195. Freedom from Emotional and Spiritual Manipulation
Episode Notes
In this episode of 4 Freedom Podcast, we decided to take a quick break and discuss a much needed topic of Manipulation.
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Transcript
Courtroom Tension and Anticipation
the courtroom was packed every bench in the gallery was full neighbors co-workers family members
all waiting to see justice unfold a quiet tension hung in the air thick as humidity before a storm at the front under the great seal of the state a judge sat like a stone senatum he had seen hundreds
of cases but he even looked uneasy about this one the defendant a woman in her mid-30s named rebecca hell sat at a table beside her attorney she was neat calm almost fragile looking her hair
tucked perfectly behind one ear her face pale but composed her hands folded tightly under the table knuckles white on the other side of the courtroom sat the plaintiff michael adams our former business partner shoulder stiff jaw clenched iris eyes tired between them years of partnership trust friendship
and betrayal the case was simple on paper complicated in reality rebecca was accused of defrauding the
company that they had built together moving money falsifying reports and convincing others to cover
for her but beneath the legal language was a darker thread she hadn't stolen with force or threat she had stolen with charm persuasion and emotional pressure with one simple force behind it all manipulation michael and rebecca had started their company 10 years earlier adams and hale
consulting they were good at what they did marketing business strategy client relations michael handled
the operations and the finance and rebecca she was the visionary the rainmaker you could say she was the
face of the company she could walk into a boardroom and walk out with a contract twice the size of anyone else's she could make you feel like you were the most valuable person in the room michael would later say
like you were seen valued and respected that was her gift and her weapon it began innocently enough
a missing receipt here a payment that didn't quite add up a few thousand unaccounted for when michael brought
it up she smiled and said oh mike you're such a good numbers guy you're you're so good at this stuff
honestly i could never keep track of it like you do i must have just filed it wrong he believed her why wouldn't he they were friends partners she made him feel like the protector the steady one the reliable rock that she needed
but over time the gaps grew and so did her explanations when a client questioned a late invoice she'd say you know
how demanding michael can be he insists everything that go through three layers of approval i'll smooth it out for you when employee questioned a bonus discrepancy she laughed and said michael's just under pressure right now i'll handle him
and piece by piece she shaped the perception of those around her michael the control freak the worrier and the killjoy
she was the patient understanding one who held it all together she wasn't stealing yet but she was sculpting
the outline of what was going to happen she was beginning to soften everyone's defenses with sympathy and that's how manipulation works it rarely storms in and and seeps in it doesn't demand it sort of suggests it doesn't
accuse it just wonders one friday afternoon michael stumbled across a series of payments to a small unknown vendor rh marketing solutions took him a few clicks to realize that rh stood for rebecca hale
and she'd been quietly funneling money through a shell company that she owned paying herself consulting fees on top of her salary and bonuses when he confronted her she didn't flinch she looked hurt
michael she said softly i can't believe you'd think that of me after everything we've built you know how hard i've worked how many nights i've stayed up making sure your clients were happy
while you were home with your family he felt the sting immediately the guilt the shame the suggestion that
he was the ungrateful one the cold one she didn't deny it she made him feel cruel and even asking that's sort of the genius of manipulation it it shifts all the spotlight
instead of asking whether something was wrong it makes you ask whether you were wrong to even ask to begin with michael backed down for a while but the truth didn't stay buried forever the client
eventually called him directly asking about a suspicious retainer when he investigated he found a pattern tens of thousands of dollars misallocated over several years that was when he realized what he was up
against it was not just deceit it was control through emotional leverage he went to the board he went to the authorities and now he sits in a courtroom finally telling his side of the story the prosecutor's case was
Emotions vs. Facts in Trial
airtight they had bank statements emails memos every piece of evidence pointing in one direction
yet as the trial unfolded something unexpected began to happen rebecca didn't argue facts she began to argue
feelings when she took the stand she didn't speak like a thief she spoke like a martyr her voice trembled as she began to describe her struggles long hours the pressures of keeping the company alive the emotional
toil of working with someone so demanding and personistic as michael she even said i guess i made mistakes
but it was only because i was trying to keep him from losing everything gas filled the courtroom the audience leaned forward you could feel the doubt creeping in maybe she wasn't the villain maybe she
was just been misunderstood and that's the power of manipulation i can twist the knife and make you think think think the hand that's turning it during cross-examination the prosecutors pressed her
miss how did you create rh marketing solutions yes did you authorize payments to the company from
atoms and hell consulting yes and did you disclose that you were the owner of that company to your partner she hesitated and then smiled faintly i didn't think that mattered i wasn't hiding it i just assumed he knew
we were so close even in confession she framed deceit as innocence every statement carried a subtle emotional undertone i'm not bad i misunderstood you're not wrong you're heartless and when the verdict
finally came guilty on multiple charges of fraud and misrepresentation rebecca cried not out of remorse
but outrage you all believed him over me she whispered shaking her hand and everything after
everything i've done for everyone in this room even the judge sighed before sentencing miss hell he said
you didn't just manipulate finances you manipulated people you used the trust as a weapon and that in some ways is the deepest kind of theft
after the trial michael didn't celebrate he sat in the courtroom long after everyone had left victory didn't feel like freedom it felt like grief he had won yes but the cost was high friendships lost a business shattered reputations bruised he'd spent years doubting his instincts
questioning his sanity and apologizing for things he had never done wrong
you see dear friend that is the aftermath of manipulation it doesn't just break systems it breaks spirits in the months following that michael rebuilt what he could
but something had changed he noticed manipulation everywhere now not always in the courtroom but in conversations
in relationships and church committees and family dinners that he was attending the subtle art of emotional control the unspoken pressure to conform to please or to yield
to whatever someone else is thinking he began to see the manipulation isn't always criminal sometimes it's cultural sometimes it wears a smile and says
Manipulation Patterns Explored
i'm just trying to help sometimes it begins to even quote scripture as we'll look at today and begins to hide behind even tears but whether in a courtroom or a kitchen the pattern is the same twist emotion to cloud truth use guilt to gain control appear as a victim
and eventually you can avoid responsibility for a time months later a journalist interviewed michael about the case and asked what was the biggest lesson you learned she asked he paused with a statement he said truth doesn't always shout
sometimes it whispers and you have to stop listening to guilt long enough to hear it
she tilted her head sort of in confusion and asked another question did do you think rebecca
will ever understand what she did he smiled sadly manipulators rarely do they believe their story is so
deeply that it feels like truth to them they are that that's why they're so convincing they've
manipulated themselves first before anything else you see what make rebecca's manipulation so powerful
wasn't her intelligence or charm it it was the way that she weaponized people's hearts she turned compassion into compliance trust into control and kindness into currency
and if you and i were honest with each other we've all may have been on one side of that equation or maybe even both sides of that equation the story of rebecca and michael isn't just a courtroom drama at times it's a mirror because manipulation isn't limited to crooks and con artists
it's it's it's the quiet parent who controls through guilt
it's the friend who plays the victim to avoid confrontation it's even the pastor who uses fear instead of faith to keep people in line spouse who holds affection until they get their way and in the end the trial of manipulation isn't fault in a courtroom it's fault in the heart
every day we stand in the courtroom where we choose between influence and integrity between emotion and truth between control and trust the judge in that moment isn't wearing a robe
but it's our conscience illuminated by god's word and that's where the gospel cuts through the fog you see jesus never manipulated anyone he didn't coerce he didn't want to try to convince someone to believe he didn't twist emotions he never guilted people into obedience
jesus came and he spoke truth and he invited surrender
he invited people to a better way he appealed not out of fear but oh not not to fear or to shame but to the conscience and to the heart
so maybe the question isn't who's manipulating me but where am i tempted to manipulate others you see because freedom doesn't come from controlling people it comes from trusting god enough in your life
to let go and see what god's plan is for you
man that was a great cold open i think you should do that professionally james i think you do a you do an excellent job at it uh but welcome back to the 4-Freedom Podcast it's uh that time of year it's fall i hope you got your pumpkin spice lattes
and got your pumpkin spice uh potpourri going on in your house because it is that time it's uh thanksgiving time
and we've got the big turkey holiday coming up and uh man i'm looking forward to having my turkey and my deviled eggs and my mac and cheese it's one day a year i can load up on the carbs and uh very thankful for carbohydrates and protein on thanksgiving day
uh but man i'm just excited to be in the ministry i'm excited to be on the 4-Freedom Podcast
with dr reverend james safer brother tell us how are things going in north carolina man we're cold
we uh we had a little cold snap these last couple of days um monday and tuesday or sunday and monday one of those days it got down like 30 29 degrees um i was loving it it was great uh we had a wonderful time at our convention we had 1600 people there
um it was the largest convention that north carolina has had in 20 plus years um and so that was encouraging to have a lot of people around so we just got back from that had some late nights hanging out with guys getting to connect a little bit my voice is a little strangly right now
from that and with the weather changing uh but yeah it is it is great brett the other day i went by sam's club
and they had a ginormous i mean bigger than my desk it looked like pumpkin pie so we bought it for our uh meeting that we had at the church
it was like five bucks for this massive pumpkin pie i don't know how many compliments i got from how great that pumpkin pie was like my kids were taking platefuls of pumpkin pie home uh because of how great it was
and it was like five bucks it was so cheap um so i am very much excited about thanksgiving in just a couple of weeks the day where we can um in in indulge ourselves in gluttony
and thank the lord for the food that he's given us uh and sin all at the same time by eating too much food it is a wonderful holiday uh deviled eggs all the stuff in the turkey the deep fried turkey
the hams uh the hanging outside with the guys and smoking cigars while the girls are inside cooking it's a wonderful wonderful experience
i'll tell you it's something that my wife makes that i absolutely just love she makes pumpkin chocolate chip muffins and they're moist and good
and uh you know we were gonna we we bought some uh to bring to a church function then we ran out of time to make them uh so i'm gonna make a suggestion that we make those for our small group next week
uh but man you get one of those you you zap it warm
you put some butter on the inside man make you want to slap your mammy and so i'll tell you what last night we got a little treat i know you were tuckered out uh but we got a little treat with the northern lights
now listen i've seen since i lived here uh in carthage
i've seen northern lights a couple of times through my phone but last night was the first time i ever seen it with my naked eye i mean it was very you could see uh you know the sky was purple the horizon was green
you could see it without now the phone made it where you could see it a lot better uh but it was the first time i could ever see it with the naked eye it was awesome but you're not gonna miss out uh because tonight
uh i know this won't do any good for our listeners but uh for tonight
uh when we're recording this uh it's gonna be even bigger tonight so you're gonna have an opportunity uh to see the northern lights tonight yeah brett the other day speak i when i get talking about food
it's hard for me to stop talking about food and you said something that your wife had made uh those pumpkin chocolate chip muffins
which sound delightful i mean i just i'm excited right now thinking about that but i saw something the other day i'm gonna make it this year let me know your thoughts on this brett it is a pecan pie cobbler yeah yeah
interesting pecan pie filling the way you would make pecan pie but instead of putting it into a filling dish you do like a almost like a lasagna layers like filling pie crust
filling pie crust filling pie like you layer it like a lasagna and then you bake that thing and it puffs all up
you get the pie but you get the pumpkin pie or the pecan pie i'm a pecan pie like enthusiast so so oh man i love the
i saved it immediately i sent it to my wife immediately because i couldn't not have that and i told her i said i am making this at thanksgiving because i am going to indulge myself and if it's not good i don't know what i'm going to do because it looked fantastic
listen that sounds fantastic listen pecan pie is especially the filling it's next level yes it is like if i'm on a diet and i can only have one thing of multiple desserts i'm getting a piece of pecan pie you know they got that as you were talking about that that cobbler you know they got that starbucks uh little bear
that little glass starbucks cup that sold out recently i had a picture of that cup and people like it because it's clear you can see through it that cup filled with pecan pie filling
and you're just sitting there slurping on it that would be so great so yeah i'm right there with you i love pecan pie i love it well we are in our holiday season brett
and uh just a couple of things that are coming up we'll start out if you haven't went out and checked out our cigar company um i've made some great connections over the last couple of weeks uh just talking to people through that and uh go by and check out we're running specials
just this past week you may have not seen it but we ran a 25 off special for one day on november 11th um and there'll be some other specials that'll be dropping through the 1689 website
um and all that applies to our products as well um and so you could have got some great deals there um go by and check out
our sampler pack our individual pack or our experience box we've got just a couple of those left um those are great ways to support the podcast and also support other ministries that we're helping out that we're a part of and uh so hopefully you'll jump on board with that uh brett january
he's right around the corner what's coming up man man we are going back to the holy land israel we've been talking about this for so long i'm excited that it's finally here it's almost here the window to go is shortening um and listen our listeners
they know about it they want to go they know they can sign up for it um man i just can't wait to go back i can't wait to see some of these places that we've seen before you know the fighting's over and now it's time to get back to business
as usual and i'm excited for some of the places we're going that we didn't go last time um church of the flagellation
um i think we're going to uh where david killed goliath a couple other places um things like that
and so i'm excited uh to get to go back to israel go with the holy be with the holy land and we're going to get to go back with our buddy marcus merritt
um that's when we first met marcus over in israel i mean he has been a friend to us he's been a friend of the 4-Freedom Podcast we've had on several times and uh he is he is he is they call him the doc over there at luther rice that's right
and uh so i'm excited to go back uh to the holy land with him you try to explain when you go
and i know this episode intro we're talking all about food but i have just tried to explain the buffets at this these hotels how long they are and how a plethora is and you wouldn't think that a breakfast buffet
that doesn't have any pork on it would be very long but you would be wrong the stuff that they put on these buffets
and they're they're great they're awesome so you you i mean you stay in five-star hotels getting first-class tour buses they take you to real biblical sites that bring the bible to life
um it's just awesome that we get to go back and i can't wait yeah brett my life is made around food i love food i love gathering and eating uh so if if i'm around somewhere we're gonna be eating and it's gonna be good uh hey you you read the gospel
of luke all jesus did was eat and talk about food that's right brian edwards
big shout out here to brian i know we mentioned different people if i'm somewhere that i don't really know where i'm at uh and what's good around i promise you i can text brian edwards he may not respond that day it may be the next week or the next month uh but brian's
gonna text back and he's gonna tell me all the crazy great hole-in-the-wall
restaurants that are in that place with him traveling with his dad he went to all these little places and he just he just knows them uh the other day we
last year we met up for breakfast or somewhere and and i said hey where do you want to go and he said meet me here it's a great place i'd never heard of it before
and so we met and had breakfast and it was one of the best uh breakfast experiences i ever had and the man just knows food um so if i'm
gonna be hanging out with people it's gonna be with food uh and it's gonna be a great time uh last up that we've got coming up we've got our
um what were the two things uh june we've got our convention there in orlando if you're gonna be there or be in the area definitely hang us hook us up message us
we'll have a house we've already got some people that said they're gonna come over and hang out a couple of nights it'd be a great time for you to connect with us ask some questions
and then brett we just had an opportunity open up for us it's actually gonna work out where we can both go down
in july our churches are gonna go down to nicaragua um
and uh we're gonna do a joint trip again but we've been asked to go down and do a spiritual legalism
and abuse pastoral conference and so we're gonna be speaking five or so sessions on what that is how to live in grace and live from spiritual
legalism and abuse and just train about a hundred pastors on what this looks like give them some resources some books a brand new bible or call for a study bible um an awesome opportunity has opened up with lee united christian missions and a partnership they have with provision financial ministries um where
they've got some grant money they're gonna spend for us to help train these pastors and so i am so excited about that i've been praying and thinking on over some notes and some topics that we've got uh that
we've been working through and uh so i'm excited about that and how the lord's just opening some doors for us to be able to do some things uh through the ministry of the podcast and uh we we
are excited for what is going on i mean have the opportunity uh to train over a hundred national pastors from all over the country um it's
just a great opportunity that the lord has given us and we want to be good stewards of it and we're looking forward uh looking
forward to it and i'm excited to go back down and i was excited to go uh just to go down there and help out but to have this opportunity uh to
train these pastors it's going to be great we're at our church we're going to have an interest meeting uh i think the first sunday in december uh for
the nicaraguan mission trip and get our get our money raised get our funds together but yeah i'm excited about it man it's going to be great absolutely one
last thing before we jump into our episode we have been given a grant as well uh for the podcast and the ministry to distribute our newest book that
came out from brokenness to freedom um we've got about 200 copies that are going to be purchased with this grant money and we're going to be giving them out for free so if you're a listener and you haven't went and bought a book or you have a church or a counseling ministry or
an association of churches that would benefit from having a couple or 10 or 15 copies of these book of this book if you would reach out to me direct message me uh we'll be placing that
order for those books here real soon and uh they'll be in your hands for free um for by by the uh the grant that we most recently received um
and so we just want to be a blessing want to help out uh so if you would be interested in that uh please reach out to me and uh we can provide you with the way you can get those books and the way you can be a blessing to ministries
or organizations or maybe you've got a pastor that you want to just bless and you
want to give this to reach out to me i can get it to you um and so we've already given away about 70 of those 200 for free and uh so we've got about 130 left and so if you're interested in that uh please please let me know so i can
get that for you for freedom you set me free not for change not for guilt not for pharisee grace lit the flame now i'm puffing peace cigars and victory justified
released welcome to the 4-Freedom Podcast this podcast exists to bring the freedom of the gospel for everyday christians with everyday
issues i ain't saved by dress codes not by what i eat i'm covered in the righteousness washed from head to feet no tally of tradition no man made code blood bought my
freedom now i ride that road they clutch pearls when they see smoke rings rise but my praise still ascends past the legalist cries christ plus nothing
that's the real math so miss me with your fence laws and your extra path he sat with sinners i'm sitting with saints sipping grace from the bottle no room for fakes i like one for liberty toast to the king
every ash a sermon death has lost its sting for freedom he set me free not for change not for guilt not for pharisee grace lit the flame now i'm puffing peace cigars and victory justified released
for freedom he set me free not for chains not for guilt not for pharisee grace lit the flame now i'm puffing peace cigars and victory justified released let grace begin for freedom
he set me free not for change not for guilt not for pharisee grace lit the flame now i'm puffing now here are your hosts james sayford and brett
martin time to tackle our subject today and you know what we're talking about today it's uncomfortable but
it's important as you pointed out in the cold open uh the subject of today is manipulation and if there's anybody that you know has been through legalistic background one thing they know is manipulation yeah
Understanding Emotional Manipulation
absolutely brett we have we've talked about this before on the podcast it's been 100 so episodes ago uh so
it's been a long time ago since we actually addressed the topic of spiritual manipulation emotional
manipulation um and so it was on my mind a couple of days ago i sent you a text and when i got back from the convention i just i was talking to some guys while i was at the convention and there was just some manipulation that
kept coming up in the conversation and so i really
felt pressed hey let's just put a pause on where we're at talk about this idea of spiritual and emotional manipulation and what that looks like because one of the tricky things about manipulation is it can often come from people we love and we respect um you
know it's not always loud uh or it's not even obvious uh
it's often emotional and even spiritual at times and so having to figure that out and having to recognize that having the tools to recognize that um is an important thing to do
right and so you know we need to ask the question what is manipulation so at the at the top let's define it you know webster dictionary says that manipulation is to control or play upon by artful unfair or insidious means yeah the the
biblical angle of this uh is manipulation is used in unbiblical means to control or influence
others i believe it was last year brett that the word of the year uh was love bombing or
something along those lines or it was just this bombing someone with love to cover up what was going on and that that's really what manipulation can be in a lot of areas uh one of the words that i
recently learned was gaslighting and uh you know gasoline yeah for a long time i didn't you know i didn't know what gaslighting was but man and i have especially in in the church i have been gaslit like one of my
pastors just gas lit the fire out of me um and once you once you see it and you recognize it and you have the tools equipped to deal with it um it helps but yeah it you know it's just not getting your way it's using guilt fear emotion to push someone to
react instead of respond biblically and that's what we're here to address yeah another way to put that would be brett is uh it's about controlling the outcomes through emotion instead of through conviction um and how we can do
this is is we we sometimes we do this not even thinking about it we already
have the end goal in mind and so we have to manipulate the situation to get what our end goal is um that's manipulation
we're manipulating it to get the outcome that we're wanting um and it can be for a good purpose some manipulation is for a good purpose right you want your kid to brush their teeth in the morning so they don't have stinky breath and get made fun of at school and so you sometimes
manipulate cohorts you know tell them convince them to do the things they need to do because of a good outcome uh and so there are some things that you can do in a good manner um and so we want to address that in in in the proper perspective of life right lou prelo points
out that this can show up through things like intimidation coercing someone by making them feel guilty or threatened if
they don't comply and how often you know do we see this you know you you were just talking about you know uh sometimes
manipulation can be a good thing in certain contexts like your kid or whatnot it's funny i was studying second samuel no no first kings today and it was how bathsheba and nathan were kind of manipulating
david that you know you know to get solomon on the throne and so you know um so things like that but uh i you know making some i've been made feel felt guilty before i've been threatened before so
these are all all parts of manipulation that we're trying to address yeah and lou perelli's book on manipulation i've got it here on my desk uh we'll tag that great little book lee perelli wouldn't be with lord uh just a couple of years ago he passed away but he put out just a
little mini book here 25 30 pages on how do we go through manipulation how
does manipulation look at our life how does jesus respond to manipulation and we're going to use some of these things today as we talk through this but a great book if you've ever been in that it's a great little resource for you but george simon uh simon who also
wrote a book he wrote a book called in the sheep's clothing put it like this manipulators often know us better than we know ourselves they know what bushings what buttons to push when and how hard
and if you've ever been manipulated or ever been coerced to do something whether that be emotionally spiritually or even
physically you know this better than others because they'll say something and you just like your body freezes you don't know how to respond you don't know
what to do you go into that fight mode or just you begin to freeze and they now have control over you and now they're going to push into what they believe and why they what they want you to do and you'd really you feel like you don't have control over anything
you know it's it's scary because it's true you know sometimes manipulators they use our compassion against us they act helpless they act hurt or wounded when what's really driving them is control
when i can tell you that you know i've i've kind of always been a pastor but i experienced this some whenever i was you
know over the old chain shop and i had some some people that worked under me try to manipulate use the fact that i was a pastor and play on the fact that i went to church and i'm a pastor and you know
i'm trying to punish them i'm trying to you know maybe fire them in some cases because they weren't doing their job and they're just uh pleading with me oh don't don't don't write me up don't do this i'm you know i'm trying to feed my family whatnot and just trying to manipulate just
like this we talked about they're helpless hurt wounded and was really you
know what they're really trying to do is control you yeah it's good to know those
things james 4 1 through 3 this is the half brother of jesus here in james um he let me read it for you and then i'll sort of give it our notes it says where do wars and fightings among you
come from do not come from your own lust that warn your body you lust and you do not have so you kill you desire to have
and cannot obtain you fight in war yet you do not have because you do not ask you ask and you do not receive because you ask amiss that you may spend it on your passions this gives us the spiritual reason behind manipulation right our desires are
out of order and when our desires are out of whack we begin to want things that are not good for us and when someone resorts to manipulation it's because they either want
something that's wrong or they're wanting something too much and our desires that the bible the puritan said like this we have in or in a right desires we have desires that have been changed from what god has designed us to have and so our desires can turn into manipulation because i want
something i'm afraid you're going to take it away from me i feel threatened and so
i'm going to manipulate or i'm going to coerce you into getting what i think i need because i'm afraid it's going to get taken away or i may never get it and so i'm going to manipulate the situation to get whatever it is that i want and if there if
we look at one model to try to understand how to deal with manipulation and manipulators um we
need to look no further than jesus because he is the perfect model uh when it comes to this thing when it comes to this stuff uh because listen jesus
everybody that everybody tried to manipulate jesus all the pharisees and the sadducees they're all trying to be manipulative with him and he was just a master at how to handle people trying to manipulate him he he never violated truth to keep the peace and that's another thing we can admire
about that's good that's really good brett you know he never allowed people to leave a conversation thinking they had outsmarted him or even justified themselves
my mind immediately right now goes to the thought of uh jesus when he is coming right he was coming into the temple grounds and the the the pharisees came to him
and they asked him about john the baptist and or i'm sorry they asked him a question and he
responded if you can answer my question correctly then i'll do what you want me to do and he asked them about john the baptist and it says that the pharisees reasoned within themselves and said if
we affirm what he's saying about john the baptist then the crowd's gonna kill us and if we deny i don't even get wrong if we deny that john the baptist was the prophet then you know he was one of us and
so that he put them in this pickle to where he allowed them to understand what it is and you know this is what jesus did he he did not allow the conversation to be outsmarted or people to be
able to justify what they're saying or what they're doing right and you know that brings us to another
passage of scripture and that's proverbs 26 4 and 5 which a lot of people see this as actually a
contradiction in the word of god you're like how can these two things be true at the same time and
let me read you the verses this is proverbs 26 verse 4 and 5 verse 4 says don't answer a fool
according to his foolishness or you will be like him so don't answer a fool but then you go to the next verse verse 5 it says answer a fool according to his foolishness or he'll become wise in his own
eyes so you know you you've got these two two you know paradoxes here you've got these two sides
the same coin do we answer a fool according to his folly or or do we not and the answer is sometimes you answer fool and sometimes you don't jesus modeled perfect discernment and knowing which way
which approach to fit the moment and you know sometimes no you're casting pearls to the swine
when you answer a fool but other times if you let them go unanswered they're gonna they're gonna
mislead other people they're gonna lead other people down the wrong path so you have to have discernment and wisdom as a christian to know when to keep your mouth shut and when to say something yeah discernment is a huge thing uh man we oftentimes i will put my foot in my mouth
i will insert foot in mouth moment often and uh man having that discernment to know when to say what
to say why to say things uh is massive and it's part of that's the holy spirit allowing the holy spirit to guide us uh and to go through those things prioli he he notes two key things with the
way jesus responds and we're going to let brett go through a couple of examples here of how jesus responded the the two ways that he did it he's the first thing is he appealed to their conscience
he reminded people of their biblical responsibility love the lord your god for your heart soul mind and
strength the rich young ruler comes to him and he says i want to follow you and he tells him deny your cross take up your cross daily and follow me um he's telling them of their biblical uh responsibility
they have as people who are in this world uh we're in this world but not of this world and jesus reminded
them of that and reminded us as we look back on the words of jesus this is our heart that we must get right as we go through um these moments of we respond to um manipulation the second thing here is
he appealed to the god's word uh holding up truth as the standard not emotion oftentimes brett i am guilty
of this and uh one of the most common things in biblical counseling in my life over the last couple of years is i don't feel like doing that i don't want i don't feel like they deserve my forgiveness i don't
feel like they deserve but what happens is it goes into that emotion and god is telling us that truth is
the standard truth of the word of god truth of what god has said and what he has declared as truth is the standard we live by we don't live by our feelings or emotions as hard as that is because we're
emotional creatures we must live in the realm of truth because our emotions are going to lie to us
our emotions are going to tell us that we need things too i went yesterday and we had went to an all you could eat sushi restaurant brett my emotion was telling me that i needed to eat more and so i
ate more because it was all you could eat and i'm trying to eat more and more and i got to the point where i i didn't eat dinner last night and then i had a heartburn because i ate so much food because
emotionally i was telling myself i needed more truth of the matter is i didn't need any more
i ate too much i paid the price later but when you listen to your emotions they're going to lead you out of whack we've got to live in the foundation of god's word
and the truth of god's word exactly and you know just let's just think through some examples in the gospels first you have martha in luke chapter 10 you know uh you've got these two sisters that jesus is
is visiting and and mary's sitting with jesus and martha's like man jesus tell her to get up and help me
and kind of throwing it on jesus like jesus how come you're not helping me how come uh you're not
you're not uh you know telling her to come here i'm doing all this for y'all i'm i'm trying and listen jesus like hold on a second martha hold on just a second think about what you're doing she's
doing the greater thing you know she's here she's listening to me and this is kind of what you need to be doing you need to take a step back and martha's letting her emotions like you said uh you know
get in front of the fact that the lord jesus christ is there and though jesus wasn't always going to be with them this was a temporary thing they wouldn't always have jesus so sitting there listening to
jesus was the place where they needed to be another example is mary and joseph when jesus was 12 years
old and jesus you know they couldn't find him for a couple of days and so they go back to the city and they're looking for jesus and it turns out jesus was in the temple the whole time and and they finally
found jesus and they said to jesus jesus why did you treat us this way and jesus like know you not
that i've been about my father's business i mean once again a p you know they they got so wrapped up in in their emotion that they didn't think about the fact hey this is the son of god where else is he
going to be he's going to be you know about his father's business we've talked several times about the pharisees and scribes constantly trying to trip up jesus laying traps for jesus and jesus would just
shut them up each time and i think this is an example of when to answer uh somebody when to answer
a fool according to his following jesus answered the pharisees because these were leaders this was public these were public discourses and if jesus would have just walked away from these instances these pharisees would have uh led people astray and that's not what jesus is there to do so jesus
is you know these pharisees and scribes are constantly trying to twist truth to trap him
and then of course you've got mrs zebedee trying to get you know her sons to sit at the right hand and left hand of jesus you've got a mom lobbying for her son's promotion and trying to get the sons to
ask jesus certain questions and use jesus's words against him to say that they get to be uh you know
greatest in the kingdom and jesus hit a map with look you know the the greatest uh the the greatest
on earth is least in the kingdom if you want to you know if you want to lead if you want to be great then you got to serve somebody so he flipped their expectations he didn't let them set the narrative
and you know like i said this is just a master class of how to deal with manipulation you just go through the life of christ so this is it wasn't just pharisees and sadducees and scribes trying to trap jesus these were his followers these were his disowned disciples
trying to trap jesus in his words and manipulate him to get what they wanted because at the end of
the day we're humans and we're selfish creatures yeah i love that illustration of of martha and mary
uh because when jesus responds we get this beautiful picture of what it truly looks like and you said it he redirected them to the god's truth and to their own heart motives he looked at martha and he said
martha martha why are you worried and bothered about so many things he he puts this back on her
and he says look at your own conscience look at where you're at and look at how you have a better responsibility and then he brings us back around and he said there's only one thing that is necessary
and mary has chosen the good part which shall never be taken away from her and he gives us back to god's truth and god's principle of how we can live a perfect life how we can live a life for god
how we can have our actions and truths go into that way um and so in all these cases jesus responds calmly he redirects them to god's truth in their own heart and says hey let's examine where you're at let's examine what you're doing and how you're going through this in your own life
amen that's good stuff you know how do we detect manipulation we have to get our feelers out we
got to see it coming uh the one thing that manipulators love to do is accuse others of sin that they didn't commit and so that's one thing we got to think about that's exactly right it's uh one one person said it like this it's emotional blackmail shaming someone into compliance uh you're
you know a lot of times when you would join a sorority uh they would make you do crazy things and they would video or they would um take pictures of it a lot of cults if you've ever read and looked
at any of that they would have what they would call blackmail that they would actually have to if you ever left that or turned them in they would have something against you a writing of a letter um something
that you've went through that you could they can manipulate you into keeping you into submission
this is the same way when we have friends sometimes the shaming you know don't tell mom and dad this
because you know i i don't want to get in trouble but if you do tell mom and dad i'll tell mom and dad what you did one of the ways and we're going to go through this here in a minute a couple of different
illustrations was me and my sister right my sister uh was two years older than me and uh she had
began dating a black guy my dad was against that for many uh years and uh so her and this black guy
reggie who she's now married to uh was dating and i was playing football and i had a little bit of a
potty mouth i cussed on the football field and did some things i shouldn't have done and said some things i shouldn't have done and so she came to me one day and she said if you tell dad that being
reggie you're dating i'm gonna tell dad that you've been cussed on the football field
right it was emotional blackmail to keep me from saying things that i should have said not should
have said in the moment but you know out of out of the protection of her in that moment what i could have thought that would have been but she was manipulating me to get what she wanted to keep me
in the check and in the line because i didn't want to get in trouble either so yeah that that
Types of Manipulative Relationships
could happen brett why don't you tell us some types of relationships that this can happen to and see if maybe any of these fit into your context listener of where you're at so manipulation happens in every type of relationships you know you've got friend
to friend manipulation you know who knows you better than your friend and a lot of times friends can use the information that they have on you uh to manipulate you for your purposes another is is parent to child and uh you know the parents try to manipulate the children even children try
uh to manipulate the parents pitting mom and dad against each other uh listen i'm gonna tell the
bad news to this parent because they're the good cop and i'm gonna avoid the bad cop over here and you know i'm gonna you know if i ask so and so they'll say no but if i ask so and so they'll say yes
and so you gotta watch out for this and and you had told the story of your siblings i've i've been you know manipulated by my cousins before i remember one time my cousin richie drove up to my
grandparents house on my dad's tractor and it's like uh before he left he's like your dad gave me
permission to drive a tractor and i i knew that wasn't the case and he was just trying to manipulate me you know thinking i wouldn't tell that about it but husband and wife and wife to husband uh there's
you know manipulation there employer to employee and then of course there's church leader to church
member and listen i can you know i've told this in my uh testimony that i gave back when i first started on the podcast but i had a pat my pastor straight up just emotionally manipulate me to get
me to stay in his church running his children's church um i came in there and just as excited
because you know i've been there wanting to be a pastor and i was excited that i had a church looking
at me i was going to go candidate in this church so i came in there and i said hey preacher listen in two weeks i'm gonna be gone on a sunday because i've got this church they want me to come candidate
and preach to be their pastor and that man took his hand and slammed it down on the desk just as hard
as he could shocked me because i had never seen him that way i'd never seen him that mad before
and you know what are you doing why are you doing this how did you find out about this church i was like well i sent him my resume oh you're looking for a church like you're looking for a job at mcdonald's
when god wants you he'll call you uh you know you'll get a phone call one day this ain't like trying to get a job at mcdonald's and the i found out the root cause of him trying to do this
was because he didn't want to lose me as far as just like i was doing good doing the children's
church we had a hundred kids and children's church from the buses and if i was gone he wouldn't have anybody to run it so it was a very selfish thing and man he lamb blasted me that day and you know
not use that as an opportunity to hit other soft spots in my life and i walked out of that room shaking shaved my beard off that day uh because he said i'll never get a good church if i have a beard
and man that was kind of that was the instance that broke me because it was about three or four
days later when i woke up i was like oh oh i was being manipulated and that's when i woke up to the
situation i was in and i got out of there just as quick as i could but man just a lot of manipulation there you heard it here first brett became woke in that moment when john's episode he said something
similar to that and i made the exact same statement i want to give three illustrations here to sort of bolster those points the the i'm going to give the husband and wife illustration and the church leader
to church member illustration and some phrases that maybe you may hear for instance the husband may to
say to his wife if you really loved me you would cover for me the biblical response we can give for that is you know love doesn't rejoice in iniquity but you know love what it does it rejoices in truth
and because i love you i'm not going to lie for you i'm not going to lie to you i'm going to tell you the truth um you know and someone it comes into the counseling room and they tell me what's
going on in their life and they tell what's going on in the world um i love them enough to tell them the truth and i'm going to tell them the truth that what they're doing is wrong or wicked or sinful
and they need to change from those ways and so that's that's a huge thing to do another way would be a wife to a husband and it may say like this that's just like you men you're all so selfish um
and and the biblical response could be you know bible teaches that men and women are both sinful men and women are both selfish um and so we can begin to address this from a biblical perspective
and i'm sure we've got a dear listener on this episode um i don't know who you are i'm not saying
this because i know exactly who i'm talking about um but this is a statement that i know you've heard because i've heard it is if your priorities were right you'd be at church every time the doors were
open every time sunday morning sunday night wednesday night friday night soul winning saturday sunday morning sunday whatever it is you're going to be here right and that's the manipulation of the spiritual leader from the pulpit um you know the biblical response could be this you know brother
could you show me in the bible where it says that christians are supposed to be at church every time the doors are open haven't you taught us that god has given christians other priorities besides they're just church responsibilities and so as long as we're being faithful and we're giving
faithfully and we're serving faithfully then that that would be what we need but not this man-made ideology of sunday morning sunday night wednesday night you're not going to find a
sunday night service in scripture brett you say that and i'm going to come back and talk just a
minute on the history of sunday night services i've got just one more thing to add in there too i'm going to speak to the parent child manipulation because i think for a lot of our listeners our audience
this speaks to their context because you've got kids who've grown up and now have left the ifb
and mom and dad are still in legalism they're still in the ifb and they're trying to manipulate their kids to come back to the true church and come back to the ifb and come back to the kjv and some
different tactics that a parent might use on their children even grown adult children uh for instance is
Recognizing Manipulation Tactics
like guilt tripping uh guilt tripping is another manipulation form you know after all i've done for you
how can you you do this to me i've been guilt tripped so many times it's crazy another is the
silent treatment maybe they'll shut you out and and not talk to you or limit you know uh limit
responses to you or whatnot and this is just a way to get you to bend to their will uh for them to control you by shutting you out uh conditional love a conditional love is where they're only warm to you
when they when you do things that they like or you do things that they approve of that as soon as you step out of that they're cold to you again it's another form of manipulation and and here's the big
one it's just playing the victim you know you may you just made me so sad i don't know what i did to
to deserve this and you know just it these are just different tactics that so i want you to recognize these so if your parents are trying to even you're growing you're you're grown grown adult but your
parents are still trying to manipulate you maybe if you see these you can recognize oh my parents are trying to manipulate me yeah you know when i wanted to go back for just a moment that three to thrive idea because i was reading somewhere recently about sunday night services and how they started
and i was amazed that the actual reason that sunday night started but you may not even know this um was because we used to always meet at locations um during the daytime we couldn't meet at nighttime
because there was no power electricity and they would have to use candles when it started getting dark it was just inconvenient it wasn't a great way but when the invitation of electricity and the
light bulb happened um some of the places the first local places that got power was churches because
they needed power to do things and it was you know you would reach the hub of whether the church was
the center of the hub you would reach there and you'd sort of branch out so some of the very first locations in america that got power and light bulbs were churches and so a way that churches use this as
an evangelical tool was hey come to church on sunday night we'll turn the light bulbs on and you can
experience preaching and teaching and worship on a sunday night and it was this outreach tool and
evangelism tool that brought people in on a sunday night that had nothing else to do because there was nothing else to do on sunday night they had no power they had no they just sat around their house
and did whatever they were doing um and so this was a way to bring people into a different style of service very evangelistic cool i got saved to the sunday night church okay that's that's where i made my
decision to follow christ that was a sunday night church but that's where it started at there was never like this biblical mandate to do it um and so now i have sort of went backward i i want to go and
be with my family or be with other people's family on sunday night uh because there's so much more intentionality to that um so yeah you know as we sort of wrap up this episode and sort of go through
some final things you know this is not limited to personality um this is a hard issue every single person that has ever existed can fall privy to manipulation social spiritual emotional physical
manipulation we also can be the victimizer of manipulation um any of us can be tempted to use
manipulation when we feel powerless and this is typically when it comes up is when we feel that we have no longer power to control the situation or we're not controlling the situation where we want
to and so we use this power to manipulate others right let me read a verse for you proverbs 15 28 says
the heart of the righteous ponders how to answer but the mouth of the wicked pours out evil things
what do you think about that verse james you know i hear this verse and i think you know instead of reacting and oftentimes i'm the guy that i'm very clear there i'm thinking of the answer before the
the word even finished speaking what it's telling us is sometimes it's good to pause sometimes it's
good to pause and ask yourself am i responding biblically or am i responding most emotionally
um you know the heart of the righteous ponders how to answer am i stopping and thinking am i saying
this because this is going to make james safer feel good and look good or am i saying this because this
is what the bible says that should be said and this is what god has commanded us to do and this is how jesus would have responded uh one of the things that was this last weekend when we were talking with
some guys at the convention um i made the statement because one of the men that we were with a great
uh guy that we met his name is tim pray for tim um i hope to meet tim again one day and get to hang out with him again we had a great conversation but but tim made the statement he said um i just as i go
through life and i begin to think through the evil things that happen in this world he said i think
about how jesus would have responded and i got to walk through luke and then just walk through what jesus did and i said jesus sat with sinners he went to the woman at the well he there was a woman
caught in adultery and jesus lovingly cared for her and cared for all these different people but the one
thing he did at the end of every single one of those stories is he looked at those people and he said go and sin no more i said we have to love people enough to tell them to no longer sin to tell them
that what they're doing is wicked and ungodly and that's not making me look better i didn't look good in tim's eyes when i told him that but i gained some respect from him i think because of the way
we responded later on and that's how we can respond biblically is telling each other the truth not necessarily out of emotion right and listen if you're on the receiving end of manipulation don't play that game don't do it respond with truth and grace not guilt or fear um you have the
tools to recognize when somebody's trying to manipulate you and go back to to the proverbs you
know know when have discernment know when to answer a fool know when to walk away and know when to answer
them know when to be silent know when to speak um and look to jesus look to his life um look to how he handled the situations um because he he was a master at dealing with manipulators
yeah it reminds reminds me of the old song by kenny rogers back in 1978 brett called the gambler
gotta know when to hold them you gotta know when to fold them uh let me i pulled the lyrics up just
now uh you gotta know when to walk away gotta know when you run gotta know when to run you never count your money while you're sitting at the table there'll be enough time for counting when the dealer's done
you gotta know when to hold them you gotta know when to fold them and that is a great point uh love that song lyric you brought in you know the rfp guys always brought up um casting crowns maybe kenny
rogers is the guy we bring up and we start bringing up a kenny rogers song every every time there you go
yeah you know i like how you said that the if you have been manipulated how to do that but maybe you've realized that you were the manipulator maybe you look over the last couple of weeks of your life and
you begin looking and hearing some of these things and go you know that was me i was manipulating someone
in that area now is the time to repent now is the time to confess that that desire for control uh was ungodly and to replace it with trust in god's sovereignty and understanding that you don't
have to be in control always you can trust the lord he is the god that is sovereign and in control and there's provision there in his ways um and maybe that was where you're at today that's right you know
ultimately freedom from manipulation whether giving or receiving comes from letting christ be the one
in control yeah it's great stuff right i think i think this is something we all struggle with
we just don't think about it enough and the more we think about it the more we can actually begin to say am i doing this out of control am i doing this out of love or out of what lord wants me to do
and you know and listen manipulation isn't always evil looking you know sometimes it comes dressed up
sometimes it can wear the mask of concern or i'm just concerned um but you gotta know when to recognize it yeah and one of the things that i've learned over my years is this one little statement
truth and love when they come in contact with each other when the love that you have towards someone and the truth of god's word comes in contact with that same love the control that we have will lose
its grip because we love someone so much that we're going to tell them the truth and we're not going to try to control what they're doing but if either one of those is out of balance you'll continue to have
control and you'll continue to fight to manipulate to have that control over others or someone's going to
Closing Thoughts on Manipulation
manipulate you to have control over you because they don't truly love you or truly have the truth for you and so understanding that is a massive massive way amen amen that's good stuff well thanks
for joining us if this episode if this episode has helped you share it with someone who needs biblical
clarity on this issue and uh james you got anything else i think that's it man it's been a great talk
and we've got just like two or three episodes left for this year and then we'll take a break for the winter and so be on the lookout for that thank you for listening these last couple of weeks and uh like
i said at the earlier part go by and check out our products that we have on our website go by and if you're interested in israel reach out to us if you're interested in those free books let us know
and uh we are looking forward to what god is going to do for us in 2026 we've already been planning for it we're excited for what he's got going on and until next time to god be the glory great things he has done
found my new name found that good grace found that healing and the tears fell down my face when i found my beginning that has no ending found that second chance found my best friend
found my forgiveness found my happiness i've been singing ever since i found my freedom in you
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