POST #2 :THE CHRISTIAN REVOLUTION
by Donna Calvin
June 3, 2011
Last night I was co-hosting with Pastor Ernie Sanders www.WRWL.org on his Bible-based, conservative, uncompromising, talk-radio program, “What’s Right, What’s Left, The Voice of the Christian Resistance.”
To listen live on your radio dial, tune in WHKW – AM 1220, The Word, a 50,000 watt Salem Christian Radio Station in the Greater Cleveland area and other localities, plus worldwide live over the Internet. Listen Live from 9 to 11 PM, Monday thru Friday, at www.WHKWradio.com on your computer. His local call in number is (216) 901-0933. Long distance, toll free (888) 677-9673.
The Bible Study from nine o’clock to nine-thirty centered about a question that he’d been asked by a distraught lady caller into a previous program. “Why does everyone hate us? We are good people. We try to live right and to do no harm. Why does everyone in the world hate us?”
I’ve been at this a long time so believe me, I understand how much people hate people like me who are apt to stand out in front of a bloody abortion mill and rescue babies, how much people hate people like me who call sodomites, sodomites, instead of those happy, gay terms, and how people hate people like me who call cohabitating, fornication, and people like me who call sin, sin and tell the sinner he or she is headed for hell. I’m used to it. In fact, if unrepentant sinners, unbelievers, the unsaved didn’t hate me, I’d wonder what I had been failing to do. You see, I’ve studied my Bible so I knew the answer, but Pastor Sanders is a Bible scholar and he surely didn’t need to ask me. He’s been shot at, run down by cars, and screamed at, none of which I ever have been. But getting back to the Bible Study, he pointed out to the woman to whom was hopefully listening exactly why the world hates us, not in personal testimony, but in Scripture. Our testimony is a good thing, but only Scripture lasts for all eternity. It is written in the Gospel of Matthew 24:35 King James Version (KJV): Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away. There is nothing more powerful than the Word of God. Nothing can stand against it. It is the Absolute Unyielding Forever Truth!
First, let us take a look at John 7:1-4 KJV
[1] After these things Jesus walked in Galilee: for he would not walk in Jewry, because the Jews sought to kill him.
[2] Now the Jews’ feast of tabernacles was at hand.
[3] His brethren therefore said unto him, Depart hence, and go into Judaea, that thy disciples also may see the works that thou doest.
[4] For there is no man that doeth any thing in secret, and he himself seeketh to be known openly. If thou do these things, shew thyself to the world.
To get the time period established, this was taking place about six months before Jesus’ crucifixion. So now we see that Jesus was already in serious trouble with the Jewish hierarchy – not necessarily the ordinary people, but the Jewish establishment in power. Jesus was a Jew. He taught in the Temple. They knew him. They didn’t like him. Plus, not everyone believed in him as we shall see as we continue to read in John. He hadn’t been crucified, hadn’t died on the cross, and he hadn’t resurrected and the Holy Spirit had not yet entered into believers, so at this time, literally, no one was yet “born again” and filled with the Holy Spirit such as is the case with True Believers today since the event of Pentecost forty days after Jesus was taken back up into heaven after his resurrection. In fact, not even his own half-brothers believed in him. We continue with:
John 7:4-7 KJV
[4] For there is no man that doeth any thing in secret, and he himself seeketh to be known openly. If thou do these things, shew thyself to the world.
[5] For neither did his brethren believe in him.
[6] Then Jesus said unto them, My time is not yet come: but your time is alway ready.
[7] The world cannot hate you; but me it hateth, because I testify of it, that the works thereof are evil.
In verse 5 this refers to Jesus’ actual brothers, his younger ones, of course, he only had younger siblings. He was Mary’s firstborn child and she had other children after Jesus, not by the Holy Spirit in a virgin birth as was Jesus’ miraculous conception and birth, but by her husband, Joseph.
Verse 7 is a KEY VERSE that directly begins to answer the distraught woman’s question…“Why does everyone hate us? We are good people. We try to live right and to do no harm. Why does the world hate us?”
Verse 7 is very important, so I shall repeat it…
John 7:7 KJV
[7] The world cannot hate you; but me it hateth, because I testify of it, that the works thereof are evil.
This verse says that the world hates Christians because we testify of the evil works of the world, known as sin, just like Jesus did. The people who are not saved don’t want to hear that what they are doing is evil and sinful. They want to believe that they are going to whatever paradise with whatever demigod they have invented for themselves in which they shall reside upon their death – or maybe just believe that they go into a blank of oblivion, but either way, they do not want to hear that the wages of sin is death – and in the Biblical context of Truth, the word death means spending their eternity in everlasting hell. They want to be left alone to enjoy the brief moments of what they find to be pleasurable feelings associated with their sins, the same sins that will take them straight to hell upon the exact moment they die and leave this earthly body.
That’s enough to get them hating you. It’s not YOU or ME they hate. They hate who we are in Christ. They hate us telling them the Truth. They hate the Holy Spirit of Jesus Christ that indwells each True Believer. They hate it almost as much as Satan hates God!
I’ll continue this tomorrow, Saturday, June 4, 2011. There’s still a whole lot more to learn about Why does the world hate Christians?
Read Previous Post
