Letting Go Of Resentment

Transcript

Alright, thank you very much. And hello again radio friends. How in the world are you? You doin’ all right today? Well yes, I wait for you to answer. I know some of you do. (Laughs) Well, where I am here in beautiful Tannersville, Pennsylvania it’s still dark, early, early in the morning. And I just, you know as I’ve told you once or twice I, I do these broadcasts early in the day for the most part, or else very late in the night because I sort of get the same feeling you have when you have to roll out of bed with a groan and say, “Oh, do I have to get up today?”

And then sometimes you turn on the radio, and you hear Bob Cook sharing with you the Word of God. And maybe, just maybe, it can give you something to get hold of that will help you throughout the day. I pray that that may be so. I always pray that God’s truth and God’s love and, and God’s care, and God’s inspiration for you, can come through these messages. Oh may that be so again today.

We’re looking at 1 Peter 2:1. “Wherefore…” Now Doctor Pettingill some of you old, old timers may remember him. A Bible teacher that for many years blessed the hearts of God’s people up and down this country and across the seas. He would always stop at a juncture like this and say, “Now, when you see a ‘wherefore’ or a ‘therefore’, you have to look back and see what the ‘therefore’ is there for.” (Laughs) Well now, why is it here?

He said, “For as much as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things like silver and gold, and your vain lifestyle, and your traditions — these things can’t save you; but with the precious blood of Christ.” And he said, “You’ve been born again, not a corruptible seed — you didn’t inherit it from, from your parents — but of incorrupt by the Word of God which liveth and abideth forever. The Word of the Lord endureth forever, wherefore.” Now, in other words he was saying, because God’s Word is a living, eternal thing, you better react to it with some good sense, and that means do something about it.

One is constantly surprised by the number of people who, if they ever do read the Bible, read it ever so casually and have no reaction in terms of, of their own conduct as a result. What Peter is pleading for here it seems to me, is so important that when we read God’s Word, we act on it. That’s the, that’s the, the thrust of that word ‘wherefore’. Jesus saved you. God loved you, Jesus saved you, His blood has cleansed you. And it’s all based on the eternal Word of God. So do something about it in my own life. See, that’s what he is getting at.Well what am I supposed to do?

It starts with something negative, and then goes on to a positive. “Wherefore,” said he, “laying aside all malice.” Malice is the desire to see something evil happen to another person. Strange isn’t it, that he would begin with that? But he does, because down deep in the human heart there’s a reservoir of resentment which crops out now and again.

And don’t tell me it’s not there in your, in, in your own heart. It’s there. You can call it by a different name if you wish. You say, “Oh I’ve been deeply hurt, oh I, I feel bad.” All right whatever you want to call it, it’s there. And the problem is that you and I can’t control that sort of thing. You see you live a while, you understand this. No preacher can by his — and I include myself at this point. You see what I say to you isn’t going to change the way you feel about another human being. I know that because I’ve experienced it in my own life. You can lecture a person all you please, and he’s still going to be hurting. He’s still going to have resentment, he’s still going to feel bad, he’s still going to have malice in his heart, because it’s there. He can’t talk it out.

Now what do you do about it? By faith you lay it aside just as you took Jesus by faith. Colossians 2:6 is the verse. “As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus as Lord…” How do you receive him? By faith. You do anything? No. Pay anything? No. Promise anything? No. Join anything No. How did you receive Christ by faith so that you got saved? Simply trusting Him and turning the whole business over to Him, guilt and all. Do you remember that? Many of you do, I know. That’s how you got saved.

Now he said, “As you received,” I’m quoting Colossians 2:6 still. “As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus as Lord, so the same way walk ye.” That word ‘walk’ means ‘live every minute of every day’, let’s put it that way. “Just as you receive Jesus, so live every minute of every day, in Him.”

Now malice, resentment, comes in waves. You think you have it licked, and then it pops up again, it’s that true? Sorrow comes in waves as well. Temptation comes in waves. You think you have complete control over your own unseemly tendencies, and all of a sudden there it is again. So you have to live every minute of every day trusting the same Savior who saved you in the same way. Trusting Him, I mean. Complete surrender to Jesus in that specific matter.

We had, for a while, a couple of decades ago, a popular phrase that talked about situational morality. That is to say ‘do what seems to be right at the time’. Well I have stolen that, that phrase and I talk about ‘situational faith’. The way to victory is to take refuge in your Savior by faith at any given moment when there is a situation to be handled. Now there are some people that just rub you the wrong way, isn’t that true? And that maybe based, as I said a moment ago, on some deep hurt or something that has happened, whatever.

Now when that person comes in view and you feel the strings of your heart tightening up, you feel the tension, you feel the hurt and the resentment, even the hatred that may dwell up out of your own being, unbidden, here it is, that’s how I feel; what do you do then? Right that minute, that instant, turn it over to the Lord Jesus Christ. Say, “Lord Jesus, you handle this.” He will. It’s that simple. But oh it’s that important. You lay aside the malice. Would you try that today?

Oh I know it’s hard. You say, “Oh it’s so hard Brother Cook.” Yes I know. Nothing that’s worthwhile is easy. But you, you try that today. No, you can’t control how you feel. Automatically those feeling dwell up. But you can — see here’s the element of control that is yours and mine to exercise. You can turn those unbidden feelings of malice, evil, resentment, hurt, whatever you want to call them, it’s there — you can turn them over to Jesus by faith. Just as you trusted Him to save you in the first place, you can now trust Him to keep you and to handle these personality factors that you can’t manage by yourself.

You know, it’s a pity to carry resentment for years. I know some people who… You, well I, you can’t talk to them for 5 minutes but that they hark back to something that happened 15 or 20 years ago. They’re, they’ve carried resentment about the matter all those years, and they’ve fed on it, and, and it’s grown until it’s really part of, of their very personality. That’s it’s a pity because it’s so needless. You can’t manage it by yourself, let’s agree that. And any preacher like me can’t talk you out of it, let’s agree on that too. But Jesus, this wonderful living Lord Jesus Christ can handle it, Halleluiah. (Laughs) He can do it, turn it over to Him by faith, just as you trusted Him to save you, so trust Him now to manage you. Will you do it?

You have to lay something aside and then do something positive. Well also in that negative list he says, “Laying aside all guile.” Interesting by the way that Peter says, “All malice, and all guile, and all evil speakings.” Why? Because we tend to fragmentize our consecration, we tend to fragmentize our consecration. We say, “Well I’ll put this on the altar, but I won’t put that on.”

Like King Saul of old, who when he was commanded to, to carry out God’s swift judgment upon the Amlaekites,did not really obey but brought back so much booty and loot, and brought back the king of, of the Amlaekites so that he could gloat over him publicly. “We’ll put this on and that on, but not the other.”

Abraham had to learn to put Isaac on the altar before God could reveal to him His wonderful plans for the future. “Take now thy son Isaac thine only son whom thou lovest and offer him for sacrifice on one of the mountains that I would show thee.” God’s word, said. And so they went, Abraham, and his son Isaac, and the servants, and the beast of burden, came to that certain mountain. And the servants were left at the base, and Abraham and his son went on up. The altar was built, the lad was stretched out upon it. The knife was raised.

And then God said, “Lay not thine hand upon the lad. I know that you fear me, I know that you love me. There’s your ram caught in a thicket.” “God will provide Himself a lamb,” said Abraham in his sublime faith. “Lay your Isaac on the altar, bind him there with many a cord” Oh my brother do not falter, can’t you fully trust your Lord. ‘All’ is the word ‘all malice’. Don’t leave anything undone when it comes to consecration to Jesus.

Dear Heavenly Father, help us to put everything on the altar of consecration today. In Jesus name I ask. Amen.

Till I meet you once again by way of radio, walk with the King today and be a blessing!