(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

Amen. Keep your place there in Proverbs chapter 28. We're going to look at a couple verses towards the end of the chapter, but just a little bit of an introduction. We're going to be talking for a couple sermons on Sunday evenings about this topic that the Bible talks about a lot. It brings it up in Proverbs chapter 28. We'll look at that in just a minute about the heart. You know, the heart. You know, you say, what is the heart? You know, the heart is obviously a muscle, an organ in your chest that pumps the blood through your body, but the Bible uses your heart as a reference or a metaphor, so to speak, of something else in your life. We talked a little bit about, you know, the spirit. A couple sermons ago, we talked about the Holy Spirit. You know, we talked about your spirit. You know, the lowercase s, your own spirit. So the heart is used to talk about part of the spiritual part of you. Let's just put it that way. So it's, when the Bible is talking about the heart, it's using that part of your body. It's not talking about the physical, you know, heart that's pumping blood through your body. It's actually talking about, you know, this spiritual part of you, and I guess the best way that I understand or that I use to understand it when the Bible is talking about the heart is basically your feelings, your emotions, you know, how you feel towards things. You know, not how you act, how you actually feel about things. Now the scary thing and the warning that the Bible gives us again and again and again about the heart, meaning how we feel about things, how our emotions tell us about things, is that these things can change. You know, how you feel about things can change and can be changed by certain things. So that's what we're gonna look at, is this part of your spirit tonight that, you know, can be changed, which is why the Bible gives us so many different warnings about it. Look down at Proverbs chapter 28 and verse number 26. The Bible says here, it says, I mean Proverbs 28 is such a great chapter, we're just gonna look at this verse in verse 26, it says, he that trusteth in his own heart. So I mean this is kind of a similar philosophy of, you know, your own spirit versus the Holy Spirit, right? So you have a spirit in you but you also have the Holy Spirit, you know, capital S inside of you, the Bible says. But here the Bible is warning you against trusting your own heart, meaning your own feelings or your own emotions. So he that trusteth his own heart is a fool, but whoso walketh wisely he shall be delivered. In Matthew chapter 5, I'll just read it for you, in the Beatitudes, the blessings that Jesus is giving you, saying blessed are they that, he says in verse number 8, he says, blessed are the pure in heart. So the Bible here is saying in Matthew 5, it says you could have a pure heart. But then in Proverbs chapter 28 verse 26, it's saying if you trust in your own heart, you're a fool. So clearly the Bible is telling us here that something can happen to the heart to make it where you should not trust in your own heart, all right? The Bible here is warning against that. So how does your heart become foolish? In Jeremiah chapter 17, you turn to Proverbs chapter 4. In Jeremiah chapter 17 verse number 9, the Bible says, you go to Proverbs chapter 4, just a couple chapters back. In Jeremiah chapter 17 and verse number 9, the Bible says, the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked who can know it. The Bible here is saying that your heart, and this matches Proverbs 28 verse 26, where Proverbs is saying, look, you can't trust your heart. Like, don't trust in your own heart. And in Jeremiah 17, the Bible is saying, you know, it can be deceitful. Meaning, you know what this is saying? This is saying the way you feel about things, your emotions could be wrong. It is clearly what the Bible is warning us against here. So what happens is the question. What happens to our heart? Look at verse number 23 of Proverbs chapter 4. We get a clue here, all right? We get a clue, and this is gonna kind of walk us into the Bible study we're gonna do tonight. But look at Proverbs chapter 4 in verse number 23. You'll see this one word used again and again and again in the Bible talking about the heart. Look what the Bible says. It says in verse 23, it says, keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life. Well, I mean, I would agree with that, right? I mean, out of how I feel about things are the issues of life. I mean, how I feel about things, the problem with how I feel about things is that defines my actions. That defines my words. The Bible says that what comes out of a man is in his heart. So the things that I will say are in my heart. How do you know if somebody has a bad heart? Because they say things, and you'll be able to tell. Like, it's very easy to tell if somebody has a bad heart because it's just an inevitability that, like, what what's in the heart comes out of the mouth and comes out of the actions of the body. So in Proverbs 4, verse 23, the Bible is saying keep, keep, meaning, meaning keep it the way it is. Keep it the way it is. Implying, implying, go to 1 Timothy chapter 5, implying that it was right at one point. If the Bible is saying you got to keep it the way it is, the Bible isn't saying change it to be pure, the Bible is saying keep it, hang on to it the way it is. So that implies that it was correct at the beginning, all right? Look at 1 Timothy chapter 5, or 1 Timothy chapter 1, verse number 5, I'm sorry. The Bible says this, it says now the end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart. There's that heart that needs to be kept, is that pure heart, okay? Of a pure heart, and then we kind of get a synonym here, a synonym, it says and of a good conscience. Now it makes sense, right? Now it makes sense how we know that the heart starts pure, because a pure heart is directly connected to conscience, a good conscience. Well, what is a conscience? Turn to Romans chapter 2, turn to Romans chapter 2. So in 1 Timothy chapter 1, we see the connection between a pure heart and a good conscience. So those two things go together, okay? So where does the conscience come from? Proverbs chapter 4 talks about how we need to keep our heart, implying that the original state of our heart, or the original state of a person's feelings, their emotions, were good, okay? And if something happened to change those things, look at Romans chapter 2. Romans chapter 2. Romans chapter 2, in verse number 14, the Bible says this. This is the explanation of your conscience and where it came from. I explained this to somebody out soul winning today. You know, she's like, I don't know, I just have this desire, I just have this desire to know what's true. I just have this desire to, you know, just question things that I've been told, and just to want to know what God really is, what's the truth about God. And I was like, the reason that you have that is these verses right here. The reason that you have that, the reason that, you know, some person in South America, in the middle of the Amazon or wherever, just knows it's wrong to murder, is because of Romans chapter 2, in verse number 14. Paul is explaining that, because God wrote the law in every man's heart. For when the Gentiles, these are people that are not Jews, which have not the law, they never had the Bible, they never had God's, the oracles of God, that the advantage was, that the Jews had, but it says when they have not the law, they do by nature the things contained in the law. These, having not the law, are the law unto themselves. It's like, it was saying in verse 14, it's saying, people, you know, some child that grew up in the middle of a desert somewhere, that never heard the Bible, never heard anything, they're just gonna do things according to the Bible, because God wrote that law in their heart. They're not gonna kill people, they know that stealing is wrong, all these different things, because God wrote it in their heart, all right. Look at verse 15, it says, which show the work of the law written in their hearts, and then he redefines that, so the law written in your heart is what? Their conscience. So your conscience is that law written in your heart. Everybody starts with that. Everybody starts with a what? A good conscience. How do I know it's good? Because it came from God, everything from God is good, all right. So God wrote the law in people's heart. Their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing, else excusing one another. So the advantage in your life is you start with this no matter who you are. You start with this. It's something, it's something that has to be undone. It's something that you need to keep, to keep from being defiled. Look, I mean, that's hope for the world right there, right? No matter how perverted and twisted things get out there, hope for the world is that every person that's born starts with a good conscience. Every person, I mean, we have a great advantage right off the start with every single person that is born in this world, because a good conscience will match the Bible, and we go to someone, look, when you go, here's what happens when you go to someone with the gospel with a good conscience. They have a good conscience, you have the gospel, it's the same thing, it fits. It's like a key into a lock. It fits perfectly. You say, well, why do some people, you know, do a lot of people not want to hear the gospel, not want to hear the Word of God, or just outright, like the person we met today, outright just hate the Word of God? You say because they've, they've not kept that heart, they've not kept that conscience, right? They've not kept it. This is the, the Romans one path is the extreme end of just completely destroying that conscience that God gave you, all right? Just give it over, you know, turning on God, hating God, and just God just gives you over to a reprobate mind, and then you just have a completely seared conscience. All right, so tonight, turn to Romans chapter 7. Tonight we see that our heart in the Bible, it's, it's how we feel towards things. It's our emotional state towards things, you know, do we feel things are good? Do we feel things are bad? You know, how do we feel about things? Look, we all have emotions. We all have, look, we all may have different, slightly different emotions about many different things in this world or whatever, but the point is the Bible says that if a pure heart, you know, a pure heart will match the Word of God perfectly. We need to keep our heart because there's some things that can change that. Look, even though you're like, I'm saved though. Yes, but things can change your heart. Things can still change your heart. You can still destroy your Christian life. You can still walk away from your Christian life. You can still get a bad heart as a Christian. So look at Romans chapter 7. Go to Romans chapter 7. Look at verse number 13. The first thing, the first thing that is going to change your heart is exposure to sin. That's going to be the first couple things that I bring up is just exposure. I mean, that is generally what's going to change your heart, but really what is going, the two things I'm going to bring up first of all are things that conceal sin. There are things in this world, and look, I could, I could have listed a lot more things, but I want to look at two specific things that conceal sin because basically exposure to sin, repeated exposure to sin again and again and again will change your heart. So when I bring up these two things that I'm going to bring up, as far as, you know, methods that are used to conceal sin today, you need to think about these things in the context of it changing your heart, changing how you feel about things, changing, you know, your emotions towards certain things. Look at Romans chapter 7 and look at verse number 13. Paul here is talking about the law. He's saying, you know, we're not saved by the law. Is anybody here saved by the law? No, you're not saved by the law. You're saved by trusting on Jesus Christ. He's like, what good is the law then? It's like, what good is the law just to make me feel bad? Is the law and the commandments there to just make me feel like garbage all the time? Look at verse number 13. He says, was that, was then that which is good made death unto me? God forbid. He's saying, you know, the law is good, but was it made just to, just to kill me? He says, but sin that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good. He's saying, the law, what the law does is it points out sin to me that it might appear sin. He said, why would that be necessary? Don't I have the law written in my heart? I mean, how is, why is it necessary that I have the Bible and I study the Bible and I learn the Bible and all these things? It's because sin is, is the devil tries to conceal sin to you, that's why. Okay, he tries to cover it up so you don't recognize it, so you don't recognize it. But the Bible says that the law will undo that. It says it will appear sin, meaning if you're into the law, you know the Bible, you study the Bible, the more that you're in God's word, you will see sin, you've been, whoa, sin right there. It'll pop out to you. And then he says that sin by the commandment might become exceedingly sinful. So this is the spectrum, this is the spectrum. You're in God's word, you're feeding, you're feeding a good conscience with God's word and sin becomes very obvious to you. That's the good spectrum. The bad spectrum is you're walking in the flesh, you know, you're, you're, you're just exposing yourself to sin over and over and over again and pretty soon sin will not appear sin anymore, meaning you won't even see it. You know, it's like, you know, it's like when we were out hiking the other day, we didn't see the poison oak, you know, we just didn't see it. I mean, I went through it in my head over and over and over again and I was like, I know what it looks like, why did we not see it? Look, we just, we missed it. But look, that's the way sin is if you get out of God's word, you get into sin, you expose yourself into it, you will, you will, you will stop seeing it. It will change, it will change your heart. It will change, like that sin will change the way you feel about sin. And there's very specific methods that are used. I want to point out two of them that are popular today that will change the way you feel about things. And when I bring these things up, you're first going to maybe go, oh, but I want you to think about what I'm saying because these things that I'm going to talk about tonight will change your heart. They will literally change the way you feel about sin. And they will conceal sin from you. The first one is this. The first one is this. Turn to Philippians chapter 4. Two things I'm going to bring up that, that are used to conceal sin to you that will change your heart, that will change how you feel about things. The first one is this. Music. Music. Music, and you know I'm right, music messes with your, it touches your emotions. It touches your feelings. This is why people like it. This is why people like it. And look, if it is things that are not godly, it will change how you feel about things. Look at Philippians chapter 4. Look at Philippians chapter 4. I mean, it's one thing to say, oh, I shouldn't listen to bad music. But it's another thing to realize as a Christian that if you listen to that music, it is going to conceal sin to you and more dangerously it is going to change your heart. It is going to change how you feel about things. Look at Philippians chapter 4 and verse number 7. Philippians chapter 4 verse number 7. The Bible says, and the peace of God which passeth all understanding shall, here it is again, look at that. It says what? Shall keep, shall keep, protect. Meaning keep the state of it. Keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, if there be, if there be any virtue and if there be any praise, think on these things. Notice all the things that it is saying. It's like you want to keep your heart, you think on these things here is what God is telling you. If you want to keep that heart pure, you want to keep that conscience un-seared, you want to keep your heart, you want to keep feeling good about the good things and bad about the bad things, you want to see sin and recognize it right away. It says you think on these things. Look, music is powerful, folks. Music is super powerful. It invades your mind and I pray for my children and the children of this church that they never, look, you will never forget music that you've heard, you know, when you were growing up. You'll never forget it. You'll never forget it and I pray that's not an issue for kids in this church that they have all these songs and music, you know, stuck in their heads like, you know, maybe as older adults, especially people that got saved, you know, later in life because look, I mean, we were at a pizza place just a week ago and they had, they had some kind of, I don't know, radio station or whatever it was. Jacob saw radio the other day and he's like, what's that? But anyway, they had some kind of streaming or whatever they were doing. I'm sure it was satellite streaming of a station that was playing 1990s and 1980s country music and that is the music that I grew up on and I'm telling you, like, it, I was telling my wife, I was like, it just brought up, like, I could remember where I was, I could remember how I felt, I could remember everything. It was crazy. It was distracting. It was distracting because I was, I was listening, I was like, man, I haven't, I, it's just, you know, they say the human mind has infinite recording ability and you will never forget these songs, but the point is, all of these songs had a feeling attached to it, had emotion attached to it and that's how dangerous music is. It's super dangerous to your heart, your feelings, your emotions. I mean, they say, look, study after study after study has been shown that music can just embed itself into you, into your memories for life, like, just period. Like, once you've heard things, by the time you're 30, it's just like, you're basically like, you're just like geared into what kind of music that you like. This is why, this is why, like, you can, you can, you can gauge people by what music they like. You know, secular, you know, normal people, we should all just love hymns, right? But you can look at secular people and like, you know, your parents listened to this decade, you know, your grandparents this decade and it's because, basically, your musical interests are basically concrete by the time you're 25 or 30 years old. It's a really scary thing, like, how this music just can invade your mind. Now, ask yourself this, now that that being said, you agree with me, you understand what I'm talking about, ask yourself this, is most music out there today good? Is most music out there in the 80s good? Is most music out there in the 90s good? You know, what are they singing about? You have to ask yourself this. I mean, the funny thing is, you know, you look at, you know, like, what are they singing about in hip-hop music today? You know, I don't know, but I can about imagine. The funny thing that just gets me is when you see, like, you know, somebody playing, like, really loud hip-hop or rap music or something and it's like a woman. And I'm just like, do you know what they're saying about you? Do you know what they're talking about in the song? But the thing is, and here's really the irony, you say, oh, you're going to beat up on hip-hop music. Now, here's the funny thing. Here's the biblical thing about hip-hop music, about pop music, about rock music, and about, you know, how I grew up, country music. You know what the funny thing about it is? They're all singing about the same stuff. It's all the same stuff. They're all singing about, you know, fornication. They're all singing about sin of all kinds. They're all singing about depression. They're all singing about, you know, just drugs. They're all singing about alcohol. And what are they doing? They're glorifying these things. They're glorifying all these things, and you know what they're doing? They're changing the way you feel about it. They're making it light. They're making it in a, they're talking about fornication and sin and divorce in a way that makes you feel good. You say, that is, you know, think about all those different things that I talked about, all those different genres of music. They're all singing about the same things in different tunes, in different ways, in different beats of coming across. Why? Because it's all the same artist. That's why. It's all the same artist. It's all Satan trying to get through to people's emotions, trying to find the people that are not doing a good job of keeping that heart that God gave him to start with, that conscience that God gave him to start with. It, what? It conceals sin. It conceals sin. It makes light of it, but the really scary thing about music, folks, is it changes how you feel. It changes how you feel about things. And look, if you understand what I'm talking about, you know I'm right. You know I'm right. It changes, look, it changes your pure heart. It moves your heart from the pure spectrum to the defiled spectrum. Turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 14. Turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 14. Look, this, this is something that Satan has perfected in this world. You think about, you think about, actually just go to 1 Corinthians chapter 14 and verse number 7. So, I mean, it's just, it's singing about all these terrible things that should be exceedingly sinful to you and it's changing the way you feel about those things. Look at 1 Corinthians chapter 14, verse number 7. The Bible says this, it says, and even things without life-giving sound, just talking about instruments, whether pipe or harp, except they give a distinction in the sounds, how shall it be known what is piped or harped? And this is the only thing I want to say about this verse right here, is it's not just the words. It's not just the words. It's the sounds. You know that, that sounds can change the way you feel about things. I used to say this, I used to say this when I was a, when I was a kid, when I was in high school, I used to say this about movies. You know what I used to say? I used to notice this about movies. This is one of the first things I noticed about movies. I was like, you could take a, look, nobody should watch movies. They're all bad. I can't even imagine what's in the movies today. But the point is, I used to say you could take a mediocre movie and, because I used to like the symphonic soundtracks of some of the movies back then, and I even had some of the soundtracks of some of the popular movies or whatever, I really liked the orchestra music and things like that in the really good ones. But I used to say you could take a mediocre movie and give it a great soundtrack and you make it a great movie. You say, why is that? Because you're watching something mediocre. But the music makes you feel that it's great. It's not great, but the music makes you feel that it is. Look, Hollywood has perfected this. And not only they perfected, you know, just using a soundtrack to make you think you like something, but they've also used it to conceal sin as well. I noticed another thing I noticed in the 90s was you started to see a lot of movies, and I just remember one particular one. I think I brought it up. I'm not even going to mention the name of the movie. But you started seeing a lot of movies where just like outright sinful situations were being glorified and portrayed as good. Meaning, you know, a love story, a romantic movie where it's about some woman that is having an affair with someone else, and the movie is trying to glorify the affair, vilify the husband, and, you know, glorify this relationship between these two. Now, I was never really a very emotional person, so I was just kind of like, that's messed up. I was like, that's messed up. Movies win an Oscars, and all the girls at school are like, oh, this is a great movie. I'm like, what are you talking about? It's crazy. I'm like, it's a horrible movie about some adulteress and some adulterer, and it's a terrible situation. It's terrible. But the music, it just glorifies it. You walk away thinking, that's great. That's wonderful. There's these good-looking people, and, you know, everybody just asks, no, it's sin. But the music conceals it. And not only does the music conceal it, but the music changes the way you feel about it. If I just tell you that story just now, like, hey, here's a story about this couple that was married, and then the woman had an affair, and then the man died, and then, you know, you're just like, this is terrible. Poor guy. Poor guy. Had that happened to him? And then, you know, the woman dies, and you'd be like, oh, well, good, at least she deserved it. You know? But no, that's not how it's portrayed. That's when, look, Hollywood perfected this. That's when they started putting in, you know, you didn't start, you started seeing a lot of movies where it just wasn't, like, you know, the guy gets the girl and they get married anymore. It's like, that hardly ever happened anymore. You know, that was never the successful ending. It was always some weird, you know, relationship between many different people or something. This is, but through music and through art, you're made to feel that it's all okay. Look where we are today. Look where we are today. How did that happen today? You say, because all these things, music being a key part of it, it changed the hearts. It changed the way people in this country, look, saved and mostly unsaved. It changed the way they feel about things. It changed the way, now it's just complete perversion everywhere. And everyone's like, it's great. Look, it happens quickly. It happens quickly. But the point is, music is used to make you feel good about something that is inherently sinful. And Hollywood is a perfect example of this. It's deceiving, as the Bible says. It's deceiving. And it's scarring. It's changing that pure heart. It's scarring that conscience. Here's another one. Turn to Proverbs chapter 23. Turn to Proverbs chapter 23. So you think about that. You think about that, oh, worldly music, blah, blah, blah. It's changing you. It's changing how you feel. It's changing your heart. It is taking the heart, the perfect pure conscience and the perfect pure feelings that you have and it is damaging them. Think about that next time, you know, you wanna listen to worldly music and put that in your head. Also remember, you will never forget it. You'll never forget it. Look at Proverbs chapter 23. Look at verse 31. Proverbs chapter 23, verse 31. Here's the next one. Alcohol. Alcohol. You say, oh yeah, you know, the Bible says be sober. I get that. That's an easy one, right? But here's the thing. Alcohol will change the way you feel about things. It will change your emotions. It will change your heart. Look at verse 31. The Bible says, look not thou upon the wine when it is red. Remember, in the Bible, wine can be grape juice or wine can be just alcoholic wine. The word is used as the fruit of the grape. The word is used as alcoholic or non-alcoholic. We have to look at the context of what it's using. Here, it is saying that there is a time when it's not red and when it doesn't give its color in the cup. Here, it's warning against alcoholic wine. Alright, in verse number 31. So it's like, oh, Jesus turned water into wine so I could be a drunk. That's what people say, though. It's like, Jesus turned water into wine, Jesus turned water into grape juice. If people think that Jesus went to a wedding and went and got a bunch of people and they said they were well drunk, that doesn't mean they were drunk. It means that they had enough to drink. It means that they weren't thirsty. He went there and he made grape juice. The fruit of the juice of a grape is expensive. It's a luxury, even today. Even today it is. Grapes are expensive. Jacob eats so many grapes, I'm gonna have to get another job. Grapes are expensive. They're expensive things. They always have been. They've always been a sign of luxury and of prosperity. So the Bible says here, it says, look not upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth its color in the cup. Talking about when it starts to move. Look what it says. It says, when it movets itself aright, when it's starting to ferment. That's that fermentation process that it's describing in verse number 31. It says, at the last it biteth like a serpent and stingeth like an adder. Then look at verse 33. It says, thine eyes shall behold strange women, and look at this. It says, thine heart shall utter perverse things. You know what happens when you're, you know what that statement means? Thy heart shall utter perverse things? It says you'll start feeling perverse things. You'll start feeling like doing and saying perverse things. What happens when people drink too much alcohol or drink alcohol? They say stupid things. They say profane things. They do things that they never would have done. No, the Bible here has strange women, meaning they would go into fornication. They would do all sorts of things that they never would have done. Why? Because it changes the way you feel about things. It changes the way it conceals sin to you, and not only that, it changes the way you feel. It changes the way you feel about these things. Look, and then you take, now you look at music and alcohol. Now just combine these two together. Don't you see those two combined all the time? People, whether it be like the downtown church, we saw the people going to the club downtown across the street, whatever. They're combining music and alcohol, and now you know why they look like they did. They, you're just like, we're coming out of church, we're like, what in the world? I mean, it's like the zombie apocalypse combined with just half naked people everywhere. It was crazy, but it's because these people are just, they're willingly, they're willingly trying to just sear their conscience. They're willingly trying to just destroy their heart. They're not, it's the opposite of keeping your heart, by just willingly doing those things. So look, sin is dangerous to the heart. And those two things, especially music and alcohol, can just like conceal sin, so you're willingly concealing sin, so you will just further damage your heart. Turn to Hebrews chapter 12. This is one, this is one that is a sin, that is a sin, it's not so much concealed, but I'm bringing it up tonight as far as damage it can cause to your heart, and change that it can cause to your heart. And the reason I bring this one up, outside of music and alcohol, is because this one kills quickly. This one kills quickly. This is a sin that while it may not be concealed to you, you must get rid of it right away, because it will kill quickly. It will change, look, it will change your heart very quickly. Look at Hebrews chapter 12 and verse number 14. Hebrews chapter 12 and verse number 14. The Bible says, follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord. Look at verse 15, it says, looking diligently, meaning watching all the time, here. Saying looking, watching, diligently, lest any man fail of the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness, look at this, springing up, trouble you, and thereby many be defiled. This root of bitterness, I like how it describes that. It says, it doesn't say it takes root, and it slowly starts to grow, it just springs up. And that's the third one that I want to bring up tonight is a sin that can really damage your heart is bitterness. And it's something that, look, I recognize it right away. Look, as a pastor, I need to be real aware of this, just like you. I recognize bitterness right away. You will recognize bitterness. If you want to, you will recognize bitterness right away in your heart, and you must get rid of that immediately, because it will quickly change or defile, notice that word defile, meaning, you know what defile means? It means go from a pure state to a corrupted state. It's talking about your heart, it's talking about your conscience here. It's saying, and not only yourself, but you'll defile many. So look, bitterness, it begins in the heart. That's where it starts, and only you can recognize bitterness within yourself. You need to think about this with all the relationships that you have in your life. You need to think about this with your marriage. I mean, that's why when you have problems in your marriage, you know, Jesus says, hey, let not the sun go down on your wrath. Why? Because of this, that's why. Because bitterness, it jumps up quickly. It grows fast. It doesn't just like, oh, it's not like an oak tree. It springs up like a weed, very quickly. So you must stamp this out right away. How? Well, you know, we've talked about this before. Either suffer yourself to be defrauded and let it go, or you know, you talk the situation out, you confront the person, you know, the whole Matthew 18 thing. If you don't, the point of this sermon is, it will change your heart. This is a problem. Bitterness can change how you feel about things, towards people, towards things in your life. It will literally damage you. A good example of this in the Bible, turn to First Samuel, chapter 16. A good example of how bitterness, like, just snowballed itself into the chastisement of God is Saul, and how Saul got bitter against David. Saul was bitter against David, and he just let it just go and grow until finally God's like, I'm just chastising you now. Look at First Samuel, chapter 16, and verse number 14. The Bible says, but the spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord troubled him, in verse 14. So David, or Saul was bitter towards David, and God was just, you know, he was in rebellion against God, he was bitter towards David, bitter towards God. I mean, God just decided, I'm chastising him. So God gave him this evil spirit, meaning a troubling, a troubling, this means not a demon, it's talking about a troubling depression, a troubled mind, and you see that as you read the story of Saul from this point on, how he's just like, it almost seems like he's going mad. In verse 15, and Saul's servant said unto him, behold, an evil spirit from God troubled with thee. What our Lord now command thy servants, which are before thee, to seek out a man who is a cunning player on an harp, and it shall come to pass, that when the evil spirit from God is upon thee, that he shall play with his hand, and thou shalt be well. So of course, that's David, when he plays the harp, he plays good, you know, songs and hymns and spiritual songs for Saul, and that helps him in those case, but the point is, we must protect our hearts, as I'm trying to get you to understand this evening. It is something that we must keep, meaning it's good, or we need to get it right, and then we need to keep it that way. It's a constant battle that the word diligence is used in Hebrews chapter 12. It takes constant persistence over time to keep your heart, because look, Satan, the god of this world, is after your heart. He is after your heart, he's trying to defile it, he's trying to, turn to Proverbs chapter 25, he's trying to corrupt it, he's trying to corrupt how you feel, he's trying to make you feel, he's trying to make you feel good about evil and evil about good. And you as a Christian are still warned that you need to keep your heart. You can still wreck yourself as a Christian, you're not gonna lose your salvation, but look at Proverbs chapter 25, look, Satan's trying to change the way we feel about things, that's what you need to understand. That's why these things like music and alcohol and letting bitterness take over us are so important because they can change who we are, they can change how we feel about things. And look, we're not to be ruled by our emotions. That's what the Bible is saying when it says, the heart is deceitful above all things. He that followeth his own spirit is a fool, or his own heart is a fool. The Bible's telling us, don't be ruled by your emotions, just be ruled by what's right. Look at Proverbs 25 and verse 28. Proverbs 25 and verse 28, the Bible says, he that hath no rule over his spirit, look at this. This is somebody that's ruled by their emotions. This is somebody that is just ruled by how they feel about things. It's like a city that is broken down and without walls. How would that city, how would a city that is broken down and has no walls do against an attack from anything? Terrible. It would be, the city would fall. The Bible is saying you can't be ruled by your emotions. No, here, let me offend the ladies. The Bible says in First Peter chapter three that women are the weaker vessel. And now look, I preach, I don't believe that that means women should be weak. It just means that they're weaker than men. It means that they're weaker than men. It explains why God made the man the leader of the household. Because he is to protect his wife. He is to protect his family because she's weaker. What does that mean? She's weaker physically and she's weaker emotionally. You say, well, how much weaker? Well, women are generally a lot weaker than men physically. And I believe it's that same comparison as women being weaker emotionally. Look, it's true. It's true. Men need to protect their wives because they are weaker vessels, they're weaker emotionally. Meaning their feelings are weaker. Their feelings are, they can be changed easier. They can be broken down easier. So we need to protect our wives, our families, our children, our wives from attacks from these types of things because it will affect them more, the Bible is telling us here. It will affect, it will do them more damage. That's why God put the stronger vessel in charge. Not to be like this dictator, but to protect. To love and to protect. That's why, like, when we have a situation out soul winning today, well, I think the ladies did great. I think the ladies did great, but that's why there's always a man there. We would never send ladies off on their own like that. Because there's always a man there, and what happened today? The man steps in and the man takes the fire. Because, like, Brother George is just like, whatever, you know? Chuck will laugh it off and I can see it. I didn't see it, but I can about see the reaction. It's just because we're just geared for that. And you can see the ladies were a little shaken up. They did great, strong. But you can tell, like, they were a little shaken up about it. But that's why God, like, put the men in the leadership position so we can protect that weaker vessel. So we need to remember that when it comes to keeping our hearts and keeping the hearts of our wives, of our daughters, of our children. Our emotions can be fooled. Our emotions can be changed about things. So we need to, this is why, you know, men and husbands need to think about, you know, standards. Like, this is the whole point of standards in your family. And look, your standards may not be my standards, and we may have certain different things because maybe there's situations that you deal with in your life where there's attacks that I don't deal with, or there's attacks that I deal with that you don't deal with. So I set standards, why do I set standards? To protect, to protect the hearts, to keep the hearts of my family. You know, these are things we don't have, you know, like, we don't have a TV. We don't watch these things. We don't do this stuff. Because, why? Because I want to keep the hearts of myself and especially the weaker people in my household that I have been charged to protect. It's super important because once these things are changed, you have to get them changed back. This is David in Psalm chapter 51. Let's turn there. Let's end here. Psalm chapter 51. Psalm chapter 51. David allowed his heart to be defiled. David committed a terrible sin. He allowed himself to get into sin, and look what he prays in verse number 10. Now David is going from this place where his heart, or the way he felt about things, the way he felt about a strange woman, the way he felt about sin was changed in a bad way. And now he's like, I want to get back. I want to reset. Well, look, we can do this. We can do this. There's always a way back. But the problem is, is that it's better if we just don't do it in the first place. It's better if we don't go down that road in the first place. Look what David says in verse number 10. He says, create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Notice how he says renew. Like, God, he's like, make it how it was. He's like, I messed it up. I let concealed sin into my life. I did things that I shouldn't have done. I walked in sin, and I defiled my heart. He's like, create in me a clean heart. He's like, and renew it, meaning make it how it was. Nothing to do with his salvation, folks. Nothing. It has to do with the state of his heart. So the point I'm trying to get you to understand tonight, these are just some examples, is we need to guard our hearts and the hearts of our wives and the hearts of our families with everything that we possibly can. And then ultimately, like Proverbs 25, 28 is like the ultimate backup. He just says, like, he that hath no rule over his own spirit. You know what this reminds me of? This reminds me of, like, he that has no rule over his own spirit, meaning, no, I'm not gonna change the way I feel about that, because the Bible says this. That's somebody that has rule over their own spirit. That's somebody that sees something wicked, because look, you can have all the standards you want, and you're gonna have something wicked put in front of your face at one point. See somebody wicked and says, that's wicked. I don't care what tune you put it to. That's evil. I don't care how, you know, pretty you make it. Look, that's evil. That's somebody that has rule over their spirit. Somebody that has no rule over their spirit is somebody that's just like, oh, that looks pretty. Like, oh, they're just chasing shiny objects around. You know who this is? This is Reuben. When Jacob said to Reuben, he said, you know, unstable as water, thou shalt not excel. Unstable, meaning he just went after whatever, oh, that looks good. Oh, that seems like it's the right thing to do right now. No. You have to have rule over your own spirit, meaning keep your heart, and watch for the heart of those who you are, you know, in charge of, you are put over to protect. So we need to guard our hearts, folks, because look, it doesn't matter how we feel about things. Only the Bible matters is what it boils down to. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.