How Haters Hate, Part 1

get people who are going to criticize that. And I even heard you say just a moment ago, you may very often, in fact, it's almost a guarantee there's going to be some sort of valley experience after that.

to a new level, you got stronger devils. Yeah. You know. And so here you have individuals, uh, that if you say, I'm getting ready to go on a diet, I'm getting serious. Do you know somebody's going to make you a pound cake? Of course. You know something that you love. And I just thought of you and made this, you know? So there's always a challenge.

So we may have some people who are at the mountaintop right now. How do they get ready for the valley that's coming?

each paper, and the paper was $0.20. Now, you know, I just dated myself. But all of you know, I'm 65, so I'm old school in his house. I'm back in the day when you could take a penny and get two pieces of candy. Yeah. Hey, man. Yeah, I remember a loaf of bread was $0.15. Okay, so that's how old I am. I'm proud to be able to say it. Hey, man. And so I was looking forward to it, because each courier boy got a nickel off of each paper. And so he his paper route had a hundred people. That

was $5 a week. Do you know how much candy that would buy. And so I asked him, I said, man, I want to take you a route over. He said, I'm quitting next week. And so I went to my mama. I said, you know, Leroy's quitting and I want to take over his route. Can I can I do it? Can I? No, no no, no. You get robbed on that route, you get beat up. No, no, I don't want you doing that, mama. I'm not worried about. I'm not. I just want I want to do it. I want to do it. No, no, no. And I just wore

her down. Wore her down. So finally, whenever Leroy gave up his route, I took his route. So I said, Leroy, why do you want to quit your route, man? Making a nickel of paper, he said, I can tell you in one word. I said, what's that? He said, Skippy. I said, Who's Skippy? He said, you going to take this route? I said, yeah, he said, you going to find out real quick. And so my first week on the route, because my mama said, you know, I'm worried about you. I said, don't worry about it. I got

my stick. And as long as I got my stick, I'm going to be able to whoop anybody that comes to comes to rob me. And so, uh, I'm, I'm selling my papers, and I'm doing real good. Finished up. All the papers are gone. Everybody did deliver the house to I delivered it. Everything was hunky dory, baby. And so I'm pocket full of chains. Rattling few dollars in the pocket, you know, happy and skipping. And then. Then a guy stood in my way. I said, what? What's

wrong with you, man? Who are you? He said, my name is Skippy. So I went home. My mother said, what's wrong? I said, I got robbed. You got robbed? Yeah. Who robbed you, Skippy? Well, why don't you hit him with the stick? He took that, too. I mean, that's injury to insult. I got robbed and he took my stick. But you know what? I learned something. I wonder, have you learned it yet? I was bad as long as

I was by myself. Yeah, I was bad as long as there was no opposition, but as soon as there was opposition in the old school terminology, I found that all I was doing was selling wolf tickets. I don't know what y'all call it today. That's what we used to call it. Whenever you're talking loud but you're saying nothing or that you're you're all talk but no walk. And that's what I was that day. And don't laugh at me because many of you have been in that situation.

It's easy to talk about what you're going to do when there's no opposition. Help me, somebody. If you don't believe me, ask Peter, because remember what Peter did. Uh, you're going to deny me. Uh uh. And remember, on Wednesday night, we said that Peter was sincere about it. He did not know that denial was in him. Let me tell y'all something. Some of you got some punk in you that ain't been discovered yet. Because you have

met the person that's going to punk you. You're bad till you meet that person or that circumstance or that situation, and then you find out. I thought I didn't have any punk in me, but I did. And so, you know, Peter did it. He let his mouth write a check. His commitment couldn't cast. We talk about it all the time, and some of us are great at talking big at church on Sunday and failing to walk it at work

on Monday. Don't shout me down now. Yeah. Have you ever noticed that every time you make a commitment to serve the Lord, to reach a goal, to accomplish a vision, or to see a dream fulfilled, the devil says, we'll see about that. We'll see about that. Yeah, yeah. You said I'm going to stay out of debt. Devil says we'll see about that. And the next day. Here it comes. Pre-Approved credit card. No application necessary. Just sign on the dotted line. Huh? Yeah. You said. Yeah. I'm going to

wait for Mr. Right, and here he comes. Mr.. Right now. You say, you know what, man? I'm going to keep myself pure till I get married. I ain't even going to look at a woman the wrong way. And here she come. Boom chicka. Skirt the size of a postage stamp. Yeah, yeah, you know what I'm talking about. The devil says. Yeah, we'll see about that. You say I'm going to quit gossiping, but here comes the juiciest piece of gossip that you ever heard. And it was about Elder Green. Huh? Yeah.

And so you say, hey, I'm going to give more time to his book. That's until you got caught up in Facebook. Mm. Yeah. And so here it is. We say it all the time. I'm committing to come to Bible study on Wednesday night, and all of a sudden, overtime is offered. All of a sudden, Empire got a new season. Mm. Now, we shouldn't be surprised. And we say it all the time. I'm not going to lie anymore. And then we find that a lie is a present help in the time of trouble. And so don't be

surprised that the devil does it to us. Didn't he do it to the Lord Jesus Christ? He most certainly did. Matthew chapter three. We have the baptism of Jesus. God took on flesh, came down, dwelt among us. Now he's going in the water to be baptized, and the father is there audibly, and the spirit is there tangibly, while Jesus is in the water physically and God gives him that great commendation. This is my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased. Hear ye him. God gave to Jesus.

Remember we studied it. He gave to him affection. He gave to him. Acknowledgement he gave to him attention. And that's the great victory. But what happened in chapter four? The Bible says, then the devil tempted him in the world. You see what happened? God put him on display and here comes the devil. I tell you, I don't care who you are. I dare you to say you're going to lose weight. I guarantee you somebody's going to cook your favorite dessert and offer it to you. Y'all know

because y'all say it to me all the time. I know you got sugar diabetes, but I made you this. Your favorite. You love banana pudding. You ain't nothing but the devil. I don't want to tip you. Don't worry about it. And that's what he does to all of us. So in Nehemiah chapter two, verse 19, guess what? We see how haters hate. We get to see how those individuals that are just natural haters come out. I don't care what you're making an effort to do, you better

expect a hater to show up. Now, if you don't expect a hater to show up, maybe it's because you're the hater. Don't look around. We don't want anybody to be convicted. And so what do they do? Imma drop em. I'm not going to push em. I'm going to walk through all ten of these. Number one, number one, they come at a critical or a crucial time.

copy on CD that's at Treasure Truth radio.org. Again, here's Pastor Ford.

it now, look what's going on in Nehemiah 218. We study that at least five times in my 35 years of ministry. And this morning I asked how many heard the message. Only eight people raised their hand. How many heard that message? Nehemiah 218. Then I told them of the hand of my God, which is good upon me, as also the king's words that he had spoken unto me. And they said, let us rise up and build. So they strengthened their hands for this good work. Let me

see how many people heard that. How many heard it? At least once. Okay. At least once. At least once. Look at that. Four people. Five. See, that's how I know I could do them again. Because most of y'all that heard it, you ain't hear it all anyway. You was texting. Just kidding. Just kidding. And so they come in now. Now what's the what's the backdrop? You know it. How long had the wall been down? 13 years. Wait a minute. Can I ask you a question? Where were

they those 13 years? You don't hear anything from them? Why? Because nothing was being done. You better listen to me. Haters only rise up when something is trying to be done. Yes. That's when they rise up. So listen, you were going back to school and somebody said, ain't you too old for that? Where's the money going to come from? Uh, well, you know, I mean, if you ain't got it by now. How old was your mama when she got her degree? Grandmother, 90,

got her bachelor's at 90. How old are you? A doctorate? Oh. I'm sorry. Excuse me. I don't want to hate on granny. Then she got her doctorate at 90. Well, that's convicting me. Yeah. And so, what's going on here? Nehemiah 218. Then I told them the hand of my God was good upon me. You remember the sermon? We talked about it and broke it down in three aspects. Then we came at it

again and had a different outline every time. But here was the first outline I gave you that when you have a vision and when you want the wall to go up, when you want to do something in this community to stop black on black crime, when you want to do something in this community to help in the housing market and the job and everything. And so you look at this thing, what happens? First of all, they are motivated. It says, uh, Nehemiah told them divine revelation.

And and then what did they do? They rose up. Uh, there's the church organization. So it says, and they said, let us rise up and build. So they were motivated, uh, and build activated. They strengthened their hands for this good work. They were consecrated. They were Max. Motivated, activated. Consecrated. Max. So now they're ready to go. A wall that's been down for 13 years is about to be built. Look at verse 19. But and remember, I always told you

this a conjunction of contrast. It literally means what comes after is going to cancel out what came before. So here it is. They have an opportunity. Verse 19, there will always be opposition that whenever you step out in faith, you better believe something will come along to make you fear so that you need to understand stand. That victory will always be followed by a valley. So what's going on here? I mean, Nehemiah now has this unholy trinity

in verse 19. Wow. Very antagonist. And guess what? They're the worst kind of haters. Why do you say that, Pastor Ford? See, there are haters. They stab you in the back. This ain't that kind. These are the kind that slap you in your face. Oh, yeah. These are the haters that punch you in the nose. Big bad, bold booty. Bodacious. Make no bones about it. Haters. You know what they are. Say what are they pastor for? They're a fight. Going somewhere to happen. I guess this

must be old school day. Because I remember the house party. We'd be in house party. Everything be nice until they showed up. And whenever they showed up, you always knew this was is going to end up being a fight. Every time they come. Matter of fact, when I saw him coming. This time to go. Come on, baby, I grabbed my girlfriend. Let's go, let's go, let's go. Because he said, you know, he going to jump up here. He going to try to cut in, want to dance

with you and all that kind of stuff. Then they're going to be a fight up in there. And I'm ready to leave now because I can't whoop him. And so here it is now. And and and I like what Fred Smith said. I read this article. You can see it if you just Google Fred Smith. The care and feeding of critics. He talked about five kind of haters. There are the hostile haters. These are people who resent authority per se. They disrespect la di da di and everybody.

They have no respect for authority whatsoever. They disrespected their parents. They disrespected their teachers. They disrespect the authority, the police, they do all kinds of stuff and they're against leadership. Uh, then you have your people who are your high level haters. Uh, these are the haters with natural leadership ability. They become leaders of the minority, uh, majority and feel that they have to be in opposition in order to serve their function.

The more capable they are, the more difficult they are to deal with it. Uh, then you just have your hater haters. These are the people who criticize to show how much they know more than you know anybody like that. And then the last two there, the haters. These are individuals who are like a hound dog laying on a cocklebur and refuse to move or roar. Roar. He said, you know what the kookaburra is? Every new idea. Roo roo roo just got to say something. Don't know nothing

but got to say something. Roar, roar Hmm. Yeah. And then finally, there's the honest hater. Say, what are you talking about? A person who is genuinely interested and really wants to see a spiritual change. So we don't throw out the baby with the bathwater. Now, you do know the difference between constructive criticism and destructive criticism. Say, what is it? Constructive criticism is when I criticize you. Destructive criticism when you criticize me. Now, I had to put

this down. I've been ministering in this church, one church 35 years. Amen. 35. Now, let me tell you what I've learned about criticism in 35 years. In five, I started to say five seconds, but it ain't going to be that quick. Here's what I learned. And I've got 35 journals. I've been journaling 40 years, and here's what I put in my journals. What I've learned about criticism over the year I coalesced them. I've got 16 things I've learned positive about negative criticism. Here it is. Number one,

you depend more on God. When you get criticized. It ought to push you to God. You ought to depend upon him more. Stop trusting yourself as much and start trusting him more. Number two, it develops your character because you see what kind of person you are. And I'm telling you, early in my ministry, I didn't have the character I have now late in my ministry, and there's some people who, if they were still members of the church, would tell you when he first came, he still had

some of that gangster in him. Because when you said something that that blew him up, he snatched you. I remember that there's a brother who will tell you he said something I didn't like. I snatched him in my office, lift him up against the wall and said, what the did you say? And I skipped that word because it wasn't a godly one. Now I had to repent. And I repented to him. But now I just smiled. Amen. It keeps you humble.

calls every Christian to share the gospel. Now, of course, it's easier if the people you witness to are friendly, but we need to be ready with an answer to any response. At Treasure Truth, we want to equip you with a practical tool that can teach you to become a successful soul winner by using God's Word to answer difficult questions. The book is called How to Witness to Anyone,

and it's written by R.A. Torrey. Now, Doctor Torrey was one of the great evangelists of the last century, and he created this book as a practical reference guide for Christians who don't always know where to turn when faced with difficult questions. So if you struggle with how to respond to skeptics, if self-righteous non-believers have you stumped, or if you're just looking for hints on how to be more effective when you share the gospel, this book is

for you. Contact treasure truth with the gift of any amount and request how to Witness to Anyone by R.A. Torrey. Call us at 888644 7660 or go online to Treasure Truth Radio.com. I'm Steve Hiller. Our producer is Amy Rios, and we're going to hear more from Pastor Ford tomorrow as we continue the message. How Haters Hate, treasure, Truth is a production of Moody Radio, a ministry of Moody Bible Institute.