Amos 5:10- They hate him that rebuketh in the gate, and they abhor him that speaketh uprightly.
John 15:19- If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.
Amos prophesied in the northern kingdom of Israel almost 800 years before the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. In his statement from above we hear him saying that the "people of God" in Israel had, for the most part, become despisers of Truth and those that steadfastly held to it.
Nearly 800 years later, the Lord Jesus Christ spoke the words we have in our second passage above, telling all that would steadfastly hold to the Truth would be hated by the world, including religious people that hated the Truth.
Hear Fyodor Dostoevsky, the great Russian author, many years later:
He is talking about the same truth. But he predicted that it would manifest itself in a peculiar manner. Those that hate the truth, he said, would preach and teach "toleration" for all except those that love the Truth. Thinking people are representative of those that ponder Truth.
In our American culture today (as well as in "advanced western nations") it is those that desire to hold to Truth that are not tolerated, even in an age that demands tolerance for all manner of lies and error.
Never make the mistake of believing that a Christian is required to be "tolerant" of lies and/or error. It is NOT showing "love" to tolerate and peacefully coexist with lies and error. It IS showing COWARDICE.
Mr. Sells often said that the ONLY way to reach those that deny Truth is to remain firmly anchored in the Rock of Truth. Our anchor holds within the veil! We are NOT to be tossed about with every wind of doctrine. Nor are we to stand quietly by when it is thrown into our faces in the name of TOLERANCE.
cp
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