Let Me Control Your Life Part 2

Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. Control freaks are obsessed with themselves. At some point, such people become evil, as did King Saul of Israel. Do you know any people like this? Stay with us for more of their characteristics and how to deal with them.

From the Moody Church in Chicago, this is Running to Win with Dr. Erwin Lutzer, whose clear teaching helps us make it across the finish line. Pastor Lutzer, you will be teaching again from 1 Samuel chapter 13 today and talking further about the characteristics of what you call spear throwers. You know, Dave, I think that Saul is a wonderful characteristic of a spear thrower, obviously, because literally he threw spears at David. And you know, there are people who are listening to this message today who have never thrown a spear at anyone, but they've thrown hurtful words.

They've controlled in this way and that way. And we need to understand that the Bible uncovers the ugliness of human nature. I want to thank the many of you who support the ministry of Running to Win. It's because of you that we can get the gospel of Jesus Christ all throughout the Arabic world. Thanks be unto God.

Over 100 stations in Spanish throughout Central and South America. Because of you, this ministry can continue. Would you consider becoming an endurance partner, somebody who stands with us regularly with their prayers and their gifts?

To find out more info, go to rtwoffer.com, click on the endurance partner button, or if you prefer, call us at 1-888-218-9337. Now at the end of this message, I'm going to be giving you this contact information again. For now, let's turn in our Bibles and find out the depths of human depravity. But Saul is so paranoid because he's so insanely jealous. Just like you and I can be, there's something within us that wants us to destroy those who make us look bad. And that's where we begin to cross the line and become evil. Once again, it comes down to this. Is the kingdom God's or is it ours? Saul saw this as such a threat.

Let me say also, number three, obsessive anger. Notice it says in verse 10, now it came about on the next day that an evil spirit from God came mightily upon Saul. And he raved in the midst of the house while David was playing the harp with his hand as usual. And a spear was in Saul's hand. And Saul hurled the spear for he thought, I will pin David to the wall. But David escaped from his presence twice. Now Saul was afraid of David for the Lord was with him but had departed from Saul. And Saul absolutely cannot handle it. He is the one who's going to take now the spear and try to kill him.

He is obsessed. You say, well, why did the evil spirit come from the Lord? Where else do evil spirits come from?

That might be a surprise for you to hear from me. But God is the controller of the demons of this world. They can only do. They cannot so much as wiggle unless God allows them to. And what God was doing is judging Saul and saying, Saul, in light of the fact that you don't believe that the kingdom is mine, I'm going to drive you to this insane schizophrenia. Not all schizophrenia may be demonic, but Saul's was. And there are going to be moments now when you're going to be in these moods when nothing is going to be able to calm you except the playing of David's harp. And there's going to be times when you're going to be in distress and when you're going to be in convulsion of spirit because of the judgment of God.

You do not admit that the kingdom is mine and you're hanging on to something that isn't yours. God is going to drive him to despair. You say, well, how can Saul kill a boy like David, which obviously he was trying to do? What you have to understand is when people give themselves to evil, they no longer have feelings.

A father who abuses his children, people say, well, doesn't he love his kid? Here's this little kid crying for mercy. Can't he hear the plaintive cries of this little boy? And the answer is no, he cannot, for he has zoned out.

His emotions have shut down. One of the things I've wanted to do in this series, but I don't have time this time, but eventually I will, I'd like to speak about the conscience and how people deaden their consciences until they can no longer feel the pain of others. They are incapable of entering into other people's worlds. They are so filled with a narcissistic view of life, a self-willed view of life that what happens in somebody else's life simply does not matter. That's the nature of evil. So you have obsessive anger.

You have, number four, cunning manipulation. Oh, we don't have time to tell the story, but the rest of the chapter shows this, that, okay, Saul misses David. A spear comes towards him and he ducks and what happens is Saul thinks of another way to kill David. He says, David, take my daughter here and I want you to marry her. And he believed that therefore there would be a war with the Philistines. In fact, he sent David out to kill Philistines with the hope that the Philistine would do what he wasn't able to do. My dear friend, the more evil a person becomes, the more manipulative he becomes, the more distressing this all becomes because he tries then to set traps for people. We have to hurry because I want to get to the good part here as to how God works all this for his glory. The other is beguiling, number five now, beguiling religiosity.

You know what the shock is? Saul is evil. In fact, the Bible calls him that, but it says in chapter 19, verse 23, that Saul proceeded to Naoth in Ramah and the Spirit of God came upon him also so that he went along prophesying continually. You say the Spirit of God?

Yeah, that's the enigma of it all. Can't you just see Saul justifying what he's doing because he's saying I'm still being used of God? You say, well, why would God use somebody like this? Well, you're ahead of the game. I hope to answer that in a moment. But here's a person who teaches a Sunday school class, a person who's involved in religious work, and yet if you really knew what he was doing, he may be doing very, very evil things.

Let's hurry on. False humility. Five times Saul says, I have sinned.

I'm guilty. For example, in chapter 24, when David has an opportunity to cut off his coat, proving that he could have killed Saul very, very easily. He's right there in the cave with him and he doesn't. Saul spills out his heart and says, you know, he says, you're much better than I am. May God be with you because you didn't kill me. And what he's basically saying is no more fight. I'm finished.

Let's lay down our weapons. A couple of chapters later, what's he doing? He's gathering more men together to find David to kill them. What you find in the evil personality is this. You have these moments of goodness. Even this is true of those borderline people that I talked about just a moment ago. There are moments when they have such charming personalities and you can connect with them and you think to yourself, you know, I think they really are changing. I see some hope here. But the simple fact is they will respond like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. There will be a part of them that will seem a daze to be very, very nice and you think, you know, I really think that it's helped. And then they blow it all because the very next day they're back to square one. Also, the evil person makes exceptions for himself.

That's number seven exceptions. We don't have time. Read it on your own. It says in chapter 28 of 1 Samuel verse 3 that Saul put out all of the mediums and the witches from the land and forbade them to work. The Bible had condemned it.

Saul said, I'm going along with it. If this is what God said, we're going to put all the mediums to death or at least to exterminate their work. Four verses later he's in a dilemma and God isn't speaking to him and he finds a medium.

This is known as the law of the grand exception. What evil people will do is they will always find an exception for themselves and the rules that they make for others are not rules by which they themselves live. And so that's the way Saul lived. At the end he tried to commit suicide, wasn't able to do it, and asked an Amalekite to finish him off.

That's his story. Well, why does God do this? Why does God sometimes put people in positions of power who are unworthy of it? Why does God allow this relationship between Saul and David to go on for 10 long, painful years? That's how long it was that David was running from this guy from cave to cave. Let me say that, first of all, we've all known people like Saul, haven't we?

There have been Christian leaders who are excellent communicators, excellent visionaries, excellent in all they do, but also excellent spear throwers. Why? Why?

Why? I think there are two reasons. First, what God wants to do is to reveal the darkness and the incredible evil of the human heart in all of its nakedness, in all of its awfulness. And I think that what God wants us to do is to realize when we see that kind of evil that we should say to ourselves, that potential exists in me as well.

Many people have not come to the grips with the fact that under the right conditions, under the right circumstances, you and I are capable of anything we have ever read about or seen on television. All of the seeds of that deception and evil apart from God's grace and intervention, all of those seeds exist within us, and God oftentimes takes the human heart and just lays it bare and we stand in awe of its wickedness. Why? The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it? There's another reason though, and that is that God uses, God uses evil people. By the way, Gene Edwards in his wonderful book entitled The Tale of Three Kings says, Saul is in your bloodstream, in the marrow of your bones. He makes up the very flesh and muscle of your heart. He is mixed into your soul.

He inhabits the nuclei of the atoms. King Saul is one with you. Why does he write that? Because what he points out is that God used this conflict between Saul and David to make sure that David would not become another King Saul. It's Gene Edwards contention that if David had not had a Saul, David would have been King Saul number two.

He had it in him. But the conflict was what wore David down and kept pressing him in the direction of God. What God does, you see, is he uses this conflict. He uses this conflict to develop a great deal of patience and heartfelt pain in David's life that's going to be used mightily for the glory of God. What does David teach us when you have to put up with a controller?

Well, first of all, it's okay to get away from them if you can. When the spear was coming in David's direction, he didn't wait there and say, see if you can hit me. I mean, he was out the door.

That's fine. And that's why if there is abuse going on in your home or there is abuse taking place, don't just simply take it, go for help. David did and that's fine. But let me give you some other lessons that we can learn from David.

First of all, he did indeed exercise restraint, exercise restraint. The scripture says on one occasion that Saul threw a spear at David and David fled and the spear stuck into the wall. To David's everlasting credit, he didn't wrench that spear out of the wall and throw it back at Saul. He didn't say we're going to have a spear throwing contest. You know, there are some homes where there are spear throwing contests.

They go back and forth. David said, no, you throw a spear at me, I will not throw a spear back. Twice he had the opportunity to kill King Saul, as I pointed out, right in his vicinity while Saul was sleeping. He even cut off a part of Saul's coat just to prove that he was right next to him and he would not touch him because he said, I commit him to God and he is in God's hands. He even calls him the Lord's anointed. Now, my dear friend, that is greatness. That's greatness.

When you're with a spear thrower, you never win any battles by throwing spears back. Secondly, David waited on God. He exercised restraint and he waited on God. Now, it is my sincere belief after so many years of ministry, and by the way, I'm enjoying getting older, not old, but older, and there is a difference.

After many years watching so many situations, I've come to a conclusion, reluctant conclusion, but I've come to it. There are some people whom God calls to live, to live in pain, and as a result of that deep pain and oftentimes it is because they're called upon to live with a controller. It may be a religious controller using the Bible for means of control.

It may be a secular controller or all kinds. God uses that deep pain to produce a sense of dependence and knowledge on God that is absolutely overwhelming that perhaps cannot be learned in other ways. You know, I was thinking about that this week. If it were not for Saul, we would have never had a Psalm like this because this Psalm was written when David was fleeing from Saul. I will bless the Lord at all times. His praise shall continually be in my mouth. My soul shall make its boast in the Lord.

The humble will hear it and rejoice. Oh, magnify the Lord with me and let us exalt his name together. I sought the Lord and he answered me and he delivered me from all of my fears. They looked to him and were radiant and their faces shall never be ashamed. This poor man cried and the Lord heard him and saved him out of all of his troubles. The angel of the Lord encamps around all those who fear him and rescues him.

Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good. How blessed is the man who takes refuge in him. We'd have never had that Psalm, that Psalm 34. We'd have never had Psalm 59 where David talks about his hope in God and though my enemies surround me, I thank you that at the end of the day you pour grace into my soul and that you show me the depths of my own need and there through these difficulties I am pressed close to the heart of God. There are all kinds of Psalms like that that we could paraphrase that end up in the very same way because you see what God does is, it is hard for us to understand, but what God does is he uses these conflicts to deepen our relationship with him. You know, I think that there's a better illustration even than David and that is the Lord Jesus Christ. What I find to be very interesting is that Jesus, of course, had total control. All things are given unto me in heaven and on earth, the Bible says. So he had total control.

He exercised none of it. One day I was reading the book of Luke and there was a phrase that just popped out that I'm not sure I had ever seen before and I was almost swept away by it. When they are coming to get him in the Garden of Gethsemane, he says in chapter 22 verse 53 that those who are coming toward him who wanted to kill him and eventually did, this hour and the power of darkness is yours. I'm giving you this hour. Today you win. Go ahead.

Do it. He's the one who could have called 10,000 angels. He's the one who could have spoken the word and they'd have been incinerated. I mean, all of this power to his advantage and he accepts none of it.

Why? Because Jesus knew as David did, first of all, that God was in charge. This is very important. David knew that God was in charge and Jesus most assuredly knew that his father was in charge. And what Jesus was saying in effect is this, if I am in God's hands and my controllers, the people who want to destroy me, if they are in God's hands, I am thereby content because, and notice it now, if all of this is in God's control, it does not have to be in my control. I speak to those of you today who are the controllers. You want to change people. You want to hang on to your little kingdom.

You want to make sure that everything goes. You are not open before God. You do not rejoice in the success of people who are more successful than you in the business or the career path that you have chosen because what you are doing is you want to control. And I speak to you today and I ask you to acknowledge that the kingdom, whatever that may be in your life, belongs to God and not to you. And you and I should be able to surrender it with joy and say, Father, do as seems good in your sight because if God is in control, you and I don't have to be controlling. I speak to those of you who are controlled.

You live with those controllers. I'm not giving you a simply a pious platitude. I realize that there are implications here that could be talked about. But you also must realize something that if God is in control, if God is in control of your life and the life of your controller, in that you can rest knowing that God is using this for his glory. Think again of Jesus.

Here he is. He submits himself to those who want to kill him. He dies on the cross. As a result of the death that he had on the cross, you and I can be redeemed today. We can be saved.

And there are some of you listening today who've never trusted Christ as savior, but I want you to know that the reason that he is available to you is because he died as a sacrifice for sinners and that evil event of control where they nailed him on the cross is the great stream of blessing that we often refer to when we say God forbid that I should glory except in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ by whom the world is crucified unto me and I unto the world. And we look today at the cross as the great focal point of history. It was a clash between the controllers and the controlled and look how God used it and I can urge you today to believe in Christ because that happened. Back in 1907, a woman by the name of Adelaide Pollard was at a prayer meeting and in the prayer meeting someone prayed, Lord just have your own way.

And that phrase stuck in her mind and she went and she wrote a poem which has been set to music. Have thine own way Lord have thine own way. Now notice this is for the controlled as well as the controllers. Have thine own way Lord have thine own way. Thou art the potter I am the clay. Mold me and make me after thy will while I am waiting yielded and still. What does God want? He wants us to submit control and let him be in charge and that's why you have such deep needs today my friend.

And that's why some of you are going through the pain of living with people who are difficult to live with. The end of the day David says wait patiently on the Lord and he will grant you the strength to carry on. Would you today, would I today be willing to relinquish control to God? Saul didn't.

David did. Let's pray. Our Father, we think of these two men and the implications and we pray today that you might grant us hearts that are willing to say yes Lord. Yes Lord. Oh we pray Father that we might be able to commit individuals to you in such a way that knowing that we cannot change them.

We thank you that you've taught us that a thousand times. May there be a commitment to you Father that we will do our part and trust you to do what we can't. Meanwhile for those who may be here today who have never trusted Christ as Savior we pray that the control of their lives will also be submitted to him and as we sing together may this prayer oh God change us and set your people free we ask in Jesus name.

Amen. You know my friend this is Pastor Lutzer and I have to tell you that no matter how many years I've been in ministry I'm still excited about sharing the gospel. Every once in a while I might be asked what would you like to have on your tombstone? You know if on my tombstone the words simply were he loved the gospel I would die satisfied and one of the things that blesses me is because of the wide ministry of running to win so many people are a part of our vision sharing the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ that we so deeply believe with the world that oftentimes rejects it but desperately needs it and you're a part of that. Thank you so much to the many of you who support the ministry and if you'd be interested in becoming an endurance partner somebody who stands with us regularly with their prayers and their gifts with a monthly gift I might add here's what you do go to rtwoffer.com that's rtwoffer.com click on the endurance partner button and there you'll find all the information that you need rtwoffer.com click on the endurance partner button or if you prefer simply call us at 1-888-218-9337. You can write to us at running to win 1635 North LaSalle Boulevard Chicago Illinois 60614. The light cuts the darkness like a knife it reveals our hearts the way they really are tomorrow let the light of God's word cut through your illusions and show you what God sees when he peers into your soul don't miss the healing power of the light thanks for listening for Dr. Erwin Lutzer this is Dave McAllister running to win is sponsored by the Moody Church.