Sexual Molestation
Causes, Consequences & Cures

I probably have spent more time in the last year or two working with adults who were molested as children than any other time in my life. I spoke on this subject a number of years ago in Virginia for the first time and was surprised at the response. A number of people stood and said publicly that they understood what I was describing and that the things that I had said were true. They appreciated what I gave from God's word so far as responsibility and accountability because, as I will develop, people that have been molested as children generally have a very distorted view of themselves. And, they have a very distorted view of their relationship with God, their value before God, and they find it very difficult to function comfortably in intimate relationships—primarily in marriage.

Part of the reason for going over this is that I think it is really critical that we as parents recognize the fact that there is always the possibility that our child will be at risk. You would probably be surprised at some of the people/relatives that have molested children. Therefore I think that all of us as parents need to wake up and realize that it's our responsibility to see to it, at least do what we can to see to it, that this doesn't happen.

Some Consequences

I think we need to be aware of some of the consequences, the results of having been molested. Because a person who has been molested, be they male or female, will live with it all of their life. They certainly can have victory in their life. They can overcome some of the effects. They can, maybe, even at times, give up some of the feelings that they have about themselves and the concept that they have of God and their relationship with God. And they can certainly improve. Some people do better than others at coming to the place where they can trust and rest in authority figures in their life, but almost all of them will to some degree always struggle with authority figures in their lives. If nothing else, they will have flashbacks at times when they will struggle with it.

I want to go over this subject because there may be those here who are struggling. Maybe you're struggling and have never told anybody. You've never talked about it (and I'll expand on that a little as we go on). I hope that I can be of some encouragement and comfort to you. And, if you're one who is a husband or wife to one who was molested as a child, then I hope to expand your understanding of reasons why your spouse reacts or acts the way they do at times. Because sometimes if a person doesn't realize that maybe a spouse has been molested, or they don't understand the consequences of that happening in their life, they are really perplexed at why the person reacts the way they react. To begin with, I would like to look quickly at four passages of scripture.

I Timothy 3:2 A Bishop then, must be blameless, the husband of one wife, temperate, sober minded, of good behavior, hospitable, able to teach.

1 Peter 5:8 Be sober, be vigilant, for your adversary, the devil as a roaring lion, goes about seeking whom he may devour.

I believe that it's really important, again as I said earlier, that we as parents are awake, that we understand. Every now and then I am a little shocked when I realize that there are people who somehow think that because they are married to Christians, or their children are Christians, or we function together primarily as Christians, that therefore things that are common to other people (negative things, bad things, sin) are not going to happen among us. That's not true. If you think that because you have accepted Jesus Christ as your Savior, that somehow you are beyond temptation of the things that are categorized as the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, that's not so. Every one of us here has the potential of doing the worst thing that any human being on the face of the earth has the potential of doing. And that's why we're told not to make "provision for the flesh to fulfil the lusts thereof." And that's why we exhort people not to take on the attitudes, the activities, that the world finds almost necessary for them to survive the kind of life that they have, because it's not really life, its a way of death.

In Ephesians 6:4 and Colossians 3:21, fathers are exhorted to "bring up their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord." All things being equal, it is the responsibility of the father to be vigilant in taking care and providing for his children. If you don't have a husband and you are raising children by yourself, which is often the case today, then obviously you're going to have to step into that gap and try to be vigilant.

The magnitude of the problem of molestation of children, and adults molested as children, is unknown. The last statistics that I have, and they're old statistics, are that 20% of women and an unknown percentage of men (because very little tracking is done of boys) have been molested. This represents a tremendous amount of heartache and pain.

I think that most people assume that that's something that only men do to girls and boys, and that women don't commit this type of sin or crime, but it's not true. I think our society is increasingly aware of the fact that mothers sometimes molest children, fathers molest children as well as mothers, sisters sometimes molest younger brothers, as well as older brothers molesting younger sisters.

The mental and emotional pain and trauma of the experience of being molested does a tremendous amount of damage, and causes a tremendous amount of pain in the life of a person, and it doesn't stop just because they grow up. (We could use "abused" or we could use "molested," sometimes it's physical abuse, sometimes it's solely sexual abuse, which we generally consider "molestation," and sometimes it's both. If it's both, it's worse. The longer it continues, it's worse. The more involved it is, it's worse)

Cures

There are cures. I believe that the cures that are really cures are found in God's word, the Bible, and in the person's commitment to accept and believe what God says about them, about Himself, and about the relationship with which they struggle (which is generally the relationship of husbands and wives and oftentimes parents and children). A high percentage of the marriages into which we are brought to intervene, where the problems rise to the level where someone else is brought in to try to be of help—in a high percentage of those marriages, one or both of the spouses have been molested as children.

Definition

Let me give a definition of a molested person that is probably a little different. I don't know if it would match the legal definition. As I'm using the phrase "molested person," it's anyone under the age of 16 who is convinced that they should give (they are talked into it) or is forced to give sexual pleasure to another who is approximately 3 or more years older than they are. The greater the age difference, the more responsible the predator, and the more damage it does to the victim (the molested person). The more important the predator is in the mind of the victim, the greater damage it does. Obviously, a person that is important, say to a little girl, could be an older brother, a cousin, a father, an uncle, a grandfather, or a close friend of the family. Sometimes it could be a schoolteacher or someone in the medical field (a nurse or doctor), a police officer, a judge, in other words, someone that they should trust, or someone to whom they should submit. Anyone that a child would normally trust can be a person that could molest them. Please don't think that it couldn't happen in your family, because it can.

Causes

What are the causes? Why does the predator do it, and why does the victim allow it? In some cases adults have said that they are sure their daughter or son would tell them. Please don't count on it because children almost never tell. It's the kind of thing that if it happens to a child, because of what it does to them emotionally and psychologically, they're kind of "locked in" so they don't tell. In some cases the person that's doing the damage, the predator, tells them "don't tell." In some cases there are threats made about what will happen if they do tell, and sometimes if children do tell they're not believed.

There are several things that contribute to a child being molested. I think number one is a father and a mother who do not get along. Godliness is profitable, so in a husband and wife relationship it's profitable for everyone in the family if you get along. Because if you don't, you're going to create a child that is insecure. And generally, because you're caught up in your own problems, you're not going to give the attention that your children need at a given time. That can produce a victim or a predator. A family that goes one step further and becomes a broken home—not only do you not get along but you've split—you've gone in opposite directions—will wind up with children that are insecure, that lack attention and who feel responsible for the breakdown in the marriage even though they are not.

Oftentimes if the father is too involved outside of the home and is disconnected from what is going on in the family circle, he is not giving the attention, the direction, and the affection that children need in order to grow up with a wholesome concept of themselves. To grow up without the kind of relationships that they should have with other people means there will be problems. Maybe the father is involved outside of the home because of his hobbies, or his work, or maybe he's in Christian assembly activities. He might be doing good things, but he's doing too many of those good things, and he's creating a deprivation and a lack in the home environment of his time, attention, affection and direction. This can contribute to a child being molested. The same thing can happen with a mother.

If the mother is too involved outside the home, she could be involved in a number of things. She could be involved in hobbies, maybe she is into fitness, maybe she is working, and maybe she just spends her time driving around the country looking at the scenery. It could be any number of things. There are also cases where wives have been outside the home carrying on an affair. It leaves the children unprotected. They are not receiving the direction, attention and affection that they should be receiving from their mother.

Another thing that can happen that creates the same thing is a mother or a father that are completely focused on themselves and their own problems. The interesting thing about this situation is that sometimes in working with people where that was the case, I find that they were molested as children themselves. So they are struggling with this thing in their own mind and it's consuming them. The net result is that they are sapping all of the energy out of the family and soaking it up themselves. The children are kind of spinning around in their own environment and the father and mother are sucking all of the attention and energy from the family to themselves. The children, again, feel insecure, sometimes they feel responsible, sometimes they feel unaccepted, and they certainly are not getting the love, the affection, and the direction that they should be getting as they grow up and develop. Because they lack an adequate amount of these three—love, affection, and direction—they become vulnerable to the approach of a molester.

Sometimes this is the product of past emotional problems caused by such things as the parent having been molested, physically abused, or injured in an accident, or something of that nature. Sometimes a father or mother struggles with an ongoing chronic physical problem and they just suck all the attention into themselves. Financial problems sometimes create this condition in the home.

Competition within the home is another thing that often contributes to either being a predator or being a victim. Favoritism or adversely comparing siblings can contribute to the problem. Outsiders being brought into the home and displacing birth children, when the parents are trying to reach out and help, can cause the problem. Competition between parents can create a problem environment. In other words, anything that creates an insecure environment within the home where the child is being raised can contribute to his/her being either a predator or a victim of child molestation.

The best gift that a father can give his children is to love their mother. The best gift a mother can give her children is to love their father. The best gift that parents can give to their children is to walk in God's order, relevant to their relationship with each other and their relationship with the world outside.

Another cause for these problems is a lack of supervision. Again, I have heard and I know that there are some parents that think that these kind of things don't happen in Christian homes, or they don't happen in Christian assemblies. I have heard people say, "It's certainly nice to be in a Christian assembly where we can just let our children run and have fun and know that there are not going to be any problems." That's not true. It's foolish to think that Christian young people wouldn't do this kind of thing. It's foolish to think that if it happens, your children will talk to you. They probably will not. Its foolish to think that these kinds of things don't happen between children and their relatives—siblings, aunts and uncles, grandparents, fathers and mothers. The molester is generally a relative or someone the victim should be able to trust.

A major cause on the part of the predator is a need within that person, a need for attention, approval and appreciation. Generally speaking, most people that become predators find it difficult to relate to people of a comparable age—not always, but most generally. Within the predator could be bitterness, anger, resentment, an inability to deal with his own sexuality, a general lack of confidence in his ability to relate with people of a comparable age, so he takes advantage of someone that is younger. Almost always it comes out of a family environment that is not what it should be. If you look at what is happening in the world in which we live, that is surely true.

If you look into the background of those who are homosexual or lesbian, generally, you will find that they come from a family environment that is not what God said a family should be. Often you will find that they became victims at a very young age.

So we come back to the fact that Godliness is profitable unto all things, having the promise not only of the life that now is, but of that which is to come (I Timothy 4:8). Each of us is to be sober and to be vigilant. We're to look around, we're to look for indicators.

Fathers are to bring up their children, and are not to provoke them to anger. Oftentimes, children brought up in an environment where the father is maybe not sexually abusive but he is verbally abusive will have problems. Maybe he is short tempered and that will contribute to feelings of insecurity and a lack of acceptance. This sets the child up to be vulnerable to the approaches of a molester or to become a molester as he/she begins to mature. Fathers are told:

Ephesians 6:4, Do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

Colossians 3:21, Do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged.

Children can come to the place where they can't deal with the discouragement and insecurity of life in an appropriate way. Life is more than they can handle because they don't experience the love, the acceptance, the appreciation, and the security that God intended they receive from their parents. Because of this lack they are unable to develop and mature physically and sexually as they should.

As a substitute for love, acceptance, appreciation, and security, children may submit themselves to the attention of a molester and become a victim. On the other hand, they may force their attention on a younger or smaller person and become a molester. If they become victims of molestation, they are introduced to sexual stimulation at too young an age and they will struggle with it for the rest of their lives. On the other hand if they become a predator, they will struggle with the guilt of their actions for the rest of their life, unless, they accept God’s forgiveness. That brings me back to consequences.

More Consequences

Abused children will often withdraw into themselves, sometimes it can be detected, sometimes it can't be detected very easily. They are introduced as a child to sexual feelings and sexual stimulation that they shouldn't have to deal with at that age. They feel guilty, dirty, responsible, and ashamed. (If there is really shame or guilt or if the person is actually "dirty," then they have to have had some way to stop the process and the ability and the knowledge to stop the process, or they are not accountable!) The child will generally draw into himself. They want to hide and sometimes you will see that. Maybe a child is very outgoing and open and all of a sudden he/she becomes very reserved. If that happens, it's a good idea to try to figure out what is going on. Children may withdraw from their peers, or on the other hand, they may become aggressive or angry. They may begin to act out because they are struggling with what is going on inside of them. Sometimes they begin to flaunt their sexuality. They may feel shame and withdraw and at the same time feel like everyone knows their terrible secret. Whenever someone looks at them, they say to themselves, —They know what I am and what I've done." Again, whether it's guilt, anger or shame, it's as though everyone knows. Other children may realize that nobody knows, but they feel that if others did know, "They wouldn't have anything to do with me."

So they are caught in the position where either they feel everyone knows, so whenever anyone looks at them they are dirt because of all of the things that they accept responsibility for, or they think that nobody knows and they dare not tell anyone, because if anyone did know, then that would be the end for them.

When the child grows up and becomes an adult, there are several feelings that these experiences in life will tend to create.

They find it difficult, if not impossible, to trust God. In addition, they struggle with "Am I really saved? Did I really accept the Lord as my Savior? Was I really honest with God when I did ask him to save me? Did He really accept me?" Some have asked the Lord over and over again to save them. But they can’t seem to trust Him because they don't trust anyone (or at least any authority figure), and so they struggle with their acceptance by God.

They don't trust God, so consistently, when they marry they don't trust their husband, or if it's a man, he has difficulty trusting his wife. They don't trust authority figures at any level, whether it's in the church or in the government.

And again, I'm not saying that everyone experiences all of this, or to the same degree. The ripples go on and on and it affects not only the next generation but also the relationship between husband and wife and it keeps on going. Some feel they are no good and that they can't do anything right. And sometimes, particularly with women, they can't get anything clean enough. They become obsessed with everything being orderly, and in its right place, clean, polished, and "spic and span," and they can't get it clean enough. Other people may go the other way thinking, "I'm bad, it's dirty, and it doesn't make any difference, because I'm no good anyway." But generally, they don't feel like they can do anything right. Some live in fear that others will find out. I know of people that have been told by parents as well as by the perpetrator, "Don't ever tell. If you ever tell, people will never accept you, people won't believe you, people won't accept you, people won't forgive you, no one will ever have anything to do with you if you ever tell." Again, here is a child growing up, maturing, and he/she are struggling with all of this.

If it's been real severe, maybe a combination of molestation and abuse at the same time, they may not recall a lot of things. The mind has the ability to, as it were, draw a curtain across certain events and the victim doesn't recall them. Some people lose touch with reality. They live in a fantasy world, everything is not very real, and they are not dealing with life as it is. Some people stop communicating, other people stop communicating intelligently. Often they become withdrawn, even from very close friends. Sometimes if a person hasn't had recall and all of a sudden recall comes, they begin to draw away from you. I would hope that every husband and every wife could have the ability to openly talk with each other about terrible things that happened early in their life. I believe its healthy. I believe it's in the best interest of both and of their relationship. (This is assuming both can be open and accepting of each other regardless of what their early life’s experiences are.) It helps the husband have better understanding, if it's the wife, of why his wife reacts the way she does in certain situations.

Oftentimes when people have sexual dysfunction of one kind or another, it's rooted in some form of molestation. Certainly if a husband doesn't know it, or the wife doesn't realize it, then they are not going to be able to work with it or deal with it having any real significant degree of empathy.

As a child, the victim—often because he/she is afraid and because it makes him/her feel dirty, ashamed, guilty and responsible—won't tell. So when he/she becomes an adult, he/she begins to feel like a hypocrite. Sometimes he/she begins to doubt his/her sincerity with God. We get back to the question, am I really saved? If you believe there is a heaven and you believe there is a hell, and if you believe that if you didn't ask Jesus Christ to come into your heart with sincerity and truth, then perhaps you haven't accepted Christ as your personal Savior and He hasn't accepted you, and then you're going to die and go to hell and yet you're not sure whether you were sincere. Obviously, they begin to doubt their sanity, and sometimes they begin to act as if they are not sane.

Almost always, victims will have difficulty moving very close in any kind of an intimate relationship. Until they come to the place where they will open up and share what happened and allow God to help them reevaluate what happened, then they won't be able to come very close because they don't want anyone to know what they (in their mind) really are. They often play on the idea that if they weren't as terrible as they feel they are, they would have done something to get the molestation stopped, because they think they could have done something. Generally, they are viewing their conduct as a child through the eyes of an adult—with all the options adults see.

As an adult, they look back on their childhood and see a lot of things that happened to them. Probably there were a lot of things they felt (as a child) like they were forced to do that they really didn't want to do. As an adult they feel they could have stopped what was going on by telling somebody, but they didn't. And so as an adult, they have very little sympathy for the child that was in a bad situation. Here's something that compounds it:

The fact that a person was introduced to sexual stimulation and engaged in it at the age level that they were and they enjoyed it, compounds the problem. They think that if they weren't bad, then they wouldn't have enjoyed it. Possibly if they enjoyed it, they even went back for more. Maybe it was an uncle or someone that held them on their lap or cuddled them and stimulated them sexually while they held them and it was pleasurable, so they went back for more. I have had people tell me that it wasn't abuse or molestation because they went back and they didn't have to. Their perspective is not accurate—but it is their perspective as an adult.

When an older, responsible, knowledgeable person introduces something to a child who doesn't understand and happens to enjoy it, then the older person, the adult, is the responsible person. That can easily be the case, particularly if the overall home environment is uncomfortable.

There is a principle stated by the apostle Paul that every adult who was molested as a child needs to believe.

1 Corinthians 13:11 "When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things."

It is difficult as an adult to have empathy and compassion for the child you once were, because as an adult we think differently. As an adult, we see many options that seem so simple to implement and we judge ourselves as children through adult eyes. We need to see the child we were through the eyes of God. A child can only "speak, understand," and "think" as a child. If you were a victim—you need to have compassion on the child you were.

Back to what I was saying about causes, if the overall environment is uncomfortable, then children are probably more likely to go back to the person that brings some degree of pleasure in their life. If they have had this kind of sexual attention as a child, then as an adult, they will almost always insist that they were bad because they enjoyed something that for a knowledgeable adult would have been sin. Because they received sexual pleasure at an early age, they may even have fantasized a lot about sexual pleasures and sexual encounters. They probably engaged in a significant amount of self-stimulation, and they may consider that to be a terrible thing, even though it really isn't. They may have been introduced to a lot of visual stimulation. There have been situations where individuals were introduced to pornography through magazines, books, videos, or movies at a very tender age.

Many times, parents, in order to protect themselves, or to protect the perpetrator, have told children that they (the children) were —asking for it.— In some cases, the perpetrators will deny the fact that it was really molestation. Even worse, in some cases, they will deny the fact that it even happened, telling the victim that he/she is just imagining things, making up things, or trying to get attention. Oftentimes the molester will try to convince the child that he/she (the child) wanted it, he/she asked for it, and he/she enjoyed it; therefore, it is the child's fault. So as time goes on, victims becomes increasingly convinced of the fact that they are vile, wicked, dirty, unlovable, shameful. They think they are a hypocrite, they don't trust anyone, they are afraid to get close to people because people will find out, and they are sure that if people found out, they would have nothing to do with them.

Or to take a different approach to it, they were used, they were abused, they were taken advantage of, and therefore no one is ever going to take advantage of them again. And so you end up with the same result, they are not getting close to anyone either. Either way, it becomes virtually impossible for them to rest in God's love and their relationship with him. For the wife, it could become virtually impossible for her to have trust in her husband as well as trust in God. For a man, he may build up a tremendous amount of disrespect for women, and again, an inability to rest in God's love, an inability to trust authority figures, and an inability to trust his wife. So when they become adults, having been sexually mistreated as children, often they are depressed, they have marital problems, and they have mental problems. Another sad fact is that, often the molested child becomes a molesting adult and the process repeats itself. It's a bad situation. It's a lose-lose situation.

The Solution

The solution comes in helping a person accept the fact that there must be authority, or capacity and responsibility in order for there to be accountability. Almost everyone that I have talked to who is really struggling with this has a flaw in their concept of those three things: authority, responsibility, and accountability. They fail to realize that as a child they did not have authority or capacity. Not having authority and capacity, they didn't and don’t have responsibility for what happened to them. Not being responsible, they are not going to be held accountable by God. God doesn't hold them accountable, God doesn't view them as being accountable, and any right thinking adult wouldn't either.

But, if you're an adult who has been molested as a child and you're thinking about the child that you were, I will almost guarantee you that you will tend to blame yourself for what took place. You will tend to feel responsible in some way for what took place. If you received any pleasure from it, you are sure that the fact that you received pleasure from the stimulation proves the fact that you are a bad person because you think you wouldn't have received pleasure doing such a terrible thing unless you were a bad person. It is vitally important to realize that in order to be responsible for something, the person must have the capacity and the authority to control the situation.

It is not necessary to physically force someone in order to be in control of the situation. We tell our children not to accept candy from strangers because most parents are concerned that if a stranger comes up to a child and is friendly and nice and maybe offers the child a piece of candy or a ride to or from school, the child may never be seen again. We realize that the stranger is using something that tastes good, something that is pleasurable, and he/she is using that to entice the child into a situation where he/she can take advantage of the child. So, just because a person was enticed, rather than forced, doesn't mean that they had control, capacity, or the authority to deal with the situation. If they had capacity, they would have demonstrated that by saying that they didn't want the candy and would have run away, and they wouldn't have had a problem. So there are things that we can teach our children, encouragement we can give them, to help them prevent the problem before it happens, and that gives them capacity.

One of the aspects of capacity is knowledge, and if a child has knowledge, then that gives him/her some capacity. Those who have authority or capacity, and therefore, responsibility, are going to be held accountable by God. There is a passage of scripture that to me, if I were an adult who had been involved in molesting a child, would scare the daylights out of me. It is in Matthew 18:6; whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he was drowned in the sea. Oftentimes those who are victims become prostitutes, lesbians or gays. Those lifestyles are all sinful. But in many cases, those who are there are there primarily because some adult took advantage of them in some very, very, vile way as either children or young adults. One of the things I used to do when I worked in the prison was to ask the homosexual men that I had an opportunity to talk with, how they got started in that lifestyle. At that time, if I remember correctly, all but one of the men that I asked said that someone "turned them out" when they were a child, and that that experience started them down that road.

Again, one of the things that is hardest to deal with in an adult is that adults who were molested as children tend to see themselves as having been responsible, but they were not and are not. Often the molester tries to make them feel responsible, but they're not. There is no way that that could be. Often the molester tries to make them feel that they asked for it, therefore, they are responsible, and that can't be.

Let me share some scripture references that support the concept of authority, responsibility, and accountability that I have been talking about.

The following references support the fact that parents have authority—we teach children that adults should be obeyed:

Ephesians 6:1-2 Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Honor your father and mother," which is the first commandment with promise:

Colossians 3:20 Children, obey your parents in all things, for this is well pleasing to the Lord.

Leviticus 19:32 'You shall rise before the gray headed and honor the presence of an old man, and fear your God: I am the LORD.

Proverbs 16:31 The silver-haired head is a crown of glory, if it is found in the way of righteousness.

The following passages indicate that the one with authority is held accountable:

The following passages represent the fact that accountability comes with knowledge:

The fact is that the Bible makes it clear that children are very limited in knowledge and therefore, very limited accountability. It is important to remember whether evaluating ourselves as a child or evaluating our children:

1. Look in the maternity ward of the hospital—all babies look the same—in God’s sight THEY ARE the same.
2. Spiritually they remain the same as any other child—until they are saved
3. After salvation—naturally, physically, sexually—they are still the same.
4. They must be "socialized"—taught manners, etc., or they are not nice to be around.

There are scriptures that establish the fact that children have limited knowledge:

An adult who was molested as a child, generally doesn't need anyone to help him/her feel guilty or responsible, because for some reason, by nature, children seem to take on the responsibility even when it can not be theirs.

As I said earlier, if the husband and wife are not getting along, the children take that on as their responsibility. If the husband and wife separate, if the father leaves, for example, and abandons the family, the children generally tend to accept responsibility for that. If they are involved in a situation where they are the victims of abuse, they ultimately come to believe that they somehow deserve to be treated that way. That's hard to deal with when you're an adult and you look back and you say, "I must have deserved it," when in reality, you didn't. As adults, they generally tend to look back and say, "I'm responsible, I deserved it." And as I already said, they will feel this way particularly if they enjoyed any pleasure from it, if it's done carefully, and with some gentleness. They will experience pleasure because God designed the system to work that way, between a husband and wife. We have been looking at areas with which adults, who were molested as children, struggle.

So, if you're a husband and your wife demonstrates some of these characteristics, it might be well to see if you could encourage her to open up and talk. If you're a wife and your husband struggles with some of the things we've talked about, it might be well to see if you can encourage him to open up and talk. If they won't open up and talk to you as a spouse, maybe they will open up and talk to someone else. If they can open up and talk, then generally they can work through it.

Hopefully they can come to the place where they can begin to see that as a child they did not have capacity, they did not have responsibility, and then, therefore, they cannot be responsible for what happened to them.

The next step is to help them look at God and what He's done for them and help them to develop their trust in Him. To have capacity and authority you have to have knowledge, and you have to have ability. Without capacity, knowledge and authority, the scriptures we have looked at make it clear that a person is not accountable.

Be Alert

I would again plead with parents to be awake, be alert. I know of situations where cousins have been involved. I have heard people talk about the instructions we have from God's word relevant to modesty—instruction for women and girls to dress in modest clothing. (Modest defined as, "that which recognized the propriety of the sexes.") I have heard parents suggest that this is not important among family members. If you feel this way, you are mistaken. We discourage males and females swimming together because this creates a situation, because of the way people dress to swim today, where a woman cannot be modest. And if you think that it's not important to maintain this modesty within a family, you're mistaken. I don't know anything in the scripture that indicates that women are to be modest except among family members. I don't mean between husband and wife, but among children, cousins, uncles, etc. Immodesty among siblings or cousins is not wise. It will not create a problem in every home, and it won't always create a problem when immodest relatives or friends are together. It is not wise to run the risk of being the family where someone is molested and you find out the hard way why God gives exhortations concerning modesty. The ones God will hold responsible are the parents who were not vigilant and obedient to his word. Again, who is going to be held accountable? It is going to be the father (or mother if there is no father) who had the capacity to make the decision and should have had the vigilance to be responsible to do all he or she could to prevent that kind of thing from happening.

I don't know of anything that has a much deeper affect in the life of a person than being molested as a child. I don't believe that most molesters even dream of the damage they are doing. If you are a man or woman and you are tempted to get some kind of sexual pleasure from a young woman or man that is not your wife or husband, particularly someone that is younger, believe me that you will damage that person almost irreparably for the rest of his/her life. Furthermore, your conduct will trouble your conscience for the rest of your life. It is not worth it. The damage done is not worth it, and to have the damage on your conscience is not worth it.

If you are a father or a mother and you are not as vigilant as you should be, it's not worth it to someday find out that because of your carelessness something happened to one of your children that could have been prevented. Again, even with the greatest of precaution, something may happen. So be alert!

If you are guilty because you have taken sexual advantage of a child or young person, or if you are a child or adult who has been molested and you feel guilty, even though you need not feel guilty, God has made provisions for our sins—even the worst of them—to be forgiven. God so loved you that he gave his son to suffer and die for your sins. If you accept him as your personal savior, he will forgive you and put your sins from you as far as the east is from the west.

John 3:16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.

Psalms 103:10 He has not dealt with us according to our sins, Nor punished us according to our iniquities. 11 For as the heavens are high above the earth, So great is His mercy toward those who fear Him; 12 As far as the east is from the west, So far has He removed our transgressions from us.

God has done His part to enable Him to forgive your sins and still be just.Your part is to believe with your heart.

Romans 10:9 that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.

1 John 1:9 "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

1 Corinthians 6:9-11 "Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God."

The Lord Jesus Christ paid the penalty for your sin, whatever sin it is that you have committed. Your part is to accept Him as your personal Savior and ask Him to forgive you your sins. He wants to, because he loves you.

To enjoy the joy of your salvation, requires that you see yourself as He sees you. It will not be a concern to you how others see you. More important, you will give up how you see yourself outside of knowing how God sees you.

You can have the confidence that you are loved and valued by God because, as the apostle Peter says:

1 Peter 1:18 knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.

by Robert Grove

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