You weren't born reserved. You got that way. You got that way, trained like a monkey not to function like a man, see? The people that God's created, everything God's created is to praise Him, express Him, find different ways of expressing, you see? But verbal violence beats you down and then you don't function right, so how can we get out of it? There's a few simple keys, I'll give them to you now.
So what are you going to do to break free of this whole deal? So you're faced with verbal violence. One of the first strategies you could do is calm the person down, if they're angry with you. I remember having a lady over the road, and she started yelling away at me. I thought she was yelling at someone else, turns out she was yelling at me. She's yelling at me in front of the whole street, telling me what a terrible father I am. Well, I felt quite hurt. I got angry after that, wanted to throw some dirt at her. [Laughter] I was digging something there. I felt like, you stupid old woman, I know what I can do to you. I'll throw some stuff down - get off the street! Anyway, you drink too much, and you're nose is - I was thinking all those things. [Laughter] See the problem is, if you're hasty, if you're quick to get angry, then you do foolish things. Then you have to apologise. So instead of actually being right, now you're in the wrong, and you've got to go and humble yourself, eat humble pie.
So I just went down to talk with her, and I just talked very quietly, so if a person's really angry and abusive, just calm them down. Don't react, don't buy into the anger, feed on the anger, react to the anger. Just quietly talk. Talk quietly, talk with a soft voice, and begin to ask them questions, and what it does, the calm spirit will cause them to calm down, and they begin to have to talk and answer your questions, and you begin to listen to them. What happens is, they begin to start to get out of that angry cycle, and they start to talk, then they begin to open their heart. I've had a number of people angry, or really in a state, and just that one scripture, see, just soft answer turns away anger. The Bible's real clear, so you just talk softly. Oh, what seems to be the trouble? You just seem to be very upset. There must be something really worrying you? What's happening, what's going on?
Anyway, it turns out the real problem was the lady was fearful of death. You think how on earth did that come about? She's yelling at you, and she's afraid of death. Well very simple, it sort of went like this. I'm up there, and there's kids on the street. She thought they were my kids - that was wrong for a start. She was afraid someone would run them down, specifically, she was afraid her husband would run them down, and specifically, because her husband had been going through medical problems, and actually she was concerned about his health. But what she was really concerned about was, him dying, and her being alone. So the fear of death was what was causing this angry abuse of me. I hadn't done anything to cause it. It's a reflection of an unresolved problem she's got, but if I'd actually not stopped long enough, and just acted biblically, I'd have never found that out. I'd have thrown dirt at her, and told her to get off the street, and stop drinking, and I've had had an angry neighbour who'd have run me down for weeks. I have enough troubles with neighbours as it was. Just coming into the street seemed to be a trouble for the neighbours; lights on all the time, prayer meetings in the morning, meetings late at night, young people in the yard. I mean, whatever we did seemed to upset everyone. I didn't need any more angry people around you know, but that's just a very simple thing.
So sometimes you can actually quieten an angry person down, or quiet someone who's hostile. Just touch them, talk with them quietly. That's one thing that could work. Here's the second thing you do is, you just take a hike. Jesus took a hike. He even told them. He said if they persecute you, you just take a hike. In other words, you withdraw totally from the situation where people are abusing you, so if you've got people who are so-called friends, but they're angry, abusive people, they've got a lot of anger in their life, you just actually don't make them close friends, because you'll pick up their anger, and you'll become like them. Sometimes, the only way to get away from verbal violence, or violent abuse, is to actually cut off the relationship, and withdraw totally, and put a boundary on it.