The most unbelievable horrors of widespread sexual child abuse in the United States have befallen the public with a ferocious impact. Women who undergo counseling experience vivid flashbacks of such abuse. Reporting of child sexual abuse in the day care industry are surfacing from all across the country in alarming numbers. Satanic Ritual Abuse of children exploded into the consciousness of our public.

Sexual abuse of children is not something new. Unfortunately, it has occured since the fall of man. Historical literature indirectly refers to such abuse Literature has spoken of child slavery, particulary female, child marriages, child sexual ritual prostitution, child prostitution, and more. ( A fictionalized account of sexual child abuse in biblical times involved with Baal worship, see Mary Ellen Keith and Deborah Elder Champagne's, The Scarlet Cord: Yhe Dramatic Life Of Rahab ( Nashville: Nelson, 1985). The novel is based upon accurate historical research.)

The dominance of women and children by men in the past made such abuse easy, respectable, and expected. It also made it almost impossible for the abused to find protection or release from their bondage. The sexual abuse of children that has always existed in the Western world has rapidly increased in recent years. Major causes appear to be the breakdown of the traditional Judeo-Christian ethical standards, the breakdown of the home, and the general sexual looseness which permeates are culture.

Pornography, child pornography, and the influence of explicit sexuality in the media have helped to create "sexual insanity" within the United States. (see Dr. Earl D. Wilson's important book, Sexual Sanity ( Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 1984); Randy Acorn's Christians in the Wake of Sexual Revolution (Portland,Or.: Multnomah, 1985); Dr. John White's Eros Defiled: The Christian Sexual SIn ( Downers, Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity,1977). The rapid growth of Satinism, witchcraft, and similar occul groups have added new dimensions of horror to child sexual abuse never before imagined. Someone has said that children are God's greatest gifts to humanity. jesus pronounced a special blessing upon children and childhood in Matthew 18:1-10. There He taught that:

1. Children set the example for all who wish to enter the kingdom of God. They are an example to adults, not visa versa (vv. 1-2).

2. Those who, like children, are humble are " the greatest in the kingdom of heaven" (v. 3).

3. Whenone receives a child in Jesus's name, he also receives Jesus (v.4).

4. The sin of hurting a child is so terrible that Jesus says it warrants capital punishment (v.6).

5, Stumbling blocks are inevitable, but woe to the one who becomes a stumbling block to a chlld (vv, 7-9)!

6. We are never to despise or look down upon one of God's little ones (v.10a).

7. "Their angels in heaven continually behold the face of [the] Father who is inheaven" (v.10b). This is the place of greatest familial intimacy, to be continually in the presence of God as Father.

Leaders of the Roman Catholic church are reputed to have affirmed long ago, "Give me a child until he is seven. After that anyone can have him," The first seven years are the most formative in a child's life. If the child can be formed to do God's will in those early years, few wu=ill permanently depart from following the Lord. ( There are sad exceptions [ 1 Sam. 8:1-5]).

Also, chances are that if he is malformed in the early years of his life, he will be scarred for the rest of his. How atrocious, therefore, is any treatment of children which causes them to stumble, that is, to injure them for life.

If this is true of child abuse in general, then sexual child abuse must be in a category all by itself. First, because it is child abuse and second, because it is sexual. To force any kind of sexual activity upon a child is to violate childhood. Sex has no point of contact with a child's love. Sexual exploitation of children is sex only to the benefit of the exploiter. Children are used in an unnatural manner to satisfy the perverted, selfish passions of their abusers. No wonder it is so destructive to the child.