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The Church has become inundated with
controllers that will sit beside you on the pew and control your
thoughts. Many of
these people fall into error and take a lot of people with them.
They stir up strife and would have no success if they
didn't have people who blindly follow them.
I believe that it is a huge problem in the Church today
and always has been.
You might wonder; why am I bringing this
topic up? Because
we are in the last-days, it is important that you think for
yourself. You should
be submissive to people who are over you in the Lord, but not to
the point that you are controlled.
You are submitting to their authority in God, their
position, but not as if they are a king or a lord over you.
God does not use manipulation.
Manipulation is witchcraft.
God wants us to do His will voluntarily, not because of
coercion.
By the way, no one has told me anything
about anyone that would provoke this topic.
I just obey the Holy Spirit.
When I do, often it hits the mark in someone.
They usually believe that I have discovered some private
information about them. No
so in this case.
I once taught a series in our fellowship
about breaking the grip of controlling people.
There was an older woman in the fellowship that was being
controlled by another elderly woman.
This little woman was so controlled that she went about
partially bent over, and with her head down most of the time.
Whenever she spoke to anyone, she always looked around to
see if the controller was watching.
She was so controlled that she didn't even think for
herself. I could
tell that she was miserable.
I knew that if the hold that the controller had on her
was to be broken, she would have to make some effort to break
free.
During the series I listed the
characteristics of a controller.
Here is a partial list.
Controllers try to direct your thoughts, so that you
think like them. Having
your own mind, or making decisions without their input, is
unacceptable. They
do not want you to be around anyone who is not under their
control. The reason is, because they are afraid that you will be
taken away from them. Controllers
give people what they seem to need.
They will find a person who has an inferiority complex
and pour compliments on them.
It is amazing how effective this is!
People that are looking for a father or mother figure
will find what they are searching for in a controller.
The controller will gently instruct them about every
action, as a parent would. They
will gradually take over their minds and their lives.
People who suffered abuse in their childhood, who come
from broken homes, or had parents that didn't give them the
proper love and attention, or who were abused in a marriage or
other close relationship, are high-risk people for being
controlled. They
will find a consoling friend in a controller, but at the price
of being controlled.
The strange thing is that abused people may
be controlled, or they may become controllers.
A controller has many of the same symptoms that a
controlled person has. The
difference is that the controller wants to control their world
in order to avoid more pain.
The controlled person goes the opposite way.
They try to appease their world in order to avoid pain.
A controller is easily offended, and will strike out
instantly at someone who challenges them.
They will scheme and work behind the scenes to sabotage
people who are a threat to them.
They consider all strong personalities to be a threat to
them. The controlled
person will work hard to please everyone.
They are extremely dreadful of rejection, or of offending
someone. Often, they
will submit to almost total control that may last for years, or
even a life time, before they will risk offending the
controller. Controllers recognize a victim when they meet
one—and when the two meet, a controlling situation will
develop.
The sad truth is that God cannot work
through either a controller or a controlled person.
Both types of individuals are unresponsive to the Holy
Spirit. The
controller cannot let go and surrender to the authority of God.
The thing that he or she fears most is trust, which is
the basis of faith. Trust
is a necessary part of surrender, and the controller only trusts
what he or she can see, touch, comprehend logically, and
control.
The controlled person is often too
submissive to an individual to become submissive to God.
God cannot work through them because they are listening
to another voice. If
they try to follow God, they will have to say "no" to
the controller. They
will also appear to be doing something on their own, and that is
one thing that the controller will not tolerate.
The controller will discourage them until they quit doing
the will of God and began obeying the controller again.
At the end of the series I asked for people
who wanted to be free from the control of other people to step
forward. This little
woman came and God set her free that night.
The change was tremendous.
She actually straightened up—physically, and looked
people in the eyes when she talked to them.
She also began to make decisions for herself.
She also quit doing the things that controller wanted her
to do, and started doing as she pleased.
It made the controller very angry.
Controllers are miserable unless they have someone to
control. In most
cases they find someone that is willing to submit to them.
Although she never confronted me directly for helping her
captive to break free, the controller caused much trouble in
other ways.
People may ask, "How do I know that I
am a controlled person?"
One of the ways that you know that you are controlled, or
a target for being controlled, is by recognizing how you feel
about people. Controlled
people are intimidated into obeying the wishes of the
controller. Are you
afraid to speak your mind? To
say, "no?" Are
you doing things that you do not wish to do, because you cannot
say "no?" Are
you always overly concerned about what someone is going to think
about you? When you
say "no," is there someone in your life that will not
rest until they make you change your mind?
If you refuse to change your mind, do they become
offended? Do they
try to dominate you more, or intimidate you into giving in to
them? Do they try to
"punish" you by being cool or unfriendly?
There are many people who are being controlled by someone
who is preying on their good nature.
Some people are so good natured that they hate saying
"no" to anyone. Controllers
spot this weakness and exploit it for all its worth.
The controller will dominate people who are easily pushed
around. If you
answer in the affirmative to some of these questions, you may be
a target for being controlled or may already be controlled.
However, do not believe everyone is a
controller just because you may have a controlled spirit.
You might feel the same way around a strong personality
as you would around a controller.
The difference is, not every person with a strong
personality will take advantage of you.
Learn to think for yourself.
Recognize the signs of a controller and muster the
courage to say "no" to them.
If you are feeling miserable because you are being
controlled, and are doing things that you do not wish to do, God
will help you to break free.
It may go against your good nature to just say
"no", but sometimes you have to be tough, if you want
to be free. Recognize
when you are a target for a controller.
Change those things that entice them to prey on you.
If you cannot say "no" and feel bad about it,
you are controlled.
Sometimes we have to practice saying,
"I'm sorry, I have other plans," or some other
negative. The
controller invites you to lunch, but you don't want to go—how
do you respond? Practice
saying "no" in a creative way, and stick with it.
If I want to be with someone, but I really don't have the
time, I will say, "Maybe some other time."
If I don't want to be with them at all, I politely
decline by saying, "I'm sorry, but I'm unavailable."
If they persist, I tell them I will call when I am
available to have lunch with them, or whatever they are asking
me to do. Sometimes
I just say "no." What's
wrong with that? When
is it wrong to say "no" when you really want to say
no? There is nothing
wrong with saying "no" to anyone if it is a matter of
your desires. It is
your right as an individual to be able to say "no."
God will help you become a stronger person.
He does not want you to be controlled by unscrupulous
people. If you pray
for other needs, why can't you pray that God will help you to be
strong when a controller comes calling?
Don't wait until they have wormed their way into your
life. It's much
harder to get them out once they have a foothold.
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Someone once said that the most dangerous
thing about deception is that it is deceiving.
In my opinion, in the last-days, if we can be
deceived…we will be deceived.
But how does one know what type of deception they will be
attacked by? There
are certain deceptions that I am not susceptible to, but I see
other people succumbing to them.
However, I have been deceived before by a deception that
someone else might easily detect.
The good news is that I was able to recover.
In the last days Satan is coming with all
unrighteous deception. I
have been telling people for years; what ever deception you are
susceptible to, that is what you are going to be attacked with.
For some people it is lust, in some form or another.
For other people, it is anger.
Some people battle with jealousy; other ones fight greed,
covetousness, or egotism, and etcetera.
The point is that we are going to be stricken in the area
where we are the most weak.
This means that whatever deception that Satan uses
against us, we will have a most difficult time detecting it.
For that reason I believe that we need the indwelling of the
Holy Sprit to help us recognize last-days deception.
Christ said, "For false christs and false prophets
will rise and show great signs and wonders to deceive, if
possible, even the elect. (Mat 24:24 NKJV)
This scripture indicates that the deception will be
so clever, that it will be impossible for even the most godly
saint to detect it without the presence of the Holy Spirit.
I could give people some keys about how to
avoid certain deceptions, but there is no way to cover all the
things that might attack us.
Instead, I tell them that they must pray, must keep the
Word of God in their hearts and minds, and must maintain
intimacy with God. If
a person does not do these things, he or she is going to be
deceived.
I have watched people fall victim to
deception even while sitting under anointed teaching and
preaching. How is
this possible? It
was possible because they did not maintain their spiritual
lives. Let me give
you one common example.
In a local church there will be all types
of people that are at various levels of spirituality.
Some of them are carnal, other ones are more spiritual.
Then there is the group that is playing a deadly game
with God. This group
believes that all that is necessary for them to be spiritual is
to convince other people that they are.
These people are not spiritual; but they have merely
convinced some people that they are.
This is deception. Consider
the following scriptures.
(Jude 1:3-21 NKJV)
Beloved, while I was very diligent to write to you
concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to write
to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which
was once for all delivered to the saints. {4} For certain men
have crept in unnoticed, who long ago were marked out for this
condemnation, ungodly men, who turn the grace of our God into
lewdness and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ.
{5} But I want to remind you, though you once knew this, that
the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt,
afterward destroyed those who did not believe. {6} And the
angels who did not keep their proper domain, but left their own
abode, He has reserved in everlasting chains under darkness for
the judgment of the great day; {7} as Sodom and Gomorrah, and
the cities around them in a similar manner to these, having
given themselves over to sexual immorality and gone after
strange flesh, are set forth as an example, suffering the
vengeance of eternal fire. {8} Likewise also these dreamers
defile the flesh, reject authority, and speak evil of
dignitaries. {9} Yet Michael the archangel, in contending with
the devil, when he disputed about the body of Moses, dared not
bring against him a reviling accusation, but said, "The
Lord rebuke you!" {10} But these speak evil of whatever
they do not know; and whatever they know naturally, like brute
beasts, in these things they corrupt themselves. {11} Woe to
them! For they have gone in the way of Cain, have run greedily
in the error of Balaam for profit, and perished in the rebellion
of Korah. {12} These are spots in your love feasts, while they
feast with you without fear, serving only themselves. They are
clouds without water, carried about by the winds; late autumn
trees without fruit, twice dead, pulled up by the roots; {13}
raging waves of the sea, foaming up their own shame; wandering
stars for whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever.
{14} Now Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about these
men also, saying, "Behold, the Lord comes with ten
thousands of His saints, {15} "to execute judgment on all,
to convict all who are ungodly among them of all their ungodly
deeds which they have committed in an ungodly way, and of all
the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against
Him." {16} These are grumblers, complainers, walking
according to their own lusts; and they mouth great swelling
words, flattering people to gain advantage. {17} But you,
beloved, remember the words which were spoken before by the
apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ: {18} how they told you that
there would be mockers in the last time who would walk according
to their own ungodly lusts. {19} These are sensual persons, who
cause divisions, not having the Spirit. {20} But you, beloved,
building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the
Holy Spirit, {21} keep yourselves in the love of God, looking
for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.
The "spots" will gather around
them the people who are unspiritual or carnal.
They will snare people who do not maintain their
spiritual life, who do not pray enough, are not intimate with
God, and in whom the Holy Spirit cannot function.
These people live their life by the superficial,
regarding symbolism over substance, and are easy prey for
deception. They pray
when they feel like it, seldom study the Word, refuse to grow
and mature in Christ, and feel secure in carnality.
I have watched these weak people follow
deceivers and believe that they are following godly people.
It is a most amazing, but disheartening, observation.
They never consider the fruit, as Christ instructed us to
do. They only
consider the personality, the flattery, or the well-honed image
of godliness. What
is even more perplexing is that they will follow these deceivers
and at the same time reject a godly individual.
If they would stop and consider the fruit they would
easily recognize the deceiver.
In most cases they will not even consider inspecting the
fruit of the deceiver. Why
is this? It is
because they are so deceived.
Like I previously said, the dangerous thing about
deception is that it is so deceiving.
The last-days will bring a flood of lying
spirits and extremely powerful deception.
How does anyone believe that they can survive it without
prayer, the Word of God, intimacy with God through the presence
of the Holy Spirit? In
fact, no one will escape deception that refuses to hear and obey
the truth.
It breaks a parent's heart when they warn
their children over and over again, yet watch as they make the
very mistakes that they warned them about.
That is how a God feels when he sees people blindly
headed down the path of deception with their eyes and ears
sealed to the truth. No
one can help such a person.
They failed to realize that love for the truth is the
only way to avoid the great delusion.
When people reject love for the truth to blindly follow a
deceiver, they are beyond help.
They will have to want to be free, but the instruments of
their freedom have been discarded long ago.
This sobering thought ought to make
everyone of us consider the state of our spiritual life.
We should recognize that we cannot go very long without
water, and neither can we do without prayer.
We cannot live long without food, and nether can we
reject the Word of God. We
cannot maintain a relationship with our spouses without
intimacy, and neither can we expect to know God without seeking
and fellowshipping with His presence.
The deception today is powerful to the
point of being overwhelming.
However, we have been duly warned.
God is not going to shake us every day and push us into
doing what is necessary to maintain a spiritual life.
We have some responsibility in the matter.
My sincere prayer is that people will wake up before it
is too late.
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