Introduction:

·         Pain has a powerful way of writing on our memories. Pain often causes, thoughts to be ‘set in stone.’ In other words they are hard to forget, deal with and remember.

·         Pain comes in a number of packages

o   Pain comes in physical packages: stubbed toe, bee sting, hammering wrong nail

o   Pain comes in emotional packages: rejection, put downs, sarcasm, divorce,

o   Pain comes traumatic packages: abuse, terror, war, murders, etc.

·         Why do we seem to have clearer memories of pain than we do of joy? People more readily identify with another’s pain than they do another’s joy.    Pain is a great engraver.

·         One product of the prison of pain is bitterness.

a.  The quality or state of being bitter, sharp, in either a literal or figurative sense; resentfulness; severity; keenness of reproach or sarcasm; deep distress, grief, or vexation of mind.

b.  Bitterness is kind of like the pain mentioned above. Once you taste it you never want to go back to it and it seems to last forever in your mouth.

c.    Hebrews 12:14-15 Pursue peace with all people, and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord: 15 looking carefully lest anyone fall short of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble, and by this many become defiled; NKJV

(i)    Gr. Pikros—pointed, sharp, "penetrating" (e.g., a smell), then "painful" (to the feelings), and "bitter" (to the taste). The sense of bitterness yields such transferred senses as "unpleasant," "unexpected," "painful," "severe," "cruel," "stern," "embittered." ‎pikría ‎has the meaning "severity" or "bitterness," (from Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, abridged edition, Copyright © 1985 by William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. All rights reserved.)

(ii) Simon the sorcerer was poisoned by bitterness. Acts 8:23

ii.  If not taken captive by Christ we are taken captive by hell.2 Corinthians 10:4-6 For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, 5 casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, NKJV

a.  To be bitter does not necessarily jeopardize our salvation but it open us up to other serious torments we shall look at.

b.  A person just does not wake up bitter one day. You are not born bitter. Bitterness comes out of life circumstances that are usually brought onto us by others. It is usually associated with some kind of pain that evokes/creates negative feelings in us.

iii. Read Mt 18-Unforgiveness. Bitterness. The man forgiven was a free man but still a prisoner of something that happened to him in life. Typical diseases associated with bitterness: heart disease, aneurysms, varicose veins, stroke. If you are asking me, all of those are tormentors.

a.  Tormentors vs. 34-35—anger/ulcers. Bitterness/

i.     Root of bitterness has many tentacles. It is like a squid that seeks to wrap all its tentacles around the wounded soul.

ii.  When unforgiveness gets a foothold in your life it creates a record of wrongs. 

a.  Unforgiveness—how many of you can still remember a person and feel yuck/I don’t like them etc. 

b.  1 Cor 13:5 says love is not easily angered and keeps no record of wrongs. NIV This record of wrongs is always ready for video and audio replay. The goal is to be able to get to the place where we remember with peace.

c.    Uunforgiveness leads to the second tentacle of resentment.

iii. Resentment—is the record of wrongs that is now being fueled by feelings of holding on to ‘it’ and meditating on ‘it.’ So now you think “up here” head and you feel down here [heart]. This is a spiritual problem not a psychological one. 

a.  Bitterness, unforgiveness and resentment are spiritual problems.

b.  If you don’t deal with these, they will later become the foundation of fear: fear of man, fear of rejection, fear of failure, abandonment, etc. Then we go hide and think about ‘it’.

iv. Retaliation—after resentment gets a foothold, we move next to retaliation. We look at ways to get back/get even.   We play this over and over in the head.  

a.  This is a spirit! Not a psychological disorder. Sure you can medicate it, but if you want to get free you have to deal with the issue—unforgiveness.

b.  Retaliation wants to make the offending person ‘pay’. It is time to get even with them.

v.  Anger—after retaliation—if you don’t deal with ‘it’ you will become angry. 

a.  You will have a real strong spirit of anger.

b.  This can be an external anger that is expressed as such

c.    Or it can be an internalized anger. All is well on the outside but inside you are a magma chamber of boiling lave waiting to erupts.

d.  Let this anger stew long enough and it develops into hatred.

vi. Hatred—After anger set in comes hatred. 

a.  Hatred says we can’t exist together, be in the same room together etc. and it begins to entertain ‘elimination’.

b.  You may call this “preparing to go postal’ or the next step of violence.

vii.           Violence—violence says, before I eliminate you,

a.  You are going to feel my pain. You’re going to hear my voice. You will know it is me.

b.  This is a prison! Free people live in this prison of bitterness. They are captive to it.

c.    Violence then leads to the next step—murder.

viii.         Murder—this is the seventh and final fruit of bitterness. 

a.  It can literally be physical murder/character assignation/or verbal abuse. 

b.  No one sets out to murder! They believe a series of lies. See the pattern? The pattern leads to prison.

(i)    We get hurt/experience pain and our pain starts lying to us. If we believe the lie we progress to the next step. All the time we think we are justified in our actions.

(ii) People who do not know love or truth at a deep level end up hurting others in the end all because they are a prisoner of their pain.

ix.  If you see any one of these seven in a person’s life, look at the ones preceding because they are there. Ie. If you see anger, you will see retaliation, resentment and unforgiveness.

2.  The Great Escape!

A. Jesus is our only hope. He has already busted out. Our only way out is to be found in Christ. If I am in him I am busting out.

B.  Second I need to renew my mind.

i.     Think as He thinks: on the cross “Father forgive them…”

ii.  Ro 12:1-ff be transformed by the renewing of my mind.

iii. 2 Cor 10:4-6 take captive every disobedient thought.

C.  Four steps to deliverance

i.     Responsiblility—take responsibility for your own thoughts, feelings, actions. Quit blaming.

ii.  Repent—acknowledge sinful thoughts that are in your heart and contrary to the Word of God and ask for forgiveness.

iii. Renounce—declare that you no longer want to carry those feelings and thoughts. You are seeking to turn away from them. Embrace a Sermon on the Mount lifestyle.

iv. Resist—purpose to not entertain that which is contrary to God.