In this sermon, the speaker begins by sharing a personal anecdote about his baby laughing in his dreams. He then references Matthew 6:15-16, which talks about the importance of forgiveness. The speaker recounts a conversation with someone who had been holding onto bitterness for two years, but was convicted by the sermon and chose to repent. The sermon emphasizes the destructive nature of bitterness and the need for forgiveness. The speaker also highlights the importance of timing and love when addressing issues in someone's life. The sermon concludes with a reminder to not seek revenge, but to trust in God's judgment.

Well, good morning to every one of you. It's good to be here again after a good night's sleep. There with the baby in the night. My baby was laughing in his dreams. I wonder if he was laughing at me. I suppose it's interesting having me as a father because I'm quite a strange guy. Could we open up the Bible at Matthew 6, verse 15? Matthew 6, verse 16. There in the middle of the Sermon on the Mount, as it's called. And we read there these words. But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. You know, I was in the car with Aaron this morning and it was interesting. We were talking about stuff in Africa and stuff. Well, we were talking about a whole lot of things, I suppose. Including the rusted poles on the side of the road. But one thing I mentioned was that in Africa I once worked with a missionary. And every single week we have to write a letter to our mission boss, the very head of our mission. And he writes a letter in turn to all the missionaries. And if you had a good enough story and someone got saved or something happened where some life was changed, then he would take that story and he would put it in his little letter that he sent out to all the missionaries. And so your story got to be heard by all the missionaries. And my friend that I worked with for about a year as a missionary, he really wanted to be in that mission boss's letter that he sent out. And he used to literally sit down and write pages of anything he could think of to this mission boss in the hope that one of these stories that he sent, he really wanted to put up his hand and say, please use me, you know. And he was so cross because weeks went by and months went by and there was none of his stories which got into that letter of the mission boss to us missionaries. And he was cross. Oh, he actually lost his temper. He flipped it. He was screaming on stage. You just cannot believe it. He got the latest letter from the mission boss and I'm not there. And I sent him so many pages that he could have put in, you know. And I'll never forget with this old missionary couple. And the lady, the wife of the main missionary in this one area, she looked at him and said, why do you want people to polish your marbles or your marble? And he just looked at her and he flipped again. It was quite funny. You know, when people get bitter about things, it can be funny, but it's very sad what it does in their lives. And with that thought, I'd like to go over to pray. Father, thank you so much for thy word and that in this word we have, it's like a light to our feet and a lamp unto our pathway. It is literally something that can show us if we're in the right way in every area of our lives. And I just ask today as I bring this sermon that you would speak through me and that your light would shine upon us through thy word and that you would show us if there's an area of our life in which we are wrong and not walking right before thee, whether it's in our heart or in our deeds. And that you'll grant us the grace to be humbled and repentant and come to thee for grace, cleansing in the blood of Jesus Christ and to be set free from this area of our life. And I ask this in Jesus Christ's name. Amen. I'd just like to read that again. Matthew 6, chapter 15, For if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. Now in the Bible we've got a lot of examples of forgiveness. It's almost like you could say the book of forgiveness in a sense. And one of the obvious examples is Joseph. Now I've heard there's preachers in America and they go along and they like to preach on the topic of forgiveness. And one of them that I love very much, I know that he likes to talk. He talks to me and says, Roy, the story of Joseph is a story that I use very often. And it's an amazing story because he has a man who was thrown into a pit, sold into slavery, eventually threw that, landed up in jail for many years, and only later he was in a position of power where he could really get his brothers back. If he wanted to, he could have destroyed them, he could have killed them, he could have put them in jail, he could have done what he wanted as the second highest or even in a sense the highest authority in Egypt under the Pharaoh. And yet he didn't, he forgave. But one of the things of this story which people like to point out, and it's a wrong idea, is that Joseph only forgave his brothers when they were kind of humbled. He waited a long time to see that they were really sorry, and then he kind of came out after weeping and so on, he came out and told them eventually, I am your brother. And I've met a missionary in South Africa, and there are many people like this who believe with all their heart, yes, we must forgive, but we should only forgive those who have asked us for forgiveness. We should only forgive those who are humble, because we like God, God only forgives us when we repent. And they kind of put themselves in the position of God, and they say, and one missionary I remember he said that to my face, I will never forgive someone who hasn't first asked me for forgiveness. And right now someone visited him, sorry, recently this man is very sickly, it affected his health a lot, and he said, nothing to do with what he said to me, but he just said, Roy, the first thing I saw when I saw this, he was a missionary, he was an old guy, he's retired now, the first thing I saw in his eyes was bitterness. Isn't that sad? Because he believed this one lie, that we must only forgive those, he literally, one person came to him and asked him for forgiveness, and said, now I will forgive you. But you see, that's not biblical. In Luke 23 verse 34, we see Jesus Christ on the cross as a human being, not in his position as God, but as a human being, saying, Father forgive them, for they know not what they do. And they parted his raiment and cast lots. Yes, Jesus Christ as a human being, God the Son, and he from his heart forgives these people, and asks God to forgive them. And here comes the second argument of carnal man. They say, but that's Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ could do that, or should do that, but you know, for us it's not really necessary, we should forgive those who ask us to forgive them, or are really humble, or at least prove themselves for ten years, you know. Built the church, built the church again, they burnt down, and then held the Sunday school meetings, you could say. But in the Bible, we have another example. We have Stephen. And in the death of Stephen, we have two of the most precious examples of living at the cross of Jesus Christ. Because Stephen did two things which Jesus Christ did. We read this in Acts chapter 7, verse 59 to 60. It says, And they stoned Stephen, calling upon God, and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. That was the first thing Stephen did, which Jesus Christ did on the cross. He said, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. In Luke 23, verse 46, Jesus Christ said, Father, into Thy hand I commend my spirit. And the second thing he does, we read on is, And he kneeled down and cried with a loud voice, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge. And when he had said this, he fell asleep. In other words, he died. So there's two things which Stephen did, a mere human being like us, which Jesus Christ did. He gave over his spirit to God in death. He trusted God with that. And number two, he literally showed his heart of forgiveness by asking God not to lay this sin to their charge. He didn't want revenge upon them. He knew they were going to face judgment one day if they didn't get saved. He didn't want a personal revenge that God would hurt them for what they did to him. Because he had a heart of forgiveness towards people who had not asked him for forgiveness. They were stoning him. And here comes the question. What can a person be bitter against? Well, to be honest, you can be bitter against anything. The Africans in Africa, they get bitter against their teeth when they saw and they asked the dentist for the tooth back and then they smashed the tooth up afterwards in revenge. You know, people can get bitter against their body. I mean, there are many very good looking guys and girls who honestly believe that their nose is very ugly and they're bitter against that. They're very, very cross about it in their hearts. They can't accept this. And you know, just to be honest, some people are not as good looking as others. And I've never seen anybody that made a mirror break. But the point of the matter is, even if you are, there are people with mutilated faces. There are people who are not that body of perfection. But you have to get to the point where you see bitterness is sin. And much more important than the outward is the heart. The beauty that can radiate. There are many people with extremely beautiful bodies and yet they have ugly hearts. But you can. Anybody can have a beautiful heart. And I'm sure that if you have a husband, beauty is in the eye of the beholder and he will love you for as you are. Or a wife. My wife is a typical example. She's pretty. She loves me. Some people are bitter at their parents because their parents don't have time for them or their parents get angry with each other. They will stand before God for these things. There are things which parents do, provoking their children, you could say, which they will stand before God one day. But that does not excuse us having bitterness in our hearts against them. Then there are people who let you down. Someone might have promised you something. I'll take you for a bike ride. I'll take you out for this. I'll do that for you. And they just don't do it. And you actually... I mean, some people, honestly, they get promised that they will, for instance, as missionaries, be given a lot of money for a project and they put months and months and months based on the fact that they're going to get this money into this project. And they work and work and work and when the money is supposed to come, all the work, and even of their own money that they put in, suddenly the money doesn't come. And that happens often to missionaries and to people and even in the secular world. People don't keep up with their promises. And Satan comes and we are tempted not just to be angry at the beginning but to become bitter. You can be bitter against yourself. You know, when Mr. Finneymore, that lovely old man who died three years back that I mentioned in some of my other sermons, when he used to do prison work, he said to me, Roy, one day I was in prison and I had two people who had come out and they wanted to pray to accept Jesus Christ and to repent of their sins and the one prayed and his life just changed. It was so wonderful to see later on his life changing, it seems. But the other one just couldn't get through. He just looked at me with an ugly, grim face. Like Aaron. No, I'm joking. But he suddenly thought in his head, he's going to ask this person a question, he said, Brother, have you, do you believe that God can forgive you for what you've done? He said, yes, I can believe that God can forgive me. But then he asked a second question, can you forgive yourself? He said, I cannot forgive myself. And then he found this person's problem. He couldn't forgive himself for what had happened in the past. You know, many parents, for instance, divorce. And the children blame themselves often for what happened and sometimes it's not the children's fault and they sit there and they blame themselves. And other times they blame themselves for their parents arguing or something happening in the workplace or whatever. And it is their fault. But whether it is your fault or it isn't your fault, you have to come to the point where you get forgiveness from God if you need it. But then you also have to forgive yourself because unforgiveness is sin. And it's going to hurt you. No matter what you've done in the past. And then there's the people who are taught to be bitter. You know, in Scotland and these places if you read old books, it's amazing how someone used to, one family used to, one guy went over to another family and he stole a shoe. And generally it was a wife or something, but I mean, I'll just give him the shoe as an example. And they used to steal this thing and then that family was cross with them because they stole the shoe and this family was cross with them because they were cross and they did stuff back to their crops and stuff, burning it or whatever. And they had children and they taught their children, you must be cross with that family and I tell you, you must be very bitter and cross against them because we stole their shoe and they burnt our farm and I'll tell you what more, they are terrifying people and just their name is terrifying, therefore we should do very much bad to them. And their children teach their children when they have children, you know, remember grandfather, he stole his shoe and they burnt their crop and his children started fighting, whatever. And eventually it becomes generation after generation after generation after generation that didn't have to fight each other, that are fighting each other because they were taught to hate. They were taught to be bitter. They were reminded of the past, something that happened 200 years back and that's literally in Europe, you'll find many in history, many feuds, family feuds between great barons, between little families that literally led to the murder of people generations down because of something that happened hundreds of years back. They were taught to be bitter. In South Africa, we are a typical example of this, I mean, people are so bitter about what happened when the whites were in charge of South Africa before 1994. But what's interesting is that the people with the most bitterness were born after 1994 when that wasn't an issue. And the reason it's an issue to them as young people and they're such murderers and hating of anybody who disagrees with them is because they've been taught, they've been told, remember the past, remember the past on television programs, in the newspaper, in the textbooks at school, remember how terrifying these people were to us. And they are very terrifying and you should be cross with them, you know, is the basic message that comes across. But in other countries where the white people did as bad stuff, the black people often don't care because they're not being told by the government so they don't think about it. It's very important not to think about things that can cause bitterness in our heart. Now you've got husbands who've been killed by cannibals, Jim Elliot, you've got bad times and bad finances and bad health and there's so many things we can get bitter against because we're not content with such things as we have in every area of our life. I remember one old preacher, I went past him in this convention and I'm, you know, I'm an absent-minded professor type person without the professor brains and I was walking past this guy and I suppose I didn't greet him I couldn't remember and in South Africa everybody had been through the army and my dad didn't luckily but at one stage it was law that every young person at the age of 18 had to be in the army and so a lot of these older guys who had been in the army and they were used to discipline and young people greeting them and all this stuff which was very good and I've got nothing against it but you know, I walked past this guy and he said young man and I said yes sir he said you didn't greet me I was like didn't I? sorry and he said I suppose I greeted him then whatever and I walked past but you know that because of that he developed a bitterness in his heart towards me which lasted two years and that's a small thing but this was not an average guy this was one of South Africa's best preachers and I didn't know that at the time I was just a young whippersnapper and I remember two years later now I didn't know who it was that I didn't greet I forgot about that he remembered it for two years and about two years later I was going to a camp and I was going to be the speaker at this camp the main speaker and he was asked and sometimes very good speakers are asked just to do the cooking you know they're also asked to do stuff like that too and he was asked to come in to help with the cooking and a few little sessions and whatever and he came in and he realized I was going to be the main speaker and boy that was bad but I, from my side I didn't know it wasn't the guy that I didn't greet and I thought wow I've heard about this preacher now that I knew about him he's a great preacher I'd love to get his sermon so I can give it to everyone so he can have work to do to put on the internet you know those type of things and I came to this place and as I walked in I remember seeing him this was a few years back I remember seeing him and I thought wow I'm going to speak to this great preacher that God has used you know through the years and the past and he when he looked at me he thought what a spoiled brat and I just walked in you know that night I preached and when I preached he suddenly started to realize as God started to work among the youth there God really broke through among many hearts of very broken kids and murderers and car thieves and you want to name it among the youth God worked there and he was looking and he suddenly realized I've been bitter against someone that isn't so bad and he started to realize that this is wrong and the next morning at about 5 o'clock when we were having our group session he he looked at me and he started to cry in front of everybody in front of the group of senior people who were in charge of the camp and he said Roy I want to admit something to you two years back I was a guy who was cross with you because you didn't shake my hand and I've held that against you for two whole years and he was weeping and he said but today I want to admit when I was listening to your sermon last night I realized that I am wrong and he and he wept and he broke before God and I was like ok didn't affect me but anyway and suddenly someone else in the group this other young guy looked at him and said but now that we are forgiving each other he said I just want to admit to the old this he said to the old guy who was the preacher he said for two years or so I've had bitterness against you and I'm like oh my all these people and here I am going on enjoying myself you know in their case and in many people's cases when you become bitter now this isn't always the case but bitterness often is something that only affects yourself when you hold it against someone else often it's just what's affecting you now at the end of on what can make you bitter there's many things that can make you bitter but sometimes that you find out people have been gossiping about you or they've embarrassed you in front of other people that's actually a very small thing in the light of what Christ went through on the cross and what he was willing for and yet without sin he didn't become bitter against those who crucified him yet we easily become bitter because someone in front of other people embarrassed us by talking about our nose or us being thin or something else but to God bitterness is sin now what are the consequences of being bitter Ephesians 4 verse 26 says be angry and sin not let not the sun go down upon your wrath neither give place to the devil you know that word place is jurisdiction it means that you literally give over a part a ground in your soul to Satan and that's serious when you bitter when you see anger I know some missionaries that fight and they used to fight they used to have these little arguments like Aaron can have arguments with Timothy sometimes but afterwards they didn't hold it against each other they didn't let the sun go down upon their wrath they were it's bad it's a bad testimony sometimes to be angry in front of people you must be careful how easy you are to be angry in front of people because people know you they'll say okay they just like that and they're still friends but other people can sometimes be turned away from you through that but still in spite of us being careful sometimes you guys you have these little heated debates and whatever but and they get a little angry but they don't hold it against the other person and I know that there are people who have been saved through such people but of course they said of the love which they had for each other people were drunkards and so on but if you let the sun go it just becomes more than anger it's something that's in your heart that you hold against that person and the next day you wouldn't like to be let's say in the same meeting as that person you wouldn't like to be with that person you don't really like that person you wish you could get a little lesson in life so to say and not to actually help him because you want to get him back then you've given place to the devil and that can get very very very serious you know I'm going to mention an extreme case but up in Africa when you go or even down there I don't know if you've ever seen a demon possessed kid there's different phases before a kid gets demon possessed sometimes it's just in one moment the child is demon possessed but sometimes they first get attacks in the night they start screaming their necks start getting strangled and their parents don't know what to do and it's terrifying but sometimes the kid has got a demon inside him and often that little kid has got eyes that you can look into and you can't see anything it's just looking there's nothing absolutely nothing and that can be a sickness but often it's demon possession I remember once it was so precious looking at this demon possessed child we prayed for it nothing happened and then we started to go fast and to pray for a few days and we called other people in to pray for it and within two days that child was radically set free you want to see how excited those parents were and it was absolutely wonderful but something that's interesting is many people go up in Africa and they see these so called demon possessed people and they try to you know like the charismats cast out the demons or whatever they want to do and nothing works and sometimes it's because they're doing it wrong but ultimately many times people find it's because it doesn't help casting out a demon if the ground that is given to the demon is still given given in other words if that person still has bitterness in their life up in Africa if that person has a lot of bitterness that is why you can get to the point of bitterness where it looks like a demon possessed person that's how bad it can get and obviously at the beginning it's not as bad as that but that's how bad it can get and when you are bitter bitter you literally you might not be a demon possessed person like that but you're giving ground to satan in which he can work in your life and that's very clear from scripture 2 corinthians 10 verse 4 and 5 says the weapons of a war pair are not carnal but mighty through god to the pulling down of strongholds casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalted itself against the knowledge of god and bring it into captivity every thought to the obedience of christ you see on this ground you've given to satan he can build strongholds and these strongholds are thoughts which keep you they are lies which keep you but the point of the matter is now we think that's big enough to be bitter against when god forgave us breaking his most precious law we think it's big enough things that people do against us to be bitter against them and god says oh look i forgave you for this and you can't forgive that and i'm going to give you over to the tormentors and in your life these things might be depression anger fear jealousy these things which we think are right and make us feel righteous are actually hurting us jealousy i don't know if you've ever been jealous i've been jealous in my life as a young kid at times it's something that actually hurts you you're sitting there with this thing in your heart and you don't feel good fear who's ever been helped by fear i mean fear of god is the beginning of wisdom but fear in your heart these tormentors that you have in your life they literally are the punishment of god upon us for not forgiving other people when god forgave us so much one black blind man in south africa who was preaching i was under his ministry once and he said you know one guy came up to me there was hundreds of people and he was blind and he knew so much of the bible and he used to sit there and he said somebody came up to me and he said brother for two years i hold this against you and i want to tell you no matter how bad you are i'm forgiving you and you know this blind guy just laughed he said well what's that to me for two years i couldn't see that you were bitter against me it didn't affect me all you've been doing for two years is you've been hurting yourself you've been tormenting yourself now you come special and i forgive you but even though bitterness in and of itself can just torment you and lead to other areas of life where you're tormented and lies and where satan can work in your life bitterness can it's a fact that bitterness can lead to things which affect other people and that's very sad you know cain was bitter against his brother abel because he brought god the work of his hands and abel brought faith he brought a substitute a lamb or whatever to be killed as an offering and god accepted abel's offering and god rejected cain's offering and cain was bitter against abel and that became jealousy and jealousy became murder and eventually his bitterness led to something that hurt other people that hurt his brother in a very real and terrifying way you know there are christians who were once on fire for god in africa they used to go around preaching and god used them for 40 50 years and yet they allowed one day bitterness into their life about something and eventually bitterness so took over their life that they were willing and wanting to destroy other preachers and they would gossip about them they would lie about them they would do so many other evil things even though for many years they were used of god because that is what bitterness eventually lead to it lead to jealousy it lead to wanting to destroy other people they were so blinded by satan you know many children of missionaries the parents come home from where they were wronged by other people in the mission and I can guarantee you in the mission if you have people wronging you I mean that just happens you know but they would come home and instead of just the husband and wife talking to each other you know debriefing and praying to god about it they would come in front of their children and they would say hey these other missionaries oh how terrifying they are and these christians are terrifying they are and they go through the whole thing and you know those children weren't ready for that those children they saw the attitude of their parents and many of those children became rebels and then the parents would blame the mission but they didn't realize they were the ones who came back bitter and it affected their children I remember this year it was Israel remember that Pretoria Zoo we went to and within a little while our car was ransacked I remember this year going with my wife and my wife's sister I wanted to take my wife's sister she had her off time to have some fun so I took her to a zoo and it's in one of the worst areas to be driving with two women so I told my wife close your windows but being a guy who doesn't practice what I preach I didn't close my window and I was driving through the streets and there was no parking so I drove around the block and eventually I came to sitting in traffic and there was hundreds of people walking up and down they all looked the same and I had my window open and there was a tall guy and he started talking to me and I said get your arm out the window and I said get your arm out the window and I said get your arm out and he grabbed his arm and he started running and I was crossed I was like that guy who wanted his marbles to be polished at the beginning and I was like get the door But you know when you cross it'll take when you're not cross it takes about 30 seconds or 20 seconds or 10 seconds to open A door, but when you cross it's like where's the thing? And so I didn't want to lose him so I turned around and I saw a guy running away, and then suddenly going Slowly so obviously it's a guy was running, and then he wanted to be part of the crowd So I pinpointed him in the crowd. I got the door open. I ran. I tackled him into the ground Doof and it was the wrong guy Is it wasn't me it wasn't me it was my friend Man I took him by the scruff of the neck. I was so crushed and Thin as I am I dragged him around the corner, and I said you show me my friend And he said I'll show you my friend But he kept on taking me to an air more and more into an area that was dangerous. I mean alone So I said okay. I'll give you an offer. I'll pay you Thirty dollars or whatever in America saying in rands actually 200 ran if you give me that phone back because it was a very good phone, and I couldn't afford it I was I made a mistake there because two mistakes number one I Told him to come back to me, and there was a police car across the road So you obviously wouldn't come back to that and the other thing the other mistake I made is I should have offered him double because they could sell that phone for about double that price But anyway, I never saw him again I went back to my wife. I was very stupid to have left my wife in the car in that area But men do stupid things sometime Anyway My attitude is wrong But something happened there. I didn't realize I went to the zoo now This is what happens when you've got something that happens in your life You might not realize that you've become a little bitter about it Because you go to the zoo and you see the animals and the monkeys and you say that one looks like Aaron And you just think it's absolutely amazing, and it's fun and you feel happy and everything but deep in your heart something's gone wrong and It'll pop up later, and it did you see I was driving around all around Joburg in that time and At almost every corner. There's a bigger or many biggers, and they'll come to your car And they'll ask you now It's not wrong to close your window sometimes if you're alone because they can take a knife and kill you But I did do something wrong. I didn't just close my window and sometimes just give them something if I could I Immediately as they'll come and I said hey you keep away, okay? and We drove on and I meant it from my heart. I was not allowing people near my car. Just like that. I'm sorry and Then something happened to me that made me break before God you see many people many beggars they grow up in terrifying situations They grow up with Lying in the streets longing for a morsel of bread. They've been lit. They've got no friends at all. They've broken in their heart And I remember coming to it my wife was with me. I came to a stop street or a robot What did he call it lads and this man came and I said you don't come near me, and he didn't get cross He didn't say ah He just looked at me with the most broken eyes almost that I've ever seen in my life And I suddenly realized Roy what you've done. What happened there has affected your heart and The Bible says you must love people. I mean how can you be a missionary? How can you reach out to people if you're reacting like this even if it is dangerous? And I still close my window sometimes, but I'll tell you this God broke me and I prayed to God and I forgave and I asked God to take back that ground that was lost and he did and I started to treat beggars like I used to before that again But oh you know how a little thing even though you're happy and you're going to the zoo and all those things how little thing in the Past can affect you and take hold of your heart and affects how you treat others to the point that you're just obeying What God says when you should love people Even though you're happy at times and so we get to the answer. What is the answer? To bitterness one Corinthians 6 verse 20 says for you have bought with the price therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit which are God I brought the principle of redemption at this church before but it's something that we it's something that is so easily forgotten By Christians you are bought with a price You are the property of God your body your soul your spirit he was bought at Calvary and therefore you are the property of God and when you through anger and When your anger becomes bitterness you let the Sun go down upon your wrath and you give jurisdiction You give ground to Satan literally you are giving to Satan Something that is owned by God That part of your life which Satan is interfering with through bitterness is the property of God You see redemption the fact that God bought you brings two things responsibility and power Responsibility in the sense that your body is not your own You can't just go and use it as a Christian saying I'm saved in my heart therefore But I can anyway listen to whatever music I want to listen to I can put not those studs Tongue studs in my tongue I could put nose rings in my nose I can watch whatever I want to with these eyes This body is the movies and whatever this body is the property of God I can wear whatever I want You know shows the sensuous parts of my body. No Your body is the property of God it brings responsibility But it also brings power because that ground which was given over to Satan That Ground is the property of God and therefore we read in Mark chapter 11 verse 25 It says and when you stand praying Forgive if he have ought against any that your father also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses You know, it's an interesting question Why does the Bible say? When you stand praying forgive why doesn't it say when you sit praying forgive if you ever thought of that Now I might be wrong theologically. I'm a very simple African But to me when I want to pray for a long time unless I'm going for a walk I sit But when you stand it's a short praise It's not a long prayer And that's important because you have to realize because of what Christ did on the cross because he bought you Body soul and spirit because you are the property of God you don't have to when you've got bitterness in your heart pray for hours and hours and hours and hours and eventually but you've prayed Enough and then I've got forgiveness Because that's working for your forgiveness. It's taking away the cross of Jesus Christ you can in a very short prayer because God owns you and because of the cross of Jesus Christ be forgiven for your bitterness and Ask God to take back that ground which Satan has in your life While you standing therefore as you're standing you can say God I Asked forgiveness for that bitterness that I have against this person for whatever I asked you to cleanse me in the blood of Jesus Christ and forgive me I asked you to take back that ground which Satan has because it's your property in one moment God can do that in the name of Jesus Christ, which is absolutely amazing And that's what I experienced when I had bitterness and I can't get over it. I Say to God I asked forgiveness and I asked him to take the ground back and he does But now there's something practical you have to remember You are not God you have a brain and you have a memory and I once read in South Africa in a Christian magazine, I don't most of the magazines are rubbish but I just picked up in a church a magazine that was quite well read across the country and Remember this one guy said he was from America He said if you haven't forgotten If you have not forgotten you have not forgiven if ever in your entire life You remember what that person did to you then you haven't forgiven now. That's a lie You know when I was at school I mean those Muslims just slapped me in the face and there was guys who beat me up a bit and those guys who said pretty nasty things about me being thin at times and They called me skeleton and all those sticks and whatever you're going to call it And I can remember those things, but I don't really care. I love those guys The fact that I can remember those things Doesn't mean that I haven't forgiven those things. I honestly love them. I don't have when I think of those things I don't even have the slightest little flame that comes up my heart not even slightly These that person who that's a good Christian who wrote that article is talking utter rubbish If someone says to you that if you ever ever remember what happened against you you haven't forgiven that is rubbish I mean you just have to use your brain to know that you can remember things The point of the matter is you must forgive in your heart. I'd like to read Matthew 5 is 44 But I say unto you Love your enemies bless them that curse you do good to them that hates you and pray for them Which despitefully use you and persecute you? God's will is that we should bless our enemies God's will is that we should Pray for them, which despitefully use us not by saying God. Please send lightning on the head and There is a problem when you've just had something terrifying happen against you Oh you have a memory and So the first thing to do is to ask God to take the ground back which he has taken back But sometimes just sometimes When that memory comes back of something that happened recent year in life or a year back or whatever There are times where it brings up emotions. Oh I've forgiven him God take back that ground and the ground is taken back in one moment God takes back the ground there was lost to Satan but You Satan puts into your head the memory He tries to make you think about a lot for the purpose of bringing bitterness again bringing back bitterness and first comes the emotions And in my own life the way to victory over that Was Matthew 5 is 44 which I just read to you But I say unto you love your enemies bless them that curse you do good to them that hates you and pray for them Despitefully use you and persecute you I obey this verse Now I don't have a million enemies to do this to Most people actually like me for some strange reason But I remember in South Africa. There was a one time When there was a a man who was a very godly guy for many years He built up a reputation across South Africa has been extremely godly used of God a humble guy He was extremely rich. He had so much money You could feel it could buy the whole country if you really wanted to I mean your money wasn't a issue to him at all in any way multi multi multi multi multi multi multi millionaire You just always find out about different things and he used to help a lot of mission organizations across South Africa and because of that Unfortunately, he had influence Actually, we should not be put the people in first place to give money. We should put in first place those People for their godliness not just because they get money anyway, he one day I went to visit them and He had a misunderstanding someone else that I was with me did something bad and instead of blaming that person he blamed me and that person although I did nothing to be honest and He went about now. He was having problems with his wife. No one knew this He was having problems with his wife at the time There was big tension in his house and he was getting bitter about a lot of things And yeah, I come and he just wanted to suddenly destroy me and so he phoned up our mission and he has power and he started to talk to our mission and To tell them that they should throw me out of the mission. I'm an absolute mess I'm a pathetic guy and I was like what I do and I remember the problem about the situation is that He could destroy me if he wanted to he could utterly destroy me. I would not I'll be chucked out of my mission I would not be allowed to preach anymore Except that I went somewhere else he could destroy my name across South Africa because he was so well known and because you're so much loved and because everybody just knew him as a wonderful Christian and I remember sitting in my room and I can tell you I love to preach. I love to go out and witness I love to do that, which is good and I didn't want these things to be taken away from me and I sat there and I was in confusion and I didn't know what to do and it's like God, please stop him You know, that's the first thing you are. Yeah, God, please zap him And then suddenly I realized actually later I realized the concept more clearly how can you obey this verse? How can you bless your enemies if you've never had an enemy I mean I'd had people slap me in the face I'd had people beat me up a bit but I've never had someone before that who wanted to destroy my name who was willing to go across South Africa and tell people how bad I was Who was willing and able to utterly destroy me a real enemy not just a guy beats you up or steals your money or whatever And I suddenly realized this is an opportunity which I'm not gonna have much in my life And I went to my knees and of course, I said God Forgive me for bitterness and take back the ground that is lost and all those things and wash me in the blood of Jesus Christ I remember then saying, you know the emotions it always came back. The thoughts were coming back. The thoughts were coming back and bringing back the emotion and Then I obeyed I said God bless him Bless his business bless his family bless his heart as he even as he reads his Bible open up to him the things of God And lead him on to experience Jesus Christ and as I did that as I obeyed this verse God never commands us anything that he doesn't give us the grace in Jesus Christ to do and As I chose to obey this verse in my heart the emotions went away and I only had love for him from God And you see sometimes when something is very bad, especially we have to ask God to take back the ground that's very important we have to ask God to forgive us, but we have to go on and start obeying the rest of Scripture and Blessing him in our prayers and if Satan brings those thoughts back He's gonna start stop doing that very soon if you keep on praying for his blessing, you know, they don't say Okay, every time I try to get the emotions back. He does damage to my kingdom You know from history we have amazing examples of forgiveness and I'm not going to go into the Thousands of zombies you could give but one that is very precious is Hudson Taylor You know when Hudson Taylor was in China, and there were some other missionaries there and They they Accused him they got jealous of him They got bitter against him and so they accused him of stealing money and misusing money Now that's a big thing in the mission field if you in South Africa ministers have been chucked out of there out of their church for stealing $100 when they didn't even steal it if you accused of that it's a massive thing and He never did that and Something they didn't know was that he before that had been giving them money secretly Because even though they were bitter against him he felt for them They were families or people in China and they didn't have much money And so the money he got in as Hudson Taylor used to give a lot to them But they didn't know that it was him. It was a secret gift But you know something when they stood up and started gossiping about him and lying about him and trying to destroy his name They didn't know it, but he carried on giving and he carried on giving and he carried on giving And when he died they found the notes of where his money went and suddenly they realized His biggest enemies over there apart from the heathen among the Christians. He was their greatest supporters Can you believe that? The Bible says you must be peculiar people zealous of good work most people do good good to those who do good to them But if you bitter you will never have this amazing testimony of Doing good to those who do not do good to thee and not to be seen of men No one knew about it till he died. He did it just to be seen of heaven Isn't that precious when you do things not you know Some people if someone's talking against you and you go in front of everybody a hundred people years of check of a million dollars You're actually trying to hurt them But if you didn't see good that no one knows all you're caring about is Jesus Christ And I know people in Africa have applied this principle to their life and they love those or that's hard Although they hurt although they destroyed sometimes they love those Who have hurt them very much, but I'd like to get practical quickly towards the end of the sermon You can misuse forgiveness Let's say my little child Glenn came to me one day at the age of five years old and I need to discipline him because He I told him to make his bed. He didn't make his bed or something like that. I don't know He was rude to his mom, which you may not be And I say I'm gonna give you a spanking and he says but daddy you cannot give me a spanking I said now son, why cannot I give you a spanking? He says because I know my theology You see daddy There is this thing called forgiveness in the Bible and if you don't forgive everyone from your heart that trespasses I Said it's got nothing to do with that from my heart. I forgive you but from my heart I spank you to help you not become a brat Oh Brother I've had people do that to me I preached the one Corinthians 13 and when I came to tell them the truth about their life and love and tell them you're wrong In this area they said but you're supposed to love me Discipline must not be thrown away because we Forgive people justice must not be thrown away It's wonderful to forgive people But I mean if a murderer is a murderer and he hasn't repented he needs to be in jail so he doesn't murder the next person Even if we do forgive him we can go to jail We mustn't have bitterness in our heart then wanted out of revenge We must want it out of a safer society for the right reason and we should perhaps go to jail and give him a Bible Many people don't like to be practical as people who don't put they're so spiritual They don't put oil in their car when their car engine blows up Then they say it was the Lord's will And some people with bitterness they and forgiveness they unpractical, you know, if someone has raped your child You don't say I forgive you yet. Take my other child and sit in that room. I trust you until he's repented You don't do that You forgive them in your heart and you treat them good But you do not put your child or your wife alone with them in a room and leave them for a few days That's called being in practical You must speak the truth in love It doesn't mean that you forgive everybody that you don't sometimes go up to people and you say to them Listen, this music is wrong in your life If you didn't front of everybody so that they can look bad. That's that's actually from a wrong heart. You want to hurt them But you must the Bible says speak the truth in love. You should still tell people you don't love them Actually, if you don't tell them What's wrong in their life at times in the right time not every moment of the day You don't just go up to people with a long list and say I've listed everything that's wrong in your life You are this this this this this this doctor is wrong Please change there is also timing which is important You should do it in love But now we end off with Romans 12 verse 19 Dearly beloved avenge not yourself, but rather give place unto wrath For it is written vengeance is mine. You see we must have discipline of children of a church discipline So we must have justice for safer society. We must be practical and not just If give someone a gun to shoot you who shot your child because he forgave them But we must not revenge ourselves. You see in on the judgment day. God is going to Bring wrath upon the sins of men That's not our job. And therefore it says dearly beloved avenge not yourself But rather give place unto wrath. In other words, don't let it go. Don't let the Sun go down upon your wrath You know, you get angry. He's killed your child or whatever, but don't let it become a lifelong ruination of yourself spiritually For Christ said it is written Vengeance is mine. I will repay sayeth the Lord and that same portion of Scripture says if your enemy hunger Feed him Isn't that precious? One person wrote of 1 Corinthians 13 verse 4 charity suffereth long in his kind, you know you if you don't have charity you've got nothing but He's wrote many people suffer long, but they're not kind There's an awful lot of suffering in this world, but very few are Christlike in return not impractical but Christlike, you know I brought I think I brought this illustration before you but it's such a precious one of that Guy, I think his name starts with a T and Martin the 2nd century or so ad The Roman soldiers came to his house Because he was a Christian and they wanted to take him away and and kill him because that was what they were ordered to do and they came and they knocked on his door and they said you come with us because we're gonna Kill you and he said wait, wait one minute If you're gonna kill me now, by the way be practical if you can't get out the back window Run to another time. That's what the Bible promises. Don't go and say hey, take me but if if they've got you a Wonderful thing which he did He said come inside. Wouldn't you come inside first before you take me and let me cook you one last meal and They came inside sure a meal He cooked that meal He served them. He let them eat He let them see the love of Christ He fed his enemies like this verse says and then they bound him up and took him away and they killed him That is Christianity. Isn't it amazing? I Fell so many times I especially in that in that I've got a best friend in Africa One of my best friends I get irritated with him sometimes and we But the point of the matter is we love each other. We don't hold bitterness against each other You should get over your anger You should yield your rights as Arthur Koenig and all these different people say it should be another major part of your life But far worse than sometimes getting a little fight is bitterness. It's holding something about against someone else which is terrifying and Of course we should later make allow God to make but forgiveness a habit in our life There will always be something perhaps that you need to come to God about this bigger You know if your child gets killed and you've never had that before I'm sure to be a very hard experience But it shouldn't be that it's hard to forgive, you know Some people really it takes a lot to forgive later It should be something that just comes out of your heart as God's grace is working there and it's taken hold of your heart And you've got charity working there Little things shouldn't bring bitterness in your life. Not when someone steals your shoe or talks about your nose or it gossips behind your back or things like that that shouldn't be the The driving point of these little things that make you make you better and You have to examine your heart Do you have bitterness against someone and if you do it realized that it is hurting you spiritually and you should repent Come to God Asked for him to cleanse you in the blood of Jesus Christ Standing not a long prayer you bought the Calvary and your forgiveness was bought there to ask him to take back that ground and then Start to obey the scripture pray God bless him and in an old lady's house in Africa I think she had big ears and wrinkled face and the other little eyes and the twinkling eyes lovely old Christian I remember opening up a notebook and It wrote there. Oh, oh heaven stand still when someone prays For the good of his enemy Isn't that precious? Have you made all heaven stand still? By praying for the good of your enemy Let us pray Father. I know that this message is very close to my heart and because you make it such a Important thing you talk of the tormentors you talk about the ground that has taken away you talk about the tornadoes you talk about the The the flies that can come into a person's life who's got bitterness you talk about the fruit of it, which is so terrifying and And and how it affects our lives in a terrifying way it hinders us from being Christ like from loving our enemies and and just being someone that heaven rejoices over because of our of Christ living through us and He said if we don't forgive you won't forgive and it's so important to help us to realize the seriousness of this and Work in our hearts if there's someone that we irritated with it. It's not just irritation it's something that stays in our hearts and comes back again and again and again help us to go to our knees and and to pray and to claim back that ground and ask God to take it back and to cleanse us in the blood of Jesus Christ and then help us to go forward and obey the rest of scriptures and start to do that which is wondrous and and and to ask God to bless our enemies and to feed them which Want to kill us and I ask this all in the precious wondrous name of Jesus Christ Thank you very much