Abuse

In recent weeks there has been a lot of coverage in the news media of many counts of child sex abuses under the framework of the UK football associations and coaching staff. It transpires that many have hidden these abuses for years partly because they felt they would not be believed, or were too embarrassed to tell their story to the police. I have some thoughts on the matter which you may or may not feel are connected. These are my opinions only.

These abuses did not happen overnight, or even in the recent past. We have been getting news of similar abuses drip fed involving youth groups, and even major churches. Every time I hear the problem being discussed by so called experts, they always skate round their own responsibilities. This is especially true of our politicians. It tells me that we are seeing the tip of the iceberg and there is a lot more to come.

If you are old enough to remember the lifestyle and morality of 40 years ago or even more, you will have witnessed a massive change in our attitude to sex in all its forms. Think about the way that sexual freedom has been advocated and manipulated. Magazines, newspapers, film and TV have all sold us the lie that love is sex, and is a commodity. We have lost the meaning of marriage, and the pure love of a couple in the form of a man and his wife. Our nation has turned its back on morality at the hands of the liberal agenda of free love which was pushed in the 1960s and has only become worse as time passed. There is an old saying, “when you open the floodgates, you can’t tell the water where to go”, or as the Bible says, “We have sown the wind and are reaping the whirlwind.”

Who is responsible for this decline? Is it down to one person or group? No, the issue lies at the door of the generation who turned a blind eye as attitudes changed, and no one wanted to be called a prude, or unenlightened. We swallowed the lie of the devil that everything would be ok. After all, the experts were in control. Now, 40 or 50 years later, we act surprised when one abuse is reported after the other and each one seems worse than the last. Let me ask a personal question. What do you see or think when you watch the TV dramas and soaps, or go to the movies, or read the salacious celebrity newspaper gossip? Have we become so used to the blatant sex scenes that we no longer bother that they are there? Have our consciences been seared with a hot iron so that all sensitivity is gone? Would we think of making a complaint?

Can you honestly say there is no connection between our loss of national morality, and the increase of sexual abuses of all kinds? When morals started to drop on the UK TV, a lady called Mary Whitehouse stood up and warned us of the consequences of this increase of sex scenes on TV, and what did society do? They laughed and said she was a crank. The truth is she was right. Can you honestly say she was wrong? The Christian way of life is sneered at, ridiculed, and dismissed as irrelevant, but God’s Word tells us clearly that sexual abuse is wrong.

Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practise homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.

1 Corinthians 6:9,10

The Spirit clearly says that in the last times some will turn away from what we believe. They will obey spirits that tell lies. And they will follow the teachings of demons. Those teachings come through people who tell lies and trick others. These evil people cannot see what is right and what is wrong. It is like their conscience has been destroyed with a hot iron.

1 Timothy 4:1,2