Grace Bible Church
Pastor Teacher
Robert R. McLaughlin
Wednesday,January 4, 2017
JAM 1:8 Being a double‑minded man, he is unstable in all his ways.
Bitterness can come from the intensity of suffering in the mind and body or from something that is difficult to bear, something that causes animosity and reaction.
Suffering causes bitterness to people who do not understand problem-solving devices, divine principles, and give number one priority to a relationship with God.
Lam 3:14, I have become a laughingstock to all my people, Their mocking song all the day.
When they do that especially in front of their OWN children, they are also abusing their very own children.
Under the doctrine of typology, wormwood is used to represent bitterness.
JER 23:15 “Therefore thus says the Lord of hosts concerning the prophets, ‘Behold, I am going to feed them wormwood And make them drink poisonous water, For from the prophets of Jerusalem Pollution has gone forth into all the land.'”
REV 8:10 And the third angel sounded, and a great star fell from heaven, burning like a torch, and it fell on a third of the rivers and on the springs of waters;
REV 8:11 and the name of the star is called Wormwood; and a third of the waters became wormwood; and many men died from the waters, because they were made bitter.
When truth is taught, people react in bitterness.
Jam 3:14 “But if you have bitter jealousy and strife in your right lobe, do not be arrogant and do not lie against the truth.”
When you are bitter, you actually tell yourself lies that are totally against the reality of doctrine and that’s what it means when it says–lying against the truth.
Job 7:11 “Therefore, I will not restrain my mouth; I will speak in the stress of my mind, I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.”
The word anguish in Job 7:11 is the Hebrew noun tsar which means stress.
Job has converted adversity into stress in the soul through the use of bitterness.
Bitterness motivates complaining and is self-destructive.
Job 10:1 “I loathe my own life; I will give full vent to my complaint; I will speak in the bitterness of my soul.”
Notice that you usually build up a self-righteous house of cards, and then you hate what you have done; including hating yourself.
Psa 64:3 “They have sharpened their tongue like a sword. They aimed their bitter speech like an arrow.”
Heb 12:15 “See to it that no one comes short of the grace of God and that no root of bitterness springing up cause trouble, and by it many are polluted.”
Grace-orientation and bitterness cannot co-exist.
The contamination occurs when you either believe the garbage coming from the bitter soul or react to the bitterness of another person.
You cannot be in the presence of a bitter soul and not react unless you have the spiritual strength to do so.
MAR 4:24 And He was saying to them, “Take care what you listen to. By your standard of measure it shall be measured to you;
LUK 8:18 “Therefore take care how you listen;
JOH 7:24 “Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment.”
ISA 11:3 And He will delight in the fear of the Lord, And He will not judge by what His eyes see, Nor make a decision by what His ears hear;
MAT 7:1-2, “Do not judge lest you be judged. For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you.
MAT 7:3-4; “And why do you look at the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ and behold, the log is in your own eye?
MAT 7:5 “You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.
GAL 4:16 Have I therefore become your enemy by telling you the truth?
PHI 3:1 Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things again is no trouble to me, and it is a safeguard for you.
You are defiled or polluted when you react to the bitterness in your own soul or the bitterness expressed by someone else.
You can actually react your way into a psychotic or neurotic believer.
The principle is that impersonal love is the problem solving device to deal with bitterness and anger in others.
ISA 5:20 Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; Who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness; Who substitute bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!
JER 2:19 “Your own wickedness will correct you, And your apostasies will reprove you; Know therefore and see that it is evil and bitter For you to forsake the Lord your God, And the dread of Me is not in you,” declares the Lord God of hosts.”
JER 4:18 “Your ways and your deeds Have brought these things to you. This is your evil. How bitter! How it has touched your heart!”
MAT 26:75 And Peter remembered the word which Jesus had said, “Before a cock crows, you will deny Me three times.” And he went out and wept bitterly.
Bitterness is self-induced misery, as well as chain sinning.
COL 3:19 Husbands, love your wives, and do not be embittered against them.
The bitter soul contradicts the PPOG and must be removed from the life of the believer.
You do not get angry unless you have bitterness in your soul.
EPH 4:26-27 Be angry, and yet do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not give the devil an opportunity.
EPH 4:31 Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice.
Wrath is a strong hatred and resentment.
Clamor is loud, noisy, vociferous or boisterous confusion and quarreling.
Bitter people amplify the flaws of others out of proportion; they have multiplied them beyond reality.
EPH 4:31 Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice.
Eph 4:32 And be gracious to one another, tender‑hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.
Bitterness produces a hardness or harshness totally incompatible with grace orientation and contradictory to the PPOG.
Bitterness assumes that you are right is someone else is wrong.
Bitterness refuses to take the responsibility for one’s own sins or failures and attaches the blame to others.
The result of bitterness plus vindictiveness is an arrogant, malicious resentment, an unforgiving mental attitude of resentment, and irreconcilable enmity which makes a person hard, unbending, and locked in self-righteousness.
Eph 4:32, “And become gracious to one another, compassionate, and forgiving each other, just as God also by means of Christ has forgiven you.”
“Kind” is gracious action toward one another–the interaction of impersonal love among members of the body of Christ as the royal family of God.
“Compassionate” is the capacity for impersonal love for all mankind based on maximum metabolized doctrine circulating in the soul.
When you forgive someone, you forget it and move on, and you are never motivated by bitterness, implacability, vindictiveness, hatred, or any other reaction to seek revenge.
Isa 38:17 “Behold, bitterness became deliverance to me. In Your love You have delivered my soul out of the pit of destruction; for You have cast all my sins behind my back.”
Grumbled is the Hebrew verb “lun” which means to murmur, to complain, to be mal-content, to express dissatisfaction.
Note that they speak as if Moses is the one responsible for their situation.
Many believers look for someone to blame when the Lord leads them to a place like Marah (bitterness).
Bitter people look for a scapegoat.
Do you think perhaps the Lord might give you and me some bitter water to drink once in a while, just to reveal to us where we are spiritually?
One thing about a man of doctrine…his spiritual strength is totally from the Lord not from the acceptance of man and WOMAN! A man of doctrine will not allow people to let him down.
A man of doctrine will not allow people to manipulate him.
A man of doctrine will not listen to the judgmental criticism that comes from apostate believers.
Prin – The more you recognize doctrine the more that you recognize your own helplessness.
Bitterness can come from the intensity of suffering of mind and body or from something that is difficult to bear, something that causes animosity and reaction.
Suffering causes bitterness to people who do not understand problem-solving devices, principles, and give number one priority to relationship with God.