Jesus was a Hater
28 Feb., 2018
Yes, He was a “country boy,” said Clay Walker. He liked to go “swimmin’ in the river, fishin’ for his dinner” and “livin’ with the sinners like me.” And He “never had a million dollars,”nor “wore a lot of stylish fancy clothes.” Just a good ol’ country boy. Indeed, he a nice guy with whom any regular fellow would enjoy hanging around.
But that is not a good summary characterization of the Lord of glory. Really. He who came down to die for us is He who reigns forever, King of the universe, Lord of the nations. He will come to judge the world for its wickedness with holy justice. And His wrath won’t be pretty for the recipients.
We are advised to consider not just His role as a kind lamb patter roaming the fields. The All powerful Creator, Sustainer, and Judge of the human race will drag up everyone hiding in death, fit them to stand naked before His piercing, all-seeing eyes, and run a video of the deeds of each and every person before his own eyes. (Uh, before “her” own eyes, too – for the grammatically confused.)
So where is the love?
It is in His very death for His own so that His just wrath would miss them! But it won’t miss the rest of the world. Nope. He ain’t happy with them. He is, as some have said in popular parlance, “downright pissed.” And how much easier it is to understand His just wrath the more one peers into the darkness of mankind’s rebellious, disgusting behavior!
Oh but He is patient! In the present time in our national mindset when our sensibilities are attuned to any injustice regarding race, it is good to recall how dull we once were to racial injustice – a slave-holding nation – and then to consider how dull we might be now to the overlooked sins of the present time.
Reflect upon the dullness of the Christian churches regarding the man-stealing industry. It has been a mere sesquicentennial since its demise. And it did not go away easily! It took a war to wear overcome the hard-hearted American who loved his love with all the benefits that the enslavement of others provided. All the major denominations approved it (the Quakers were a relatively small band) . The Methodists were the “progressive” Christians. John Wesley penned his Thoughts on Slavery in 1774 in which he damned the institution and the Methodists, in the national conference of 1780 in Baltimore expressed disapproval of members who held slaves. And they required their traveling evangelists to free their slaves. They kept the pressure up at their next national conference of 1784 but lightened up the next year and dropped the rule.
There is that ebbing and flowing, revival and cooling off, even backsliding among God’s people. They know what it right, but the doing of it just does not come easily. Sometimes it takes a revival or a judgment or a combination of the two.
In all of this activity, human endeavor and divine influence, we know that He is presiding. We know that He loves what is right and he hates what is evil. Yes, we know that His love triumphs for the sake of His own in His sacrificial death for those whom He is redeeming from the death that is due them.
But He “died to make men holy” even as out anthem proclaims. And we are called to proclaim and advance Truth and Justice along with the good news of the Gospel. Even as our “Battle Hymn of the Republic” anthem declares: “As He died to make men holy, let us live to make men free.” Indeed, we proclaim the Truth and advance justice.
Justice for the children in the womb is not just lacking! It is absent. The innocents are butchered in our land and their murderers are protected by our government. Jesus hates this and He hates a nation which continues to tolerate it. Believe that. He ain’t happy with the USA.
“Oh how I love Your law . . . my meditation,” says the inspired Psalmist. Then he says, “I hate every false way” and “I hate those that are double-minded” (Ps. 119: 97-113).
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