Doctrine of Bitterness

January 15, 2011

DOCTRINE OF BITTERNESS

1.    Definition.

A.    Apart from the concept of bitterness of taste, the Greek noun PIKRIA always refers to animosity, hostility, jealousy, and is a part of anger and harshness

B.    Bitterness as a noun in the English language means intensity of suffering of mind and body, something that is difficult to bear, something that causes animosity and reaction.

C.    Bitterness is a pin of the grenade causing fragmentation in the believer’s life

D.    Apart from rebound and the other problem solving devices, bitterness results in the fragmented life of hatred, cruelty, antagonism, selfpity, implacability, vindictiveness, revenge motivation, revenge modus operandi, inordinate ambition, and inordinate competition.

E.    Bitterness is inconsistent and irrational.

1)    Bitterness is a major cause of marital problems.

2)    Bitterness is a major cause of problems in any kind of human relationship.

3)    You cannot have a rational relationship with bitter people.

F.    The greatest source of bitterness is arrogance.

G.    Bitterness is asocial wherein asocial means selfish, inconsiderate of others, withdrawn from society, indifferent or adverse to conformity with conventional standards of social behavior.

2.    Causes of Bitterness.

A.    Women are bitter because they do not have what other women have, namely, children.  1 Samuel 1:10

B.    Parents are bitter when their children become fools.

“A foolish son is a grief to his father, and bitterness to her who gave birth to him.” Proverbs 17:25

C.    The administration of the fifth cycle of discipline causes bitterness.

Lamentations 1:4  The roads of Zion are in mourning because no one comes to the appointed feasts. All her gates are desolate; her priests are groaning, her virgins are afflicted, and she herself is bitter. (NAS)

Amos 8:10  “Then I shall turn your festivals into mourning and all your songs into lamentation; and I will bring sackcloth on everyone’s loins and baldness on every head. And I will make it like {a time of} mourning for an only son, and the end of it will be like a bitter day. (NAS)

Ezekiel 27:30  And they will make their voice heard over you and will cry bitterly.  They will cast dust on their heads, they will wallow in ashes. (NAS)

2 Kings 14:26  For the LORD saw the affliction of Israel, {which was} very bitter; for there was neither bond nor free, nor was there any helper for Israel. (NAS)

Isaiah 33:7  Behold, their brave men cry in the streets, the ambassadors of peace weep bitterly. (NAS)

D.    Slavery causes bitterness.  Exodus 1:14

E.    Suffering causes bitterness in people.  Deuteronomy 32:24

E.    Bitterness is a source of ridicule.  Lamentations 3:14

F.    Arrogance is a source of bitterness.  Acts 8:23

G.    Degeneracy is a source of bitterness.  Romans 3:14

H.    Cosmic involvement is a source of bitterness.  Ephesians 4:31

3.    Results of Bitterness.

A.    Even strangers avoid bitter people.  Proverbs 14:10

B.    Bitterness is a sign of the fragmented life.  Jeremiah 2:19

C.    The bitter soul rejects Bible doctrine.  James 3:14

1)    Bitterness and jealousy go together

a.    A bitter person is a jealous person and causes strife

b.    Strife is stress in the soul that has converted the outside pressure of adversity into the inside pressure of stress in the soul.

c.    Bitterness produces scar tissue of the soul.

d.    Bitterness is arrogant and irrational.

2)    When you are bitter, you actually tell yourself lies that are totally against the reality of doctrine-lying against the truth.

3)    You lie against the truth by hearing doctrine taught but never applying it to your sins of bitterness.

D.    Bitterness is blasphemy in the sense of total lack of graceorientation.

1)    In Job 9:17-18, , Job was complaining against God.

17    ”For He bruises me with a tempest, and multiplies my wounds without cause.
18    ”He will not allow me to get my breath, but saturates me with bitterness. (NAS)

2)    ”Why does God let this happen to me” is a question of bitterness.

E.    Bitterness accompanies the sin unto death.  Job 21:25

F.    Bitterness causes stress and complaining. Job 7:11, ” “Therefore, I will not restrain my mouth; I will speak in the stress of my mind, I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.”

1)    Job would not restrain his mouth.

2)    He was going to vilify, slander, malign, judgeand create a public lie.

3)    The Hebrew noun, TSAR, means stress.

4)    Job has converted adversity into stress in the soul through the use of bitterness.

5)    The result is complaining.

a.    The bitter soul is self-destructive.

b.    Bitterness motivates complaining and is self-destructive.

c.    All people who habitually complain are bitter people, and they have no self-esteem.

d.    Most people think they have a right to complain.

e.    Complaining becomes a habit to those who habitually think only of themselves.

6)    If complaining continues long enough, then Job 10:1 occurs:  “I loathe my own life; I will give full vent to my complaint; I will speak in the bitterness of my soul.”

7)    You build up a self-righteous house of cards, and then you hate what you have done; you hate yourself.

G.    Bitterness motivates gossip and the creation of the public lie.

Ps 64:3, “Who have sharpened their tongue like a sword.  They aimed their bitter speech like an arrow.”

H.    The bitter soul is contagious and pollutes others:

Heb 12:15, “See to it that no one comes short of the grace of God and that no root of bitterness springing up cause trouble, and by it many are polluted.”

1)    Bitterness is lack of grace orientation

a.    Grace orientation and bitterness cannot coexist

b.    A bitter soul is a troubled soul, a trouble-maker.

2)    One bitter person contaminates many others in his or her periphery

a.    The contamination occurs when you react to the bitterness of another person.

b.    You can be in the presence of a bitter soul and not react.

c.    When we react to the bitter soul of someone else, we lose spiritual strength.

d.    You are just as bad as the person with bitterness when you react to them.

e.    When we react to a bitter or angry soul, we have failed as much as they have failed.

3)    All bitter believers destroy the environment in which they live.

a.    They react to everything in life.

b.    Bitterness or any other sin is never caused by any genetic weakness.

c.    Sin is caused by personal decision.

d.    Bitter believers destroy their marriage and all other relationships they have.

e.    Bitterness is a fantastic source of sinning that ends in a terrible system of evil.

4)    You are defiled or polluted when you react to the bitterness in your own soul or the bitterness expressed by someone else.

a.    The more things in life to which we react, the more things in life that cause us to react.

b.    The more things that cause us to react, the greater our vulnerability to reaction.

c.    You can react your way into becoming a psychotic or neurotic believer.

d.    Impersonal love is the problem solving device to deal with bitterness and anger in others.

e.    Impersonal love avoids reaction to the bitter or angry soul.

I.    Bitterness is self-induced misery, as well as chain sinning.

a.    Bitterness is misery to others in your periphery.

b.    Bitterness means revenge motivation, but two wrongs never make a right.

c.    You cannot build your happiness on someone else’s unhappiness.

J.    The bitter soul contradicts the protocol plan of God and must be removed from the life of the believer.

Eph 4:31, “All bitterness, both anger and wrath both brawling and slander, must be removed from you, along with every form of malice.”

a.    The sin of anger is a part of bitterness

1)    Bitter people are angry people.

2)    Bitter people react in anger toward those they love.

3)    Wrath is a strong hatred and resentment.

4)    In wrath, you react to someone you hate.

b.    Bitterness produces the slandering of others.

c.    A bitter person is a malicious person.

1)    Bitter people amplify the flaws of others beyond reality.

2)    This practice boomerangs and increases the bitterness in the soul of the already bitter person.

K.    Bitterness destroys personal relationships, especially marital relationships.

“Husbands, love your wives, and stop being bitter against them.”  Colossians 3:19

4.    Recovery from bitterness.

A.    ”Lo, for {my own} welfare I had great bitterness; it is Thou who hast kept my soul from the pit of nothingness, for Thou hast cast all my sins behind Thy back.  Isaiah 38:17 (NAS)

B.    This passage implies that Isaiah confessed his bitterness.

5.    Principles.

A.    If you are bitter, you are going to be vindictive.

B.    If you are vindictive, you are going to be implacable.

1)    Vindictiveness is the reaction sin to implacability.

2)    Implacability is the reaction sin to vindictiveness

3)    Vindictiveness and implacability become a vicious cycle in the stream of consciousness.

C.    The reaction sins are part of the arrogance complex of sins.

D.    Bitterness is arrogant animosity, hatred, anger, cruelty, and harshness, the monstrous combination of arrogance and emotional sinning.

E.    Bitterness produces a hardness or harshness totally incompatible with grace orientation and contradictory to the protocol plan of God.

1)    You cannot be grace oriented when you are bitter, hateful, angry or cruel toward someone.

2)    You have no right to bitterness.

F.    Bitterness assumes that you are right and someone else is wrong.

1)    Therefore, bitterness is divorced from reality.

2)    Beware of always thinking that you are right and others are wrong.

G.    Bitterness refuses to take the responsibility for one’s own sins or failures and attaches the blame to others.

H.    Therefore, bitterness motivates revenge, which is a cop out of vindictiveness, an evasion of one’s responsibility, a compromise with doctrinal principles related to God’s grace

I.    The result of bitterness plus vindictiveness is an arrogant, malicious resentment, an unforgiving mental attitude of resentment, and irreconcilable enmity that makes a person hard, unbending, and locked into self-righteousness.

“And become kind to one another, compassionate, and forgiving each other, just as God also by means of Christ has forgiven you.” Ephesians 4:32

1)    ”Kind” is gracious action toward one another–the interaction of impersonal love among members of the body of Christ as the royal family of God.

2)    ”Compassionate” is the capacity for impersonal love for all mankind based on maximum metabolized doctrine circulating in the soul’s stream of consciousness.

3)    When you forgive someone, you forget it and move on, and you are never motivated by bitterness, implacability, vindictiveness, hatred, or any other reaction to seek revenge.

4)    There is no humility in bitterness.

6.    Summary Principles.

A.    Bitterness is a part of the arrogance complex of sins and overflows into the emotional complex of sins.  This is how bitterness becomes irrational.

B.    Bitterness becomes scar tissue of the soul, blotting out all application of metabolized doctrine in the soul’s stream of consciousness.

C.    Bitterness combines self-induced misery with spreading that misery to others in its periphery.

D.    Bitterness means revenge motivation, and as opportunity presents itself, revenge modus operandi.

E.    Bitterness contradicts the protocol plan of God for the Church.

1)    A wrong thing done in a wrong way is wrong.

2)    A wrong thing done in a right way is wrong.

3)    A right thing done in a wrong way is wrong.

F.    Two wrongs do not make a right.

G.    If you have been truly wronged and react with bitterness, that is two wrongs.

H.    You cannot build your happiness on someone else’s unhappiness.

I.    Bitterness is the inevitable result of converting the outside pressure of adversity into the inside pressure of stress in the soul.

J.    Stress in the soul means old-sin-nature influence, and if unchecked, results in going the whole route of the eight stages of reversionism.