Exodus 1:14 begins with the phrase, “And they made their lives bitter…”
• According to the Strong’s Concordance the root word used for “bitter” can also mean “stronger.”
• As a matter of fact, according to the Bible Reader’s Companion, some suggest that the root translated “bitter” actually was intended to be “strong.”
o Pharaoh intended slavery to crush the spirit of the Jewish people, and to cause many to die.
• Pharaoh sought to make their lives unbearable.
• Instead he served to strengthen them.
• When he intended to make them bitter he instead made them better.
• Bitter became stronger!
• More often than not, trouble and trial comes into our lives because Satan intends to use them to destroy us.
o It is his purpose to crush us under the heavy load of adversity and opposition.
• It is his purpose to make our lives bitter.
• It his purpose to cause us to despise every breath we take.
o But, in the course of his diabolical plan, God makes a way to turn trouble into triumph.
• God makes a way to turn tragedy into growth.
o The Israelites were supposed to give up and become subservient.
• They were supposed to be weakened and bitter until they despised life itself.
o But instead bondage and oppression caused the to grow stronger in body and in number.
• Death and loss became the catalyst for liberty and freedom.
o What Satan intended for evil, God used for good.
• The bondage was imposed to prevent their multiplying: but according to verse 12, “the more they afflicted them the more they multiplied and grew.”
• Some lessons Satan never learns.
o The same transition from bitter to better is repeated throughout the biblical record.
• Satan thought he would tear Job down with bitter trouble and opposition.
• But in the End God multiplied Job and Job emerged from his trial with more than he ever had.
• Nero thought he would crush the church with persecution.
• But in truth he compelled the church to fulfill the great commission as he scattered them to the ends of the earth.
• The church didn’t go underground as it spread, instead it established itself across the entire world.
• Hell has determined that trouble and opposition can take you out of the fight.
• Hell thinks that your life can be made so bitter that you will be rendered spiritually ineffective.
• But what Hell hasn’t counted on is the fact that God turns “bitter” into “better.”
• The thing that was meant to destroy you is the thing that God will use to advance you!
• I want you to know tonight that when Satan brings bitterness into your life.
o When controversy and trouble rise up to attempt to crush you.
o It is important that you recognize the fact that Satan is not in charge of your life, God is.
• And God works all things together for good to those that trust him.
• It may not look good now.
• It may not seem good at this present time.
• But have faith my friend, God has your best interest in mind and he’s working your life out for good!
• When Satan produces bitter God always answers with better.
o It was the bitterness of the cross that resulted in the beauty of salvation.
• It was the bitterness of death that resulted in the beauty of resurrection.
• It was the bitterness of being beaten that resulted in the promise of our healing.
o Every great thing that Jesus did for us was accompanied by the bitter assault of this world.
• But God took the bitter and made it better.
• What was intended to destroy the messiah
o What was intended to cut off salvation
o What was intended to crush the healer
• Instead loosed the mercy and grace of God.
• The bitter wrath of hell loosed the tender mercies of heaven.
Joseph
• In the entire Bible there is no better example of this principle than the story of Joseph in the book of Genesis.
o It all begins when Joseph has a dream that someday he will be exalted above his brothers and even above his parents.
o Naturally his brothers aren’t thrilled to hear this news, and soon their hearts burn with envy, jealousy, and malice against Joseph.
• When opportunity presents itself, they throw Joseph into a pit, intending to leave him for dead.
• They end up selling him into slavery to a caravan of Midianite traders.
• Then they go back home, tell their father Jacob that Joseph is dead, and forget all about him.
o Meanwhile, Joseph is purchased by Potiphar (who was the Pharaoh’s head of security.)
• Who makes him head over his household where he rises to prominence.
• However, just as things start to go right, Joseph is the victim of an attempted seduction by Potiphar’s wife who, because of his reection of her, falsely accuses him of rape.
o After being thrown in jail, he meets the baker and the cupbearer and correctly predicts that the former will die but the latter will be released.
• He asks the cupbearer to remember him upon his release, but the cupbearer forgets him.
o Nobody ever had any more reason to become bitter than Joseph.
• Despised because he was a dreamer.
• Sold into slavery by his own brothers.
• Falsely accused and imprisoned.
• Forgotten by the cupbearer.
• Every time there seemed to be a ray of hope in Joseph’s life, another set of circumstances arose to crush all hope.
• Hell did its dead-level best to bury the dreamer under the heavy load of a bitter life.
• But finally one day, Pharaoh has a dream he can’t interpret.
o The cupbearer remembers Joseph who correctly interprets the dream, and is elevated by Pharaoh to the number-two position in Egypt.
o Once again he excels.
o No doubt, by this point in the story, he’s just waiting for the other shoe to drop – He’s waiting for the next piece of bad news.
• But then the unexpected happens.
o In the course of the terrible famine that strikes the Middle East, Jacob sends his sons to Egypt looking for food.
o They must make their appeal to their younger brother, Joseph but they have no idea that it’s Joseph.
• What follows is a series of tests.
o I believe that, from the moment that his brothers re-entered his life until the point where he revealed himself in Genesis 45, Joseph was struggling within himself to come to terms with the circumstances.
• Joseph stands poised between bitter and better.
o Through all the trouble and tragedy of his life.
o God has been working behind the scenes to bring things to pass.
o And Joseph is finally in the place where God is getting ready to bring the whole thing together.
o And I believe that Joseph had to choose between bitter and better.
• On the one hand he can have his bitter revenge, or, on the other hand he can experience a joyful reunion and fulfill God’s purpose for his life.
o Joseph’s entire journey boils down to his emotional trauma at this point in his life.
• Standing before him are the brothers that he sees as the cause of so much pain and heartache in his life.
• Standing before him is the object of all of his frustrations and unfulfilled dreams.
o These brothers of his have robbed him of 22 years of his life.
o Now he has them firmly in his grasp.
o He can order them killed and it will be done.
o He can torture them or throw them in jail and nobody will question him.
• No doubt, at this point in the story, Joseph’s heart is on the brink of being overcome with bitterness as he contemplates the options available to him.
• No doubt this is what he is wrestling with as he puts his brothers through a series of tests to determine their sincerity.
o However, somewhere along the way Joseph’s eyes were opened to a greater reality than he had ever grasped before.
• Somewhere in all of the cat and mouse, back and forth between his brothers and him, realization dawns in his spirit.
• Joseph finally see’s the hand of God in his life.
• In one stark moment of realization, he can see God’s hand throughout the entire story of his life.
o And he knows, for the very first time, he KNOWS God has been working all things together for good.
