Why does the world hate God? Because they do. Not everyone in the world, but the world definitely hates God. There is a hatred of God that is visceral, primeval, strange and completely irrational.

There is one of the commandments, and it is really easy to overlook this, not that you don't remember it, but you need to grasp the significance of this statement in the commandment.

It says, "You shall not make any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth."

Is this familiar? It is the graven image commandment, and it is in Exodus 20 verse four. Now continuing in verse 5, "You shall not bow down yourself to them, nor serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me."

"That hate me." We are not talking about ignorant people making mistakes and not realizing what they have done. We are talking about a visceral, unreasoned crude emotional, hatred of God that does exist in the world and we see examples of it around us all the time. We oftentimes don't realize what it is that we are seeing, but it's there.

God is going to reap His vengeance upon those people who hate Him. Now guess why it is the third and fourth generation? Do you have a clue on that? Is that fair?

Well, actually God said "It is to the third and fourth generation of them that hate me," which I presume that if the fourth generation does not hate God, then He is not going to bring vengeance on them, right? But have you seen what is happening in the Middle East, in Palestine? How many generations would it take to breed the hatred out of all the Palestinian people for the Jews? Hatred of the Jews is taught in the schools, it is taught on their television, all over the Middle East. I mean, how many generations among Arabs would it take to get rid of the hatred for Jews?

People who hate God, teach their children to hate God, and so on it goes, and consequently this type of thing goes on generation after generation. And there it is, right there in black and white in your Bible, there are people who hate God. They want all mention of God expunged from public life. They now have the Ten Commandments removed from many courtrooms. Those people have an irrational desire to get rid of that symbol of God.

Tomorrow, or the day after, there will an attack on the Ten Commandments on the wall behind the sitting Supreme Court. What's going on here that the Supreme Court will try cases and they will make judgments contrary to God’s Law when they have the Ten Commandments on the wall behind them?

People who hate God have fought prayer of any kind in school, even a moment of silence is troubling because it implies prayer, and there are people who don't want that moment of silence in school, so that the kids can have a moment to reflect, bow their heads to pray, before an exam, or before they go to class, because it might imply prayer.

Battles have fought in the school, for even the presence of a Bible. A teacher was threatened and not allowed to have his personal Bible on his desk in his classroom, and he might have lost his job. This was such a threat that some people went to court to get rid of this Bible on his desk, and he would probably have lost his job if he had not taken it out of his classroom.

Now not everyone who participates in these efforts hates God. I do not mean to imply that by any stretch of the imagination.

There were hard-core communists in this country in the 1950s. They were people who hated this form of government and hated this country and very much wanted to overthrow this government. There were at the same time of these hard-core communists, another set of people that the Communists called "Useful Idiots." They were the people who had these great ideas, these lofty and grandeur notions of what society could be like and ought to be like and how they could overcome the problems of man by man. In other words, it is a humanistic thing, they plant their faith in what man can do instead of having their faith in what God can do.

I'll tell you something, one of the most dangerous ideas ever to be on this planet is utopianism, the idea that we are going to perfect human beings to create a perfect society without God. It is one of the most dangerous ideas subversive of human liberty and human freedom that has ever come down.

Right now, there are people who hate God, and there are 'Useful Idiots' who help them. There are people who were well-intentioned, and they don't realize the implications of what they're doing or why it's happening.

Now the question is, where does all this stuff come from? Why this drive to use, what shall I say, Bible sniffing dogs, to find out every vestige of religion, every possibility of religion, and every vestige of religious observance, and knowledge of God, and to get it out of public life in this country. Where is the stuff coming from?

There is a war going on. It is a war that has been going on for generation after generation after generation and frankly ever since Adam and Eve were thrust out the Garden of Eden. Paul spoke of it and acknowledged that there was a war when he wrote second Corinthians chapter 10.

In verse three, Paul had this to say, "For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does, {4} The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world." The King James Version says, "The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, on the contrary they have divine power to demolish strongholds." {5} "We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ." Now the King James Version is more accurate in one part of this. It says, "The weapons of our warfare are not carnal." The word ‘carnal’ in verse 4 in the Greek is sarkikos and it means "of the flesh."

There are constitutional arguments out there today, that are against God and this is what Paul called in 2 Corinthians 10 verse 5, "A pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God."

The fact of the matter is, that most of what's going on out there right now is pure pretense. It isn't a question of usurpation of people's liberties. For the fact is, what possible harm could there be having a monument, a statue of sculpture, which has the Ten Commandments on it on public property or in a courtroom

You could have put a statue of Eros, the Greek god of love there, that would have been just fine, nobody would have sued, nobody would have raised cain over it on that issue, unless some Christians decided that it is pagan and we can't have that, but I have my questions whether the courts would have paid any attention to it or not. But put the Ten Commandments there! What is the problem with this? It should be easy, the Seventh Commandment is, "Thou shalt not commit adultery." Right? We don't want that in there. Sexual sin is the defining characteristic of this generation.

Every generation has it's defining sin, and sexual sin is the defining characteristic of our generation in our country,

To have the Ten Commandments on public property or a courtroom also identifies God with the fourth commandment. "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy." And if you read your Bible, you would realize, that when you get to Exodus 31, verse 13, it talks about God who says "My Sabbaths you shall keep: for it is a sign between me and you throughout your generations; that you may know that I am Jehovah that does sanctify you and sets you apart."

In other words, the Sabbath is the thing that identifies God by name. It's who God is. To say that our country was founded on an idea of some generic god is almost blasphemous. Now you may want to speak of a generic word for God, but there is no such thing, as a generic god.

God is the creator. He made it all, with the earth that we stand on, the air that we breathe, and everything else. He made it. Now we're talking about the Creator.

Now my question is, are these Ten Commandments identifying that creator? Sure they do! Sure they do! And that poses a problem, Now most important, probably the most important, is that commandment that I read to you earlier.

"You shall not make any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or in the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. You shall not bow yourself down to them, nor serve them."

Did you notice that? It is not merely a question of bowing down to them, you are not to do that, "neither are you to serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generation of them that hate me" (Exodus 20:5).

Now this commandment is about a lot more than pictures on the wall or icons in a Greek church or statues in a Roman Catholic Church.

It's about the rejection of God for an Idol. It is about the hatred of God because that's what the commandment says it's about. It's about people who will turn their back on God, who know who He is and who reject Him out of hand.

Psalm 81 verse seven, "In your distress you called and I rescued you, I answered you out of the thundercloud. I tested you at the waters of Meribah. {8} Hear, O my people, and I will warn you, if you will just listen to me, O Israel! [9} You shall have no foreign god among you, you shall not bow down to an alien god."

Now remember, bowing down to a foreign god is an issue connected with the hatred of God. {10} "I am the Lord your God that brought you out of Egypt. Open wide your mouth and I will fill it. {11} But my people will not listen to me; Israel would not submit to me, {12} So I gave them over to the stubborn hearts to follow their own devices. {13} "If my people would but listen to me, if Israel would follow my ways." Just listen to me and follow my ways, {14} "How quickly would I subdue their enemies and turn my hand against their foes!. {15} Those who hate the LORD would cringe before him, and their punishment would last forever, {16} But you would be fed with the finest of wheat, and with honey from the rock. I would satisfy you."

The Hebrew word 'sane' which is translated 'hate' is a very strong word in Hebrew and it means to hate personally. You are not talking about a dislike, it is talking about a personal, direct, hatred toward an individual. And here He's talking about people who are enemies of God, who hate God.

He says, "If my people would just listen to me, if they would just pay attention. If they would just do what I tell them to do, and the things that God tells us to do are not hard. They are not to climb every mountain. They are things like if you are called to serve on a jury. When you go in and sit on a jury then render honest judgment. Don't let yourself be influenced by how much money people have or how much they don't have. Be honest. Don't take money unjustly from one person to give it to another in a lawsuit. Don't unjustly send a man to prison. Judge honest judgment. Treat your neighbor right. Hear the cause of the widow. Feed the hungry. Give your clothes to people who don't have things to wear.

These are simple, down to earth good things that we are supposed to do to one another that God expects of us. God says, "You will not do those things." If you would just do what I tell you to do then your enemies, and the enemies of God would cringe at that.

You can see hints about that in today's news, can't you? You can see hints of it, whenever someone stands up for God, whenever someone stands up for what is right, whenever someone starts to talk about the eternal creator God, the demands He makes, His expectations for man, God's enemies cringe and they hate it. And they hate these people just like they hate God.

There's a man in the Bible, and his name is Stephen. He is a man that you may have heard about if you have ever read the book of Acts. He's a dominant figure there but he did not last very long, because he told the truth and spoke the truth in power. You will find the story in the seventh chapter of Acts. I think it is very interesting.

Stephen, speaking to the Jews around about him and he's been extremely effective in arguing the case for Christianity among Jews, says in verse 51, "You stiffnecked people, with uncircumcised hearts and ears! You are just like your fathers. You always resist the Holy Spirit! {52} Was there ever a prophet your fathers did not persecute?"

What a thing to say! Here are all these Jews in front of him and he says, "Was there ever a prophet that your fathers did not persecute?" Why? Well, we will come to it later but Jesus told His disciples, "If they hated me, they are going to hate you" (John 15:18).

Every single man to whom God spoke of old, every single man that He gave a vision and a message to, He told them. You go and tell them what I want you to tell them," every single one of those men was hated for it.

Jeremiah was actually put in a cesspool up to his armpits and left there to die. He didn't die, they pulled him out later, but that was the intent of the people who put him there. Thy hated him. Why did they hate him?

Here's a question that has always bothered me about things like this. Why is it, that whenever you hear some idiot stand up and say bad things, you can shrug your shoulders, walk around and say, "Oh well, there's another one coming around next week if this one doesn't do the trick. It is just one after the other." Why is it that we can't just turn our back on these people? You might walk out tonight and see someone on the street corner with a sign that says, "Flee from the wrath to come." Does he worry you? Does he bother you? No.

Why were the Jews so bothered with this? Because it was true. That's why they were bothered by it. They would not have been bothered by it otherwise.

I have encountered more false prophets, 'would be' and 'claiming to be prophets' in my lifetime, than a man should have to face or deal with. I have yet to meet a person that I can recognize as a true prophet They have come up with ideas, some off-the-wall stuff, about me and about others, and so forth, and they don't bother me. It doesn't bother me in the least. I ignore them. I turn my shoulder. I walk away. Why would I ever get angry? Possibly if they were getting close to the truth.

Well this is what happened to Stephen. He said, in Acts 7 verse 52, "Was there ever a prophet your fathers did not persecute? They even killed those who predicted the coming of the Righteous One. And now you have betrayed and murdered him. {53} you who have received the law that was put into effect through angels but have not obeyed it."

Now would that really have bothered you that much, if you had obeyed it? Hardly!

Continuing in verse 54, "When they heard this, they were furious and gnashed their teeth at him. {55} But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. {56} "Look," he said, "I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God." {57} At this they covered their ears and, yelling at the top of their voices, they all rushed at him, {58} dragged him out of the city and began to stone him."

If I was talking to some guy, and he was giving me a bad time, and I rejected what he was saying, and he looked up and said, "Oh, oh, I see, Jesus standing at the right hand of God in heaven." What would my reaction be? Well I would probably think that he was crazy. And depending on how dangerous he might seem to be to the people around him, I might call someone to restrain him but probably not. I probably would just turn and walk away.

These Jews didn't walk away from Stephen, They were so angry, the King James version says "they gnashed on him with their teeth." I don't think they bit him. The NIV says they "gnashed their teeth at him." They were so furious with him they almost bit their tongue off. Why? Because they hated God. Initially it was a question of Stephen, but they hated God. And because they are among those people in the world who hate God, and would never admit that they do, they hated the man whom God had sent. Why this visceral hatred of this good man? People don't reserve this kind of hatred for fools. They reserve it for people when they feel threatened in their innermost being. They are afraid. It takes fear to generate this kind of hatred and this kind of anger. For people who are not afraid don't get mad. There's no particular reason to do so.

Here's Jesus, one day, the story is in Mark chapter three verse one, "Jesus went into the synagogue, (it was a Sabbath) and there was a man there that had a withered hand, {2} and they watched him, whether he would heal him on the Sabbath day, that they might accuse him."

Now I have to tell you, this is one of those things that every time I read it I shake my head and roll my eyes to heaven. I can't understand this. Here is a man who walks into the synagogue, and there is a possibility that Jesus might heal the withered hand of this man and some Jews were watching to see if He will do it today because He shouldn't do it today, because this is the Sabbath day. Where does this kind of thinking come from? Well I know the answer to that question.

Jesus asked them, {4} "Is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath days, or to do evil? To save life, or to kill?" No one answered him. They would not even have a discussion with Jesus about the merits of His case. They wouldn't dispute with Him and wouldn't argue with Him. They didn't even answer him. {5} "And when He had looked around upon them and He was angry, being grieved for the hardness of their hearts, He said to the man, "Stretch forth your hand."

I almost wish I could have been there to see that miracle, but I doubt if God will ever give me that opportunity of a miracle. Miracles are usually much more subtle than that. But to be able to see this poor guy with a withered hand and his arm held against his chest. Now Jesus didn't do anything, there was no work involved, Jesus just said, "Stretch your hand out!" "And the man stretched his hand out and it became whole just like the other one."

This would have been such an incredible thing to see with your own eyes, and it says in verse 6, "The Pharisees went out and immediately took counsel with the Herodians against him, on how they might destroy him."

Now that is hard to figure, but if you can't sit back in your chair sometimes and think about this for a little while and answer this question, then you are not studying your Bible seriously enough, because this is an important question. This is a good man. A charismatic man. A wonderful teacher, who had the power to make blind men see, who caused cripples to walk, who could do all these wonderful things, and heal this man with a withered hand and they wanted to destroy Him. You have to find a way in your mind to understand what's going on here, because it's important. If you can't understand this, you cannot understand anything that is going on in the spiritual warfare that is going on in the world right now, because the same spirit that was in that synagogue on that day is here right now. The same spirit.

So let's understand what's going on. The Jews wanted to kill Jesus. Here is the way Luke tells story, chapter 6 verse 10, "Jesus, looking around at them all, said to the man, "Stretch forth your hand." And he did so, and his hand was restored whole as the other, {11} And they were filled with madness."

They were filled with madness, an insane stupid rage, an irrational rage is what it was. I thing the Greek word 'anoia' even implies, that ignorant stupid irrational quality to the anger. It was a madness. It was not a reasoned anger. Jesus was angry because of the hardness of their heart, it was clear, it was reasoned. It was right. Their anger was totally unreasonable. It was madness.

Psalm 109, "Hold not your peace, O God of my praise, {2} For the mouth of the wicked and the mouth of the deceitful are open against me. They have spoken against me with a lying tongue. {3} They compass me about with words of hatred and they fought against me without a cause."

You know, it doesn't take a lot of theology here, to all of a sudden realize, you have fallen back into a prophecy of Christ, a prophecy of the one who was to come, in the name of God, as the Son of God, doing the things that Jesus did. This prophet, years before, said, "They have spoken against me with a lying tongue." Why did they lie about Jesus? Why were they willing to put out good money to hire witnesses to tell false things about him? Why would they do that?

Continuing in verse 4, "They compassed me about also with words of hatred; and fought against me without a reason to do so."

David then says this in verse 4, "For my love they are my adversaries, but I give myself to prayer, {5} They have rewarded me evil for good, and hatred for my love."

How bad is this? How awful is this? "That for my love they are my adversaries." It is not for my evil works. It isn't because I hurt them, it is for my love. Who had Jesus harmed? Who had He hurt? What man had He struck? Had He in anyway taken anything from another? A shoe latchet? A coin? A thread? A garment? What had Jesus done to hurt or harm or take away from anyone?

"For my love they are my adversaries." It was for Jesus' love that they hated Him. {5} "They have rewarded me evil for good, and hatred for my love."

Then here is what Jesus says about people who do this sort of thing. I think we should stop for a moment and think very carefully about what He says here.

Verse 6 of Psalms 109, "Set a wicked man over him. Let Satan stand at his right hand. {7} When he is judged, let him be condemned, let his prayer become sin. {8} Let his days be few, and let another take his office." (Reference is Judas Iscariot.) {9} "Let his children be fatherless, and let his wife be a widow, {10} Let his children be continuing vagabonds and beg, let them seek their bread out of the desolate places. {11} Let the extortioner catch all that he has; and let the strangers spoil his labor. {12} Let there be no one to extend mercy to him: neither let there be any to favor his fatherless children."

This is awful! Do you know why? It is because of hatred. What father will not pass on some of his hatred to his children? You need to think about that you moms and dads. Your attitudes, your hatred, your visceral dislikes of some people, and so forth, are going to get passed on to your children.

Verse 13, "Let his posterity be cut off; and in the generation following let their name be blotted out. {14} Let the iniquity of his fathers be remembered with the LORD; and let not the sin of his mother be blotted out. {15} Let them be before the LORD continually, that he may cut off the memory of them from the earth."

Wow, that is serious. But why? {16} "Because he remembered not to show mercy, but persecuted the poor and the needy man, that he might even slay the broken in heart. {17} As he loved cursing, so let it come unto him: as he delighted not in blessing, so let it be far from him.{18} As he clothed himself with cursing like as with his garment, so let it come into his bowels like water, and like oil into his bones. {19} Let it be to him as the garment which covers him, and for a girdle wherewith he is girded continually. 20} Let this be the reward of mine adversaries from the LORD, and of them that speak evil against my soul."

I would think one would want to be very very careful about speaking evil of good people, by cutting down good men, about not showing respect that we should for people who are doing good works, because after all, "No one can do a good work in Jesus' name. He said can speak lightly of me."

{21} "But you, O Sovereign LORD, deal well with me for your name's sake; out of the goodness of your love, deliver me."

There is a story in the New Testament, John 11, in the ministry of Jesus that I always fine fascinating. Lazarus was sick and word came to Jesus that Lazarus was sick and Jesus knew what he was going to do. He waited. He waited until Lazarus was dead. He was going to go there and raise him from the dead. He was going to wait four days because He wanted everybody to be sure they knew and understood and believed that Lazarus really was dead.

People at that time believed that the soul of a man might hang around the body and might come back into the body and the person might come back to life. Why would they think that? Because people had come out of comas whom they thought was dead, had sat up and walked out of the room. So the whole idea was to wait, because in three days we will know. So Jesus waited for four days so that everyone would be sure to understand what it was that He was about to do.

Jesus came there and all the people were crying, weeping, wailing and moaning and Mary came out and said, {32} "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died." And Jesus was really hurting inside because of the death of his friend and he went up to the tomb and it tells us in verse 43, "He spoke and He cried with a loud voice, "Lazarus, come out!" {44} And he that was dead came walking out, struggling with his grave clothes. His face was still bound with the napkin and he could hardly find his way out of the tomb."

Lazarus was a man who was dead. Nobody could doubt that he was dead. Mary even thought he would be stinking by now and he's alive.

Now lets notice verse 46, "But some of them went their way to the Pharisees, and told them what Jesus had done, {47} Then gathered the chief priests and Pharisees, a council, and said, "What are we going to do? This man is doing many miracles. {48} If we let him alone all men will believe on him."

What's wrong with that? Up to that point, Not Much.

Then they said, "The Romans shall come and take away both our place and our nation."

Our place, they will take it away, and we will be out of office. We will be powerless, we will lose everything we have got. We will lose our authority over the people. They have told us now, in no uncertain terms, precisely what it is that bothers them.

The Jews were afraid of Jesus. They were scared to death of this mild man who wouldn't hurt a flea, who wouldn't quench a smoking flax The fact that Jesus was gentle is a given fact and they were so afraid of this man, because they were afraid that people would believe Him, and the people would follow Him, and they would lose their following and they would lose their authority. They would lose the respect that people had for them. It was all about themselves and they were deathly afraid of Christ.

"Then from that day forward," it says in John 11 verse 53, "they took counsel to put him to death."

Now it would be one thing if you and I could stand aside from all of this, and just watch all these things going by us in the world, all of this hatred of God. If we could only be spectators, but we can't.

Jesus said in John 15, one of the greatest messages of his life and one of his last, He said in John 15, "I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. {2} Every branch in me that bears not fruit he takes away, every branch that bears fruit, he prunes and so it can bring forth much fruit. {3} Now you are clean through the word that I have spoken to you. {4} Stay in me, and I in you. The branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it stay in the vine; no more can you, except you abide in me. {5} I am the vine, you are the branches: He that abides in me, and I in him, the same brings forth much fruit: because without me you can't do nothing."

He goes on to say, {7} "If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, you shall ask what you will, and it will be done."

That's a tremendous promise. What we may often overlook with that though is it demands the same kind of response from us because it's a covenantal type promise. If I am willing to do whatever you ask of me, you have to be ready to do what ever I ask of you. Now what I am going to ask of you may not be comfortable for you. Jesus has made that as clear as He could to His disciples.

Now He goes on to try to explain to them what it is that is coming. {9} "As my Father has loved me, so I have loved you, stay in my love. {10} If you keep my commandments you shall abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments, I abide in his love. {11} These things have I spoken to you that my joy might remain in you and your joy might be full. {12] This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you."

Okay folks, that's the problem that you and I have to deal with. Jesus said to us as His disciples that "We are to love one another just like He loved us."

Verse 13, "Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. {14} You are my friends, if you do whatever I command you. {15} Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant doesn't know what his lord does: but I have called you friends; everything that I have heard of my Father I have made known to you. {16} You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that you should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should last: that whatsoever you ask of the Father in my name, he may give it to you." Then He says this in verse 18, "If the world hates you, know this, it hated me before it hated you."

Just make up your mind to this, Jesus said in John 15 verse 19, "If you were of the world, the world would love his own: but because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, the world is going to hate you."

They hated Jesus, they're going to hate us. We should not do anything to make them hate us, except for the fact that loving them sometimes can cause them to hate you all the more.

Verse 20, "Remember the word I said to you, "The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they have kept my word, they will keep your word."

There are two categories of people in this world, there are people who will keep God's word, and there are people who hate it. And if you are a bearer of God's word, if you are a bearer of His truth, if you are bearer of Him then they are going to hate you just like they hated Him.

Verse 21, "All these things he said they will do to you for my name's sake, because they don't know him that sent me. {22} If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin. but now they have no cloak or excuse for their sin. {23} He that hates me, hates my Father also."

Of course, of course, for if you have seen Jesus, you have seen the Father. You can't imagine you are going to hate Jesus and love the Father. Impossible.

Verse 24, ""If I had not done among them the works which no one else did, they would have no sin; but now they have seen and also hated both Me and My Father. {25} "When this came to pass, that the word might be fulfilled that is written in their law, They hated me without a cause. {26} But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceeds from the Father, he will testify of me: {27} And you will bear witness, because you have been with me from the beginning."

Funny thing about that, that sends a little chill up my spine because He didn't say you should bear witness. He said, you will. One way or the other, you will.

John chapter 16, verse one, Jesus says, "These things I have spoken to you, that you should not be offended. {2} They will put you out of the synagogues, yeah the time comes, and that whoever kills you will think he does God a service."

He is not talking about secular government. He's talking about religious people.

The time will come when they will kill you and they will think they do God a service and {3} "They will do it because they have not known the Father and they have not known me."

You may have heard of the movie "The Passion," by Mel Gibson. It created a lot of opposition from people who had never seen the movie than I think any movie in the history of movie making. It is a movie about the last 12 hours leading up to Jesus' death on the stake. It is vivid and crystal clear. All of the language in the movie has been done in Aramaic and Latin, the languages of the time. If you see this movie you will not understand a word that is spoken, but will understand everything that is taking place on the screen. Mel Gibson is telling the story visually, not so much orally.

This movie is the story of man's hatred for God, and everything about God and God's love for man and God's ultimate sacrifice for man in the face of man's hatred. In fact this story is the climax of man's hatred of God.

In many ways, the words which Jesus speaks, when He says, "Our Father, forgive them for they do not know what they do," speaks across a broad spectrum of mankind with a great deal of hope, because even the people who hated Him really did not understand the genesis of their hatred. They did not understand where it was coming from. They did not understand when it was born. They did not understand where it was taking them. I think even those people are included when Jesus said, "Father, forgive them for they don't have a clue."

And so, living in the world we live in today, I think you need to be very sensitive to the fact that the world hates God. It is not new. It is as old as man and has been around for so long that nobody remembers the genesis of it, but you see it. You see it in the evening news. You'll see it in your schools. You'll see on the street. You'll see it all over the place. Don't be dismayed, you are going to have to live in the world, but Jesus said. "I have overcome the world" (John 16:33).

The time will come when men will learn better than that, but between here and there, be really careful, that you never wind up being a useful idiot for those who hate God.

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This sermon was transcribed with minor editing.

Sermon by: Ronald L. Dart

Titled: The Hatred of God  -  CD #03HGC - 08-28-03

Transcribed by: bb 10/20/15