We now present Dr. Bob Jones, Sr., internationally known evangelist and founder of Bob Jones University, who during his earthly ministry was one of God's great warriors for the faith. Now, these verses from the 15th chapter of the Gospel of John. Now, Jesus said, Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his Lord. Now, he's talking to his own people. Now, he said, Remember, the servant is not greater than his Lord. You are not greater than I am. Now, notice what he says. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they have kept my sayings, they will keep yours also. Now, notice these words. But all of these things will they do unto you for my name's sake, because they know not him that sent me. Now, get it clear. Jesus said the animosity of the world is against him. Now, get that clear. He told his disciples, it's not you they hate, it's me they hate. You know, that's an astonishing statement. We celebrate Christmas, we have a wonderful time, people talk about Jesus, the natural sort of way. But the natural man, the unregenerated man, he is in rebellion against Jesus Christ and he hates Jesus Christ. It's a strange combination. Now, it's a diluted Christianity. It's a religion that's diluted Until it doesn't have power, it doesn't mean anything. You know, Christianity is Christ, and Christ is Christianity. The question that he forced upon the world is, what will you do with Jesus, which is called Christ? That's the question. What think ye of Jesus, whose son was he, see? Who is Jesus Christ? All right. Now, Jesus Christ is God's son. And if he was virgin born and God incarnated, and he was, because the Bible makes it plain, any Christian would naturally believe it when he is a Christian. It sounds so, just like you'd expect it to be. He couldn't have been born like anybody else, and do what he did, he had to be God manifest in the flesh, there was never but one Jesus Christ. Now when a Christian accepts Jesus Christ as his Savior, he has an understanding heart and a spiritual strength that solves for him his problems. But the natural man, the man unconverted, unregenerate, has resentment. He loves darkness. He doesn't want the light. The light shows him up. When Jesus Christ comes down from heaven to earth and says his salvation in the Lord's name, he said, my name, it says to a man, you are no good. You're just no good. You're an old sinner. And that's what the Bible says. That's what man resents. You see, the devil told Adam, and he used to be like God, They would go out and be gods themselves, you see, and they went out to be gods. By their own native inherent powers, they were to be like gods, see, and make themselves gods. So, Jesus comes along and says, you can't do that. He takes a man like Nicodemus, a scholar, a gentleman, and a religionist, and says, you haven't been born again. Now suppose I go to a man in this country, maybe a prominent preacher, prominent religious leader, And Satan and him, you have to be born again. Now everybody loves a fellow. Everybody likes him and says he's a wonderful fellow and he's our religious leader. He's this and that and the other. I'd go to him and say that. Well, suppose you went to him and said that. You know what would happen to you? They would resent it. They would resent it and the people would resent it, you see. The churches would resent it. Well, now that's what Jesus told the man. He said, you haven't been born again. You can't understand this thing. You can't perceive the kingdom of God. You can't understand it. You can't grasp it. For you're a sinner, see. Well, man naturally resents that. He says, I'm just as good as he is. I'm doing the best I can. See, I'm going to hell for what I do. I live my own life. We've got to write down what to live. Now, that's all human nature, you see. Now, it's not hatred against you. You know somebody may like you personally. I've got some good friends who are not Christians because of a certain affinity of temperaments. They like me. I know some businessmen I sit down and talk to in a business way. We are friendly in that realm. But the minute you move into the spiritual realm and stand up and say it's Jesus Christ to hail, that fellow resents it because he naturally feels good and yet that's what Jesus said. Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. He said, nobody comes to the Father but by me. He said that. Now that's pretty straight, you know. So you take on, as I said the other day, the enemies of Jesus when you move into this way. Now that's what he told them, Al. He said, all they'll do unto you for my name's sake, because they know not him that sent me. They don't know God. They don't know why I'm here, and they resent my claim. And all of this modernism you've got today in the country is full of it. Schools are full of it. Pulpits have it all over this country. All over this country today. Most of these churches in this country are built upon fundamental doctrines. The Bible's a word of God. Jesus Christ was a virgin born son of God. He was God incarnated. He died on the cross to save sinners. He rose from the dead. Went up to heaven and is at the right hand of the Father. He's coming again someday. Now that's what these churches were built on. of the great denomination of this country are built on that. But you've got little by little they're attacking that. I read a magazine that's put out by evangelicals. And when I got through reading that magazine, I've been reading it for several years, it's a very popular magazine. I noted all through that magazine a little sort of a compromise, a little sort of a compromise running all through it. And a day or two later I had a letter from a friend of mine who's a great thinker. And he said, have you noticed a little something in this magazine, he called it, the name of it, Highs Drifting Along? And he said, I found something in it that didn't exactly sound right to me. And I just thought the same thing myself. You know, many of us are facing a terrible conspiracy today. You know, we are trying to dilute this thing and dilute Christianity and get it so diluted and make it look attractive. You can't fix it up. You can't dress it up intellectually and make it attractive. Man by wisdom knew not God and pleased God with the foolishness of preaching the same people. And you have a very difficult task and that's what they're trying to do. A good many evangelicals today can't stand the stigma of not being known as scholars. And they want to change the language, you know, and change certain words, and make it attractive to sinners. Well, you can never make it attractive to sinners unless your Holy Ghost convicts sinners and gets them so desperate they want to be saved. And we don't have much preaching today that produces conviction. There are very few prophetic voices left. In this day of superficial religion, there are very few great prophetic voices. When a man comes out and talks straight and preaches straight against sin, they brand him and say, well, he's a fanatic, he's jumping on everybody, and he's not friendly to anybody, and he's just one to himself, and he doesn't go along with us, you know, and he's under attack for standing up. In the old days, the great prophetic preachers, why, we had them before World War I in evangelism, A man like Billy Sunday, and I go and call others that stood up, and the men down south, these courageous old-time preachers, that literally, as we said, preached the devil out of men. They couldn't stand up against that preaching. A fellow said to me about Sam Jones one time, said, you know, he didn't preach much grace. But I said, oh, but he preached men under such conviction they wanted grace. Well, nearly all those prophetic voices have gone out, man. And we in a bad fix, and let me tell you something. Now, don't let anybody fool you about the increased membership. Don't anybody fool you about what's going on. Now you get straight. Jesus told his disciples, they'll hate you. And it won't be you they hate, it's me they hate. They hate me, he says. And it won't be against you. They're against me, and that's the reason they're against you. They're against you because you take my side. And this world is still no friend of Jesus Christ. I don't let anybody fool you. It isn't. This world's in rebellion against Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ, everything he said, runs across the current of age. Jesus Christ declares he's the only Savior. Jesus Christ makes it clear that a man has to be born again. He's not good naturally. He becomes good supernaturally. And man resents that. He wants to educate himself and fix himself up and press his pants and comb his hair and build a civilization and do all that kind of situation and be like God. Now let's don't fool ourselves. If you don't get these few fundamental truths fixed in your mind and heart, you're going to be swept off your feet, even you good people. We out here at Bob Jones University, we stand for the Bible, we stand for conversion, we stand for getting people saved, we stand for the spiritual things. The emphasis is all here. We don't sell out and compromise with the world. And that's the opposition that some people have to Bob Jones University. That's the opposition. But it's the opposition, any opposition, it's the opposition it has to Jesus Christ. You thought everybody would be for Jesus, wouldn't you? He was good, He was kind. He loved little babies, He was kind to people, He was honest with people and preached straight to them. But the world put Him on a cross. And Jesus warned His disciples, He said, now remember now, the world, the world won't hate you, they'll hate you on my account. That's the reason they hate me. They got in for me. Now you take, I've always said that I never have any trouble as a Christian getting along with Christians, born-again Christians. I don't care whether they're Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, Disciples, whatever they may be. Whenever you get a good bunch of Christians together that love the Lord and you can sit down with them and have sweet Christian fellowship because they gather around Jesus Christ and He's the center. Now many women listen just to me. We better do some thinking. We better do some heart-searching. You know, there's not much room for optimism under the present setup in America. Don't let all this boast about church membership and all that get you. Remember, I've been out a long time, and I'm not a raving old man this dotage either. My mind's still working, and God has given me ability to see, and I'm putting you on notice now. And it's what Jesus Christ said to his own. But all of these things that they do unto you, for my namesake, Because they know not him that sent me. They don't know God and they don't know me. Now you can't stand for Jesus Christ uncompromisingly, however sweet you may be. You can't do it without taking on his enemies. You have to take on his enemies if you stand for Jesus Christ. Now you can stand for the kind of Jesus Christ that's being lifted up in this country. where they say it doesn't matter about his virgin birth, it doesn't matter about his incarnation, it doesn't matter about his blood, we don't believe in that blood stuff. You can stand for the Jesus Christ of a Christmas holiday, but not the Jesus Christ of Calvary, and the Jesus Christ of the Garden of Gethsemane, and the Jesus Christ that laid down his life. You can't stand for that Jesus Christ. They declared that he's the only way to God, and that you've got to choose between him and the world. You can't stand for that kind of a Jesus Christ without being hated by the people that hate him still, because they resent that situation. one religious good to another, we're all one anyhow, they say, and it isn't so. If Jesus Christ told the truth, he's the only way to heaven, and he said that. Now, God help us to be faithful and true and remember these things, so when the trouble comes to us, we'll know what we're up against and why we're up against it. Our heavenly Father, help us to be faithful to Jesus Christ, to be loyal and true to him, not waver. Help us to realize He died for us, He's our Savior. May we be faithful in all things to the One that loved us so much, the Son of God, the only way to the Father. We pray this prayer in His precious name. Amen. You have just heard Dr. Bob Jones, Sr., internationally known evangelist and founder of Bob Jones University, who during his earthly ministry was one of God's great warriors for the faith. This program is sponsored by Bob Jones University.