Well, it's good to be back with you
again today on Eagle's Wings.
I trust that Jesus Christ is very special
to you.
He's very special to me.
For he saved me.
He took me out of a life of
self and sin some number of years ago
and has done a new thing in my
life.
And through all of his working and everywhere
he's sent me and all of the stuff
somehow or another he's put me together today
with you.
And I trust that this time will be
a blessing to you.
I never know where I'm going to be
from week to week.
Never know where I'm going to preach or
not preach.
Never know what state I'll be in.
Along with my family, we have yielded ourselves
to be available to the Lord for him
to use us as he sees fit.
And about two years ago we moved away
from our pastorate and have gone into a
revival ministry, a ministry of helping churches.
We took the first year off basically for
our family to spend time with our children,
to prepare them for this time.
We didn't know exactly how deep God would
take us into this area, but he's taught
us to let go of many things, to
deal with many things, to give up many
things.
And every time we've given up something he's
replaced it with more of his grace and
his goodness and his presence.
You know last week I was talking with
you about restitution if you were listening to
the program.
I just can't overemphasize how important it is
to be clean spiritually.
It's very key that you deal with sin
in your life.
And Heavenly Father, I pray for my friends
today listening that Jesus Christ will be all
they want.
He's all they need, but he that he
will become all they want.
And Father you guide our time on the
air, you direct us as to what we
share, the subjects we talk about, and I
pray for my friends listening.
There may be one without Christ as their
Savior, and I pray that you would speak
to them that Jesus is what they need.
That they would come to a point, even
right now, where they would repent of their
sin and turn and ask Jesus to come
into their life.
Do what you want now, Father, during this
time in Jesus' name.
Amen.
Amongst all of the things that are going
on in the world, there's nothing more serious
than sin in your own life.
And as I've been talking to you about
this, I feel like the Lord today would
have me share a little bit with you
about the destructive elements or effects of bitterness.
I have some notes from a good preacher
friend of mine, Evangelist by John Musser on
bitterness, and the scripture is full of bitterness,
and you can just find all kinds of
illustrations of bitterness all around us.
But if you're praying for revival, and that's
what this program is geared for, for a
revival in our nation, and it's got to
start somewhere, and the best place to start
is in my heart and in yours.
And I have a burden for our churches.
So many of our churches are not seeing
souls saved.
We're not dealing with things in our lives.
We're not making restitution, and we're inviting demons
in, and that's why I'm offering to you
a booklet on on rock music.
If you would like to receive this, you
write to me, send a donation of five
dollars to help cover the cost, and I'll
send you this booklet.
And also anytime anybody writes me, I usually
send them a copy of the booklet Revival
or Ruin that I wrote about almost six
years ago, about how God worked in our
part of the country in revival where it
went for seven months, and that booklet deals
specifically with what God did in our church.
But it went through the state for seven
months, and it's continued on even today in
different areas.
One of the things that we're trying to
focus in on in this area of revival
ministry is how to keep it going in
the church.
And I've been reading a book, an old
book, it's 130 years on revival, and I'm
learning some new truths and principles about it.
Many of the old revivals went on for
years after it hit in a land or
a city or an area of the country.
It went for years, and we're having to
relearn these principles, these things.
But let me cover this with you before
we share with you something about bitterness.
The Bible says, Behold, the Lord's hand is
not shortened, that it cannot save, neither his
ears heavy, that it cannot hear.
But your iniquities have separated between you and
your God, and your sins have hid his
face from you, that he will not hear.
That's from Isaiah 59, 1 and 2, and
if you know anything about the Bible, Isaiah
58 is to me a key revival passage
before that.
The first step in preparing the way to
pray for revival is dealing with the sin
in one's own life.
And a good way to start is to
keep a pencil and a notepad handy while
you're praying, or you're reading the scripture, and
anything that constantly comes up to interrupt your
communion with the Lord should be noted.
You know what Paul said in Acts 24
16?
He said, and herein do I exercise myself
to have always a conscience void of offense
toward God and toward man.
A very good principle to practice.
Anything that the Spirit of God keeps bringing
up to you over and over again in
your conscience is something that you probably need
to deal with.
I read of a story how in Argentina
there were two men in a church who
had not spoken to each other in 15
years, and they were brought to see how
that displeased the Lord, and they were reconciled.
And then a nurse in another church was
making some side money doing abortions, and God
convicted her of it, and she vowed that
she would do it no more.
Then she took her kit of instruments, and
she drove her car out on a big
bridge that spanned a river coming down from
the east side of the Andes, and she
stopped the car and tossed the instruments over
the railing and into the river.
Dealing with what the Spirit of God had
spoke to her about.
A well-to-do couple invited a lady
friend to have dinner with them in an
expensive hotel in downtown Buenos Aires, and the
hall leading into the dining room sparkled with
luxury, and the floor was beautifully tiled, and
there were huge plate glass mirrors on the
walls, and along one side was a row
of magnificent flowering potted plants.
And after the meal, this lady, when three
of them came out, they paused in the
hallway to admire the flowers, and the single
lady thought that one of the flowers was
especially pretty.
So she glanced up and down the hall,
and then as her British brethren would say,
she pinched the flower pot in awe.
She took the flower, the pot in awe,
she took it out, put it in her
car, and took it home.
And a few weeks later, God tapped her
on the shoulder and asked her, how come?
Has God ever done that to you?
Maybe he's doing that to you right now.
He's just saying, why'd you do that?
Why'd you say that?
And even though she was sick with a
bad cold, she got out of her bed,
she went back down to that hotel, and
she paid for her sin.
How come?
Why'd you do it?
Why'd you say that?
And the Spirit has been talking to maybe
some of you for years on something.
A habit.
You know, making an apology or a restitution
is one of the most difficult things a
believer is asked to do, and that's probably
why we don't see it going on in
our churches.
But without it, you're not going to have
revival.
You're not going to see God's fullest blessing.
But just here, we can offer a word
of encouragement and consolation to you.
In most cases, where the Lord has squeezed
us into asking forgiveness, he will have gone
ahead and worked in the heart of the
other person so that the injured party may
receive you in a way that you've not
imagined.
Sunday nights in the church that we're in,
the pastor opens it up most of the
time for testimonies, what God's doing, and many
times they share how God has worked in
an area where they went back to make
restitution.
And the stories are amazing.
Amazing the things that happen.
All kinds of things happen.
People get saved when they go back to
make restitution.
The people, they drop their jaws.
They just, their mouths fly open when somebody
comes up and tells them to do that.
It is something that's so unheard of, but
it's so powerful.
A humbling of ourself.
You remember last week?
How frightened Jacob was when he got the
news that his brother Esau was coming to
meet him with 400 men?
I shared that with you.
But God did something in Esau's heart so
that when they met he, he was actually
delighted and hugged Jacob.
Jacob lived in fear of nothing.
Esau's heart had melted.
Now if you've not quite had the courage
to to straighten up some sin in your
life, and you're invited to participate in a
time of prayer, it might be wiser to
decline than to risk short-circuiting the prayer
of the entire group.
I believe many of our prayer meetings are
just shams, because we know there's somebody there
with sin in their life, and we're letting
them pray with us.
We're tolerating sin.
Now, let me talk with you about prayer
for revival a little bit more before we
go into our study today.
But Dr. Torrey said, it's not necessary that
the whole church get to pray and to
begin with.
Great revivals always begin in the hearts of
a few men and women whom God arouses
by His Spirit to believe in Him as
a living God, as a God who answers
prayer, and upon whose hearts He lays a
burden from which no rest can be found
except in importunate crying to God.
You say, well, I don't know of anybody
else I can pray with.
Well, that might be the case.
But that's no reason why you can't pray
yourself for revival.
Pray that God will give you somebody to
pray with you for revival.
Perhaps the Lord will put you in contact
with one or two others in your area
who would be interested.
You know, even though He might not do
that, you can still be a David Brainerd.
He prayed alone in whole villages of Indians,
men, women, and children all turned to the
Lord.
James Frazier in Burma also prayed alone with
the exception of a few of his relatives
on the other side of the world in
England, and some 20,000 of the Lai
Su people came to the Lord.
So if there's one, two, three neighbors or
your friends that have an interest in prayer
for revival, then start a little prayer meeting
with them.
Small prayer meetings are more flexible than the
large ones anyway.
It's easier to agree on the time to
get together and all that.
So pray for revival for America.
Pray for revival for your church.
Many Christians, I believe, have the notion that
the more people they can induce to come
to a prayer meeting, the better.
That's not necessarily true.
You never know in a large meeting how
many Aikens you have.
Read Joshua chapter 7.
One preacher said, he said, I once had
what I thought was a nice prayer group
only to learn that one of the women
who prayed the loudest was the cook in
a house of prostitution.
So you just pray.
You start praying that God will send a
revival in your life, in your church.
And if you like this booklet, you write
to me on rock music.
I believe many of our churches are inviting
demons into their churches.
Many of the young people are confused.
There's two standards.
They're not being taught what's right.
And they're they're being taught what's wrong and
it's destroying them.
They're wondering why they have no power.
You ever wondered why your church is not
sending out missionaries anymore?
We've compromised so much, accepted the ways of
the world so much into our lives.
Now, as we go into this new year
and we're just getting started this month, one
of the most destructive sins that I know
of.
Is that of bitterness?
You can get out your Webster and Webster
will define bitterness as having a sharp, generally
disagreeable taste, painful as a bitter experience, severe
as bitter, cold, cruel, stinging as bitter words.
The Greek word for bitterness, Piazzo, means to
squeeze.
Actually, it will squeeze the life out of
you, out of the person that's bitter.
That person is always hurt more than the
one that they're against, means to squeeze, to
seize, to officially arrest or in hunting to
capture, to apprehend, to catch, to lay hand
on, to take, also to pack, to press
down from strong.
Are you bitter?
The Bible says, if you'd like to turn
in your Bibles to Ephesians 430, and I'm
going to take you through many passages that
we are to let all bitterness, we're to
let all bitterness be put away from you.
Ephesians 4.
Thirty one.
Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and
clamor and evil speaking be put away from
you with all malice.
Have you ever thought about this thing of
bitterness?
Are you bitter?
It is the attitude that refuses to make
reconciliation with others.
Last week and today, I've talked with you
a little bit on reconciliation.
I will not go to them, to them.
They offended me.
I am right.
They're wrong.
They can come to me.
That, my friend, is the attitude of bitterness.
First of all, bitterness has a conforming process
and not a transforming process.
If you know what the scripture says in
Romans 12, Paul said, I beseech you, therefore,
brethren, by the mercies of God that you
present your bodies, a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable
unto God, which is your reasonable service.
And do not be conformed to this world.
I propose to you that bitterness is part
of this world, but be you transformed by
the renewing of your mind that you may
prove what is that good and acceptable and
perfect will of God.
Bitterness has a conforming process, not a transforming.
The word of God, as you saturate yourself
on that and you think on the word
of God, you become what you think.
As a man thinks, so he is.
So if you're bitter against somebody, that's the
area you're going to conform to.
It conforms us actually to this age, which
is under the control of Satan.
So we're not to be conformed to this
age, we're not to to take on the
shape of this age and the patterns of
thinking.
I was looking at Ephesians chapter 2, verse
2 and 3.
Paul said in verse 1, And you had
be quickened who were dead in trespasses and
sins, wherein in time past you walked according
to the course of this world, according to
the prince of the power of the air,
the spirit that now worketh in the children
of disobedience.
Among whom also we all had our conversation
in times past, in the lust of our
flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and
of the mind, and were by nature the
children of wrath, even as others.
Bitterness is a conforming process to the flesh,
to the lust of our flesh, to the
desires of the flesh and of the mind.
It's from the world, it's actually from the
pit.
Bitterness, Satan is a bitter, bitter fallen angel.
Very bitter, bitter people, if you get around
them, they spoil your fun, they spoil your
party, they spoil the atmosphere, they are angry
inside, they are bitter.
Do you know one?
Are you one?
It is actually enmity with God.
The Bible says, in Romans 8, 5, and
let me just inject bitterness in the place
of flesh.
For they that are after the flesh do
mind the things of the flesh.
For they that are after bitterness do mind
the things of bitterness.
But they that are after the spirit, the
things of the spirit.
For to be carnally minded, or let's say
to be bitterly minded, is death, but to
be spiritually minded is life and peace.
Because the carnal mind, that bitter mind, is
enmity against God.
For it is not subject to the law
of God, neither indeed can be.
It's not from God, it's not subject to
the law of God.
Bitterness actually is meditating upon evil, which is
strictly forbidden in the scripture.
Strictly, God has strictly forbidden us to do
this.
If you turn over to Philippians, in chapter
4, the Bible tells us that we are
to meditate on those things which are good.
Philippians chapter 4, starting actually with verse 1,
you come on down through there, in verse
4, you are to rejoice in the Lord.
In verse 6, you are to be careful
for nothing, but in everything by prayer and
supplication with thanksgiving.
Let your request be made known unto God,
and the peace of God, which passeth all
understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through
Christ Jesus.
Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things
are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things
are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things
are of good report, if there be any
virtue, if there be any praise, think on
these things.
Those things which you have both learned and
received and heard and seen in me do,
and the God of peace shall be with
you.
So you might ask yourself, as you're thinking
on something, does it fit into the category
of Philippians chapter 4, verse 8?
Is it true?
Is it honest?
Is it just?
Is it pure, lovely?
Is it of good report?
Just think on that.
If it doesn't fit in with it, drop
it.
Get rid of it.
It'll destroy you.
Meditating upon that which is evil is actually
taking poison into your own soul, which will
actually destroy the spiritual life which is within
you.
We're to think on those things which are
good.
Love thinketh no evil, 1 Corinthians 13, 5.
It doesn't dwell on the evil.
The opposite of love is bitterness and evil
which is at enmity with God.
For God is love, 1 John 4, verse
8.
Let me share with you in our remaining
time today some consequences of bitterness.
Maybe God can use this in your life,
or maybe you can take something that might
help somebody else that's bitter, and you can
minister to them.
I have actually six consequences, if we can
get through them.
First of all and foremost is broken fellowship
with God.
If you turn over back to 1 John,
chapter 1, and verse 6, the Scripture tells
us about our fellowship with God, that if
we say we have fellowship with Him and
walk in darkness, we lie and do not
the truth.
Actually we are not practicing truth.
1 John 2, 9 and 11 says, Whosoever
is born of God does not commit sin,
for his seed remaineth in him, and he
cannot sin, because he is born of God.
In this the children of God are made
known, or manifest, and the children of the
devil.
Whosoever does not righteousness is not of God,
neither he that loveth not his brother.
For this is the message that you heard
from the beginning, that we should love one
another.
You know that you cannot love someone with
bitterness in your heart.
You have a false love, you have a
hypocritical love.
You have a Judas type love, when you
come up to your brother and put your
arm around and say, Boy, it's good to
see you, but yet you've got something in
your heart against them.
That is a Judas type love, and it
will betray.
Broken fellowship with God, you can't fellowship with
your brother.
This type of bitterness is one of the
sins that grieves the Holy Spirit most.
In Ephesians 4, 30, we are to put
aside, let all bitterness, all of it, be
put away from you.
Secondly, not only is there broken fellowship with
God one of the consequences of bitterness, broken
fellowship with God, but also broken relationships.
How many of you know of a family
member, a spouse, or a friend, or someone
in a church, or a whole church that's
split, or an organization, or whatever, that has
this problem?
Somebody's bitter.
Bitterness toward one person will defile all your
relationships, if not dealt with.
It will just defile you.
Just a little bit of dirt in your
glass of water will dirty it up.
I'm turning over to James, chapter 3.
James, chapter 3, in verse 6, James said,
And the tongue is a fire, a world
of iniquity.
So is the tongue among our members, that
it defileth the whole body, and setteth on
fire the course of nature, and it is
set on fire of hell.
And we wonder why God's not blessing in
our church.
We wonder why we're not seeing very many
saved.
Bitterness.
There's some deacon in your church that's bitter
against another one, or bitter against the preacher.
Or, Lord, help us if the preacher's a
bitter preacher.
I have run into bitter preachers.
I was talking to one last summer.
Bitter.
Bitter against one of the deacons in the
church, and been there for 23 years.
23 years that had been going on.
Wow.
No wonder the world isn't impressed.
Broken relationships.
But also, another consequence of bitterness is a
broken spirit.
Job said in Job 21.25, And another
dieth in the bitterness of his soul, and
never eateth with pleasure.
Self-destruction, mental suicide, entraps our own spirit
in bondage and frustration.
What a frustrating thing it must be to
have a close relative that you have to
avoid to stay away from.
Is it worth it?
Is it worth it to go through life
like that?
My friend, life is short.
It's just a vapor.
And then it's gone.
And so many times we boast in our
own pride.
We say, I'm right.
But now you rejoice in your boastings.
All such rejoicing is evil.
And I will not move.
I'll stand my ground till hell freezes over.
We say, until they come to me, I
won't go to them.
Wow.
You won't see revival in your life or
your church with that kind of attitude.
A broken spirit.
And then the logical thing to follow next
is a broken health.
The fruits of bitterness.
We have lives that are shipwrecked.
We have hurt loved ones.
We have destruction, confusion, and sickness.
You know, all these things can lead to
premature death.
I was just reading, if I can get
over to it, in 1 Corinthians 11.
You know, before you have communion, your pastor
will read, and many times he'll read 1
Corinthians 11.
1 Corinthians 11.
And verse 28.
Paul said, But let a man examine himself,
and so let him eat of that bread
and drink of that cup.
For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth
and drinketh damnation to himself.
I know of one preacher, that a high
percentage of his time is in the hospitals.
Going from hospital to hospital to hospital.
There's probably four or five hospitals around in
his town.
And they haven't dealt with these things in
his church for a long time.
And I wonder how many of those people
in those hospitals from his church, and there's
a high percentage of them, just fit into
this category.
To bring damnation to themselves, not discerning the
Lord's body.
For this cause many are weak and sickly
among you, and many sleep.
And that doesn't mean they're cut and seized.
That means they're dead.
Paul said, If we would judge ourselves, we
should not be judged.
But when we are judged, we are chastened
of the Lord, that we should not be
condemned with the world.
Bitterness is of the world.
It's of Satan.
It's of the flesh.
And when it's allowed to come into your
life or into the church, it poisons.
Why do we allow poison?
Would you allow somebody to walk into your
home, put a little strychnine in all of
your glasses of water?
You say, No.
But actually we are being poisoned to death.
We had some wheat checked out here just
a few weeks ago.
A friend of ours went to a biochemist
and checked out her wheat and our wheat
and found out that each of it had
a little trace, just a slight, slight trace
of strychnine, and it comes from the fertilizer,
I guess.
Many of us are slowly poisoning ourselves to
death with certain foods that we eat, too
many sugars, which I like sweet things and
have to watch it, but bitterness is a
poison more deadly than strychnine.
And over a period of time, it will
break your health.
You can have a broken spirit, broken relationships,
broken fellowship with God, broken health.
There's a fifth thing that it does.
It gives place to Satan.
It means to oppress, to afflict, to torment
us.
Actually, if you have bitterness, you can give
him a legal right to come into your
life.
The Bible says, Neither give place to Satan.
Giving him the legal right to afflict and
to devour us, to destroy us.
If you have bitterness, you actually are giving
him the legal right.
Neither give place to the devil.
It means don't give him a chance, an
opportunity, or a foothold, or a loophole.
That means a legal right because he'll take
it every time.
Ephesians 4.30 For not to grieve the
Holy Spirit of God.
I wonder how many times we've grieved him
with our bitterness.
And the last thing in closing is it
can bring us into mental imprisonment.
I was reading over in Proverbs chapter 5,
verse 21.
For the ways of man are before the
eyes of the Lord.
521, 522, and 523.
Before the eyes of the Lord, and he
pondereth all his goings, his own iniquities shall
take the wicked himself, and he shall be
holden with the cords of his sins.
He shall die without instruction, and in the
greatness of his folly he shall go astray.
I was noticing one thing there.
It says he shall be holden with the
cords of his sins.
Our own sins can act like a rope
and imprison us.
Peter said that Simon the sorcerer was in
the gall of bitterness and in the bond
of iniquity.
And he hollered out to Peter to pray
for him.
I just wonder, in closing up, as I've
shared this little Bible study with you today,
there wouldn't happen to be a bitter spirit
in you, would there?
I'd hope not.
I run into so many people that are
bitter.
You look in their face.
You can read people.
They're like a book.
You can't hide the pages of your life.
They're on your face.
And they're in your eyes.
I've been talking with some people in the
last few weeks.
I was with them this week at a
funeral.
And fear is all in their face and
in their eyes.
And they've done something against God.
And they've invited Satan into their lives.
They've given place to Satan.
And their lives read like a book of
fear and torment.
My friend, let me pray for you.
Lord, I pray, if there's one today listening,
that they would come to you and confess
it.
Get rid of it.
Forgive.
It's not worth it.
I pray that you'd set them free.
In Jesus' name.
Well, I trust that this has been a
help to you.
Just a little Bible study.
We've been dealing with the subject of reconciliation.
And bitterness is one of the chief sins
in our age.
In all ages, probably.
And until next time, I trust that God
will richly bless you.
My friend.