What have you gotten by hating Christ? You have gotten many stings in your conscience and a load of guilt, or maybe even locked up in jail, an empty bank account, a diseased body, addictive habits, a filthy heart, a troubled mind, sin-stained children, or a poor unloved wife. You hate Christ without a cause, for no good reason. This is always the case - Haters of Christ naturally love their sins. Why is it that you hate Christ? It is because you are so desperately set on mischief, because of your vicious sinful nature within. You rebel against God continuously, you cannot love God, because He's your enemy. God in mercy has spared you from going to Hell to this hour. Do you hate God for sending His Son to die for His sinful enemies? You are so estranged from God, you give Him enmity for love, and hatred for mercy.
God surrounds you with favors, lavishes you with His mercies, covers you with His lovingkindness, He has given you so many blessings in this life. But you have little gratitude for His ardent compassion toward you. You hate the lovely, despise the good, abhor the merciful, spurn the gracious Savior, and scorn His bleeding love. It is an enormous evil to despise Jesus Christ - God Incarnate. You are in a horrid state of heart when you scoff at God and hate Christ. You are out of your mind - You would rather rot in hell than believe in Christ and take His free forgiveness of sins. All unbelievers and especially atheists hate God. But for what do you hate Him? You hate Christ because He's REALLY GOOD. Are you God's enemy because He keeps your soul in life, or maybe because He raised you from your sickbed time after time? Or maybe because He gave you beautiful children? Or maybe you are God's enemy, because He sends you a free and loving Gospel? It is pure villainy to be at enmity with the infinitely good GOD.
This is an honest warning - Hell is real and you will go there if you keep rejecting the Crucified Creator. Is there anything in Christ that would make men hate Him? Absolutely not! Nothing was in Christ but Good and Love and Grace and Truth. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners from the Hell they deserve. Was there anything in that to make you hate Him? You don't have a legitimate reason for hating Christ, except you are innately evil and love sin and darkness.
You hate the Gospel because it is tells you of your sins, it goes against your sinful pleasure, that darling lust of yours, that is the real reason you will not believe on Jesus Christ. You would believe the Gospel, if you could believe it and still live on in your favorite sins too. You had rather remain a wicked wretch than give up your favorite secret sins. You had rather continue to feed your dirty habits, than feed on Jesus Christ and His precious word. Faith in Christ can never stand side by side with Sin, because the Gospel cries, "Down with Sin, Down with Lust, Away with Self!" The Gospel is too pure for you, therefore you turn away from it, because the Gospel will not tolerate your idolatrous lusts, or allow you to indulge in your pet evil, you hate Jesus Christ with a passion, because He wants to save you FROM your sins.
Hating Christ is a dead loss to you. If you keep hating Christ till you die, you will not hurt Christ by it, you will only hurt your own soul. There is a cedar tree growing in the woods around the end of November, and someone comes along with an ax and cuts it off from its life source. The man takes the tree home, decorates it, but then around the end of December this same tree begins to dry up and reveal that it is really dead. The little bit of water at the base of the tree cannot feed the dead tree. This is same thing that happens to lost men. Every man exists happily in his sin without God, but all of a sudden the Holy Spirit in mercy comes along with the ax of the Law, and begins to cut the man away from his source of fun, his sin. The man begins to feel his sin and guilt, and then he tries to decorate himself with outward religion, and put a little bit of water (human goodness) under him to try and keep himself alive, but he eventually dries up and is completely dead and ready to be cast away. This lost man's only hope then is to look away from himself and his dead religion to the Tree where Christ Jesus bled and died for His ungodly enemies. Then, all of a sudden, the lost man is given eternal life freely within and he no longer loves his sin or need his vain outward decorations to put a on a vain show. You see - fine, upstanding, religious people are still just as lost as the swearing harlot and the blaspheming drug addict. "Lost" simply means to be minus God. Salvation is getting Christ out of heaven back into man where He belongs.
Christ came to bleed and die and wash away your guilty sin stains. Self-righteousness flatters men into a notion of spotlessness. They think they are righteous in themselves. Self-righteous sinners are born in folly, and nursed by human conceit. They rely upon their own wisdom, perseverance, prayerfulness, spirituality, and strength of resolution. Ungodly men must be saved by the Gospel. Sin is devouring you. Don't believe your own hype, or be conned by yourself. Holy delight mingled with sacred grief, repentance with faith, patience with hope, humility with full assurance, conscious self-emptiness with all sufficiency of Christ. Salvation is the heart's resting upon Christ, not just your brain understanding facts.
Spirituality must never be divorced from common sense. Be very suspicious of super-fine spirituality. Purity, morality, spirituality, unction of the Holy Ghost. The work of the Law - see its exactness, spirituality, strictness, infinite compass of your thoughts, motives, words, and deeds. The Law judges the thoughts, desires, and imaginations of the heart. The plumbline of the holy Law is held up, we see how warped and out of plumb we are and become distressed.
The Law is carefully considered and inwardly perceived. The Law is given to point us to Christ, to be our schoolmaster and shut us up to Christ, to convince us of our need of Christ, shut us out from every other hope. The glory of the Law is Christ. Realize the urgency of your plight. Love to God, care about the best things. The Law enter into the spirit of man's nature even one single "sinful thought" spoils the perfection of the Law. An idle word or a wrong act you have done. We have broken the priceless vase of the Law into shivers - it is clear that we cannot keep it at all. It is absurd and wicked to think we can. All a sinner can get out of the Law is a curse (Galatians 3:10). Your deficiencies and transgressions will inevitably bring a curse upon your head. The Law brings sins to our knowledge, but it never kills our sin. The Law never thinks of pardoning sin, let all your good works go, fling them all away, let go of all confidence in anything that you can do or be. Your goodness is all full of death. Whenever someone dies of a foul disease, you don't keep a single piece of their clothing, you burn it all, and get rid of it all. You say, "I've always tried to live right, and observe the golden rule."
Are you prepared to die? Is the Divine Law satisfied with you? Is your sin pardoned? You must give up your evil practices, renounce your sins, abhor all your own righteousness. You must trust in nothing but Jesus' doing and dying. Simply depend on Him for Everything. Will your sudden death be sudden glory, or doom and damnation? Are you prepared to meet your Maker face to face? You are sleeping over hell - there is a fire on the first floor, you are sleeping upstairs, I am yelling up to your window. I'm trying to awake you. Wake up and weigh the solemn matters of Eternity. Salvation is only by Jesus and His Blood Atonement - Look now to the Cross - turn to God with full purpose of heart. Come to Christ Jesus - and He will save you now.
