On Eagles' Wings Pt 120 — Don Courville

Well, it's good to be back with you again today. The last few weeks I've been sharing with you some things about bitterness. I've been thinking about, maybe I'll do it next week, the Lord will give me clearing on it, to share with you a little bit of a sermon, one of the most powerful sermons in the area of bitterness that I've ever heard.

I just heard it last night, or the last part of it, as I wasn't in the whole service. We're having revival services where we're at, and we have a man in by the name of Charlie Orr, the pastor of the church that I'm in, asked God to show him who the man was, he wanted to get in, and he waited and watched.

And last fall, he saw this man, him and I, we were up at a conference in another country, and we heard this man speak. So powerful. God's anointed him. And I'm thinking I might just share with you a little bit of some of his sermons over the next few months.

We'll see how God directs. Anyway, next week, if the Lord would lead, because he was talking about the area of bitterness. You know, the scripture says in Jeremiah 48, 11, listen to this, Moab hath been at ease from his youth, and he hath settled on his lease, and hath not been emptied from vessel to vessel, neither hath he gone into captivity, therefore his taste remaineth in him, and his scent is not changed.

Revival, Conversion, and the Removal of the Self-Life

One of the things that we are geared for, as a matter of fact, the main thing, is revival. So many of us have missed out, really, on the cross. And our scent remains in us, the taste, the self-life. We've not gone to the cross.

And actually, one of the things that's been shared, and it's been shared many times in revival, many that think they are Christians get saved. And what we've done in our day is we have invited the world, invited the unsaved into our churches so much, to where it's been possible for them to come in, become members of our church.

They may be baptized, they may join the church, do whatever they have to, but they come in, but they've never had a born-again experience. They've never been genuinely saved. And their scent is still in them.

When we receive Christ as our Savior, the scripture says, therefore if any man be in Christ he is a new creature, all things are passed away, behold, all things have become new. This means your life is going to change, your habits are going to change, your desires are going to change.

One of the things that happens when you receive Christ as your Savior is you become a new person in your thought life, and in your talk life, and in your walk life. But what we've been seeing in our day is many that are manifesting, really, the traits of an unsaved person that are supposed to be spiritual giants in the church.

Spiritual leaders, pastors, elders, deacons, teachers, sun school teachers, whatever, but yet they're full of carnality, full of bitterness and strife and anger. You know, Jesus said, Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.

And there has not come into their life, really, this change. Now you can be saved and have this stuff happen, which is possible. And you need revival. Now I want to talk to you about getting down into the innermost being of your person.

Letting God do what He wants to do in your life. Letting Him change you, letting Him make you and break you, and letting Him become the Lord of your life instead of you having to always do everything that you think needs to be done.

Listen to this little poem. I don't know who wrote it, but it goes like this. When God wants to drill a man and thrill a man and skill a man, when God wants to mold a man to play the noblest part, when He yearns with all His heart to create so great and bold a man that all the world shall be amazed, watch His methods, watch His ways, how He ruthlessly perfects whom He royally elects, how He hammers him and hurts him and with mighty blows converts him into trial shapes of clay, which only God understands, while His tortured heart is crying and He lifts beseeching hands, how He bends but never breaks.

When His good He undertakes, how He uses whom He chooses and with every purpose fuses Him, by every act induces Him to try His splendor out. God knows what He is about. Now, listen, my friend. If you've gone through a trial and you've gone through some kind of experience and you've ended up being a bitter person, the trial didn't make you bitter, the experience didn't make you bitter, what you went through didn't make you bitter, no, all it did was draw out of your heart what was there.

In the last few years, God has been hammering and breaking in on me, and if you are a Christian and you love Jesus and you're being conformed daily into His image, and He's going to hammer us and break us and mold us and bend us and break us to become like Jesus.

One of the things that He did several years ago, I had a pastor friend, well, he really wasn't a pastor at that time, but he became a pastor because of revival, but I told him, because our gifts differed so much, he's a ruler and I'm a prophet, I said, we could probably never work together.

Would you know that God made me go back and work with Him? God made me submit myself under His leadership. That man, God has used him to bring more into my life about Jesus than I would have ever known.

I've never been hurt as much with anybody else as with Him, never been misunderstood as much as by Him, never been mistreated, accused so much, even told things that hurt deeply but by Him, and God is working on Him.

But God has showed me how much of the self-life is in my own heart and how this root of bitterness will continually try to come up, and Jesus has showed me that I have to die daily. Die daily. Paul said he had to do that daily.

Joseph, Saul, and the Roots of Bitterness

You know what happens? We get up one day and we forget to die, and something happens. We go through an experience. How is it that Joseph could come through the way he did to where when his brothers came back and stood before him, he didn't say in his heart, Aha, now is my chance, I can get even with him.

But no, his heart was turned with pity and mercy. You see, all those years, those thirteen years that he went through the pit and into the prison and through all the years of being forgotten and nobody loving him and nobody caring about him, he did not become bitter because bitterness was not in his heart.

When we started off on this thing, I shared with you a little bit about bitterness. I said bitterness is an attitude that refuses to make reconciliation with others and to accept the sovereignty of God.

You see, what happens to us is we refuse to accept the fact that God has allowed this thing to come into my life. I want to share with you a little bit today about David. And I've been going through with my family about Saul getting up to David and we've been asking ourselves these questions.

Why was it that Saul tried to kill David? Why was it he was so jealous? What happened? Where did this root enter into his life? And you know, David, in all the things that he went through and all the trials that he went through, I don't detect in his life the spirit of bitterness.

And that's why God could use him. But on the other hand, God let come into his life those that were bitter, starting with Saul. There was David, all he was just taking care of sheep. Saul was chosen to be king.

First thing, first assignment, he blew it. Second assignment, he blew it. He's out. You can't be in a high position of leadership and keep blowing the game plan. The commander-in-chief is going to jerk you out and get another king.

And that's what happened. David was brought in. The Spirit of God left Saul and went on to David. And there was this bitter man, Saul. How is it that he became a javelin thrower? Well, he didn't deal with his pride.

He didn't deal with it and he became a bitter, jealous person. And you know, there's many javelin throwers around today. They feel like that they have been appointed by God to be the chief critic of the church.

My friend, you've been appointed by Satan to be the chief critic of the church, because God is the judge of the church, not you. And so we have all of this bitterness and strife and anger and bickering and backbiting and whispering and jealousies, all because you've been given ground.

You've given ground to Satan. You know what Jesus said in Matthew 12, 33? He said, Either make the tree good, and his fruit good, or else make the tree corrupt, and his fruit corrupt. For the tree is known by his fruit.

What kind of fruit do you have? Do you have the fruit of the Spirit, love and joy and patience, or do you have the fruit of the flesh, which is the bitterness and the strife and the anger? Jesus said in verse 34, O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things?

For out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh. You want to know what kind of shape someone's in? You just listen. You just listen. It won't be long, but out of the heart is going to come some praise for Jesus, some appreciation for Jesus, some love for Jesus, some testimony of Jesus, or either there's going to come out this complaining about the economy, complaining about the preacher preaching too long, complaining about your mother-in-law, your father-in-law, your husband, the kids, your job, your boss.

Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh. You see, out of this old tongue reveals your innermost being. Verse 35, Jesus said, A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things, and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things.

Notice the tongue is actually the showcase of the heart. You open up your mouth, and people are going to know what's in your heart. Is there praise and glory to God, worship to Him, all the praise is Him, and you're so thankful and grateful, and you're a gracious person, and you have praise to God, or either the other comes out.

But what confuses people is when you say one thing about praising God, but yet on the other hand you come out with all this other stuff. They say, What is this? What is this? Well, you come back to James, and you're what he calls a double-minded man.

Words, Judgment, and Second Chances

Jesus said, He said, I say unto you that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment. Because God looks on the heart what a man thinketh in his heart, so he is, for Shambles 16, 7.

So by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned. Now let me tell you, my friend, I have been given many tests in my life, and sometimes I feel like I've flunked them all.

But God, in His goodness and graciousness to us, if you flunk your test, let me tell you I've got some good news for you, He's going to give you another chance to make it up. We say thrilling. No, now listen, He's going to keep giving you the test, He's going to keep bringing you back to the point where you got off the track until He gets you back on.

And let me tell you, why does He do that? Because you're no good to Him. You know, when a train goes off the track, it's no good until it's back on the track. And that's the way you and I are. He's going to bring us back.

You know, some of us, we go through life, maybe 30, 40, 50, 60 years with a bitter spirit. Our sister did something to us, and we have not forgiven them. Remember what God told us about forgiveness? He said, if you come to the altar, maybe you've been going to church and giving you money, He says, listen, you come to the altar to give your money to God, He says, forget it, I don't want your money, He says, you leave your money right there, and you go make it right with your brother, your sister, your aunt, your uncle, because you don't have any business there until you've made it right.

And actually, you're a bad testimony. You're the one that's double-minded, you're the one that's the hypocrite, and you're looking around at all these other people and say, I'm wondering why they don't get right with God.

Well, that's just an evidence that you're not right with God, because you're looking around. And they may have a little old splinter in their eye, and you're looking around, and you've got this big old log in yours, and you're wondering, well, I can help them get that splinter out of their eye.

You're a hypocrite. You're in no shape. Let me tell you, if you want to get down deep in it, John said in 1 John 2, 7, he said, brethren, I write no new commandment unto you, I don't have anything new for you, listen, but an old commandment.

And what's that? Which you had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word which you heard from the beginning. What's this word? It's the word of love. You know, I ought to take you through a little bit on love, but listen, he that saith he is in the light and hateth his brother is in darkness even unto now.

He that loveth his brother abideth in the light. You know, my friend, how can you say you love your brother, but yet you have hate in your heart for somebody else? How can you say, I love God, yet you've got hate in your heart for another Christian brother or sister?

Let me tell you, my friend, God is not mocked. He says, watch out, take heed how you stand. He will not be mocked. What you sow, you're going to reap. What you dish out to others, you're going to get it back.

Matter of fact, even more than you dish it out. So you sling some mud, not only do you get your hands muddy, but you're going to get it, if you sling a handful of mud, you're going to get a bucketful back on you.

Matter of fact, God's not in the mudslinging business anyway, the devil is. He's the accuser of the brethren, and he's got so many Christians doing his dirty work that he can probably, once he's got you going, he can go on somewhere else.

Who appointed you to be a mudslinger anyway? Who appointed you to be the critic of the pastor? Who appointed you? God didn't appoint us to do that. So he that saith he is in the light and hateth his brother is in darkness.

Now this is what God's saying, I'm not saying it. He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there's none occasion of stumbling in him. You know, if we would walk in the light and walk in the love of Jesus, live in the realm of the love of God, they would take care of all these offenses.

We would say, that's all right, brother. The brother would come and say, oh, I sinned against you, I offended you, I did such, and we'd say, that's all right, I forgave you, I forgave you. Instead we are sticking up for our rights, he didn't have any right to do that to me.

I know one person, I don't know what their problem was, but somehow or another they got it under their skin, into their mind, that they were my judge. And I know God has dealt with me on this, but they were all the time thinking that I'd done something.

Always thinking up these things, vain imaginations. You know where these things come from? They come from the devil. He'll put these thoughts in your mind. They were always mad at me about this or that.

Always presuming I've done something. No facts at all, just imagination. You know what? If you give the devil an inch in this area, he's going to have a whole highway system running into your mind. You're going to become an evil person.

God may have to just take you out of this world. You know, Paul said, many sleep, because they wouldn't judge themselves. One of the things in revival, and most of us, let me tell you this, most of us are playing games if we think we can have an evangelist come in, we can have four days to meet, and we call that revival.

That's a joke. That's a joke. Even seven to eight days is just beginning to break the ice. This man that we brought in, Charlie Orr, he was originally scheduled to be in here I think three weeks, and he backed out on it.

And he just got started this week, as I'm recording this now, but he agreed to come eight days. Well, we don't plan on him getting out of here for probably at least a month. He may have some new things to learn.

The last one that came in here for eight days stayed ten weeks. We need to learn to be open to what God is trying to say to us, and learn new things. And it takes a little while to have revival. It takes a lot of prayer.

By the way, let me ask you, those of you that write to me, that you write us, and we always try to answer back the letters that we get, it may take us a couple or three weeks to get back to you, and if you have a need, we try to help you out.

But would you pray for me? Would you pray for my family? Would you pray for this ministry? I don't need you to criticize, but I do need you to pray. And if you've got some constructive criticism, then send it in.

I'm open to it. I'm not perfect. I know that. You're not either. That's like, we ought to be able to get along pretty good then, shouldn't we? But would you pray? Would you just pray? I don't share a lot of what I'm doing, but just pray.

Mainly, I don't share a lot about what I'm doing. It's because I just don't need the criticism. If I get 5 ,000 or 6 ,000 or 7 ,000 people criticizing me on doing this or that, it just destroys the ministry.

The demons work off that stuff. So I share usually what's happened a little bit in the past, where we've been, where we've shared and God's done this or that. But would you pray for us? There are some things coming up in the future that we need you to be praying for us, decisions to be making.

Following the Spirit’s Direction in Ministry

God has been working in this area in a powerful way. But in the last couple weeks, God has given me a real freedom in my spirit that I haven't had. A freedom in my spirit to leave the place where we're presently at.

I don't know if he's going to move us. I don't know if he's going to make a change or what, but he's given me a real freedom in my spirit. You know, when God puts you into a place to work there, Pastor, how he gives you that burden for that place, and you get in there and you work and you work and you work and you work until God gives you that freedom in your spirit to leave.

You know, many leave without that freedom in their spirit. I wouldn't go anywhere without the freedom of the Holy Spirit to do that. We can be presumptuous, just like Israel, going up the hill in presumption because they couldn't get into Canaan.

By faith, then when God told them they couldn't go in, then they presumptuously turned around and tried to go back in the flesh, and they got into trouble. But you just pray for us. You know, it was a little over two years ago, we was praying and asking God, we knew we had to make a move and a change, we was asking him, what do you want us to do?

And then out of several things, he gave us direction to move into the Joplin area. Well, we thought this was where we were going, but when we came up here to visit two years ago, we're out in western Nebraska now, God's been working, doing tremendous things.

We just came to visit, and we're always flexible. We thought, well, we might stay a month or so, but after a couple months, God wouldn't give us any peace to come back down to the Joplin area. And we had a couple places to move, but we didn't have any peace on it.

And so I told my wife, we've got to wait on God. We had a house out there on the ranch, her folks have a ranch, cattle ranch out here, and we had our house out there that we could stay in, no problem.

So we stayed there and prayed, and God showed very specifically, he wanted me to move in with this preacher, where they'd have revival for ten and a half weeks. He said, I want you to get in there and just be a servant.

And that's what we've been doing. Whenever we went traveling or off somewhere, we're here working, being this man's servant, working. But now God's given me a freedom in my spirit, and I don't know what he's going to do or where he's going to send us.

One of the things that he always does, wherever he directs us someplace, he provides us a place to live. That's one of the things that we've been married for 20 years that God has definitely done every time.

We've waited and let him provide the place for us to live. And so if he does want us to move back into the Joplin area, he'll give us a place in the country to live. I don't know if he'll just give us a place or give us a nice place to rent or whatever, give us the money to buy something, it doesn't matter.

But whatever we're going to be doing, we're going to do as God directs. So you pray for us. You pray. One of the things that God, there's five of us preachers in this one church. God has directed very clearly two men in one week, both said the same thing, that he felt like that we were getting a little top-heavy with so many preachers in the church.

And it seems like the Spirit of God is bearing witness that it's time for at least a couple of us to branch out and move out. That's why I'm saying I think that God maybe is leading that we are going to take a change in the future.

We don't know what it is. I don't know how long it'll take before the change, but pray for us. Now meanwhile, back at the ranch, on this thing of hating your brother, it's very devastating to you. You know, most of the time when you're bitter, it's you that gets hurt.

He that hateth his brother is in darkness, and walketh in darkness, and knoweth not where he goeth, because that darkness hath blinded his eyes. You know, bitterness and hatred is to reject Christ's great commandment, which you preach constantly, love God, love one another as you love yourself.

And disobedience in this area of the great commission, a commandment of loving God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our mind, with all our strength, you can't do that and have bitterness in your heart.

You deceive yourself. You get into deceptiveness. The demons begin to work you over. Matter of fact, I haven't got into it yet on that parable, but you actually can be turned over to the tormentors by God.

You actually can, if you will not forgive someone that's done that to you. And God does it so you get a working over so you'll come back to him. The amazing thing is how tough some of us are, how we'll hold out for so long, fighting actually against God.

Listen, prolonged bitterness may actually be evidence that you're not really saved. May be. In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil. Whosoever doeth not know righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother.

For this is the message that ye heard from the beginning, that we should love one another, not as Cain, who was of that wicked one, and slew his brother. And wherefore slew he him? Because his own works were evil, and his brother's righteous.

We know that we've passed from death into life because we love the brother, and he that loveth not his brother abideth in death. Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer, and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him.

You look at your heart, my friend. You judge yourself. I'm not judging you. Let's let the word of God speak for itself. Let's let the word of God judge our hearts. The Bible says, love suffereth long.

That means it's slow to lose patience. Do you have trouble with patience? Do you blow up and get angry? It's kind. It looks for a way of being constructive. Are you kind? It envieth not. It's not possessive.

It doesn't have to keep itself, defend itself. It vaunteth not itself. It's not anxious to impress others. It wants Jesus. Love wants Jesus to be promoted. It's not puffed up. It doesn't cherish inflated ideas of its own importance.

It does not behave itself unseemly. It has good manners. You know all these things. Listen, let me close up with just a few thoughts on David. You know David was leaving. He's having to leave Jerusalem because Absalom has taken over.

David’s Response to Shimei’s Cursing

And while he's going out, you know the story how when he's going out, here comes along this Shimei. And he begins throwing rocks at David. And not only was he throwing rocks at David, but he was cursing, yelling obscenities, calling him a bloody man, a demon-filled man.

He's throwing rocks at the people. He's throwing rocks at David's elite guard, these mighty men. He's just going along. And finally Abishai, the son of Zerui, he says, Why did this dead dog curse my lord the king?

Let me go over, I pray thee, and take off his head. And listen to what David said. The king said, What have I to do with you, ye sons of Zerui? So let him curse, because the Lord hath said, Unto him curse David.

Who shall say, Wherefore hast thou done so? And later on, down in verse 11, David says, Let him alone. Let him curse, for the Lord hath bidden him. It may be that the Lord will look on my infliction, that the Lord will requite me good for his cursing this day.

My friend, you don't have a right to get angry or bitter at your Shimei. Let him alone. You just go to God. Let God take care of the Shimei in your life. Let me tell you something. When you try to play God, you just foul things up.

That's why we need a Savior. That's why you need to come to the cross. That's why you need Jesus. So you have a God that can handle your problems, that can handle your life, that can provide your needs.

But when you try to provide for yourself, and you've already received Jesus as your God, then you're getting into some dangerous territory, because there can't be two Lords in your life. Either he's going to be the Lord and take care of every situation.

You see, Jesus is all you need. But he's not always all we want. We want to help out. We never do help him out by getting angry and upset. But actually, by letting him take care of this, we reveal God to that person.

And we can free them. If you would forgive that person that did something to you years ago or maybe just yesterday, if you would forgive them, you would free them to God for him to work. Why don't you do it?

Self-Vindication, Discernment, and Intercession

You know, the only one you're really hurting is yourself. Well, I had a lot more I wanted to share with you, but I guess I got too long-winded in there. Listen, St. Augustine prayed, O Lord, deliver me from this lust of always vindicating myself.

That temper of mine destroys the soul's faith in God, Chambers said. I must explain myself. I must get people to understand. Our Lord never explained anything. He left mistakes to correct themselves. Chambers said, When we discern that people are not going on spiritually and allow the discernment to turn to criticism, we block our way to God.

God never gives us discernment in order that we may criticize but that we may intercede. Well, I've got to go. Listen, Jesus Christ is all you need. He's all I need. I'm trying to learn that. But he's not always all we want, is he?

Let's work on letting him be all we want. Till next time, God bless you, my friend.