday on this 23rd day of May 2024.

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Before I introduce to you my guest and topic today, I just wanted to remind all men in ministry leadership that you are all invited to the next free biannual

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Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Pastors Luncheon, which will be held on Thursday, June the 6th, 11 a .m.

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to 2 p .m. at Church of the Living Christ in Loisville, Pennsylvania.

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This luncheon will feature, for the very first time, my keynote speaker, Dr. Joel Beeky, who is founder and chancellor of Puritan Reform Theological Seminary in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

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His topic will be Ten Ways to Cope with Criticism in the

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Ministry. And not only is this event free, and not only is the lunch free, but every single person attending will receive a free heavy sack, possibly even two heavy sacks, of brand new books personally selected by me and donated by generous

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Christian publishers all over the United States and the United Kingdom, all absolutely free of charge.

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So, if you'd like to attend this event, Thursday, June 6th, 11 a .m. to 2 p .m., at Church of the Living Christ in Loisville, Pennsylvania, which is

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Perry County, Pennsylvania, send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com,

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and put Pastors Luncheon in the subject line. But today, I have a first -time guest.

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I'm absolutely thrilled to have him on the program today, and we're going to be discussing a very vital aspect of ministry and something that is, sadly and tragically, a necessary ministry, and today we have

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Vince Wood on, a pastor of Providence Presbyterian Church of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania—I'm sorry, of York, Pennsylvania, and this is a congregation in the

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Presbyterian Church in America. And he is also someone who has assisted in the work of Refuge Ministries for years.

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Today, we're going to be addressing ministering to survivors of abuse, and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you to Iron Trouble and Zion Radio for the very first time,

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Pastor Vince Wood. Thanks, Chris. It's good. Go ahead.

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And if you could, tell our listeners about Providence Presbyterian Church of York, Pennsylvania.

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Yeah. Providence has been here in York since, I guess, the early 1980s.

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I'm actually the third pastor, which is encouraging that there have been so few pastors in that amount of time.

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I came here, started December of 2012, and have been thrilled to see the work here continue to grow and to reach out to the community.

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Providence has planted another church in the York area, which is New Life, and is quite involved with both our

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Presbyterian and the denomination. Great. And the website for this fine congregation, if you happen to live in the

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York, Pennsylvania area, or you're visiting York, Pennsylvania, or if you have family, friends, and loved ones who live in or near York, Pennsylvania, the website is yorkpca .org,

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yorkpca .org. Well, now tell us about Refuge Ministries.

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Refuge Ministries is a support group for survivors of abuse.

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It was founded in a PCA church in Kalispell, Montana, and involved in a curriculum that was written by Shane Waldron, who's now a pastor in the

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Denver metropolitan area, a PCA pastor. As he was counseling individuals, he kept running into situations of abuse and realized that he needed to become more of an expert in that area, and he then wrote the curriculum that we utilize, which again is the

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Refuge Ministries, and it's an interesting curriculum. I ran across it visiting friends one time, and having ministered to survivors of abuse for so many years back into the late 80s,

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I realized that it was something unique. I hadn't seen a curriculum that was this well designed and spoke to the specific issues that everyone that I've worked with with abuse dealt with.

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The basis is the four steps for recovering from abuse, and they're given an acrostic of SAFE, S -A -F -E.

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The S is to see the abuse. A is to achieve safety. F is to find healing in Christ.

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E is to establish new patterns. As I looked at that, I realized that you can't establish new patterns until you've seen the abuse.

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Actually, even the finding the healing in Christ, you're not going to be healed of the abuse if you don't even see it and if you're not safe.

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It's a very helpful curriculum. You don't read it page one to page 188.

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The support group will go through maybe a couple weeks. They'll deal with seeing the abuse, and then they'll move into a couple weeks going through achieving safety, and then they may spend four or five weeks on finding healing in Christ.

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It just depends on what the needs of the group are. Each individual is given a mentor to help them walk through the process as well.

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There's a thumbnail sketch. Well, if anybody wants more details on this ministry, go to refugeministries .com,

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refugeministries .com, and we'll be going over what my guest has just mentioned to you in much greater detail as the program progresses in a moment.

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But as we always do on Iron Sherpa and Zion Radio, when we have a first -time guest, we have that guest provide for our listeners a summary of their salvation testimony, which would include the religious atmosphere in which they were raised, if any, and what kind of providential circumstances our sovereign

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Lord raised up in their lives that drew them to himself and saved them, and I would love to hear your story.

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Yes, I was raised in a non -Christian environment, although it was an abusive home.

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My father was abusive to all of us, and particularly to my mom. I witnessed him beat her on more than one occasion, received some of those myself.

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And through that, my mother finally eventually got free from him, had a less abusive husband for a while, and then he died when

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I was 10, and so my mother was raising three boys through our teenage years. She was involved with, or became involved with, the

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New Age movement, so we were involved with a unity school of Christianity, some people have heard of, which has very little to do with unity or Christianity.

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It doesn't mean much of a school. That's right. In fact, one of my nephew's late wife, she was only in her 20s when she passed of a brain tumor, but she had lived up in Schenectady, New York, and I had an

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Orthodox Presbyterian pastor and his wife reach out to her with the Gospel, they befriended her, and the wife of the pastor even took her shopping and did a lot of things like that.

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And unfortunately, at the same time that this Orthodox Presbyterian pastor and his wife were reaching out to her with the love of Christ and the

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Gospel, there was that cult that you just mentioned, basically having a tug -of -war with them over her.

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So, I'm not 100 % certain where she landed by the providence of God before leaving this earth, but I just clearly remember how disturbed

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I was that the Evangelical Church, and it was not the Orthodox Presbyterian Church I mentioned, it was a different church, a non -denominational church, which was the church of her parents.

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I was very disturbed at the memorial service that they actually allowed the female minister of this cult, or leader, whatever they called her, to get up and share some commentary, and she actually included her cult's theology in her message.

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I was shocked that they allowed her to do that. It's just awful to see that.

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I mean, the one thing I remember is we would go to church on Sunday, and the only thing I really remember today,

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I loved that they brought donuts. And so, as a child, that was pulling me in.

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So, that goes across whether it's a Christian or non -Christian, we all need donuts on Sunday. But I was actually very involved with that.

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We were part of a psychic development group, and I was one of the individuals that would teach various lessons that they would have on that, even as a teenager.

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And yet, the doubts began to rise during my senior year of high school, and I see that as God really beginning to work and bringing different situations into my life that were causing questions.

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Our group was being challenged to leave Colorado Springs to go to Scottsdale, Arizona, because they were prophesying that there was going to be this great drought.

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I had enough sense to know you don't leave the mountains where snow falls and go to the desert if the drought's coming.

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That's the wrong direction to go. So, I had questions and began wondering.

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About the same time, I began to spend some time with the woman who'd later become my wife, and in asking her questions,

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I immediately was very zealous for what I believed in. And she listened to me talk about reincarnation, and she looked me in the eye and just said,

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Well, that's stupid. I really appreciated that, because she was right.

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She was able to see right through that the concept of reincarnation just is logically inconsistent.

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It doesn't work. So, go ahead. No, no. I was just going to say so.

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Tell us more. Yeah. So, she said, What I do know is that the

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Bible is the Word of God. And she was a part of a PCA church in Colorado Springs, and I would attend that church and would listen to the preaching, and I started reading the

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Bible. I was confused in the Old Testament. I couldn't quite figure out what this New Testament meant. I began to think every book was telling the same story.

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When I got to John 1 and compared it with Genesis 1, I said, I don't understand this. But what

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I was struck by was that the Jesus that was described in the Bible was not the

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Jesus I was told about as a child. Right. And I realized it.

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I've been lied to, and I had to take the time to really understand the truth.

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And so, I began going to church every Sunday with my wife's father. My wife left to go to college, and so he and I would, every

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Sunday, go to church and talk. And my wife would continue to—the woman who had become my wife—would continue to witness to me, began listening to Christian music.

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And I remember the concept of the song, We Are the Reason, by David Meese, just really struck me.

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That's not the Christmas story that I had been told. Wow. And it was about a six -month process in which

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God just systematically began to change each of the ideas that I believed and to realize that it was given unto man once to die, and then comes the judgment.

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And the idea wasn't that he gives us lots of chances to get it right. It's that we fail completely, and Jesus got it right for us.

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And hearing Psalm 103 mentioned from the pulpit in the

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PCA church, as far as the East is from the West, so far as he removed our transgressions from us, and realizing that I knew nothing of forgiveness.

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Reincarnation has no concept of forgiveness. It's utterly foreign. And it was just a freeing message, and God just opened up my eyes and showed me this is reality.

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And it wasn't that I figured it out, but there's no question that I was born again.

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And I responded as a newborn baby will breathe, and I responded with belief. Well, now tell us, if you could, briefly—

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I understand and I know that the Presbyterian Church in America is a theologically reformed denomination.

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I have many friends who are both ministers and members of the

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PCA. I've interviewed many PCA ministers and authors and seminary professors and theologians.

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But just because that first evangelical church that, by God's goodness and mercy and grace, he led you to, so you didn't have to endure a whole lot of falsehood, even with an evangelicalism, how long did it take before the

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Lord opened your eyes to the doctrines of sovereign grace, also known as Reformed theology and Calvinism, while you were there?

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Because I know that with myself, even though I was saved at a Reformed Baptist church, confessionally Reformed Baptist church, it took me several months before the

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Lord really opened my eyes to the truths of the doctrines of grace. And even when that initially happened,

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I hated them anyway. But I quickly grew to fell in love with them.

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After discovering them to be true and biblical, I not only believed that, but I began to rejoice in them.

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So just tell us about that with yourself as far as your own experience. You know, that's, again, the incredible mercy of God.

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I was a part of the PCA church in Colorado Springs for actually a short time, about six months.

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I became a Christian within a month. I left that area and began to try to find a church.

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Went to an evangelical free church in the new community where I was and benefited greatly from that.

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A dear friend, though, gave me advice. I moved in with him. I've been a believer a month.

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I move in with him, and he says to me, he says, Vince, let me just give you advice. For the first year of being a Christian, don't read anything but your

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Bible. So just read the Bible. Don't read Christian books. Don't read the newspaper.

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Just read your Bible. And for the most part, I really followed through with that. I'm grateful for that advice.

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It helped me gain an understanding of the Bible that I didn't have because I didn't grow up in the church, and I hadn't read it.

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And so that was excellent. Right after that, he gave me a couple books. One was

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Knowing God by J .I. Packer. You've maybe heard of that one? Yeah. Obviously, that's a classic.

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And the other was Pursuit of Holiness by Jerry Bridges. Oh, yes. I've had Jerry on the program before he went home to the

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Lord and had him on several occasions. And, in fact, every time

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I encounter or become aware of someone, especially if they're close to me, of someone that is going through a trial, a painful trial in their life, whether it is a serious illness in their own bodies or someone they love or anything, a divorce, the loss of a job,

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I always immediately contact

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Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, one of the sponsors of my show, cvvbs .com. And I order

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Jerry Bridges' book for them, Trusting God Even When Life Hurts. Yeah, excellent.

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I understand my wife tells a story. She was a part of a small church that ended up planting the larger

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PCA church. And in the smaller church, I guess Jerry Bridges was actually one of the ruling elders in that church, which we didn't know at the time.

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But that gave me a really good, firm starting point of reading J .I.

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Packer immediately from a Reform to Calvinistic perspective, not knowing that at the time.

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Then started to look at books like The Attributes of God by Pink was another of the founding works that I read.

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So it really started out early. And it was, I think, another five years before we finally joined the

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PCA church. So that would have been in 1987. And I've been a part of the

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PCA since that point. There were some times in which, you know, we went to a dispensational church for a time and there was some good that they brought.

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But yet recognizing that we just we just didn't see what they're trying to express in the scripture.

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It was probably from a Reform Baptist perspective. When I started, the PCA was planning on going to a seminary in New Jersey, part of a

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Reform Baptist church there. Oh, in Montville? Yes. Yes. Trinity. Yes. Yes.

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Trinity Baptist Ministerial School, I believe it was called. Yep. Trinity Ministerial Academy.

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Right. Right. Yeah. My brother in law actually attended and graduated there and is now a pastor at Trinity.

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Oh. Yeah. Which is a really neat connection that we have.

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But then I read O. Palmer Robertson's The Christ of the Covenants in about 1988.

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And when I got to the section on the covenant,

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I just saw, at least from my perspective, I was convinced of the involvement in our children and in the covenant and realized that the

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Trinity probably wasn't the seminary for me. And it was difficult because I had a lot of dreams to be out there with one of the greatest mentors of my life.

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Right. But about that time in your life is when you were convinced of the Reformed faith.

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Absolutely. Yeah. Well, we are going to our first commercial break. And when we get back, we're going to delve specifically into our theme today, which is ministering to survivors of abuse.

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And if anybody has a question for Pastor Vince Wood on this topic, please send us an email to ChrisArnzen at gmail .com.

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C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. Give us your first name at least, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the

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USA. But I understand that a topic like this is very likely to evoke questions that must remain anonymous.

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The very nature of discussing abuse, if we have victims of abuse that don't want to draw identity to themselves, they may even be currently still experiencing this.

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We understand things like that would compel you to remain anonymous, and we will obviously be more than happy to honor your request.

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But if it's a general question, please give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside of the

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USA. So the email address again is ChrisArnzen at gmail .com.

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ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. And don't go away. We are going to be right back after these messages.

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I'm Pastor Bill Shishko of The Haven, an Orthodox Presbyterian church in Comac, Long Island.

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In the film Chariots of Fire, Olympic gold medalist runner Eric Liddell remarked that he felt

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God's pleasure when he ran. He knew his efforts sprang from the gifts and calling of God.

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He sensed that same God -given pleasure when ministering the word and helping others gain a deeper knowledge and love for God.

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That love starts with the wonderful news that the Lord Jesus Christ is a Savior who died for sinners, and that God forgives all who come to Him in repentance, trusting solely in Christ to deliver them.

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I would be delighted to have the honor and privilege of ministering to you if you live in the Long Island area or Queens or Brooklyn or the

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You can also call us at 516 -352 -9672.

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That's 516 -352 -9672. That's New High Park Baptist Church, a congregation in love with each other, passionate for Christ, committed to learning and being shaped by God's word, and delighting in the gospel of God's sovereign grace.

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So please go to royaldiadem .com today and mention Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. We are now back with Pastor Vince Wood of Providence Presbyterian Church in York, Pennsylvania, and we are discussing ministering to survivors of abuse.

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And if you have a question of your own, send it to chrisarnson at gmail .com.

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I was going to ask you how you first became or first received a burden on your heart to explore how to minister to the victims of abuse, but you actually already gave the answer.

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That must be a part of the answer that you gave in your testimony when you said you witnessed your own father abusing not only your mother, but even you.

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Yeah, there's no question that events like that shape your life.

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For a small child, you don't necessarily understand all of it at the time, not aware of it.

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I think one of the problems with abuse is, particularly to a child, the child interprets the actions of a parent as though it's loving.

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And so the assumption is that this is the way you love someone, which is why frequently an abused child can become an abuser because they're assuming that's what that is.

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But then when I started to do training to become a ruling elder, which is in our denomination is a lay elder.

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We went through some counseling and was leading a small group and there was a young lady in our small group that asked to meet with me.

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And so she would meet with me and my wife and we began to talk about her situation. And she expressed, you know, just having been abused as a child and then through different relationships that she had had at that point.

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And we just began to work through the concepts of how the gospel speaks to that in her life. And from then on,

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God has just brought survivors into my life and they'll give a call and say, hey,

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I heard from so and so that you might be able to help. And so we began to talk where churches will call and say, we have a situation.

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Can you help us to walk through that? And I tried to run away from it for many years as far as make it just as minimal as I could.

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You know, I'll counsel people with that. When I came to Providence, there was a woman who shared her story when

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I first got here and she had a huge burden and it has just expanded from there.

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We now have an annual conference for women who have been abused called

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Voices that is in November. We've done this now for 10 years, and it's a time where the women who have been abused can get together and receive instruction in how to move on with life, practical things.

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This year, we're talking about providing a breakout session where they can learn about car maintenance.

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Some of our deacons want to help with that. But also having individuals with expertise on how do you heal from trauma that they've gone through?

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And the refuge ministry built on that. And so it's just through the many years of experience and walking with people through these difficult times that I got involved.

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And what are the most frequently reported cases of abuse in your own ministry in regard to that whole subject?

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Because obviously, as we've already mentioned with your own life, there was your mother's being abused by your father and your father's abusing you.

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Obviously, there's different ways that this grotesque sin of abuse manifests itself.

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And is it most of the time wives that are coming to you for help because they are being physically abused by their husbands?

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Or perhaps just in a really serious and grotesque way, mentally and emotionally abused?

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Yeah, it's almost always the wife who comes. It's not exclusive. We have had experience where men have come.

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We had a refuge ministry for men for a time to where the dynamic of a man dealing with abuse is an entirely different dynamic.

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Yes, I could imagine it would be even less frequently reported because the victim might believe it's emasculating to admit something like that.

36:24

And lest anybody listening, because I have met people, men who were abused physically by their wives.

36:33

And it's not because they were little, weak, wimpy men. It's because they were gentlemen and they refused to retaliate physically.

36:43

And their abusive wives knew this, so they could get away with all kinds of things in the realm of physical abuse.

36:52

Not only punching and clawing and kicking husbands, but even hitting them with objects and so forth.

37:00

Absolutely. And one young man, sharing with me, in just his understanding of the covenants, he had a distorted view of marriage and thinking that because God's covenant with us is unilateral, that God is determined to uphold both sides of the covenant, that he had to uphold both sides of the marriage covenant.

37:21

And so, therefore, it kept him in that relationship longer than it needed to, and it was just a difficult thing.

37:30

When we talk about abuse, there are really five areas of abuse that you'll see. There's psychological abuse, there's spiritual abuse, there's economic abuse, there's sexual abuse, and there's then the physical abuse.

37:42

And abuse always begins with psychological. You won't have physical abuse if you haven't had psychological to begin with, or some people will call it emotional abuse.

37:53

And the idea is that the abuser is wearing down the sense of the image of God in the victim.

38:04

That the victim does not see their value in Christ, but sees themselves in a subservient role.

38:10

And that's what the psychological abuse will be done, whether it's through continual name -calling, degrading, demanding things that are below the dignity of a human being, or things like gaslighting, causing the person to question their own sanity and their own grasp of reality.

38:30

Yeah, I just heard that phrase explained for the first time recently, gaslighting.

38:38

It referred to the old days when people had gas -powered lights, and if you lowered or dimmed the light, it could change your perception of what you're seeing.

38:53

Is that really what you know to be the root of that? Yes, as I understand it, it's actually from a movie,

39:00

I think it came out in the 40s, called Gaslight. That's right, that's right. In which a husband was causing his wife to believe that she was losing her mind by slowly dimming the lights, and if she would comment on it, he would say, oh, that's not the case at all.

39:14

In the movie, she witnessed him murder someone. And he was trying to drive her insane by actually trying to convince her she did it.

39:27

And as crazy as that sounds, and then to see it take place in real life, in marriages, although it's not turning the lights down, but it's causing the individual to question their sense of reality and their perception of what has transpired, which then creates a dependence upon the abuser.

39:49

I need you to explain to me reality. And so the abuser then has more control.

39:55

And so the rest of the abuse will stem from that. So the vast majority of people coming to me are dealing with some level of psychological abuse.

40:03

Now, they're also physical and sexual and economic are very common.

40:09

But it begins with the psychological. And can you explain how this psychological abuse may manifest itself specifically?

40:26

Because I know this is a very sensitive area that I'm about to delve into, and I may be judged harshly by listeners by saying it.

40:38

But obviously, especially in our day and age, vindictiveness and evil behavior is not exclusive to men or women.

40:56

And you have people, especially when it comes to those couples that are separated and may be either in the process of a divorce, already divorced.

41:08

There's child custody issues. And you have people that make things up or exaggerate what emotional and mental abuse truly is.

41:19

It could be that the husband's just disagreeing with the wife, and that's abuse.

41:25

But if you could be more specific about that. And I appreciate that. I was doing a training session just this last week with our women's care team at Providence.

41:36

And we're talking about gaslighting in particular, which I think was the word of the year in 2022.

41:42

Oh, really? Everyone uses the term. Very few really understand it.

41:48

And it's used almost, well, someone disagrees with you. Therefore, they're gaslighting you. Well, that's just silliness.

41:56

But it's so overused that that's how we begin to understand it. One of the things we tell people in receiving a report of abuse, most of the time a person who's been abused doesn't come saying,

42:08

I've been abused. They come and they're having problems with the marriage. It's really hard.

42:13

And they begin to tell their story about the marriage. And the person listening begins to see patterns of control.

42:19

That's really key when you're trying to diagnose if it's abuse. There's got to be patterns of control. Are they controlling something in that person's life?

42:29

There are instances in which sometimes the people are just really bad at relating. Sometimes people are just mean.

42:37

But they're not necessarily patterns to their behavior. They aren't necessarily controlling anything.

42:45

An instance where, and this is common today, that the husband loves his video game more than taking care of the kids or helping out around the home.

42:55

And the wife gets a little bit upset and begins to talk to him. And he stands up and he throws his video controller and goes off and does what she wants.

43:03

And it can be assumed, well, that's abusive. Well, no, it's probably just immature. And so it has to be dealt with in that way.

43:12

So we tell people in receiving reports, you begin by believing the woman. But you also want to verify and you want to be sure that you're seeing these patterns.

43:23

And so we go through a lot of training with Refuge to be sure that people understand what to look for.

43:29

Are there patterns of anger to where the individual is using his raised voice in order to get people to do what he wants?

43:38

Or possibly slamming of doors or sometimes a silent treatment that might go on for a week to where they didn't do what he wanted.

43:46

I've done a lot of thinking about anger. And I think the main reason that we express anger actually is to punish someone who didn't act the way we wanted them to act.

43:55

We usually believe our anger is justified. But if you take that to an individual who wants control in the first place and he's using his anger to get that and you begin to see this pattern.

44:06

There's something called the cycle of abuse that you look for. And it isn't that the only way this individual relates to his family is through anger.

44:14

But he has this cycle to where he'll have a blowup and things will get out of hand and it'll be horrible.

44:20

And then he might feel really bad about it and then try to make up to the family. Maybe he'll be with gifts, maybe saying wonderful things to the wife, doing sweet things for her.

44:28

And then they'll go into kind of a quiet time after that makeup. And then the tension begins to rise.

44:35

And then there's another lashing out of anger that they may find.

44:42

There are things blaming. When there's a pattern of blaming the woman for everything, she's at fault.

44:51

It's continually her responsibility. Putting unreasonable expectations on her would be another area that would be looking at.

45:01

Things like she can't go to the grocery store without asking his permission.

45:07

Things like maybe even that she's given an allowance, just like a child might be given allowance.

45:15

So you'll be looking for patterns of things along these lines. Insulting, demeaning.

45:22

But there can be a spiritual element of maybe even looking like it's such a good thing.

45:34

Questioning the woman, oh, are you going to see those people again? So she's questioning her decision to be with people.

45:42

And that may actually be his effort to isolate his wife from people who might be able to help.

45:49

And I'm assuming a huge red light for a woman, not only in her own mind, but any loved one or friend who is aware this is happening, is when a spouse tries to divide his spouse or even her spouse from the family of that spouse.

46:14

Absolutely. Huge red flag. Parents are sending anybody who might be able to help her out as they begin to cut that natural familial tie.

46:27

It is a red flag. Yeah, and I've actually also heard about these kinds of scenarios from Christians when their son -in -law has successfully kept their daughter away from them under the guise of the in -laws that the husband wants to ban from their life have bad theology.

47:01

They're in an unsound church, and this person very sectarian and arrogant about his own theological views, and it may be just an excuse, but trying to put an appearance of this is the godly thing to do, to honor

47:22

God above all and his truth above all. We've got to keep your parents out of the family and that kind of thing.

47:29

We've got to keep them away from the children, that kind of thing. Well, and that's absolutely a major difficulty, but even take that farther, is once isolated from the family, they may isolate from other churches.

47:41

So you go to a church for a little while, and then something comes up, and that church isn't sound anymore, and so you go to another church.

47:47

So there's a continual church hopping. So I'm getting the gist that what you have been just describing is under the

47:57

S of the SAFE acronym of seen. Yes, seeing the abuses, you've got to be able to understand it.

48:06

Most women just think they've got a bad marriage. They just think it's just difficult.

48:12

Well, I'll hear it all the time, well, he's got an anger problem, which is interesting because almost never do they have an anger problem at work.

48:21

The anger problem is only in their home, which means there's not an anger problem. There's a use of anger to control the home, and so it's important to keep that distinction.

48:32

And I'm assuming one of the greatest causes of abuse, I'm just assuming this, is delusional jealousy, where a husband is constantly doubting the faithfulness of his wife, whether physically or just in her mind, and it's out of control.

49:00

He's slandering her on a regular basis that she is attracted to somebody else, thinking about somebody else, or even physically involved with somebody else, and it may not even have any element of truth at all.

49:18

I'm assuming that's one of the major causes that you have seen. And I don't know if it would be a cause as much as a manifestation of the abuse.

49:27

And from that, there are a lot of different ways that can go. By having that jealousy, he's then appealing to her love for him, to keep him in control of her.

49:39

And from that, he may control her by making her wear clothes that are unattractive, thinking that he's going to keep her for himself.

49:47

And the real goal for him is control, and I think that's a key to understand.

49:54

We've heard this for years about rape, and I know it to be the case that rape isn't about sex, it's about control.

50:00

And that's the issue for abuse as well. The individual wants to find control, usually, because that's where their sense of identity and significance.

50:13

And I'm a man, and so as a man, I have to control my family. And I've heard that many, many times.

50:21

Instead of I'm a man, I need to love and serve my family. To love them as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her and took upon himself the full responsibility.

50:33

He didn't keep it upon her. And so we get that all cockeyed in our misunderstanding of the

50:39

Bible, and that misunderstanding is used then as another way of controlling the wife or the children or whoever that may be.

50:49

And we are talking men controlling women, but it can go the other way. Right, right. And having said that, our modern world have instilled upon us different views of how we should properly behave and conduct ourselves, even if you happen to be married, and allowing for far too much liberty and freedom with spouses to be involved in activities, even if they're non -sexual, alone with someone of the opposite sex.

51:34

And somebody may think that her husband is being overly jealous because she's having these private meetings with a male friend, and she may not even have a sexual thought in her mind about it, but the husband may have legitimate reasons for being very concerned about that.

51:58

Obviously, he is not to react with violence or assuming the worst and belittling her and screaming at her.

52:07

But at the same time, these are things that should not be viewed frivolously. And I think in most relationships, that's something that a couple can work through.

52:17

And, yeah, you communicate well, you understand one another, and you make choices out of love for one another, not calling upon the other person's virtue of love as a tool by which

52:29

I will control them. And that's where abuse becomes really twisted, is it takes the very good thing that God has worked within this woman's life, and it uses it as a tool to oppress her, which

52:43

Christ is opposed to at all times, all manner of oppression. We have a listener question from Robbie in Colonial Park, Pennsylvania, who wants to know, is your philosophy of counseling based on biblical, newthetic counseling, or the more broad and general

53:03

Christian counseling? There may be more than those two types of counseling.

53:13

And I developed my counseling model primarily by understanding what the

53:19

Bible teaches about the human heart and trying to understand that and how that works together.

53:26

Philippians 4, 6 through 9 is a great place to go to understand how

53:31

Paul tells us to deal with a simple emotion of fear. And so my counseling model has grown from that and became the thesis for my

53:44

PhD that was just my counseling model of how we understand that the human heart works.

53:53

Okay, we have to go to our midway break right now. Please be patient, folks. Then we will be right back after these messages.

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01:10:38

And before I go to any listener questions, I want to see if you have completed your examination of the

01:10:46

S in the SAFE acronym, SEEING, and if you want to move on to the letter

01:10:51

A in that acronym. That would be fine. Yeah, I can move at whatever pace you think is best.

01:10:58

Well, remind us of what the A stands for now. The A is to achieve safety.

01:11:06

This is where, again, we use the idea, just because we've got to pick something, that it's a woman who's being abused.

01:11:15

And when you stop and think about the reality of what she's facing, that she's in a home, it's very possible that she hasn't worked in years.

01:11:23

She maybe is raising the kids, possibly homeschooling them. She enjoys it.

01:11:28

She enjoys the time with the kids. And yet she's finding herself in a more and more dangerous situation, and she has to find a way to be safe.

01:11:38

And it would be nice if it was so easy that, well, I'll tell the pastor, and the pastor will come over and have a talk with my husband, and then that'll straighten things out.

01:11:46

And actually most women think that's exactly what will happen. It's not uncommon, though, that the husband has already talked to the pastor and talked about what a horrible wife she is, so that she doesn't have trust.

01:11:59

We also, particularly in conservative churches, we tend to believe men more than women. Really?

01:12:06

You know, it's interesting that you say that, because I have been hearing from folks over the years, even in conservative churches, they have expressed their concern that even though the churches may be very conservative, there is a fear, knowing about how serious the backlash from feminists can be, that according to these folks who have said this to me, and these are different people from different churches, that very often they're very conservative pastors will believe everything, nearly, that the wife says over the husband.

01:12:57

And it seems, in their opinion, almost out of a fear of that, having the reputation that you have become a chauvinist church or whatever the case may be.

01:13:09

Is that a reality at all in your experience? Well, my guess, and anytime we're proving things by our anecdotes, we always have that risk.

01:13:22

And I can see how that same fear can cut both ways. Yes, a fear of,

01:13:29

I don't want to be labeled feminist, so I'm just going to believe everything, and men are always bad. But the other side is

01:13:35

I'm afraid of the feminist push, and so therefore I'm just going to believe men even more so.

01:13:41

And each person is going to react to that in a different way. I think our tendency is that when we, and I'm working on a situation that goes back some 30 years and watching it, where there was a molestation of a teen by a youth director.

01:14:03

And as the church would deal with the youth director, the teen would say, here's what happened. And the youth director would say, oh, no, it's this.

01:14:10

And they just simply ignored the girl and just believed the man without any proof, just because he said it.

01:14:16

And that's been my experience, that that's more common. So an accusation against a man is brought, and rather than let's look and see if that accusation is true, the first thing is ask the husband.

01:14:29

Husband says no, then we're done with it. Wow. And we move on. Now, some of that, too, I mean, let's be honest.

01:14:36

I think for you and I, we grew up in an age in which that's their family issue.

01:14:42

Let them deal with it. And we don't feel comfortable getting into something like that.

01:14:47

We feel like we're being intrusive and violating their privacy. That's another element that plays into it.

01:14:54

But it is a challenge to be sure that we're actually believing the woman and, not but, and verifying her story, beginning to look to understand if it's true.

01:15:11

When we do that, what can she do to find safety?

01:15:21

It becomes a very difficult time. And also we live in an age in which, for many conservative churches, divorce is not something that can even be talked about ever at any level.

01:15:36

And I'm not sure I think that's what the Bible says. Jesus gives clear indication that immorality is a basis for divorce, and it's a proper divorce.

01:15:46

And Paul seems to indicate that it is also appropriate with abandonment. And we can discuss some of the exegetical challenges of dealing with the concept of abandonment and what that means and how we approach that.

01:16:00

And all of those are questions that have to be answered by the woman and also by the church that's helping her, if it's going to help her achieve safety.

01:16:09

One of the things that I know that the refuge ministry has developed over the years is something called a structured separation, to where it's essentially a contract between husband and wife and saying, here's what we're looking for to give an extended period of time, usually at least a year, in which he's going to be demonstrating that he has had a legitimate change of heart and is going to set aside his desire to control in order to serve his family and is going to set aside whether it's a psychological, sexual or spiritual, economic divorce, or the physical or not divorce, but the abuse or the physical abuse.

01:16:52

But it gives her time to be able to map out and to say, here's what we're looking for. And it would be given to him and they would sign it together.

01:16:59

But working through the church, the elders of the church would kind of be the mediators of that to say, here's what we're looking for.

01:17:07

It's mostly written by her in consultation with the elders so that, you know, she's not coming up with crazy things that he has to do, but it's reasonable and it's addressing the issues.

01:17:22

So the step for her is achieving safety. And this idea of repentance, I think, plays in there.

01:17:27

One of the things I've been doing is writing a curriculum for abusers on how do they repent?

01:17:33

What does repentance look like? Wow. And to do that, it comes through understanding second

01:17:41

Corinthians chapter seven verses 10 and 11. First Corinthians, we remember there was an individual who's excommunicated for his incestuous relationship with his father's wife.

01:17:53

Wow. And then in second Corinthians, you see this man restored. But in first Corinthians, you also have the

01:18:00

Corinthians were rebuked for a boatload of stuff. Right. And you also see

01:18:08

Paul talking about what their repentance looks like in second Corinthians seven, 10 and 11. And as we look at that passage and begin to understand what it's saying, there are things like, you know, that there's an earnestness that there's a fear of falling back into the previous sins, that there's a vindication of himself, which doesn't mean vindicating his sin, but if indications, the repentance is true.

01:18:32

And so as we develop that, we're able to say, okay, so we take these concepts from second Corinthians chapter seven.

01:18:39

And how do we apply that to a document to say to the husband, here's what you need to do. Does she need to have him move out?

01:18:46

Is that necessary? Can he, can she be safe if he's living in another part of the house? What needs to happen?

01:18:52

Does she need to get a, in Pennsylvania, it's called the protection from abuse from the courts, in which she's not allowed contact with her because he is physically dangerous.

01:19:02

And so those are the things that the individual has to work through in the achieving safety.

01:19:09

Now, at what point in a marriage, would that be a matter of your counsel for them to separate?

01:19:19

And when you said it's possible, he could live in another room of the house. I'm assuming that you mean a temporary separation of the marriage bed.

01:19:29

Correct. That would be a part of it now. Well, how seriously bad does it have to be before you would recommend such a thing?

01:19:37

Well, and again, that the first thing you've got to do is, is that an abusive relationship, you've got to be looking at that to see exactly how bad that is.

01:19:46

One of the individuals in our congregation that worked with our voices conference for years, was the

01:19:53

CEO of the Pennsylvania coalition against rape. And she worked with the president's office, with the

01:20:01

NFL a number of years ago, they had some difficulties of some players who were involved in domestic violence issues.

01:20:08

And she was contacted by them. And one of the things that she's pointed out, when you begin to understand the concept of abuse as controlling another individual, is a sexual relationship then between the husband and the wife, when he is controlling her and abusing her, is it actually consensual?

01:20:25

Or is it becoming marital rape that, that he's forcing himself upon her in, in violation really of what

01:20:33

Paul says that, that his body is not his own, but it belongs to his wife.

01:20:38

And she has to have some authority with that. If it goes both directions and there has to be that communication.

01:20:45

And so the separation for her safety may include every area of that separation because he simply is, is not a safe individual to her.

01:20:58

And I would add to that partly because when we're abusing our spouse, we are violating our marriage covenant.

01:21:07

We are guilty of that covenant, which we have made with our wife to love her as Christ has loved the church.

01:21:16

And we are by our actions, rendering that covenant null and void. And as Jesus talks about even giving the, opportunity for the offended spouse to divorce her husband, he points out that it's because of the hardness of heart.

01:21:37

And I don't believe that it's the hardness of heart that God said, well, you're going to divorce each other. So I'm going to give you rules doing it.

01:21:43

I think he was pointing out that, that the husband who wants to just be a philanderer and run around and, and have a immoral sex with those outside of the marriage, the wife has to have some recourse in order to be free from that.

01:21:57

The husband who is, who is living in the home, but not wanting to live as husband and wife, but wanting to live as master and slave.

01:22:05

There has to be a recourse for that woman. And God in his magnificent mercy gave to her this opportunity to separate herself for her safety and the safety of her children from this individual recognizing to the abuse rarely is just the husband to the wife.

01:22:24

It will also be the husband to the children. And so you're also considering the safety of the children.

01:22:30

So all of those are considerations that have to go into, making such a difficult, difficult, hard decision.

01:22:38

And the other is that the, the elders of the church might not have ever faced anything like that.

01:22:45

And that's where it's good. Isn't it something in the Bible about in a multitude of counselors is wisdom.

01:22:54

So to call and get counsel and ask someone, how do, how do I handle this?

01:23:00

What do I deal with this? Right now I could envision a husband who is being counseled by an instructed by his elders to separate in such a way temporarily.

01:23:17

Well, the goal is, is for it to be temporary anyway. I could envision a man if he were to lapse into a sexual affair, blaming the church because they removed the marriage bed from his

01:23:36

Christian liberties to enjoy. So how do you respond to that kind of thing?

01:23:45

Has it happened in your personal experience? Oh, of course. Really? Oh wow. Well, in all manner.

01:23:53

I mean it just, and the person living that type of a life always wants to find something else to blame, right?

01:24:00

Right. And, and so I think that the biblical term for that is hogwash. Because it's just, it's just me trying to justify my own sin.

01:24:15

If Paul could live his life without any sexual relationship, surely a man can do that for a time.

01:24:23

Right. Self -control is a fruit of the spirit. If I remember correctly.

01:24:28

Right. We do have an anonymous listener who has a question and the anonymous listener says, how do you intervene in a situation that you only strongly suspect is abuse from husband to wife?

01:24:46

When you see your friend who is a female and married to a man and for the first time you're noticing bruises on her, perhaps on her face or on her arm, you see and notice a personality change in her.

01:25:01

She may seem more depressed or more timid, but repeatedly denies that she is being abused.

01:25:09

What are you to do when you are hitting a brick wall in that area? And let me just, first off say that's super, super common.

01:25:22

And what I do is, and I will see red flags, whether it be people coming into my church, which is usually the case, or maybe even just meeting people.

01:25:31

And when you've been doing this for 30 plus years, those red flags come up. Now, always careful to not draw conclusions, but to form hypotheses because hypotheses you're, you're constantly testing to be sure that it's accurate conclusion.

01:25:44

Now you're acting on it no matter what. And therefore you interpret everything in order to fulfill your conclusion. But this is where good shepherding comes into play.

01:25:54

And maybe it's not shepherding from a pastor, but maybe it's from a friend. And I draw close to that individual. And I want to build a relationship with that individual, a relationship of trust, and even a relationship with the individual that I believe is the perpetrator of the abuse.

01:26:08

I want to get close with them. Years and years ago, having folks come into our church and we recognized there were difficulties that were there and the marriage, it was obvious.

01:26:20

and eventually the wife just kind of saying things aren't good in our home, but being close enough that the husband invites me over and confides and begins to share things.

01:26:33

Not that he would say, Oh, I'm abusive, but he would begin to share things that are clearly abuse and the opportunity then to speak with them and to say, that's not right.

01:26:41

That's not how a godly husband is to care for his wife. That's oppression.

01:26:46

That's, that's violating the commands of Christ, et cetera, in a, in a, in a gentle fashion and beginning to, to provide that place of safety for the woman.

01:26:58

Now, maybe that for this individual, they may be a woman and they see a woman who's going through this for her to be close to that woman.

01:27:04

And at some point to ask the question, are you safe? And just watch.

01:27:11

She wants to tell you, she may not realize she's abused.

01:27:17

She may think it's entirely her fault because he's told her that for maybe 20 some years.

01:27:24

And so giving her room to begin to tell her story. I read an article just this afternoon by Anne Marie God's word in which, and she has a podcast.

01:27:36

I think it's called safe to hope. And she says she doesn't go in and tell people that they're abused, but she lets them discover it for themselves.

01:27:43

And I thought that was beautiful. So you can give to the woman a book like the emotionally destructive marriage by Leslie burning.

01:27:53

Incredibly helpful because at the beginning of this book, she has a, a test that the woman can take a series of 60, some questions that she can begin to see.

01:28:02

Is this just a bad marriage or is this an emotionally destructive marriage is abuse taking place.

01:28:08

And if the woman can begin to, to look at things like this with reasonably innocuous questions and then to see an objective standard to know, yes,

01:28:20

I am facing an abusive relationship. It's, it's very helpful. And that's where having friends, being friends, loving people well enough to enter into their life, but you can't do it as a stranger.

01:28:32

You're going to move close. A thought just popped into my head. How about if this anonymous person is married, that they start inviting this couple over for dinner and kind of observe the way they're behaving and stuff.

01:28:50

Is that a legitimate thing to suggest? Absolutely. And that's the kind of thing that works really well is, and what are you doing?

01:29:00

You're engaging in Christian community. It's what the church is supposed to do, right? And just being close enough to each other that we can help each other when we're failing.

01:29:10

And, and, and the goal isn't, well, let me just go out and condemn every abusive person. The goal is how do

01:29:16

I have that individual turn away from that, which is bringing dishonor to the name of Jesus Christ, to become an individual who's transformed by the grace and the power of God to become a

01:29:26

Godly loving husband, a Godly loving man, first off, which then should play itself out as a husband and father.

01:29:34

Okay. We have Cindy in Findlay, Ohio, who says, hello,

01:29:40

Pastor Wood and Chris. I have a friend on Facebook for a couple of years now who has dealt with serious issues with her parents as she was growing up and still has difficulty with her mother to this day.

01:29:54

I can't go into detail about what type of abuse it was, but emotional abuse still occurs even though this friend is almost 50 years of age.

01:30:04

The mother is proud, unrepentant, will not take responsibility or claim she is or has been an error in any way.

01:30:14

My friend, who I hope is listening, has been a Christian for 30 years and has tried unsuccessfully to make peace with the situation and forgive her parents for the abuse.

01:30:27

She says she has finally made peace with the fact that she cannot bring herself to forgive them because they are unrepentant and will not admit to any wrongdoing.

01:30:39

They are not Christians, by the way. I recall hearing R .C. Sproul, while teaching on forgiveness, actually say we are not required to forgive those who have sinned against us if they are unrepentant.

01:30:52

I'm just hoping that you could shed some light on this to help my friend, who has tried for so long to forgive them without success.

01:31:02

Thank you, Cindy in Findley, Ohio. That's an interesting question because there is a divide, even in Reformed Christianity, over the forgiveness issue.

01:31:14

J. Adams, the founding father of New Thetic Counseling, he wrote a book called

01:31:21

From Forgiven to Forgiving, which he taught very clearly that we are not to forgive those that do not repent.

01:31:32

But he made it clear, he did not mean by that, that we are not to love our enemies and do good for our enemies.

01:31:39

But he said that is not the same thing as forgiveness. When you're forgiving somebody, you're releasing them from a debt.

01:31:46

And therefore, it's dangerous to give a person the license to continue, not only abusing you, but many other people perhaps, because they think they're off the hook in some way.

01:32:00

And Chris Braun wrote a book echoing that, unpacking forgiveness.

01:32:07

And then on the other side of the divide, you have John MacArthur, who believes we are supposed to forgive people even if they never ask for it.

01:32:15

So that is really at the root, I think, of the question here. And it is.

01:32:22

I think that the real problem is confusing forgiveness with reconciliation.

01:32:28

Right. And that's what we run into, because we can list all of these great names that we want, and we still have

01:32:35

Ephesians 4 .32 that says, Be kind, tenderhearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ has also forgiven you.

01:32:45

There are many sins that I've committed that I don't even realize. And so therefore, I've never repented of them. And if God only forgives those sins that I've repented of, my soul is lost.

01:32:56

There's not a single individual who will ever be saved. The closest will be the thief on the cross, because he had the shortest amount of time.

01:33:04

I have a feeling, I'd have to reread Dr. Adams' book and Chris Braun's book, but I have a sense that they would agree with that, that we're not to be nitpicking about every time somebody has hurt our feelings or something, and it's a matter that we can let pass.

01:33:23

But I think that they're talking about more serious issues, like a spouse committing adultery, you know, and on and on and on we could go.

01:33:34

Somebody murdering somebody in your family, and they're laughing at you from behind prison bars, and not showing the least bit of remorse.

01:33:44

But anyway. And from that, again, I would say that I don't have to have a relationship with that person. I don't have to be reconciled.

01:33:50

I can maintain that distance, but I can also release them over to Christ. My idea of forgiveness is it's relinquishing my right to vengeance.

01:34:01

And so from that standpoint, I do forgive them. I relinquish that right to vengeance, to be able to inflict some punishment for the wrong that was done to me, even if that punishment is my opportunity to snub them.

01:34:15

But I release that. Now, in a husband -wife, the husband is still abusive.

01:34:21

She may be able to forgive him, or for this listener, the parents, she may be able to forgive them, but not necessarily have a restored relationship with them.

01:34:34

And that's okay, because the restored relationship, reconciliation requires repentance.

01:34:42

And I think if we keep that distinction, I think it helps a lot. I think a lot of times the discussion on this just conflates those two ideas, and so it gets confusing.

01:34:53

It reminded me of a woman, a very godly woman

01:35:00

I know, whose ex -husband abandoned their five children when they were very small and hid for nine years, was restored into their lives later on, and for a season won them over, poisoned them against their own mother.

01:35:25

But even when the children became of a mature age where they could recognize this, they still wanted their father and their wife, but he became so unrepentantly abusive that they had to basically say,

01:35:46

I can't cope with this anymore. And their very wise, godly mother said to her adult children, you have to respect your father, but you are not required to continue in a relationship with him as you are being perpetually used as a doormat.

01:36:07

So she said that she did not agree with them cursing at him or mocking him or insulting him, but at the same time she said, you're not required to maintain this relationship of one -sided abuse.

01:36:27

And I'm assuming you would agree with that. Yeah, that's great counsel. What a good mom. Amen. We have to go to our final break, and if anybody has a question, again, send it to chrisarnson at gmail .com,

01:36:42

and we'll be right back after these messages, so don't go away. James White of Alpha Omega Ministries here.

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That's L -Y -N -Brookbaptist .org. This is Pastor Keith Allen of Linnbrook Baptist Church reminding you that by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves.

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By the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. May the

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Going back to 2005, one of my very favorite guests on Iron Sharpens Iron is

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If you live near Franklin, Tennessee, and Franklin is just south of Nashville, maybe 10 minutes, or you are visiting this area, or you have friends and loved ones nearby, we hope you will join us some

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Greetings, this is Brian McLaughlin president of the SecureComm Group and supporter of Chris Arnzen's Iron Shopping Zion radio program.

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But today I want to introduce you to my senior pastor Doug McMasters of New High Park Baptist Church on Long Island.

01:50:10

Doug McMasters here former director of pastoral correspondence at Grace to You the radio ministry of John MacArthur.

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In the film Chariots of Fire the Olympic gold medalist runner Eric Liddell remarked that he felt

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God's pleasure when he ran. He knew his efforts sprang from ministering the word and helping others gain a deeper knowledge and love for God.

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That love starts with the wonderful news that the Lord Jesus Christ is a savior who died for sinners and that God forgives all who come to Him in repentance trusting solely in Christ to deliver them.

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I would be delighted to have the honor and privilege of ministering to you if you live in the Long Island area or Queens or Brooklyn or the

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Bronx in New York City. For details on New High Park Baptist Church visit nhpbc .com

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that's nhpbc .com you can also call us at 516 -352 -9672 that's 516 -352 -9672

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That's New High Park Baptist Church a congregation in love with each other passionate for Christ committed to learning and being shaped by God's word and delighting in the gospel of God's sovereign grace.

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I'd like to also remind you that this program is paid for in part by the law firm of Buttafuoco &

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Associates if you have a serious personal injury or medical malpractice anywhere in the

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United States please call Dan Buttafuoco of Buttafuoco & Associates at 1 -800 -NOW -HURT 1 -800 -NOW -HURT or visit his website 1 -800 -NOW -HURT .COM

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1 -800 -NOW -HURT .COM mention Iron Sharpens Iron Radio when you call

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Buttafuoco & Associates or visit their website we are now back with Vince Wood and I'd like you to use the

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F and the E of the SAFE acronym as much as we can before we run out of time and I do this training frequently and a lot of time the training is going through the

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SAFE and we can spend up to 24 hours of classroom time to prepare mentors for refugees and most of it is spent on the

01:53:55

S just really being able to understand what that is but it's important that we and some of those things that the individual who has been abused has to be able to deal with there are issues of facing and another overused word we talked about earlier was gaslighting but also trauma it seems like everything can become a trauma and I understand that but the reality is when you understand what's going to set the individual off we talk about our military personnel and one of the reasons why they will face things like post -traumatic stress disorder what we used to call shell shock is because they're living with the possibility that a bullet or a bomb may go off at any moment and so there's that always got that adrenaline that fight or flight ready to go a person in an abusive situation it's unlikely that that can have such an impact and so they have to learn how to understand and to differentiate the memory of the horrible experience from the current reality which is one of the things that Christ allows us to do is

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I can face what I'm experiencing right now recognizing the faithfulness of God David put it those hardship and those dark times because he knows that God is with him the individual who's gone through abuse has to learn what that means imagine the horrible question that you might be asked by a girl who was abused by her dad maybe sexually assaulted where was

01:55:54

God when that was happening and this is a very real question that I've been asked on numerous occasions and to help the girl to walk through and understand the presence of God and the reality of evil in this world to help them understand that that's where my counseling model comes into play that I believe that the emotions that we feel we feel based upon beliefs that we have we have and those beliefs are always informed by our thinking and when we're thinking untruth we end up believing untruth and when we believe untruth we end up having these stressful almost unbearable emotions so if they want to find healing in Christ trying to understand what it means that God is with them in the midst of all of those situations and understand the effect of the abuse well we have time for Newton's question in South Ogden, Utah and Newton asks what are some tell -tale signs before a marriage occurs when somebody might be entering into an abusive marriage even if there are no physical abuses occurring before the marriage that's wonderful story after story that I've heard of women explaining you know

01:57:34

I saw signs of it before we got married one woman tells of watching her fiancé cruelly dealing with the dog that he had and seeing demanding the absolute and beating the dog and never connecting that but that may be how he treats me is he treating her with respect in their dating relationship even in their engagement or is he beginning to control even those things does he recognize her value as an image of God does he follow

01:58:14

Ephesians 5 which not only says wives be subject to your husband but before that it says be subject to one another in the fear of Christ and that is is he supportive of her is he hearing her is he learning from her is he growing with her is he giving her a voice in the relationship and if she's finding that that's not the case she should seek counsel from people who are kind of aware and can help walk through this

01:58:39

I've heard it often repeated that you could tell the way a man is going to treat his wife by the way he treats his mother is there truth in that there's huge truth in that yep you can see that it's not 100 % but it is helpful and his sisters hmm well we are out of time

01:58:57

I want to repeat to our audience your websites first of all for the

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Providence Presbyterian Church in York Pennsylvania go to yorkpca .org yorkpca .org

01:59:11

and for Refuge Ministries go to refugeministries .com refugeministries .com

01:59:16

you have been an absolutely delightful and fascinating and informative guest Pastor Vince I look forward to your return to the show

01:59:23

I want to thank everybody who listened and I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives Jesus Christ is a far greater