The following is the continuation of The Saul Controlling Spirit of the Prayer Portions written by Sylvia Gunter.
"The characteristics or profile of a modern-day “Saul” controller can be laid out in a 20 point check-list. If you have some of these tendencies, go before the Lord. If you have most of them, you are a controller and that is not God’s way. Repent and get help from a wise and seasoned brother or sister in the Lord who can help you. If you have been “Sauled,” that also is not God’s way, and you need help for healing and release.
- He may be religious and may even have the word of the Lords at times.
Saul had been touched by God, but he did not have the personal intimacy with the Lord that David had. When he was made king, he did not call for the ark nor call the nation Israel to rejoice before the Lord (I Sam 11:12-15). There is not evidence that he was a man of prayer and worship. He did not wait on God nor spend time alone with God. He sought God personally only once when he was desperate (14:35). Otherwise, he sought God only through Samuel, and eventually he could not hear God’s voice, because he had disobeyed God. When his men were going out to battle and were scared, unlike David, he did not encourage them in who God is, because he did not know God intimately.
The Spirit came upon Saul in 1 Samuel 10, and thereafter he was touched by the Holy Spirit from time to time. So, a person with Saul spirit can have the word of the lord at times (1Sam 19:23-24). When they do, you think you are crazy or judgmental for seeing lying, deception, manipulation, and other sins in their lives. They may speak powerfully in a meeting where the spirit of God is moving, but when they leave, they are back to their old selves. When Saul got into the presence of Samuel or the prophets, and God’s spirit was moving, Saul was touched as well. So the Spirit can move through a Saul from time to time. But make no mistake: the Bible is very clear. The Spirit of God departs from this leader (16:13-14). He loses the anointing of God because the fullness of the Holy Spirit is given to those who obey God, who walk according to the Spirit and not the flesh.
- He will take matters into his own hands.
When his men began to scatter, Saul disobeyed Samuel’s instructions, which were God’s commands, and offered a religious reason for doing so. “I was compelled” to offer the offerings. Circumstances made me do it (1 Sam 13:8-13). A Saul believes that the end justifies the means. When confronted by Samuel, there was no sign of repentance. Saul was not contrite and humble. Outward use of power will eventually reveal their inner bankruptcy.
- He blames others for his own wrong actions.
Saul blamed his disobedience on others (1 Sam 13:8-13). He had the audacity to blame Samuel. God gave His opinion of Saul’s sin: you have acted foolishly, your kingdom will not endure, your sons will not be on the throne, because you did not keep the Lord’s command. God went on to reveal the kind of man He was looking for, “a man after my own heart (13:14).” Saul’s blaming others is really seen in 1 Samuel 15 in the matter of sparing the Amalekite king and the best sheep.
- He fears man more than God.
In 1 Samuel 15, the most telling picture of Saul emerges. He clearly disobeyed in the matter of the king of Amalek and the sheep. He was told to spare nothing (1 Sam 15:3). Saul protested to Samuel that he had obeyed God (15:13). When Samuel confronted him with his disobedience through the bleating sheep, Saul said, “They did it. I obeyed, except for this one Amalekite (15:15, 20).” The Amelekites in the Bible are a picture of the flesh. Saul will spare what appears to benefit him of the flesh. Saul did not recognize that partial obedience is total disobedience in God’s sight. According to 2 Samuel 1:8 and 13, an Amalekite killed Saul. What Saul spared of the flesh killed him. The magnitude of his desire to please the flesh is seen in his people-pleasing, as he says to Samuel, “O.K., so I sinned, but honor me before the people (15:30).” There was no public humbling and no repentance.
- He will be rebellious, stubborn, arrogant, and proud.
As Samuel confronts Saul, telling him that obedience is better than sacrifice, he says that root of the sin of rebellion is witchcraft, and the root of stubbornness is idolatry (15:22-23). Witchcraft is control by any other means than the Spirit of God. Anything that does not originate in the Spirit originates in the flesh. Galations 5:20 confirms this, as it lists sorcery as a work of the flesh. Desire to control others is a work of flesh which will always war against the Spirit.
How is stubbornness like idolatry? Saul had to be right and his own rightness was an idol. Image, popularity, or even religious status is an idol. True authority is the authority of God humbly and righteously and obediently expressed in a man who is submitted to God first of all, in truth and faith to trust Him to work His purposes in all things. Anything else is counterfeit spiritual authority.
Parenthetically, God regretted that He made Saul king, because “he has turned away from Me and has not carried out My instructions (15:11).” Samuel genuinely grieved for Saul the rest of His days (15:35, 16:1). You are not on praying ground for your controller until your heart is right.
The spirit of control out –of-control really begins in 1 Samuel 16. It is an addiction to control that is characteristic of the compulsive/addictive personality. Many leaders who had alcoholic fathers would never think of being an alcoholic, but they become a control-o-holic instead."
{Check-list to continue another day.}
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