Jayden tried to play it cool, saying he definitely didn’t take a cookie-but his mom spotted the chocolate crumbs on his face. Busted! He admitted he’d broken the rule and said sorry. His mom was like, “Lying is worse than sneaking a cookie, so promise me you’ll always tell the truth.” Feeling guilty, Jayden agreed.
Later, Auntie Brandi came over with a new hat and asked Jayden what he thought. Remembering his promise to keep it real, he looked at her and said, “to keep it one hundred Auntie, it looks like someone dumped a bowl of spaghetti on your head.” (Lexia). His mother, despite how honest she wanted Jason to be, did not like that level of honesty.
Hatred in exchange for truth.
The first reason for church hatred is that it is a champion of truth.
Just like Jayden, the Church always has to keep it one hundred. When it does so, the world will not like that, and the church makes enemies.
Bill Adair, Professor of Journalism & Public Policy at Duke University says, “For American politicians: this is a golden age of lying.” “There is an advantage that comes from willfully misstating the truth that is judged to be greater than the disadvantage that may come from telling the truth.” [In essence, lying is more beneficial than the truth.] That is now seen in politics globally. Jim Kolbe, a former Republican member of Congress from Arizona, described the advantage more vividly: A lie “arouses and stimulates their base.” Essentially Lying has become the means by which the masses are influenced. The author of The Crucible wrote lying is a means by which you get into the graces of society and the ruling class. That is the world in which we now live.
This is what Jesus says about liars: John 8:44, You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.
Notice the phrase – ‘when he lies, he speaks his native language.’ Your language says everything about you: your culture, who your parents are, and where you are from. A church that engages in lies or complicity in silence when liars operate, is not God’s church. It is coming from a different place and the world will love it. Now Jesus told the church to speak the truth. And that is at odds with the tradition of this world. Therefore, it is natural for the world to hate the Church. If the world loves the church or works harmoniously with it, then God is the liar. Again, because the nature of the world is lying, if the church remains true to its calling, then the world should have no love for it.
Church hatred spurned by social correction.
The second reason for church hatred is that it prosecutes sin and immorality in civil society. The church has to expose sin; expose the concept of sin and prosecute human fallibility, or brokenness. In a context where the world has normalised sin, the church has to expose it. It has to announce fornication as fornication and injustice as injustice. It has to teach that providing commensurate work for commensurate pay is the moral thing to do; lying is still a sin; Jealousy is still a sin. And adultery is still a violation of the moral law.
There was a government official on a Caribbean Island who was sleeping with a schoolgirl. When that was brought to light, the members of his political party were more inclined to object to the young lady exposing him on social media, than they were interested in whether this man committed the act of adultery. In addition to being a government official, he was a church officer. He was married. Yet, people were quicker to expose the young lady as a gold digger, than that scoundrel’s adulterous actions. The church to which he belongs would normally disfellowship members for adultery, but to my knowledge, no disciplinary actions have gone his way.
Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter! (Isa. 5:20).
Eze. 9:3, Then the glory of the God of Israel rose from above the cherubim, where it had been, and moved to the threshold of the temple. And He called to the man clothed in linen who had the writing kit at his side. 4“Go throughout the city of Jerusalem,” said the LORD, “and put a mark on the foreheads of the men sighing and groaning over all the abominations committed there.”
Essentially, God sends out his angels to recognize agents who cry out against sin, lying which is abominable to God, and evil – the essential role of the church.
Therefore, to the extent that the church keeps silent in the case of wickedness, immorality or iniquity, it has become complicit in the actions of the world, and so, it does not represent the interest of God. If the church exposes sin, hate will inevitably follow.
Hatred for Jesus, the great offender.
The third reason for church hatred is that the world hated Jesus first.
In Jesus’ first sermon, he was offensive: In Luke 4:14-29, Jesus announces his ministry and the anointing of the Holy Spirit upon him and preached where everyone was so in awe, that they praised him as though he was the Billy Graham or T.D. Jakes of his time. However, by the time he was finished, the crowd took him to the edge of a high cliff and tried to push him over.
Matthew 10:34-36
34 “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35 For I have come to turn “a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law — a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.’ He said, I have not come to bring peace, but a sword!
One will conclude from that saying from Jesus that once a person becomes his follower, you are drawing a demarcation between you and the world – the battle lines will be laid. You will understand what Jesus says in Mathew 10:22: “You will be hated by everyone because of me.” He said everyone.
Here is the conclusion of this matter, watch out when the church does not offend the world!