Kootenai Church: Hebrews

Well, you have probably been exposed to some degree to this new modern fad and fashion, and it is certainly an online one, of people going onto various media outlets and telling their deconversion stories. Have you seen these or heard of these deconversion stories where a deconvert deconstructs the faith that he once supposedly held and tells the story of how he came out of Christianity and abandoned the Christian faith? And when you listen to the stories, they all have a certain pattern to them. There are certain things that are true of almost virtually every last one of these deconversion stories. They follow a rather cookie-cutter kind of a pattern. Let me give you four features of every deconversion story.
First, the deconvert establishes his or her evangelical bona fides. And by that I mean that they seek to convince you that they were once a genuine believer, the real deal, inside Christianity, that they had the inside track, they were really part of the church. In fact, they grew up in the most evangelical of evangelical churches. And of all the Bible-believing churches on the face of the planet, theirs was the most Bible-centered, Bible-preaching, Bible-focused, Bible-Bible Bible church that ever did grace the face of the planet. And that's where they grew up. And not only that, but they were raised in a Christian family, and they had devotions every night, and they prayed before every meal and prayed before bedtime and prayed in the morning. And they were homeschooled kids or maybe even private school kids. And they grew up in Sunday school, never missed Sunday school unless they were sick or on vacation or dead. But other than those three things, they were there every single Sunday, at Adventure Club or Awana, children's club, Sunday night services, every midweek service you can imagine. They were constantly there, always there, part of the church, on the inside track. But then they will say that they had a few questions, just some intellectual curiosities that nobody was able to really answer, some general questions about the faith that everybody kind of brushed away and blew off. And really all they ever got were pat answers to their genuine, unbiased intellectual curiosity. This leads us to the second step or the second mark of a deconversion story.
Number two, they need to establish their intellectual superiority. Establish their evangelical bona fides, and then establish their intellectual superiority. You see, they will say that all they ever had was a genuine desire to seek out the truth. They really were just asking the hard questions that nobody else was willing to ask, and they were looking for answers that had long plagued them. And so every pastor that they talked to, youth pastor that they visited with, every Sunday school teacher—they would ask these questions. Every visiting apologist or evangelist—they would ask these tough questions, and all they ever got was pat answers. Because, see, they need to convince you that their abandonment of Christianity was not the result of a craven desire to be accepted by the world or a craven desire to fulfill the lusts of their flesh but instead that they really were just trying to ask the questions that nobody else was asking because they were on an intellectual journey. And so their deconversion is really just the result of being rational and logical and scientific about the Christian faith. They were just pressing in trying to find out if the things that they had been raised to believe were actually true. And of course there are always these questions that the best pastors and the best seminary professors are never able to answer, and those are the ones that they harp on. Now there are libraries full of books that are written on these subjects, but that's not good enough for them. They really have discovered the chink in the armor of Christianity, that weakness of the faith that they think causes the whole house of cards to come crumbling down.
So establish their evangelical bona fides, establish the fact that they are intellectually superior to you, because you see, Christian, if you were really rationally and logically consistent and if you had the brilliant intellect of the deconvert, then you would leave Christianity too. But the problem is that you are so caught up in your dogmatism and your traditions and the blindness of your blind allegiance to Christianity that you just keep plugging along in this dark environment.
The third feature of the deconversion story is they position themselves as the brave victim who is simply seeking to fight for the truth. You see, their questions are always met with, allegedly, hostility and dogmatism and even persecution as they are crushed and ostracized and punished for just simply having the courage to ask the questions and speak out and ask the questions that nobody else is willing to ask. And now this brave victim of orthodox tyranny is out there fighting against the establishment and trying to liberate others. They're really on a mission.
And this leads us to the fourth aspect of a deconversion story. They are aggressively seeking to persuade others of their newfound truth. And so they become evangelists for deconversion. In an irony of ironies, they become more zealous about convincing other people to deconvert from Christianity than almost any Christian is zealous to convert people to Christianity. And so they are on a mission. The un-convert zealously posts their story on social media or blogs. They write articles and go on YouTube channels. In fact, YouTube is filled with videos of deconverts who are telling their deconversion story and how they left the Christian faith. It is not sufficient for them to move on from Christianity to the next fad that they want to pick up. But instead, on their way out the door, they want to convince as many people as possible to join them in their departure from the faith once for all delivered to the saints.
And we've seen a number of these in recent years. In fact, I could give you an ever-growing list of deconvert celebrities, as it were. It seems that about every time I start to preach on a warning passage in the book of Hebrews that talks about apostasy, there is some new high profile apostate who makes the headlines. This, I think, has happened with every warning passage that we have tackled in Hebrews. The last one was Joshua Harris and Hebrews 6. And almost every time we come to one of these warning passages, another evangelical celebrity bites the dust and deconverts from Christianity and starts making the media tour and gobbling up camera time and microphone time in order to tell their story. This is very common. Here are some of the people who have made the list of heroes of the once-faith who have departed: Bart Ehrman, Rob Bell, Peter Enns, Barnabas Piper (son of John Piper), Joshua Harris, Bart Campolo (son of Tony Campolo), and Jen Hatmaker. They have all walked this road. They have all walked away from the faith. They have all once allegedly held to our orthodoxy and then have deconverted, and now they're out there telling their deconversion story.
In an online article titled “Jen Hatmaker and the Power of De-conversion Stories,” Michael Kruger—and it's worth your effort to go find this article and read it (Jen Hatmaker and the Power of De-Conversion Stories). Kruger says this:
Of course, there have always been de-conversion stories throughout church history—if one would only take the time to dig them up and listen to them. Christianity has never had a shortage of people who were once in the fold and then left.
In recent years, however, these de-conversion stories seem to have taken on a higher profile. Part of this is due, no doubt, to the technology that makes them more available, whether through podcasts, blogs, or other forms of media.
But it's also due to the fact that many of those who de-convert have realized a newfound calling to share their testimony with as many people as possible. Rather than just quietly leaving their old beliefs and moving on to new ones—something that would have been more common in prior generations—a new guard seems to have made it their life's ambition to evangelize the found [that's a great line; their new ambition is to evangelize the found].
Indeed, many of these de-conversion stories are told with the kind of conviction, passion, and evangelistic zeal that would make a modern televangelist blush. In their minds, they're missionaries to the “lost” in every sense of the word. They just have to help these Christians realize they are mistaken and lead them to the truth.
Now, I started by saying that this is a new and modern phenomenon. It's actually not a new and modern phenomenon. The word deconversion is a new and modern phenomenon. But to quote Mrs. Potts, this is a tale as old as time and a song as old as rhyme. This goes back two thousand years or more. It's the language that has changed. Deconversion sounds so much better than apostasy. An un-convert or a deconvert sounds so much better than an apostate. Because I say apostate and in your mind you're conjuring up images of Judas and betrayal and treachery and unfaithfulness to an established, accepted truth that cannot be shaken. That's what apostasy means, a walking away from what is truth and being unfaithful and even treacherous to those who are part of that orthodoxy. Deconversion sounds so flowery and optimistic and almost enticing, doesn't it? Nobody is lured away by language like apostate and treachery and betrayal. Nobody's lured away by that. But they can be lured away by “deconversion stories” because that just sounds intellectually honest, doesn't it? So we live in an era where new words are coined and old words are redefined all in an attempt to serve the narrative, and this is no different. Deconvert, un-convert, deconversion—this is just the new language that describes apostasy.
And this is what Hebrews 12 is warning about. You may have been wondering, are we ever going to get to the text? We are. Hebrews 12. We're going to look at verse 15 today, but we're going to read verses 16–17, and I'm going to give you an outline for these three verses. Verse 15:
15 See to it that no one comes short of the grace of God; that no root of bitterness springing up causes trouble, and by it many be defiled;
16 that there be no immoral or godless person like Esau, who sold his own birthright for a single meal.
17 For you know that even afterwards, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for repentance, though he sought for it with tears. (Heb. 12:15–17 NASB)
Now, we are familiar with the warning passages in the book of Hebrews, and we are on the threshold of the fifth of the five warning passages in Hebrews. For those of you who may not have been with us for the previous four, those previous four warning passages all have a similar theme. They are warning against the danger of apostasy and against the damage that apostates do within the body of Christ. They're not describing people who actually have become believers in Christ and have had their lives transformed who have then somehow lost their salvation and fallen away or walked away. That's not what they are describing. They are describing almost-Christians, people who are very close and look a lot like believers but are not actually believers in truth, who end up leaving the faith and demonstrating once and for all that though they were with us for a period of time, they were not really of us. That's what the warning passages describe.
The fifth warning passage starts in verse 18 and goes through verse 29, according to some. According to others, it starts in verse 15 and goes through verse 29, the end of the chapter. And I could honestly be convinced either way. This warning passage, like the previous one, is regarding the danger of apostasy, for that is what it is describing. And verse 15 is describing both the apostate, the one who falls short of the grace of God, and the danger of it. It is a root of bitterness that, springing up, defiles many. So the author is encouraging us here to watch out that among ourselves there be none of us who fall short of the grace of God and become a bitter root that springs up and defiles others, or that there be none of us like Esau, a profane man who traded away an eternal inheritance to satiate a temporary desire or a temporary lust.
So we have, in verses 15–17, three things that we are told to be watchful of. We are to look out and see to it, first, “that no one comes short of the grace of God” (v. 15). This is just verses 15 and 16—that no one comes short of the grace of God. That is the essence of apostasy. The essence of apostasy, that you come short of the grace of God. Second, “that no root of bitterness springing up causes trouble, and by it many be defiled” (v. 15). That is the effect of apostasy, the defiling of others. And third, there is an example of apostasy: “That there be no immoral or godless person like Esau, who sold his own birthright for a single meal” (v. 16). Esau is the quintessential Old Testament example of an apostate. So we are to watch out for the essence of apostasy, which is falling short of the grace of God; the effect of apostasy, which is bitterness that defiles many; and that there be nobody like Esau, the example of apostasy. We're going to look today at the essence of apostasy and the danger or the effect of apostasy.
Let's start at verse 15. “See to it,” the author says. Now this is the fourth in a list of five commands. The fifth command is down in verse 17: “You know that even afterwards, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected.” This is the fourth command. It's actually a participle that functions as a command or as an imperative in verse 15. We are to see to it, we are to be watchful, on guard, alert to these dangers, these three things. The previous commands, remember, were to strengthen the weakness and straighten the ways and then to pursue peace and to pursue righteousness. Those are the previous things that we are commanded to do. We are to see to something, and the verb that is translated “see to this” or “see to it” is the verb episkopeo. That may sound familiar to some of you, and you'll understand why here in just a moment. That verb means to give careful attention to something, to give oversight to something, to oversee, to look upon or to guard, to be careful, to watch over something with an attitude of carefulness. It means to exercise careful oversight.
Now, if that word sounds familiar, it is because the noun form of that word is episkopos, which is translated in the old King James as “bishop.” It is translated in more modern translations as “overseer.” In fact, that noun form of episkopos is one of the three words that's used in the New Testament of an elder, the office of elder or pastor, the other two being presbyteros, which is translated “elder,” and poimen, which is translated as “shepherd.” Those three words—poimen, presbyteros, and episkopos—are used of the same office, the same function or work in the church, the same group of men in a local body, those who exercise oversight. So the verb form means to give careful attention to something. And somebody who gave careful attention to something, namely the body of Christ and the spiritual well-being of a flock, was one who was referred to as an overseer or, as the King James translates it, a bishop. And bishop is not at all helpful, but the term overseer certainly is, for it describes the work of overseeing a congregation or a flock of people.
Let me give you the four times that it's used in the New Testament—and these verses will all be familiar to you—just so you can have some idea of how the word is used so you have some idea of what the word means. In Acts 20:28, Paul called to him the elders of the church—the overseers of the church of Ephesus—when he landed in Miletus, and he commanded them, saying, “Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood.” Now, that's an example of a verse where overseer and shepherd are used in the same passage to describe the one group of people, and previously in that passage, it says that Paul called to him the presbyteroi, the elders of the church, and he calls them overseers and commands them to shepherd. So all three of those ideas, that's the same office. So just to give you a quick overview of ecclesiology, we don't have super-ultra bishops and then like mega-bishops and then extra-big bishops and then bishops and then pastors and then elders. We don't have some sort of infrastructure like that in this church, nor do we recognize it in any other church because there's just the office of overseer, pastor, or elder.
Second, Philippians 1:1. Paul addressed that Epistle to the church, “all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi, including the overseers and deacons.” It was just overseers and deacons. Or we might say elders and deacons.
1 Timothy 3:2: “An overseer, then, must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, temperate, prudent, respectable, hospitable, able to teach,” etc.
And then in Titus 1:7, another list of qualifications: “The overseer must be above reproach as God’s steward, not self-willed,” etc.
So that's how the word is used. The noun form is used to refer to a pastor. The verb form is used to refer to not only what a pastor does, but also—listen, and this is key—to what everybody else in the congregation does. We are all overseers of others. That's part of what it means to operate and function in the body of Christ.
So this does describe the work of an elder in carefully watching over a flock of people. It's also used one other time in the New Testament, in 1 Peter 2:25, to describe Jesus, where He is called the overseer of your souls. But it is translated in 1 Peter as “guardian.” First Peter says, “You were continually straying like sheep, but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Guardian [or shepherd and overseer] of your souls.”
So let me give you two takeaways from this. First, though the activity is the same as an elder, it is not limited to elders. And this is key. Though it is the same activity as an elder, it is not limited to elder, meaning that it is part of the responsibility of every believer to watch out, to look to, to oversee in some sense, at least to some degree, the spiritual well-being and care of other people who are in their lives and within their fellowship. Protection and care for others and concern for the spiritual well-being of others is part and parcel of what all of us are called to do. So none of us can ever say, “That departure from the faith is none of my business. That person's spiritual well-being is none of my business.” Though elders may be specifically and specially called to this and even gifted to do it, it doesn't mean that it is exclusively their role to oversee the spiritual welfare of others. Every one of us should have in our minds and in our hearts, at least, a concern for and an intention to watch out for the well-being, spiritually speaking, of other people. Just as evangelism is not exclusively the work of those who are gifted with evangelism, and serving others is not exclusively the work of deacons, so it is that looking out for and looking to others is not exclusively the work of an elder.
But in order to do this, you must know them and be involved in their lives. You must be accountable to others, and others must be accountable to you. This is what it means to function as a body of Christ. This is not something that can be done through live streaming. This is not something that can be done through a Zoom call or a Facebook group or any other digital medium. This is something that can only be done in the context of body life as people get together and they live out the convictions of the Christian faith and the truth of the Word of God with and alongside of one another in each other's lives.
Second takeaway is that this is a very Christlike activity. Remember, this is what it is said that Jesus does. And it is my conviction that the great Shepherd and Guardian of our souls uses people, everybody within the body of Christ, as a means to the end of watching out for the souls of other people. So when you do this and you are concerned for the spiritual well-being of others, that is a very Christlike thing to do.
Notice that we are to be seeing to it, number one, that no one comes short of the grace of God. And this is the essence of apostasy. This is the essence of it. This is a great description of what apostasy really is. The word for “comes short of” or “falls short of” the grace of God, depending on your translation, is a word that means to come behind or to come late. It means to fail to attain or to be in need of or to be destitute of or to lack something. This is apostasy. This does not describe somebody who has received and embraced and is inside of the saving grace of God. It describes somebody who has never attained to it, who lacks that saving grace, who is destitute of that saving grace. In fact, this word is translated as—in the New Testament—impoverished, run out, to lack, to suffer need, and to be destitute of. And it is used actually in the previous chapter, chapter 11, verse 37, speaking of some of the saints of the faith, “They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were tempted, they were put to death with the sword; they went about in sheepskins, in goatskins, being destitute.” That is, falling short, not coming up. And there it's speaking of physical provision and physical sustenance, but here in Hebrews 12 it is describing a spiritual quality. They have fallen short of the grace of God. They are destitute of grace. It describes somebody who has come near to grace—listen carefully. They've come near to grace. They have heard about grace. They have sung about grace. They have seen grace operate in the lives of others. They have received grace from other people. They have felt the effects of grace as it overflows in the lives of other people. They've read about grace, they have heard grace preached, they have heard grace proclaimed, and they have heard grace offered to them from the pulpit. But they fall short of ever entering into that grace. That is the essence of apostasy. And one can be very near to grace and never actually receive it.
This is describing someone among the people of God who outwardly looks like the people of God, who outwardly acts like the people of God, who even can speak and sing and teach and talk and behave like the people of God, but the grace of God has never penetrated their heart. So they have managed to keep redeeming and saving gospel grace that transforms the heart at arm's length and never allowed it to come any nearer than that. They're fine observing it, they're fine hearing about it. They even like to sing about it. They even enjoy for a period of time being around it, but they've never been transformed by it. They've never entered into it. And so they, in the words of our author, have fallen short of the grace of God. And this is salvation grace that is being described here; he's talking about salvation.
Some people make a start into religious things and they show some interest in religious things because they come to the spectacle. We have people all the time who visit this church, who visit churches all over the country, and they enjoy the spectacle. And some churches are interested in putting on a spectacle that they come to observe. But they like to come into a place where the guy that stands behind the pulpit—he sounds as politically conservative as I am. He's against all the craziness and insanity going on out in the world, and he sounds really clear-cut and black-and-white, and I'm a clear-cut and black-and-white person. And the songs they sing are really peppy and upbeat, and I like the fact that they do that and that they put new words to the old-sounding hymns, and that's really great. I enjoy that. And the fellowship is great, people visiting, we're handing out business cards, and we're enjoying that. We can stay around for a little while. It offers something for my kids, and I even enjoy bringing my kids there and seeing the effect that being around those people has on my kids. My kids seem more obedient and more compliant and more cheerful because there's kids there that are their age. And the parking is great and—at least in the summertime it's great when they have the lawn open. The rest of the time we kind of put up with it because there are other things that we really enjoy there. And the coffee in the foyer—not the best, but at least they have coffee in the foyer. The other churches we've been to don't have that.
And people can come and be attracted and be part of a body for all of those reasons, listen, none of which have anything to do with the gospel of grace. None of them have anything to do with that. So it's very easy for people to glom on in a superficial and external sense and enjoy the overflow of grace in the lives of other people and even experience some of the supernatural and transforming phenomena of that grace in the lives of other people. They get close enough to be warmed by that fire, but their hearts are still hard and cold and they fall short of the grace of God. See to it that there not be anyone among you who is like that.
Does that mean we just kick them out when we find them? No, that means we come alongside of them and encourage them to press into the grace of God and make it more than a mere intellectual curiosity. You see, this is the warning that you can grow up in a Christian family amongst people who share the gospel and preach the gospel and serve in gospel ministry, and your heart can still be calloused and hard and cold to the things of God because you are warmed just enough by the gospel of grace but never actually experience the transforming gospel of grace. So our goal then, in overseeing that or looking out for that, is to come alongside those people and bring them in closer to the flame. We suspect that they are keeping grace and they are keeping the things of God at arm's length. We come alongside and in compassion we're seeking to evangelize them. There is an evangelistic ministry to be done inside the local church body, every local church body. We are evangelizing those among us who fit this category. I wouldn't want anybody to fall short of the gospel of grace. I wouldn't want anybody to go to Hell from this church. That's my desire. And I wouldn't want to be you if you go to Hell from this church because there's a lot of light here in every venue that the Word of God is taught and preached and presented. There's a lot of light here that needs to be rejected to walk away from this and insist upon being impenitent, hard-hearted, and to perish everlastingly. So the answer is to come alongside those people and make sure that we are bringing them into that grace of God and sharing it with them so that they embrace it and are transformed by it.
Second, notice the effect of apostasy. The essence of apostasy is falling short of the gospel, of God's grace and salvation. Notice the effect of apostasy, “that no root of bitterness springing up causes trouble, and by it many be defiled” (v. 15). This is the danger that apostasy poses to the local church. There is an allusion here to an Old Testament passage, and I'm going to read it to you. And you'll hear that the author is borrowing language from the book of Deuteronomy, chapter 29. You don't need to turn there, but I'm going to read it to you. I want to set up the context just a little bit. In Deuteronomy 29, Moses, with the children of Israel, is about to enter into the promised land. Remember that the old generation had perished because they were disobedient and refused to enter in, so they all died off in the wilderness. And now everybody who was forty or under at that period of time is now the new generation, and they're getting ready to enter into the promised land. So the Lord leads Moses to have a covenant-renewal ceremony at a mountain where they are reciting together the blessings and the cursings of the covenant and they're renewing their covenant together there, the new generation saying, “Yes, we will obey this, and we will go in and be obedient to the Lord our God. He is giving us this land, and He will bless us for our obedience, and He will curse us for our disobedience.” And that's what's going on in the context of Deuteronomy. In Deuteronomy 29, beginning at verse 18, Moses says this—there's a purpose statement here. “So that there will not be among you a man or woman, or family or tribe, whose heart turns away today from the Lord our God, to go and serve the gods of those nations; [listen to this] that there will not be among you a root bearing poisonous fruit and wormwood [or bitterness].”
So what is the author doing? He is borrowing an Old Testament incident—language—and he is bringing it into his own context to warn them about the very real danger of apostasy. Now I ask you this question. Were there people in Old Testament Israel who went into the promised land who were apostates, idol worshippers? There certainly were. In fact, most of that congregation, even the new generation, most of that congregation were not saved people. And the warning is that there would not be anybody among you who falls short of that and is like that Old Testament illustration of the people in Israel who were roots bearing poisonous fruit and wormwood, having a heart that turned away from the Lord our God.
The word bitter there, that's a good translation. It translates a word that originally meant sharp or pointed, and it was used to describe arrows. It then came to be used to describe something that was sharp or penetrating to the senses, like a pervasive or pungent or sharp smell or a shrill noise. Something that cut or pierced the senses is the word that is used there. It describes something sharp and poisonous. In the New Testament, that word bitterness is used always negatively; it shouldn't surprise you that there's no positive uses of that word. It's used negatively to describe sinful bondage or sinful speech or a sinful heart. It's used in Acts 8 when Peter met Simon the sorcerer and Simon offered to buy the gift of the Holy Spirit off of Peter. And Peter says, “I see that you are in the gall of bitterness and in the bondage of iniquity” (v. 23). Gall of bitterness—what a phrase. The gall of bitterness, describing the sinful, wicked, depraved and covetous heart of a man who thought he could buy the gift of the Holy Spirit.
In Romans 3:14, in describing pagans and unbelievers and all who are outside of Christ in our natural depravity, Paul says their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. Cursing and bitterness—look how those two go together. In Ephesians 4, which we read earlier, verse 31, it says, “Let all bitterness [and listen to the sins with which bitterness is included] and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice.” There, bitterness is coupled with anger and clamor and slander and malice. Why? Because bitterness goes well with those sins. And guess what the relief valve of a bitter heart is? It's the mouth. That's the relief valve of a bitter heart. The heart that is steeped in its bitterness, that is in the bondage and the gall of bitterness, will express itself through the mouth, and then it becomes poison and wormwood. Bitterness is a serious sin. It is a disastrous sin that can have disastrous effects on the body of Christ.
The imagery here of a root is a powerful one. You're familiar with how roots spread underneath the surface, right? They can go out for a long ways and be underground for a long time and then they can suddenly pop up out of the ground with a shoot or crest out of the ground and cause a tripping hazard or, if you're like me, a mowing hazard that'll bend up your blades and cause you hundreds of dollars of damage on your mower. That is what a root does. It stays beneath the ground and spreads a long ways and for a long time before it finally comes to the surface.
Bitterness is a heart issue and it seethes—I should choose a better word—it boils in an unseen environment and becomes worse and worse and feeds on itself in an unseen way and in an unseen environment, unnoticed. And then it can become very aggressive when it suddenly bursts through the surface and vents itself in the mouth, then begins to spew itself all over everybody else, as that bitterness, which has been boiling and cooking and stewing for a long period of time, finally has to have an outlet, and by it many people are defiled. Bitterness does that; by it many people are defiled.
Bitterness affects others. It spoils friendships. It ruins and cripples forgiveness. It destroys understanding and service and love and unity. Like a cancer, it spreads and multiplies and toxifies the body of Christ. It'll destroy a church body. It will overturn and upset and ruin people's lives, people's faiths, people's ministry. People get upset over the pettiest of grievances, and rather than forgiving, they just stew it up in bitterness. Rather than going through a biblical process of airing this and having a transaction of forgiveness, bitterness just ends up pressing it down. And then every sin, every grievance, every offense just becomes something added to the cauldron, more fodder for the cannon that'll eventually go off, and it's just pressed down, packed down with more powder behind it, into the heart. And then it eventually, like a root, will just pop up. And if it's like some trees, the roots begin to pop up all over the place and then you realize—you can see the imagery, can't you? Popping up all over the place. And then you can see how it just spreads, and before long, you don't even know how to deal with all of these manifestations of bitterness. And then you say to yourself, where has this been? Where did this come from? Guess where it was. It was in the heart all along, traveling and seething and doing its thing until it has opportunity to erupt and destroy everything. It is corrosive, self-destructive.
It robs you of your joy and happiness. It soils everything in your life and makes it so you cannot enjoy even the simplest blessing because bitterness robs you of that. You can't take delight in even the simplest of God's blessings because bitterness colors it, it defiles it. That's the word that's used, defile—to stain or to dye. Like a piece of fabric, white, pure fabric dipped in a dye or a stain, it comes out and it has that color to it. So it is with bitterness and bitter people. Bitterness defiles everything it touches so that when it finally goes off and affects everybody, everybody is colored by it, everybody is stained by it, like a massive dye bomb that goes off and sprinkles everybody with it. Then you're never the same because you see this bitterness has gone off inside of your life or inside of your heart or inside of the body, and everybody is harmed by it. Bitterness defiles us by disheartening us and discouraging us, ruining friendships and fellowship, makes partnership in spiritual things impossible. Blame and finger-pointing replace encouragement, and accusations replace edification. It draws people inward to themselves because suddenly this bitterness becomes the only thing that they can think about. And everything that ought to be turned to a blessing is instead turned inward and becomes something added to the stewing, boiling cauldron of discontent and resentment. And so every blessing gets dropped into that and immediately eliminated. And then we don't even get to benefit from the simplest of God's gifts. Because the bitter person, all they see is what they can and should be bitter about. And you can see how this just soils everything in someone's life.
And it's demoralizing to battle-weary saints. You see, we come to a church because we want a refuge from what it's like being out in the world where we have to face hostility and reproaches and blasphemies in the name of Christ and persecution and hostility out there. The enemies are everywhere. They're increasing in number. They're increasing in their hostility toward us and their hatred and anger at the things of God. And we're out there doing battle all week long. And then we want to come to church where we have a refuge from this. And then, imagine a church where this just becomes another battlefield. Who wants that? This should be the place where we come together and there is peace and there is harmony and there's no bitterness and there's fellowship one with another, everybody concerned about the affairs of the other. This, in a way, equips us and edifies us and strengthens us to go back out into the world and fight the battle for another seven days so that then we can come back not to another battlefield but to our refuge and to our strength.
Now, I say this to your blessing. I can say this honestly today; I don't sense that there is a bitter person among you. I don't feel that our church is a bitter place. There may be bitter people here; that might be true. So you need to look out for yourself and for others. If you have somebody wrestling with this, that you come alongside of them and help them walk through this before it explodes and ruins them; it might even be in the process of ruining them. But I say this to you with all confidence, and I speak on behalf of the elders and deacons: This is not a reproof or rebuke to you because this is not a war zone. That is a beautiful testimony to the grace of God and the work of the Spirit amongst us. This is not a war zone. So I'm just speaking of what bitterness could do if we allow it to remain within us and to seethe and eventually spring up and destroy us.
And this is the double evil of apostasy. Not just that someone abandons the truth, but in bitterness they do everything that they can to spread their gall and their wormwood and their poisonous fruit to everybody and anybody that they can on the way out of the church. That's the double evil of apostasy. And you would look at the people who are telling their deconversion stories—they're bitter people. Now they will never say, “I'm a bitter person, and I'm just here on your podcast today venting about my bitterness.” They'll never admit that, but they're bitter people. They're bitter people who were amongst a congregation of people that they feel never did enough for them, never loved them enough, never noticed them enough, never gave them enough, never served them enough. And you're oppressive and you're overbearing and you have these standards of legalism that just kept them down and kept them from expressing themselves. And so this bitterness just wells up and seethes within them for a long period of time. Everybody did them wrong. And so on the way out the door the accusations fly, and most of the grievances are invented or imagined, and certainly anything that might be a grievance is inflated and made to be far more than it actually is. That is how bitterness works, and that is the danger of apostates who are allowed to seethe among us and circle among us. When they leave they damage as much as they can on the way out, and they defile as many people as they can on the way out.
And I will say this: woe to the apostate, the deconvert, who goes on a podcast and is seen by millions and influences tens of thousands of other people to not give Christianity a fair shake and to not press into the grace of God. When those people perish, they will have a share in that damnation and their guilt for causing people to stumble in the faith. That is a serious, serious error. The apostate—like acid rain, their departure from the truth ends up showering everyone with toxic and corrosive bile. Let there be no one among you who falls short of the grace of God or who, like a root, bitterly springs up and causes trouble and by it defiles everybody else. Those are the first two things that we watch out for.
So what do we do with this? What are we commanded to do with this then? What is our remedy? Let me offer you a couple of things. We are to be watchful for ourselves and others. When you see deep-seated bitterness begin to manifest itself, assume that that person needs your love, your compassion, your time, your counsel, your effort, your friendship. Assume that that is the case and come alongside of them and encourage them in the things of God. Encourage them to press into grace. Encourage them in that counsel to let go of that bitterness and begin to exercise in the grace of God, by the grace of God, the virtues the Scripture says that we should exercise.
There is forgiveness for bitterness, and it's the same process as forgiveness for any other sin—gossip, slander, prayerlessness, anger, resentment, malice, whatever it is. It's simply the confession of that sin before the Lord and to anybody who has been affected by that sin, keeping the circle that small. And then, having confessed that, to turn from that sin and begin to do the opposite of what that sin entails. So if bitterness involves stewing over grievances, getting over bitterness involves the forgiving of those grievances and putting them out of my mind and disciplining my heart and my mind not to stew on those things and not to relive those things and not to regurgitate those things but instead to forgive those things and to move on and to offer an exchange of forgiveness, an exchange whereby I admit that person has wronged me but I discharge the debt and I release the debt over that sin or that offense or that grievance.
When we see bitter people around us, we need to come alongside of them and help them deal with that guilt by counseling them through it and shepherding them through it. We all have a responsibility to do this. All of us should be watchful of this and none of us, not a person here, should turn away from that and say, “Not my circus, not my monkeys. I don't want anything to do with that. I don't have time for that.” We have time for that. That's what we make time for. Find something else you don't have time for, get rid of that. Find somebody else to minister to so that you can exchange time. Everybody has time for that because that's what we're called to do, and we wouldn't be called to do it if we didn't have time to do it.
Second, if you identify bitterness in yourself, it is much the same prescription. It can be caused by unmet expectations, unforgiveness of wrongs, real or imagined, nursed grievances. And so, Ephesians 4:31–32—listen carefully: “Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. [Listen to the next verse] Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.” Ephesians 4—that's the put off, put on passage. That's the passage where we're told this old behavior that was part of your previous life when you were just like the rest of the Gentiles, caught up in the lusts of your flesh, being deceived in your heart, darkened in your mind—you behaved a certain way. The flesh has a memory, and when you become a believer it wants to come into your life and say, “Well, this is your habitual life pattern. You just continue to do the same thing, but now you go to church. Now you just say a quick prayer. Now you just confess it and it's all good.” And Paul says that's not how you handle sin, the sins of your previous old man. Instead, you identify those sins and you put them off. Like clothing, you take it off, those sins of the flesh. You take it off and you set it aside. Instead, you put on the new activity. So what used to characterize your speech as evil, now you speak good things. What used to characterize you as idolatry, now you worship the true God. Where you used to serve the lust of your flesh, now you serve righteousness and the deeds of the new man. And so you do those things, those activities, and cultivate those virtues, which are the opposite of the vices that you are commanded to put off. So you put those things off, you put the new man on, which means that you replace the old habit patterns and the old activities and the old deeds with new activities and new habit patterns and new deeds. So it's not just that you stop doing one thing and say, “OK, by my own will and by my own strength, I'm no longer going to do that. I'm just going to bear down, shut my eyes, and just clench up until the temptation passes.” No, you put off the old thing and you say, “I'm not going to do that. Instead, I'm going to do the polar opposite of it. I'm going to find something righteous and I'm going to do that and serve that so that I become a slave to righteousness.” That is Romans 6. Where you once obeyed the lusts of your flesh and were a slave of your sin, now you obey your new master, righteousness, and submit your members as instruments of righteousness so that you will become a slave of righteousness.
We are, in every area of our lives, seeking to step out of the slavery. The chains have been taken off, slavery and the old man. We go over there into the dark kingdom and put the chains back on. Sometimes we like the weight of those chains, like to carry them around with us. But they've been taken off us. We've been set free. So now our Christian life is all a matter of finding out what it means and experiencing becoming a slave of righteousness and doing righteousness instead of wickedness.
So we put off the bitterness and we be kind and tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ has forgiven you. Cultivate those virtues in their place—forgiveness, kind speech, tender-heartedness. You struggle with bitterness about somebody? Make a list of those things that you admire about that person and begin to talk about those things, speak about those things, pray about those things. That bitterness will begin to dissolve. Overnight? In an hour? Not necessarily. But it will become a habit pattern that will begin to change the poisonous well out of which the bitterness is springing up.
The danger that is posed by the defiling sin of the apostates serves as a warning to us of how putrid and poisonous bitterness is to the body of Christ and to our own soul. Let's commit ourselves to seeing to it that there not be among us anybody who falls short of the grace of God and that there be no bitter root seething amongst us which can defile ourselves and others.