In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the importance of not fainting and allowing the Spirit of God to work in our lives. He shares a personal experience of witnessing a young man in church who was moved to tears by the Spirit. The preacher explains that the love of Christ should be what controls and motivates us. He warns against losing sight of the power of the Holy Spirit and the need for our lives to align with our words in order to influence others for Jesus. Additionally, he addresses the false belief that good deeds alone can secure salvation, emphasizing the necessity of the blood of Christ to cover our sins.

Hast thou not known, hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? There is no searching of his understanding. He giveth power to the faint, and to them that have no might he increaseth strength. Even the youth shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall. But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings as eagles, they shall run and not be weary, and they shall walk and not faint. Heavenly Father, we come before you, bowing our knees before you as needy people. Lord, that you would minister to us today. Holy Spirit, I pray that you would open up the Word of God to us, that we would understand what you want us to hear. Lord, there are many messages we need to hear. There are many messengers you have preaching. I pray that your Word would go forth today across the land, in power, that it would accomplish that which you please. I pray that you would accomplish that which you please this morning. Lord, we pray that you would be merciful to us. We don't deserve anything from you, but we would ask that we might know you. We would ask that today we would know that God has spoke to us, in Jesus' name, amen. I'm glad that Jesus loves me. And I know that Jesus loves me because he has done something in my heart. He changed my life. He took me from the fear and the bondage. He took me into a relationship with Him. And my friend, whatever you do, don't miss Jesus Christ. The Bible says, he that has the Son has life. In other words, if you have Jesus Christ, you have life. You have it. It's a possession that God will not take away from you, that you will not lose. He that has the Son has life, and he that has not the Son does not have life. But the wrath of God abides on him. All you need is Jesus Christ. Under the anointing power of the Holy Spirit, the Christ that you have will be all you need. He will be your provision. I was talking with a man yesterday, talking about how much he was having to spend on insurance and Social Security and stuff. And I believed for years, by the time I got there, there wouldn't be anything there. And since I'm moving on towards 47, it's just a few years down the road, I guess. Yeah, I've got a few left, don't I? I'm not counting on that. I'm counting on God. Once you get to look into something else for your provision, then you've got that as a God. Jesus Christ, when he said on the cross, it's finished everything in relation to our needs, it's provided. And all we have to do is appropriate it. When I get up in the morning and I lay there in bed, one of the first things I do, I try to get around to the point where, Lord, I reckon myself dead in Adam, but I also reckon myself alive in Jesus Christ. He's my life. He's my life. And he'll give power to the faint. And if you don't have any strength, he'll give you strength. And if you'll wait upon him, he'll renew your strength. If you'll wait on him. Now, I've been sharing with you a little bit last week in the area of bitterness. We're going into our spring campaign for revival meeting. And I'm convinced, if you want to see a fire lit in your church, you just get along with God and pray for revival, pray for God to do a work in your heart. Get somebody else, get as many as you can gather and just pray, pray, pray. Pray for God to do a work. We get to depending upon men to come in and do something. Men. And so we're going to have these meetings and get some people, and we maybe get one or two saved, and that's great. I'm for anybody getting saved anywhere, anytime, anyhow, as long as we get to Jesus and get saved. But oh, what a tremendous thing it is. If you want to get something going, then you get a fire going in your church. And I don't mean burn the building down. That'll get a crowd, alright, of gawkers. And that's what we get a lot of times. We just get some gawkers. But if we'll get right with God, then the unsaved will come to see what that fire is, what is that that they have. And they'll see the reality, and they'll want it too. Now, one of the things I see is the biggest needs in the churches is I'm around and state to state, and I do a lot of traveling. I almost called last week to have Carol announce for you to just pray for me. We travel a lot. And this winter has been quite a winter to be traveling. I've made some hairy trips. West, north, south, east, different directions. Glad to get home. Still going on around the country. God's speaking to us, by the way, with these storms coming in. God's speaking to us. But we haven't been listening. We're not doing too good a job as listening as a nation. Matter of fact, all the indications are that unless we have some kind of great awakening of God, we've had it. We've had it. We're doing everything wrong. Have no intention of stopping. No evidence as a nation that we are stopping what we're doing. We're just going headlong into our ways and not looking to God. God's judging us. He's going to get our attention real good. Some of us are already beginning to see. Some of us have seen for years and years and years back what's going on. But right now, today, what's going on in your life? This is why I've been talking to you about this area of bitterness. I am convinced that this is one of the biggest needs in our church is to get this area of bitterness taken care of. We have immorality and we have greed and we have bitterness. But this one area, the Spirit of God has been talking to me about it for several days. You know, I left off last week about I said the day you fail to die, a little seed of bitterness will enter in and grow unless you deal with it. The thought going along with that was back when I started my first church back in the mid-70s. I went into this little church, Wild and Whelming. There wasn't anybody around preaching the gospel for miles around. We had people drive for miles to get in there. Nobody out there but just the devil and Jesus. And boy, I had fun. But boy, did the devil fight. I got hit by one I hadn't even thought of right off the bat. We started off, we got in with a little group of churches and the leaders of those churches agreed that why don't they try something new. The church could pay us $150 a month salary. And we said, that's great. That's great. We'll take it. You just do what you want to do there. We'll let God supply the rest. And they set up a deal where any missionary support we came, we'd channel it through the church treasury. And then they'd write us out a check. And so they established so much that we were to get as a salary. And then as we grew along, we were supposed to get more in our salary until we got up to a level. Well, the thing went like this. As our missionary support increased, we kept going. But our salary just stayed right at that rock bottom thing that they established. I think it was $700 a month or something like that. And what happened was that there was a man in control of things and I kept bumping them. Hey, maybe we ought to do what we planned on raising up our salary like we intended. And what was happening is they kept sticking money into the savings. And after a couple of years, they had $3,000 in savings. Here's this little church that didn't have anything. We're still living back on what we started. And they had grown a savings account of $3,000 out of our missionary support. A little seed of bitterness entered into my heart. You see, God's had to deal with me many times over the years to bring me to the point to where He was all I needed for my finances. Going to places to preach. Don't ask for a salary. Don't ask for anything. Take it if they give it to you. And give it back if God tells me to do it sometimes. If I've got enough to get home, and I sense the pastor needs that, the Spirit of God sometimes says, you don't take it, give it back. You've got enough to get home, I'll take care of you. Don't look to offerings. Don't look to anything. But God had to teach me many times through the years not to look. And I got to looking and gazing at that little thing. And a little spirit of bitterness began to enter into my heart. And it took me several years before I realized that that had become an idol in my heart. I never did get it. Never did plan on getting it. Don't want it. Don't need it. All I need is God. Don't need money. All we need is God. Money isn't anything anyway. They're printing it up today and all over the world. Printing this stuff up. Nothing to back it up. All we need is God. But I had to deal with that. And God through the years took me through several different lessons to show me that He was my provision. He's my provision. He's my protector. He's my provider. He's my preserver. Psalm 121. Tremendous psalm there. Our family psalm. Those four things God said that He would do for us. So, as you go into life, you either go in from the viewpoint of being a victor in every situation. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Or you go into life letting things hit you and you absorb them and they sap your strength and they destroy you, they make you bitter, angry, discouraged, depressed, whatever. Whatever it is you absorb into you that you're not supposed to absorb will be a cancer in your spirit. You know, the Lord says He weighs the spirits. We read that this morning in the Bible. I think some of us may be a little... We need revival. We need the Spirit of God to come in and we need to be released of some spirits that have been weighing us down. Influencing us. Making us say things that aren't scriptural. Making us do things that are not right. Where we give ground to Satan so many times where we haven't realized that he is actually destroying our lives and leading our lives. And many of our churches, and I say this very kindly and very cautiously, many of our churches have so much demonic influence that Christ is not free to work there. And I say that very cautiously but also very soberly with a tearful heart that that is true. There are some places where the Spirit of God is not free to work in that church. I've been in those churches where God is not free. You can tell that the Spirit of God is grieved. Especially as I was working many years back with John Musser in revival meetings. By the way, I just saw John last week. Hadn't seen him for three years. God's blessed his ministry. They've reached out into over 52 countries now. He was the evangelist that came up into our state up in northwestern Nebraska in 1985 when God worked for seven months in revival. And God's still working. He's still working. And God's using him now to work a lot in other countries. And they've got some branch ministries off in these other countries. Tremendous man of God. Anointed with the Spirit of God. And God used him up there to reach me and show me in the area of bitterness. That's where God first dealt with me in the area of bitterness. And it's taken me a long time to see that God allows everything that comes into my life. God allows it. Do you believe in the sovereignty of God? We say, yeah, I believe, but... You better get them goats out of your life. They keep butting in and butting out the power of God on your life. Now, Hebrews 12, I want to pick up there and take you through today very quickly through some key things. Now, remember I read to you about Dr. Paul S. Reese. He said this about bitterness. He said, hidden bitterness, hidden deep within the soul, is a far more fruitful cause of spiritual defeat and powerlessness in the lives of Christians than we have any idea. It smolders there for years on end. Bitterness. A wrong was done to you, either real or imagined. And instead of committing it to God, you've allowed it to lodge in your heart and fester. And by such a... I have to go back and find this thing. By such an undisciplined emotion, you grieve the Holy Spirit. This can be something that can go on for years and years and years. Now, what do we do? What do we do as we go through the day? Here's what we do. And by the way, I shared with you last week that the flesh does not like suffering. The flesh does not like suffering. Here's what we do. In Hebrews 12, we keep looking unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith. We just keep looking at Jesus. And if we fail to look at Jesus, if we fail to look at Him, something's going to happen. Something's going to happen that's going to begin to destroy your life, be like a hole in your boat. You begin to leak. You begin to sink. Looking unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross. What happens if we fail to endure? We'll go down to verse 3. For consider Him that endured such contradiction of sinners against Himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds. We begin to faint in our minds. Jesus said in Luke 18, you remember? We ought always to pray and not to faint. That means the basic idea of this is to relax. Relax your guard. Begin to let down. Why must we not faint? We must not faint because God is using us to bring people to Jesus and Jesus to people. And once we get off, once we let the Spirit of God go, we don't listen to His voice speaking in our conscience, we don't get victory over our sinning sin, Jesus ceases to live in our life in resurrection reality. And we can have all the words, we can have all the motions, we can know all kinds of scriptures, we can be busy in all kinds of churches, you can teach Sunday school, you can preach, you can deke, you can do all this stuff, but if there's no power in your life, it will not influence others to Jesus. You can preach at them, you can talk to them, you can witness to them, but what brings the power about to change their life is that your life matches up, your walk matches up with your talk. If your walk does not match up with your talk, then there's no power. So we must not faint. 1 Peter 3.18, remember I shared last week that Christ suffered the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God. That He might bring us to God. He wants to get us to God. And then He wants to use us to get others to God. Over in 2 Corinthians 5, if you want to turn over there, tremendous passage. 2 Corinthians 5, and verse 14, 15, just read a few verses for you. Back over here myself. For the love of Christ constrains us. There is the living Christ in your life. Who does this? The Holy Spirit does this. The Holy Spirit, He tells us that He produces the love. He does it. You can't drum up love. You can say I love you brother, or I can say I love you, but only the Holy Spirit will give you love. The type of love that you would love people that have hurt you, intentionally hurt you, and done things and are even doing that right now. You would either forgive them and commit it to God, or you'll begin to get bitter. And you'll think you need to get some revenge. You'll need to get you a little rally, you up a little group, so you can go attack and get... The battle's on. Let's go get it. Uh-uh. No. You let God fight your battles. So many of our churches, we've got battles going in all over the place. No wonder the unsaved don't want to go to church. I don't want to go there either. There's no spirit of love there. When the Holy Spirit is there, and there's spirit of unity and love, oh, there's power. And the Spirit of God is free to work and bring conviction. Well, I'll tell you what. Here a few months back, there was a young man in church, first time he'd been here, and the only time I've seen him since was his parents. There was a puddle of water down at the bottom of his feet. I was sitting in the back of him praying for him. Puddle of water. I didn't know that later on. It was just tears just rolling. If I'd been up in the front, I could have seen just tears rolling down. The Spirit of God does that. The Holy Spirit produces the things that's needed in our life. So we must not faint so He'll be free to work. Listen, for the love of Christ constrains us. What's constraining you? What's controlling you right now? Is anger controlling you? Because we've thus judged that if one died for all, then we're all dead, and that He died for all, that they which live... This means those who have been born again, those who have been saved, should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him which died for them and rose again. You want a definition of misery? That's someone who's been born again, living for themselves. More miserable than being unsaved. Sure, you're going to get to heaven, and some of that may be doubtful for some people that never show any evidence of the Spirit of God in their life. No, you want joy? You just let Christ live His life through you. That He died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him which died for them and rose again. Listen, Christ gave His all. So, if He wants you to be battered, if He wants you to be bruised, if He wants you to be insulted, if He wants you to be hurt, burned, lose your job, have to move here or there, if He is really the Lord of your life, then you'll always say, Yes, Lord, I will be done. I praise Your name, I give You thanks, and everything give thanks for this is the will of God. Do you believe that verse? Do you believe that verse? God put it in there, I didn't put it in there. Go ahead and 1 Thessalonians, and everything give thanks for this is the will of God and Christ Jesus concerning you. Are you giving thanks right now for that circumstance you're in? Have you given thanks? Maybe there's been something that's been going on for 20 years in your life. Something happened 20 years ago, you never forgot it. And if the Spirit of God has brought something to your mind, and you know what it is, you need to deal with it. Right now. That's what God is saying to you today. In 2 Corinthians 5, verse 18, And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to Himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation. You see, Christ, He was the just dying for the unjust, that He might bring us to God. And then His life is imparted unto us that we might be the just dying, if need be, for the unjust. You might have to die to your rights. You might have to let your job go. You might have to get bumped on your job. You might have to lose your home or whatever to get your family saved. You might have to be something or do something. Whatever it is God's telling you to do, do it. Do it. To wit, that God was in Christ, in verse 19, reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them, and had committed unto us, what? The word of reconciliation. This thing of bringing people back together. Bringing back into fellowship. You see, we lost it in the garden when Adam and Eve sinned. Man was plunged into darkness spiritually. And so there has to be blood. Christ was pictured there when God shed an animal, probably a lamb, shed the blood and covered them with clothing. Speaking of Christ coming to die on the cross, His blood would cover our sins so God could bring us back into fellowship with Him. To be reconciled to God. For He made Him to be sin for us who knew no sin. Christ knew no sin. That we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. I have no righteousness. You have no righteousness on my own or on your own. But Christ becomes my righteousness. You know, the devil puts things in our minds. I'm going to talk to you a little bit later about this area. One of the things he puts in a lot of our minds is that you're good enough to get to heaven on your own. Just go to church. Give. Don't create any waves. Do good things. Don't hurt anybody. Don't steal, kill, whatever. That's a satanic doctrine that you'll get to heaven because you do all these good things. The Bible says, We're all sinners, all of sin, and come short of the glory of God. There's none righteous, no, not one. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. No, you'll die and go to hell. A good person. There's a lot of good people in hell. But nobody goes to heaven without the blood of Christ covering their sins. Nobody gets into heaven without the blood of Christ being availed for their sins. So he does this. He does the working in our life to get people saved. When you get up in the morning, your life should be yielded to the Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit, what do you want me to do? Where do you want me to go? What do you want me to wear? Which clothes do you want me to wear? Which way do you want me to go to work? What time do you want me to leave? What do you want me to eat? Do you want me to eat? All day long, you're talking to the Lord. The Holy Spirit's communicating with you. He's leading you and guiding you. This is abiding in Christ all day long. He says, sit here. Go talk to this person. You can get so tuned in with the Spirit of God to where you know exactly what He wants you to do and you do that. This is what I seek, to live under Him. And if He wants me to get into a situation that would be very hard, I have to obey Him. I have to preach what He tells me to preach or not preach if He tells me not to preach. It doesn't matter what men say. God wants one of the things He wants us to do is to be free from the fear of man. Jesus was a Redeemer. Is His redemptive life seen in you? Or do they just see you? Now, let me tell you something else about the flesh. The flesh does not like suffering and the flesh does not agree to the cross. The flesh will never agree to the cross. You say, well, I'll do it when it feels good. I'll go talk to the neighbor in a convenient time. No, you'll never have a convenient time according to the flesh. You go when the Holy Spirit tells you to go. You come when the Holy Spirit tells you to come. You sit when He tells you to sit. You do this and that and whatever. In Him we move and move and have our being, our very existence, is under the direction of the Holy Spirit of God. And He's the one that will produce the life of Christ. Christ, you see, is seated at the right hand of the Father. So He lives His life through the Spirit of God through us. And so the spirit and the flesh is what we have. But the flesh does not agree to the cross. Now, let me share this with you. In Matthew 16, verse 21, you remember when Jesus said that He was going to the cross? From that time forth began Jesus to show to His disciples how that He must go into Jerusalem and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed and be raised again in the third day? Remember what happened? Then Peter took Him, probably took Him aside privately, and began to rebuke Him, saying, Be it far from Thee, Lord, this shall not be unto Thee. Do you think you can follow Jesus without a cross? If you do, then you'll be doing the same thing Peter did. Rebuking the Lord. Lord, I can follow You without a cross. Lord Jesus Peter said, You're going to go to the kingdom, right? You're going to be the king, yeah, right? You're the Messiah and everything, but not the cross. No. Without the cross, without the shedding of blood, there's no forgiveness of sins. There's no remission of sins. Without the cross, there's nothing. And without the cross, the crucifixion in your life, there will be no resurrection life. And we have a crossless message today. We have a gospel that's going out today that's another gospel. Any gospel that does not present the cross of Christ to an unsaved person has not presented to them the whole picture. Then they come up, something happens, they get saved, they pray, Hey, what's this thing? People don't like me anymore at work. I talk about Jesus and man, they threw the beer cans at me. No, you forgot to tell them about the cross. And see, a lot of people never really get saved because they got a Jesus without the cross. And this is why they turn away later on in years. Maybe they had a testimony or whatever, then they turn away. No, they never got to the real cross. When you get a man to the cross, he's crucified, he's finished. A man on a cross is only facing one direction from then on. He's not turning back and he has no other plans of his own. If you get that man to the cross, the thing is today, not very many are getting to the cross. And the Lord said, He turned and He said unto Peter, Get thee behind Me, Satan, thou art an offense unto Me. For thou savest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men. Here's something else, I say, I see so many things in our churches today and I get into a lot of them and I see lots of things. I see so many things that are of men. Traditions, ideas, philosophies, teachings that are not of the Spirit of God. And Peter took Him and rebuked Him and then the Lord said, Get thee behind Me, Satan, for thou art an offense unto Me. We do not realize how much Satan has controlled many of our churches, many of our families. We will not realize unless we will cry out to God that He will open up our eyes to see. Thou art an offense unto Me. And 24, And then said Jesus unto His disciples, If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me. Very little of this going. Jesus came to go to the cross. Why do so many professing Christians stumble at the cross? The cross is the key to life. It's the very key to life. In John 12, 24, Verily, I say unto you, Jesus said, Except the corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone. But if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. He that loveth his life shall lose it. And he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal. If any man serve Me, let him follow Me. And where I am, there shall also My servant be. If any man serve Me, him will My Father honor. We stumble at the cross. It's the key to life. And Peter took Him and began to rebuke Him. I wonder, have you ever rebuked God for not doing something the way you thought He should? What's the difference between Peter doing it and you? Is not bitterness your spirit saying, God, I didn't like what you did to me? Or what you allowed to happen to me? I'm going to close up with this story. Time's about gone here. I just read it this week. I was out in another church with a pastor friend of mine, southwest of here. Read this in some material there about a young man who was shot, just recently I guess, by some robbers somewhere up in the northeast, maybe New York. He was going to, I think, Moody Bible Institute. Instantly he became a paraplegic. And he said this, I feel sorry for them. I feel sorry for them. They need the help. I'm okay. If he was okay, he was at the cross. Anytime we're at the cross, we're okay. But if we're not at the cross and there's something wrong, there may be a spirit of bitterness or something there, well, I've got to go. Remember, Jesus Christ is all you need. Under the filling of the Holy Spirit, He'll be all you need. But have you come to the point where He's all you want? Until next time, may God bless you, my friend.