In part 1 and part 2 we have seen how a parent can destroy a child’s faith and humility by not protecting that child’s soul through training and discipline. Let us now examine a practical example that can result from this negligence.
Last month KPRC news had a report of a Houston man who had stabbed his wife more than 119 times and beat his 13-year-old stepson repeatedly with a skillet. Apparently the man’s wife charged at him with a knife and he retaliated. As a result of the confrontation the stepson tried to help his mother only to be beaten to death by the stepfather with a skillet. This is one of many stories that should refute the theory that guns kill people. People have been killing each other since the beginning of time, even before the invention of the gun. The Bible gives us the source of this type of crime, the human heart (Jer. 17:9).
The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? (KJV Jer. 17:9)
Killings will not cease by abolishing guns, since guns are not the root cause of the problem. The wicked heart will find other means of killing through knives, skillets, baseball bats, swords, fires, bombs, poisoning and such.
Although psychology may teach that it is necessary to recall the problem to deal with it, the Bible deals with the root cause of the problem. The root cause of such actions as those in our featured story is the sinful human nature controlling the soul of an individual. To avoid such sin nature tendencies parents are responsible to develop spiritual, thinking, and social skills in their children. As guardian of their child’s soul parents are responsible for the early training and orientation of the child to all the aspects of life, the greatest of which is respect of authority. Such parental responsibility would include teaching their children the importance of family values, especially respect for authority in every area of life. Respect for authority will instill the humility that will help avoid sin nature control.
When a parent neglects to fulfill these responsibilities for their child, that child can become bitter and angry in the formative years. Eventually that anger leaves them but surfaces every time there is a problem with any person in the human race, as our story vividly illustrates (Col 3:21).
Fathers, provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged. (KJV Col 3:21)
Anger is an emotional sin that serves as a motivation for several other sins such as jealousy, bitterness, being cruel, hateful, implacable, revengeful, and having self-pity. The behavior exhibited by the couple in our story is the function of arrogant and angry individuals who never learned to suppress their emotional sinful tendencies, such as anger. Thus, their problem was their sinful nature and giving in to that sin nature.
Therefore, those children who survive soul abuse without God's help will accumulate problems throughout their life that will have devastating results in adulthood, such as those in our story. A surviving unbeliever of soul abuse will build up so much scar tissue in their soul that it will be almost impossible for them to believe in Christ. The destruction of their faith from soul abuse makes it difficult to trust again. The believer, on the other hand, who survives soul abuse grows up to reject the Biblical truth and the very spiritual dynamics which can clear out their soul of garbage.
It is unfortunate that an unbeliever who lives using such defense mechanisms as suppression, dissociation and denial never has any true happiness in life. Such an individual can only receive the cheap substitutes of life that Satan’s world system offers. Without the foundation of eternal life through faith in Jesus Christ there is no solution to the problems that overtake the human race in this world. Life for an unbeliever becomes a matter of the buildup of more and more problems with no solutions.
For the believer who survives soul abuse there are solutions to the problems of life, but the link to those solutions is always their salvation in Christ and the developing of their spiritual dynamics afterwards.
Those spiritual dynamics that are available to use as permanent solutions to the problems of life begin with the increase of God’s biblical principles in the stream of consciousness of our mind.
The past problems that may have developed in childhood do not hinder the understanding and application of God’s biblical spiritual solutions. God has a splendid future for a believer not only in time, but in eternity. We do have to motivate ourselves to overcome our sinful nature. Our motivation is impossible without having a scale of values. The learning of those values comes from the teaching of God’s Word consistently under a qualified Pastor/Teacher.
Therefore, although parents may fail in their responsibility of protecting their child’s soul, the Lord Jesus Christ will never fail a member of His family. As an adult, a victim of soul abuse can decide to use God’s solutions to overcome the garbage built-up of childhood. He does not fail us, but we are the ones who fail him when we refuse his solutions. We should avoid blaming others for our own failures, since this is the beginning of psychosis. It is never the will of God for a believer who is the victim of soul abuse to remain in that status, but to overcome it through God’s divine solutions.
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