Silence is Not Always Golden

 

What has gone wrong in a culture when many women who have been sexually assaulted remain silent about it? Even worse, what has happened that when they are not silent about it no one listens or responds in their defense?

How many times have we heard that the Bible speaks to every aspect of life? Did we know that it even speaks to the way a woman should respond to a sexual assault?

Look at these verses from Deuteronomy 22:23–27, “If a young woman who is a virgin is betrothed to a husband, and a man finds her in the city and lies with her, then you shall bring them both out to the gate of that city, and you shall stone them to death with stones, the young woman because she did not cry out in the city, and the man because he humbled his neighbor’s wife; so you shall put away the evil from among you. But if a man finds a betrothed young woman in the countryside, and the man forces her and lies with her, then only the man who lay with her shall die. But you shall do nothing to the young woman; there is in the young woman no sin deserving of death, for just as when a man rises against his neighbor and kills him, even so is this matter. For he found her in the countryside, and the betrothed young woman cried out, but there was no one to save her.(Emphasis mine).

So, if a woman gets assaulted in the city where there are people nearby to hear her and help her – she is to cry out. If she does not cry out then she is considered complicit. It would be seen as “consenting adults,” therefore the sentence of death for sexual immorality.

In the country, away from people where there is no one to help her, she may cry out but it would be fruitless. The young man who forces himself on the woman in the countryside is put to death for the rape of the young woman. The young woman is not prosecuted. She is a victim of her attacker.

But notice, the people back in the city learned what had happened to her. She went home and told someone and they are commanded to act on it. The man should be tried, and if convicted, put to death.

Rape and sexual assault are no small matter to our God. What has silenced the victims of this terrible crime against them? Their silence allows wicked men to roam free to hurt others.

In our nation we rarely hear of the death penalty for rape. When we think about the potential danger to the women that a rapist poses, would it not remove an evil man from having the ability to rape again? (“You shall put away the evil from among you.”)

Studying the Law of God gives us great insight about how the world should work! Until more Christians are willing to admit that God’s ways are the best ways, then we are going to watch our culture tolerate these sins that God says are worthy of death.

One of the problems we face is that the Church has abandoned the Old Testament. Jesus said that He came to fulfill it (Matthew 5:17).

There’s a very important word study here.  “Fulfill” in the Matthew passage means “to perfect.” Jesus didn’t come to carry out the law by himself so we wouldn’t need to, but that’s the teaching of many churches.  His “perfecting” of the law is the perfecting of its teachings from a pharisaical point of view to God’s True Words. (“You have heard it said… but I tell you.”)

How can it be fulfilled in our day if even the churches are not teaching it?

Another problem is that no one wants to “make a fuss.” They think that girls are exaggerating (and a few might) but we are seeing the consequences of allowing these sins to remain in the dark. It is happening in our schools. It is happening in our churches.

What are we to do?

• First, there should be an outcry from the Church of Jesus Christ about the need for us to know the “whole counsel of God” (Acts 20:27). The Old Testament is full of God’s wisdom for us to live by.
• Second, we need to teach young girls and boys (not waiting until they are young women or men) to cry out when they are sexually assaulted so we can stop predators in our midst (Deuteronomy 6:6-8). It is what God prescribes, even commands.
• Third, we must fight against the spread of pornography as it fuels the flames of many of the fires inside the men who are abusing women (Ephesians 5:11). My Pastor just taught, “Pornography takes protectors and turns them into predators.”

Ephesians 5:11 says, “And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them.” Do we want to obey God and expose this evil?