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Apples of Gold
Radio Script for February 16, 2011
“Why Did the World Hate Jesus?”
Hello, I’m Doug Apple…with Apples of Gold.
Ah, Jesus – the Good Shepherd.
He just walked around, petting little lambsies on the head, right?
He was a pied piper with a string of flowers in His hair, a peace sign on His robe, and nothing but kind words to say to everyone He met. Giggling children followed Him, women sparkled at His pure love, and men joined His team. He radiated hope and encouragement, and left nothing in His wake but happiness and joy.
That’s the way some people picture Jesus, but is that the way it was?
Listen to this revealing statement Jesus made in John 7:7. He said the world hated Him.
Hate is a pretty strong word, but that’s what He said. The world hated Him.
So imagine Jesus walking along and what is being left in His wake? Many things, of course, but one of them is hate. The world hated Jesus.
Not that Jesus was about hate, or even stirring up hate. Look at John 15:17. He said, “These things I command you, that you love one another.”
Now that sounds more like the Jesus we know and love! But look at the very next verse. “If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you.”
If Jesus is a great teacher of love, why would the world hate Him?
Back to John 7:7. Jesus said the world hated Him because He testified that its works are evil.
What kinds of things was Jesus calling evil?
Here’s a laundry list of defilement in Mark chapter seven. Jesus said these things defile a man, “…evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness.”
Jesus stood for righteousness and holiness. He called sin “sin.”
In John 15 He went into a long discourse about how, if the world hated Him, it would hate His disciples, too. Then in verse 22 He offered this reason for the world hating Him. “If I had not come and spoken to them, they would have no sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin.”
Jesus called a sin a sin. Yes, He forgave sins. Yes, He was the Lamb of God who gave Himself for the sin of the world. He did not come to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. (John 3:17)
But when you dare to draw a line in the sand and say that some things are sins and unacceptable in the sight of God, some people are going to hate you for it.
Why is that? First of all, people don’t like to be told that they are wrong. If people like to do something, and you tell them that it’s wrong, then it’s like giving them a shove. It shoves them right out of their comfort zone.
It wounds their pride. If you tell me that something I’m doing is a sin, my pride takes a hit.
Then there is the conviction and the guilt. If I let your words sink in even a little, I’m going to feel convicted and guilty. And if they keep sinking in I’m going to feel some shame.
Who wants to feel those stressful, negative feelings? Who wants to be told that their actions are wrong? It makes them feel bad, and if they want to do something about it, it requires change, and you know how people feel about change.
So what they often do is this: hate the messenger.
Jesus really was a teacher of love. John three says that God “so loved the world” that He sent His Son, not to condemn the world, but to save it. But that spurs the reaction “saved from what? What do I need to be saved from?”
Sin, of course. Sin is what we all need to be saved from. That means we are sinners. We have all sinned. We have done wrong, thought wrong, and lived wrong. Even on our best days we fall short of the glory of God.
As Christians we tend to accept that message. We hear it in church a lot, and we may have heard it all of our lives.
But outside the church, out in the world where most people live, sin is not a welcome topic of conversation. It is a bright light in the eyes of people who prefer darkness. They find it annoying if not completely offensive. “How dare you say that I am wrong, that this thing I’m doing is a sin.”
And there is one other thing that makes people hate Jesus and those who represent Him: the aroma of judgment. Look at Second Corinthians chapter two, “For we are to God the fragrance of Christ among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing. To the one we are the aroma of death leading to death, and to the other the aroma of life leading to life.”
The world hates Christ because when He is around, or His ambassadors, they smell the judgment for their sin. They smell the penalty of “death leading to death.”
It’s really life that is being offered to them, but they receive it like a hammer that just keeps beating on them, and they hate it.
So Jesus loved the world, and He really was a teacher of love. But out of His love, He could not skip over or whitewash the evil of sin.
And as His representatives, neither can we.
Comments?
E-mail me: dougapple@wave94.com.
May God bless you today! With Apples of Gold…I’m Doug Apple.
© 2011 The Arrow’s Tip
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(Proverbs 25:11 – “A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver.”)
Why “The Arrow’s Tip”? Each morning, after diligently seeking the Lord, I write Apples of Gold. Then before I release it to the public I pray one final prayer, “Lord, send forth your arrows.” I envision Apples of Gold as arrows, tips dipped in the river of the water of life that flows from the throne of God (Rev. 22:1), sailing toward the hearts and minds of men and women around the world.
Doug Apple
General Manager - Wave 94
Christian Radio for Tallahassee
PO Box 4105
Tallahassee, FL 32315
(850) 926-8000
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