As I look around me, it is extremely evident of the hatred for the true God, who was revealed to us in the Old Testament as the LORD God of Israel. This spills over to a hatred of His one and only true Word to us known as the Holy Bible and an outright hatred of His people known to the world as Christians. The reason for this obsession is a three letter word called ‘sin’. The world wants to sin to its heart’s content and doesn’t want anyone spoiling their party. It is just like what the people of Sodom and Gomorrah said, “Stand back!” they shouted. “This fellow came to town as an outsider, and now he’s acting like our judge! We’ll treat you far worse than those other men!” And they lunged toward Lot to break down the door. (Genesis 19:9 NLT)
Even though we must remain a standard against sin, please let’s never forget that as Christians we MUST LOVE THE SINNER IN THE MIDST OF HATING THE SIN. If the sinner only sees that we hate the sin, we are failing miserably as Christians. They must sense first and foremost that we (representatives of God) love them. Jude 1:22-23 states it beautifully, “And you must show mercy to those whose faith is wavering. Rescue others by snatching them from the flames of judgment. Show mercy to still others, but do so with great caution, hating the sins that contaminate their lives.” Many Churches get it wrong when all they do is quote Scripture to hate sin. Other Churches get it wrong when all they do is pervert love without the truth about sin. Oh Lord, help us to get it just right even though the world in general will hate us for it.
If we are confronted, we cannot compromise God’s Word, even though the world sees it as extreme narrow mindedness and wants to annihilate it just like they did with Steven in Acts 7:57-58 which tells us, “Then they put their hands over their ears and began shouting. They rushed at him and dragged him out of the city and began to stone him.”
The following is a list I compiled of the nucleus of truths of why the LORD, the Bible, Christians, and Christianity are so hated by the world. Many today try to explain away these truths or pervert them into something different, but the Word of God is clear and as Jesus told us in the Sermon on the Mount, “You can enter God’s Kingdom only through the narrow gate. The highway to hell is broad, and its gate is wide for the many who choose that way. But the gateway to life is very narrow and the road is difficult, and only a few ever find it.”
1. A hatred for God along with rampant sexual perversion has become epidemic:
“But God’s angry displeasure erupts as acts of human mistrust and wrongdoing and lying accumulate, as people try to put a shroud over truth. But the basic reality of God is plain enough. Open your eyes and there it is! By taking a long and thoughtful look at what God has created, people have always been able to see what their eyes as such can’t see: eternal power, for instance, and the mystery of his divine being. So nobody has a good excuse. What happened was this: People knew God perfectly well, but when they didn’t treat him like God, refusing to worship him, they trivialized themselves into silliness and confusion so that there was neither sense nor direction left in their lives. They pretended to know it all, but were illiterate regarding life. They traded the glory of God who holds the whole world in his hands for cheap figurines you can buy at any roadside stand. So God said, in effect, “If that’s what you want, that’s what you get.” It wasn’t long before they were living in a pigpen, smeared with filth, filthy inside and out. And all this because they traded the true God for a fake god, and worshiped the god they made instead of the God who made them—the God we bless, the God who blesses us . Oh, yes! Worse followed. Refusing to know God, they soon didn’t know how to be human either—women didn’t know how to be women, men didn’t know how to be men. Sexually confused, they abused and defiled one another, women with women, men with men—all lust, no love. And then they paid for it, oh, how they paid for it—emptied of God and love, godless and loveless wretches.” (Romans 1:18-27 MSG)
“They are backstabbers, haters of God, insolent, proud, and boastful. They invent new ways of sinning. They know God’s justice requires that those who do these things deserve to die, yet they do them anyway. Worse yet, they encourage others to do them, too.” (Romans 1:30a,32 NLT)
2. Way beyond the fact that life begins at conception, the selfish assumption that a person’s body is their own to do with what they want to is the bigger lie:
“Run from sexual sin! No other sin so clearly affects the body as this one does. For sexual immorality is a sin against your own body. Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself, for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body.” (1 Corinthians 6:18-20 NLT)
3. The woman was made for the man not the man for the woman. This is not about dominance, but it is about harmony where respect from the wife and love from the husband equally balance themselves:
“For man is not from woman, but woman from man. Nor was man created for the woman, but woman for the man. For this reason the woman ought to have a symbol of authority on her head, because of the angels. Nevertheless, neither is man independent of woman, nor woman independent of man, in the Lord. For as woman came from man, even so man also comes through woman; but all things are from God.” (I Corinthians 11:8-12 NKJV)
“And further, submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. For wives, this means submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For a husband is the head of his wife as Christ is the head of the church. He is the Savior of his body, the church. As the church submits to Christ, so you wives should submit to your husbands in everything. For husbands, this means love your wives, just as Christ loved the church. He gave up his life for her.” (Ephesians 5:21-25 NLT)
“The same goes for you wives: Be good wives to your husbands, responsive to their needs. There are husbands who, indifferent as they are to any words about God, will be captivated by your life of holy beauty. What matters is not your outer appearance—the styling of your hair, the jewelry you wear, the cut of your clothes—but your inner disposition. Cultivate inner beauty, the gentle, gracious kind that God delights in.” (1 Peter 3:1-4 MSG)
4. Love without truth and justice is a perverted love:
“Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out.” (1 Corinthians 13:4-6 NLT)
5. If you are capable of finding work and don’t work, then don’t demand to eat:
“Even while we were with you, we gave you this command: “Those unwilling to work will not get to eat.” Yet we hear that some of you are living idle lives, refusing to work and meddling in other people’s business. We command such people and urge them in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ to settle down and work to earn their own living.” (2 Thessalonians 3:10-12 NLT)
“If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it; but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing.” (1 Corinthians 13:3 NLT)
6. Owe no man anything:
“That’s also why you pay taxes—so that an orderly way of life can be maintained. Fulfill your obligations as a citizen. Pay your taxes, pay your bills, respect your leaders. Don’t run up debts, except for the huge debt of love you owe each other.” (Romans 13:6-8 MSG)
7. There was nothing that was created that wasn’t made by God:
“Christ is the visible image of the invisible God. He existed before anything was created and is supreme over all creation, for through him God created everything in the heavenly realms and on earth. He made the things we can see and the things we can’t see— such as thrones, kingdoms, rulers, and authorities in the unseen world. Everything was created through him and for him. He existed before anything else, and he holds all creation together.” (Colossians 1:15-17 NLT)
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:1-5, 14 NKJV)
8. There is no other name under heaven whereby man must be saved:
“Let it be known to you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, by Him this man stands here before you whole. Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” (Acts 4:10,12 NKJV)
Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” (John 14:6 NKJV)
9. Anyone who has not submitted to the Lordship of Jesus Christ of Nazareth and accepted Him as their Savior over sin, will spend eternity in the Lake of Fire:
“He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.” (John 3:18-19 NKJV)
“And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire.” (Revelation 20:15 NKJV)
“Then the King will turn to those on the left and say, ‘Away with you, you cursed ones, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his demons. And they will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous will go into eternal life.” (Matthew 25:41, 46 NLT)
“The Son of Man will send out His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, and those who practice lawlessness, and will cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears to hear, let him hear!” (Matthew 13:41-43 NKJV)
“And they shall go forth and look upon the corpses of the men who have transgressed against Me. For their worm does not die, and their fire is not quenched. They shall be an abhorrence to all flesh.” (Isaiah 66:24 NKJV)
“And being in torments in Hades, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. Then he cried and said, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.’” (Luke 16:23-24 NKJV)
Sometimes only a cartoon can capture the irony of the world we live in:
Annointing 