Luke 6:26 “Woe unto you, when all men shall speak well of you! for so did their fathers to the false prophets.”

In this verse in Luke 6, Jesus Christ brings up something that is very important to us all… which is being “liked”.

We all want to be liked, we all want to be spoken well of.

If you want to see how important “likes” are, just look at facebook, they built an empire on “likes” because they know the power of “likes” and how to translate our need for “likes” into financial gain. Because with “likes” comes validation, acceptance and influence in this world.

Even back in Jesus’ day, “likes” and “follows” were very important to people like the Pharisees, who competed strongly for followers. They were the “influencers” back then. One of the main reasons they envied and hated Jesus was because he exposed them, which cost them “likes” and “follows”. Uh oh!

In this verse, it is important to note that there is a distinction between not being liked for being a jerk and not being liked for being a Christian. If you’re going to be not liked, at least make sure it’s for the right reason.

1 Peter 2:20 “For what glory is it, if, when ye be buffeted for your faults, ye shall take it patiently? but if, when ye do well, and suffer for it, ye take it patiently, this is acceptable with God.”

We are not told to set out not to be liked, and behave in an obnoxious way so people will not like us for good reason, but we are told that we will not be liked if we believe the Bible and follow Christ in our life.

And we see that today, because anybody that stands by the truth of God’s word gets towed through the mud, and if not to their face, well definitely behind their back.

To help us understand what he was saying, Jesus Christ referenced the example of the false prophets in the Old Testament, take the book of Jeremiah for instance. Jeremiah was not liked, but the false prophets who paved the way to the destruction of Jerusalem were much loved.

Why? Because basically put, the false prophets would tell the people what they wanted to hear, while the prophets of God would tell the people what God’s word said, but which often wasn’t what they wanted to hear.

So most of the time the prophets of God were hated, because their messages weren’t perceived as loving, compassionate, caring or even truthful, but rather negative and hateful… and so these guys were strongly disliked to the point of murdering them.

So pretty much, as a prophet back then, if you wanted to be “liked”, the magic formula was clearly laid out… become really good at saying what people want to hear. It’s the same formula that seeker friendly churches and wishy washy Christians follow today.

Churches have literally built business models and marketing strategies around being liked. But “they are not valiant for the truth” as God said in Jeremiah.

Being “liked” should not be more precious to a Christian than the salvation of souls. But being liked is why many do not use salvation terminology like “sin” “repentance” “judgment” “hell”.

And Jesus is saying here, if everyone likes you, it’s a sign you’re doing something wrong, not right, because any and every Christian will bear the cross of being disliked when they follow him.

And it is worth considering from the example of the false prophets, that if the people had only listened to Jeremiah, they would have been fine, but because they listened to the people who they liked, but who lied to them, they all ended up killed and enslaved… “woe” indeed.

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