Rescuing the forsaken from rage
Bill Bremer
The fatherless have been forsaken by their biological father. They can be rescued from the rage that comes from rejection and brought to life in the kingdom of God.
Fatherless children know something is wrong and are angry at the absent father. He is not dead, but he is not there for them. The anger becomes a grudge that eats away inside. Since they feel bad, they act bad.
When they are little children, the fatherless act out their anger on their mother and those around them. As they get older, they seek to sate their yearning for nurturing love in more damaging ways. Some escape to cyberspace. Many turn to alcohol, drugs and licentious sex. Their rage remains and their craving unsatiated. The rejected keep their relationships shallow because they fear more rejection. Deep feelings are scary. They protect themselves by adopting the “I don’t care about anything or anybody very much” attitude. Thus, dysfunctional families are perpetuated.
Pagans can’t rescue the captives from rage, so they ignore cultural bondage. According to the politically correct view, disintegration of the family is normal and not something to be concerned about. In fact, disintegration serves liberal purpose. Fractured nuclear families tend to depend on the state as liberals feel they should. So, the already alarming numbers of forsaken children increase. The children suffer.
By political correctness, we are restrained from embarrassing anyone about their sexual preferences or behavior. So, we use euphemisms for what the Bible puts in black and white. In the impersonal secular language of the U.S. Census Bureau, “living arrangement” has replaced “family household.” Pagans call fornication premarital sex. Fornicators are known as significant others. Absent impregnators are called fathers. While our society pretends all is well, the children suffer.
We who love and obey Christ Jesus can help set the captives free by proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom in word and deed.
The place to start is in our own families. Prevention is the best cure. We can prevent cultural captivity by raising our children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Thus, they learn to discern good from evil, regardless of what it is called. Godly children honor their father and mother (Matthew 15:4). They love and obey their parents (Colossians 3:20). When Mr. Slick or Miss. Seductive comes around and sex drives get stirred up, a still small voice tells them, “danger, danger, danger.”
Every one of us can help rescue cultural captives by speaking the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15). Captives need to be given hope for a better way. Most know about Jesus but have never heard the gospel of the kingdom that is and is to come. Young fatherless men view Jesus with distain and soon forsake their momma’s church. Fatherless women find acceptance and comfort in church and in Jesus but ignore His call to obey Him and to live right and godly lives. Only the light of regeneration can rescue them from their cultural bondage. When God turns the light on inside them they find life in His kingdom. There they find their Father in heaven, Messiah Jesus ruling with grace and truth and the Holy Spirit within. Then the fatherless can forgivie the absent father and be set free of resentment, hate and bitterness and be able to walk in the light.
John and Paula Sanford give us wonderful insights. Here are a few on forgiveness:
Christian families (or any family) cannot afford the luxury of even one grudge. Whatever is not forgiven will work like a cancer to eat out the vitality of all the family life. Whatever is not forgiven will color like a drop of dye all other seemingly unrelated areas. … A grudge held is like sand thrown into well-oiled machines.
But the trouble about forgiveness is that we think we have when we haven’t. We may say the words, but who can make his heart follow? Who can know whether it really has? …We fool ourselves and have no awareness of that fact. We say, “No matter,” or “That’s okay,” and it definitely is not okay. Paul wrote “… without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins” (Heb. 9:22 RSV). Whatever hurts us registers in the heart and demands a response. The mind and lips may be convinced and say, “It’s okay,” but the heart knows differently.
We cannot get at our heart to make it change. This fact alone guarantees our need of the Savior. Only He can change the heart, and this He does only by fulfilling the legal demands of the law in His body on the cross. We may say, “It’s okay” or even the good words “Iforgive you,” only to discover ourselves yelling, “And you did that same thing last week!” Or closed doors in the heart manifest in icy behavior while our mind is still convinced forgiveness has been accomplished. Taunt lines in the face and hard eyes tell others the truth. Forgiveness is no easy matter. We cannot read our own hearts to know whether it has really happened or not.
Here then are some simple guidelines. One, if you have not made the hurt a matter of specific confession of resentment and hate in prayer, it is not done no matter what you think you feel. Only Jesus can sprinkle the heart with blood (Heb. 10:22). Only on the cross is anything ever finished. If it has not been relinquished in prayer, it is lodged in the never-forget-anything banks of our computer, waiting to be recalled to action somewhere sometime. Two, by their fruits you shall know them, so watch for the tells.
“Dis-ease” in relationships that formerly were more open and warm. Dreams of violence or of hurt to the other, even dreams where you are the hero saving the one who hurt you, are signals of a “dis-eased” heart. Three, impairments to health. Not every physical disease crops from seeds of hate, but physical discomforts along with other signs are a pretty good barometer of inner storms. …
When we discover that a seed of resentment is sending taproots into our heart, then we must enter into a discipline of forgiveness. Here we have found the greatest, most damaging ignorance. Too may Christians have not yet know how to let the Lord cleanse the heart in the art of forgiveness—or even that there is a desperate need and a work of cleansing required. First, we need to identify the resentment. We need to face the facts squarely. No euphemizing, explaining away, excusing, or painting with whitewash. If something was don which should have hurt us, we must not listen to our noble feelings when they send up no-hurt signals. It is far wiser to assume that hurt is there. If we have figured out logically why the other did what he did, and excused him, that is fihne; it is a good exercise, but it is only mental, and most often our heart is not there at all. Again, it is wiser to assume that the heart does not agree with such surface magnanimity. If we assume wrongly, and the heart has not retained anger, exercise of prayer to cleanse the heart cannot harm. But to assume the heart has no angers and fail to pray, can only be a lazy gamble that can bear no fruit other than the surprises of dismay later.
Therefore, identifying angers does not mean being certain they are there, or not there, but being certain of what events could have produced resentment. It means to face history squarely, believing the worst of the heart. Looking at events, remembering in detail what happened, is not the same as recovering the feelings of the moment. If we happen also to discover what we actually felt, that is helpful, but neither most important nor necessary. What is important is fact. Given the facts, we can say to Jesus, “I don’t know what I actually felt, Lord, but you do. Take every anger out of me to the cross. Don’t let me hold any resentment, whether I am aware of them or not.” …
Sin and resentment separate. But the blood of Jesus cleanses us of all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9).
Once we are in a position to receive the gift, forgiveness is abundantly simple. We simply receive by faith that Jesus has accomplished it for us. Again, if we still think forgiveness is something we do, we are neither in position to receive the gift nor have we died to our noble, forgiving self. …Forgiveness, however, is not yet complete. More is required of us. In 1 Peter 3:9 we are told, “Not rendering evil for evil, or railing for railing: but contrariwise blessing; knowing that ye are thereunto called, that you should inherit a blessing.” SOURCE: Restoring the Christian Family, Logos International, 1979.
Through such forgiveness, Messiah Jesus rescues the forsaken captives from rage.
Paul wrote about this great rescue to the saints in Colossae,
“we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, 10 to lead a life worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God. 11 May you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy, 12 giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in light.
13 He has delivered us from the dominion of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
15 He is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation; 16 for in him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities-all things were created through him and for him. 17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the first-born from the dead, that in everything he might be pre-eminent. 19 For in him all the fulness of God was pleased to dwell, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. 21 And you, who once were estranged and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, 22 he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and irreproachable before him, 23 provided that you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel which you heard, which has been preached to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister. Colossians 1 RSV
Rage is one of the primary bondages wroght by the tyranny of darkness. God our Father rescues all who trust and obey Christ Jesus from the tyranny
