The third angel sounded and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell on the third part of the rivers and upon the fountains of waters. The name of the star is called Wormwood. The third part of the waters became Wormwood. Many men died in the waters because they were made bitter. The fourth angel sounded and the third part of the sun was spit, and the third part of the moon, and the third part of the stars, and the third part of them was darkened. and the day shone not for a third part of it, and the night likewise. And I beheld and heard an angel flying through the midst of heaven, saying with a loud voice, Woe, woe, woe to the inhabitants of earth by reason of other voices of the trumpet of the three angels which are yet to sound." One of the few places you find the Bible in exclamation God says, you think you've seen something now, wait until these next three angels sound, and you're going to really see something that's going to be amazing to you. Father, we sure thank you for your many blessings and the privilege of being gathered here. Lord, I thank you for the closeness of the fellowship in this place today and the kindness of the people that are here. I thank you, Lord, that they're bunched up kind of close together in the front, and I pray, God, that you might now bless us with your presence as we look into these things. Open up our spiritual eyes, God, and help us to be able to see these things and give us a practical application of the things that we might apply during our lives in the upcoming week. We pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. Pick back up here with this thing about wormwood, and there's a couple of things that I want you to see. Come to the book of Lamentations. That's in the Old Testament, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations. If you ever want something that will sober you to a great degree, something that will really make you stop and think long and hard about how good you have it, take some time to read the book of Lamentations. In the book of Lamentations, you see cannibalism and you see poverty unlike any poverty you've ever seen before. In the book of Lamentations, you see unspeakable things happening as a result of famine unlike anything you've ever heard of or seen before. You actually see children being eaten because they needed a source for meat going on. That not only took place back then, but it will take place again. And so sometimes what happens, at least for me as I began to study these things or go back over these things, it makes me realize I can't think of a time I have ever wanted for a meal. I can't think of a time where I have ever been so hungry that I would be willing to do anything to eat whatever was put before me, let alone think about even the concept of eating a human being. That's got to be some kind of hungry. And so when you start reading these passages and you realize not only has this happened before, but it's going to happen again, like he says in the book of Ecclesiastes, but it helps to maybe sober you up to not take for granted the things that we do have and the privileges and the blessings that we have. That's not to make you feel guilty, that's simply to make you understand God's been good to us in the very simple things that we take so for granted. That we can breathe air, that we can drink water out of a tap. Now, I know there's all kind of contaminants and all kind of chemicals and all kind of stuff that messes with your brain and all the conspiracies of what they're doing to the water to make this happen, but the bottom line is the water in its source right now can be turned on and you can stick a cup under it or a hand under it or stick your head under it if you want to, and you can drink it and bathe in it just by having water running. You're able to, within a short space of time, go, I mean, down here to Bob Evans or Steak and Shake or something. You ought to grab some folks from in here and take them up there and buy them a hamburger or a milkshake or something. But you can go down in either direction and find food in short order. None of us are hurting for the things that we take for granted. Yet, when was the last time that we stopped to think, you know, instead of, Lord, I need a car, or, Lord, I appreciate my gasoline, or whatever, to say, Lord, thank you for the meal today. Thank you for the water today. Thank you for the roof over my head today. Thank you for the lock on my door, Lord. Thank you for my eyes, and thank you, thank you. that I'm not starving to death, that I can find somebody that can give me a meal. Oftentimes, what we do is we talk about how bad we have it, but we also forget how good we have it. We do have it pretty good in this country. I realize it's a shambles. I realize it's a mess. I don't want to be all negative all the time. I don't want to all the time just be gloom and doom. When you get in the book of Revelation, we get to view it from a standpoint of, hey, This is as close to heaven as these people will ever get. This is as close to hell as I will ever get. And I have news for you, ladies and gentlemen, it's really not that bad. I don't know of, like I said, of some of those comforts that we have. If I'm cold, I can grab a blanket. If I'm hot, I can turn the air conditioner on. Those things that just, I guess, get to a point where we don't even think about it. Most of us would not even think about buying a car anymore that didn't have air conditioning. You live in Florida, you gotta have air conditioning. Think about the statement, you've got to have air conditioning. Well, I mean, we've convinced that that's a necessity in life. I mean, who's gonna buy a car and live in Florida, and when it gets warm a little bit later on, or warmer a little bit later on, then you're gonna be driving around in your car. Who wants to have armpits that stink when you can have air conditioning? Don't be shocked, that's B.O. So, you know, so what you need to realize is, is that I'd like for you as we view these things, for you to stop and ponder just a little bit about the things that we take so for granted. Not everybody has what we have. Now God gave us all things richly to enjoy and you've earned the privilege of enjoying those things, but be careful about taking those things for granted. I talked to a fellow a few weeks back, and we were talking about some things in the book of Revelation, and he's teaching at his church. And he was asking me some questions about some things, and I was just answering some questions. And I said, Brother, you realize that it would take very little to shut this country down. And he said, What do you mean? And I said, Turn off the water and the electricity, and most people will go crazy within a very short period of time. I said, you could control huge masses of people by turning off their water and turning off their electricity. Very few people, I don't care if you're Rambo, very few people can live like that because we've become so accustomed to the comforts in the things that we have. You say, well, I wish it would go back that way. I'm glad you do, then you can go to a foreign country and live that way. I enjoy the heat and air, and I like the running water. I like taking in the morning, I have the privilege of coming to my faucet, turning on my shower, and touching the water until it's warm enough before I get in. I mean, I think that's pretty neat. I don't want to get in there and it'd be cold, wait on it to get warm. I'm like, I'm going to waste the water until it's warmed up. Oh, I think I'll get in now. Some people would love it if they just had running water. When we were in South Africa, those individuals there, they get those five-gallon buckets. They got a four-inch water main in the center of that camp that has tens of thousands of people, and they line up out there and they pump that five-gallon bucket full of water, and they either put it into a wheelbarrow or they put it up on their head, and that's their water for the day. And some of them walk hundreds of yards and great distances with that water. That's their water to cook in. That's their water to bathe in. And that's their water to do whatever necessities that they might have. And sometimes when we get to looking at that and we get to looking at how horrible this stuff is in the book of Revelation, we don't pause long enough to ponder how good God's been to us. Almost to our own destruction. Most of us have a bed to sleep in. If you've ever had to sleep on the floor somewhere after you've gotten accustomed to sleeping in a bed, wow, it's missed. I've gotten to where now it's almost hard to travel without my special pillow. Because it might put a crick in my neck. But do you understand how oftentimes, I can't get used to that back there, brother. But listen to me, have you ever just stopped sometime to just look around? This afternoon we had to run by the house and do a couple of things, and Andrea Lynn was taking care of a bunch of stuff, and I just went over and I opened up the cabinet. I was looking for something, and I saw the staples and the stuff that were there, the regular stuff that you have, the food and all that kind of stuff, and I thought, man, I wonder how many people would love to just have one can or one jar or one box of what we have five or six of. open the refrigerator. There's fresh vegetables and fruit and stuff like that in there. There's deer meat and stuff in the refrigerator and that kind of a thing. I'm thinking to myself, well, good night, man. I mean, I could pretty much have steak or deer or whatever I want. I wonder how many people would like to have just a little. In the time of Great Tribulation that we're talking about here, they will be starving to death. And by the time you get here where Wormwood Falls, understand that you're toward the end of the Great Tribulation. All hope is lost for these people. They realize now that the events they're going through are not just the Mayan calendar that collapsed on them or something. They realize it's literally life and death. And every day and every minute of every day is a struggle for survival. Pick it up, if you will, please, in Lamentation chapter 3, talking about wormwood and verse number 15. The Bible says, He hath filled me with bitterness, and He hath made me drunken with wormwood. Verse number 19. Remember mine affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall. Preacher, why do you bring this up to us? Well, to try to show you something. Come to the book of Jeremiah. Just back up a little bit. I gave you Jeremiah 9 this morning. I want you to come to Jeremiah 8. The word wormwood means bitter waters. Do you ever stop to think that maybe it's God's judgment on liquor and alcohol, God's judgment on drunkenness? Do you ever stop to think about this? Your Bible is replete with all kinds of things about the bitterness of things that man have taken pure water and putrefied that water by adding barley and hops and by adding all kinds of things for people to be able to get inebriated with. Have you ever stopped to think for just a few moments, have you ever stopped to think of the damage that that one thing has done? Years ago, Billy Sunday's platform had to do with prohibition and had to do with alcohol. It used to be one of the mainstays in nearly every Baptist and even Methodist church. Every time a preacher got up to preach, he preached against liquor and alcohol. He preached against boozing and drunkenness because it led to a multitude of other things. Nowadays, if a preacher mentions drinking at all, it's almost like, oh, everybody does that. Why do you mention drinking? Because it ruins your testimony, because it ruins how you think, because it does things that are not good for you, and God didn't put that here for you to enjoy. But nowadays, it's like, well, you're going to offend people if you say that. See, here's the problem, here's the conundrum that we're in. There's some things that are just wrong, even if it has become accepted in society. I was at a funeral not long ago, and there was a Catholic priest that was there. He had on the collar, and he had had a part in the funeral, and we were making our way out of the thing. He's got a stogie, a cigar in this hand, and a beer in this hand. And I'm thinking to myself, to me, this is odd. Now, everybody there thought that was fine. They thought it was kind of cool, and they thought, you know, hey, this is good. And I'm thinking, I can't imagine if my congregation, my folks saw me with a stogie and a beer in my hand and saying, you know, well, it's quite a funeral, wasn't it? I'm thinking, I wanted so bad and I didn't. Of course, Dreena had it like, she grabbed my hand kind of tight like, come on, we're going now, don't you dare. But I wanted so bad to walk over there and say, are you a preacher? Are you a priest? What kind of an example are you setting for these little kids that are here? What kind of an illustration of you of what? Something that should have some semblance of purity and some semblance of holiness. I'm not saying that the man himself is pure or holy, but shouldn't you have some kind of an example to set for other people? I mean, was that what you would want at your mom's funeral? And, oh yeah, well the preacher out there, he drinks with us and he smokes with us and he plays cards with us. and he does all that, and yeah, he gets up and gives Jesus an honorable mention and stuff, and then we get on with life. There are certain things that you should be separated from. There are certain things that have become socially acceptable. There are people that now have church and they have BYOB at church. and they have the ball game playing and people are sitting there pouring liquor. Well, I'm sorry, I don't think there's a place that that ought to be done, but certainly, should it not be not done at church? There's some places that should be hallowed or holy to a certain degree. And what I think is this, if I'm going to make a practical application about wormwood is, is that God finally says, y'all want something to drink that will literally eventually kill you and cause great harm and great damage and great trouble for you. I'm just going to embitter your waters, all of them, like I did blood in the book of Exodus. I'm going to make the waters bitter like I did Marah. And what I'm going to do is, if that's what you want, that's what I'm going to give you as a judgment on what you've worshipped for so long. I've had certain individuals that have said to me, well, you know what, I'd like to be a Christian, but I ain't giving up my liquor. Well, that's a great reason to go to hell. Well, I just really like the taste of it and I don't see anything wrong with it. Well, why don't you get saved and not worry about that? Well, because if I get saved, you're going to expect me to quit drinking. I don't care whether you quit drinking or not. Get saved, let God take care of that. If you can ask God to bless it, go ahead and help yourself and have at it. But I think you'll understand that in Christianity, in spite of the day and age in which we are, you must get to a point that you stop living for yourself. You have to start thinking about other people. You cannot make yourself the center of attention, where it's all about you. You do have to consider your actions' impact on other people. The things that you do, what other people see when they see you, how you act, what you do, the things you've done, people are watching. You say, well, it's none of their business. That's not the mentality of a Christian. And the world knows that because the world says to you, find you a mentor to follow. God, help us. I don't know who in the world I would want to follow, but their life is public and it's on all of this social media stuff. Everybody says, well, he's a good role model. By what standard? Because he wears the latest fashions, or because he's got an endorsement for an athletic contract, or because he's out partying with the other people and so on and so forth, I think when you come to the time of the Great Tribulation, the Lord says, you know what, you folks want to drink stuff that's bad for you, I'm going to give you something to drink and it's going to kill you, sure enough. The Bible says, because of this, many of the men were dead. Jeremiah chapter number 8. We must get to a point where we understand our actions have repercussions. What we do does matter. It affects other people. We're Christians. We're different. We're supposed to be different. There's nothing wrong with you. You're supposed to be different. You're not the one with the problem. I wish I could help you to understand that. Because of who you are and what you believe, people are going to look at you and go, what are you? I'm not you. Why do you do that? Because I love Him. Why do you go there? Because I love Him. Why do you talk like that? Because I love Him. Why do you read that? Because I love Him. Well, you ain't having any fun. Hey, you don't answer for me. You don't get to do what we do. I don't want to do what you do. It doesn't do anything but cause problems. I'm not interested in losing my faculties to the point that I don't know what I did and wake up the next morning, what did I do? I don't like that. I guess I'm too much of a control freak. Say, well, you know, you get that way and you're not responsible. Well, you say you're not responsible, and all you're doing is hiding behind it. The fact of the matter is, you probably knew what you were doing, but you just wanted something to blame it on. Hallelujah. 8, 8, did I give you this? I hadn't given it to you yet. 8 chapter, 8 verse number 14. 13, I will surely consume them, saith the Lord. There shall be no grapes on the vine, nor figs on the fig tree, and a leaf shall fade, and the things that I have given them shall pass away from them. Why do we sit still? Assemble yourselves, and let us enter into the defense cities, and let us be silent there. For the Lord our God hath put us to silence, and given us water of gall to drink. Why? Because we have sinned against the Lord. We looked for peace, but no good came. And for a time held, behold, trouble. Why? Because we sinned, there is a repercussion for that. Who wants to hear about that anymore? Nobody. Apparently, come to the book of Exodus. In the day and age in which you live, nobody wants to face the fact that even if you're saved, you're still a sinner. Nobody wants to face the fact that, listen, we do have an equal and opposite reaction to the things we do. God's just been merciful to us, not making us drink or partake of everything and reap everything that we've sown. But nevertheless, it is a very pointed point, and it is a principle that is in the Bible. God says, listen, I'm not going to let my people get away with that, and one of the things I do is, is because we've sinned, I'm going to give you bitter water to drink. If there was ever a time that that takes place, it takes place in the Great Tribulation. Exodus, if you would please, chapter 15. The children of Israel have come out. The things he says in Romans 15 are written for our learning and our admonition. And so we look back to those things. You say, why? So that we don't repeat the foolishness that they did. Now I don't know if I had been one of the 12 spies that went out and spied the land that I would be like Joshua and Caleb. In my mind, I'd like to think I would. And I don't know when I look at these things that I might be one of the mumblers, the gripers, the complainers, one of those kinds of individuals. Maybe I would, but I would like to think that God has made enough of a difference in my life that I don't just go along with everybody else and just move along with the rest of the cattle down the line. I would like to think there is enough within me because of Jesus Christ to say, hey, I don't do that. and having fellowship with you because you do that and I don't, it's not worth the price to me to pay to lose my fellowship with Him. Well, if you're going to have fellowship with me, if I'm going to be your friend, if we're going to hang together, we're going to be buds, we're going to be pals, we're going to be friends, then you're going to have to, no, uh-uh. You want to be my friend, you come to Jesus' side. I ain't turning Him loose to hold on to you. Now I'd like to think I have that, I don't know that I do, but with God's help I can walk in the Spirit. If I just activate that, I don't have to do what everybody else does. The Bible has told me that because I'm saved, I now have the power to overcome that flesh. I have liberty now. I don't have to do what the flesh tells me to do anymore. Before I had that liberty, I didn't have the liberty to cut it. Now I've been cut free from this cotton-picking thing that bothers me. I've been set loose and now because of that, the Bible says, I have liberty. I don't have to serve the law of sin anymore. I don't have to walk in the flesh anymore. Yes, I mess up. Yes, I'm in the sin. But God gave me a choice and He said, you don't have to do that anymore. The bad side of that is that means that when I do, I did it because I wanted to, not because He said I couldn't stop you. I chose not to heed the warning. Stay with me, Exodus chapter number 15. And here they come out across this thing, they're looking for water and they've been griping and complaining and moaning and groaning and so on and so forth. You know how that is? And the Bible says this in verse number 23. He said, And when they came to Marah, they could not drink the waters of Marah. Why? They're bitter. For the name of it was called Marah. That means a bitter place. And the people murmured against Moses, saying, What shall we drink? You know, the reason that the water was bitter in the first place was because they had been murmuring and griping before. And the Lord said, What I'm going to do is I'm going to take the one thing that you need, that you can't survive next to air without, you can do without food, for a long time. But you can't do without air, and you can't do without water. and now they're in the desert, get your mind there. And there's hundreds of thousands of these people and there's animals that are there. And all of a sudden they come up there and they see this water and they go down there and the guy goes to test the water and he's like, oh man, that's bitter water. If you drink that, man, you're going to die. That's bad. You can't drink that. And the first thing you do is say, yeah, Moses, this is a nice mess you put us in. They never stop to think that the bitter waters they're partaking of are because of the griping they were doing before. It's Moses' fault. Moses says, okay, and he says to the Lord, Lord, what in the cat hair do I do now? That's the southern way of saying he cried to the Lord and the Lord showed him a tree. What did he do? He cut down the tree. You'll get it and throw it into the water. And he made the waters that were once unable to be drank now drinkable. It's a tight picture of your salvation. It's a tight picture of the fact that the waters you were partaking of would send you to certain death and eventually into hell. It's a tight picture of that after you go to Calvary, the Lord sweetens what would have killed you. The Lord takes care and sustains you with what was going to put you in hell. The Lord says, listen, you take that and cut it down and I'll take all the bitterness and all the things that happened in the past, all the poison of the things of the past, And I'll put it away as far as the east is from the west. I'll put it in the depths of the sea. I won't remember it anymore. Put that tree in the water. And now you can partake of the water and have life everlasting. So what God does for us as Christians is He provides for us a water source. He likens Himself unto that water source. Come to the book of John if you would please. Some of you are already figuring out where I'm going with this. Preacher, make us a practical application. I'm going to try. Poison waters hurt a lot of people. Would you agree with that? Oh, I forgot it. Hold on, I'll get there in just a second. John chapter number 7. You know what happens with bitter, you know how waters get bitter? If any of you have ever been to Israel, you know what happens over there. One of the problems with Israel, with what they call the Dead Sea is, is that there's all these inlets and no outlets. And so what happened is it has huge mineral deposits and it has so much salt in it that they have to have gold bottom boats over there to be able to, because the corrosion is so bad and so fast that there's an area right there that they have to protect along that border. And they have to patrol that thing and those boats because normal metal and steel and stuff like that corrode so fast. That's a place where you go and you float in there without even trying to float because the water is so dense. But you know what? You can't drink that water and they can't purify that water. You say, why? That water is bad for you. because it's dammed up. All it does is take everything in, everything in, everything in, everything in. Nothing comes out of it, so it becomes what's called stagnant water. Whenever water ceases to flow, it ceases to purify itself. I wasn't able to find my note that I have on it, but I have a note that talks about a mountain stream. And every so many feet, that moving stream moving at a certain amount of velocity, it purifies itself. And the further down the stream you are, the purer the water is. And I don't remember the exact chemistry to it, but what it says is, is if that water is stopped and held behind a dam, it loses its purity. And the water that flows out of the dam is not as pure as the water that is left to trickle down the stream. You'd think, well, it's picking up all the dirt and picking up this. No, the Lord said it's being filtered out because it's important that the water continues to move. Otherwise, the source gets stopped and the water becomes stagnant. For the sake of our sermon tonight, it becomes bitter and therefore it is undrinkable. Do you ever wonder why sometimes certain individuals just seem to have something about them that people just can't, like, kind of get around them? Do you ever think that it maybe, possibly, could be that their waters are bitter and therefore the water that's coming out is like, I don't really want that because every time I Here you talk, it's about somebody and it's to complain about something and it's to worry about this and to do that and I just, it's like, ugh. There's no life in that water. It's bitter waters. You know, I love the hope of the Gospel. I love the hope of the Bible and the hope of Jesus Christ and the hope and the ability to be able to pray. I like the hopefulness in those things. I don't like the doom and gloom. There's no way out. It's always going to be a bad kind of a deal all the time. I really don't. I'm a realist. I get it. I know what's happening. But listen, that may be for them, but the Bible tells me to comfort one of the things. Get bad comfort one of these words because the Lord's coming. But you ever stop to think how oftentimes the water that spews forth from us is anything but living water? It's got too much of the dead man in it. Back in the days of World War II, I'll get to this in just a second. Back in the days of World War II, they had water sources. And one of the things that they would do to poison the water sources, they did this in Stalingrad, but they also did it in all kinds of places through Germany and where they fought. And one of the things they did was, is they would take dead bodies and they would throw those dead bodies into the water source. They did it in Vietnam. They were very successful in doing it in Vietnam. What they would do is, is they would know the troop movements were coming in downstream. So they would put a bunch of dead bodies in up here. Because they knew that ultimately out in the jungles and out in the times where it was hot and where people had to have it, they knew eventually they're going to see water. What's the first thing you think about? I'm thirsty. I want to get something to drink. And they'd fill up their canteens and stuff and take in all kinds of different diseases. And some of them, they were bad and deadly diseases that would actually kill them. But when a man is sick, he can't fight. So what they would do is, is they would covertly go in during the night and put all these dead, decaying, rotting bodies. I know that seems morbid and I've been accused of being a little bit too vivid at times, but you need to understand the picture. Rotten bodies that are up there that are maggot infested and those kind of things. You get the picture, the skin's waving at them and they dump those bodies in and it takes a little bit of time. But before long, the bacteria from those dead, rotting corpses makes its way downstream to the unsuspecting soldiers that are there drinking the water. And before long, that bitter, poisonous water has now poisoned the one that has ingested the water. I don't want to be the one that poisons other people. I really don't. I'm being honest with you. I don't want to be the one that uses my ability to speak. And I have no greater ability than you do to speak, but I'm talking about to make noise with my mouth. I don't want to be the one that poisons other people. Because you know what happens? Faith cometh by hearing, hearing by the Word of God. You know what? You can have a real impact. You would not be sitting here tonight listening to me preach from the Bible if you did not believe the principle that words have an impact on us. You believe that. That's why you got saved. You got saved by believing words. You never saw it with your eyes. You never touched anything. You heard it and you believed it in your heart because of words. So when people say sticks and stones and break my bones and words will never hurt me, that's not true. You can poison people with words, misinterpreted, misunderstood, twisted, turned, fixed, and what happens from my mouth to your ear is a whole bunch of stuff goes on and the next thing you know, guess what happens? It gets messed up. I don't want to be the one that does. I've said some pretty stupid things. Unintentional or not, still they can have a great impact if I'm not very careful to constantly try to keep a check on it. But I don't know about you. I don't want to be the one that's like, you know what, I was really going good, but preacher, he really discouraged me. He really soured me on that. Every time I'm around that person, it's always so much about them that I can't hear anything about him. I'm just like, man, I'm around and I just feel like I'm being drugged down all the time. And you know what happens sooner or later? You start taking in that poison. And you become as bitter as the water you're drinking. Watch this. The Bible gives us some hope here. The Bible says in chapter number 7, verse number 37, the book of John, In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink. Those are some waters you don't ever have to worry about being bitter. Man, those are not Mara waters. Those aren't wormwood waters. Those are not waters that if you drink them, it's going to cost you to die. But watch what He says. He that believeth on Me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall... Watch the four-letter word, flow. Rivers, more than one. of living water. A long time ago, the boys used to get up here. I'm sorry, I don't mean any offense by that. The men used to get up here to sing. Come back to Revelation chapter number 8. They used to get up here to sing and one of the things they would sing is they'd sing about the rivers. There's a river. You know what happens sometimes here in this passage? It happens literally where the Lord poisons all the waters. But I'm trying to make for you a practical application and say, if God says you're saved, out of your belly is supposed to be flowing rivers of living water. The rhetorical question would be, what kind of water is flowing out of your belly? When people see you coming, do they get a drink and come back to life? And I remember when Dreena's mom, before she had died and before she had gotten quite so sick, she had gone through a period of time of a lot of throwing up and some other things had gone on, and she had gotten dehydrated, and she drank water like a bird. like a sparrow, if that much. I mean, she'd have a sip every now and then, and before long, she's going through all kinds of things, and of course, everybody's thinking this is the worst thing, and it's a bad thing, and it's a terrible thing, and they loaded her up on the rescue, and they took her down there, and everybody rushes to the hospital, and everybody's all gathered around. The doctor comes in, and her pulse is thready and weak, and it's barely beating, and it looks terrible, and her skin is pale, and she can hardly hold up her head, and she can barely lift up her eyes, and when she speaks, you've got to get right down next to her, and you're thinking, man, she's got all the symptoms of dying. You know what the problem was? She's dehydrated. They popped her with the saline solution, the stuff that they give them, you know, the Ringer's Lactate, you know, whatever that, but they popped her with the stuff in there, that's what they used to say on Engine 51 or whatever it is, and I guess I'm dating myself, because all you kids are looking at me like, what's that? That's what every time they loaded them up on this fire show, they loaded them up, give them ringers, lactate, you know, whatever that is. But at any rate, it ain't going any better the second time around. They put in an IV. They could hardly find her little vein. She wasn't big as a minute. They could hardly find her little vein, and finally somebody comes in there, they're a real professional, and they hunt around in there, and they finally get it in there, and that thing's just barely dripping like this. And we're all out in the hall, and Dreen and I are out there, and we're talking, and they say, well, let's just see how she does after she gets this. About half that bag went in, and all of a sudden, her head pops up. And then all of a sudden, she's like, sitting up. She looked like a wilted flower that had all of a sudden gone, hey, I'm good. What are we doing at the hospital? How'd we get here? Why am I here? Well, Mama, we thought you were dying. I ain't dying. I feel fine. You say, what had happened? She'd gotten dehydrated. You know what I know? I know that there was no way to be able to give her enough water ingested the way we ingest water because she was already to the point that had they not supernaturally, in a sense, intervened, medically intervened, that she would have been gone. You couldn't have put enough water in her tummy for her body to assimilate it quick enough for her to be able to come back from that dehydration. She came back from the dehydration because she got the right kind of water that she needed to bring her back to life again. Well, the Bible is that source. There are things that dehydrate us in the world. There are things that wear us out. There are things that make us wilt. There are things that just completely drain us. And then we start thinking, oh no, the problem's him, and the problem's them, and the problem's her, and the problem's it, and the problem's this, and the problem's that. And he's like, no, you need an IV. of the right kind of water. You're dehydrated. You need some good water to get the water in you flowing again. You've been having the wrong water. You know, I also learned this. It doesn't really take very much smarts as you can imagine to figure this one out, but I've learned that if an individual drinks a whole bunch of soda or beer or anything else that when you try to give them water, it's like, ugh. And they gotta have something flavored all the time. They don't appreciate the life-giving source of just water anymore. It's like, nah, I gotta have something with something in it. Right? And if they drink a lot of that, then you can't get the right stuff in there because there ain't no more room there. Because it'll only hold so much. And you know what I've noticed? And somebody would come in during the days of working this mess at Metro Park, and their face would be beet red, and their skin would be dry, and they would not be sweating, and it'd be 100 degrees outside. And the nurse would come in there and say, oh, we know what the problem is. They're dehydrated. And they get ready to give them water. Just take a few sips and cool off a little bit. And you know what, invariably what would happen? They would throw up all over the trailer. Just, you're thinking, how do they have that much liquid in them? You see, what had happened was, is they had been ingesting the stuff that would not satiate the thirst, and it would not be accepted by the body to not allow them to get dehydrated, but they're still drinking a liquid. but the liquid was in fact taking more out of them than it was putting into them. And when you tried to give them the stuff that would help them, they were like, I can't take that. And they would throw up all that other stuff. So you know what can happen is, is that we can become such a dehydrated state, because not only of not having any, but of having too much of the wrong thing, so that when the right thing tries to find its way in, we're like, I've had enough of that stuff. I don't want no more of that. You're making me sick. I'm going to throw up. Good throw up, get the other stuff out of it to make you feel better to be able to take the right stuff. Do you understand? What I'm telling you is that we're supposed to be life givers, not life takers. And we're supposed to be spreading flow and water, not dead water. We're supposed to be a little bit of an encouragement. What have they got to look forward to? Hell. Hell, that's where they're going. Let me just show you an illustration, if I can, real quickly. Remember the passage in the book of Luke, chapter number 16? There's a fellow that's down there in hell. Is that right? And while he's down there, you know what he says? Lazarus looks like he's doing pretty good over there, like he's got plenty of water. Could you have him come dip his finger in the water and come cool my tongue, because I'm tormented in this flame." Guess what? There ain't no flowing water in hell. Must be some flowing water over there, otherwise why would he say, can he get some of that water and give it to me? Maybe I'm reading something into it. He'd say, well, we're in eternity and we don't need it and all that other kind of stuff. That fellow's thinking about one thing when he gets to hell. Sure wish I had some water. Sure wish I had some water. Can I ask you a question? Do you ever miss the water flow? Not just the receiving of it, but the dispensing of it. Do you ever miss the day when you'd witness to a telephone pole? So what does that have to do with Revelation? Well, not a lot, but I'm making a practical illustration. Because here's what happens. If all you do is take it in, it's still stagnant. It's got to find its way back out again. It keeps the flow going. It keeps the movement going. It keeps everything pure. If you let it get damned up too long, guess what's going to happen? It's going to come back on you. And then instead of you letting that stuff flow through you and you be a help and a blessing and encouragement, a pick-me-up on a hot day to try to encourage people, the next thing you know, you're damned up, so they get damned up. And the next thing you know what happens, the waters are bitter. Christians really don't have any reason at all to ever have bitter waters. I'll give you a couple more things here. Notice what the Bible says in verse number 11, 8-11. The name of the star is called Wormwood. And the Bible says the third part of the waters became Wormwood and many men died of the waters because they were made bitter. They were made bitter. They weren't always bitter. Come to the book of Hebrews. Almost done. Can you bear with me for just a minute or two? Hebrews chapter number 12. One of the great passages in the Bible, lay aside every weight And the sin that doth so easily beset us, you remember the passage? Considering Him, you haven't yet resisted unto blood and striving against sin, but the Lord did, that kind of thing. You go down through there and it talks about the correction of the Lord. If you endure chastening, then the Father chastens you for your good and that kind of a thing. And then notice what happens, verse 11. Now no chastening for the present seemed to be joyous, but grievous. nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby. 24 Wherefore, lift up the hands which hang down, your down to press, your hang down, and the feeble knees. 25 Make straight the pass of your feet, lest which is lame be turned out of the way, but let it rather be healed. 26 Follow peace with all men holiness, without no men shall see the Lord, looking diligently. lest any man fail of the grace of God." Uh-oh. You mean bitterness can actually come on the end of the Lord's chastening? Yeah, if you don't receive it the right way it can, because the Bible says, lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you and thereby many be defiled. You ever think about why? We get the impression that the root of bitterness springs up from inside us and then it grows up and it wraps and entwines other people. But the fact of the matter, if the root of bitterness is on the inside, it means that when we have bitterness on the inside, that what comes out instead of the living water, what comes out of our belly instead of laughter and enjoying the Lord, what comes out of our belly is the stench of bitterness. And you know what he says? You defile many by what you say to them, the words that you speak. It becomes a plague. All of a sudden it begins to destroy a whole bunch of people, and it tears through your family, and through your friends, and through your church, and it just destroys many. You say, why? Well, you see, you got bitter over something, and instead of letting the Lord wash it out, and having that water continuing to flow, and keeping that thing, wherewith the one man shall cleanse his way by the washing of the water of the Word, and keeping that water moving, keeping that water moving, keeping that water moving, what happened was we dammed it up, And then this root got in there and it can grow in stagnant water. And now the root takes over the fruit. And now the root begins to speak. And now instead of us speaking for what the Lord's done for us, we're speaking from what the Lord has done to us. And next thing you know, we have now destroyed many. because the water's not moving anymore. I miss the days of the simplicity of salvation. If you get saved, just tell people about being saved. Ignorance is bliss. I know we need to study the Bible, but I just miss the days of, you know, are you going to heaven or going to hell? You want to go to heaven? Let me show you how the Bible says. And, you know, and you just kind of like we're drunk. You like love to everybody. Right? You didn't know who was wrong or who was right. You didn't know about all the stuff. You're just like, hey man, let me tell you, you don't need to go to hell. You don't need to go to hell. I mean, you were like little flower children running around. All you're doing is spreading the love. What changed? You didn't start deciding at what rate the water should flow, did you? You didn't decide that you don't really want to let it flow to them, did you? You didn't make the decision that all of a sudden the waters that the Lord intended for people to be able to partake of have now become wormwood. And if they partake of the waters that some of us propagate, it doesn't bring them spiritual life. Many Christians in the day and age in which we live have been destroyed by something far worse than an alcoholic beverage. They've been destroyed by something far, far, far worse than a cigarette or a bottle of liquor. Oh, but preacher, those things are wrong. Those things are bad. Those things are bitter. That's bad news, preacher. They need to put a law in effect. And I know about how the government did this. You know how much alcohol is done? Yeah, that's where I started the sermon. Because the fact of the matter is that most of us here tonight would be willing to join somebody to repeal anything to do with liquor or alcohol, yet we will not stop the bitterness that flows from our mouths. God didn't kill them in the wilderness for drinking. He killed them for murmuring and complaining. Why would God do that? God says, look, I'm really, the belly aching and the crying, what, are you kidding me? So God sets a precedent and He shows us that it's not as much what you do, it's what comes out of you that determines who you are. So what we would do is say, preacher, let's get a petition and let's go against the government And let's have all liquor removed. A fellow says to me, Preacher, you remember the days when Preacher Lackey got up and preached and he shut down the ABC liquor stores? I said, I do. I've heard the story. I wasn't there, but I've heard the story about the thing, you know, knocking the ABC liquors off the deal and then they built it again and he prayed and it came to rain again and knocked it off and that kind of thing. I said, I remember hearing the stories about it. Why you reckon we can't pray and shut the liquor stores now?" I said, because the liquor's not doing near as much damage as Christians with a bitter root inside their heart. And the fact of the matter is, is you know what? We really don't want to deal with that. We don't want to say that we might be the problem. You know what we want to do? It's that liquor crowd. It's that bunch of queers over there in the White House. by them dope-smoking, long-haired, earring-wearing, tattooed." Okay. You got a point. But what about the things we're guilty of? Here's the thing about God. God didn't give me charge over them. God didn't give me charge over you. I can't make you do something or not do something. That's not my job. I'm not going to put you in a headlock and demand you do something and have you churched if you don't and all that kind of foolishness. I don't believe in that. God died for your free will and I'm going to do all I can to protect your free will. You choose to do it whether you want to do it or don't. You do it. It's your choice. But God did give me control over me. He said what I want to know is if you love me can you get that root of that bitterness because it's affecting the water coming out of your mouth. And it's not life-giving. It's depleting the life out of the body of Christ. It's wormwood. Yes! Terrible! Their physical water is going to be poisoned and they're going to die! How bad is that? But how many of us know saved people that used to be here and they died spiritually because of something we said? They drank of our waters of bitterness. Preacher, I'd rather talk about the drunks. I'd like it better too because I wouldn't have to look in the mirror. But I'm supposed to try to help us as a church and help me. And you know what I need? I need to remember that I have the power to have a huge impact on just my wife. By what I say and how I say it and by what I say about even a church service or somebody in the church or whatever, I've now passed on my bitterness. And you know what? Because she loves me, you know what she's going to kind of do? Well, if that's how you feel about him, I feel the same way. And we're bad about it in the South. If he's your enemy, he's mine too. And now you know what we've got? We've got a little faction over here and a little faction over here and we're fixing to have a civil war. I know what I'm talking about. This is like the thing nobody wants to talk about. This is the stuff we say happens in school with bullying and all that other kind of stuff that goes on and, oh, we want to deal with that, but nobody wants to deal with it here. Fixing to get touchy and then I'm going to get out of here so you don't kill me. You get some time to calm down between now and Wednesday. Now we've let that water leak out through our fingers and through our thumbs. Used to talk about it being on the phone or person to person. Nowadays we can reach people on the other side of the world and that bitterness, that mara water, that wormwood can go out and you know what it can do? It can destroy people all the way around on the other side of the world. because of something we say. The rivers of life no longer flow and we're saved and born again and glory to God going to heaven and the water that should be life-giving in fact is giving and in fact you know what it's doing? It's killing others. It's influencing them and it's making them say, you know what? I just don't want the hassle. Life is too complicated as it is. I don't need another Peyton place in my life. So be careful about the root. Be careful about the type of water you dispense. Make sure that it's living water and not wormwood. We'll stand together, we'll be dismissed. I appreciate so much you coming. Thank you for staying and being so attentive. I wasn't too bad tonight. Only 20 minutes after six, so I still try to be respectful of your time. I want to encourage you this week to stop and think before you speak. Me too. I have a problem with my mouth getting in gear before my brain does. And I don't want that to happen. I want somebody to say, you know what, now look, I realize that sometimes a rebuke has to come, I get that, but a review can be encouraging. Appreciate somebody telling me what I did wrong so I can get it right. You folks don't have to worry about turning into Joel Osteen. That won't be your problem. Your problem will be on the other end of the spectrum. And as much as he's out of balance over there, if you're out of balance over there, the Lord says a false balance is an abomination to the Lord. So the guy with no law is just as bad as the guy with too much law. So what I want us to try to do is to not be the church of Wormwood, the church of bitterness, the church where everybody talks about and poisons the water. And what I'd love to see is I'd love to see people be able to come to this place to get a drink. I got about 10 wells in the Bible. I'm not done with it yet, but I got about 10 wells in the Bible and talk about the differences of the wells and the purposes of the wells and the depth of the wells and the importance of the wells and so on and so forth. And you know what I find out? Nobody drinks from a well that's been poisoned. That's like, I had to study 10 wells to get that. Nobody drinks from a dirty well. Pretty simple, I know, but you know what I'm realizing? Several years ago, over 20 now, some people started digging around in the ground, and they're trying to get a well going. And you know what it's our job to do? Maintain that well, so that when people come in here, it's like, can I just get a drink of water, please? Without trash in it, without filth in it, without bitterness in it, without brackishness in it. I just love to have a drink of water, just a fresh, cool, clean drink of water and just kind of reinvigorate me again to go on another day. I don't want us to be the church that poisons the well. Father, bless Your Word tonight. Thank You, God, for this group of people. Thank You, God, for the responsibility that You've given each of us to maintain what you've given us. And I pray, God, that you might help us to examine ourselves, not look at who or what or anybody else, but to look at ourselves, realize the responsibility that we have to you, make sure we maintain ourselves and the wells that you've given us in our lives. God, I pray that you'll not allow us to be that place of bitter waters, that place of wormwood, that this might be a place of sweet waters where people can continue to get a drink. Bless these folks, Lord, as they go their separate ways and watch over them and help them throughout this coming week. Bless the work of their hands and their businesses and help them to get the things they need, Lord, to have their needs met. I pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.