Jesus Was Hated But You Want to Be Liked

When I go around and visit churches, I am shocked at what's being preached from our pulpits today. You'd be more impressed, Fran, to walk into a church and actually hear about the Jesus of the Bible these days. Oh, you will hear about John 3 16, they'll quote that, and they'll give you an invitation to walk an aisle and come to Jesus, but it's not the Jesus of the Bible they are telling you about.

It's a counterfeit Jesus. Many ministers today speak of a Jesus who is more tolerant of sin. They speak of a salvation that's more broad than it is narrow, and a Savior who will tolerate just about anybody who will merely accept him on their terms.

But the Christ of the Bible will not be dressed up in pretty robes to make him more presentable to sinful man. Jesus spoke of how he was hated by this world. Listen to the gospel of John in chapter 7. You can turn in your Bibles there now.

We will be in verse 7, which declares, the world cannot hate you, but me it hateth, because I testify of it, that the works thereof are evil. But in the majority of our pulpits today, friends, you will hear of another Jesus other than the one found in our Bibles. And this reminds me of a story I heard related by Manly Beasley.

He said, there is a cliff in Mexico that you stand on and gaze down at a certain village of Mexican workers. These people work down in the riverbed in their corn patch, and there they grow their corn. And when the corn is ready to harvest, they shuck it, and after it dries out, they'll take it and grind it into cornmeal and make tortillas.

They'll take those tortillas down to the open market, and there sell the tortillas for a few pesos and put them away. Come back out to their houses, and there they will live off lizards. They'll go out among the rocks and catch these huge long lizards, and they'll eat those lizards and save that money for a special day.

A special day when they will start a pilgrimage to a wooden statue of Jesus up in the mountains. The terrain to that statue is so bad that most of the people will have to crawl on their hands and knees a couple of miles, and by the time they get up to that statue, they are bleeding all over. Standing beside the statue is a priest, and that priest is saying, now you love God, give to Him, because you show your love to God by giving.

And those people will reach into their little bags and purses and pull those pesos out, stained in their own blood, and drop that money in a slit in the top of the head of that wooden Jesus. Then the priest gives a prayer, and when he is finished, the priest will yell at them, you have not given enough, look, Jesus is sad, He is crying. And all that time, there will be another priest hidden in that hollow statue, and with a little hand pump, he will pump water to where it comes out of human made tear ducts, and that statue is crying.

And there those people will reach into their bags and give every last peso to that dead wooden Jesus. Then those people will crawl down that mountain and go back to eating lizards and growing their corn to make tortillas to get more pesos to give in sacrifice to a false God that cannot hear them. And the tragedy is, friends, that today in our Protestant churches, we have the same problem going on where our priests, so called, present a false Jesus to people.

And even though our priests don't make you drop money into a wooden statue of Jesus, nevertheless, they are feeding you a false religion by giving you a false God to worship. And just like those deceived Mexican workers, many today in our Evangelical churches do not know the difference between the real Jesus of the Bible and the false Jesus that is spoken of in our pulpits, and there is a reason for this. It is a Christ hating world, friends, and the reason why the Jesus you will hear about in most churches on Sunday morning is not the Jesus of the Bible is because preachers refuse to preach an unpopular Jesus because they want to be popular themselves.

In fact, the title of my message today is, Jesus was hated, but you want to be liked. And it's true, friends, just like those Mexican laborers who were fed a false Jesus by those phony priests, many are fed a false Jesus today by phony preachers who are afraid of men. Men just won't preach the Jesus of the Bible today because they want to be liked.

They will feed you a false Jesus and tell you that God is only a God of love and all you have to do to be saved is to accept Jesus as your personal Savior and agree with John 3 16. They will say, God loves Jesus came to die for you. Do you believe that? Then walk this aisle and come to Jesus and just invite him into your heart and you will be saved.

That's all you have to do. Just come forward and accept Jesus as your personal Savior. And if you do, you will go to heaven, but you have to make it public, friend, and walk this aisle because Jesus said, he who is ashamed of me, I will be ashamed of on that day.

So come to Jesus. Now is your chance. And people walk that aisle and accept a false Jesus.

They know nothing about, and they live their lives like those Mexican workers and serve the only God they heard about in the best way. They know how then they die and they die in their sins and their souls go back to the God who gave it. And as they stand before the Lord of glory, who has eyes of fire, he declares to them away from me, you workers of iniquity.

I never knew you. The real Jesus of the Bible was a hated man. He was hated by the religious crowd of his day.

He was hated by the world of his day. He was so hated that they arrested him, violently beat him. And with malicious hatred, they screamed away with him, crucify him.

He was taken by cruel hands and nailed to a tree. Because of the hatred of sinful man, he suffered and died. But because of his love for sinful man, he came down to earth, endured the pain and suffering of the cross.

His precious blood turned the color of that wood red as he gave his very life so we could go up to heaven. And the reason he is not hated today in this country is because we have replaced the God of the Bible with another God, a false God, a wooden Jesus, who is not the man who said they hated me without a cause. But if you preach the real Christ, the world hating Christ, who is a living Lord, then you will be an object of scorn as well.

You will face persecution for preaching a crucified Christ, friend. But we want to save our skins. We want popularity among our peers and people.

So we water him down a little, dress him up in a more pleasant apparel. And we lie to people and tell them that God is just a God of love. And all you have to do to be saved is to come to this God of love and accept his son into your heart and believe he died for you.

That's all you have to do to get to heaven these days, friends. It's as simple as that. Well, let me give you some evidence of a Christ-hating world.

Listen, friend, you start preaching Jesus as he is in the Bible, as he is now, a living Lord, and you will be hated because of him. Men will hate you if you preach the real Jesus. I can prove it with this message.

I will list several reasons why the real Jesus is a hated figure. And these are number one, he is hated because of who he is. Number two, he is hated because of what he said.

Number three, he is hated because of what he has done. Let's look at the first aspect of why he is hated because of who he is. Who is Jesus? He is the son of God and he is the only way to heaven.

There is no other way to heaven than by him. He said, Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same as a thief and a robber. That means all the world religions that do not adhere to Christianity are populating hell right now, friends.

Jesus is not popular to a Jew. Jesus is not popular to a Buddhist. Jesus is not popular to a Muslim.

No one likes to be called a thief and a robber, and they will hate you for that. So who is Jesus? Jesus is a living Lord who sits at the right hand of the Father, and he earned that right by way of a bloody cross. He is a living Lord.

I said, Lord, he is the Lord Jesus Christ. And if you want him savingly, you must bow to him as Lord. If he's not your Lord, friend, then he's not your savior.

I can promise you that. Now you start preaching the Lordship of Christ, and you will be hated because the Christ of the Bible was hated by a sinful man. In Luke 19.14, it declares, But his citizens hated him and sent a message after him saying, We will not have this man to reign over us.

Listen, friend, you start being honest with folks and tell them that if they do not submit to all the rights and claims of the gospel on their lives that they are yet unsaved, you will have a fight on your hands while the good deacons will wring your neck. You start telling folks the truth that if they want to be saved, they must repent and throw down their shotgun of rebellion and turn from their sins and submit all to a sovereign king and living Lord, and they will cry out, We will not have this man to reign over us. Because the Jesus they hear about today is a friendly sort who has no rights and claims on you.

All you have to do is believe in him, and you don't have to change your lifestyle. You can still hug your sins and still sit and rule on the throne of your life and still go to heaven. That's what the churches tell us today.

They make it easy to become a Christian. But the Jesus they preach is not the Jesus of the Bible, friend. He is not the hated Jesus that the world hates because he demands total submission from his followers.

Did you hear me, friend? Total submission. You cannot call yourself a Christian and live an unholy life and still get by and go to heaven. My Bible declares holiness without no one will see the Lord and the God of the Bible declares, Be ye holy, for I am holy.

But I doubt you'll hear a sermon on holiness this week in our churches because they won't preach about a holy God who hates sin and a God who must punish sin. No, sir. They will dress him up in more presentable robes and make him more tolerant of sin than he is and make salvation more accessible than he made it.

Jesus said you will be saved. He declared in Matthew 7, 14, because straight is the gate and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life and few there be that find it. How few are still, friends, if you cannot hear the actual gospel in this country being preached in the majority of our churches today.

How in the world can someone be saved by a false gospel and a wooden Jesus? So this first aspect is Jesus is hated because of who he is. The second aspect of our message today is this. Christ is hated because of what he said.

What did he say? He said, unless you repent, you shall all likewise perish. He preached that repentance was necessary to salvation. He said you must be born again.

That means he preached the necessity of a work of regeneration upon the heart. He said the son quickeneth whom he will. He said no man can come to me except the father which hath sent me draw him.

That means salvation is not in your hands, friends. God is the author of salvation. He said the world cannot hate you, but me it hateth because I testify of it that the works thereof are evil.

Jesus cried out about the sins in the land in his day, but we refused to do it. Listen, brother preacher. Jesus was hated, but you want to be liked.

So you preach a Jesus who speaks no evil of this present world. You do not cry out against sin in the land. Your lips are silent about hell and its fires.

Your lips are silent about a God who hates sin and demands holiness from his followers. Your lips are silent about a God who must punish sin. Your lips are silent about a God who demands repentance as a necessary component of salvation.

Your lips are silent about the necessity of a work of grace upon the heart through a supernatural act of God called regeneration, which is the new birth. And your lips are silent about the lordship of Jesus Christ, that if he's not your lord, he's not your savior. And your lips are silent about the great fact that even though God requires saving faith, he is the only one who can give it, that God is the author of salvation and not man.

And your lips are silent about all these things because you want to be liked by your people. The last aspect of our message today is this. Christ is hated because of what he did.

What did he do? He triumphed over the devil on Calvary that day, friend. And a devil-loving, sin-loving world hates a holy Christ who died on a bloody cross so men can be reconciled back to God and gain pardon for their sins. Christ depopulated hell on Calvary that day, friend, because he shed his precious blood and died so you can get under it and have your sins washed away.

Christ Jesus arose from the dead, knowing that Christ, being raised from the dead, dieth no more, death hath no more dominion over him. Listen, friends, our religion differs from other world religions. Buddha lived, died, and was buried.

Confucius lived, died, and was buried. Muhammad lived, died, and was buried. Jesus lived, died, and was buried.

But he rose again. We serve a risen Lord. Christianity was never built on a coffin lid.

My Bible says, if Christ be not risen, then our preaching is vain. So we see that Christ is hated because of who he is. Christ is hated because of what he said.

And Christ is hated because of what he did on Calvary's cross. Let's get back to being honest with folks and preaching the Jesus of the Bible because a sinful man needs to be warned about the great danger of dying in their sins because my Bible declares, the soul that sinneth, it shall die.