Root of Bitterness

At the time of the patriarchs in the Old Testament, it is hard for us to understand the importance of the concept of a birthright. And then that was passed on through the ancient Israel during the time when they had land. But at the time of the patriarchs, a birthright is so important because it's the eldest son that receives this birthright. And the eldest son is then supposed to be trained to be responsible for this birthright. He said, wow, why does the oldest son always get twice as much as all the other sons?

And how come none of the daughters were involved in the birthright? Well, it was a simple concept. The oldest son was to take over dad's job as the ruler of the tribe. When we look at the patriarchs, we forget this isn't just a family while you're around in the desert.

Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were nomadic, but they were, they had a tribe. Hundreds of people were attached to them that weren't even part of the family. They called them their servants. They were part of the tribe. And those hundreds of men that are with them have women and children.

So this tribe they have numbered into thousands. So here, you know, to have the birthright meant you have to be trained to take over now the, all the responsibilities of taking care of the tribe. And of course, when we look at the promise that was given to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Joseph, that also had a promise from God that was enormous.

It had to do with all history. I mean, you and I live in the blessings of those promises, specifically the promise of the Messiah, of Jesus Christ. We have a fascinating story we all know, but I want to, I want to recap it today because I really want to take this into something.

There's a statement made here that has to do with birthright and has to do with something we need to be aware of today. Let's go to Genesis 25. I mean, none of us when we were reached a certain age, our fathers laid hands on us and said, you are now, you know, the ruler of my domain. Like I tell my son, when I go, you get all 30 of my Bibles.

And that's, that's about it. Okay, there's not going to be a lot here, but that's what you get. Genesis 25. And let's start in verse, we're going to let it go here. Genesis 25, 20, don't want to get too much of this, 21. Now Isaac pleaded with the Lord for his wife because she was barren. And the Lord granted his plea and Rebekah his wife conceived. But the children struggled together with better. And she said, it is if all is well, why am I like this? So she went to inquire of the Lord. Now there's a couple of important things here. We have a miracle taking place and both the husband and wife are freely allowed to go to the Lord here.

Okay. They go to God. Rebekah doesn't go to God through her husband. She's allowed to go herself. And in this case God answers her. So, you know, sometimes we have this viewpoint where the women were all held down. Rebekah goes to God, ask a question. Now you know, this would be very difficult because she's having, I mean, she's literally having inside two fetuses fighting each other inside.

I mean, that's going to be real uncomfortable. I have no idea. I am so glad I'm a man. I'm glad I'll never get pregnant. But that has to be real uncomfortable. And she says something's wrong. I'm going to lose this baby. So she goes to God. And here's what God says to her. Two nations are in your womb.

He says there's two groups of people going to come out of your womb. Two important groups of people. Two people shall be separated from your body. One people shall be the stronger than the other. And the older shall serve the younger. Now that's the opposite of how a birthright is done. But he says, look, I know it's going to happen with these two men, and the older is not going to be the man to lead the tribe.

So he's not going to get the birthright. He's going to actually serve the younger. But there are going to be two groups of people, two powerful groups of people. So they're both going to get a blessing. But it's going to be the opposite of what's normal. And God has determined that. So when her days were fulfilled for her to give birth, indeed there were twins in her womb.

And the first one came out red. He was like a hairy garban all over. I mean, that's like, you know, he's a werewolf or something. I don't know. That's going to be sort of a shock. Maybe it's a little exaggeration. I don't know. First they gave him red or hairy, not H-A-R-R-Y.

He's hairy. This guy's hairy. Afterward his brother came out, and his hand took hold of Esau's heel. So his name was called Jacob or Sir Planter. In other words, I'm coming after you. And he grabs hold of his heel and he comes out. Like, where are you going? I haven't finished beating you up. You know? So he's just falling right out of the womb.

Isaac was 60 years old when he bore them. So the boys grew nice. Esau was a skillful hunter, a man of the field. But Jacob was a mild man, dwelling in tents. In other words, Jacob was with the tribe all the time, taking care of the animals, taking care of people. Esau was a man's man. He's out there hunting. He's out there protecting them. He's out there doing those kinds of things. Very independent. So Esau's a very independent man living an independent lifestyle as he grows up.

Jacob, on the other hand, is directly in the middle of the tribe all the time. And he's not, he doesn't have the same nature that Esau has as just this sort of very masculine, out hunting and fighting and doing these kinds of things. And Isaac loved Esau because he ate of his game and Rebecca loved Jacob.

Now we have a problem here. This is a whole story in itself. We won't go through today, but you have a problem in this family that exists till today because Mom favored one and Dad favored the other. And to this day, the descendants of Esau, which are, a lot of them are what we call the Palestinians, and the Jews, the descendants of Jacob, they still fight over what? It's mine. It's mine.

It's mine. It's mine. What are they fighting over? They're all fighting over this landslide. So be careful about favoritism with children in a family. You can plant seeds that go on for generations. Now Jacob cooked a stew. So what happens is, of course, well, let's go to this first because this is really important here. Now Jacob cooked a stew and Esau came in from the field and he was weary. Now he's been out hunting. He's exhausted. You know, maybe out for days, very little sleep, maybe ran out of food, didn't get, maybe didn't get a kill. So he wasn't able to eat what he, what he, you know, went out to kill to bring into the tribe.

Now he's doing a tribe a great deal of good. He's bringing food to the tribe. Of course, they, they plant things and even in novents would stay in someplace long enough to plant food. They trade for food and they raise swats. And so, they're considered probably quite a wealthy, nomadic tribe at the time. And he's out hunting and he comes in and he's exhausted and he's hungry.

He's probably hasn't eaten for days, but he still had to walk or ride, ride a donkey or whatever, walk, probably walking if he's out hunting for long periods of time, even though he's hungry. So if you've ever really been exhausted and really, really hungry, you know where he is. He literally is weak from not eating.

And Esau said to Jacob, please feed me with that, some of that red stew for I am weary. Therefore, his name became Eda, which is red. He's hairy and now he's red. So, can you get him, have you ever met somebody with red hair? People say, hey, red. They get a nickname of red. So, he became known as red. First of all, it's hairy and that's kind of strange. Hey, hairy! Of course, he's really hairy. So, it doesn't seem that strange. But Jacob said, sell me your birthright as of this day.

Now, this is part of the problem Jacob has. Jacob has some problems that would cause him to have some very unhappy times in his life because he didn't trust in God all the time.

But Jacob also had qualities where God said, before they were born, he said, this man will take care of the tribe, this man won't. So, I'm going to give it to him. See, he knew that. There was no way for Isaac to know that. Isaac favored the older son.

So, Isaac would have put the older son in charge and said, now he won't work. He won't work. So, I'm going to pick this one. So, Jacob now, he wants this birthright. He wants to be the guy that leads the tribe, who cares for the tribe. Remember, what's he do all the time? He stays among the tents. He stays with the tribe. He knows everybody. He cares for everybody.

He sells out honey. He's not doing his stuff. He's, you know, he probably has a few guys he takes with him sometimes. And they're sort of the stars of the tribe. Okay? They're the stars of the tribe. Everybody looks up to them. And so, he says, well, give me your birthright. I'll sell you some soup for. Okay? How hungry are you? Now, this shows he's a manipulative man, and this will cost him a lot in his lifetime. God doesn't let him get away with this. And Esau said, look, I'm about to die, so what's this birthright to mean? You have to realize the seriousness of that statement.

I'm so hungry, I'm going to die. Now, he could have gone and got food someplace else. He could have prayed to God. He could have said, look, I'm the elder son here. I'm going to get the birthright, and I'm taking the soup from you. Okay? And we've been fighting since a long time, and I beat you every time. So, come on. But you see, it's not that important to me.

We're a nomadic tribe. I hunt. I do all this other stuff, and, you know, taking care of sheep is pretty boring for me. And it's not that important. And right now, he's totally centered in on, right now, I'm hungry. And his whole future, he's willing to give away for right now, because it's not that important. The future doesn't seem that important. I mean, Isaac's alive.

What do I care about birthrights?

The Jacob said, swear to me in this day. He said, you swear to me before God. This is real. You've made this deal. So he swore to him and sold his birthright to Jacob.

And Jacob gave him, he saw bread and stew of lentils that he ate and drank and rose and went his way. Thus, he saw despised his birthright. Now, that's a very important statement. There's a couple little statements we're going to look at as we work through this story and move to the New Testament. What is he despised it? It really wasn't that important. Come on, I'm going to be the chief guy sooner or later. I mean, I could beat Jacob up. So I'll be in charge. Besides, I don't really care about, you know, if you're in charge, all the people come to you with their problems and you got to know all the names of all the little kids in the tribe. I mean, this is a lot of work.

This is what I want to do. I want to do men stuff. He despised it. He just didn't seem that important. It didn't mean he didn't want it. It's important to be, I mean, you're an important person when you're in charge of a tribe, right? How big was this tribe? I don't know, but when Abraham went into Egypt, Pharaoh noticed, oh, there's a nomadic tribe coming in. Which one's that, you know, because they would come in? Well, that's Abraham.

He invited Abraham to meet with him. You've got to be in charge of pretty good group size people here.

And Esau, you know, he liked power, but it just wasn't important to him the responsibility of it. He despised it. So we know what happens. Isaac gets old, he becomes blind. And Rebecca, who loves Jacob, and of course, Isaac says, I'm going to give the birthright to Esau. It's time for the ceremony, the family ceremony. Go get me some nice antelope or some nice beer or whatever, and cook it up the way I like it when you make it with that garlic and those onions and stuff, and bring it to me, and let's eat, and then I will give you the blessing. And Esau goes and does that. It's a great story. I mean, honey, we couldn't make this up.

So Rebecca says, come here, Jacob. Now, don't do the oddest thing, right? The oddest thing is, dad, he sold it to me. He swore before God that it's mine. So therefore, he has no right to it anymore.

Instead, she covers him with, I don't know, animal fur. How hairy is this guy got a bee? You know? Esau smells like, you know, wild game. He's got an animal fur, and he comes in, and Isaac says, you sure don't sound like Esau. Yeah, but eat this. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, nobody else is that hairy. I've touched lots of people since I've been blind, and nobody's that hairy.

So he gives him the blessing. Esau comes in and says, where's my blessing? And he's shocked.

He says, I already gave it to him. I can't go to God and stop what I've done. I've done a ceremony before God. You know, he could have said, he could have said, but, okay, but since it was a trick, the ceremony's undone. But there's more here that we realize. Let's go to Genesis 27.

Verse 30. Now it happened, as soon as Isaac had finished blessing Jacob, and Jacob had scarcely gone out from the presence of Isaac, his father, than Esau, his brother, came in from hunting. He also had made some savory food and brought it to his father and said to his father, let my father rise, eat of his son's game, that your soul may bless me. And his father Isaac said to him, who are you? I know you're not Jacob. You know, Esau almost had a cold, because he noticed, he noticed the voice was different, but, you know, of course, I'm sure Jacob's starting to sound like Esau. I've got a cold today, Dad. You know, I miss the way it is. Esau, because he said, wait, wait, wait, who are you? Then Esau trembled exceedingly and said, who? Where is the one who hunted game and brought it to you? Or brought it to me? I'm sorry, I skipped. He says, when he says, who are you? He says, I am your son, your firstborn Esau. I'm the one here to get blessed. The birthright that he despised all his life, but now he wanted it. There was power, there was prestige. Then Esau trembled exceedingly. Who? Where is the one who hunted game and brought it to me? I ate of it before you came, and I had blessed him, and indeed he shall be blessed.

Because I gave him the blessing, and I can't take it back.

When Esau heard the words of his father, he cried out an exceedingly great and bitter cry, and said to his father, bless me also, O my father, bitter cry. The realization, I have lost something I cannot get back. I have lost it. It's overwhelming to him. He's breaking down, and he's weeping, and he's begging him. He's probably on his knees, begging his blind father, just give me something. Can I receive something from God?

35. And he said, Your brother came with deceit, and has taken away your blessing.

And Esau said, Is he not rightly named Jacob, Sir Planter? You know, the one who's going to grab a hold of me and pull me back. For he has supplanted me these two times. Now, this is very interesting.

36. Isaac must have known he sold the birthright.

He said, He's done this to me twice now. Or at least now maybe he signed out for the first time.

He took away my birthright, and now he has taken my blessing, where they were connected together. He thought he could have one without the other. I'll go get a blessing from my father, and he'll make me king, and he'll keep the birthright, whatever that means.

See, he despised it. He doesn't despise it now. He says, He's taken everything away from me. And he said, Have you not reserved a blessing for me? And he does give him a blessing, that he's going to be a nation. And that he's going to be a fighting nation, always at war.

And that's what the Edomites became. A fighting nation always at war.

Esau now decides. Now, this is very important. He despised his birthright.

He then says, Okay, okay, I do want it.

He goes to get it. He's lost it. Jacob did it. Yes, Jacob did it the wrong way. But it was his anyways. If he'd have been honest, he would have seen it anyways.

It was his! God gave it to him. He said, Your brother isn't going to do well at this. You will.

But because Jacob now had not had the faith to do this right, and he tried to trick his father into doing something God had already given to him, God's going to punish him.

And Esau says, I'm going to kill him.

As soon as Dad dies, you're a dead man.

Well, Rebecca finds out. She goes to Jacob and says, You've got to run away.

I have the birthright. I'm the head of the tribe. I'm the chief of here.

Now you're not, because your brother's going to kill you.

So we have this very interesting section here in Chapter 28. Isaac calls Jacob and blessed him, and charged him and sent him. So he brings it back in. He still blesses him again. Why?

You know what? This is what God wants. You sold your birthright. You tricked him, but he sold it. He should have known better. So he blesses him. And he says, You shall not take a wife of the daughters of Canaan, arise and go to Padan Arim, to the house of Bethuel, your mother's father, and take yourself a wife from there, one of the daughters of Laban, your mother's brother. Now, if you look and read before this, it's Rebecca who goes and convinces Isaac to do this. She comes up with the idea. We kind of send him away. Sending to my family, he'll find a good woman there because we don't want him to marry Canaanite because then we're going to bring this paganism into the worship of God.

I'd say that's a good idea. But here's what he says to him. First three, May God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful and multiply you, that you may be an assembly of peoples, and give you the blessing of Abraham.

He says, this is more than just being the head of a tribe. You're now carrying on God's blessing that would go on for all of history. He says that the promise of Abraham goes on and on and on, and this is now coming through you. And you and your descendants with you, your descendants now, will have the blessing of Abraham. That you may inherit the land in which you are a stranger, which God gave to Abraham. It's interesting whether it's the Israelites or the Eomites, all the descendants of Abraham, or whether it's even Lot, or that family that didn't receive this blessing. Today they are driven by a religion that teaches one thing. It was yours, and they stole it from him. That's the whole point of the Quran. It's yours, you're the descendants of Abraham, and they stole it from him. And you need to go get him back. It's still going on.

But here's a man who despised his birthright.

You and I have a birthright.

You and I are the firstborn among brethren. Jesus is the firstborn of the firstborn, okay? So he receives everything that's God's. And then it says in the resurrection, we are the firstborn. That means you receive a birthright.

You receive a birthright. Now we look at that and say, oh, power and glory and all this stuff. Well, yeah, Esau saw that. Jacob saw the responsibility. It's just Jacob had this one grief flaw that Rebekah had. He was like his mom. We'll just manipulate our way into it. You know? Oh, I've got Isaac under my, you know, wrapped around my figure. We'll figure this out.

And they did. They manipulated their way into something that God said, ah, you're doing us the wrong way. So you are going to go away. And you won't be here just to be with your mother and your father through years of your life. And you won't be with the tribe that I've given you, but you won't have it. You won't have it for a long time because of what you've done. He says, boy, let's go to Hebrews 12. Hebrews 12. So why do I take this time to tell this story?

You and I have been given a birthright.

Hebrews 12 verse 14. This is one long sentence. So I'm going to start. He's saying, well, where's he going with this? But this is one long sentence. So let's look at the concepts in this sentence.

Pursue peace with all people and holiness without which no one will see the Lord. So the whole point here is he's telling these Hebrew Christians or the Jewish Christians, pursue peace and holiness because you're not going to see God without holiness. That's actually a good thing for us to remember. And it's not just something, oh, just receive peace and holiness. It's pursue it. We dedicate our lives to the peace of God and the holiness of God. He says, looking carefully, lest anyone fall short of the grace of God.

One of the themes of the book of Hebrews is it's possible to lose God's grace.

And this is why there's been movements by certain people throughout history to remove Hebrews from the Bible. Because the belief that you can't ever lose God's grace, well, you can. You can refuse it. He says, lest we fall short of it, though the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness springing up cause you trouble. By this, many have become defiled. He's talking about the church. He says, many have become defiled. They were brought into the church and they have become defiled. They're no longer holy because they have this bitterness. Lest there be any fornicator or profane person, so part of this bitterness will produce profanity. You know, just a person who is a lawless person and a person who is sexually immoral. This is part of this. This bitterness creates immoral people, unethical people.

Like Esau. Now here's Esau being used in the New Testament a way that I would never think of using, but then you start looking at that story and you start looking at it through this lens. You say, I see who he was. This is why God would not choose him to be in charge of the tribe in which the promise of Abraham would go through. He would create his own tribe, which still exists today. But they wouldn't be the tribe in which the promise would go through. Lest there be any fornicator or profane person like Esau, who for one morsel of food sold his birthright. He lived in the here and now. I would guess from this, you know, when Esau was out hanging out with the Canaanites, a nice Canaanite babe comes along, it's okay. Right? I mean, why would he said that about it? He's out being the star, the super guy, the great hunter. You know, he's almost like a rock star in his day. And he knows, someday I'll get the tribe, Goss can take it. I'm Jacob, I beat him up a hundred times. All the time we grew up, I beat him up. He can't have it. He's a profane man who is sexually immoral, who sold it because it just didn't mean that much. It was his anyways, so it just didn't mean that much. For you know that afterward, when he wanted to inherit the blessing, he was rejected. For he found no place for repentance, though he sought it diligently with tears. He begged Isaac, let me have it. And Isaac said, you can't. God has given it to another person.

He said, but it's the second time he's done this to me. Now you gave it up the first time.

We gave it up the first time. How could bitterness lead to you giving up your birthright? That's the root of bitterness. You know, we can say, well, okay, immoral people, but notice this immorality. This was a bitterness. He despised his birthright. It didn't mean anything. And there's a bitterness to this man. And in this bitterness, it's interesting because when you look at the history of the Edomites, there are bitter people. I don't mean every individual. You can't do that with people, but I mean there's a lot of bitterness in their culture. It's been around for a long time. They're warrior people. Verse 28 of this same chapter. Now this is the message to us. Now this is the same context here of Esau and all the things he's talking about in chapter 12. Actually, it goes back to chapter 11. But he says, therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom, you have an inheritance. The kingdom of God is your inheritance if you're a Christian. Well, that's pretty arrogant to say that. That's what this is. Therefore, we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken. Let us have grace by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. Now this is what we have to do because we are receiving the kingdom. We have received it. Yeah, we're receiving it. What will we sell our inheritance for? That's it. I gave a sermon at the feast. How cheaply will you sell the kingdom of God? How cheaply do we sell this?

But what I want to talk about today is the root of bitterness. How does that tie in with all this?

His root of bitterness drove him to despise what God had given to him. It didn't mean that much to him. He felt entitled to it. And in that entitlement, he could be profaned. He could be sexually immoral. He could do all kinds of things. And so what? I'm entitled to this.

And he had a sense of entitlement that led him to a root of bitterness, and he really became a bitter man when he realized, I've lost it.

Now he actually, during his lifetime, he became the leader of a band of violent men. He had his own tribe, and you didn't want to mess with them. They seemed to have probably been raiders, nomadic tribes that raided. What is a root of bitterness? And how can you develop a root of bitterness like Esau? When you look at a tree, we went through the fruits of the spirit last year and the beginning of this year. And how we talked about how the leaves could survive with all kinds of damage. Limbs could survive without, you know, you could chop a limb off a tree, it could be hit by lightning. And 30 years later, you can see where the, you know, the lightning hit it, and it's still surviving. But you destroyed the root system, and a tree cannot survive. So this is a root of bitterness, because what's at the root of a tree is what is brought up into the entire tree. So we showed how the spirit of God is compared to water that goes into a tree and brings this nourishment or these fruits into the tree. It's from the spirit of God.

What happens if our roots become bitterness? So what is bitterness? Bitterness is a distressed state of mind. It's, you're in a distressed, you're in emotional distress, and it's based in unresolved anger. He's so as a fighter, he got angry a lot. I would assume that. I mean, if you fight all the time, you're probably angry all the time, right? It's an emotional distress based in unresolved anger. There's something that's not resolved in you, and so you're angry. And it can happen in any area of life.

Any area of life, you can begin to have a root of bitterness. Let's take a husband and wife.

Husband and wife just can't seem to solve their problems. They argue a lot. They can't see things the same. They're both busy, and they drift and drift apart. And so being in conflict becomes the normal way of living, and they don't like it. They're uncomfortable, and nothing gets resolved.

So let's just say in this case, because everybody can handle this differently. We're all human beings. It's interesting to watch how we all handle things differently, but the man withdraws.

He just says, that's it. So he works all the time. He just kind of draws. Now, the woman is so frustrated because we can't fix anything. He won't even talk to me. He works all the time, or he comes home, and when he is home, he watches television.

And so she gets more and more frustrated, more and more frustrated, more and more upset, and she gets angry. Now, he has given up his anger by simply ignoring her. Now, that's a very bad way to have a relationship. You'll destroy a relationship doing it.

But she's now mad because he's not even angry.

He's gotten to the place he's withdrawn so much he's not even angry anymore.

He didn't even answer. She gets mad because he doesn't even fight.

Okay, so now what happens? This person is withdrawn. I made this up because I wrote, I did this sermon probably, the first time I did this sermon was probably 20 years ago. I redid it, but I used the same example because I thought, huh, yeah, we all still live these things over and over again. So what happened? And I could reverse this. I could have made this the woman doing something, and the man becoming, I'll get to men. We just made these up. Well, we all become bitter over different things. But this bitterness starts to set in because the anger never gets resolved on her part, ever. So pretty soon, this guy is not worth even living with.

Pretty soon, she can't have happiness in anything because this is not bitter. It's going from anger to bitterness. Bitterness won't allow you to have peace in anything. The only time you feel some happiness is when you're running it down.

The only time you feel happiness is when all your friends agree with you, you're married to a jerk you need to leave him. And now you're happy. Can you find me your happiness? For a little bit, right? Then you gotta go home. Now what happens is you know. Now let's think about inheritance. So I'm unhappy in my marriage. This has nothing to do with God. But you know that God says you can only divorce or remarry from very specific instances. But you decide I can divorce him. And here's how it goes.

God loves me. God wants me to be happy. My husband's a jerk and I can never be happy with him. Therefore, God wants me to divorce him and find a good man.

I heard that.

So what biblical reason do you have to divorce your marriage?

My happiness. Show that to me.

Show that to me.

I'll show you where it says how to fix your problems and your husband needs to get chewing out. But that's not... you don't have the right to do this. And once you get bitter enough, you believe you do. You believe you have the right to be motivated by those emotions.

Esau believed he had the right to be motivated by those emotions.

He was bitter. He was angry. It was his. How dare Jacob trick him. I am going to kill my brother.

He didn't say, God, please forgive me for selling my birthright. Notice?

See what I've better to discuss? Is this no, God, forgive me for selling my birthright? It's, I'm killing him. As soon as Dad dies, he's a dead man. I'm sure he wouldn't have told me that.

You're a dead man. As soon as Dad dies.

This is what bitterness does. That unresolved anger rots us out internally.

Okay. You're a man who had great desires for your career. We'll just make up something else.

Great desires for career. I used this example one time.

Minister asked for some notes and I sent it to him. And he wrote back, and he wrote beside this one.

Well, fortunately, none of us has ever felt this way, which I knew what he was saying. I've been there, done that. Okay. Your career is supposed to go through a certain path. You're supposed to do this and do this, and you're going to get up in your company, and you work hard, and you struggle, and you get the better house, and you get a better car. But everybody else seems to get these things. And you reason through this. And you realize something. You start putting down your budget, and you say, you know what?

If I didn't pay, second tithe. Okay, I understand. First tithe goes to God. But second tithe? Come on. That's for me to use at the feast. If I don't pay second tithe, take the last paycheck and live off of it at the feast. Hey, I could get that new car. So you give up second tithe.

Because it's yours, right? It's yours. Because it's better this is now.

I'm missing out on something, and it's somebody's fault. Somebody's keeping me from what I want. And you're not even looking at the inheritance anymore. That inheritance is the way out there when Isaac dies, remember? He's like, ah, as long as there's nothing. Just give me some soup. So, for the new car, that's our bowl of soup. For the new car, we'll give up second tithe. And sometimes we don't get to go to the feast, because we don't have second tithe. But that's okay, because, well, we just do it online. It's not because we were sick or something. It's because, well, we didn't keep our second tithe. What happens is, pretty soon it's like, well, I got the new car. You know what? I could have enough money to make that extra house payment if I didn't pay first tithe. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to stop paying first tithe. But it's only... I figured it out. It's only for 10 years, because I'll have a house paid off in 10 years. God will understand. Besides, this is unfair. You know why it's unfair? I pay tithes. I pay tithes, and, look, we rent this little building with it. You know, shouldn't I get more money for my tithes? And they pay our minister. Shouldn't he work for free? You know, shouldn't he work for free? I mean, all he does is give us a sermon once a week. I've had people say, you know what? You give one sermon a week. You visit a couple people during the week. I figure you're worth about $200 a week. And I'm not paying my tithes anymore. Because, you know, I'm not going to tell them what I do. Okay, you're bitter. I don't say that. But if you believe that before God, do you believe... if you believe you should go tithe, go to a church where you feel like you can tithe. You need to go to a church where you feel like you can tithe. Because if you don't tithe, you're going to be cursed by God. So if you feel that strongly about it, go to a different church. But you better tithe. Because you'll be cursed. It says that. But the bitterness is, I deserve this now. It's in the here and now. And it's this anger, I'm not getting what I should get. And this frustration builds, and frustration builds, and you're just angry. And pretty soon you're angry at people for reasons that don't even make sense.

And pretty soon you start looking around at all these church people, and you say, you know what? I look at all you people, and I should be more successful than you. I'm smarter than you. I bet it goes a lot of different weird directions. Eventually the guy leaves the church, and he's out there, and he's no better off than he was before.

Oh, he might have a little better job, but he's working himself to death. He has no more money than he did before.

Really. It's a funny thing about money.

A lot of times the more money you make, I never forget when I first came into the ministry, and we didn't make much, and I went and I said, down with some money.

And this was a lot of money at the time. They made $50,000 a year.

And they said, can you help me do a budget? And they set out, and they said, there's no way I can live off of $50,000 a year, and there's no way I can tithe off of this, and I just can't live off of this.

And I'm thinking, I'll never make $50,000 a year in my whole life.

I'm looking at that and saying, well, what do you spend this on? What do you spend that on? You know, at the end, he found out he had a whole lot of money, and he was just blowing it.

He was blowing the money. But you see how this bitterness, it's over a job. It's over, I'm, you know, this happens when men reach 50. I haven't achieved what I'm going to achieve, was supposed to achieve in life, and I never will. I'm never going to do certain things.

And this bitterness begins to eat away at him. And you'll see a lot of men in their, you ever see a man in his 50s, successful, everybody likes him, seems like a great guy, one day he leaves his wife and runs off to Tahiti and marries some, you know, or moves in with some 20-year-old. You think, what happened to him? He went crazy. That bitterness filled up.

The builders, bitterness filled up. Before I die, I've got to have a little bit of happiness.

Yeah. That's a sure way to spend the rest of your life in living hell, right? But no, this is what I'm going to do. I'm going to go, I'm going to go do this and I'll be happy. And it's because there's a root of bitterness in there. I can't accept the reality of life, and I can't be happy unless I get this, this, and this. Now, here's another example, where bitterness is very interesting. It happens inside a church congregation where two people in a congregation have an argument, and they can't get along.

And they go to the minister, and the minister says something like, okay, let's sit down. Here's how you have to get along. And what they both want is the minister to say, no, we want you to tell the other person they're wrong, and they've been mean to me, and they need to be kicked out of the church. And you sit and say, no, you just need to get along, and here's how you do it. Here's the principles. But what about that person being wrong, and they're doing this? And the answer is, well, yeah. Okay, you're both right. You're both wrong here. Let's look at the principles. Let's deal with this.

What happens is, say one of the persons gets bitter, and especially if someone is actually taking advantage of you. I mean, sometimes people in the church take advantage of each other.

You know why? You see, business deals between people in the church, and sometimes they go bad, and the reason why is, well, we're in the church, we should understand. Right? So it's like, well, he's in the church. He's going to understand why I'm not going to show up at work today.

He doesn't understand. It doesn't matter whether he's in the church or you're...

No, you have a contract. You're supposed to show up at work today. Or the opposite is, oh, he's in the church. You'll understand. I'll ask him to work a couple extra hours, and we'll pay him anymore. I've seen that happen, too. He says, no, you have a contract with him. It's an agreement, and you pay that person what? Well, there's a number of condemnations in the New Testament for mistreating employees. It's a very serious issue. And there's a number of condemnations for mistreating employers in the Scripture. But we'll do that in the church, and we'll cause bitterness so someone will get mad. Remember, bitterness is in unresolved anger, and it just builds and builds. And so what happens is, pretty soon, you can't stand that guy because he did this. And the minister wouldn't fix it, so you can't stand the minister. Then you talk to some of the other men in the church, and they say, you guys got to fix this, but you can't stand them.

And then you talk to somebody who says, you know, I didn't realize he was such a jerk, and now he's your friend. And pretty soon the congregation has two kinds of people. The people that are on your side and hate this guy, and the people on this side that you know are unrighteous, right? So it's the good against the evil. And you can actually have two groups of people believe that. All these people are evil, and all these people are evil, and that's bitterness, and that is not the spirit of God. That's bitterness. Because the funny thing about bitterness is you want to make everybody else bitter around you. The more bitter you are, the more you can't stay unhappy people.

Because they're not sharing in your bitterness, right? In your unresolved anger.

How do we deal with this? Because once we let this into the roots, it begins to affect all other parts of our... you know, if you have real troubles at work, and you're bitter about it, or if you have some troubles at home, and you're bitter about it, you ever notice how that affects everything?

You almost can't enjoy anything! Because it's... it's coming up through the root system. That's just an effective part of your life. Okay. Some symptoms of bitterness and how to deal with it. One, a bitter person is totally convinced that their emotional state is okay. You know, if you... no one comes and says, I'm bitter, and I need to ask God to help me God to be bitter. People come and say, I'm really mad and upset, and this person needs fixed. Or the situation needs fixed. Or this needs to be fixed, or my boss needs to fix, or my job needs to be fixed. But you know what I mean? And we're just bitter! And we want the thing fixed, and then I won't be angry anymore. If you can fix that, I won't be angry anymore. Well, you know, here's the... here's the reality. Much of life doesn't get fixed. Except you. We fix ourselves. This experiment talks about how to do the sermon. You can't fix all this! You can't let God fix you.

But wait a minute. If you fix my mom... nope, get fixed yourself. No, just fix her!

You can't fix all this!

What you can do is let God help you in here with who you are.

This peace with God changes everything. And we give up betterness. It's not worth hating somebody. It's just not worth it.

So we have to understand that. Here's one of the hardest things we have to do as human beings. Jeremiah 17. Jeremiah 17. This... this is so interesting. This is so incredibly hard for all of us. Men, women, it doesn't matter what your age is. I mean, this is for everybody. Verse 9.

Satan is deceitful above all things. You know, that's not what it says, is it?

The heart.

Emotions were developed in us by God. And you think about how much we damage our lives with our own emotions. We damage our lives with our own emotions.

The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it?

We are... it's amazing about human beings with corrupt human nature. We're self-destructive because what we think will make us happy much of the time does not.

And yet we feel angrily bitter against what will make us happy, right?

We actually have an angry bitterness against what will make us happy because that's not what I want.

I remember doing some counseling years and years ago, and I said to the woman, why is it that every man you marry is... I said, there's something about you. You need to find what drives you to marry man after man after man, divorce after divorce after divorce, and they're all lousy men. They're all terrible men. Every one of them.

Violent and unfaithful and mean. Why?

And she gave a very interesting answer. She said, well, I don't trust that God will bring a man into my life. What if he said, don't get married? So I said, you don't pray for a mate? She said, because what if he says, no, you don't get one? I said, so you've decided now that three or four horrible marriages. How many times you've got to get put in the hospital? Yeah, but what if he says, no? I said, but what if he says, yes? What if he says, yes? She was so self-destructive, but why was it? Emotionally, what if God says, no? I mean, I understand that. I mean, that's not, I understand it, but it's after 20 years of this, there's a point you've got to say, it doesn't work. Your heart is deceiving you here. Step back from this. Get right with God. Let's see what God wants, because I do know one thing. I don't know what if God was to bring a man to your life, but he doesn't want you to be destroyed like this. He doesn't want you to be unhappy. He doesn't want you to be beat. He doesn't want you to be betrayed. He doesn't want any of this to happen to you. That's the one thing I can tell you is true. Absolutely true. He doesn't want any of this for you. But she was afraid. We have to watch our own hearts, our emotions.

We have to constantly step. When you are overly emotional about anything, this is hard. You see, well, it's hard for women to start from the end, too. You've got to step back and say, is this what is wise? Is this what God wants? Is this where his Spirit would lead me?

You have to step back, and you have to ask yourself that.

Because many times our heart is just absolutely deceitful. Why? It's selfish. It's selfish. That's why. First, it says, I, the Lord, search the heart. I test the mind, even to give every man according to his ways and according to the fruit of his doings. He says, God says, look, you have to learn this because I'm going to watch your mind and how you think and how you feel, and I'm going to work with that.

So we have to realize that the first thing about bitterness is don't trust your own emotions. That's the whole problem with modern Christianity. It says, just trust your heart. Isn't that funny? The Bible says, don't do that.

How many times in my life I've been angry and had to go ask God, is this legitimate anger and receive basically an answer for the Scripture? No, it's not. Give this up.

And sometimes the answer is yes, but you're going to have to learn to deal with it because you don't have the right to act on that anger in certain ways. Right? I mean, we don't even have the right to act on anger in certain ways. We're not allowed to go around burning our neighbor's towels down. Right? It doesn't matter if they were wrong. So, okay, this is legitimate anger.

Now, what are you going to do with it? And sometimes the answer is, through the Bible, through the Scripture, this is not legitimate anger. You have to let this go. You have to forgive this person. Or you have to say, ah, this is just my own pride. Okay? It's just my pride here.

This self-examination process is so hard, but we'll never be happy without it, because our own heart will lead us to unhappiness.

That's what happens. Our own emotions lead us to unhappiness.

The second point about bitterness is that bitterness extends out beyond the issues that made us bitter, so it actually begins to damage all the relationships in our lives.

Because we become obsessed with whatever made us angry.

We can't get over it. We can't let it go. We can't forget it. And we've become obsessed with it, so that you may forget it for a little bit. You may watch a movie and forget it.

When it was done, it's back.

This is what's so hard for people who have been really damaged in life through abuse as a child or abuse because of husband abuse. It's so hard to work through that because it's a legitimate anger, but you have to learn not to be obsessed by it or the anger destroys you.

And it doesn't help when the person who did it to you doesn't do anything.

You know, they don't care they did it to you. That's what's really hard.

When you've been hurt and the other person doesn't care, and you can let that person destroy you, or you can let go of the bitterness.

And it's not easy, and it takes time, and we have to grow through it. But if we don't, one person's damage of us will cause us to damage all other relationships.

In premarital counseling sometimes, you know, okay, you had a previous relationship, you remember we were married or something, you say, okay, that was a bad relationship. Are you carrying that into here? And I'll make him talk about it.

And I'll make him talk about it.

Because they're shocked when the other person says, well, yes, they do.

You know, he doesn't even realize he's doing it. He's doing this. She doesn't even realize she's doing it. She's doing this.

They're bringing damage from another relationship into that relationship.

And you got to let that go so that this relationship could be happy.

This is hard stuff. It's easier to talk about. Don't worship Mary, okay? That's easier to deal with than this.

The third point is that if we're not careful, then, in bitterness, we take a right upon ourselves we don't have. And that is, we're going to make the other person pay no matter what. They are going to pay for this. And so we seek vengeance. There's a difference between justice and vengeance. They somewhat seem the same.

I mean, vengeance is the person's punished. I mean, justice. But vengeance isn't according to the law. Vengeance is, I'm going to punish according to my emotions.

Romans 12.

Romans 12.

Verse 16.

Be of the same mind, he's talking to the church, towards one another. Do not set your mind on high things, but associate with the humble. Do not be wise in your own opinion. Once again, he's saying it's the same thing sort of that we were reading in Jeremiah. You can't always trust yourself.

Sometimes you do, because you know it's in accordance with truth. But I don't know about you, I've second-guessed myself a lot until I find the truth. Until I find, okay, this is what I can, yes, now I don't second-guess myself. This is it. This is truth. I know it.

But we have to think about our own opinions sometimes. Repain no one evil for evil, having regard for good things in the sight of all men. If it is possible, which it not always is, as much as depends on you, live peaceably with all men. Now, some people won't let you live peaceably with them. They're just... They just won't, because you know why usually they're bitter.

They've unresolved anger, and they just eat away at them, and they're bitter people, and you can't live peaceably with the bitter people, because they're angry all the time.

So he says, but as much as you can. He's not talking about just in the church. He's talking with your neighbors. We should be known as people they're starting to get along with.

Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but rather give place to wrath, for it is written, vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord. Therefore, if your enemy is hungry, feed him, if he is thirsty, give him a drink. For doing so you will be calls of fire on his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

He says, do what's good, and let God fix the situation. Now, there is law. You know, if your neighbor steals from you, it's okay to go turn them into the law.

And it's not okay to get a shotgun and go shoot him.

That's vengeance. You understand the difference?

It's okay to call the police and say, he stole from me. You know, he took my car and sent it to his driveway. He won't give it to him back. But you can't go get a shotgun and shoot him. That's vengeance. Those are two different things. I saw something as a child that it was probably 30 years later I saw again because I kept searching for it. As a little child, remember when Gunsmoke was on? Something old enough to remember that. I saw a Gunsmoke episode, and it just had a huge impact on me as a little kid. And 30 years later, I was going across the dialogue. I looked at the news or something. It was like a Gunsmoke one, and I stopped for a second. And it was like, that's the episode. So I watched it. And my memory was good.

But it's about a man who was in a gunfight with another man. And the man shot him, and he was wounded. And the other man got, I think, 15 years in prison for it. So this man, he has a lip, he's in pain all the time. He takes his son, because he has a son at the time, and he teaches him how to be a gunfighter. Because when he gets out of jail, his son's going to gun him down.

So he teaches his son how to be a gunfighter, and his son actually becomes a gunfighter.

And his son doesn't have the nature to his want to do this. And yet he can walk through town, and someone would say, hey, you're so-and-so. And, yeah, you know, how fast are you? I'm not fast at all. Please don't, you know. And then the guy would draw, and he'd have to shoot him. He would beg people, just leave me alone. I just can't train him. He trained him. He trained him.

And now he's going to get his vengeance. And the dramatic scene is, they're standing there, the train's coming. The guy's out of jail, and the train's coming. He's got his son standing there, you know, and how they're all just waiting for the gunfight. And he's standing off on the side, because he's going to call the guy out, and then have him face his son. And everybody gets off the train. Everybody gets off the train. Finally, this old guy gets off the train. He's all crippled up. He's shuffling along. He says, hey, are you Perry something, whatever the guy's name was? He goes, yeah. He said, I'm so-and-so, and you owe me. And the old man says, I'm sorry, I got sick. I've been in jail for 15 years. I don't remember anything. And he says, you have to. You shot me. And he says, I'm sorry. I guess I was a pretty bad man from what they told me.

And he's standing there, and he's looking at his son, and he says, shoot him! And this thing goes, why? And he just wasted 15 years of his life. Bitter. I'm going to solve this. And he had such a good peck of me as a kid. When I saw it again, I thought, no wonder it did as a little kid. There's a point here. And of course, Matt Dillon, right at the last moment, he comes riding up because he's supposed to stop this because he says, this isn't the law. You can't do this. You can't shoot this man. It's not the law. He spent 15 years paying for his crime. Unfortunately, you suffer.

And the son says, I won't shoot him. And in the end, the son, the father basically looks at the son and says, I've wasted your life, haven't I? And the son gets to take off the guns. I'm not a gunfire. I don't like killing people. I don't want to do this. And so he throws the guns away. And, you know, they sort of light off into the sunset. But it was an interesting point about vengeance. He wasted his life and his son's life. When you were driven by unresolved anger, you will waste the lives of the people you love. You will waste your life and the lives of the people you love. One last question. We're right on time, so I'm going to go just a few, just a couple minutes over. Ephesians 4. Ephesians 4 tells us a little bit about how to deal with bitterness, this unresolved anger.

Verse 26 says, Be angry and do not sin. Not all anger is wrong. Not all anger is wrong.

You know, you go to work and your boss chews you out. It's not fair. You feel angry.

Pushing your boss is not good. Feeling angry is normal. Okay, this is the point here.

So we can't let anger turn into sin. That means we have to control it. Right? We have to control it. We have to control it. I remember one time as a kid, you know, I had this little short temper. It would explode, but it went away. And one time, another kid as a joke, you know, 15-year-olds are, he came up and he puts a bubble gum in my hair. And we were friends. He thought this was funny.

And I was angry, and using anger went away, but it did not. He ran in, you know, and I can just remember standing there and getting angrier and angrier until, I mean, I have this vivid, I'm walking down the hallway, and this is going to be it. You know, this is our gunfight.

I walked into the, here it is, everybody's eating lunch, you know what I mean?

I walked up to the table and I looked at him and I said, stand up, and he did it. And I knocked him out. And then thought, why would you want to dump that? And he hit me. This was not a good way to resolve conflict, okay? This is my friend, knocked out on the floor, okay? I usually didn't do that. That's why it was so strange. Usually, anger came and went. But man, this got, it got stewed in there, and it wasn't coming out until I punched him, and I did.

Now, we became friends again. That's what 15-year-old boys do. We, okay, it's over with. A couple days later, we forgot it. You know, I got my hair cut out and had a weird haircut, and he's jauntin' bed okay. We were fine. Be angry and sit not, okay? Do not let the sun go down in your wrath. In other words, don't stew. Unresolved anger turns into what? What does that turn into?

Betterness. That's right. Let him, uh, nor give place to the devil. Once you let unresolved anger become bitterness, Satan is the most bitter being in the universe, and he will feed that, and feed that, and feed that, because that's how he feels. He likes other bitter beings around him, because that's how he is, and he will make us better. It talks to the read of the Bible.

It talks to the read of the rest of this. It's very interesting, because it says, it talks about letting corrupt communication come out of your mouth. We keep going to slander people, because we're angry with them. We can't just go around tearing down other people, because we're angry with them. Verse 30 says, do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. And then notice 31, let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, clamor, just, you know, you just can't stop it. You're just upset, and you just got to tell people about it, and you just bump up bump you're just talking all the time. He says, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice, because at the heart of bitterness, because malice, I want to hurt you, and I will damage you in any way I can. I'll damage you in any way I can. And be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God and Christ forgave you. There, verse 32, is how we deal with bitterness. Some people won't accept your forgiveness, and you can't have a relationship with them. Remember, forgiveness and reconciliation are two different things. You forgive somebody, you know what you say to them, you can't control me anymore. I have no bitterness. Think about if God was bitter. We would be controlling him all the time. He'd be throwing temper tantrums. He'd be depressed.

God doesn't let us control him. There's no bitterness in him.

There's a huge difference when he says, I'm angry, or I'm bitter. He never says, I'm bitter. Those are that he's not. Bitterness is, I forgive you, but there is justice. But if you repent, we can have a relationship.

So we have to forgive for no other reason, so you and I don't become bitter.

But I'm bitter. That doesn't mean you still don't feel angry sometimes. You know, you hurt me, and you've never said you were sorry, but that's okay. I forget it. You let it go. I let it go.

Because I'm not going to be bitter. I'm not going to be, and I'm not, you know what we do? We let people control us. We let other people control us because we're bitter about them. I haven't seen that person in 10 years, but I hope they deserve. And then you can't sleep all night. Your stomach's upset. Right? Why? Because I hope they got what they deserved.

Then you find the next day they died. Are you happy now?

Actually, I've talked to people who the person died, and they're even more bitter.

I didn't get to make them say they're sorry.

And they're even more bitter because the person died.

The heart is a sequel, above all things. I want this resolution that doesn't happen.

Think of Esau. He was so in the moment that what happened when it didn't work out, I'll kill him. I'll fix this. I want my revenge. Unfortunately, God softened him, but it took years. Jacob comes back and says, okay, I'm not going to kill you.

I didn't want to be the head of the tribe anyways.

I'm much better at raiding and hunting and, you know, doing his other stuff.

And I have my own tribe. God has given you a birthright.

Much greater than he offered Esau. But he do? Well, before Esau was born, he looked at him and said, that he won't work. He didn't say, I'm going to put him in a fire. He said, he won't work as the guy in charge of the tribe. It won't do what I want it to do. I'm going to have to work with Jacob. Oh, man, is this going to be hard. You know, he didn't say Jacob's great to work with. He said, this kid's going to be so manipulative that mom is even worse.

And he's going to be a momma's boy. Right?

So, working with Jacob wasn't easy. Look what God did to Jacob. Read the story.

But when Esau knew it, God's given you this chance. But every one of us, he says, you can do it.

We're here because we can. With his spirit, you and I can't receive the inheritance.

We just have to be very careful that we don't take it so lightly, that we become like Esau. We sell it for a little bowl of beans.