WHY THEY HATED HIM A Sermon By Jeffrey D. Dean Sr.

January 18,2012
I once had a Pastor who taught us from scripture concerning walking in "the love of Christ." I cannot remember his entire sermon but one aspect of it is burned into my memory for all time. He was giving some examples of "signs" that you are NOT walking in the Spirit of the "love of Christ" and many of those "signs" actually FIT Christ himself. For example, he said that if you are walking in Christ's love people would love you back! He stated, in not so many words, that the person walking in Christ's love would have very few enemies and if you see someone who is "at odds" with everyone around them it's a good "sign" they aren't very spiritual. If it hadn't been so tragic, it might have been comical that a man of the cloth, who has taken it upon himself to shepherd the "flock" of the Messiah could make such a colossal error. He obviously forgot that Messiah himself was hated profusely! When Pilate sought to release him at his trial the crowd shouted "crucify him" and demanded that a murderer be freed instead! He forgot that Messiah was HATED, PERSECUTED, and PUT TO DEATH. This Pastor clearly did not know the Messiah of scripture, that was obvious, and he certainly did not know what true love is! Christ did not live by the principles set forth in Carnegie's "How To Win Friends And Influence People." (A very popular book among Christians in the Americas). Carnegie taught them that they should let someone be in error rather than contradict them and worse yet (according to Carnegie) prove them wrong publicly! One example Carnegie gave in his book is of a dinner in which the host and a guest got into an argument as to whether a certain quote was from the Bible or Shakespeare. Carnegie's advice was that the guest should never have done that but he goes further and admits that he actually stepped into the argument himself and AGREED with the host (even though the host was clearly in error) just so he could get on the host's "good side." (He was proud that he had done it too, how appalling is that?) This seems like a silly example, yet it is not! The world says you should never correct others when you could otherwise just allow that person to remain in ignorance (or worse yet lie to them to get on their good side) in order to make that person like you more. The world says that someone who does correct the person when they could avoid doing so is a "fool." The BIBLE on the other hand says that the person who doesn't like someone just because they corrected them is the fool. I wonder about Carnegie alot. I would like to examine his entire business history and see how many times he ever lamented in his life about being in business "with fools." It was clearly his own fault if he ever had those moments!

Proverbs 9: 8-9 "8 Rebuke not a scorner lest he hate you, rebuke a wise man and he will love you." 9 Give instruction to a wise man and he will yet be wiser; teach a just man and he will increase in learning." Proverbs 18: 2 "A fool has no delight in understanding but that his heart may discover itself."
There is an old saying that churches in America pass around: "People don't

care how much you know until they know how much you care."
This is most definitely true of the world, but should NOT be true of a wise man! A wise man seeks knowledge and desires to know the truth (any truth). People have revealed where their hearts are at with this saying. Before they will seek knowledge from someone (or accept correction) there must be something ELSE in it for them. They must know that the person they are receiving truth from "cares" about them (in other words the person must win their worldly friendship first). This sets up what I call the "politics" of religion. You must get into the "group" first and be accepted and received into the clique before you can be received as someone with something important to say. I tell you now, very few of those cliques would ever receive Christ if he were to have started his ministry today and walked among them teaching, for Christ would NOT have played their politics! He would not have tried to win their hearts first by flattering them and joining their group and stroking their egos! Messiah, the Christ, was most definitely a "tell it like it is" person who did not worry about whether people who heard him liked him at all! The fact that people (especially in American churches) don't care how much someone knows until they know how much that someone cares is a sad testament and speaks volumes about their search and desire for the truth! It's not just in the churches though, it permeates American culture. In schools, the gifted kids are ridiculed, scorned, called names like "geeks, weirdos, nerds." The smarter you are the more you are likely to be an outcast especially if you don't hide your intelligence (and for highly intelligent girls hiding their intelligence is even more important). Messiah was probably the smartest man who ever lived! Yet I can hear the Pharisees and Scribes talking about him now. "I hate that guy he turned over the money changers tables the other day and called us "a den of thieves" and he claims to walk in the love of God, what a phony." Messiah corrected people all the time. One man came to him to earnestly ask him what he must do to inherit eternal life, the man said, "Good Master what must I do to inherit eternal life." Instead of congratulating that person for seeking

truth and wisdom from the only true source in Israel, Messiah felt the need to correct him and asked first, "why do you call me Good, there is none Good but the Father in Heaven?" It was totally unnecessary, really. Messiah could have overlooked it (especially if you, like Trinitarians everywhere, believe that Messiah was actually the Father wearing a human suit). You would think the important thing was to get the message to this man, but instead Messiah chose to "embarass him" in front of everyone by pointing out the man's obvious error in calling another man "Good Master." Not something Carnegie would have recommended! Messiah said "they hated me without a cause."

John 15: 25 "But this comes to pass so that the word might be fulfilled that is written in their law, "They hated me without a cause."
Yet, by today's standards, (especially among the churches) they had plenty of understandable cause to hate Messiah! Messiah wrecked their temple money exchange system and grabbed a whip and drove out the money changers. Messiah publicly called the CLERGY of his day "snakes and vipers" and "white washed graves." Messiah was politically incorrect constantly! He even said to one of his own disciples "get behind me Satan!" He accosted arrogance at every turn. He shouted "you fools" while quoting incorrect interpretations of scripture! He was a constant thorn to the powers that be, an irrepressable whistleblower who did not cease to call out the hypocrites and shame them publicly every chance he got! He didn't care that they would hate him and actually wore their hatred for him as a badge of honor and told his disciples to do the same saying, "the servant is not greater than his master, if they hated me they will hate you." My former Pastor was dead wrong! Messiah said the world would NOT love us, but would HATE us!

Mark 13:13 "And you shall be hated of all men for my name's sake, but he that endures to the end, the same shall be saved."
What am I saying? That we should go out of our way to make people hate us so that we can be more like Messiah? Don't be ridiculous! Anyone who twists what I'm saying in that fashion is, well, they are a fool, there's no other way to put it! Of course we speak at all times out of love. My only point here is that modern Christian churches have a distorted and perverted view of what love does! If you believe that Messiah was FULL of God's love, if you believe that when Messiah spoke, that his words were not his own but came straight forth from the mouth of the God of Love, then you have to accept that sometimes love says things that

might be embarrassing and hurtful to the hearers! The truth truly does indeed hurt sometimes! The fact that the world empathizes with the FOOL who hates to be corrected is the most telling of all signs which show how far they are removed from the Love of Christ and how little they understand the Messiah of scripture! Someone like Carnegie is NOT walking in love. A true friend does not lie to you to get on your good side or stroke your ego! A true friend will tell you the truth, no matter how much it hurts. Someone who truly loves you is NOT going to lie to you just so that they can "do business" with you, win you as a friend, or influence you (that's actually manipulation not influence)! So, the next time you go into a Bible study, or into a chat room, or a forum on the internet and start despising someone because they are stomping all over your pet theories and proving it with hard scripture, and before you start accusing them of being "hateful" because they don't beat around the bush and they tell you the truth exactly as it is (and that truth seems to hurt you). If you are "rebuked" by someone, before you walk away and use that rebuke as evidence that they MUST NOT be spiritual, remember the Christ himself rebuked many, and consider it might just be possible that person LOVES you! Remember what the Bible says. I'll quote it again:

Proverbs 9: 8-9 "8 Rebuke not a scorner lest he hate you, rebuke a wise man and he will love you." 9 Give instruction to a wise man and he will yet be wiser; teach a just man and he will increase in learning."
Jeffrey Dean