All this is very hard to deal with, for anyone to whom this happens will naturally ask why it is happening. It worries him, and he goes on searching again and again in case he has missed something. But apart from anything else, this is a word of peace from Christ. It gives permission for us to end that search, and to accept something very strange about the world. The world hates us because we are believers. Yes, we do things that are unworthy and we regret them, and we must be honest and confess our sins, even to the unconverted, but we should not allow ourselves to be convinced of something that is not real. By faith we believe our Lord when he tells us there is a deep-seated bias in the world against his disciples. There are reasons why regard us as hateful, and they are not good reasons.
Of course it is never that simple. The worldling does not come up to us and say, ‘I hate you because you are a believer.’ To do that would be to give the game away. No, the worldling justifies his hatred, both to himself and to others. ‘I hate you because you are always finding fault with me. I hate you because you are so sure you are right. I hate you because you will not join in with the things that I do.’ Hatred must be dressed up as justified anger. It must be defended, and therefore the behaviour of the believer is exaggerated and distorted to make it seem evil. The unbeliever still has a conscience, and in battling against the believer, he has to try to drag his conscience along with him. This is where the amazing phenomenon of self-deception comes in. He must argue against his own conscience in order to succeed, and he must try to get it on his side, so he tries to brow beat his conscience into agreement, and to find good grounds to condemn the believer.
The Lord speaks of what men, plural, do to his children. Others are roped in to support this view, and the believer often finds himself outnumbered and isolated. The accuser recruits other accusers in the hope of overwhelming the child of God, but he must not abandon this word from Christ, whose word is worth more than all the world put together. The world knows its own, and it is rare for a person without faith to stand for the truth against these subtle strategies, and to objectively defend the truth. The casting out is a forceful act; the accusation that the believer is evil is the dishonest justification for this act.
Why do they really do it? ‘For the Son of man’s sake.’ That tells us everything we need to know. There is prejudice in the world and often the worldling is not even aware of it. If he was to search his own heart honestly, using the light of Scripture to assist him, he would see it, but that he is not prepared to do. The war of unbelief is relentless; there can be no relaxation even for a minute. There may be friendship towards a believer for a time, but once the unbeliever has a clearer view of himself and of the Christian, that is hard to maintain.