Then the officers came to the chief priests and Pharisees, who said to them, "Why have you not brought Him?"
The officers answered, "No man ever spoke like this Man!"
Then the Pharisees answered them, "Are you also deceived? Have any of the rulers or the Pharisees believed in Him? But this crowd that does not know the law is accursed."
Nicodemus (he who came to Jesus by night, being one of them) said to them, "Does our law judge a man before it hears him and knows what he is doing?"
They answered and said to him, "Are you also from Galilee? Search and look, for no prophet has arisen out of Galilee." John 7:45-52 NKJV
The Pharisees, as a whole, rejected Jesus because He threatened their authority. They missed the opportunity to welcome their savior in order to keep favor with the people. Nicodemus, who secretly believed, could not dissuade them from their rage and became the object of their scorn.
Often, we will be attacked also if we take a stand for Jesus. But the rewards we gain are greater than any loss. Jesus has promised eternal rewards for those that stand for Him. Jim Elliot, the martyred missionary to the Auca Indians said, “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose." Truer words have seldom been spoken.