In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the importance of guarding one's family from the busyness that can distract them from worshiping and being together. He highlights Satan's desire to destroy families and urges fathers to prioritize their families' spiritual well-being. The preacher also discusses the power of the resurrection of Christ in freeing believers from the daily distractions of life. He challenges the notion of relying on evangelistic meetings for revival instead of personally fulfilling the Great Commission. Additionally, the sermon addresses the issue of bitterness, defining it as an attitude that refuses to reconcile with others and accept God's sovereignty. The preacher encourages listeners to examine their hearts and seek forgiveness and reconciliation with those they have differences with.

Last week I was sharing with you on bitterness and if you're if you're in for the first time today And and you didn't get in on last week's Maybe I should share a little bit a little bit with you about why it is so important that you not become bitter You know the Bible tells us that we're not to give ground to Satan Ephesians 4 27 neither give place to the devil don't give him legal ground if you do You can become a very tormented person you can become a prisoner in your own little world And no matter what you do or who you are or what you act like or how much you have You can still be a prisoner because of the prison that you put around Yourself because of your failure to forgive I'm going to share with you in the next few weeks more in this area of bitterness We just got started last week about how devastating it can be in our lives and remember I shared that little poem about Madden got Madame Gunnion Who spent ten years of her life in French prisons from from 1695 to 1705 and and and I? Read you this little poem that she wrote Tremendous little poem and maybe ought to start off with it again today a little poem about how she was free She was really free In her spirit because she knew that God was big enough to get her out if you wanted her out and so she was content to stay there in that cage in that prison because God had allowed it have you got to that point to where your God is so big and so Mighty that you can do what the scripture says that you can Speak to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs you can sing and make melody in your heart to the Lord and you can Give thanks always for all thing all things under God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ Because you know your God is that big in all things to give? Thanks, there's the test in the circumstance when it comes into our life are we thankful? Heavenly Father It is humanly impossible for us to give. Thanks For many of the situations that we go into and I pray that today you would open up our hearts Holy Spirit that our minds would be enlightened to see how devastating This area of bitterness can be in our lives and those around us. I ask that you would bless your word in Jesus name Amen, I might start off again with this little poem For those of you that were not listening last week, maybe you just tuned in maybe you're just traveling down the highway Flying through the air or just happen to be visiting in the area and that you've never heard this program before we're geared for revival and Many of us do not even know what revival is I have never really been in the type of revival that I'm looking got for God to do and awakening I've been in a small revival where we saw the Spirit of God come on the scene and much confession of sin and God dealing with hearts in a deep Way and it went on for months and it's continued and God is continuing to do something in this area of the country but we have yet to see a Revival like we've heard about where the Spirit of God changes in whole area and whole country We're looking for that. But because of that We want to share the cross and how at Calvary Jesus died and shed his blood for our sins To to set us free from the power of sin the penalty of sin But many of us have not understand understood the power of the resurrection of Christ to free us from from the daily distractions of life And this is why we are on the air to help you learn to fly on eagles wings to abide in Jesus as Jesus said abide in me He said I am the vine you the branches he that abideth in me and I in him the same bringeth forth much for Forth much fruit for without me you can do nothing You might take a note on that. What can you do without Jesus or you say? Well, I can do a lot of things without Jesus. Well, Jesus says without him you can't do anything Nothing of any success nothing of any profit Without me you can do nothing and surely, you know One of the most devastating things today in in Christianity is the barrenness of busyness We can become so busy and so pressured and fathers. Let me challenge you to guard your families Guard your wives and your children's from this thing of being so busy that there's no time for the family to Worship together to pray together to be together to play together to do things because you're all distracted Remember Satan is the one that wants to destroy the family. He's the one that wants to destroy the little babies I should have maybe said this last week Forgive me, but we had a new little baby on January 24th, we had a little girl Jana D Lane that was born into our family born in in our home We had her at home a delightful experience. I wished I'd had the first five at home We had two midwives that God provided for us very well trained and experienced We're just a tremendous experience and the baby is doing fine the mother's doing fine for those of you that that keep in touch with us that Know us personally and and whenever we were in the area we try to make contact with our new listeners that have written us and you write us and and we we try to You ask questions and we try to answer questions and we try to you ask for things and we try to give you the things That we need and and we have some material that's available to to meet certain needs and as God supplies one man from the diamond area Wrote a check out to us a few weeks ago, and it was a tremendous blessing to me To encourage us in the area of the versions how we're being so deceived by all these Versions and it's getting us confused To where you don't know the Word of God is and we don't realize how Satan has always Attacked the Word of God and wanted to confuse us on what it said and so I I was able to get some material and have a little material on hand for those of you that wanted some information on this and and By the time this should be will be on the air the brother would have received his material But it was an encouragement to us. You are an encouragement to us. We love you and we pray for you We appreciate it when you're right, and I want you to pray for this station KK ll pray for the operation of it There's not many stations that take a stand on not playing the rock music and many of us do not understand How devastating this one area alone is in our churches already we have Pastors that have stood against us and this this stand on rock music that have stood strongly against it coming Back with broken hearts their families are being torn apart Along with their churches and they're realizing how wrong they were and how this had given ground to Satan and now they're reaping the fruit of That Oh pastor be careful be careful about how you let things come into your life and into your church Well, let me read the little poem to you before I forget it and get going off somewhere. I don't have a format I just have the Holy Spirit guiding and leading me and and Lord you just guide us through today that we would get that what you want Madame Gunion Who spent ten years of her life in a French prison in French prisons wrote this poem now? I ask yourself this could I write a poem if I was taken away from my family and shut into this old dark damp prison? With very little to eat and for ten years to stay in these prisons Could you write a little poem like this where you would say a little bird am I? Shut from the fills of air and in my cage. I sit and sing to him who placed me there Well pleased a prisoner to be because my God it please it thee Not else have I to do I sing the whole day long and he who most I love to please Death listen to my song he caught and bound my wandering wing But still he bends to hear me sing Thou hast an ear to hear a heart to love and bless and though my notes were ever so rude Thou wouldest not hear the less because thou knowest as they fall that same sweet love Inspires them all my cage confines me round abroad I cannot fly, but though my wing is closely bound my heart's at Liberty My prison walls cannot control the flight the freedom of the soul Oh, it is good to soar these bolts and bars above to him whose purpose I adore whose providence. I love and in thy mighty will to find the joy the freedom of The mind isn't that good last week. I gave you a definition on bitterness as being that attitude Which refuses to make reconciliation with others and to accept the sovereignty of God? visions 520 says Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ It's that attitude that refuses to make reconciliation with others and to accept the sovereignty of God is there anybody? Who you have a difference with that you have not forgiven or maybe you have not made it, right? So that they would forgive you is there anyone that you are not right with? Right now is it worth it to try to go through life and pretend that you have fellowship with God when you're not right with your brother or your sister or your mother or your father or an employer or Whoever is it worth it to lose all those years in your life to you lose? All those minutes is bad enough, but to you lose years is it worth it? Because you see we're deceived if you if we think we're walking with God in power And we're deceived if we think God is blessing our ministry, and we're not right with somebody else now. This is the scripture The scripture tells us not to be deceived Paul says we're not ignorant of his devices I was reading in my devotions in 2nd Corinthians in Chapter 2 about how they they must have had to deal with somebody in the church church discipline Paul comes back to them, and he says that they need to forgive him now he said in 2nd Corinthians 2 7 so that country rise you ought rather to forgive him and Comfort him lest perhaps such a one should be swallowed up over much sorrow you see the purpose of discipline is to restore Not to get out of your church if you've done that then you have persecuted been a part and in in persecuting somebody But you're to restore them to fellowship you to minister to them if they're sin in their life with loving rebuke with loving discipline and without love don't do anything and So he said wherefore I beseech you that you would confirm your love toward him for to this end Also, did I write that I might know the proof of you whether you be obedient in all things And this is the key are you obedient in all things in your life? Or is there one area that you're not? Obedient in if there's one area that I'm not obedient in or you're not obedient in then that's going to give the devil Opportunity to come into our life, and this is the springboard Ephesians 4 27 where God tells us neither give place to the devil don't give him legal right in any area of your life to get in Then Paul says to whom you forgive Anything I forgive also for if I forgave anything to whom I forgave it for your sakes Forgive I yet in the person of Christ less Satan should get an advantage of us for we are not ignorant of his devices now I wish I could say along with Paul that we're not ignorant of his devices But I think we're ignorant many of us are ignorant about the ways of God We think that we have to power our way through every situation with people and we don't have the calm cool frame of mind and spirit to where when we're mistreated we just bow our head and we pray and we say dear father I commit This to you. I refuse to have my flesh revived and to have your spirit Die as far as practical working in my life father. I commit this situation to you I commit my spirit to you. I commit this person to you Lord. Would you work? I free you to work I forgive them for what they've done to me and no matter how much it hurts No matter how much it is tore wounded you destroyed your reputation Stole your property Stole your car or whatever you release them to God let him Take revenge revenge is mine says the Lord whenever you and I try to take revenge then we Actually open ourself up for Satan to work And there's many different areas I could take off on this, but you and I don't have the right to play God In any kind of situation at the cross when we receive Christ as our Savior We died This is what the scripture says we died and Christ became our life You know what when Abraham went to the cross and and and he offered up Isaac on his on the altar He was offering up his very life It was all bound up in Isaac his future was bound up in Isaac his presence Isaac represented his life and he laid it on the altar and this is what God Wants us to do when we receive Christ as our Savior We not only receive him and have our sins forgiven, but he becomes our life we offer our very life to him at the altar and it is no more us that lives, but Christ lives in us and There is the power when people see us and they say wow What is that that that person was so mistreated, but they didn't get angry They didn't get bitter what they see is Jesus and they say whatever it is You have I want it and you say it's Jesus and you can have them But when you and I get angry at somebody else are bitter or upset and we just try to get revenge. What do they see? They see you and me and they say whatever that is I sure don't want that I've got my own dose, but I think he's got a worse dose And here is where Satan keeps God from being glorified if you're a believer or I'm a believer and we react in the flesh We do not have that right to react in the flesh. It is the Lord Let him do what seemeth him good You let him be God in your life and you'll find out that you'll be a lot happier You'll have the peace that he promised you'll have the joy that he promised you'll have the power that he promised You'll be free like Madame Gunion You may be in a cage some kind of a situation and you just keep looking at God and your radiant face We'll tell others that person even though they're in that circumstance, which is so bad They've got something I want and you will find as the Lord Jesus Christ people will come to you. I know of preachers And I was one myself that was actually trying to take out my frustration on my own people Because I wanted to be looking good And because they would not attend when I thought they should be attending and do what I thought they should be doing I began to get bitter in my spirit and let me tell you something brother and sister God took me to the cleaners and I'm so thankful. He did I wouldn't want to continue to be a bitter pastor. I Wouldn't want that. I would rather have God take me to the cleaners and leave me in the closet That I can fellowship with him in the closet than to be back trying to be somebody important in my own mind And in the eyes of others so that I could look good. I found out it doesn't matter what I look like Doesn't matter who I am just as long as I'm abiding in Jesus and he's getting the glory There's so much demonism in our churches today It makes your head swim Well, we got little gods running around if they don't get their way and if they don't get the position if you don't do what? They say if you don't bow and gravel when they say bow and gravel and you don't crawl or you don't jump or whatever That's not Jesus my friend, that's not the Christianity and the scriptures I know of we've got a different gospel that's going around today This thing brother if you'll receive Christ as your Savior, he'll solve all your problems. He'll give you peace happiness He'll he'll give you the things you need. That's not the gospel And that's why many people who pray and receive Christ. They have a stillbirth. They're not really saved They pray to get something for themselves just for themselves They didn't care about their sins and they wasn't repenting of their sins and and they say and they turn and they say this is no Good, it doesn't work Well that kind of Christianity doesn't work but the kind of the cross where you come to the cross and you receive Christ as your Savior and you recognize now that you're Dead and that Jesus is the Lord and he can do whatever he wants to with you Why was it in the early church when they received Christ as their Savior? They went into the waters. They were baptized They came up. They were so joyful. They say you quit doing that. We're gonna throw you to the lions They said told me to the lions. I don't care. I'm free Jesus is my Messiah. He's my Savior. They throw him to the lions. They didn't care I threw one to the lions ten more jumped out there to go eat beaten up by the lines to two because they say that's Reality, I want reality You can't kill reality but artificiality doesn't last and the artificiality of our Christianity that we have developed in our culture is crumbling and The area of revival ministry that we're in and this ministry here is what I consider a revival ministry They're not very many that want to be revived Really and we have our revival meeting So we call and actually they're just evangelistic meetings where for four days or one week We try to get some poor guy to come in there and do all our work in one week that we should have been doing all year Jesus told you to go out and to preach the gospel He didn't tell you to get an evangelist in to come in and preach the gospel for you we've got the scripture so mixed up many of us don't even have any idea what they say and The devil is so busy giving us different versions to confuse us to work where we're getting so confused We don't know what God is saying anymore And what we're doing is we're beginning to get bit out of shape when people aren't doing what we think they ought to be doing And that's why I'm talking to you about Bitterness now, let's get into a little bit got to preaching on you Webster said it's having a sharp generally disagreeable taste Painful as a bitter experience severe as bitter cold cruel stinging as bitter words. Now, let's see what the scripture says. I Want to share with you six consequences of bitterness now remember bitterness is also Not only is it just an attitude that refuses to make reconciliation, but it's also a meditating upon evil It's a meditating on that thing that happened to you and you then begin to entertain vain Imaginations you begin to actually invite demons to come in and fellowship with you and You're meditating upon evil, which is strictly forbidden in scripture Philippians 4 What's it say Philippians 4 8 and 9 says finally my brother what whatever things are true, whatever things are honest Whatever things are just whatever things are pure Whatever things are lovely whatever things are good report if there be any virtue if there be any praise Think on these things don't think on your hurts your offenses where you were run over No, you think on the good things you begin to praise God for the good things in that person's life You begin to praise God for the blessings that you have you get your mind on the good things. It's a practical thing But if you don't you're in trouble now Let me share with you six consequences of bitterness and I don't think we'll have time to get through all of them We'll go as far as we can one Consequence the first one is broken fellowship with God if you get bitter You're out of it as far as fellowship with God goes Now, let me take you back to first John chapter 1 in verse 6 if we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness we lie and do not The truth we do not obey the truth So it's broken fellowship with God back over in in chapter 2 verse 9 He that saith he is in the light and hateth his brother in bitterness is the beginning of hatred This is why if you stay in bitterness and you stay there a long period of time you may not even be saved He may not be saved and I'm gonna deal with this a little bit later on But he that saith he is in the light and hateth his brother is in darkness Even until now he that loveth his brother abideth in the light and there is none occasion of stumbling in him You see if you're walking in the spirit And you're growing in Jesus. You're loving your Lord. There's there's nothing gonna touch you There's no amount of persecution, this is why we're we're not ready for for Really Jesus to come back. We're not ready for persecution If somebody come into most of our churches today and said listen You guys got to do whatever we say you got to get a license from the state You got to do exactly what we say you can only preach so many things you can only sing the songs that we allowed it Allow it or we're gonna shut you down Most today would say okay, whatever you say, that's fine. We've lost our backbone. We're a bunch of yellow We're just chicken Because we've accepted Satan in most of the areas of our life. We've been killing our babies and Even Christians have been doing this not only the unsaved, but we've been killing our babies We we refuse to have large families because we want to do what we want to do in our lives We run off our preachers because we don't like them preaching the truth We refuse to pay him a salary that they can live on and raise their family So they have to they're forced to go out and do other things when when they could be preaching the word and ministering the word to you Listen God says he that loveth his brother abideth in the light. Do you love your brother? Do you love your pastor? God's giving me a special burden for pastors. I'm hard on them because I'm one of them But I love them and I'll stand behind them but if there's sin in Anybody's life then we have to come out against sin, but we keep loving the person. I love you pastors I'm for you. I pray for you. I'm praying that God bless your ministry We may not agree on everything And that's just a part of I guess our sin that we've got That we don't agree on everything. It should grieve our hearts so that we don't But I pray for you he that loveth his brother abideth in the light and there's none occasion of stumbling in him But he that hateth his brother is in darkness and walketh in darkness and knoweth not whether he goeth because that darkness had blinded his Eyes, you know being in confusion is a terrible thing But broken fellowship with God Bitterness is one of the sins that grieves the Holy Spirit of God the most, you know We started off in Ephesians 4 30 and grieve not The Holy Spirit of God whereby you are sealed unto the day of redemption God help us if we would grieve the Holy Spirit and then he said let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and evil speaking be put away from you with all manner of malice a second thing is Broken relationships if you can look into your life and see that there's family your spouse even divorces directly related to this Friends have left you you've been divided churches organizations businesses bitterness toward one Person will defile many relationships If it's not dealt with this is why this thing is burning on my heart so heavy You just don't have the problem and the other person but it affects their family and your family and What did James say and the tongue is a fire a world of iniquity So is the tongue among our members that it defile at the whole body and set it on fire the course of nature and it Is set on fire of hell the source of it is Satan Out of the abundance of heart the mouth speaks something else There's broken fellowship with God first broken relationship second and third is a broken spirit You know job said and job 2125 and another diet in the bitterness of his soul and never eat it with pleasure What a terrible thing it is to have all kinds of blessings of life, but not be able to enjoy them You and I both Probably know somebody that is a very bitter person They're not fun to be around You walk across their grass they they growl at you you park your car too close to their car They growl at you and snap. They're cranky critical backbiting Snarly type people you ever been around one of those You say watch out preacher. You're getting a little too close to home Well, I don't care how close to home I get Just long as we hit the bullseye right in the center and the Spirit of God can work and bring revival in entire lives and Say listen, that's you Or that's me Let's do something about it. How long are you gonna play games? How long you gonna be a hypocrite a play actor? Hypo, you know, how long you gonna be in this pharisaical system? another thing not only do we bring self-destruction and mental suicide into our lives and and Have this broken spirit where we entrap our own spirit in a bondage and we're frustrated with life and there's no joy But also there's broken health We can actually break our own health the fruits of bitterness Lifeship wrecked hurt loved ones destruction confusion sickness can lead to premature death You say what's your scripture on that? Listen, I don't have to go far. You know That the scripture says in 1st Corinthians chapter 11 in verse 28 Let a man examine himself and so let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup for he that eateth and drinketh Unwilling eateth and drinketh damnation to himself not discerning the Lord's body for this cause many are weak and sickly Among you in many sleep, you know, we're not dealing with sin in our churches and we've got a lot of sickness around Could it be that it's our own fault that we have sin in our life? Well, I've got to go my time's about gone for today. We'll continue this next week The Lord willing until then remember that Jesus Christ is all you need But is he really all you want till next time God bless you, my friend