The Blight of Bitterness

By Douglas Hammett

Bitterness destroys relationships. It happens in churches. It happens in families, between parents and children, and between brothers and sisters. It happens in schools between students and teachers. It happens on jobs, between employers and employees. If you have been alive very long, you have experienced bitterness. This book deals with what bitterness is, where bitterness comes from, how to identify it in your life, how to get rid of it, and how to stop bitterness before it gets rooted in your life. There are also four chapters on dealing with bitterness in the life of your children, how to help them get victory over bitterness, and how to keep from causing bitterness in your children. If you are interested in knowing God's answer on how to deal with the hurts in your life, this book is for you!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Douglas Hammett
• Release date: Jun 8, 2011
• ISBN: 9780866452618

Douglas Hammett

Douglas Hammett has been in the gospel ministry for almost 40 years. He has been involved in many areas of ministry, often covering several areas at the same time. Those areas include Pastor, Church Planter, Staff Evangelist, College Professor and President, Author, Life/Ministry Coach, and Missionary. He has traveled extensively on mission trips around the world as well as preaching for Bible, Missions and Revival Conferences. He has a heart for God's people and desires especially to help preachers advance their ministry for Christ whether in the United States, or on the foreign field. He served for over 20 years as Senior Pastor of the Lehigh Valley Baptist Church in Emmaus, PA. Then in October, 2010, he moved to Botswana, Africa to serve there as a missionary. Pastor Hammett and his wife, Beverly, have 4 children and 7 grandchildren.

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The Blight of Bitterness

By Douglas Hammett

Copyright 2011 Douglas Hammett

Smashwords Edition

All scripture quotations are from the Holy Bible, King James Version.

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Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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Table of Contents

Chapter One: The Candidates for the Blight of Bitterness

Chapter Two: The Creeping Blight of Bitterness

Chapter Three: Clues Identifying the Blight of Bitterness

Chapter Four: The Character that Breeds the Blight of Bitterness

Chapter Five: The Cure for the Blight of Bitterness, Part One

Chapter Six: The Cure for the Blight of Bitterness, Part Two

Chapter Seven: The Confusion Brought by the Blight of Bitterness

Chapter Eight: Children Affected by the Blight of Bitterness, Part One

Chapter Nine: Children Affected by the Blight of Bitterness, Part Two

Chapter Ten: Children Affected by the Blight of Bitterness, Part Three

Chapter Eleven: Children Affected by the Blight of Bitterness, Part Four

About the Author

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Chapter One

Candidates for the Blight of Bitterness

In this book we are going to examine the sin of bitterness. This sin is probably the least recognized sin in the Christian life. It is a sin that is often glossed over or redefined with other words. Therefore it is also a very misunderstood sin. Sadly, it is a sin committed often among Christians. Let’s begin by looking at Ephesians 4:30-32.

"And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption. Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you."

Definition of Bitterness

If I would ask you to define bitterness, you could probably somewhat define it. However, if I asked you to identify it, you would do a much better job identifying it in someone else’s life than you could in your own. Bitterness has that ability to look very bad on someone else. You can spot it very quickly because it shows up on the outside. It is easily seen by others. But when it comes to your own personal life, it is much harder to identify bitterness.

So what is bitterness? How do we define it? Bitterness is the result of your reaction to the sin of another person. It is resentment that builds up in your heart against that person. If someone does something bad against you—like telling a lie about you, or saying something unkind, or some physical action—the natural reaction is to be upset with them, to have bitterness against them. Bitterness can also develop if someone does something against someone who is close to you. This kind of bitterness is usually more deeply seated and harder to deal with than bitterness against someone who has wronged you.

Why is bitterness hard to see in our own personal life? The reason is because when it comes into our life, we think that it is not really bitterness. It is just that someone else has done us wrong. It is not that we are mad at the person. It is just that we are upset with their sin. Oh, we have good ways of redefining our bitterness, and reasons why we think it can’t really be bitterness and sin in our life.

The difference between the sin of bitterness and other sins is the guilt factor. If you as a Christian tell a lie, the Holy Spirit will bring about conviction in your heart, along with a feeling or sense of guilt. But if someone wrongs you and you allow bitterness to come into your life, you feel justified. Therefore you will not recognize bitterness as a sin, or admit that it is a problem in your life. You might say, I have the right to be upset with them. Do you know what they said? Do you know what they did? Bitterness is quick to reach into the soul of a person. It is easily hidden from our own eyes, but so hard to hide from the eyes of others.

Who Bitterness Affects

Bitterness is a sin which can affect the saint as well as the sinner. Just because you are saved does not mean that bitterness cannot happen in your life. In fact, bitterness is such a strange blight in a Christian’s life, that often it can be in our lives and we don’t even recognize it. When you sit down with someone who has bitterness and ask them, What exactly do you have against that person? they may not be able to tell you what is wrong. They cannot tell you specifically what that other person has done to cause bitterness. If you ask them, What started all this? they cannot even remember.

On the other hand, sometimes they can tell you. They remember exactly what happened, and in great detail, because they have rehearsed it many times in their mind. The sad thing is that often it is something so small and petty, that you sit there, shaking your head, thinking, Why do you want to ruin and destroy your life for such a small matter? But to them, it seems to be such a big matter. They have a distorted perception.

The sin of bitterness is based on the sins of others that have been committed against you, or against someone close to you, whether real or imagined, whether made up or not. When you perceive sins to be there, whether or not they actually are real, in your mind they are real. It doesn’t have to be something big. It can happen because of a very small, minute matter.

People can even get bitter because of what they think someone else said or did. They do not even have the facts straight or know exactly what happened, but they are upset. They say, Well, so and so said that such and such happened, and so it must have been that way. They are sitting back, waiting for that person to come and apologize to them, but the other person doesn’t even know how they feel. It does not make too much sense to sit back and be upset with someone, and never deal with the problem, when in fact that person may not even know what you are thinking. They may not even be guilty, or there may be an explanation behind what they did.

I like to compare bitterness to a thorn. When we lived in Colorado, I had a pair of Hush Puppy shoes that I really liked. In Colorado, they have a plant with a thorn that is called a goat’s head thorn. If you walk where they are, they stick in the bottom of your shoes. You can break off the part that sticks out, but the thorn is still be left in the sole of the shoe. Eventually the thorn would work its way up through the sole and into your foot. That is what happened to my shoes. I kept getting goat’s heads in them. Then one day the thorns worked their way up through the sole and started poking into my foot. I had to throw the shoes away.

If someone gets a sticker, or a thorn, or a splinter of wood in their hand or foot, it needs to be removed. If they do not treat it, eventually it will begin to turn red and swell. If it is left long enough, the whole hand or foot would turn red, become infected and be useless. Eventually, it could even have to be amputated, because of one small, little thorn. Bitterness is like that. It can start small, and you may not even know it is there. But over time it will grow and grow and affect your whole life.

Everywhere you look in our world there are bitter people. There are women who are bitter at their husbands, because their husbands are not the spiritual leader they want them to be. There are men who are bitter at their wives, because their wives will not allow them to serve the Lord the way they want to. There are parents who are bitter with their kids, because their kids will not live right. There are kids who are bitter at their parents because their parents will not help them serve God and encourage them.

There are church members who are bitter at other church members, because of something that was said or done. There are parents who are bitter at school teachers, and kids who are bitter at school teachers, and there are school teachers who are bitter at parents. There are employers bitter at employees and employees bitter at employers. Everywhere you go, you find bitter people.

Who are the candidates for the blight of bitterness? Who can it affect? It can happen to anyone, saved or lost. No person is exempt from the possibility of the sin of bitterness affecting their life. It is one we all must deal with.

Characteristics of Bitterness

Affects Unsaved People

"Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord. Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you and thereby many be defiled. Lest there be any fornicator, or profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright. For ye know how that afterward when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected; for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears." (Hebrews 12:14-17).

I find it quite important that verses 15 and 16 are together. The Lord talks in verse 15 about the root of bitterness. He warns that a root of bitterness will not only destroy your life, but also will destroy those around you. Then in verse 16 He gives us a perfect illustration of that in the life of Esau.

We find the story of Esau and Jacob in Genesis chapters 25-35. Esau was the firstborn and Jacob was the second born. They were twins, but under Old Testament law, the oldest son had the right to the blessing and to the birthright in the family. Therefore it rightfully belonged to Esau. But Jacob was a cheat, a liar, and a deceiver. Jacob bought the birthright from Esau when they were young men for a bowl of soup. Later, with his mother’s help and ingenuity, he stole the blessing from his father while Esau was out hunting.

When Esau came home and found out what his brother had done, Esau flew into a rage. He determined that, no matter what, he was going to get even with his brother. He made a vow, I am going to kill him, as soon as my father dies. Jacob had to literally run for his life, and spent many years away from his family because of that. Esau was bitter because of what Jacob had done to him.

What kind of man was Esau? According to the Bible, he was an unsaved man, a man without God, a man who was bitter, a man who sought for repentance carefully with tears but he did not find it. Why? He was not honestly interested in being right with God. He did not want to have to change his life. He wanted to hang on to his bitterness; therefore he did not find that place of repentance. Esau was a worldly man, and a man who was eaten up with bitterness.

Focuses on the Sin of Others

Bitterness also causes a person to focus on the sins of others. If I saw Esau today, and I asked him, Esau, what was it that caused that bitterness in your life? I have no doubt that Esau would say, It was the selfishness of my brother, Jacob. Was his brother selfish? Absolutely! Was his brother wrong? Absolutely! Did his brother steal from him the blessing and the birthright? Yes, he did. His brother was definitely wrong in what he did. But that is not what caused Esau’s bitterness. It was his reaction to those things. Esau allowed the bitterness to come into his life. It was his choice.

Is there one person in the world who has never been offended by someone else? No, you can look long and hard but you will not find one. Offenses are just a part of life. If you are looking for the absence of problems in your life to keep you from being bitter, I have news for you. You are going to be bitter for the rest of your life. Problems are always going to come your way. But the choice of being bitter or not being bitter is your choice. Esau chose his bitterness and it destroyed his life.

Affects Saved People Also

Bitterness can also affect saved people. We find this in the Bible in the story of Naomi. We know she was a saved person as we look at her complete life story, and the choices that she made. But at one point in her life she was filled with bitterness. Let’s read about it.

"Now it came to pass in the days when the judges ruled that there was a famine in the land. And a certain man of Bethlehem-judah went to sojourn in the country of Moab, he, and his wife, and his two sons. And the name of the man was Elimelech, and the name of his wife Naomi, and the name of his two sons Mahlon and Chilion, Ephrathites of Bethlehem-judah. And they came into the country of Moab, and continued there. And Elimelech Naomi’s husband died; and she was left; and her two sons. And they took them wives of the women of Moab; the name of the one was Orpah, and the name of the other Ruth: and they dwelled there about ten years. And Mahlon and Chilion died also both of them; and the woman was left of her two sons and her husband. Then she arose with her daughters in law, that she might return from the country of Moab: for she had heard in the country of Moab how that the LORD had visited his people in giving them bread." (Ruth 1:1-6)

The land of Israel experienced a great famine. It was God’s judgment upon them because of their sin. Elimelech decided to take his family to the country of Moab to escape the famine.