Overcoming Bitterness

It's sort of traditional that the sermon on this weekend would be about thankfulness. I think we've heard a lot about thankfulness in the last few weeks. Mr. Slocum gave an excellent message on being grateful. And so my topic today is going to be different, but hopefully we'll see that being thankful is an important element of what I'm going to discuss today. To introduce my topic, I'd like to share a story of the final hours of the First World War.

The final hours of the First World War, which ended 104 years ago this month on November 11, 1918. I'd like to start out by sharing a photo of the last French soldier that was killed in the First World War. His name was Augustin-Joseph Trebuchen. And here's his photo, and this is a photo of his grave, which is marked there. It's a little bit hard to see, but it has his name, and then below it has the date of his death. It says, Mont-Paul-Affrance, which is a very typical expression, died for France November 10, 1918, the day before the final day of the war.

When his family was notified, they were told he died on November 10th, and that this is the date that's on this cross that you can visit. If you go to France, there are many many war memorials to the First World War. I had a chance to visit several of them just a few weeks ago before I came back. But the fact is, he was not killed on November 10th, even though that's what it says on his cross, and that's what his family was told. He actually died on November 11th, the final day of the war. But the French government chose to change the date of his death until his family was November 10th, in order to avoid the pain to his family that he would die on the last day of the war. How does one tell the family of any individual that of the nearly 10 million soldiers who were killed in the war, their son would be one of the last to be killed on the final day of the war? It was also an embarrassment to the French government, which I'll explain in a moment. So, in fact, it's generally agreed the French government lied about the date of death for every French soldier that was killed on November 11th, changing their date of death to November 10th. Famously, the war ended on the 11th hour of the 11th month... sorry, the 11th hour, the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918. But as many people know, the war did not end with a surrender. It ended with an armistice. And that armistice was signed at 515 a.m. the morning of November 11th. And it was to take effect at 11 a.m. Now, the technology of the time was actually... had moved quite a bit in the years during the war. And so, radio communications and other communications allowed that news to be communicated throughout the Western Front by 6 a.m. on November 11th. And so now the question was what to do in those final five hours of the war, the final five hours of the war. And it was left up to each general to decide what was appropriate. In the case of Private Tribuchon, he was shot at 1045 a.m. while carrying a message for his unit to assemble at 1130 after the war would be over so that they could have some soup. Here's a picture of the last American soldier to die in World War One. And historians don't have complete agreement on this, but many would argue he was the last soldier to die in World War One. He, by most accounts, was shot at 1059 a.m. within 60 seconds of the end of the war. Of the nearly 20 million people killed, 10 million soldiers and 10 million civilians, he was one of the last, if not the last, person to die in World War One.

And again, within 60 seconds of the end of the war. In those five hours, it's estimated that 10,000 soldiers were killed, reported missing, or wounded in action in the last five hours of the war when everybody knew the war would end. To put another way, more men died in the last five hours of World War One after the armistice was signed than all soldiers combined on both sides on D-Day.

More people died in those five hours than died on average on every other day of the war. How could this be? How could more soldiers die within five hours in those five hours than on average than any other day of World War One? In fact, that question was so vexing to many Americans that the U.S. Congress launched a formal investigation into how this could have happened. Were there any crimes or wrongdoings that it had committed? It was just too difficult to imagine that so many Americans would have been killed taking positions that had been agreed to be given up just a few hours later by the Germans. In one case, an American general ordered an attack on a German position to begin at 10 30 a.m. That same position was going to be given up just a few weeks later by the Germans. Although some Germans also ordered an attack on Allied forces on November 11, most of them did not, and yet 4,000 Germans were killed defending those same positions which they had agreed to give up just a few weeks later. Why did tens of thousands of soldiers continue to fight a war that was over? Now, the reasons are numerous.

On both sides, there was a fear the armistice would not be respected, and so there was a certain feeling among the generals that they needed to press the attack to show the seriousness of their commitment to continue fighting despite the fact that the Germans had signed the armistice. But most historians agree that the fighting continued because many generals wanted to take advantage of the last day of the war out of a desire to distinguish themselves, or out of pride in capturing a position that had been lost early in the war, or simply out of bitterness and anger for what had occurred in the months and years previous in the war. Pride, bitterness, and anger. These are the primary reasons that more people died in those five hours than in any other 24-hour period on average in the previous part of the war. I'm going to go ahead and turn this off here because I think this gets us to the end of sharing some of those pictures. Pride, bitterness, and anger. These are the words that reflect exactly what a thankful heart is not. These are the traps into which some of us have fallen and into which many will fall in the future. Now, it might be very easy for us 104 years later to look at the stupidity of the decisions that were made at 6 a.m. on November 11th by many individuals. And yet, sometimes it's not so easy for us to see our own pride, bitterness, and anger towards real or perceived enemies. And so today, I'd like to talk about discerning the bitterness and anger that we may have within ourselves. I think an interesting juxtaposition to thankfulness because no one thinks of themselves as being bitter. Bitter sounds pretty extreme, generally, to most of us. But surprisingly, we're going to see an individual in the Bible who had bitterness in our heart who we might not have thought that there would be bitterness there and was able to overcome it.

Often, pride prevents us from seeing the characteristics in ourselves.

Pride, bitterness, and anger allowed the first world war to continue even after it was over.

And those thoughts can also prolong a war in our lives after it should have ended as well. Today, we're going to talk about the story of a woman named Hannah, Samuel's mother, and her struggle with bitterness. And from this example, we're going to look at other key biblical verses that deal with bitterness. And by the time we're finished, I hope we can understand what bitterness looks like and how we might be approaching it and how we might break from it. The title of today's sermon is Overcoming Bitterness. So if you turn with me to 1 Samuel chapter 1 and verse 1, a lot of times we'll focus on the story of Samuel and we'll sort of hurry through the story of his mother and what she went through. But it's a very powerful story on its own, and I think one worth looking at. 1 Samuel 1 in verse 1 says, There was a certain man of Ramathan and Zophin of the mountains of Ephraim, and his name was Elkanah, the son of Jeram, the son of Elihu, the son of Tohu, the son of Zuhu, and Ephraimite. And he had two wives. The name of one was Hannah, the name of the other was Penanah. And Penanah had children, but Hannah had no children. This man went up from his city yearly to worship and sacrifice to the Lord of hosts in Shiloh, also the two sons of Elai, Hupfani and Phineas, the priests of the Lord, were there. And whenever the time came for Elkanah to make an offering, he would give portions to Penanah, his wife, and to all her sons and daughters. But to Hannah, he would give a double portion, for he loved Hannah, although the Lord had closed her womb. And her rival also provoked her severely to make her miserable, because the Lord had closed her womb. And so it was year by year when she went up to the house of the Lord that she provoked her. Therefore she wept and did not eat.

So this is just the beginning of the story, and you can see there's a lot in here, as we've covered. First, we've got Elkanah. He seems to be a God-fearing man.

But he chose to have two wives. And we see in the New Testament that Jesus clearly stated that marriage was between one man and one woman. And the Apostle Paul shows in his letters to the Romans that marriage binds two people together, and that another person, a third person, should not be in that union. And so the fact is that polygamy was practiced in the Old Testament, but it doesn't change God's commandment for us today. And just as I've seen personally in situations in Africa where polygamy is practiced, it creates a lot of issues within a family, a lot of tension and jealousy all throughout the family.

And I'll just leave it at that. If you'd like to know more, I can share some of my experiences with that, helping people in Africa with that. But in this case, we see Hannah, who has no children, and she's suffering disappointment, even shame in that culture, not being able to have children, to the point that she could not eat.

Some biblical scholars have claimed that she suffered from a eating disorder when it said that she did not eat. She certainly suffered from a type of depression which led her to have this problem. And we see Penina, who has children, but it's clear that Elkanah doesn't love her in the same way. We don't know much about her, but we can imagine that she too suffered from not really being loved in the way that she really wished that she was loved by her husband. We don't see how Hannah reacted to Penina's provocations, but we do see that Penina acted a certain way towards Hannah. In verse 6, she's called a rival, and we read that she provoked her.

In French, the term here is mortified. She sort of would cause her to want to just die. And we'll get into that word here. It's a Hebrew word, kawas, which means to get angry. So her intention was to was to make Hannah angry, and clearly she was angry herself. So we see anger as a core element of the relationship between the two women. And of course, from Penina's point of view, there was probably a great deal of unfairness here. I'm sure from her point of view, it was unfair that Hannah was Elkan's favorite. God had blessed Penina, allowing her to have children, but having children is a lot of work.

And so here she's putting in the effort. She had these children. She's putting in the effort. She's raising these children. She's providing these children to her husband, and yet her husband is not necessarily reciprocating that in the way that she would appreciate. And Penina may have thought that Hannah was perhaps doing things against her as well.

Perhaps this depression or this not eating was a way of getting attention. You can just imagine just the interchange and what was going on within this family. And if we continue in verse 8, we see then Elkanah, her husband, said to her, Hannah, why do you weep? Why do you not eat? And why is your heart grieved? Am I not better to you than 10 sons?

And you might chuckle a little bit at this because it seems kind of clueless, doesn't it? You can read it and realize it was the best intentions behind what he's sharing. He truly is trying to comfort his wife. It seems that he is a man of a gentle spirit. He's a man who wants to help, but just isn't able to connect to the fact that not having this child for Hannah was so important. And as much as she loved her husband, she was grieving this. And as much as she loved her husband, it didn't stop the fact that she was being provoked by the sister wife and the dynamic there.

And so it's wonderful to see on one hand, but it's also painful to read because it isn't touching her in the way that it should. And so in verse 9, we see that Hannah arose after they had finished eating and drinking in Shiloh, and Eli the priest was sitting on the seat by the door of the tabernacle of the Lord. And in verse 10, it says something very profound. It says, and she was in bitterness of soul, bitterness of soul, and she prayed to the Lord, and she wept and anguish.

She wept in anguish. This is a great distress. We can imagine that this situation had probably been going on for a long time. 10 years, 15 years, and the years had weighed on her until she just could not take it anymore. She had gone to a point where there was bitterness in her soul.

How could God allow this to happen? What did she do? What was her sin? What did she do that her husband would not understand her plight and this other woman would be so mean, and God would not allow her to have children, and she would go up and she would pray to God, and she would go year to year and do what she was supposed to do. And here she was in this situation, and it had reached this point where there was just bitterness in her soul, and she was just in anguish and distress, and she cried out to God.

And in verse 11 it says, and then she made a vow, and she said, And since the family went to Shiloh every year, no doubt she had prayed this before. I don't think this is the first time that she had prayed for a son.

This is probably not the first time she had prayed for a child. She had reached out and prayed so many times, and she had no doubt sought God's intervention. But God, in the past, had said, Wait! And I say this because it's not only in rare cases that God doesn't hear our prayers. God hears our prayers. There's rare cases. We can see, for example, if a husband and wife are in a relationship and the husband does not honor the wife, that his prayers could be hindered. So there are cases where our prayers are hindered. But by and large, God doesn't do that, and he hears our prayers. And yet he might just say, Wait! Or he might say, No! And Hannah's prayer, though, this time was different. There was something different about this prayer that is recorded.

Hannah was going to ask for a son, probably as usual, but she was going now to give that son to God. That son she wanted so badly. The son that she had prayed for probably every day, and certainly every year as they went up to Shiloh, that precise thing that was the object of her desire, she was going to give it up. She was going to give up what she wanted so badly. And in doing so, I think she showed us the way to overcome bitterness and to overcome anger.

And we often focus on Thanksgiving as a way of overcoming anger and avoiding bitterness, as I mentioned, Mr. Slocum discussed that some in his sermon a few weeks ago. But I think there's a step between anger and bitterness and Thanksgiving. I think there's a step which is release. When we let go of what we want and we give it over completely to God. I don't know if I don't think this is necessarily something you haven't heard before, but I think we see it right here where she had prayed all those years that she could have that son and give that son to the family, as it were. You know, that she delivered a son like her sister, wife, Pena, had delivered those sons, and now she finally could have that air. But instead, she wasn't going to do that. She was going to give that son up to the temple. What I've seen in life is that bitterness is born of injustice. It's born when we feel we've been deprived of something, when something has been, in our view, stolen from us. And likely Pena had bitterness in her heart as well over the injustice of bearing the weight and responsibility of having children, but not being fully loved in the way that she wished she was. And her response was to take it out on Hannah. And the remedy for dealing with injustice in our normal life is to get even, get back, get it fixed. But the remedy for dealing with injustice is really to hand over that injustice to God.

To hand it over, and whatever it is we wanted so bad, just to say, I'm going to give that to you, God. I want that son so bad, but I'm going to give that son to you. I don't need him. But I would love to have one. So please give me that son, and I'll let him serve you all of his days.

We hand it over to God, who's the perfect judge. In my life, I've personally felt deep wounds, and it's very hard to get rid of them. There's the joke, you just stuff them down deep inside and forget about them, right? Yeah, you never forget about them, it seems. The only way I've found is to do what Samuel's mother did here. Whatever it is that we desire so desperately, we must be willing to lose it. Or put another way to allow God to fill it with something of his own choosing. Turn with me to, and you can keep your place in 1 Samuel. We'll come back here. Turn with me to 1 Peter 2. 1 Peter 2 verse 21. 1 Peter 2 verse 21. A scripture that I've gone to many times. I hope it's a go-to scripture for you, something we read at the Passover. 1 Peter 2 verse 21 says, For this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving an example that we should follow his footsteps, who committed no sin, nor was guile found in his mouth, who when he was reviled, you might say provoked. When he was provoked or reviled, he did not revile in return. He did not return that provocation. When he suffered, he did not threaten. And you can imagine the suffering that went on between the two women in the story. But he committed himself to him who judges righteously. He committed who judges righteously. When Jesus suffered an injustice, and he suffered many, he handed that situation over to God. When we suffer injustice, we have to do the same.

Jesus Christ is our high priest who can identify with our suffering. We heard about that in the sermonette that he's there. He loves us. And it's not a yo-yo. I thought that was a very good discussion. It's not a yo-yo. It's not like I'm in, I'm out. No, God is there. He loves us. He gets saddened by the things we do, but that doesn't change the love that he has for us.

None of us, I hope, have suffered like the soldiers in the trenches of the Great War.

But sometimes we can feel that way. We can react by wanting to keep fighting. I showed you the picture of Private Gunther. Private Gunther was the son of German immigrants.

He was actually commissioned as a, I don't know if you can say commissioned, but he was actually given the rank of a sergeant, Sergeant Henry Gunther. Sergeant Henry Gunther was demoted to Private just a few months after coming to France. He was a sergeant, and he went to the the front lines in July of 1918. But he wrote a letter back to someone in the United States, and at the time there were censors, and they would read the letters. And in the letter he complained of the conditions. He complained of the difficulty. You can imagine how difficult it was. And he said that he wished that people didn't have to come to the front and deal with that. And the letter was found, and he was demoted. And there was this sense that because he was a son of German immigrants, that he was sympathetic to the Germans. And so he carried that with him. Many biographers and historians look at that situation, that he was a man who had something to prove. He had lost his rank. His fiancée, many speculate, left him because of that demotion and because of the shame associated with that letter. He lost his rank. He lost his fiancée. He lost what was important to him, and he wanted to get it back.

He was carrying all this around on the final day of the war when he chose to attack the enemy in the final minutes of the war, rushing a German position. His comrades yelling at him, stop! Don't do this! Even the Germans in the trench yelled at him, don't do this! It's 1059!

But he wouldn't, and he was killed within seconds of the end of the war.

Go back to 1 Samuel 1 verse 19. Now let's continue the story here of how Samuel's mother moved forward in her bitterness.

Verse 19 now. So Samuel has, she's prayed for a son, and then in verse 19, they're going to leave the area. They said, they rose early in the morning and they worshiped before the Lord, and they returned and they came to their house in Rama, and Elkanah knew Hannah, his wife, and the Lord remembered her. And so it came to pass in the process of time that Hannah conceived in Boris' son and called his name Samuel, saying, Because I have asked for him from the Lord. So God heard Hannah's prayer this time, and she became pregnant and had a son whom she named Samuel. And if we read the rest of the story, we see that she brings Samuel to Eli and entrusts him to the priest, probably at the age of three, giving up this precious child that she had prayed for for so many years. She gave him to the temple, to the tabernacle, as she had promised.

And we know the rest of the story because we have it all written down.

But if you follow the chronology of the story, at this point, Samuel's mother doesn't know the rest of the story. All she knows is that a miracle has happened, and she's had to honor that commitment that she made to God to give up her precious little boy to God's service. That's what she knows at this point in the story. Let's go to chapter 2, verse 1, and let's read now this song that she wrote about this experience that she had. In verse 1, she says, Hannah prayed and said, my heart rejoices in the Lord. My horn is exalted in the Lord. I smile at my enemies because I rejoice in your salvation. You know, this is a little raw. She had an enemy, her sister wife, who provoked her. She had an enemy, and yet she could smile, not feeling that bitterness in the same way. She could rejoice. God had been merciful to her. She had given up that precious thing that she wanted so badly to God, and God had honored her prayer. And we see that there's joy here. There's thankfulness. There's an acceptance and a faith that God knows what he's doing, and it's going to be okay. And in verse 2, she says, there is none holy like the Lord, for there is none beside you, nor is there any rock like our God. Talk no more so very proudly. Let no arrogance come from your mouth, for the Lord is the God of knowledge, and by him actions are weighed. The bows of the mighty men are broken, and those who stumbled are girded with strength. Those who were full have hired themselves out for bread, and those who were hungry have ceased to hunger. Even the barren has borne seven, and she has had many children, and she who has had many children has become feeble. You can really feel how she was working through these feelings of anger and bitterness, and she doesn't hold back. The things that she faced she speaks of here. In the words of the song, she talks about the arrogance of the one who provoked her, the barren woman herself, who now has a child. She makes it clear that she's relying on God to help her. This is where she's at in her process of overcoming her bitterness. Skip down to verse 18. After the song is over, she's given up her son. In verse 18 it says, But Samuel ministered before the LORD even as a child, wearing a linen ephod. And moreover, his mother used to make him a little robe and bring it to him year by year when she came up with her husband to offer the yearly sacrifice. And Eli would bless Elkanah and his wife and say, The LORD gave you descendants from this woman for the loan that was lent to the LORD, and then they would go to their own home. And the LORD visited Hannah so that she conceived and bore three sons and two daughters. And meanwhile, the child Samuel grew before the LORD.

And somewhere the way the story is written, you get the impression that Hannah had rid herself of her bitterness by this time and depression before ultimately she had other children.

The flow of the story is of joy and thankfulness as she would come year after year to see her son and bring him a new robe which she would make, an acceptance of what her situation in life would be, that she would see her son from a distance. And then, just when she thought it would never happen, she gets pregnant again and then again and then again, so much so that eventually she would have five more children. There is emotional transformation from depression to joy, from bitterness to peace.

And I don't think it happened overnight because it talked about year over year they would go. It's a process of many years. Turn with me to Hebrews 12 verse 14. Hebrews 12 and in verse 14, we read about bitterness here. The writer of Hebrews describes it.

Hebrews 12 and verse 14, it says, It says, There's a bit of a backhanded warning in here about peace and holiness being a requirement for salvation. Verse 15, It's a problem. This is what he's sharing. Many become defiled.

He sold his birthright. This is a problem and clearly Esau became bitter because of this. This is why he's bringing it up. The Bible says that bitterness can take a root and if not handled properly, it can spread. It says, springing up, causing troubles. And by this many become defiled. Other translations talk about it being infectious, contagious, as it were. There's a likelihood that we can feel bitterness and if we pretend it's not in us, then that can be a problem because we're deceiving ourselves. And when a person is bitter, that attitude, that emotion will surface at some point. It sort of comes out from the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. And usually this will come out in form of negative remarks, criticism, certain types of sarcasm. And these words can be like poison that spreads through a group.

And that's why Paul talks about it springing up.

Strong's Bible dictionary defines this word bitterness as meaning something pungent or poisonous, literally, or figuratively. You know, if we eat something bitter, it doesn't taste good, right? And sometimes that bitterness can be an indication of something that's actually damaging for our health. It's the word prickria. And of course, it's been said that experiencing resentment or bitterness is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die. Perhaps you've heard that. If you've ever tasted bitter food, it's not pleasant. And Paul explains that if a person allows this bitter attitude to take root, then that can affect others as well. It affects the way others perceive the situation or the people in question. It spreads like a poison or a virus. And striving to be at peace with our brothers, as Paul says, means taking action. It means doing what we can to make things right. It says, as it says, pursue peace. You have to actually pursue it. Pursue means you're actually walking towards something. You're actually following something. It's an activeness. So we have to pursue peace. It means that we have to make things right. It means, perhaps, going to whatever person is causing us this difficulty, apologizing for what we can, trying to work out the situation. And if it can't be reciprocated, then just turning it over to God, as Samuel's mother did. Being at peace with everyone is not something we can do in our minds. It can't be done with good intentions. We often do that. Oh, I'm at peace with that. Oh, well, how did you pursue that peace?

And then there's kind of a long pause. Well, it's, I'm at peace in my mind. Okay.

And how do you, how did you pursue that peace in your mind? It has to be something that we pursue, something tangible. After we turn to God and stop insisting that things have to be different than the way they are, because often that's the issue that keeps that bitterness there. You know, God, why me? Why did this happen? Why is this, you know, why aren't you taking action? Why aren't you fixing this? Right? That just reinforces that cycle of bitterness. When we stop insisting that things have to be different than they are, then we're able to act with a sincere and gentle heart towards others because we're not demanding something from God. We're not demanding that something be fixed. And then that burden of injustice can leave us. And then we can be free to move forward with something else, to fill that with something else, with love or joy, with faith, that God is a just God. You can imagine that the care that Samuel's mother put into that little robe year after year that she would make for her son.

Notice the Bible doesn't say that Hannah sought to correct Pena for her cruelty to her.

She didn't insist on having her revenge on Pena's wickedness. She felt provoked, of course, but she learned over time to trust that God was going to take care of that situation. Thinking about the success of the wicked who have wronged him, King David describes this progression a little bit. If you look over to Psalm 73, Psalm 73 and verse 21, it's interesting that we just don't see how Hannah reacted to Pena. She just focused on the problem and realized the problem was that she had to let go of what she wanted and give that over to God. Psalm 73 verse 1, Thus my heart was grieved.

And it's the Psalm of Asaph, I should mention and clarify.

Thus my heart was grieved, and I was vexed in my mind.

I was so foolish and ignorant. I was like a beast before you. Nonetheless, I am continually with you. You hold me by my right hand. You will guide me with your counsel and afterward receive me to glory. It's interesting because really what's being described is how Asaph is dealing with the difficulties of injustice. He's dealing with how can this be? If we look over in verse 1, we see the context. It says, Truly God is good to Israel to such as our pure in heart. But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled. My steps had nearly slipped.

For I was envious of the boastful when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. How can you allow this to happen, God? How can these wicked get away with this? How can these people treat you this way? How can they treat me this way is what you really mean.

What we mean when we say that, he had almost stumbled because his heart was vexed. He was foolish and ignorant. He wasn't turning that over to God.

If you want to look at the entirety of Psalm 73, it's a very interesting progression of turning things over to God. Verse 27, For indeed those who are far from you shall perish. You have destroyed all those who desert you for harlotry. But it is good for me to draw near to God. I have put my trust in the Lord God that I may declare all your works. He had almost stumbled, but at the end, he realized he needed to put his trust in God, that God would work those things out. So often when someone hurts us deeply or does us an injustice, we want everyone to know how wrong the other person is, how sinful the other person is. We want to shout it from the rooftops. We want justice. And these emotions and desires come from a heart that is not yet surrendered, and it can cause us to stumble. Let's go over to Ephesians 4, verse 31. Ephesians 4 is a discussion to the church in Ephesus, a church that truly was an amazing church, a church described in the book of Revelation as a church that had this love for God in the beginning, but lost it. Ephesians 4, verse 31 says, Let all bitterness, wrath, see, because anger and bitterness go together, clamor and evil speaking, there it is, shouting it from the rooftops.

Put that away from you with all malice, verse 32, and be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, just as God and Christ also forgave you. When we repent, God forgives us, and the question is, are we willing to show the same forgiveness to those who have hurt us?

This is the way to eliminate bitterness and anger and animosity.

And as I said, this passage was written to a pretty amazing church, and it's the same word here, bitterness, this prakria, which is an interesting addition in this particular passage where it sort of has this sense of a hardness or a resentful spirit. That's another discussion of this word, prakria. And these are characteristics of bitterness. It's sort of a hardness, a harshness, and our dealings with others. We lose a sense of gentleness and the goodness that is the fruit of God's spirit, and we become resentful towards others. And if we're hard on the other person, well, often we think, well, you know, that's because they were hard on me and life is hard and so forth. And we can sometimes feel like we're the victim.

In closing, I'd like to turn over to Ezekiel 18, because a lot of times with bitterness, we don't think of bitterness as something that will keep us out of the kingdom, but that's what we saw in Hebrews. That bitterness, that anger, that can cause a resentment and a distance from God and a lack of reliance on God that God can't tolerate. You can't have that.

People who are keeping that bitterness and anger in their hearts. And we see something very sobering in Ezekiel 18 about the righteous and the wicked. Ezekiel 18 verse 21. But if a wicked man turns from all his sins, which he has committed, keeps my statutes and does what is lawful and right, he shall surely live, and he shall not die. None of the transgressions, which he has committed, shall be remembered against him because of the righteousness, which he has done, he shall live.

Do I have pleasure at all that the wicked should die, says the Lord God, and not that he should turn from his ways and live?

This is a wonderful thing if a wicked man turns from his wickedness and becomes just and looks to God.

But look in verse 24. But when a righteous man turns away from his righteousness and commits iniquity, and does according to all the abominations that the wicked man does, shall he live?

All the righteousness which he has done shall not be remembered because of the unfaithfulness of which he is guilty, and the sin which he has committed because of them he shall die.

This should get our attention. This should get our attention because bitterness can lead to this. Bitterness keeps a cycle of anger going in our minds. It separates us from God. It blinds us to our need to be connected and trusting in God to deal with whatever has come our way.

This should get us our attention because a lifetime of obedience to God's way can be destroyed by a root of bitterness.

And I think there are many in this room who know that that can be the case. We've seen people over time who, because of hurts and injustices, true injustices have fallen away from this way of life.

And as if to anticipate the frustration of this truth, Ezekiel continues writing, sharing God's word in verse 25, Yet you say the way of the Lord is fair? Here now, O house of Israel, is it not my way which is fair, and your ways which are not fair?

When a righteous man turns away from his righteousness, commits iniquity, and dies in it, it is because of the iniquity which he has done that he dies. This is it. This can happen. This can happen to us. God says the righteous person knows right from wrong. And yet chose to do wrong.

Samuel's mother could have allowed her bitterness at her impossible situation to dominate the rest of her life, but instead, she released everything over to God.

We could have been in the church for a very, very long time, struggled for years, and yet, 60 seconds before the end of the war, choose to prove something. Choose to have that bitterness come out.

It is on the battlefield of our hearts that we will either die spiritually by insisting on getting what we want at all costs, or where we will choose life. Learning to surrender to God and being thankful for what he is doing in us, despite what it may appear.

Let it be said of me and of you, what the Apostle Paul wrote to the church in Philippi, I have learned in whatever state I am to be content, to be abased and to abound, to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.