Are you aware it's defiling them? Not at all. It's a flow from your spirit of poison and usually it comes out of the spirit man, out of the eyes - the glares, the words, the criticism, all of this kind of thing flows out of the heart which has got bitterness inside it. The word bitter means to be sour - and so a root of bitterness in our heart will defile all relationships. How does it do it? I'll show you in a moment. Let's have a look in Matthew, Chapter 7. Often bitterness in our heart is connected to judging and let me show you here in Matthew, Chapter 7. Whenever we face offence, whenever we face disappointment, hurt, or any kind of circumstance that's negative in our life, we can approach it and release grace into it or we can release judgement into it. If we release judgement into it there are consequences of that. If we release grace into it there's different consequences and we're called to bring the grace of God into situations. So notice what it says in Matthew, Chapter 7. These are the principles of the kingdom and it says here, notice in Verse 1, do not judge because if you judge others you will be judged.
Now that doesn't mean we just put up with all kinds of nonsense because later on the Bible tells us spiritual man discerns all things or judges all things, but He's talking about judgement in your heart. That means to find a fault with and condemn and then punish in some kind of way - so it says don't judge that you be not judged, for the judgement you judge others it will be measured back to you. Now notice what it's saying there. If you come to a place of judging of a parent, father or a mother, for their failure in their role as a parent, then what'll happen is that judgement you've put against them, that having come to make a decision why they did what they did, what this must mean - my father hated me, my mother rejected me. That's a conclusion or a judgement. You don't know that's true. All you see is how they behave. It's your conclusion about it that's the judgement. What does this behaviour mean? So for example a child can be in a family and maybe the husband and the wife or the mother and father are bitterly angry and there's just this tension and anger and criticism.
The child looks at it and they feel pain and anxiety and tension grow and they ask the question, what does this mean? And they come to a judgement; this means they hate me. This means it's my fault - and so what happens is when you start to form bitter judgements in your heart like that, then you start to find you'll start to draw and attract into your life a repetition of this kind of thing. It's like a magnetic thing. It just pulls it into your life, so judgements in the heart are an invitation to demonic spirits to torment you and bring about what you have concluded. It just seems to just repeat cycle after cycle after cycle, so if you for example have come to a conclusion you've looked at something in the family and concluded in your heart it's my fault, it's my fault my parents broke up, if only I hadn't done this or if only I could have done this. Then what'll happen is this - oh I see, if I hold the bottom of the mic it cuts out ... [Laughter] ... hold it in the middle. Thank you very much. This is a great help to me. ... [Laughter/applause] ... Wonderful. Isn't that great. There we go. Well done. Isn't it great to have people that can tell you how to hold a mic? After all these years I'm still not holding it right. Praise the Lord! ... [Laughter] ... I never get it right! I always get it wrong! ... [Laughter]
Okay, so what happens is we can come to conclusions or judgements in our heart and interpretation of what something means. When you come to a conclusion about that, then you begin to reap the cycle of that in your life so if you come to the conclusion it's all my fault they broke up - what happens in any conflict situation, you know what? It's all my fault. You'll keep reaping it in your life and then you'll find you start to attract blame into your life. It's your fault this happened - and so the Bible's very clear. It says why do you look at the spec in your brother's eye and don't consider the plank in your own? How can you say to your brother let me remove the spec from your eye and there's a beam in your own eye? Hypocrite. First of all get the beam out of your own eye. Notice this; then you'll see clearly. So when we have judgements we can't see life properly. We just can't see life properly. We think we see and we come to conclusions, but we can't see properly because the judgement in our heart filters how you see things. I'll just give you a simple example. Suppose I'm standing here with someone else and Pastor Jurgen comes in and he's on his way to the meeting you see, but he's had something come up just before the meeting. He's got a lot of things on his mind, so he just walks in, sweeps in, he's just preoccupied with what he's got to do and the two of us stand and as we go by we say good morning Pastor Jurgen you see and he doesn't even acknowledge - he's so busy, didn't even hear it. He's just focussed on what he's got to do, away he goes.