Jump Start # 3736

Revelation 8:11 “The name of the star is called Wormwood; and a third of the waters became wormwood, and many men died from the waters because they were made bitter.”

Revelation is best understood as a picture book. I have a lot of grandkids and I love to snuggle up in a chair with them and read with them. For the little ones, there are more pictures on a page than there are words. We look at the pictures, talk about them, make funny voices to tell the story.

In Revelation, instead of ink drawn pictures, the images come to us through words. John is told to write what he sees. The visions have meaning and depth of background to them. Our verse today, as many of the Revelation images, draws heavily from the O.T. In Proverbs and especially Jeremiah and Lamentations, the bitter wormwood is used as an illustration of bitter injustice.

It seems that there are folks who have a wormwood faucet at their kitchen sink. Every morning, they put their cup of coffee under the wormwood tap and get just enough bitterness to ruin everyone’s day. From morning to night, they run on bitterness. They look bitter. They don’t really talk, they snap. And, if they get ahold of you, they’ll snap and snap at you until you hurt.

Bitter people complain. They can’t keep things to themselves. They don’t seek solutions. Unhappy, miserable, grumpy, sour and selfish, are not the new dwarfs from Snow White, but are the characteristics of a bitter heart. And, bitterness tends to be contagious. Get a group of people together and add one bitter person, and before long, a whole bunch are now complaining about the food, the weather, prices and you.

What is most unsettling is when a child of God is bitter. The world, certainly. The world is only living for today. This is as good as it gets for the world. This is the only Heaven that they will see. But, for a child of God, we ought to know better. Christ has saved us. We have a wonderful fellowship in each other. We have true promises from Heaven. God is our guide, our help and our hope. This world is not my home.

Some of the most bitter people I know are Christians. To say that they have a sour disposition is a compliment. I shocked one brother years ago. He had definitely drunk two full cups of bitterness before he came to worship that one Sunday. And, he was letting me have it. I finally told, him, that every church building I have ever been in had a door. If he wasn’t happy, go. If he didn’t want to be among God’s people, be among the lost. If he wasn’t happy worshipping the Biblical way, then go worship as a pagan. Go live among the Philistines. He stuttered and sputtered and said, “I can’t believe you are asking me to leave.” Be joyous as a child of God should be, or continue to be bitter, but don’t be bitter here.

In Ephesians 4, the apostle says, “Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice.” Two things stand out about that sentence. First, he says ALL. Not just some. Not just most. Not just the big stuff. All bitterness. Second, the list begins with bitterness. It seems there is an order here. Bitterness is where it starts. But it never ends with bitterness. What follows is anger, clamor, slander and malice. You won’t find a bitter person who is happy. No, they are angry. And, it doesn’t stop with that. They have to tell everyone else. They make a lot of noise but do little to make things better.

Some thoughts for us:

First, what you allow to dwell in your soul determines whether you will be bitter or joyous. Years ago, we were cleaning out a house of an older lady who had died. On the shelves in her garage were vegetables that she had canned. They were decades old. DECADES. The items in the jars were black. We didn’t try opening them. Out they went, jars and all. We can hold on to things too long. Negative comments. Hurts. Offenses. Why do we hang on to them for decades? Pitch them. Forgive the person.

When the Ephesians were told, “Let all bitterness…be put away from you,” that’s a choice. We keep the things that make us bitter or we toss them out in the trash.

Second, bitterness tends to grow and take over our spirit and heart. Some of the cruelest things ever said to brethren have come from other brethren. Bitterness causes a person to say things that are not true, rational, logical or Biblical. Like an angry dog chained to a tree, the bitter person will try to attack anyone who gets too close. Family. Friends. The church. Even, the Lord. It is a sad, sad thing to witness.

Third, some will leave this planet bitter. Unwilling to forgive. Unwilling to change. Unwilling to give a person a second chance, they will die miserable and mean. And, the trail of destruction that followed them ruins their family and even the congregation they were a part of.

Someone hurt you? They hurt the Lord worse. Someone been mean to you? They were worse to the Lord. Someone ignored you? That happened to the Lord. And, yet, there He is forgiving His crucifiers in His final moments.

You are bitter, not because things happened to you. You are bitter because you chose misery over joy. You chose to focus on self rather than the Lord. As my ole’ friend Barbara Johnson wrote in many of her books, “Pain is inevitable, but misery is optional.”

It’s time to stop drinking the bitter waters of wormwood. Christ offers you the cleansing water that will change your heart.

Roger