Doesn't hurt anybody else but bitterness can hurt you big time. Let's talk about it on this edition of He-Life. Well, I might kill her, and this is key life. If you are interested in honest and practical Bible teaching for struggling believers, you are at the right place. Here's Steve Brown. Thanks, Mike. If you're just joining us, we're taking a break from our O Testament survey and we've been talking about pain and suffering. Most of this material, although there's quite a bit extra, is from my book when you wrote breaks that you can get at your Christian bookstore or you can call us. And I'm not hustling books. I don't get anything for them. They make ghost-to-key life. But if you'd like to get it, feel free. If you give us a call, we'll tell you we can get it to you or you can get it to the bookstore. But anyway, we're talking because this is a good time to do that. We're talking about how you deal with pain and suffering and the hard times in your life. And if you've been listening, we've talked about the bad news. The first couple of weeks was no fun on this broadcast when we were looking at this subject. It's kind of down. Kind of like men must work and women must leave. And when it's over, you go to sleep. Kind of stuff. But then, because we talk about the bad news, we talk about the good news that God's involved, that he's your partner, that his son has come and suffered as you suffer, that he has a hand that isn't shortened so that he can't save. We talk about how your suffering can be redemptive. And then, we spent the last couple of weeks talking about the means of God's grace. The means of grace being the ways that God gives us so we can get through it all. Now, I want to do something. This may not be a lot of fun, but it's important that we do this because there's such a danger here. I want to talk about bitterness and what that can do to a Christian. In Sarge's play, the flies, and it's an awful play. Don't go out and get it. I mean, well, you'll see why I'm going to read some from it. It deflies an adaptation of a great play. It depicts the conversation between Zeus, the king of the gods, and Arrestes, whom Zeus considers dangerous. And Arrestes' sister pleaded with him not to add blasphemy to his crime. Let me read some of this. Mark her words, young man, Zeus says, and hope no more to win her back by arguments like these. Such language is somewhat new to her ears and somewhat shocking. To my ears too, Arrestes replies, and to my lungs which breathed the words into my tongue which shapes them. In fact, I can hardly understand myself. Only yesterday you were still a veil on my eyes, a clot of wax in my ears. Yesterday, indeed, I had excuse. You were my excuse for being alive. For you had put me in the world to fulfill your purpose. And the world was an old, pander, prading to me about your goodness day and day out. Then you forsook me. Forsook you how? Yesterday I felt at one with nature, this nature of your making. I sang the praises of the good. You're good and wonderful tones and the lavish imitations to lull me into gentleness, the fierce light mellowed, and grew tender in the lover's eyes, and to teach me the forgiveness of offenses the sky grew bland. At a partner's face, obedient to your will, my youth rose up before me, and pleaded with me like a girl who fears her lover will forsake her. It was the last time, the last I saw my youth suddenly. Out of the blue, freedom crashed down me and swept me off my feet. Nature sprang back my youth, went with the wind, and I knew myself alone, utterly alone, in the midst of this well-meaning little universe of yours. I was like a man who lost his shadow. And there was nothing left in heaven, no right or wrong, nor anyone to give me orders. I don't read that very well, if I were an actor I would read it better. But that declaration of autonomy was the last refuge of a bitter pagan. It's an existentialism, and it's not positive. That autonomy didn't lead to peace. Sark was too honest to write his play with a happy ending. Now listen to me, believers don't have the option of autonomy. St. Teresa of Pavela said, once we see the truth, you can't unsee it. Once we see God's sovereignty, it's hard to claim autonomy. Pastor who was quite unbelieving, and his theology had attended a really liberal seminarian, and bought into the party line, the group's philosophy, when he started to pastor his church, he found out that what he had been taught didn't work. Seminaries that robbed their students of the foundational truth of the Christian faith robbed them of the spiritual psychological and motivational reasons for maintaining the institution, the church, they were called to serve. At any rate, when this pastor brought the unbelief he had learned in seminary to the church, he found out what most people with common sense already knew if the Christian faith isn't true. There's no earthly reason to maintain the church built around Christian principles. The pastor found that not only did the congregation need the Christian truths, but that he needed them, too, forgiveness, meaning truth were necessary for his own survival. Over a period of months, I met with this pastor, he began to see Christ as revealed in the Bible as the foundation of the church, and he also began to put into practice what he had learned. He held a revival in his church, he invited a strong Bible believing evangelist to speak, printed up brochures, spread them all over town, or as a discongregation to get involved. I'd like to tell you, because of his faithfulness, thousands were saved and hundreds were healed, but that's not what happened. Nobody came to the services. No, I mean, really nobody came. Not one single person. My friend began to suffer from physical problems, which had emotional roots twice. He was taken to the hospital because he thought he was suffering from a coronary. There was no indication whatsoever of a heart problem. He was about as welcome in his church, as a wet-shaggy dog shaking himself at a mis-America pageant. People in the church wanted the same old ribble, superficial path. When my friend began to teach the Bible, the church didn't like it one bit. One day, my pastor friend came into my study and he was absolutely devastated. As soon as the door was shut, he began to sob. Steve, he said, I'm coming apart. I wish I'd never found the truth. I asked him if he was going to turn away from what he had been learning. And I'll never forget his answer. He said, through his tears, no. I'd like to run away from this whole thing, but I've gone too far to get out. The problem with being a thinking Christian is once you see the truth, you can't get away from it. You can't deny the reality of what you've experienced and understood. You can't deny that God loves you and is ordained the events of your life. It becomes a very perplexing situation. Now, once you listen to Job's words, when he faced this particular dilemma, he'd gone through a wrenching time in his life every rope he ever held had broken. He knew God, the bitterness with which he spoke was cutting. Job nine, 14 through 18. How then can I answer him? And choose my words to reason with him. For though I were righteous, I could not answer him. I would beg mercy of my judge. If I called and he answered me, I would not believe that he was listening to my voice. Or he crushes me with a tempest and multiplies my wounds without cause. He will not allow me to catch my breath, but he fills me with bitterness. Now listen, if you've ever been in Job's place, you know his problem. You're caught with no place to go for recourse. There's no court where you complete your case. There's not anything you can do. You stand with your broken rope and your hand. All you can do is hurt. You'd like to run away to deny the reality you've known, but that simply is not a viable alternative. Dear friend, that's the stuff of which bitterness is made. I suspect that the first thing we ought to do is define the disease. The next week we'll look at the cure. Hebrews 12, 15, says not to allow any root of bitterness, springing up to cause trouble. Now that's referring to Deuteronomy 29, 18, where we read. And you will never find that unless you're a Baptist and went through those sword drills. So that there may not be among you man or woman or family or tribe whose heart turns away today from the Lord our God. To go and serve the gods of these nations and that there may not be among you a root of bitterness or wormwood. Bitterness comes from turning away from the true God, and it has tremendous social implications. Bitterness characterized by feelings of hatred and envy and resentment and cynicism and severity begins when one turns from God. And it results in the disease that infects you incredibly. Now next week, we're in a long time talking about how to avoid bitterness. First I want to talk to those of you whose rope hasn't broken. I would say something by way of preparation to you. Then I want to say some things to those of you whose rope is already broken. To those of you who have never had a rope and broke a broken rope, let me say this. When it happens relinquish it to him, go to him and no matter what happens and no matter how bad it is, keep going to him. When you're bloodied and you're wounded, keep going to him, don't ever run from him. Tell him how you feel, tell him about your anger, but keep going to him. And if you are going through that right now and you're really, really angry, we're going to spend all next week talking about this. Let me just give you a preview and you're really, really angry telling you are. Tell your friends, ask God to help you and then to pray for you because your bitterness will start sounding religious and your witness will lie to the world. You think about that on it. Listen, if you're not a part of key life tapes, let me tell you how you can do that. Let me tell you what it is first. These are not the tapes of the broadcast. You can subscribe to those and if you ask us, we'll tell you how. These are tapes of places where it eats the Bible. Reform Seminary in the Chapel at the Colve, the Billy Graham Training Center, the Lake Barkley Fellowship. In every eight weeks you get a tape as two messages on it as long as supplies last and funds permit. And they're absolutely free and they keep coming as long as you want them to come. If you'd like to be a part of this, give it's free. 1-800 key life 24 hours a day or you can write key life. Post office box 5,000 Madeleine Florida, 32794, or key life Canada. Post office box 3215 Old Cambridge, Ontario. 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