How to Rise Above Abuse (Counseling Through the Bible Series) (21 page)

•
Know that God will use His Word to conform you to His character. Remember:

“Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world,
but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—
his good, pleasing and perfect will”

(R
OMANS
12:2).

E—E
XPERIENCE
the freedom of trusting God to fulfill His plan and purpose for you.
²⁸

•
It’s up to you to focus on the truth that God promises to complete His purpose for you.

•
It’s up to you to drop the mentality that “God loves me only when I’m good and rejects me when I’m bad.”

•
It’s up to you to appropriate God’s free gift of grace. Remember:

“Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you
will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus”

(P
HILIPPIANS
1:6).

Paul referred to them as “disputable matters” (Romans 14:1).

He was concerned about finger-pointing that was taking place within the church. Believers were judging each other over matters not of sin but of the conscience. One man ate meat, and another didn’t. One man considered a certain day of the week more sacred than the others; another considered them all alike. “Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind…Let us stop passing judgment on one another” (Romans 14:5,13).

The apostle further recognized that what lurked under the surface of all this judgment was pride—a “looking down” on others that caused disunity and shifted people’s focus off of spiritual matters of far greater importance. The Bible says,

“The kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking,
but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit,
because anyone who serves Christ in this way
is pleasing to God and approved by men”

(R
OMANS
14:17-18).

Only the New Testament, Not the Old, Is Valid

A
RGUMENT
:
Because the Bible says we are no longer under the law but under grace, Christians don’t need to read the Old Testament—just the New. After all, Galatians 3:25 says, “Now that faith has come, we are no longer under the supervision of the law.”

A
NSWER
:
The Bible encompasses both the Old and New Testaments—both make up the
whole
written Word of God. While Jesus fulfilled in Himself the requirements of the law given through Moses (Matthew 5:17),
God’s entire Word is vital for us today because
both
the Old and New Testaments…

— Reveal the character of God and are thus necessary to gain a complete picture of God

— Reveal how God has intervened in human life

— Reveal His purpose for us

— Reveal His plans for the future

— Reveal a validation of each other and comprise the authoritative Word of God

Even the apostle Paul, who wrote about the misuse of the Old Testament Law, stated this:

“We know that the law is good if one uses it properly”

(1 T
IMOTHY
1:8).

Polygamy Is Valid Today

A
RGUMENT
:
God blessed David and other Old Testament leaders who had multiple wives. That confirms God approved of polygamy. Those who believe in the whole Bible should be permitted to take multiple wives and enjoy polygamous relationships.

A
NSWER
:
Just because certain situations are presented in the Bible does not mean that God approved of them. Just because several suicides are reported in Scripture does not imply, “Go and do likewise!” Don’t make the mistake of assuming that God was silent about polygamous relations:

— In the first mention of marriage in the Bible, the Lord laid the foundation for the one man-one woman union. Genesis 2:24 states, “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.”

— The Bible
does not
say
wives
! Note that Genesis 2:24 is repeated in the New Testament by Jesus in Matthew 19:5 and Mark 10:7 and by Paul in Ephesians 5:31.

— The New Testament adds that to “be above reproach,” a spiritual
leader must be “the husband of but one wife”—not
wives
(1 Timothy 3:2).

— Interestingly, all countries and cultures that have their laws rooted in biblical morality require that the marriage relationship be exclusively one husband and one wife.

Note Paul’s words to the church in Corinth:

“Since there is so much immorality,
each man should have his own wife,
and each woman her own husband”

(1 C
ORINTHIANS
7:2).

Too Many, Too Young: The FLDS Polygamy Problem

Just who is in danger? Seeing children at play typically evokes warm feelings in me, but that warmth quickly turns cold if I learn that some of these children are actually
child brides.
In fact, my frequent plea is, “Can’t these children be protected?”

Any woman in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS) could conceivably be wife number 12, 13, or 14—enmeshed in a religion that celebrates polygamy. And the chilling aspect of the multiple marriages is the painful portrait of the child bride. Many young women who are given away in marriage are under age and commonly have up to ten children by the time they’re 30 years old.
²⁹

The girls are readily identifiable by their bouffant hair and baggy prairie dresses, and the boys by their dark overalls and long-sleeved shirts. This controversial cult broke away from the mainstream Mormon Church
*
and has repeatedly been the target of criminal investigations.

In April 2008, the predatory environment inside the FLDS community prompted a Child Protective Services raid and the subsequent removal of more than 400 children. The court ruled that most of the children had to be returned to their homes, but 12 sect members were
ordered to stand trial on various charges, including sexual assault and failure to report child abuse.

Raymond Jessop, who allegedly had nine wives, was the first to be tried on the charge of sexual assault of a child. He was married to a 15-year-old girl who gave birth to Jessop’s child at age 16. (Jessop was more than double her age.) In November of 2009, Jessop was convicted and sentenced to ten years in prison.
³⁰

According to the cult’s doctrine, “polygamy is
necessary
for complete salvation.”
³¹
The leader, known as the Prophet, controls every family by allocating wives. He commits further spiritual abuse by removing wives from their husbands if the Prophet feels those husbands have dishonored or disrespected him. So it is to every man’s benefit to hold the Prophet in highest esteem, because the more wives and children he has, the greater his stature—now and in eternity. And the young girls, who are treated like chattel and have no choice regarding marriage, are often forced to cohabit with elderly men or close relatives.

Although the Bible—one of the FLDS group’s four “holy books”—says, “Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities” (Romans 13:1), obviously they disregard this instruction. When one of Jessop’s young wives was in labor for several days and needed medical attention, their Prophet (once on the FBI’s top-ten fugitives list) told Jessop not to take her to a hospital. According to his journal, seized by authorities, he wrote, “I knew that the girl being 16 years old, if she went to the hospital, they could put Raymond Jessop in jeopardy of prosecution as the government is looking for any reason to come against us there.”
³²

What kind of spiritual leader would allow any young girl to suffer medically to protect an illegal polygamous person? Answer:
One who misuses his position of spiritual authority to achieve his agenda
. It’s leaders like these who will ultimately be held accountable by the God of the Bible for their illegal and indecent acts.

Jesus issued a stern warning for people like these who lead children to rebel against governmental authorities and to commit immoral acts:

“Things that cause people to sin are bound to come,
but woe to that person through whom they come.
It would be better for him to be thrown into the sea
with a millstone tied around his neck
than for him to cause one of these little ones to sin”

(L
UKE
: 17:1-2).

Baptism for the Dead Is Biblical

A
RGUMENT
:
Baptism for the dead will bring salvation to everyone for whom I am baptized and will enable me to advance in the heavenly realm.

A
NSWER
:
Those who hold to this belief claim that the apostle Paul spoke of such a practice in 1 Corinthians 15:29: “Now if there is no resurrection, what will those do who are baptized for the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why are people baptized for them?”

But look carefully at the Bible itself, at 1 Corinthians chapter 15:

— The mention of people being baptized to save the souls of the dead is found nowhere else in Scripture. In fact, this interpretation was condemned as heresy by many of the early church fathers.

— Paul wrote 1 Corinthians 15 in response to false teachers who had infiltrated the church and claimed that “there is no resurrection of the dead” (verse 12). He wrote the chapter to affirm the historical fact of the resurrection of the dead.

— In chapter 15 we find evidence that the practice of baptism for the dead is based on false teaching from false teachers:

• More than 500 eyewitnesses attested to Christ’s resurrection from the dead, most of whom were still alive at the time Paul wrote the chapter (verses 5-7).

• Ultimately, a major
inconsistency
is evident: If the false teachers did not believe in life after death, then why were people being baptized for the dead? Paul was simply saying, “If you reject the resurrection of the dead, you shouldn’t baptize for the dead. To do so is illogical!”

• Those practicing baptism of the dead were the false
teachers—not Paul or the other Christians. That is evident because Paul referred to the ones being baptized as “those” and “people”—not “I,” “you,” or “we.”

• Even for those who believe in the resurrection, the practice of baptizing someone on behalf of the dead in order to earn another person’s salvation cannot be reconciled with Scripture. The Bible says that salvation comes as a gift of God’s grace, and only through each individual’s
faith
in Christ. That is, salvation is by
faith alone
, not any work such as baptism. Ephesians 2:8-9 states, “It is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.”

The Bible clearly teaches that there are no opportunities for salvation
after
a person has died:

“
Man is destined to die once
,
and after that to face judgment
”

(H
EBREWS
9:27).

Wives Must Submit to Their Husbands, No Matter What

A
RGUMENT
:
Because God says wives are to submit to their husbands, as a wife, I must submit to whatever my husband says even if it violates my conscience. Ephesians 5:22 says, “Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord.”

A
NSWER
:
In the Bible, a “hierarchy” of submission exists to guide our decision making:

— Based on Ephesians 5:21, we should “submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.” This is
mutual submission
and includes both husbands and wives deferring to the appropriate desires of each other.

— The very next verse says, “Wives, submit to your husbands” (verse 22), which should be read with the corollary verse, “Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church” (verse 25).
However, if a husband asks a wife to rob a bank with him, she should not submit because…

— The Bible also says a Christian should “submit himself to the governing authorities” (Romans 13:1). However, if the government instructs you to gas hundreds of people (as done in Nazi Germany), you should not submit because…

— Ultimately, “We must obey God rather than men!” (Acts 5:29). One of God’s Ten Commandments states, “You shall not murder” (Exodus 20:13). Clearly the highest authority is God, next is the governing authorities, and then the husband. With all that in mind, no one should ever submit to that which is not of God.