The Scriptures speak of a time in which darkness shall cover the earth.”  And then it uses a word that the young people use a lot these days—“gross darkness, the people.”  Here is the complete text:  “For, behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people: but the Lord shall arise upon thee, and His glory shall be seen upon thee” (Isa. 60:2).

Just for the fun of it I looked up the word gross in the Thesaurus.  By the way, have you noticed we are using fewer and fewer words these days to describe what we mean?  We seem to be in the process of leveling out the language.  Originally, words were to have meanings that enable us to convey ideas--specific ideas in specific ways.  Certain words were used only in a particular context.  There were words that you would use for joy, others for sadness, and so forth.

In this generation the English language is being greatly debased.  You might say that it makes no difference.  Language is to be our servant, not our master; and we can make words mean whatever we want them to mean.  This might be, yet our language is our culture.  The debasing of our language is but a reflection of the debasing of our culture.

Could it be that behind it all is the sinister purpose to blaspheme God and make it impossible for us to differentiate between the sacred and the profane?  A case in point is the use of the word awesome.  There is a praise chorus whose words include, “Our God is an awesome God.”  It is wonderful and appropriate to describe God that way.  He is an awesome God.  Then one day I was in a book store.  At the check-out counter was a display of ballpoint pens.  The advertisement across the box described the pens as “awesome.”  It struck me:  How can we use the same word to describe the Majesty of heaven as we use to describe a ballpoint pen?  Do you see what I mean?

I am convinced that the quality intended to be an underlying attitude for something sacred or something that God has sanctified, such as marriage and the Sabbath, must be that of reverence.  Sad to say, there is hardly any reverence left out there for anything.  And so the devil is mean, and you are mean.  God is awesome and a ballpoint pen is awesome.  And everything is cool!

Anyway, I looked up the word gross and discovered that it means base, coarse, lewd, and obscene.  The definitions of the word helped me to understand the text better.  It is saying that the time would come when darkness would cover the earth and a base, course, lewd, and obscene darkness would cover the people.  There is no doubt that this prophecy is being fulfilled before our very eyes.  Recent events in high levels of government around the world have indeed been base, course, lewd, and obscene.  Yet it is not high government alone that is base, course, lewd, and obscene.  When the high dam up the river breaks, the valleys below the dam are flooded.  And so we have reached a time in which indeed a base, course, lewd, and obscene darkness has settled down upon the land.  The light that God has so graciously allowed to shine upon the Western civilization through the manifested truth of the Reformation is setting.

We have been presumptuous with the truth that God has so mercifully given us.  We err when we think that having the truth is like going to Home Depot and buying just what we need to repair something that has broken in our life. Though truth is indeed that which gives the only real meaning to life, and indeed is that which sustains life, it is not something that can be turned on and off at will.  Scripture is clear, and history will bear out, that when we trifle with truth there is a price to pay.  God is not mocked; truth is not to be tinkered with.  What we sow we will reap.  Worse still, the Holy Spirit, which is the conduit that brings us the truth, will not always be there when we need Him.  Genesis 6:3 says, “And the Lord said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.”  Of course, this text is speaking specifically about the time period just before the flood.  But no matter.  Jesus said that conditions at the end of the age would parallel those of the time of the flood.

“My Spirit will not always strive with man.”  The word strive means attempt, endeavor, labor, struggle, or try.  For these many years the Holy Spirit of our merciful God has been attempting, endeavoring, laboring, trying, even struggling to bring salvation to this miserable race which collectively have done little but resist.  But it will not always be this way.  Though God is always merciful, kind, and forgiving from everlasting to everlasting, He will not always struggle with us.  He will one day say to the effect, if that is the way they want it, so be it.

That day will be a terrible day.  Amos 8:12 says of that time, “And they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east, they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the Lord, and shall not find it.”

This is why, as the sun of truth is setting across the land, we must not tarry.  It is almost over now.  We must wake up.  It is true that our salvation is nearer than when we first believed; but also for many, their eternal loss comes as the grim reaper.  For this reason, “Let us seek the Lord while He may be found.  Let us call upon Him while is still near.  Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man [and woman] his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and He will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon” (Isa. 55:7).  “For He saith, I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I succoured thee: behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation” (2 Cor. 6:2).

Having said all this as an introduction, I will now proceed with the sermon.  What I am going to say is very specific.  And I hope and pray that it is completely true.  I know that it is essentially true.  I hope that the applications of this truth are accurate.  I hope that as you read you will listen to the broad principles.  I respectfully ask you not to nickel and dime this sermon to death.  Try to get the broad principle that will be brought out.  Of course you will have to make the application of the principle to real life.  We will do this from our past and present experiences.  As you know, life is about experiences.  Ultimately truth must convert to experience.  The converse of that doesn’t work, though, because a person’s experience is not necessarily truth.

The problem is, we often measure truth by experiences of the past that were in general what we might call loser experiences.  By that I mean most of us have made so many mistakes and been the victims of the mistakes of others that truth is often seen as unreal and even impossible.  It is for this reason that we have arrived to the place where we measure the validity of truth by the standard of our own experience instead of measuring our experience by the objective truth of the Word of God.  The result is that we have to a great extent institutionalized failure, dysfunction, and the otherwise abnormal.  The unacceptable has become acceptable and the abnormal the norm.  My brother, my sister, we are doomed, not only for the future but in the present, unless we return to the Word of God as the only standard for all that is right and all that is wrong.

We have no trouble letting the doctor do an MRI on us when we are having an unbearable pain in our back or some other part of our body.  Why don’t we let the Word of God do an MRI on our souls so that we might be healed of the sins that so easily beset us and which are in fact destroying not only our future salvation but all that is precious and meaningful in the present?

This sermon is not new light.  It is old truth.  If it were a sermon that would help us survive in the 21^st Century, people would pay to hear it.  This sermon is not about buying gold and silver or having food stashed away.  It is not about buying a generator or moving to the country.  It would go over better if it were.  On the contrary, what I have to say will fly in the face of what others are telling us to do.  It will fly in the face of what we feel is our right to do.  I have preached other sermons on this topic, but it seems as though they haven’t done much good; so I am going to come at it again.  This sermon is not about you or them, it is about us and me.  I hope that as you listen you will not think of anyone else but yourself and how you and I must relate to what is being said.  The temptation will be to reject the facts of this sermon because of someone else in your life.  But we must understand that in the judgment we will not have anyone else to blame but ourselves.  We must not forget the text which says, “How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation” (Hebrews 2:3)?

No matter our past life and the people who have and are impacting on us, the wonderful truth is that the salvation that Jesus has provided for us is sufficient.  The blood of Jesus Christ can wash away any stain that may be upon our lives, whether caused by our own decisions or brought upon us by the decisions of others.  Friends, we must believe this or there is no hope for us.

So here goes the sermon.  I was speaking at a camp meeting in Oklahoma. To my knowledge I had never been to Oklahoma before.  It was the summer of 1998.  The Southwest was experiencing a heat wave at that time.  Numbers had died, and there was no relief in sight.  My flight had been booked to Oklahoma City, and from there it was necessary to drive an hour or so to where the campground was located.  I spent a pleasant week with the believers.  The days were clear, with generally not a cloud in the sky.  The temperature each day was over a hundred.  Fortunately the large auditorium where the meetings were held was air conditioned; so if one went from building to building quickly, it was tolerable.

At the end of the week, the pastor who had been kind enough to pick me up at the airport asked if I would like to stop by the place where the Federal building had been destroyed.  Some of you will remember that in the spring of 1995 the MurrahFederalBuilding in Oklahoma City was blown up and 168 people lost there lives, including children, who were in a nursery in the building.

I really wasn’t interested in seeing the place.  Firstly, when I travel I am usually more interested in getting there and getting back than I am in sightseeing along the way.  I have discovered, though, that I usually don’t regret it when someone is thoughtful enough to encourage me to see points of interest along the way.  And so it was that day.  My fellow pastor suggested seeing the Murrah memorial.  I thought it would be the polite thing to do to say yes, and I am glad I did.  It opened my eyes, not only to the damage and the horror or what happened there but to something damaged and awful about me that I hadn’t quite understood before.

I had seen the photographs of the destruction, but a person has to be there to see it all in its context.  As we drove into the area without even having arrived at ground zero, one can see several tall buildings with their windows boarded up.  I had heard that several buildings had to be torn down, but I didn’t know what they were going to do with the buildings with the windows still blown out.  We parked the car and walked a block or so.  Then suddenly we were there.  There are no buildings on the site now, just grass on both sides of the street.  Along the side were the Federal building had stood was a chain link fence.  It ran the length of the entire block.

I walked along the fence and looked at the pictures of men, women and little children.  There was even a teddy bear tied to the fence.  Here and there was a bunch of artificial flowers.  Notes were pinned to the fence, encased in plastic to keep them intact.  They read, “To Mother”, “To Father”, “To a Friend.”  One said, “We will always love you.”

As I walked along the fence, tears welled up in my eyes.  And then I felt an emotion unfamiliar to me, as I thought, “I hope they kill the one who did all of this.”  You may remember that they found the person, and he was brought to trial.  The evidence was presented, and a jury of his peers found him guilty.  He was subsequently put to death.

There at the fence I felt hatred for the one who had killed all those innocent people.  I wished for the killer exactly what he had done to them.  There it was.  I could see what was happening to me.  I was being taken over by the same emotions that drove him to do his madness.  I realized that by hating him and wishing his death, I had allowed myself to be brought down to his level.  In that moment he and I were just the same--wishing the death of another human being.

This sermon is not about whether or not a nation should have the death penalty for capital crimes.  I am speaking now about the emotion of hate, the emotion of the heart that fills us with bitterness and resentment until we are possessed and obsessed with feelings that have to do with wishing our fellow human beings ill.

A while back in my quiet time I was contemplating some of my emotions--emotions, I might say, that have to do with bitterness and resentment and even worse.  By the way, often times bitterness, resentment, and even hate are not against someone on the other side of the world.  These emotions may very well be toward someone who is close to us--a mother, a father, a brother, a sister, a son or a daughter, or even a husband or a wife.

This is what I wrote in my journal that morning.  It is all scrambled up and is not connected together very well.  But I put it here for you to read, knowing that you will get the drift.  Afterwards we will think about it in a more logical sequence.  As you read it, you will see immediately that it was at that moment when the conviction was born that resulted in what I am writing about now.  You will also perceive, if you are wise, that I am not talking so much about some far off theory but am indeed wrestling in my own soul over these issues.

As I said earlier, the gospel is powerful.  There has no temptation or sin taken us which the blood of Jesus cannot cleanse.  But the blood of Jesus will not wash away sins that we refuse to acknowledge.  The text is clear:  “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).  A person in denial or who says everyone else is to blame but me will simply die in their trespasses and sins.

Well, here goes.  Remember, this is from the journal and is not necessarily sequential in the expression of my thoughts.  I was writing it for me.  So it reads:  “There is no hope for our enemies unless we pray for them.  There is no hope for us unless we pray that God will forgive us for hating our enemies.

“Jesus said that the time would come in which a person’s enemies would be those of his own household.  The emotion of hate and bitterness is destructive to all that the Spirit would do for us.

“Why is it that we will not be consistent in our emotions?  Is it because of our expectations?  When we put our trust in each other, we are often greatly disappointed.  The question is, how can we respond with disappointment rather than anger?  What is the difference between sadness and hurt?  Sadness is a focus on the suffering or behavior of the other person; hurt is a focus on me.”

So, that is what I wrote in my journal that morning.  You can see that I was trying to understand the issues having to do with how we should love our enemies.  Before we get into that, I want to say that I hope you spend some time alone with God every day or almost every day.  I say almost every day because there are circumstances in which we might conceivably miss the time we usually spend alone with God.  But that doesn’t mean we are hypocrites or we should give up.  Also, I hope that you spend time thinking about how the Bible actually applies to your own life.  It is easy to see how it applies to the life of others.  It requires a bit of self criticism to sit down and ask oneself if my life is really on the right track in relation to the will of God.

Unless we intentionally do this, we will be on the track alright, but it will be on the track of the current culture.  The culture is like a swift flowing river.  If we are not bucking it, we will lose our salvation and lose our way in the darkness that is settling down all around us.

Back to the issues I was addressing in the journal.  The reason I wrote it had to do with some feelings that I was personally dealing with and what I had learned about myself in Oklahoma City.  To put it frankly, the issue is, How can we get victory over the bitterness and resentment, yes, even the hate, that is more and more manifesting itself in our lives and particularly where this has to do with those who are nearest to us?

My friends, something is terribly wrong.  Our homes, which were to be a little bit of heaven on earth, are increasingly anything but that.  I don’t need to rehash the statistics of how many divorces there are.  I don’t need to tell you how awful a divorce is or how awful it is to be a child in a divorced home.  I have heard from those who have been there that a divorce is in some ways worse than a death.  Death represents an enemy that separates those who love each other.  Divorce represents not the death of the body but the death of love itself.

I have no need to tell you that we all offend each other to a greater or lesser extent every day.  Maybe I shouldn’t say offend each other.  But when someone disagrees with us, we think we have to react to that.  When someone disagrees with me, I have to process how I am going to react.  Whether or not I will let that disagreement become something that gets between us and leads to bitterness depends on me.

Another issue within the big picture is the way that we treat each other.  I don’t quite understand why we sometimes treat those whom we are supposed to love so badly.  I don’t know why we say such awful things to our spouses whom we say we love or to our children who mean so much to us.  We are often so unkind and downright mean to each other in the family that a person would rather be in the company of the people at work or with total strangers than with their own flesh and blood.

One of the things that makes this so confusing is that, when a man and a woman fall in love, you would never know by watching them that a little while down the line they would be talking to each other with cutting sarcasm and unkind remarks.  I guess we shouldn’t be too surprised, though, because the current society has taught us two things, among others, that are fatal to marriage.  One is that we should love ourselves first, and the second is that a happy marriage begins in bed.  Both philosophies will kill love.

We are not unaware of all that is going on.  Entire industries have grown up to address the problems that have arisen from the collapse of the home and the psychological and physical fallout that goes with it.  Everywhere are hurting people.  The question is, What will we do about it?  I don’t want to be insensitive or disrespectful, but what is going on in our emotional and spiritual lives reminds me of what is going on in the arena of public health.  There are in the neighborhood of four hundred thousand people who die each year as the result of diseases caused by smoking.  We are desperately looking for a cure for these diseases.  To stop smoking would be the place to start.  Then there is the matter of the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome.  Society is making every effort--and rightly so--to find a cure for the disease.  To depart from the practice of homosexuality and sexual promiscuity would be a good place to start!

In our emotional and spiritual lives, we know that Jesus doesn’t have to look for a cure for our sins.  No sin exists that He can’t cure.  The part we don’t seem to get is that the Word of God was given not only to cure our souls but to show us how to avoid going off the road and causing a wreck and subsequent pain to our lives.  Unfortunately, we are not so much into spiritual and emotional prevention as we need to be, and indeed as we must be, as darkness continues to cover the earth and gross darkness the people.

There is no doubt we are hurting.  But I am more and more convinced that the reason we are hurting is primarily because we do not take the Bible seriously, especially where it tells us how to treat people who don’t like us or who we don’t like.  I am going to list a whole string of texts.  I invite you to think of where we are in relation to what these texts are telling us we must do.  The texts are not in any particular order.  Here goes:

Matthew 6:14‑15:  “For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses”

Matthew 18:32, 35:  “Then his lord, after that he had called him, said unto him, O thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all that debt, because thou desiredst me: . . . So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses.”

Mark 11:25‑26:  “And when ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have ought against any: that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.  But if ye do not forgive, neither will your Father which is in heaven forgive your trespasses.”

Luke 6:37:  “Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven.”

Jesus practiced what He preached.  Listen to this: Luke 23:34:  “Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do. And they parted His raiment, and cast lots.”

Matthew 5:25:  “Agree with thine adversary quickly, while thou art in the way with him; lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison.”

Proverbs 15:1:  “A soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger.”

James 1:19:  “Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath: For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.”

Matthew 5:38‑39:  “Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.  And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloke also.  And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain.  Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away.  Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thine enemy.  But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.”

Proverbs 14:17:  “He that is soon angry dealeth foolishly: and a man of wicked devices is hated.”

Proverbs 25:23:  “The north wind driveth away rain: so doth an angry countenance a backbiting tongue.”

Proverbs 29:22:  “An angry man stirreth up strife, and a furious man aboundeth in transgression.”

Ecclesiastes 7:9:  “Be not hasty in thy spirit to be angry: for anger resteth in the bosom of fools.”

Proverbs 20:22:  “Say not thou, I will recompense evil; but wait on the Lord, and He shall save thee.”

Proverbs 20:20‑22:  “Whoso curseth his father or his mother, his lamp shall be put out in obscure darkness.  An inheritance may be gotten hastily at the beginning; but the end thereof shall not be blessed.  Say not thou, I will recompense evil; but wait on the Lord, and He shall save thee.”

Romans 12:16‑21:  “Be of the same mind one toward another.  Mind not high things, but condescend to men of low estate.  Be not wise in your own conceits.  Recompense to no man evil for evil.  Provide things honest in the sight of all men.  If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men.  Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.”

Romans 12:20:  “Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head.  Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.”

There they are, Friends.  We have a problem.  I didn’t say that I have a problem, though I have many problems, or that you have a problem, though if you are like me you probably have a few yourself.  I didn’t say that they have a problem or that someone has a problem.  But I think we all have the same problem.

I know there are some people who don’t like the word problem.  They think it sounds too negative.  They like to call their problems challenges.  So be it!  A problem by any other name is still a problem, though admittedly our problems are a challenge to solve.  Our problem and challenge is that there is a widening and deepening collapse of relationships.  Come to think of it, maybe that is not the problem.  The real problem is probably what I said before I read the texts; and that is, generally we are not taking the Word of God seriously anymore, and we are paying the price for it at the first level in our personal lives, then next in our homes.  Haven’t we read that God is not mocked, and whatever we sow we will reap?  In plain language that means don’t expect strawberries from radish seeds.

I can see what has happened.  We have all read the texts that I laid down a few paragraphs ago.  It isn’t that we don’t believe them.  How can we not?  Some are the words of Jesus Himself.  No, it is not that we don’t believe them, it is that we don’t think they apply in our case.

To put it bluntly, we see that the Bible tells us to love our enemies.  If that means the people in Iraq, we’ll give it a try.  But if it means you wife or husband, we think maybe Jesus ought to give us an exemption or at least a big discount.  How can you love someone who doesn’t love you, or at least is not treating you like you think they should?

But remember, Jesus said that if you treat people good who treat you good, that is really nothing to brag about.  He said that even the bad guys do that.  Ladies and Gentlemen, to use the modern terminology, Jesus is calling on us to love people who verbally abuse us.

Now before we get too nervous with that concept, let’s calm down and think through what the Scripture is talking about.  I wonder if the key to make it somewhat easier to understand is the text we read in Romans 12:16: “If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men”?

You see, the focus should be on us and how we react to life rather than on how other people treat us.  I believe that life is 10% what happens to us and 90% how we react to what is happening.  I once heard of a book whose title was, “God, Change Me.”  Do you get the picture?  This would fit right in with the prayer of Jesus:  “Father, I don’t ask that You take them out of the world, but that You keep them from the evil.”  When Jesus came to this planet, He was verbally abused apparently nearly every day of His life.  Yet Scripture says that when He was reviled He reviled not again.

You see, what Jesus is calling on us to do--yea, what He insists that we do--is receive from the Holy Spirit the grace to act the way He acted when He went through the things we have to go through.  I say the things that we have to go through because I suspect we go through some things we wouldn’t have to go through if we would only follow the instructions He has given us in His Word.

I don’t think I am wrong when I say that, if I am not reacting the way the Word of God calls on me to react, I am in fact part of the problem.  That is the reason for the proverb, “You may not be able to keep the birds from flying over your head, but you can keep them from nesting in your hair.”

Modern culture is at cross points with the Word of God.  For the majority of even professed Christians, we seem to have decided that we prefer to do what comes naturally rather than to let the Holy Spirit do the supernatural in our lives.  We talk about end time events.  We believe we are going to have to suffer for the name of Christ, that we will even be persecuted.  Have we forgotten that Jesus says the time would come, yes it has already come, in many instances, when a person’s enemies would be those of his own household?  Then later on He tells us how to treat our enemies.  He says that we should even love them and do good things for them.

Friends we are now in the last days.  You wondered what the last days would be like.  It is like this.  We are even now being persecuted.  In this country the persecution is not coming from the State or an organized church.  Rather it has to do though with our relationships with each other.  It makes a lot of sense that the devil would try to destroy our home relationship.  It stands to reason, then, that this would be reflected in the church.  The hard ball persecution after the Close of Probation will only have to be directed at those who survived the first round.  My brother, my sister, the devil is walking all over us.  We see each other as the enemy and are acting accordingly.  We must remind ourselves that we wrestle not against flesh and blood but against principalities and powers and the rulers of the darkness of this world.

We have fantasized what it was going to be like for the Mark of the Beast and all the rest.  Maybe it is time that we not only look down the line but that we look at where we are now in the battle.  Darkness is covering the earth and gross darkness the people.  But the promise is that the Lord shall arise upon us, and His glory shall be seen upon us.  We have huge problems.  These problems bring with them great challenges.  Our first challenge is to make a commitment to Jesus as our Savior and the Lord of our lives.  Lord of our lives means that we will make His Word the guide and standard no matter how much it seems to fly in the face of the present culture or our human nature.

Another challenge is that generally we are not treating each other the way the Bible insists we must.  Our pain and broken homes and lives are a testimony to this.  I am not going to tell you what you need to do.  I laid down the Word of God before you.  I know what I have to do, and that is to stop looking at other people and setting my behavior as a reaction to theirs.

Some fellow blew up the Federal Building in Oklahoma City.  He did it; he paid the price for what he did.  What I must avoid at all cost is reacting to others in such a way that I become like them in my emotions.  I use him as an illustration.  Ladies and gentlemen, the same principles apply to our relationship to our spouses, family members, or anyone for that matter who has wronged or is wronging us.

Please don’t try to chop this sermon into little tiny slices.  Let us hear the Word of the Lord.  The Word of God is not only a call to our enemies and those who mistreat us to repent, but it calls on us to act in the spirit of Christ in the meantime.  Let’s get the big picture.  Then let us get on our knees and confess to God that we have been missing the mark.  I believe that if Jesus can heal lepers and raise the dead, then we must believe that He can not only forgive us for the way we have been treating each other and reacting to that treatment but He can and we will cleanse us personally for the hatred and bitterness that so often fills our hearts and lives.

My brother, my sister, unless we let Jesus heal us of our bitterness and resentment, we could very well lose our salvation.  Jesus makes it clear that those who won’t forgive will not be forgiven; and unless we are forgiven, how can we be saved?  Now is the time to stop focusing on how people treat us.  Now is the time for us to focus on how we will treat them.

The gospel is powerful.  In our own strength we have nothing that would lift us up out of the mire into which we have fallen. Jesus is our help, He is our hope.  And if we will cry out to Him, He is abundant to save.