{"id":9224,"date":"2025-11-05T06:06:52","date_gmt":"2025-11-05T06:06:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/?p=9224"},"modified":"2025-11-05T06:06:52","modified_gmt":"2025-11-05T06:06:52","slug":"3-scary-things-that-jesus-said","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/?p=9224","title":{"rendered":"3 scary things that Jesus said"},"content":{"rendered":"


By Robin Schumacher<\/span><\/span>, Exclusive Columnist Monday, November 03, 2025<\/span>iStock\/Wirestock<\/span><\/p>\n

Ask literally anyone to describe Jesus, and I\u2019ll bet a year\u2019s pay that \u201cscary\u201d doesn\u2019t come out of their mouth.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That isn\u2019t surprising because in Scripture\u2019s one place that has Jesus describing Himself, we read:\u00a0\u201cTake my yoke upon you, and learn from me,\u00a0for I am gentle and lowly in heart<\/em>, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light\u201d (Matt. 11:29\u201330, my emphasis). That being the case, it\u2019s certainly understandable why most people won\u2019t connect the words \u201cscary\u201d and \u201cJesus\u201d together.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But the fact is, there are more places in the Bible than you might think where Jesus says things that should cause us all to stand up straight. Let me give you just three off the top of my head.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Burned branches<\/strong><\/p>\n

The\u00a0postmodern\u00a0and\u00a0post-truth\u00a0philosophies that are lived out by the vast majority of people today are the antithesis of what you see Christ teaching in His four biblical biographies. Instead, they show Him stating that \u201ctrue truth\u201d, as\u00a0Francis Schaeffer\u00a0used to call it, exists and He\u2019s it. Follow anything or anyone else, and you\u2019ll be making a\u00a0career decision<\/em>.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Life apart from Him leads only to a terrible conclusion, which He begins to explain in a fairly famous section of John\u2019s gospel: \u201cAbide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. \u201cI am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing\u201d (John 15:4\u20135).\u00a0<\/p>\n

Before we get to the foreboding part, let me add a quick aside and ask you to notice that in the above, you see anything but a self-effacing claim from Christ (\u201capart from Me you can do nothing\u201d). Instead, you find a statement that helped fuel C. S. Lewis\u2019\u00a0famous quote\u00a0about Jesus: \u201cA man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic \u2014 on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg \u2014 or else he would be the devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

But immediately after that comes the real kicker: \u201cIf anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up; and they gather them and cast them into the fire and they are burned\u201d (John 15:6).<\/p>\n

I’m not sure anyone reading this needs that imagery explained, but just in case, He\u2019s saying, Me or Hell \u2014 you choose.\u00a0<\/p>\n

You see this phraseology elsewhere in Scripture like from John the Baptist: \u201cThe axe is already laid at the root of the trees; therefore every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire\u201d (Matt. 3:10),\u00a0and Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount: \u201cEvery tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire\u201d (Matt. 7:19), as well as the writer of Hebrews: \u201cFor ground that drinks the rain which often falls on it and brings forth vegetation useful to those for whose sake it is also tilled, receives a blessing from God; but if it yields thorns and thistles, it is worthless and close to being cursed, and it ends up being burned\u201d (Heb. 6:7\u20138).\u00a0<\/p>\n

All of which say the same thing \u2014 without salvation in Christ, your final destination will be something unthinkable.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Some scary stuff? You bet.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Fake Christs<\/strong><\/p>\n

Another episode in John has Jesus saying these words to the Pharisees who rejected Him: \u201cTherefore I said to you that you will die in your sins; for unless you believe that I am He, you will die in your sins\u201d (John 8:24).\u00a0<\/p>\n

I see two unsettling takeaways from this brief statement.\u00a0<\/p>\n

First is the consequence of an outright rejection of Jesus \u2014 something Walvoord and Blum note in their commentary on John: \u201cJesus said twice they would die in their sins. If they would reject the Sin-Bearer (1:29), they would continue in the realm of sin. If they would reject Jesus as the revelation of God, they would miss their only hope for salvation.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The second deals with something more subtle and is in reference to the phrase \u201cI am He,\u201d which speaks to His true identity of being God. When it comes to Jesus, there\u2019s the real deal and then those He warned about in His Olivet Discourse: \u201cMany will come in My name, saying, \u2018I am the Christ,\u2019 and will mislead many\u201d (Matt. 24:5).<\/p>\n

And boy, have they ever.\u00a0<\/p>\n

We have false Christs of Islam, Christian cults, eastern religions, along with fabricated ones in so many people\u2019s heads that bear no resemblance to the real one. All of which have no power to save.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A. W. Tozer\u00a0wrote, \u201cTo believe on Christ savingly means to believe the right things about Christ. There is no escaping this.\u201d As usual, Tozer is spot on. Truth about the real Jesus matters \u2014 especially when you\u2019re on the receiving end of a lie about Him.<\/p>\n

Fake faith<\/strong><\/p>\n

This last scary saying of Jesus really hits home for me because it was who I was until my late teen years.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Jesus winds down His Sermon on the Mount by saying: \u201cNot everyone who says to Me, \u2018Lord, Lord,\u2019 will enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. Many will say to Me on that day, \u2018Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?\u2019 And then I will declare to them, \u2018I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness\u2019\u201d (Matt 7:21-23).\u00a0<\/p>\n

Raised in the church since I was an infant, I knew all about Jesus but was indifferent about Him and the things of God. I had no \u201choly affections\u201d for God and Christ as Jonathan Edwards talks about in his work,\u00a0The Religious Affections<\/em>. Instead, I was what the Puritan Matthew Mead calls\u00a0The Almost Christian<\/em> \u2014 someone who counts themselves as a believer, but whose house in reality is built on the sand (Matt. 7:26-27).\u00a0<\/p>\n

The \u201calmost Christian\u201d thinks that because of who they are (like Israel) or what they supposedly do (works salvation), they will be welcomed by God into His Kingdom. But Jesus tells us that, in a horrifying turn of events, their house of cards collapses and \u201cdestruction will come upon them suddenly like labor pains upon a woman with child, and they will not escape\u201d (2 Thess. 5:3).\u00a0<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t let that be you.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Today, as always, you and I are in one\u00a0of two groups: those with their judgment behind them and those with their judgment ahead of them. There are no other possibilities.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That being the case, let these three scary sayings of Jesus serve as an opportunity for you to, \u201cTest yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves! Or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you \u2014 unless indeed you fail the test?\u201d (2 Cor. 13:5), and make sure you\u2019re abiding in Christ, believing in the true Jesus of the Gospels, and bearing fruit that shows you pass the test.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Robin Schumacher is an accomplished software executive and Christian apologist who has written many articles, authored and contributed to several Christian books, appeared on nationally syndicated radio programs, and presented at apologetic events. He holds a BS in Business, Master’s in Christian apologetics and a Ph.D. in New Testament. His latest book is, A Confident Faith: Winning people to Christ with the apologetics of the Apostle Paul.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Robin Schumacher, Exclusive Columnist Monday, November 03, 2025iStock\/Wirestock Ask literally anyone to describe Jesus, and I\u2019ll bet a year\u2019s pay that \u201cscary\u201d doesn\u2019t come out of their mouth.\u00a0 That isn\u2019t surprising because in Scripture\u2019s one place that has Jesus describing Himself, we read:\u00a0\u201cTake my yoke upon you, and learn from me,\u00a0for I am gentle<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9225,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[481,971],"class_list":{"0":"post-9224","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-christian-living","8":"tag-jesus","9":"tag-scary"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9224","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9224"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9224\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9225"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}