Spiritual Blackmail

When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long. For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me: my moisture is turned into the drought of summer. Selah. (Psalm 32:3, 4)

I remember a story we were told when we were children. I will recreate it with the topic being our goal.

There were two brothers. One was very creative and adventurous and the other just gluttonous.

One day the adventurous nature of the boy overtook him that he released an animal his father had caught in the forest and was domesticating. It disappeared into the forest before he could recapture it. And of course he was with his brother, only that the initiative was his.

They decided to cover the fact up by creating a story that the bright one told.

But that was the beginning of his woes. His gluttonous brother had finally got a tool to eat all he wanted.

In those days people ate by the firelight as there were no lanterns, leave alone electricity. When food was served, he would push his plate to his brother after creating space for the food he wanted added.

After some time his brother started getting tired of starvation and would protest as I suspect they were teenagers. Then his brother would pretend to clear his throat as if he wanted to spill their secret. Of course he would cave in faster than the throat was cleared.

He started becoming thinner as days went by. His parents asked him what was wrong but he couldn’t say. They asked him why he gave most of his food to his brother and he said that he had lost his appetite.

In wisdom the father decided that what he was seeing was not all there was and realized that the secret would not be easily be revealed. He could see the game being played and the cost his brighter son had already paid and continued to pay. He therefore became sly.

One evening as usual the game of plates started being played. But before the food had changed plates their father jumped in.

‘Don’t give him anything. He is taking your food and I already know the secret.’

‘I haven’t told him anything.’ the glutton said when his brother gasped in shock.

‘Who haven’t you told what?’ the mother asked

‘I haven’t said that my brother released the animal you were domesticating’ the glutton said

‘So that is why you have been eating his food all this time’ said the father.

Of course the father had known that the boys had released the animal and created a story since he had also been a boy. But he had intended for them to come and confess, a thing the glutton was using to his advantage.

That is what guilt does to a person when it is concealed. It gets worse when there is a witness to the sin who many times was an accomplice but whose stakes for the infringement will not be as dire as yours, at least in your thinking.

A pastor is found having sex with his congregant. Of course the discovery of that means he should stop being a pastor and may thus lose his livelihood. Of course the discovery of that will strain his marriage, probably even break it. This witness will therefore hold the pastor by invisible strings which eventually can be seen by the observant. He will eventually stop pastoring for God (he had already done that when he fed on the sheep he was supposed to feed and protect) and make sure that this witness is never offended. He will preach sermons looking his/ her way to ensure that they are not offended. Eventually this blackmailer will run this pastor’s church through remote control (and that is not witchcraft) as long as this pastor is leading. Many times the witness is the said sheep he ate complicating things a hundred fold. He might even divert church resources to this witness as he owes his position to them hiding that secret.

And he will be their slave until he confesses that sin, and of course the many other sins that he committed to cover up that initial one by feeding the blackmailer.

Or maybe a deacon, who according to scriptures is the epitome of virtue is found in a distant land misbehaving because he did not envision anyone who knew him so far from his base. The same game will be replayed especially so that his ‘reputation’ is not harmed.

But marriage is the one place spiritual blackmail thrives. Most of the vice and violence we see in marriage may have their source in blackmail.

Consider this man who is literally ‘sat on’ by his wife. He is a lion out there but is meeker than a lamb when his wife appears. I remember this man in the elite anti riot forces. They are known to singlehandedly handle dozens of violent protesters even when they are armed. Yet he was being battered by his wife! It can be compared to a bicycle running all over a battle tank!

Though there is an element of spiritual sabotage, which is many times from the same source, a huge percentage may be traced to spiritual blackmail.

Consider this man who at one time stole to feed his family but inadvertently leaked the secret to his wife. He even told her from whom he stole. Now suppose the victim is a very powerful man.

That leaked secret will haunt this man until he confesses or dies. This is because his wife will use that secret to leverage him for anything.

Very few women can beat their husbands from a point of physical strength. If a man decided to throw a punch in his wife’s direction the ramifications could be dire. Yet why are so many husbands being beaten by their wives that recently we had a battered husbands’ support group formed? Ever realized that many of those women famed for beating their husbands are normally very petite as opposed to gym masterpieces? What gives them the power to keep a man so down that he is beaten like a child?

He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy. (Proverbs 28:13)

The woman simply accessed a compromising or shameful thing her husband did and used it to castrate him spiritually to the point that he stopped functioning. Maybe she is the one who broke his resolve for character by leading him to that compromise or sin. And women know how to take that advantage. Remember Eve’s curse was directed at that in Eden?

… thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.(Genesis 3: 16)

It is therefore her instinctive nature to desire to overrun her husband like Eve did to Adam. Giving in to concealing our sin releases all that power into her hands.

We many times wonder how a wife can be openly adulterous even without hiding it from her husband. The key may be in this blackmail. The woman uncovers or creates a scandal that has a capacity to destroy the man’s reputation and livelihood should it be known. Since by nature (creation) a woman does not see as far as a man (that is why the husband is the head of the wife, and that is where sight is), she vows to reveal the secret unless the man bottles his manhood. She forgets that her reputation and livelihood also depend on the man’s. But she also loses her respect for her husband if he yields to her blackmail.

What is the solution?

A man is man enough who faces his sin. It is strength to confess sin and failure. In fact it is infinitely stronger to be a broken man before God and His people than to be strong due to all the sin you have concealed.

We are deceived if we think we will ever get away with sin, however cleverly we conceal it. Satan is in the business of shaming anybody who has ever turned his back on him.

David wrestles with that until God confronts him. Then after repentance he is able to regain his posture. I suspect Bathsheba had set him up with the intention of bearing the next king as she still has him doing exactly that by vowing that he will overlook probably ten older sons to make Solomon king. It is very probable that she used guilt induced control by alluding to her loss of this husband through David’s ‘scheming’. Then David had to bend all the rules to keep this wife he had so badly offended content. But that is my suspicion with no scriptural backing.

We see the same with Herod. He may have thought he had snatched his brother’s wife but the contrary was true. Though he fears God enough to refuse to kill John the Baptist and continues listen to him even after his rebuke which must have been public, Herodias knows that her security in that adulterous marriage was as insecure as John was alive. She knows that Herod might open his eyes to her blackmail if he continued to listen to the prophet. And that the reason she had him conclusively dealt with.

Having preached for many years, it is not very hard to see inspiration from a preacher. It is easy to see a sermon flowing from direct inspiration as opposed to one prepared well. And it is at the point of inspiration that you can easily see the blackmail.

Several times I have heard preachers preaching where the inspiration is clearly evident. They address issues they normally won’t. They harass sin and sinners and really preach the Gospel. Then as they go on with that inspiration they notice the glare of their blackmailer/s and the picture becomes blurred. They bid inspiration bye and start explaining and excusing that inspiration.

I did not mean. I was not saying. What I meant. This is what he starts explaining to the congregation which had not long before been spellbound by the clear evidence of God’s voice. I remember once enjoying such inspiration as the preacher was preaching so different from his normal sermons and was confronting values and standards that are contrary to scripture. Then all of a sudden he took an about turn that I was left dazed.

Many times this is what gives away the preacher as compromised to those with a deeper spiritual and scriptural experience. That evidence is so clear that it really does not need much explaining in the spirit. Just as one does not need to smell liquor from a drunkard to know that he is drunk; one does not need to get the actual evidence from the blackmailer or elsewhere to know that a minister is fallen, especially if he is under blackmail. Just listen to him when he gets under inspiration and how he handles it, especially as inspiration will point at sin, hypocrisy and a rotten value systems of the world.

But blackmail is not the real culprit, unconfessed sin is. It does not matter what pretext one uses, unconfessed sin gets us under blackmail whether by the witness or the devil himself as he knows that I will be completely impotent spirituality. You see he really does not care for the motions and excellence of my delivery at the ministry front. As long as I am not reconnected to God who is most offended by my sin and who was a witness long before it was committed, I have no capacity at all to serve Him.

Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity. (Matthew 7: 21 – 23)

That is why we see these mighty ministers being condemned to hell yet their works demonstrated great spiritual potency. Could it be that they were under the cloud of a blackmailer somewhere? Could they have had some secret sin somewhere? Could the respect they received for their spirituality have convinced them that the fact that God so mightily used them was because He had also winked at their hidden sin?

God never overlooks unconfessed sin, whoever it is that is guilty of it. It is therefore imperative that we deal with our sin whatever shame may result from the same. That is what David did and he was forgiven. That is what Saul refused to do and he was rejected.

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

That is God’s promise. Let no blackmailer convince you otherwise and cut you off from your reward.

God bless you.