The End of Hatred looks at the work that must be done to find unity among the people of God on the issue of race. We all must look inside and allow the Holy Spirit to move us to oneness in Christ.

<p>The End of Hatred looks at the work that must be done to find unity among the people of God on the issue of race. We all must look inside and allow the Holy Spirit to move us to oneness in Christ.</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Newington Three Angels Church

Eric Walsh

The End of Hatred

Greetings, once again, we come to you from the 3 Angels Seventh-day Adventist Church here in Newington, Connecticut.

We had our first service again last Sabbath, hence the Plexiglas you see around me.

No, I am not worried anybody's going to throw spitballs or anything at me.

It's so that when we have service, there's better social distancing.

So hopefully you get used to seeing me behind the glass here as we get into this message.

Our scripture reading, we'll get right into it today, is found in Matthew chapter 5, starting at verse 44.

And it says, But I say unto you, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you and pray for them, which despitefully use you and persecute you.

Our message this week is entitled, The End of Hatred.

And it'll be a bit of a Bible study, but the title again, The End of Hatred.

Father God, we Thank you for this opportunity to study your word.

Lord, I ask once again that you make me just a nail upon the wall, a rusty, sorry nail, Lord.

But upon that nail, Lord, I ask that you hang a portrait of Jesus Christ.

Lord, Eric Walsh is unfit to bring your word.

So Lord, I ask that you send a word from on high.

This is our prayer in Jesus's name, amen.

We're gonna go to the book of Luke and start at chapter 10.

I'm sure that recently with all that's been going on in this country there's been a lot of messages taken from this passage of Scripture.

So I'm gonna pass over it myself and speak to what's going on.

The resurgence of the coronavirus in the Southern parts of the United States predominantly and in the West states like Arizona and California, while other parts of the world like Europe have seen a strong decline, that's kind of overshadowed a lot of what we were talking about in the last few weeks around race and race relations.

But I've heard a lot of sermons, a lot of people talking about this subject, and I just wanted to chime in a little bit and just ask the Holy Spirit to lead as we speak about how God deals with these things and how will hatred end in this world?

And how will the division that is playing out in America and even in our church, how will it end?

Or will we allow Satan to use division to ultimately destroy God's remnant people?

Well, Luke 10 in verse 25 says, "'And behold, a certain lawyer stood up and tempted him, saying, master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?

The spirit of prophecy tells us that in fact, it was the Pharisees that put this young doctor of the law up to say what he was saying.

The Pharisees were looking for, again, a way to trap Christ.

They knew that, they felt he didn't esteem the law the way that they did.

And so they sent this guy to ask this question.

And this young man was probably quite arrogant and thought that he could be the 1 who would outsmart, outfox Christ in debate and discussion around this issue.

Similar to the story in the book of John, where a woman is caught in the act of adultery, this was a premeditated attempt by the religious leadership to harm Christ.

And his question is, Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?

Verse 26, Christ says, he said unto him, what is written in the law, how readest thou?

If you notice in the New Testament and in the Gospels, Christ does this a lot.

He doesn't allow the narrative to be directed by those who are trying to come against Him.

What Christ does is He sends it back to them so that their hearts can be revealed.

Not to Him because He can read their hearts, He sends it back to them so that the people listening can understand their motives.

Verse 27, this young doctor of the law says, and he said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul, with all thy strength, and with all thy mind, and thy neighbor as thyself.

He, as you all are well aware, the 10 Commandments are divided into 2 parts.

The first 4 speaks to our our duty to God because of our love for God.

The last 6 speak to our duty to man because of our love for God because of our because of our love for man because of our love for God.

So the first 4 Our love for God gives us the responsibility to keep those commandments.

Hence, Jesus says, if you love me, keep my commandments.

It's not just that we love our fellow men, but because we love our God, we do good to our fellow men.

When you look at this, he is, he expounds most heavily on the part of loving God.

He says, you know, you gotta love the God with your heart, your soul, your strength, your mind.

Then he just says, your neighbor is yourself.

It actually helped to defray his responsibility to the last 6 commandments.

Verse 28, Jesus was not going to be outsmarted.

So Jesus lays down the argument beautifully here.

And he said unto him, thou answerest right, this do, and thou shalt live.

Jesus lays it down, and it seems like he's ready to move on.

He, wait a minute, you know, I didn't, I didn't accomplish my purpose.

And the Spirit of Prophecy also tells us that as he, as he looked upon Christ and heard Christ, he, this man, young man was stirred in his heart as well.

There's something about coming into contact with Jesus, even if it is for nefarious reasons, if you come into the path of the living Christ, like the Roman soldier as Jesus is dying on the cross, as of a truth, this was the Son of God.

Verse 29, the doctor of the law willing to justify himself said unto Jesus, and who is my neighbor?

You see, the Jews had a thing that the only people who were your neighbors were those who are like you.

In other words, your neighbor was not the Samaritans, your neighbor was not any of the other heathen people around like the Romans, your neighbor wasn't even every Jew.

Only those Jews that were pious and righteous and on your level were your neighbor.

And so he asks this question partly, I believe, because he figured it was a natural follow-up question to what Jesus had asked, but I think also because he recognized that he didn't fully understand his responsibility.

Powerful how Jesus does this, because there was almost no way that Christ could have verbalized this answer without giving a parable to get the end effect that He wanted.

And so, in Luke 10 and verse 30 it says, And Jesus answering said, A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell among thieves, which stripped him of his raiment and wounded him and departed, leaving him half dead.

Now we know historically that the road from Jerusalem to Jericho was a long road and there was a patch of the road that was a bit hidden, a bit out of the way, that thieves like to kind of hide and jump and pounce on people who would be carrying goods back and forth between these 2 main cities.

So Jesus, many believe, is actually speaking to a real event that happened.

So as this person is going on his way from Jerusalem to Jericho and he fell among thieves.

The Bible says they stripped him of his raiment, his clothes.

So here he is laying naked or almost naked in the street, all of his possessions are gone.

He's probably got a bleeding from parts of his body where they beat him.

And here's what the Bible is telling you.

If he's left in that condition, this Jew would die right there on the roadside.

Verse 31, Jesus continues the story and says, and by chance there came down a certain priest that way.

And when he saw him, he passed by on the other side.

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The End of Hatred

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