Well, it's good to be back with you
again today.
The last few weeks I've been sharing with
you some things about bitterness.
I've been thinking about, maybe I'll do it
next week, the Lord will give me clearing
on it, to share with you a little
bit of a sermon, one of the most
powerful sermons in the area of bitterness that
I've ever heard.
I just heard it last night, or the
last part of it, as I wasn't in
the whole service.
We're having revival services where we're at, and
we have a man in by the name
of Charlie Orr.
The pastor of the church that I'm in
asked God to show him who the man
was that he wanted to get in, and
he waited and watched.
And last fall they saw this man, him
and I, we were up at a conference
in another country, and we heard this man
speak.
So powerful.
God's anointed him.
And I'm thinking I might just share with
you a little bit of some of his
sermons over the next few months.
We'll see how God directs.
Anyway, next week, if the Lord would lead,
because he was talking about the area of
bitterness.
You know, the scripture says in Jeremiah 48
.11, listen to this, Moab hath been at
ease from his youth, and he hath settled
on his lease, and hath not been emptied
from vessel to vessel, neither hath he gone
into captivity, therefore his taste remaineth in him,
and his scent is not changed.
One of the things that we are geared
for, as a matter of fact the main
thing, is revival.
So many of us have missed out really
on the cross, and our scent remains in
us, the taste, the self-life.
We've not gone to the cross.
And actually one of the things that's been
shared, and it's been shared many times in
revival, many that think they are Christians get
saved.
And what we've done in our day is
we have invited the world, invited the unsaved
into our churches so much, to where it's
been possible for them to come in, become
members of our church.
They may be baptized, they may join the
church, do whatever they have to, but they
come in, but they've never had a born
-again experience.
They've never been genuinely saved, and their scent
is still in them.
When we receive Christ as our Savior, the
scripture says, therefore if any man be in
Christ he is a new creature.
Old things are passed away, behold, all things
have become new.
This means your life is going to change,
your habits are going to change, your desires
are going to change.
One of the things that happens when you
receive Christ as your Savior is you become
a new person in your thought life, and
in your talk life, and in your walk
life.
But what we've been seeing in our day
is many that are manifesting really the traits
of an unsaved person that are supposed to
be spiritual giants in the church.
Spiritual leaders, pastors, elders, deacons, teachers, Sun School
teachers, whatever, but yet they're full of carnality,
full of bitterness and strife and anger.
You know, Jesus said, Out of the abundance
of the heart the mouth speaketh.
And there has not come into their life
really this change.
Now you can be saved and have this
stuff happen, which is possible, and you need
revival.
Now I want to talk to you about
getting down into the innermost being of your
person, letting God do what He wants to
do in your life, letting Him change you,
letting Him make you and break you, and
letting Him become the Lord of your life
instead of you having to always do everything
that you think needs to be done.
Listen to this little poem.
I don't know who wrote it, but it
goes like this.
When God wants to drill a man and
thrill a man and skill a man, when
God wants to mold a man to play
the noblest part, when He yearns with all
His heart to create so great and bold
a man that all the world shall be
amazed, watch His methods, watch His ways, how
He ruthlessly perfects whom He royally elects, how
He hammers him and hurts him and with
mighty blows converts him into trial shapes of
clay, which only God understands, while His tortured
heart is crying and He lifts beseeching hands,
how He bends but never breaks.
When His good He undertakes, how He uses
whom He chooses and with every purpose fuses
Him, by every act induces Him to try
His splendor out.
God knows what He is about.
Now, listen, my friend.
If you've gone through a trial and you've
gone through some kind of experience and you've
ended up being a bitter person, the trial
didn't make you bitter, the experience didn't make
you bitter, what you went through didn't make
you bitter, no, all it did was draw
out of your heart what was there.
In the last few years, God has been
hammering and breaking in on me, and if
you are a Christian and you love Jesus
and you've been, you're being conformed daily into
His image and He's going to hammer us
and break us and mold us and bend
us and break us to become like Jesus.
One of the things that He did several
years ago, I had a pastor friend, well,
he really wasn't a pastor at that time,
but he became a pastor because of revival,
but I told him, because our gifts differed
so much, he's a ruler and I'm a
prophet, I said, we could probably never work
together.
Would you know that God made me go
back and work with Him?
God made me submit myself under His leadership.
That man, God has used him to bring
more into my life about Jesus than I
would have ever known.
I've never been hurt as much with anybody
else as with Him, never been misunderstood as
much as by Him, never been mistreated, accused
so much, even told things that hurt deeply
but by Him, and God is working on
Him.
But God has showed me how much of
the self-life is in my own heart
and how this root of bitterness will continually
try to come up.
And Jesus has showed me that I have
to die daily, die daily.
Paul said he had to do that daily.
You know what happens?
We get up one day and we forget
to die and something happens.
We go through an experience.
How is it that Joseph could come through
the way he did when his brothers came
back and stood before him, he didn't say
in his heart, Aha, now is my chance,
I can get even with him.
But no, his heart was turned with pity
and mercy.
You see, all those years, those thirteen years
that he went through the pit and into
the prison and through all the years of
being forgotten and nobody loving him and nobody
caring about him, he did not become bitter
because bitterness was not in his heart.
When we started off on this thing, I
shared with you a little bit about bitterness.
I said bitterness is an attitude that refuses
to make reconciliation with others and to accept
the sovereignty of God.
You see, what happens to us is we
refuse to accept the fact that God has
allowed this thing to come into my life.
I want to share with you a little
bit today about David.
And I've been going through with my family
about Saul getting up to David and we've
been asking ourselves these questions, why was it
that Saul tried to kill David?
Why was it he was so jealous?
What happened?
Where did this root enter into his life?
And you know, David, in all the things
that he went through and all the trials
that he went through, I don't detect in
his life the spirit of bitterness.
And that's why God could use him.
But on the other hand, God let come
into his life those that were bitter, starting
with Saul.
There was David, all he was just taking
care of sheep.
Saul was chosen to be king, first thing,
first assignment, he blew it.
Second assignment, he blew it.
He's out.
You can't be in a high position of
leadership and keep blowing the game plan.
The commander-in-chief is going to jerk
you out and get another king, and that's
what happened.
David was brought in.
The Spirit of God left Saul and went
on to David, and there was this bitter
man, Saul.
How is it that he became a javelin
thrower?
Well, he didn't deal with his pride.
He didn't deal with it, and he became
a bitter, jealous person.
And you know, there's many javelin throwers around
today.
They feel like that they have been appointed
by God to be the chief critic of
the Church.
My friend, you've been appointed by Satan to
be the chief critic of the Church, because
God is the judge of the Church, not
you.
And so we have all of this bitterness
and strife and anger and bickering and backbiting
and whispering and jealousies, all because you've been
given ground, you've given ground to Satan.
You know what?
Jesus said in Matthew 12, 33, He said,
"...either make the tree good, and his fruit
good, or else make the tree corrupt, and
his fruit corrupt.
For the tree is known by his fruit."
What kind of fruit do you have?
Do you have the fruit of the Spirit,
love and joy and patience, or do you
have the fruit of the flesh, which is
the bitterness and the strife and the anger?
Jesus said in verse 34, "...O generation of
vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good
things?
For out of the abundance of the heart
the mouth speaketh."
You want to know what kind of shape
someone's in?
You just listen.
It won't be long, but out of the
heart is going to come some praise for
Jesus, from some appreciation for Jesus, some love
for Jesus, some testimony of Jesus, or either
there's going to come out this complaining about
the economy, complaining about the preacher preaching too
long, complaining about your mother-in-law, your
father-in-law, your husband, the kids, your
job, your boss.
Out of the abundance of the heart the
mouth speaketh.
You see, out of this old tongue reveals
your innermost being.
Verse 35, Jesus said, "...a good man out
of the good treasure of the heart bringeth
forth good things, and an evil man out
of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things."
Notice, the tongue is actually the showcase of
the heart.
You open up your mouth and people are
going to know what's in your heart.
Is there praise and glory to God, worship
to Him, all the praise is Him, and
you're so thankful and grateful, and you're a
gracious person, and you have praise to God,
or either the other comes out.
But what confuses people is when you say
one thing about praising God, but yet on
the other hand you come out with all
this other stuff.
They say, what is this?
What is this?
Well, you come back to James, and you're
what he calls a double-minded man.
Jesus said, He said, "...I say unto you
that every idle word that men shall speak,
they shall give account thereof in the day
of judgment."
Because God looks on the heart what a
man thinketh in his heart, so He is,
1 Samuel 16, 7.
So by thy words thou shalt be justified,
and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.
Now let me tell you, my friend, I
have been given many tests in my life,
and sometimes I feel like I've flunked them
all.
But God, in His goodness and graciousness to
us, if you flunk your test, let me
tell you I've got some good news for
you.
He's going to give you another chance to
make it up.
We say, thrilling.
No, now listen, He's going to keep giving
you the test, He's going to keep bringing
you back to the point where you got
off the track until He gets you back
on.
And let me tell you, why does He
do that?
Because you're no good to Him.
You know, when a train goes off the
track, it's no good until it's back on
the track.
And that's the way you and I are.
He's going to bring us back.
You know, some of us, we go through
life, maybe 30, 40, 50, 60 years with
a bitter spirit.
Our sister did something to us and we
have not forgiven them.
Remember what God told us about forgiveness?
He said, if you come to the altar,
maybe you've been going to church and giving
you money, He says, listen, you come to
the altar to give your money to God,
He says, forget it, I don't want your
money, He says, you leave your money right
there and you go make it right with
your brother, your sister, your aunt, your uncle,
because you don't have any business there until
you've made it right.
And actually, you're a bad testimony.
You're the one that's double-minded.
You're the one that's the hypocrite.
And you're looking around at all these other
people and say, I'm wondering why they don't
get right with God.
Well, that's just an evidence that you're not
right with God because you're looking around.
And they may have a little old splinter
in their eye and you're looking around and
you've got this big old log in yours
and you're wondering, why I can help them
get that splinter out of their eye.
You're a hypocrite.
You're in no shape.
Let me tell you, if you want to
get down deep in it, John said in
1 John 2, 7, he said, Brother, I
write no new commandment unto you.
I don't have anything new for you.
Listen, but an old commandment, what's that?
What you had from the beginning, the old
commandment is the word which you heard from
the beginning.
What's this word?
It's the word of love.
You know, I ought to take you through
a little bit on love, but listen, he
that saith he is in the light and
hateth his brother is in darkness even unto
now.
He that loveth his brother abideth in the
light.
You know, my friend, how can you say
you love your brother, but yet you have
hate in your heart for somebody else?
How can you say, I love God, yet
you've got hate in your heart for another
Christian brother or sister?
Let me tell you, my friend, God is
not mocked.
He says, watch out, take heed how you
stand.
He will not be mocked.
What you sow, you're going to reap.
What you dish out to others, you're going
to get it back, a matter of fact,
even more than you dish it out.
So if you sling some mud, not only
do you get your hands muddy, but you're
going to get it, if you sling a
handful of mud, you're going to get a
bucketful back on you.
Matter of fact, God's not in the mud
-slinging business anyway.
The devil is.
He's the accuser of the brethren, and he's
got so many Christians doing his dirty work
that he can probably, once he's got you
going, he can go on somewhere else.
Who appointed you to be a mud-slinger
anyway?
Who appointed you to be the critic of
the pastor?
Who appointed you?
God didn't appoint us to do that.
So he that saith he is in the
light and hateth his brother is in darkness.
Now this is what God's saying.
I'm not saying it.
He that loveth his brother abideth in the
light, and there's none occasion of stumbling in
him.
You know, if we would walk in the
light and walk in the love of Jesus,
live in the realm of the love of
God, they would take care of all these
offenses.
We would say, that's all right, brother.
The brother would come and say, oh, I
sinned against you, I offended you, and we'd
say, that's all right, I forgave you, I
forgave you.
Instead, we are sticking up for our rights.
He didn't have any right to do that
to me.
I know one person, I don't know what
their problem was, but somehow or another they
got it under their skin, into their mind,
that they were my judge.
And I know God has dealt with me
on this, but they were all the time
thinking that I'd done something.
Always thinking up these things, vain imaginations.
You know where these things come from?
They come from the devil.
He'll put these thoughts in your mind.
They were always mad at me about this
or that.
Always presuming I've done something.
No facts at all, just imagination.
You know what?
If you give the devil an inch in
this area, he's going to have a whole
highway system running into your mind.
You're going to become an evil person.
God may have to just take you out
of this world.
You know, Paul said, many sleep, because they
wouldn't judge themselves.
One of the things in Revival, and most
of us, let me tell you this, most
of us are playing games.
If we think we can have an evangelist
come in, we can have four days of
meat and we call that Revival.
That's a joke.
Even seven to eight days is just beginning
to break the ice.
This man that we brought in, Charlie Orr,
he was originally scheduled to be in here
I think three weeks, and he backed out
on it.
And he just got started this week, because
I'm recording this now.
But he agreed to come eight days.
Well, we don't plan on him getting out
of here for probably at least a month.
He may have some new things to learn.
The last one that came in here for
eight days stayed ten weeks.
We need to learn to be open to
what God is trying to say to us
and learn new things.
And it takes a little while to have
Revival.
It takes a lot of prayer.
By the way, let me ask you, those
of you that write to me, that you
write us and we always try to answer
back the letters that we get, it may
take us a couple or three weeks to
get back to you, and if you have
a need, we try to help you out,
but would you pray for me?
Would you pray for my family?
Would you pray for this ministry?
I don't need you to criticize, but I
do need you to pray.
And if you've got some constructive criticism, then
send it in.
I'm open to it.
I'm not perfect.
I know that.
And you're not either.
That's like, we ought to be able to
get along pretty good then, shouldn't we?
But would you pray?
Would you just pray?
I don't share a lot of what I'm
doing, but just pray.
Mainly I don't share a lot about what
I'm doing.
It's because I just don't need the criticism.
If I get 5,000 or 6,000
or 7,000 people criticizing me on doing
this or that, it just destroys the ministry.
The demons work off that stuff.
So I share usually what's happened a little
bit in the past, where we've been, where
we've shared and God's done this or that.
But would you pray for us?
There are some things coming up in the
future that we need you to be praying
for us, decisions to be making.
God has been working in this area in
a powerful way, but in the last couple
weeks, God has given me a real freedom
in my spirit that I haven't had, a
freedom in my spirit to leave the place
where we're presently at.
I don't know if He's going to move
us.
I don't know if He's going to make
a change or what, but He's given me
a real freedom in my spirit.
You know, when God puts you into a
place to work there, Pastor, how He gives
you that burden for that place, and you
get in there and you work and you
work and you work until God gives you
that freedom in your spirit to leave.
You know, many leave without that freedom in
their spirit.
I wouldn't go anywhere without the freedom of
the Holy Spirit to do that.
We can be presumptuous, just like Israel, going
up the hill in presumption because they couldn't
get into Canaan.
By faith, then when God told them they
couldn't go in, then they presumptuously turned around
and tried to go back in the flesh,
and they got into trouble.
But you just pray for us.
You know, it was a little over two
years ago, we was praying and asking God,
we knew we had to make a move
and a change, we was asking Him what
He wants to do.
And out of several things, He gave us
direction to move into the Joplin area.
Well, we thought this was where we were
going, but when we came up here to
visit two years ago, we're out in western
Nebraska now, God's been working, doing tremendous things,
we just came to visit.
And we're always flexible, we thought, well, we
might stay a month or so, but after
a couple months God wouldn't give us any
peace to come back down to the Joplin
area.
And we had a couple places to move,
but we didn't have any peace on it.
And so I told my wife, we've got
to wait on God.
We had a house out there on the
ranch, our folks have a ranch, cattle ranch
out here, and we had our house out
there that we could stay in, no problem.
So we stayed there and prayed, and God
showed very specifically, He wanted me to move
in with this preacher, where they'd have a
revival for ten and a half weeks, He
said, I want you to get in there
and just be a servant.
And that's what we've been doing.
Whenever we went traveling or off somewhere, we're
here working, being this man's servant.
Working, but now God's given me a freedom
in my spirit, and I don't know what
He's going to do or where He's going
to send us.
One of the things that He always does,
wherever He directs us someplace, He provides us
a place to live.
That's one of the things that we've been
married for twenty years, that God has definitely
done every time.
We've waited and let Him provide the place
for us to live.
And so if He does want us to
move back into the Joplin area, He'll give
us a place in the country to live.
I don't know if He'll just give us
a place, or give us a nice place
to rent, or whatever, give us the money
to buy something, it doesn't matter.
But whatever we're going to be doing, we're
going to do as God directs.
So you pray for us.
You pray.
One of the things that God, there's five
of us preachers in this one church.
God has directed very clearly, two men in
one week, both said the same thing, that
He felt like that we were getting a
little top-heavy with so many preachers in
the church.
And it seems like the Spirit of God
is bearing witness that it's time for at
least a couple of us to branch out
and move out.
That's why I'm saying I think that God
maybe is leading that we are going to
take a change in the future.
We don't know what it is.
I don't know how long it'll take before
the change, but pray for us.
Now meanwhile, back at the ranch, on this
thing of hating your brother, it's very devastating
to you.
You know, most of the time when you're
bitter, it's you that gets hurt.
He that hateth his brother is in darkness,
and walketh in darkness, and knoweth not where
he goeth, because that darkness had blinded his
eyes.
You know, bitterness and hatred is to reject
Christ's great commandment, which you preach constantly, love
God, love one another as you love yourself.
And disobedience in this area of the great
commission, a commandment of loving God with all
our heart, with all our soul, with all
our mind, with all our strength, you can't
do that and have bitterness in your heart.
You deceive yourself.
You get into deceptiveness.
The demons begin to work you over.
As a matter of fact, I haven't got
into it yet on that parable, but you
actually can be turned over to the tormentors
by God.
You actually can, if you will not forgive
someone that's done that to you.
And God does it so you get a
working over so you'll come back to Him.
The amazing thing is how tough some of
us are, how we'll hold out for so
long, fighting actually against God.
Listen, prolonged bitterness may actually be evidence that
you're not really saved.
Maybe.
In this the children of God are manifest,
and the children of the devil.
Whosoever doeth no righteousness is not of God,
neither he that loveth not his brother.
For this is the message that ye heard
from the beginning, that we should love one
another, not as Cain, who was of that
wicked one, and slew his brother.
And wherefore he slew him?
Because his own works were evil, and his
brother's righteous.
We know that we've passed from death into
life because we love the brother, and he
that loveth not his brother abideth in death.
Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer, and
ye know that no murderer hath eternal life
abiding in him.
You look at your heart, my friend.
You judge yourself.
I'm not judging you.
Let's let the Word of God speak for
itself.
Let's let the Word of God judge our
hearts.
The Bible says, Love suffereth long.
That means it's slow to lose patience.
You have trouble with patience?
You blow up and get angry?
It's kind.
Looks for a way of being constructive.
Are you kind?
It envieth not.
It's not possessive.
It doesn't have to keep itself, defend itself.
It vaunteth not itself.
It's not anxious to impress others.
It wants Jesus.
Love wants Jesus to be promoted.
It's not puffed up.
It doesn't cherish inflated ideas of its own
importance.
It does not behave itself unseemly.
It has good manners.
You know all these things.
Listen, let me close up with just a
few thoughts on David.
You know, David was leaving.
He's having to leave Jerusalem because Absalom has
taken over.
And while he's going out, you know the
story how when he's going out, here comes
along this Shimei.
And he begins throwing rocks at David.
And not only was he throwing rocks at
David, but he was cursing, yelling obscenities, calling
him a bloody man, a demon-filled man.
He's throwing rocks at the people.
He's throwing rocks at David's elite guard, these
mighty men.
He's just going along.
And finally, Abishai, the son of Zerui, he
says, Why did this dead dog curse my
lord the king?
Let me go over, I pray thee, and
take off his head.
And listen to what David said.
The king said, What have I to do
with you, ye sons of Zerui?
Say, Let him curse, because the Lord hath
said unto him, Curse David.
Who shall say, Wherefore hast thou done so?
And later on, down in verse 11, David
says, Let him alone.
Let him curse, for the Lord hath bidden
him.
It may be that the Lord will look
on my infliction, that the Lord will requite
me good for his cursing this day.
My friend, you don't have a right to
get angry or bitter at your Shimei.
Let him alone.
You just go to God.
Let God take care of the Shimei in
your life.
Let me tell you something.
When you try to play God, you just
foul things up.
That's why we need a Savior.
That's why you need to come to the
cross.
That's why you need Jesus.
So you have a God that can handle
your problems, that can handle your life, that
can provide your needs.
But when you try to provide for yourself,
and you've already received Jesus as your God,
then you're getting into some dangerous territory.
Because there can't be two Lords in your
life.
Either he's going to be the Lord and
take care of every situation.
You see, Jesus is all you need.
But he's not always all we want.
We want to help out.
We never do help him out by getting
angry and upset.
But actually, by letting him take care of
this, we reveal God to that person.
And we can free them.
If you would forgive that person that did
something to you years ago, or maybe just
yesterday, if you would forgive them, you would
free them to God for him to work.
Why don't you do it?
You know, the only one you're really hurting
is yourself.
Well, I had a lot more I wanted
to share with you, but I guess I
got too long-winded in there.
Listen, St. Augustine prayed, O Lord, deliver me
from this lust of always vindicating myself.
That temper of mine destroys the soul's faith
in God, Chambers said.
I must explain myself.
I must get people to understand.
Our Lord never explained anything.
He left mistakes to correct themselves.
Chambers said when we discern that people are
not going on spiritually and allow the discernment
to turn to criticism, we block our way
to God.
God never gives us discernment in order that
we may criticize, but that we may intercede.
Well, I've got to go.
Listen, Jesus Christ is all you need.
He's all I need.
I'm trying to learn that.
But he's not always all we want, is
he?
Let's work on letting him be all we
want.
Till next time, God bless you, my friend.