I have a little handout for you tonight so you can follow along. You don't have to worry about filling the blanks. The blanks will come up on the screen here as I go through this, but I'll tell you a quick little story. 48 years ago, 1973, I accepted Christ as my personal Savior. Stayed home in my home church for about a year. I was my senior year of high school. I got a good grounding there at that church. Went off to Bible college. Graduated three years later in 77. So 44 years ago, got out of Bible college. I don't even know if I could say this in a straight enough way. You talk about young, naive, and just believing everything was going to go perfect because, you know, I'm in Bible, I graduated from Bible college, I'm going into ministry, everything's going to go my way, and I kind of had a philosophy, as soon as I get out of Bible college, wherever I go, whatever I do, I'll just try to do what's right, and if I try to do what's right, I won't have any problems. How many of you know that that's not good theology? I thought as long as you do what's right, you won't have any problems, nothing will go wrong, everything will go your way. And by the way, if that's your theory right now, I got some bad news for you. That's not always true. They don't always go your way. Now they may always go God's way, but they won't always go your way. And so as a young youth pastor, I took a job at a church and I was really excited about the job. I came into a youth department, had about 10 kids in the youth department, a small church in Ohio, and was there for about six months. And at very first, my plan worked. I want you to know it worked perfect. I tried to do what was right. I tried to be the right kind of person. I wasn't perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but I tried to do what's right. Youth department began to grow. Kids began to get saved. We ran about 40, 45 in the youth department. And one afternoon I was sitting in my office talking to a friend of mine. Some of you remember when this was important. I was talking long distance. Remember long distance and so, you know, you don't interrupt somebody who's talking long-distance back then And I was talking to a friend of mine in North Carolina and I was in Ohio And so we were talking on the phone trying to say as much as we could very quickly My pastor walked into my office. He looked at me like you're busy. So he left he came back. He put a note on my desk and While I'm talking on the phone, I pick up the note because, you know, it's your past. It's probably important. I pick up the note and basically I don't remember the exact words, but it basically said something like this. Because of the financial problems in our church, I can only have two options for you. Number one, you can stay here and work for nothing. Or number two, you can leave and find a new job. What? And my friend was on the phone and said, I'm going to have to call you back. And I hung the phone up. And long story short, I left that church. It was a really bad timing in my life. We had just bought a month earlier my very first ever new car. I think I've only bought two in my whole life, like an actual brand new car right off the lot in the current year kind of thing. And I just bought my first brand new car. Somebody remember the Plymouth Horizon? Remember that car? Don't buy one of those. But I bought that car, and I bought it a month before. Two weeks after that, two weeks before I was let go, I found out that we were expecting a son. My wife was pregnant, so I had a new car and a baby on the way, and now I had no job. Some of you may not know this, but that bothered me a little bit. That really irritated me because I kept thinking to myself, now look, I pray something like this, Lord, I have tried to do what's right and I have really done my best. How can this happen? Well, long story short, I got past that, got into the next church. Some of you have heard this story. I got into the next church, was there for about five years, same philosophy. If I do right, Everything's going to come out right and there won't be any problems. And for a while that philosophy again came true. Everything kind of seemed to go my way, only to find out after about five years there, youth department that grew from almost nothing to about 120 kids, all kinds of kids in the ministry today, still in the ministry today from that youth department and things are going my way. It's just seemed like God was blessing and found out that the pastor of that church was molesting some of my teenage girls. And so he wouldn't resign. So I did, which by the way, I didn't, you know, if you ever done anything on principle and then said, well, that wasn't smart. I said, well, if you won't resign, I will. And he said, okay. And then I was out. I've lived in the church parsonage and got paid by the church. And I just resigned my job. I had two weeks to go somewhere. I went to Mooresville, Indiana and live with my mother-in-law for a while. which was fun, but I want you to know something. I want you to know something happened. Inside of me, something began to happen. I began to get angry and I began to get frustrated. And I guess the word I'm looking for is the word bitter. This is bitter. It's not right. I'm doing the right thing. I'm trying to be the best kind of pastor I can be. I'm trying to be the right kind of husband. By that time, I had a son and a daughter. I'm trying to be the right kind of dad. And this is not right. This shouldn't happen to me. Anybody else ever been there? And I just began to get a little more, more and more angry every day. It wasn't long in case, I'll tell you the rest of the story later on, but it wasn't long before I just quit the ministry. I was like, this isn't right. Nobody's right. It's not right. Bitterness overwhelmed me and I just quit. And if you notice the title of the sermons tonight, the underground sin, probably you already know where I'm going for. There's a passage that we all understand and know in the book of James talks about the root of bitterness. And that's exactly what it is. So let me just give you, it's kind of a Bible study. I want you to think of it this way tonight. This is kind of a Bible study, but it's really more of a counseling session about bitterness and bitterness in your life. You may be sitting here tonight and let me just warn you, you may be sitting here tonight and you may be saying to yourself, I don't have a problem with bitterness. I don't know how many times I've dealt with people who have a problem with bitterness who look me right in the face and said, I'm not bitter. And you kind of sit back at your desk and say, okay, this is going to be a lot of fun. So let me give you some basic principles. If you got that note, you'll notice the first, you guys can flip to the first side. I think it's pretty obvious there. The Bible clearly condemns bitterness as sinful. Now, here's what I'm going to do. I won't read every passage. I'll read these passages, but I'm going to read every passage in the Bible that has to do with bitterness. But I just want to prove my point. I'll start out with making sure you understand the simple truth that that's a sin, and that is condemned in the Bible. And if you are bitter, let me just say it up front. I'll start with the worst part. If you have bitterness in your heart against anybody, especially against God, you are living in sin. That is a sinful attitude, and it will eventually destroy you and everybody around you. Look at Romans chapter 3, verse 10 through 14. Some of you recognize that passage because you'll use it in a lot of soul-winning cases, trying to get people to understand that we are all sinners. Romans 3.10, as it's written, there is none righteous, no, not one. And then it gives this list. It says, there's none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God, they are all gone out of the way, they are altogether become unprofitable, there is none that doeth good, no, not one. There is nobody who does good all the time outside of the Lord Jesus Christ. There's no human that's ever done good all the time. We are all sinners. Amen. Now, we may be sinners saved by grace, but we're still sinners. We all struggle. And then he lists a few more things in that same, in that list. Verse 12, he says, they are all going, I'm sorry, verse 13, their throat is an open sepulcher. With their tongues, they have used deceit. The poison of his ass is in their lips, whose mouth is full of cursing. And then you'll notice the first mentioned that in the New Testament, not only cursing, but Bitterness, listed with cursing, listed with deceit, listed with all these other sins, is this concept of bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood. So first indication you get about bitterness is that bitterness is a sin. Now flip over to the little book of Colossians. Flip over to Colossians real quick. Colossians chapter three. Let me read a few more verses. In Colossians chapter three, you get a little dissertation about the husband-wife relationship. In fact, you get a dissertation about a lot of relationships, the husband-wife relationship, the parent-child relationship, the master-servant relationship. But in this section about the husband-wife relationship, you hear this advice. Colossians chapter 3, look at verse 18. It says, And verse 19, Be not bitter against them. By the way, that runs both ways. Husbands are not to be bitter against their wives, wives are not to be bitter against their husband. So another condemnation of concept of bitterness. You're in Colossians, go over to the book of Hebrews. Just a few more books back, right after 1 and 2 Titus and 1 and 2 Timothy, you'll find Hebrews. Hebrews chapter 12, look at verses 14 and 15. Hebrews chapter 12 verses 14 and 15, Paul, and I believe Paul's the author here, Paul said, follow peace with all men and holiness without which no man shall see the Lord. Verse 15, looking diligently lest any man fail the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you and thereby many be defiled. Again, the concept of bitterness, all I'm trying to prove to you in this first point is really simply this. Bitterness is a sin and bitterness is condemned in the Bible. You've got to get that in your head right up in front and then we'll talk about the issues behind bitterness. One last thing, James chapter 3. Go to James chapter 3, James chapter 3 verses 13 through, we'll just read to the end of the chapter, well verse 16. Verse 13 says, who is a wise man and do with knowledge among you, let him show out of a good conversation his works with meekness of wisdom. But if you have bitter envy and a strife in your hearts, glory not and lie not against the truth. This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish. For where envy and a strife is, there is confusion and every evil work. And you can read again in Ephesians chapter four, verses 31 all the way through. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor be put away from you with all malice and be a kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God, for Christ's sake, hath forgiven you. I don't think anybody here would question after reading those few passages of scripture, and we could read many more. I don't think anybody here would argue with me when I say bitterness, harboring bitterness in your heart is sinful. Amen? Now, I wish I could just stop there, but I found out in counseling, and I found out through preaching, you can't just do that. Because here's what people do. They say, we agree with you. But then they still continue to harbor bitterness, and bitterness continues to grow, and they're waiting for something to happen that's not going to happen. So let me give you some other advice here, okay? So how would you define bitterness? This is the next slide. How would you define bitterness? I've written a little definition for you. Now, the definition won't explain everything, but it'll give you a start. Bitterness is a feeling of anger, hatred, and or resentment brought on by the presumed or actual harmful actions of another. That's a pretty simple definition. It covers a lot of ground, but just look at it again. Bitterness is a feeling of anger, hatred, or resentment brought on by the presumed, and we'll talk about what I mean by that in a minute, by the presumed or actual harmful actions of another. Sometimes it's not what somebody did, sometimes it's just what you think somebody did, or you think somebody said. Might not be a real sin, it might be something that you think has happened. Now, there's a problem with that definition, and I'm gonna see if I can explain it. Bitterness is one of those sins, and I've seen it in my own life, and I've seen it in other people's life. Bitterness is one of those sins that it is easy for me to recognize in you and hard for me to recognize in me. Everybody in here knows bitter people, right? And we understand it when somebody's bitter. We can see it in them. But let me ask you a question. What causes bitterness? What's the point here? Well, if you look at that definition, it simply says bitterness is a feeling of anger, hatred, resentment, brood on the presumed or actual harmful action of another. Let me say it this way. Let's say, I'm gonna assume everybody here is a Christian, okay? Let's say as a Christian, you lie, you tell a lie. When you tell a lie as a Christian, do you feel bitter? No, what do you feel? I hope, what should I say, what should I hope you feel? Guilt, right? You should feel guilt if you sin. Bitterness, on the other hand, what happens if somebody lies about you and you hear about it? Do you feel guilty? No, what do you feel? Bitterness, so here's where the problem lies. Okay guilt is what we feel when we sin Bitterness, that's the next blank by the way guilt is what we feel when we sin bitterness is what we feel when others sin against us or at least we assume that they They've sinned against us now There's a problem with that, it's a true statement, but here's the problem. The problem is, if we had committed the sin, we would feel guilty, the Holy Spirit would, if we look at it as the lies of sin or whatever it is, we would feel guilty, we would feel convicted, and we would repent of it. You know what the problem is though? If somebody else sins against me, what am I waiting to happen? I'm waiting for them to feel guilty, and for them to repent, and for them to apologize, and if they don't, what happens? I get bitter, and that's how bitterness comes about. Here's a key I want you to remember. Bitterness is always based on someone else's sin, whether it's God or a human, whether it's real or imagined, and that's the problem. When I talk to people about bitterness, here's the answer I get a lot of times. They'll say, yeah, I'm bitter, but... If he would just do this, or she would just do that, or if they would apologize, or if they would tell the truth, I wouldn't be bitter. In other words, me getting over my bitterness is dependent on what somebody else does. And that's what happened to me when I was early in the ministry. Because of what this pastor did, or because of what that pastor did, when somebody would say to me, why did you go to Bible college and you're working at Wendy's? I mean, what in the world's wrong with you? Well, it wasn't my fault, right? It was that pastor's fault for what he did with the finances, and it was this pastor's fault for what he did with the teenage girls, and his own sin, because of his sin, it hurt me, and I was bitter. Can I ask you a question? What if those men had never repented? And by the way, neither one ever did call me up and say, I'm sorry for what happened to you. I'm sorry for what occurred. And if they don't get right, guess what? I'm always gonna be bitter. I'm always gonna struggle. I'm always gonna do it. So the basic cause, next slide, the basic cause behind bitterness, real simple, very simple. Pride causes bitterness. We become bitter when we believe we receive less than we deserve or when we've been treated unfairly or unkindly. That can be unfairly or unkindly by God or man. If we don't think things went the way that we should have had them go, just like I didn't think, I mean, if you get out of Bible college and you preach and teach the scriptures and you witness to young people and you do your best to live right in front of them, You expect them to get saved you expect things to change and that happened and you expect everything else to go smoothly but that didn't happen, you know, why that didn't happen because we live in a sin-cursed world and Even Christians have still have a sin nature And if I work around people have a sin nature guess what they are eventually going to sin against me and And if I think I deserve better, or if I think I should be treated better, or if I feel like somebody's been unkind to me, or somebody's been unfair to me, my pride rises up and tells me, here's what I hear sometimes, I have every right to be bitter. Well, wait a minute, we just read about six passages of scripture that said that bitterness is a sin, and you have no right to sin. So we got a little problem here. Now, let me say a couple things here. Number one, or A, you can be bitter towards God about, we can be bitter towards God about our circumstances. That's the next slide, by the way. We can be bitter towards God about our circumstances. Typically, typically that happens in our life when our life doesn't turn out like we hoped, like in my case. But there's a lot of cases you'll see that in the Bible. Some of you remember in the little book of Ruth, you remember the lady named Naomi? Ruth's mother-in-law, you remember what happens, Naomi, her husband, there's a famine in Israel, they move away and they finally decide to come back home because the husband dies and both of the sons die. And when she gets back to Israel and people welcome her home, you remember what she said? It's in Ruth chapter 1, verses 20 and 21. Here's what she said, listen. She said this, she said to them, call me not Naomi, but call me Mara. Mara, that's a Hebrew word, it just means bitter. That's what she wanted to be called. My name, can you imagine somebody being so mad, so angry, so frustrated, so mad at God that they say, just call me bitter, that's my name. That's what she wanted to be called. She said, call me bitter, for the Almighty hath dwelt bitterly with me. I went out full, and the Lord hath brought me home again empty. Why then call you me Naomi, seeing the Lord hath testified against me, and the Almighty hath afflicted me? Her bitterness was directed towards God. In her mind, it was God who had taken away her husband, it was God who had taken away her sons, and everything that happened to her was God's fault. In fact, if you look back at those verses, four times in those verses she blames God. She said, the Almighty hath dealt bitterly with me. She said, the Lord hath brought me home empty. She said, the Lord testified against me, and the Almighty hath afflicted me. Four times she looks at the circumstances of life, and four times she says, the reason this has happened is because of God, and I'm angry at Him. And I know a lot of Christians just like that. I know a lot of worldly people like that, but I know a lot of Christians like that. They not only are bitter, but they think they have a right to bitter. They readily defend that right to bitterness. In fact, their entire personality is built around it. Now, don't say any names, don't look around the auditoriums, and whatever you do, don't point, but you know people like that. Everything is bad. You can hardly speak to them without it being negative. That bitterness infects everything they are, and it actually has become part of their personality. A lot of times I have to deal with those people. They'll say to me, well, Brother Morris, you'd be bitter too if, and then they name the long circumstance. If this happened to you, and in fact, they'll ask me the question, don't you think if this happened to you? If you went through this, don't you think? And so many times I want to say, I went through that, and I was bitter, and I was wrong, and so are you. Bitterness is, Like I said, easy to recognize when somebody else is bitter. Sometimes you can see it in their eyes. Sometimes you can see it in their face. You can see it in the curves of their mouth. Haven't you ever talked to somebody and just the tone of their voice told you everything you needed? Even if the words were right, the tone was wrong. Well, yeah, I praise God. I thank God for everything he's done for me. Isn't God wonderful? You ever talk to that person? Right? You know, when tragedy hits, you'll find out real fast what's in the heart. And if you get angry with God, you start blaming things of God, you become a bitter person. I met people like that and I know better than to cross them. I'm kind of scared of them because if I cross them, they're going to attempt to hurt me because they're hurting, they want everybody else to hurt. And I think we've all met them. There's other better bitter people in the Bible like Naomi. Some of you remember the story of Jonah. Remember Jonah sent the Nineveh and Jonah actually wanted the Ninevites all destroyed. Hated the Ninevites, wanted them all dead. But God called him to preach there. He ran away from that. Eventually God sent him back through the great fish or the whale. And then he preached the Nineveh and guess what happened? Revival broke out and people got saved and things were wonderful. And Jonah hated it. And Jonah went and sat under a juniper tree on a bush and the leaves shaded him and the leaves died on the tree. And guess what? It made him bitter. In fact, I thought it was funny. He thought he had a right to be bitter. In fact, here's what Jonah said in Jonah chapter four. Jonah said, God asked Jonah, doest thou right to be angry for the gourd? I mean, let me paraphrase that. You're mad because the gourd died? And that's what bothers you, not because the entire city of Ninevites accepted Christ, accepted the Messiah, and is on their way to heaven. That doesn't bother you, that doesn't affect you, but because of Gord. You know what, Jonah's words were back to God. It's hard to believe this. Jonah responded in Jonah 4, 9, I do. In fact, he said, I do well even to be angry with the Gord. He was saying exactly what I said a while ago. I have a right to be mad. I have a right to be angry. Things did not turn out the way that I wanted them to. This is not what I expected. This is not how I had it planned. Goes right back to that root issue of pride, does it not? Goes right back to that same thing. This is my plan. I have learned over the years that my plan is not the best plan anyway. God's plan is the one I have to go with. I have said it a million times in counseling, maybe not a million, but thousands of times in counseling. I've asked the same three questions of everybody I've counseled. Question number one, is God good? Almost every time, if they're a Christian, they'll say, yes, God is good. Question number two, is God doing good? Oh, yes, Brother Morris, God is doing good. Question number three, is God doing good in your life? No. You do understand that's theologically impossible. If God is good, then God must necessarily be doing good. And if God is doing good, he must necessarily be doing good in your life. And even the circumstances early in my ministry that happened to me, believe it or not, have turned out over the years for my good. I don't know how many times I've told that story and used those illustrations, and God gave me the power to get through some of those things and help me to see my own bitterness and see my own sin. And in those things, I grew closer to Him, and that is for my good. In the midst of it, it's hard to see, is it not? I mean, it is really hard to see. We've all been there in one situation or another. Let me ask you a question. When you think about bitterness, is it possible to be kind, compassionate, and tenderhearted and bitter at the same time? Well, you know the answer. No, it's not possible. Tenderheartedness, by definition, is having a heart tender towards other. Bitterness, by definition, is having a heart hardened towards other. You cannot be tenderhearted, as the Bible commands, and be bitter at the same time. And if you're bitter, you're not being what you should be for God, and that's an obvious sin. You have no right to, I thought about this today. I was sitting at my desk today, I was reviewing these notes, and I thought about the people in the Bible who've shown bitterness, and I thought it was interesting to me that the three people in the Bible that I thought had a right to bitterness were not bitter at all. There's a lot of people I could come up with, but I thought about Job. If anybody had a right, I don't know, he did not. He did not claim that right, and he didn't use it, but come on. All of your children are dead, all of your land's gone, your bodies, and why? Because God wanted to prove a point. I mean, if anybody had a right to be, but you never see that in Job's attitude or in his spirit all through the book of Job. What about Daniel? Daniel did nothing but right, and Daniel was thrown in prison in the lion's den. What about the apostle Paul after his salvation? Paul did nothing but right. He did everything and he was beaten and he was shipwrecked, he was stoned, he was imprisoned. Can I tell you something? God has a purpose for your life and it may not be what you believe it should be. And if you get bitter, you don't make things better, you make things worse. By the way, B, here's the next thing real quick. We can be bitter towards others about real sin. You say, well, Brother Morris, I know in your situation you understand this. People do things bad against us. And people do treat us unfair. And people do talk bad about us. And people have lied about me. And all those things have happened to me. I guarantee you I understand exactly what you're saying. I'm not saying those things don't happen. I'm not saying there's not sin in this world, but there's some things you need to understand. Next slide real quick. First bitterness is not based on the size of the sin, but rather on the closeness of the offender. Let me give you an illustration. Let's say, I had in my notes I was going to use Iraq. I think I'm going to not use Iraq. Let's say something happens in China that's horrible. And it's a wicked sinful thing. I mean something like a Okay, like maybe a virus escaping a lab something like that something crazy that would never happen. Okay? If something like that happens, do you get bitter at China? I mean you may be frustrated you may but probably not bitter, right? Why? Because you don't know anybody in China. You're not close. But what about somebody who is very close to you, a spouse, a child, a pastor, and they do something unkind, or they say something critical, or they hurt you in a way, or they don't do what you think they should have done for you. What happens then? You get bitter. So think about this. So who are the likely candidates for bitterness in your life? Who are you likely to be the most bitter against? Well, there's a lot of categories that come up here. You could be bitter against your father or your mother, right? For how they treated you when you're a child. I should have had a better raise. I should have been raised better. My parents didn't do this and my parents didn't do that and my parents didn't give me this and I had to go to college and I paid my own way and they never helped me a bit. Uh-oh. You know what that is? That's bitterness. Some more candidates, brothers, sisters, husbands, wives. children, boyfriends, girlfriends, roommates, teachers, anybody you're close to, anybody you have a relationship with, whether that's a superior at work or a subordinate at work, those are the people that you have problems with bitterness, because bitterness, it's not about the size of sin, it's about the closeness, and the closer you are to a person, the more bitter you can be against them. I found this to be true on almost every marriage counseling case I've ever done, because to me that's the closest of human relationships, right? The two shall become one, right? Children become part of the family. I mean, children become part of the family, but the wife and the husband become part of each other. That's the closest human relationship. And that, by the way, is the relationship I see the most bitterness. Well, my husband doesn't do this or he had he did that and I can't forgive him. And I'm bitter and angry about it. Or she's done this and I'm bitter and angry about her. You think you have a right to be bitter because you were betrayed, but the Bible doesn't grant anyone the right to be bitter. The text simply says, let all bitterness be put away. Let me repeat that. All bitterness against all people. I don't know if you're sitting there tonight, and I'm sure somebody is, and you're thinking about a situation, and you say, but you don't, I hear this all the time, but you don't understand. I don't have to understand. I know what the Bible says. I've been there myself, and I know what bitterness feels like, and I know what it did to me, and I know what it'll do to you if you continue in it. Here's another thing you need to know. Second, bitterness tries to hide deep within the human heart. Hebrews 12, 15 says, Look diligently, lest any man fail the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you and thereby may be defiled. You have to look for it because sometimes we don't even recognize it in ourselves or we feel it. It's affected our attitude, but it's a root. If you go to, we have a house now over here in Danville. If you go to my house in Danville, on one side of my driveway, there's a crack forming in my driveway. There's no obvious reason for the crack, but I bet you about anybody that walks in my yard can tell me why there's a crack in my driveway. Anybody know? What, what is it, John? There's a tree. There's a tree right beside my driveway, and I don't have to dig the driveway up or move the concrete to figure out what's going on there. What happened? One of the roots from that tree has grown under that driveway, and as that root grows, it expands and pushes upward, and the driveway cracks. And just like in your life, you think that root's hidden, but I'm telling you, it's not hidden. Here's the thing. Everybody sees it. Remember what I said earlier? It's easier to see in others than it is in you. You think you have it hidden. You think it hasn't affected your attitude. You think it hasn't affected your relationships. You think you're fine with your wife or your spouse. At least I'm angry, but I'm not showing it. Oh, you're showing it. It's cracking. And sooner or later, it will break through. It'll produce some fruit that you don't want to see. So how can you tell that we're bitter? Well, the Holy Spirit hadn't already convicted you. Let me give you one last thing here, OK? Bitterness, bitterness always remembers the details. That's one of the great signs, one of the things I learned in counseling and I found this to be true in almost every case. The more details you know and the more you can repeat it years down the line, the more indication that is of bitterness. I told you that story about pastor walking and putting that paper on my desk. I used to tell a much more detailed story. I don't remember now, and I'm glad I don't remember exactly what the paper is. By the way, do you know why I remembered for a long time what that paper said? Not just a general idea of what it said, because I kept it. You know what I did with it? I showed everybody, well, you know what happened to me? Read this. And I'd say, he came into my office, and he didn't even talk to me personally. He put this on my desk, and I read that. That's how he fired me. Anybody detect this note of bitterness in that? I mean, I kept the note. I wanted everybody to see it. I want everybody to know I have been mistreated. It wasn't long after the second thing happened where the pastor had molested a teenage girl and I had quit the ministry. My wife would always ask me silly questions. That woman's very irritating sometimes. She'd ask me questions like, well, this guy, by the way, was still in the ministry until this trial came and he actually ended up going to jail. But until then, he was still pastoring the church and I was out of the ministry. And my wife would ask me questions like, well, if he's wrong and you're right, why is he in the ministry and you're out? Well, I'm standing on principle. No, no, it wasn't principle. It was anger. It was wrath. It was bitterness. I felt like I'd been done wrong. I had been cheated out of something and my bitterness destroyed me. Let me tell you this, you're going to be mistreated. People are going to be unkind. People are going to lie about you. I'd almost thought about asking you, don't do this, I almost thought about asking you to raise your hands and I'd say, how many people in here have never been mistreated? I don't think anybody's going to raise their hand. I'd be very shocked if you, if somebody could raise, if you're more than two years old and you can raise your hand, I'd be surprised. We've all been mistreated. We've all been lied about. We've all been done unfairly, been done wrong, cheated in a deal. It's all happened. Listen, the issue isn't whether those things are going to happen. The issue is how are you going to handle that? With what attitude, with what spirit? It's not what others do to you. It's what you do that matters. You can't control the other person, you have to control yourself. By the way, say one last thing real quick. We can become bitter towards others about imagined sin. You say, what do you mean by that? Many times we're bitter at people and there's really no real reason. They didn't really say anything. Somebody said, you know, I think so-and-so said this about you, and now you're mad at them. You don't even know what's really going on. Or they looked at you wrong. Or you thought they said something. Or you thought they did something. Or maybe they actually did something, but didn't know it was offensive to you, and they're going on their merry way, living their life, and you're thinking, he's never even going to apologize. What's wrong with him? And we're bitter at imagined sin. By the way, that's why Jesus said in Matthew chapter 18, if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between him and you. You go. If you're the one offended, you go to him. I've done this before. Actually, this happened just a while back. One of the other pastors came to my office. It's probably been about, I'd say about six months ago. And he asked me, he said, hey, did I do something to offend you? It was Pastor Scotty in case you have to know, Pastor Walsing. I won't get you in trouble. And I said, no. He said, well, I was just wondering. And I'm like, why do you say that? He said, well, I came in the other morning and I said, hi, guys. Good morning, guys. And I walked by your office. You didn't say anything. I said, oh. And he said, I came by this morning, and as you were in your office, I said, good morning, Brother Morris. And you didn't say, I didn't hear him, by the way, that morning. I heard him the first morning, but I didn't respond because all the other guys were responding. And he's like, is something wrong? I'm like, no. Are you sure? No. And we had this long conversation that ended up being a joke and laughing and carrying on about it. But I thought about that after I was writing this last night, and I thought to myself, I wonder if he hadn't come talk to me, you know, what I would have done next that would have made him think that. It was his responsibility, he felt offended, so he came to me. Now some of you are probably thinking, wait a minute, I think that's not what the Bible says. The Bible says in Matthew chapter five, if thou bring thy gift to the altar and there remembers that thou hath aught against thy brother, leave that gift before and go thy way and be reconciled to the brother. So one passage says, if you're the offended, go to the other person. The other passage says, if you are the offender, go to the other person. You say, isn't that a conflict in the scriptures? No. You know what I think is supposed to happen? You're supposed to meet each other on the way, whether you're offended or you're the offender. Go get it right. What are you doing? Why are you letting something like that brew? I have found out in my life, it is so much easier just to go talk to people. It's that initial thing, getting up and going to do it may be hard, making the phone call, whatever, that may be difficult, but I'm always happy that I did it. I've gotten to the age now, and some of you know what I'm talking about, I think maybe it's an older age thing. When you get a little older, you got a problem with me? Let's just hash it out right now. Let's figure out what's going on. I need to know. And I found out I don't have as much of a problem with bitterness in my life because of that. So what does bitterness do? One last thing. I'm going to get to the end here. What does bitterness do? What does it do to you? I think you already know that. The world only has two solutions to bitterness. That's either implode or explode. Keep it in or blow it out, right? Keep the bitterness in, you'll make yourself sick. Let it out and you'll spread the sickness around and you'll make everybody else sick. That's the next slide, by the way. If you harbor bitter and envy in your heart, can I tell you this, James makes it very clear, other sins will follow. Pride, then bitterness. then anger, then wrath, then malice. I like the word clamor, by the way. One of my Bible college professors gave us an illustration. I think somebody had asked in class, well, what does clamor mean? Loud clanking noise. He said, have you ever been in a big kitchen where all the pots and pans are hanging in a circle above the tables? He says, be like taking that pot and pan, making a bunch of clamor. He said, that's what a lot of people's lives are like. Bam, bam, bam, one problem to the next problem is just bam, bam, and noisy and bitterness just continues to build. If you explode, by the way, you hurt other people. Did you notice what James said? I read it a while ago, James chapter three. James said, but if you have bitter inbred strife in your heart, glory not and lie not against the truth. Don't lie about it. Fix it. This wisdom descended not from above. I want you to notice the three things he said is earthly, sensual, fleshly. And then he makes this statement. It's devilish. It's of the devil. You understand how fast bitterness can affect other people. In fact, that's another thing, the next slide, what it does to others. Bitterness, bitterness makes other people filthy and filthiness rubs off. Bitterness accumulates. Bitterness can fly through a church or a school or a family. I know I've dealt with many a family where the husband was bitter against the wife, or the wife was bitter against the husband, and that caused problems between them, and eventually caused problems between the children, and eventually caused problems between the children and the grandchildren, eventually because each relative took sides, and the whole family is bitter and angry because somebody got their feelings hurt and didn't get it right. You can't let that continue. So what do you do if you're struggling with bitterness? Well, let me give you some answers. Number one, admit you have a problem. It should be obvious by now that bitterness is a dangerous and deadly problem in the life of a Christian. So how do you get rid of it? Well, first of all, you have to admit it. It's not, listen to me, if you're going around saying he is wrong, or she is wrong, or they are wrong, or that is wrong, or God is wrong, you need to stop saying that and say, I am wrong. Now, I'm not saying the other person might not be wrong. I'm saying God's not, but I'm not saying the other people might not be wrong, or might not have done you wrong. but that's not your responsibility. They have to answer for God for that. You have to answer for God for your response to that. Your response to their sin, if it's bitterness, is your sin. That's not on them, that's on you. In fact, you're letting that other person hold you prisoner. You can't find joy, you can't find peace, you can't find relief because you're hanging on to it, because you think it's going to help you. You think if I get bitter, I'll change them. You know, I've found so many times that when I'm bitter against somebody else or in counseling when I've talked to people about their bitterness, the other person doesn't even know they're bitter, doesn't even care. Especially if they intentionally hurt them, well then they're hurt. I'm good, I got what I wanted. And if you keep being hurt and you keep wearing bitterness and you keep letting bitterness accumulate in your life, you're doing exactly what that person who was trying to hurt you wanted. You're not hurting them, you're hurting you and everybody that loves you. Admit you have a problem and then B, real simply, fix your heart. Get it right. Getting rid of bitterness does not depend on the actions of others. It depends on you. And if you've got bitterness in your heart tonight, or somebody you're angry about, or if you're angry with God, you need to get that right tonight. I mean, you need to simply admit, God, I'm wrong. Regardless of whether the other person's wrong or not, I'm wrong in my response. My anger, my bitterness, my wrath towards that other person, it's all wrong. You cannot be kind, you cannot be loving, you cannot be forgiving and be bitter at the same time. You know that, but will you change that? Let me encourage you to do that. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice. Put those things off and put the other things on. Kindness, love, forgiveness. You don't have to be a genius to figure out which side the Christian should be on. And if that's you tonight, maybe the whole message was just for you. Maybe when we go to prayer in a little while, when Jason comes up to give us our prayer request, besides all the other things we're praying about, that's something you should pray about. Dear Father, Lord, I pray and thank you for working in my heart, helping me to overcome this issue in my own life. And I pray that you'll help many others to see the same thing is necessary. Why we hold on to that, why we want to be angry at other people, simply because of our own pride. We think we should deserve better. And, Lord, the truth is we got more than we ever deserved when we got Jesus Christ as our personal Savior. Help us to be as forgiving towards others as you are towards us, to be as loving towards others as you are towards us, and to be as kind towards others, even when they're unkind to us and unforgiving to us and unloving to us. Help us to show Christ in that. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.