So You Think You Are Normal? The Damaged Soul in Church Life

There is among you also, in the midst of all this, the obsessed soul winner, and very proud of it. Beside him, or on the other side of him, or maybe in contention with him, is the obsessed prayer, the intercessor, who is also very proud of it, and of course, both of these want all of us to be like them. Then there’s the advice giver, who every time you see him or meet him, or he or she, they have some advice to give you about how you ought to be doing all this stuff, and when they leave you and go to someone else, they’re going to give that person advice too.

Then there’s the insecure. This is the brother or sister who really comes and becomes part of this hundred, or he is part of this hundred, because—let’s put it this way—whoever he meets, he wants reassurance. He, at that moment, wants that person to reassure him that that person likes him, and he especially wants this of people in leadership capacities. He is the one: when you have spent hours on your feet, you have just finished preaching a three-hour message, he will come up afterwards, and he will stand there, and he won’t talk to you until he feels approval. And if he doesn’t feel it, if he doesn’t get enough to satisfy him, he will follow you outside. He will follow you down the stairs. He will follow you to the car, and if you let him, he will get in the car and follow you to your house, waiting until that moment when he has that one second when he feels that you have given him enough assurance, reassurance. Then he can go home and go to bed, and he will wake up the next morning, as empty as he was the day before. I want to say to that brother: there is not, brother, there is not that much reassurance on this planet nor in this universe. Your hole, your bottomless pit of needing to be reassured that we like you, is bigger than all of the reassurance that we can create in this universe. The solution is not to be constantly reassured. The solution is to get help. And you, brother, would wear down a granite mountain. Somebody say, “Amen!” “That’s right.” Thank you, brother.

There’s not only the wife-beater; there’s the verbal wife-beater or the psychological wife-beater—the man who so browbeats and oppresses his wife that it’s the same. It’s the same as wife-beating. There is…I don’t know how to describe this so you can understand it, but it’s about aggressive manipulation. The passive…the passive… takes a person who is very passive, who uses manipulation that is very passive, and uses it aggressively as a passive person. Okay. That man or a woman will drive his mate mad. He is so aggressive and constantly manipulative, yet at the same time quiet and withdrawn. That person can drive another Christian stark raving mad. And in the midst of all this, there is the question asker. “Why did you do that? Why are we doing this? Why are we here? Why did he say that? Why? Why?” But why…why? This person follows you around, wanting an eternal answer, eternally wanting answers to everything that’s going on and things that are not going on. It was Mark Twain who said, “When I was, when I was 13 years old, I knew everything on earth there was to know, and I knew everything about everything there was, and I even knew everything about everything that wasn’t.” And that reminds me of the question and answer…they can ask you questions about everything on earth, and everything there is everywhere to ask, and they can even ask questions about things that don’t even exist.

And right in the midst of all this is the thief. The thief. Things are constantly disappearing, and things are constantly being stolen, and if you happen to be in this house or meeting with me and you’re sitting and watching all of this on television, I would recommend that in a moment you get up and slip out and go back to your room and hide your purse or your billfold. I realize that you’re living with ten of the dearest, sweetest Christians, fifteen of the finest, most wholesome, put-together, lovely believers, and one of them is a kleptomaniac. You are going to have a hundred bucks stolen from you as surely as you’re sitting here watching me, and if I were you, I’d stick my money inside my shirt, button my shirt, and put my coat on backwards. Because, in the midst of us, there is at least one, probably two, and maybe even three thieves at all times. You want the deeper Christian life, and you don’t believe your soul is damaged, and you don’t need any help from someone who has been trained in the business of helping people with their soul problems. That’s probably pretty good proof that you need a lot of help.

Alright, and there’s also the guy who…this fellow…he never gets picked on. He’s the laid-back brother. He’s taking everything so easily. Nothing fazes him. All that’s fine. His wife comes up and starts screaming at him. “Oh, my wife just had a bad day and night. It’s all right. She’ll be okay tomorrow.” This man…this is his attitude in life. The way he listens, the way he hears, the way he works; everything. He’s laid-back. But his wife takes about a half a pound of tranquillizers a day because she is trying to live in this world, in the world of reality, and she’s dealing with a man who’s just taking it all so easy. I’m not even going to tell you that he’s lazy. I’m just telling you he’s laid-back, and he’s driving his family stark raving bonkers, and he almost never gets caught at this.

I talked to you about a minute ago about blaming people. There are also people who manipulate; people who manipulate, and there must be at least a thousand ways to manipulate another person. Manipulation is achieved by being hot, being cold, being withdrawn, being aggressive, hinting, blaming, producing guilt, and agreeing. All I can tell you is this: that every person listening to the sound of my voice is a genuine first-class manipulator. You have your way, and each of us does it a little differently, but you manipulate, especially your spouse, and, you know, we always look down on or feel sorry for the poor little sister who has this big, overbearing husband. Just be careful. It may be that that man’s going stark raving mad back at home.

I remember one case of this very strong-willed woman and this very easygoing brother, and we just really felt sorry for him. I sat down one day to talk to her and listen to her, and that man had more ways of manipulating that girl; in his laid-back, easygoing way, he controlled her completely. He was totally the controller…but he didn’t need counselling. He was all right. His wife needed counselling…and he never got counselling. Manipulating, controlling, and blaming are three words that she should know fit us all. It’s the mark of the fallen human race. We can even manipulate by submission.

And in the midst of all of this is that sweet little sister who says, “Why can’t everybody just love one another?” I don’t know, sister. You know, you live day to day, and you get frazzled and frazzled and frazzled. You have been patient, and you know you have, and you know there’s not an angel in heaven who can charge you. And you have walked right in the midst of all this, and you have borne your cross. And one day, in an unguarded moment, when you just had your guard down, and you just didn’t know you were going to do it, one day, finally, after years and years of working, walking perfectly in the carrying of these burdens, you bite at somebody.

And there is that sister: “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, oh my God…” The lazy married brother who will not work. The lazy single brother who will not work, and his roommates are supporting him. There is the wolf that lives among us, who, during all this time, is gaining to himself followers, and he will take them off one day. There is the judger, who stands in the midst of all this and says, “Look at all this failure. If I were in charge, if you folks would all listen to me, it’d work out just beautifully.” There is the couple that is married, but they have never had sex. They are both virgins, and they have been married for three months, six months, one year, two years, four years, five years, ten years, and sometimes it is the wife who has refused, or sometimes it is the husband. They are still living together, and yet in the sight of God and in the sight of the state, they are not married, and this will come up in every 100 people.

And then there’s the one-problem person. They only have one problem, and every time you meet them, they want to discuss it—just one problem. They have this problem now and forever, world without end. And in the midst of all of this, there is the brother who says, “We don’t need anybody who will help us psychologically. All we need to do is preach the Word. And what’s wrong with you, sister, is that you just don’t read your Bible enough. What’s wrong with you is that you need to pray. Sister, you’ve got sin in your life. Confess your…sin. Oh brother, what you need to do is to pray and to fast, and you need to get in your Bible and study your Bible. And psychology is of the devil.” I don’t doubt that some of it probably is, but what you know better is this: “We just need the preaching of the Word of God, and this will take care of all this.” And you know what my answer to that is? You know what we need? We need you to leave.

We have also within this 100 people someone who is obsessed with the second coming, someone who is obsessed with speaking in tongues, someone who is obsessed with signs and wonders, someone who is obsessed with demons, someone who is obsessed with sunsets, someone who still believes that all you have to do is know the deeper Christian life to be transformed and to live in your spirit, and you don’t need either the cross nor help. There’s a Christian who is very angry with God. Perhaps there’s a Christian who is very angry with the leader because he’s been angry with his dad, and he’s taking his hostilities out on the leader, or maybe he’s taking out his hostilities on God. There is the woman who believes that sex is a sin and that her husband is perverted because he wants it, who may also believe that nudity is not something that should be even in the privacy of the bedroom, and that no matter what her husband does or says, the man is a pervert. That person lives among the 100 people, and that person is married right now, and that person is not seeking help. She’s trying to get her husband to get help.

And there are, in the midst of all of these people, one or two perfectly normal human beings, and they’re driving the other 98 mad. And the thing—listen—all these people came together for the deeper Christian life, and in the midst of all this, it just blows my mind that there are people who are saying, “I just don’t need any help.”