Nominal, lukewarm, Christians, are perhaps worse enemies to religion than professed infidels, and are generally the most bitter persecutors that the people of God meet with. Sir Richard Hill
The book/letter of I John is written so that people may know that they have eternal life. One of the things that is listed as a way to know if a person has eternal life or not is whether a person loves true believers or not. When nominal (in name only) Christians come across true and vital Christianity, they hate it and fight against it tooth and nail. We can see that the most bitter persecutors that God’s true people meet with are the nominal Christians when we see the horrid persecutions that Roman Catholicism met God’s people with in the centuries before the Reformation, the time of the Reformation, and for quite some time after the Reformation. True believers were persecuted and killed in the name of religion.
When the Light Himself (Christ Jesus) shines in the hearts of men who are full of darkness, they hate that and flee from it. One way they flee from the truth and try to suppress it is to persecute those who truly have Christ, though of course they have a different explanation for it. The Lord Jesus dwells in His people and when people are true Christians they have the light of Christ shining in and through them. This means that those who profess Christ and yet dwell in darkness don’t like the true light and this comes out in words and actions against Christians.
We see this truth in the Old Testament. In the Old Testament the prophets who truly spoke for God were hated by the people and by the false prophets. It was not just that the nations around Israel did not like Israel, thus showing the physical ramifications of the seed of the serpent having enmity with the physical seed of the woman, but within the nation of Israel those who were truly faithful to Christ were hated. The true prophets of God in that time were hated, maligned, tortured and at times killed. These things were done to them by religious people as well.
In the New Testament we see the great hatred that the most religious people of the day had toward true Christians. One, the Lord and Savior Himself was killed and He was perfect love and holiness in Person. He was hated, despised, mocked, and then put on the cross. Several times people wanted to kill Him when He spoke the truth, but they could not carry it out against Divine power. Two, the followers of Christ were persecuted and killed by the religious elite. Saul, who would later become Paul, was fanatical in his persecution of the followers of Christ. Eventually Paul was killed for the faith.
This statement by Hill is very short but expresses the truth that was stated in Scripture and has been seen across the ages. True believers will face hardships and be mocked by unbelievers, but the worst that they will face is from the nominal and lukewarm folks who profess Christianity but don’t truly have Christ. Jesus said that if the world hates us, it hated Him first. He was hated, however, by the religious elite of that day most of all. True believers may be surprised and puzzled why professing believers are irritated at them and don’t want to be around them. It is nothing personal in one sense, but the enmity is really against Christ. The Lord Jesus was hated while on earth by the professing religious people, so true believers should not be surprised when people hate them because Christ dwells in them. It should concern us if professing Christians (nominal, not true believers) like us and want to be around us.
God Loves... Himself 
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