A Wife Manipulated Into Manipulating

Go ahead and turn in your Bibles to the book of Judges. As you can tell from prayer meeting, I share from Judges, so our family just finished going through Judges devotionally. We're going through the whole Bible with the kids.

Something stood out from Judges 14 that I thought could be helpful for us to consider this morning. I know there's different people I've talked to about this topic. In the last few years, it's come up.

But I want to speak on a wife manipulated into manipulating. A wife who was manipulated and went on to manipulate her husband. And so that's what I want to look at, the topic of sinful manipulation.

And then that's going to go hand in hand with the topic of flattering as well. And so there's something here for us. As I was thinking about this topic, I just thought how many relationships can be decimated and damaged and suffer greatly at the hands of subtle forms of manipulation that happen.

And maybe you look back and you know there's a season where you were guilty of seeking to manipulate someone and control them in a sinful way. And maybe you didn't recognize it. You were blind to that reality.

And so this is something we should definitely think about, especially since in many ways, a lot of us are products of our parents. And we learn from our parents, the good and the bad, right? And if any of you grew up in a home where there was any sort of subtle manipulation happening from the parents, it can become so ingrained in you as a child and now into adulthood. And maybe there's something here you've not yet considered.

So let's read Judges 14. Let's just read the whole chapter so you can see it. Samson went down to Timnah, and at Timnah he saw one of the daughters of the Philistines.

Then he came up and told his father and his mother, I saw one of the daughters of the Philistines at Timnah. Now get her for me as my wife. But his father and mother said to him, is there not a woman among the daughters of your relatives or among all our people that you must go take a wife from the uncircumcised Philistines? But Samson said to his father, get her for me, for she is right in my eyes.

His father and mother did not know that it was from the Lord. Remember that statement. This God is not allowing Samson to recognize something.

He's allowing all this to take place. So that's something to consider. God's controlling all of this.

For he was seeking an opportunity against the Philistines. At that time, the Philistines ruled over Israel. Verse five, then Samson went down with his father and his mother to Timnah, and they came to the vineyards of Timnah and behold, a young lion came toward him roaring.

Then the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon him, and although he had nothing in his hands, he tore the lion in pieces as one tears a young goat. But he did not tell his father or his mother what he had done. Then he went down and talked with the woman, and she was right in Samson's eyes.

After some days, he returned to take her. And he turned aside to see the carcass of the lion, and behold, there was a swarm of bees in the body of the lion and honey. He scraped it out into his hands and went on eating as he went.

And he came to his father and his mother and he gave some to them, and they ate. But he did not tell them that he had scraped the honey from the carcass of the lion. His father went down to the woman, and Samson prepared a feast there, for so the young men used to do." As soon as, so this is basically a wedding feast that is happening over a period of days.

As soon as the people saw him, they brought him 30 companions to be with him. And Samson said to them, let me now put a riddle to you. If you can tell me what it is within the seven days of the feast and find it out, then I will give you 30 linen garments and 30 changes of clothes.

But if you cannot tell me what it is, then you shall give me 30 linen garments and 30 changes of clothes. So there they got an opportunity to answer him. Are they going to commit to this or not? Right, they've got responsibility here that's going to be important.

What did they say to him? They said to him, put your riddle that we may hear it. So they're basically saying, yes, let's enter into this type of gambling that's going to basically happen. And he said to them, out of the eater came something to eat, out of the strong came something sweet.

And in three days, they could not solve the riddle. And so now the main verses we're going to consider, we're going to pull out some observations right here from God's Word, starting in verse 15. And on the fourth day, they said to Samson's wife, entice, entice, that word, deceive, cheat, mislead.

It's used in chapter 16, seduce. It's basically the word manipulate him. Manipulate your husband to tell us what the riddle is.

Lest we burn you and your father's house with fire. Is that a pretty manipulative, coercive statement right there that they just made to her? If you don't speak up, we're going to burn your family. We're going to kill you guys, right? I mean, you want to try to get your way through manipulation, they've just sought to do that to her.

And then they make this statement. Have you invited us here to impoverish us? Verse 16, and Samson's wife wept over him and said, so this is how she goes to him. She, now the wife who's being manipulated is seeking to manipulate her husband.

And she says to him, you only hate me. You don't love me. You've put this riddle to my people and you've not told me what it is.

You've left me out. And he said to her, behold, I've not told my father. I didn't tell my mother.

And shall I tell you? And how does she respond? She wept before him seven days that their feast lasted. And on the seventh day, he told her because she pressed him hard. Then she told the riddle to her people.

Ever read this passage? Ever thought about it? Considered it? I think there's a lot going on here that we could gain some insight from a lot of Old Testament historical narrative. There's principles you and I can pull out just like I did a few weeks ago from looking at Eli and his parental neglect with his sons. I think there's observations there that we can really, really consider.

And so what does it mean to manipulate? It means to handle something skillfully. There's positive, you know, the woodcarver manipulates the wood. Is that a positive or a negative thing? It's a positive thing.

Now, if you're the wood, you might think it's a negative thing getting cut into pieces, but it's a positive thing, right? There's a skillful handling, but it's not necessarily a negative thing. But what we're seeing in this passage, what I believe here, this is a sinful manipulation. And you can see that just by what all results and happens here.

And so, you know, you could think of a good way to illustrate this, a good image as a puppeteer. I know puppeteers, we don't have a lot of puppeteers anymore in the world. It's not as common, but they basically have a contraption where you've got the puppet and they're controlling the contraption and it's every move with the streams, right? But do you see the puppeteer? No, you don't.

You look at the person and you see them acting or not the person, you look at the figure and you see it acting and it almost would appear like it's moving on its own, but you know, it's wood. It's not moving on its own. It's being manipulated.

The streams are being pulled to make it appear to be something. Well, that's what's happening here with Samson's new wife. She's being manipulated, but it's not a wooden puppet with strings being pulled.

It's a human being being influenced through manipulation. In a way, the person being manipulated, they no longer act on their own. They're being controlled.

And this can happen with great skill and craft. Like I said, if you grow up and there's any manipulation in your household, you can become incredibly skilled by the time you're 30 years old at manipulating people, their emotions, and ultimately getting everything that you want through sinful manipulation. It's terrifying.

You're forcing them in one direction. You're putting pressure on them to get them to go in the direction that you want them to go. And I thought about it for kids.

I know a lot of the kids are in the back, but I thought for kids, if you think about manipulation, here would be an example of it. Tommy has a new toy, right? And you really want to play with the new toy that Tommy has. And Tommy says, no, you can't play with the toy.

Well, what does the kid, does the kid then say, you know what, Tommy, I totally understand the wisdom in not letting me play with the toy because often when you've let me play with your past toys, I've destroyed them. Is that what the kid says? Apparently Jonathan's kids don't say that, right? And mine don't either. What does the manipulator say? If you don't let me play with your toy, what? I won't let you play with mine or I won't be your friend anymore.

Oh man, he won't be my friend anymore. It's amazing, right? Just put that pressure right on them to get your way, to manipulate. Tommy feels sad, he's scared of losing you as a friend, so he lets you play with the toy.

He didn't want you to play with the toy. His will was you weren't gonna play with the toy, but now you've forced him to do it. Forced in one way.

He ultimately made the decision by caving in to the manipulation. And so these men skillfully handle Samson's new wife through manipulation and then she goes and skillfully handles Samson to get the information that they wanted. So let's look just a little more at these two examples right here.

First, the men towards her. I see two main things happening right there. The first is a threat, right, a threat.

If you're really gonna manipulate someone and coerce them into a certain direction, threats can be incredibly helpful thing. And I'm saying that almost as if I'm teaching you how to manipulate. I'm not trying to tell you to go do this.

But the more your powers of discernment are trained to detect what's happening, it's easier to pick it up on how you yourself might do that towards others. So the first is a threat. And it's a really, really strong threat.

Verse 15, we burn you and your father's house with fire. Right, so it's a threat of being killed. It made me think of the mafia, right? You're a witness of a crime.

One of the mafia guys is gonna be condemned and you're gonna go to court that day and who meets you at your door on the way to court but some of his goons. You go to court, you testify, we're going to burn your family, we're gonna kill you, right? That all of a sudden makes you lose great courage to go and deal with the corruption. The second thing here is, you could call it sarcasm and blame shifting is another tactic of those who manipulate.

And we see that right here. Look what they say to her. Have you invited us here to impoverish us? And that's really a strategic statement, right? That's really strategic.

In a sarcastic way, they accuse her of inviting them for her husband to take advantage of them. But who committed to do this gambling? Did the wife push them into doing it? Yeah, they made a decision. But now the manipulator shifts the blame to the other individual, right? To her.

Like this was your idea. They're basically saying to the woman, this is your idea. It was not her idea.

There's nothing in the text that indicates it was her idea. Amazingly, the text indicates all this happening was whose idea? God's. That's incredible, right? Verse four, it was from the Lord.

The Lord, brethren, the Lord can strip you of your discernment, right? And not allow you to recognize things and make decisions that even could appear in these lost people's eyes like with Pharaoh as a judgment of God. And it is a judgment, but it has a purpose for God. So there's a bigger perspective on God in this whole passage as well that we don't wanna miss.

But they responded to Samson by saying, tell us this riddle. So they manipulate her by a threat, by a statement I take as kind of sarcastic, and they're shifting the blame. They're not willing to take ownership that they got in this situation because they made a decision and it was their fault.

They're wanting to blame the other individual. That's what manipulation does. They put that pressure on you.

So the second thing, let's look, the men who manipulate her to manipulate her husband. So let's see what she does here. Let's see what she does.

And so the first thing she does is you could put it in different orders, but she lies. And what's the lie that she says to him? I mean, the whole thing is a lie, right? Manipulation, it's full of deceit. It's not speaking truthfully.

But what's like a specific lie right there in the passage that she says to him? Verse 16, you only what? You hate me, you don't love me. You don't love me. Has anyone ever told you that? Wait, what did she do to make it appear like, what did he do? Did he tell his wife, I don't love you? No, there's nothing there that indicates that.

So she is saying a hurtful lie, which we ultimately see she's doing it to try to tug at his heart. You've not told me what it is, right? That's part of manipulation. You could say that she's saying the words, you don't trust me, right? And when the manipulator says, you don't trust me, they're wanting to get you to give the information because you feel like you have to give the information in order to prove what? That you really do trust them.

So wait, you don't tell me that because you don't trust me? Oh no, I do trust you. Let me give you that information. Well, now they just got the information by twisting your wrist to give that information.

It's terrifying, brethren, how this all can happen. She's stating to him that which is not true. Something he has not said.

And I think he has a decent response. He looks at the broader picture. He looks at his parents, who he really honors.

Well, maybe he doesn't honor them, right? When you look at how he went about marrying the woman, he didn't exactly listen to their counsel. But Samson says, look, I've not even told my own parents, right? That'd kind of make an impact on the wife. Maybe she'd kind of step back and realize, you know what, you're right.

I'm sorry for accusing you of that, honey. But no, that's not what happens. It's not what happens.

And manipulation, often they make false claims to create guilt or doubt. Even after a clear response is given, the person sticks to their false stance. And what happens when they stick to their false stance? You start to actually question, maybe your reality is not really reality, right? This happens all the time in spiritual abuse in a lot of these bigger churches where you find spiritual abuse is happening, legitimate spiritual abuse.

So often, the leadership can make people's reality not really be true reality. Even you go in the charismatic circles and a lot of the manipulation that, we're gonna get you to speak in tons. They're trying to force something to happen and something illegitimate, unbiblical happens, but you feel pressure.

Well, you're not even a Christian and you shouldn't have assurance if you've never spoken in tons. Well, that's great. Now I feel pressure to fake some experience in order to have assurance.

You see that spiritual manipulation that's happening. You question your reality. The second thing she does here is her countenance and demeanor, right? After she doesn't get him initially to give the way, what does she do? What does she do for seven days? She cries.

Tears. And then he uses a statement here. She pressed him hard.

What's that make it sound like what's happening? She wasn't just over there weeping in the corner. She's bringing it up again, again, again, again, again, again, in that seven days, I mean, it wore Samson out. It wore him out.

A third thing, the manipulator, they inflict punishment upon the person until they're pressed hard enough to get their way, right? You leverage the person's affection for you to get what you want. I kind of already explained that, but that's a common thing with manipulation. We see it right here in the passage.

She's trying to leverage his affection for her to get what she desires. Then a fourth thing here is they inflict punishment through a sustained emotional pressure over a long period of time, right? The manipulator is determined, in this case for seven days, they're seeking to break down this person's resistance and force them to give in. Isn't that amazing? Any of you guys ever done that? Is this something you've picked up in your own life? Some form of manipulation that's happened? Now, how does it affect the person? Well, what if I don't love her? What if she's right? What if I really don't love her, right? These provoke questions, or I've got to tell her this info to prove that I love her.

She pressed him hard. After days of continuous pressure, emotional manipulation, Samson finally gives in, shares the details with his wife who immediately relays the information to those threatening her. Showing what? The entire time she was lying.

It was all a lie. And think about it. If you're her, what would have been the wise thing to do? Your husband is who? Who? Sam.

Well, that's interesting. Hey honey, these guys put a gun to my head. And they said if I don't get them this information, they're going to kill me and my family.

And Samson just gets the jawbone from the closet and he goes and wipes them all out. I mean, hello! Now, who did he marry? Philistine. Oh yeah, interesting.

Made a bad marriage decision. And then he ends up in a very difficult spot. So I don't think his wife... His wife had the threat from her own people, but I don't know how keen she was on turning her husband into the great slayer of these people.

Well, what was the result? I mean, Samson abandoned her, was fed up with it. And then look at chapter 15, verse 6. The Philistine said, this is after he's already taken the foxes and torched everything. They said, I've lost the verse, verse 6. Who has done this? They said, Samson, the son-in-law of the Timite, because he has taken his wife and given her to his companions.

The Philistines came up and burned her and her father with fire. Wow. So you're telling me that if I lie to avoid punishment, to avoid calamity, you're telling me what might exactly happen is the very thing I'm lying to avoid is going to come right back on my head? You better believe it.

And look, you guys know a few years back, I mean, different people in the church wanting to justify Christians lying, that there's places for Christians to lie. Brethren, this is a terrifying example of lying in order supposedly to protect her family from murder. And look what happens.

They all end up dying anyways. You and I have got to trust the Lord. And just reading, just hearing this morning about that young Haitian missionary couple, 23, 21, they were murdered in Port-au-Prince.

That's where Tim and a team went many years ago after I think a hurricane had hit Haiti. And they were trapped in a house in two different gangs. One gang came to loot the missionary compound and another came, they both lost their lives.

I mean, yeah, what if you're put in that situation? You've got to trust the Lord. You don't have to lie. You don't have to deny Christ.

You can believe God and He will deliver you. Or He will allow you to depart and be with Christ, which is far better. So take note of what happened there to this lady and her dad.

So yeah, why consider all of this? I think it's one of the most destructive traits and subtle that can harm our relationships. You just, you know, you think military terms, you'd much rather have a clear air raid bombarding your city than have a bunch of spies infiltrating the city who go undetected for a long period of time. What's easier to defend against? The spies who are planning specific internal attacks from bombs or obvious planes flying through the air that you can shoot down.

I think the planes, that's far easier to detect and defend against. And so this behavior can be so insidious because it goes unnoticed. I look back, I was saved at 21, and I look back and I see from 17 to 21, there's so much manipulation in my life in different relationships that I had at the time in different ways, trying to control people and their affections in order to get something that I desired for my own selfishness.

It's absolutely terrifying how we can give in to this. And so we need to be a people who are the opposite of manipulation. You wanna hear what the opposite of manipulation is, Ephesians 4.25. You don't have to turn there, but listen to these two verses.

Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor for we're members of one another. All right, we're to be people who speak the truth, who put away falsehood. It doesn't say who speak deceitfully and manipulate one another.

It's not what it says in Colossians 3.9. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with his practices. So you could easily re-say Paul's statement and say, don't manipulate one another. Seeing that you're a new creature.

You don't have to do this anymore. It doesn't matter if your parents did it. It doesn't matter if you're trained from a child to manipulate and use deceit and pull on people in order to get your own way.

It doesn't matter. You can have victory in the Lord Jesus Christ and lay these things aside. So sinful manipulation is nothing new.

It's all over the Bible, right? Eve and the serpent. Oh, the serpent manipulated Eve into eating the forbidden fruit by getting her to question God. Got her to question God.

What did that result in? Was that a minor, you know, does manipulation result in things that can be pretty severe? Is the fall of humanity a pretty severe reality? Absolutely it is. Laban and Jacob. Laban manipulates Jacob by making him work seven years for Rachel.

Then tricking him into marrying Leah. Requiring another seven years of work for Rachel. What did that lead? Did that lead to a happy marriage? It did not.

Did not. With both those wives. Jealousy between the sisters of David and Bathsheba.

David manipulated Uriah, bringing him back from the battlefield. David wasn't speaking truthfully to Uriah. David was hiding his true intentions because he had an ulterior plan in order to protect his own reputation and what sin he had committed.

What did that manipulation lead to? Uriah dying? David had severe consequences. It wasn't just that the new son died, but you go look at his other children, the influence it had on their life and where they ended up. It was incredibly severe.

You see, I'm trying to show you, brethren, if you and I manipulate in our relationships, if we use this mouth and we don't speak truthfully, it can have absolutely dramatic, destructive effects. Absalom and David. Absalom manipulated the people of Israel to gain their support and undermine his father's authority by presenting himself as a more favorable leader as he stood at the gates every day, stealing the hearts of people.

That didn't lead to something good. Rebellion, civil war, and Absalom's death. What would have happened if they would have been truthful? In all of these situations, what would have happened if there was truth, not manipulation, or the person responded in truth? Jezebel, Naboth's vineyard.

Jezebel manipulated the elders and nobles to falsely accuse Naboth of blasphemy leading to his execution. So they could get what? A piece of property. They lied and manipulated in order to acquire a piece of property.

Absolutely terrifying. What did this lead to? Naboth's unjust death and eventually divine judgment upon Ahab's house. Haman and Cain of Xerxes.

I mean, you see that in the book of Esther. Haman manipulated the Cain into issuing a decree to destroy the Jews by presenting them as a threat to the kingdom. I mean, you go to the Cain, you have a goal.

I want all the Jews dead, but if I tell him everything that's really true about the Jews, he's obviously not gonna do the decree. So I need to be really strategic in how I present this. And they're probably not gonna go and get the other side of the case.

That's exactly what happened. That little manipulation, getting a lawmaker to put a certain law in effect could have led to the annihilation of the entire Jewish people. It's incredible.

So you see manipulation, it's all throughout the Bible. If it's all throughout the Bible, throughout all these characters in the Bible, many of whom are believers, it's interesting. That means you and I, we got the great terrifying privilege that we could be prone to the same behavior.

So God help us. The old prophet, wow. The old prophet deceived the younger prophet.

He, in a way, it seems to me, he falsely claimed to have an angelic message. It's a pretty powerful tool of manipulation, right? I mean, I know we've had it in the past, no one that's here, but people going to someone and saying, I have a word from God that I'm supposed to marry a certain person. That's a nice form of manipulation, right? God told me I'm going to marry you, so you kind of have to marry me now.

Yeah. Truth. We want to be people of truth.

2 Corinthians 9. You think of this. Each one must give as he's decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under what? Compulsion. I think you could, that's a type of manipulation.

You can make someone feel a compulsive desire to have to give, and it's not cheerfully, they're being coerced and forced into doing that, right? We're not to be people who manipulate. Proverbs 26, 24. And that's one reason, brethren, the Bible talks about a box for an offering.

And I remember when the Lord saved me and I first came to this church, I was so thankful that there wasn't some plate being tossed around our church on a Sunday morning. Because I remember growing up as a kid, and you see the plate, and it's kind of like, as a kid even, I felt like we would better put something in their offering plate. Is that cheerfully giving? And so, even in that, churches we've considered as a church, what can we do that people don't give under compulsion? We're not trying to manipulate people.

Proverbs 26, 24. Listen to this. Whoever hates disguises himself with his lips.

Ah, he's manipulating, he's lying. He harbors deceit in his heart. When he speaks graciously, believe him not.

For there are seven abominations in his heart. There are seven abominations in his heart? Though his hatred be covered with deception, his wickedness will be exposed in the assembly. What a warning.

God is in the business of taking those and manipulate others. And they lie and they cover themselves and he's in the business of exposing them for who they really are. That's, to me, encouraging and terrifying.

So the manipulator, you could say, is a liar, right? And I would remind you, all the Bible says all liars will have their place in the lake of fire that burns the sulfur, right? Manipulation is one form of deceit and lying that we could engage in. May God help us in this area. And this all goes hand in hand with flattery.

Flattery in a similar way is a form of untruthful speech that is full of manipulation. Psalm 5.9, for there is no truth in their mouth. No truth? Well, what are they saying? Their innermost self is destruction.

Wow. Their throat is an open grave. What are they doing? They flatter with their tongue.

They're that wicked? There's no truth in their mouth. They're full of destruction and they're flattering. Have you ever tried to trap someone? You don't want to lose a prey? What do you do? If you don't want to lose a prey, you set up a trap.

What's a good trap? Flattery. Listen to this, Proverbs 29.5. A man who flatters his neighbor. What's he do? What's he spread? A net.

He spreads a net for his feet. This is your neighbor and you're flattering them. And they think you have a great appreciation for them, but they really have an intention.

I want to get you in the net and then we're going to trap you. We're going to trap you. So flattery deceives.

When someone flatters, they often hide their true intention behind pleasant words. They might be trying to trick you to get something from you by making you feel special. Like the net laid on the forest path, their words are meant to entangle you.

They're appealing to your pride and your vanity with their flattery. And that has a great way of luring people. We might not see the trap at first, but once we step into it, we find ourselves caught, unable to move freely.

They carefully choose compliments. And what type of compliments are they going to choose? They're going to try to think of the exact compliments that will resonate with what you want to hear. And often, what do you want to hear? You want to hear things positive about yourself that relate to what in your life? Your insecurities, right? So the manipulator, they start to recognize this person, they're insecure in this area in their life.

And so they recognize this. They flatter the person in that area right there. It's appealing to their pride and their vanity.

And all of a sudden, they can trap the person. Just like that. We begin to lower the guard, trusting their intentions without any sort of question that there's something manipulative happening.

The praise, it just makes us feel so good about ourselves. And all of a sudden, you're blinded, you walk into a net, and you're trapped. You're trapped.

Romans 16, 18, for such persons do not serve our Lord Jesus, such persons who teach false teaching in this case, but they serve their own appetites and by smooth talk and flattery, they deceive the hearts of the naive. And it even just made me think of Proverbs 7, right? He's talking about the adulterous woman. What type of speech does she use when she lures in the young man, right? It says she uses smooth speech and flattery.

And you listen to some of her manipulation. Oh, I just got back from the temple. I had to offer a sacrifice.

Oh, wow, you go to church. Wow. And she says, my husband's not at home.

Does she even have a husband? I don't know. Maybe she did. But you go read Proverbs 7, it's terrifying.

And it says the old man is looking out the window, basically, and he's seeing a young man who lacks sense. This is something we want to help train our kids in. It's not just we want to purge flattery and manipulation out of our own lives and our own speech.

We want our kids to recognize things that, you know what it's called? Are my kids street smart? Ever heard that statement? That's an important thing as parents to train your kids, where they're actually street smart and they're able to be out there Yeah. Why don't we get into that? We've had things in the past in our church from a decade ago where some struggle with street smarts, but they now have street smarts. So God grows us in that.

Manipulation exploits our vanity. It leads us to act in ways that serve the hidden agenda, leading us down a path where we are no longer in control. Imagine this, what if Samson's wife would have approached him with flattery? Maybe that would have worked better.

Maybe it wouldn't have taken seven days of weeping. So picture this, she could have done this. Samson, my love, there's no one as strong and intelligent as you.

Your brilliance amazes everyone. You're my hero. I adore everything about you.

How wonderful it would be to just share in your triumph and understand your clever riddle. Oh, that'd be so great to understand that riddle. You're so clever.

It would make me the happiest wife to share in your incredible mind. I would feel so special. She could have done that.

Honestly, I think if she would have, she probably would have got the answer quicker. I could be wrong, but that's just my thought. So brethren, when someone resist a request that you make, do you persistently pressure them until they give in or do you respect their decision? Right, obviously we see that in our kids.

With the toy thing and other things. It's something we wanna train our kids in. But what does that happen in our life? Is my mind so made up that I have an expectation that this must happen to where there's pressure being applied to force it because I'm convinced this is what I need.

Well, how do you and I respond in a God-honoring way when others manipulate you? You know how you shouldn't respond? By manipulating them back. Proverbs 26, answer not a fool according to his folly, lest what happen? You be like him yourself. As tempting as it is to manipulate, when being manipulated, it's returning evil for evil and that should not be named among us.

I thought of a glorious example of how to handle something in Philemon. Years ago at the Mintretree, Ryan Fullerton did some sermons on these verses, but listen to Philemon, verse eight. So although, remember, his servant ran away and then he gets converted and he's with Paul and the guy's really helpful to Paul.

And if you're Paul, you'd like the guy, it could be helpful for the guy to remain with you, but then he has an obligation over here, so how do you handle the situation? Although I have a lot of confidence in Christ and I could command you to do what is proper, Paul realizes he could go and he could command them. But he says this, I'd rather appeal to you on the basis of love. Verse 14, however, without your consent, I didn't want to do anything so that your good deed would not be out of compulsion, but from your own willingness.

I mean, Paul is asking Philemon to do something out of love instead of giving him an order. He also waits for Philemon's agreement showing that he respects Philemon's right to make his own choice and manipulator on the other hand, they don't respect your independence. They try to control others instead of letting them make a decision for themselves.

Right, I think that's a very important thing for us as parents. I remember observing that from my father-in-law different times I was up there, just putting difficult decisions in the path of your child and you might give some counsel to them, but you're really letting them make that decision. You're helping them learn how to make decisions independently on their own.

Yes, they've gathered that counsel and it could be anything, a construction project. We're gonna build something, not something structural that might fall and damage people later, hurt people later on if it's not built right. But let's say it's a chicken coop and you give that responsibility to the child.

It's easy for you to speak up and say, do this, do that, and all of those things. Well, let them ask for the input. You're trying to grow them in initiative and making decisions.

So there's different things we can do as parents. Think about the Lord Jesus. He refused to manipulate the situation to avoid being crucified.

And instead, he bore witness to the truth. That's what you and I wanna do. When we might have the cross right in front of us, the cross could be losing friends, family, something we love and cherish.

We wanna be on the side of truth. We want our speech to be truthful. Christ never lied.

Doesn't the Bible say there was no deceit in his mouth? No flattery, no manipulation, no deceit in his mouth. The Lord Jesus, he is our great example. And brethren, like I said, we are creatures in Christ, new creatures.

We gotta believe God for this. And I just close too with this thought. In all of this, you look at all the sinful manipulation.

But brethren, we don't wanna despise others like God, who with his power, he is skillfully in a positive way, handling situations for our good, right? And I point your eyes back to verse four. All this happened, it was from the Lord. The Lord was seeking an opportunity.

Well, he was seeking an opportunity being Samson, but it was from the Lord that Samson, that he there is not the Lord, was seeking an opportunity against the Philistines. And so brethren, God is skillfully crafting certain circumstances and situations in your life right now to bring something about for good. And we wanna be able to trust the Lord in that.

You know, one way you could think the Lord skillfully handles us is John 15. What does he do to us? He prunes us, right? He's not letting us go rogue without any manipulation, any skillful hands. But he comes up there and he recognizes, you know what? Boy, this branch in your life, in your life could bear more fruit.

Could, but you know what? I gotta prune some of it off. I've gotta set them back five steps in growth first in order to then bear more fruit. And we find that in John 15.

So brethren, these are, I think, important things to consider. Well, what time is it? We're gonna, we are going to have, so it's 1048. Well brethren, let me, I'm gonna pray.

And then after I pray, we're gonna have our sister, Jennifer, share a testimony, hopefully the babies. And we're then gonna go out and baptize our sister, Jennifer. And I realize some of you are thinking, wait, Jennifer is a member in our church already.

She's already been baptized. Well, she's gonna share some about that and what God has done in her life with all of us before we step outside and baptize her. And so brethren, let me pray.

And then we'll give our sister that opportunity. Father, Lord, I pray everything that was just shared right now won't in any way be an unnecessary burden on anyone's mind where it shouldn't be, where it shouldn't be. But Lord, Lord, I pray You would sanctify us in this specific area.

Lord, I don't know the last time I've heard flattery or manipulation or this whole topic just even be dealt with, Lord. And so Lord, here You've brought me through devotions with the family to this passage to share on this. Lord, I trust You have a purpose for these specific thoughts.

And Lord, I pray You'd use these thoughts that You would sanctify Your brethren. Lord, I pray that You would forgive us. Lord, of any ways in which we have been guilty of sinful manipulation, of deception.

Lord, even in the area of flattery, Lord, we don't wanna lay a net for someone. Father, we don't wanna be people who are just so determined, so selfish, just so selfish to want our way where we determined to press hard until we get it. Lord, we don't want that.

We don't want that in our lives. Lord, Your will, Your will, Your will. That's what we want.

And Lord, thank You for all You're doing in different people's lives. Lord, even in Jennifer's life, thank You for all You've done. Lord, I pray even in this time ahead, You'd, Lord, give her the grace to share what comes to her mind and encourage, Lord, us, the brethren right now.

And so Father, we're just grateful to be Your people. We just commit this time to You. In Christ's name, amen.