The Virtue of Hate

Hebrews chapter 1, we'll read the first nine verses. In the past, God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways.

! But in these last days, He has spoken to us by His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, and through whom He made the universe.

The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of His being, sustaining all things by His powerful word.

And after He had provided purification for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the majesty in heaven. So He became as much superior to the angels as the name He has inherited is superior to theirs.

For to which of the angels did God ever say, You are my Son, today I have become your Father. Or again, I will be His Father and He will be my Son.

And again, when God brings His firstborn into the world, He says, Let all God's angels worship Him. And speaking of the angels, He says, He makes His angels winds, His servants flames of fire.

But about the Son, He says, Your throne, O God, will last forever and ever, and righteousness will be the scepter of your kingdom.

You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness. Therefore, God, your God, has set you above your companions by anointing you with the oil of joy.

When was the last time you were convinced that you don't have enough hatred in your heart?

If only I had more hate. When has that last made its way onto your prayer list? Have you ever prayed, O God, give me more hatred.

Now, usually when we hear the word hatred, we immediately think of that malice and ill will that we show to others, which is indeed a sin to avoid.

And indeed, the Scriptures speak of hatred in that way. But we need to be careful or we will miss something very important to God.

Because in the Bible, we not only meet with verses that speak of hatred as a vice, that we need to be delivered from, but it as much speaks of hatred as a virtue, indeed, as an attribute of God to emulate in our lives, as a Christ-like virtue to copy an aspect of our holiness that we are to pursue and make every effort toward.

So it's this virtue of hatred that I want us to consider tonight. And let me just give you a few titles for this sermon.

You can take your pick. The Holiness of Hatred. Hating like Jesus did. Or the Christian's Need for More Hatred.

Now we'll touch on all of these points and more. We want to begin with hatred in God. Hatred in God's nature. Before we go condemning all hatred as evil, we have to deal with this stubborn reality that God hates.

Indeed, to read the Bible is to quickly realize that the God of love revealed there is also a God who hates. And this hatred is more than a slight dislike.

He hates evil. He hates sin. And He uses some of the strongest language. He detests it. He abhors it. He hates it with a passion. Indeed, this hatred in God is sometimes called His wrath in the Bible.

That aversion that God has toward anything unlike Him. Anything sinful. He's so holy that He can't help but recoil against that which is unholy.

So God hates all sin and evil. And yet the Bible gets very specific, doesn't it? About the things that God hates. Proverbs chapter 6, 16 to 19.

There are six things that God hates. Yea, seven that are detestable to Him. Do you know those seven things? Haughty eyes that look down on others thinking we're better.

A lying tongue. Hands that shed innocent blood. A heart that devises wicked plans. Feet that are quick to rush into evil.

A false witness who pours out lies in court. And a man who stirs up dissension with his brothers. God so loves unity that He hates a divisive man.

Isaiah 61, 8 will be coming there shortly in our treatment of Isaiah. Says, For I, the Lord, love justice. I hate robbery and iniquity.

You see the relationship between His love and His hate. I love justice. Therefore, since I love justice so much, I hate every form of injustice.

Like robbery. Forcibly taking from another what is not mine. What is theirs. God so loves justice that He would not spare His own Son in order to save us.

He would not save us in a way that sold His justice short. No, He loved justice so much that He would pour out His full hatred upon Christ.

His full indignation and wrath upon Him. That He might save us in a way that His justice is not compromised. I love justice.

Therefore, I hate every form of injustice. Like robbery. And it's because He loves justice so much that He hates every form of injustice.

Proverbs 17, 15. He hates acquitting the guilty. He hates condemning the innocent. These things the Lord detests them both. Proverbs 20, 23.

The Lord detests different weights and dishonest scales. So in the business world, God hates cheating because He loves justice.

Malachi 2, 16. I hate divorce. God loves justice and righteousness. And He hates divorce. I hate a man's covering himself with violence as well as with his garment.

So there we see God's commitment to justice requires that He hates cheating and mistreating of one another and defrauding and oppressing each other.

Proverbs 15 goes on to give three more things that God hates. The Lord detests the sacrifices of the wicked. The Lord detests the way of the wicked.

The Lord detests the thoughts of the wicked. You start to get the pattern that the wicked is so defined by sin that even their thoughts are...

That God hates even their thoughts. Even what they're thinking. What's going through their mind. God hates it. And He hates their whole way. The whole way of life that they're on. The way they live.

The way they do family. The way they do business. The way they spend their money. The way they spend their spare time. He hates their whole way. He even hates their religious sacrifices.

We found in the book of Isaiah that God hates hypocritical worship that draws near to Him with our mouths but our hearts are far from Him. And He says in Isaiah 1, 15, Your new moon festivals, your appointed feasts.

These are the religious gatherings of the church. He says, My soul hates. They've become a burden to me. I'm weary of them. Amos says, I hate. I despise your religious feasts.

I can't stand your assemblies. Wouldn't that be something to have God say that of our assembly here tonight? That's what He was saying. He's a God who hates.

He hates hypocritical worship but He also hates the worship of foreign gods. Again and again, I sent my servants, the prophets, to you who said, Do not do this detestable thing that I hate.

He hates the gods of the nations. And don't do this either because I hate it as well. I hate it when you worship me in the same way that they worship their gods.

So how do they worship Dagon? They do it through an idol. They do it through making some physical form and giving physical, that gives to some physical object religious significance.

Oh, this is a holy object. And through idols, they worship their god. God says, I hate it when you worship me through idols. They're detestable to me.

No idols in your worship. So in these various ways to read the Bible is to learn that though God is a God of love, that love is accompanied by intense hatred for all evil.

So this is why I refer to it as the God-like virtue of hate. So we've seen God's hatred. Let's look secondly at Christ's hatred.

We've got to deal with that too, don't we? The fact that Jesus hates and hated. Everything we said of God could be said to be true of Jesus. He is, as we read, the representation, the perfect representation of God.

He's the outshining of God's glory. So whatever is true of God is true of Jesus. He too hates sin. And in the passage that was read, the last verse, Hebrews 1, 9, we have a summarizing statement of the perfect holiness of Jesus' sinless life.

And the writer to the Hebrews quotes from Psalm 45. It's as if he says, I can't say it any better than what Psalm 45 said. You, God the Father speaking to his son, you have loved righteousness and hated wickedness.

Therefore, God, your God, has set you above your companions by anointing you with the oil of joy. Actually, the psalmist speaking of him. You've loved righteousness, you've hated wickedness.

Those are the two things that God praises and rewards in his son. I want you to know this about my son. He loves righteousness. He hates wickedness.

And in that summary of Jesus' life, he shows us that the holiness of Jesus didn't have just to do with his outward actions. Yes, that.

But he takes us right into his heart. What was the habitual frame of Jesus' heart as he lived among sinners and lived among sin? Well, these two things were ever there, brimming full in his heart, loving righteousness, hating wickedness.

Now, those are just two sides of the same coin, aren't they? Where one is, the other is. You say, look, there's a heads on this quarter. I say, that's right.

Turn it over, and there's the tails on the other side. And so you come to see the holy life of Jesus. And you say, isn't that a beautiful thing? The holiness of Jesus.

It's my only hope for heaven that he never sinned once. Look how much he loved righteousness. And I say, that's right. And let's turn it over.

And look how much he hated wickedness. It's the same coin of Jesus' holy heart. Love and hatred.

There is no real love for righteousness where there is no hatred of wickedness. Because love for righteousness will make you hate all that is opposed to righteousness.

All that's against righteousness, that is antithetical to it. But love for righteousness will not let you be indifferent toward evil. Oh, evil? So what?

It won't let you do that. If you truly love righteousness, you will hate wickedness. Because they're opposed to each other. And neither can you love both.

You can't love righteousness and love wickedness, can you? Now, you may love hamburgers and not hate ice cream.

Because though they're different, they're not against each other, are they? In fact, we might think they go well together. You can love them both.

But you can't love Jesus and love Satan too. Because they are against each other. Satan is anti-Christ, anti-God.

You can't love righteousness and love wickedness because wickedness is against righteousness. The two are opposite to each other.

So Jesus says you can't love two masters. Why not? Because either you'll hate the one and love the other or you'll be devoted to the one and despise the other. But you can't love them both because God and money as masters are as opposed to each other as Christ and Satan.

You will either serve God as your master or money. But you can't serve both because about the time you say, I want to serve both, money will say to you, seek me more than you're seeking God in this activity.

Consider me more important this week than this command of God. And you'll be divided. The two are antithetical. If you love the one, you will hate the other.

You will hate money as a master. You will hate anything as a master if you love God as your master. So what we're seeing in the Lord Jesus is a love for righteousness and a hatred for wickedness.

And it's hatred that becomes a help to evaluating our love for righteousness. I think sometimes we can fool ourselves into thinking we love righteousness more than we do.

And this brings us back to reality and tells us that we really love righteousness no more than we hate wickedness. The antithesis of it.

So if you really love the truth, you will hate lies, won't you? You'll hate all deceit, all trickery. You'll hate all pretense and hypocrisy of trying to look better than you are.

All lies. You'll hate it if you really love the truth. And if you love life, then you will hate abortion.

You will hate murder. You will hate all the taking of life unlawfully. And if you love God's institution of marriage, then you will hate divorce.

And you will hate every sinful attitude that leads husbands and wives to divorce. Every bit of selfishness. Every pouting. Every unforgiving spirit.

Every bit of unfaithfulness. All insensitivity. If you love God's institution of marriage, you will hate all that wars against it.

And if you love humility, you will hate pride. Your form of pride. And if you love gratitude, well then you'll hate complaining and you'll hate discontentment and coveting what you don't have.

And if you love speech that builds up, then you'll hate gossip. And you'll hate slander. And you'll hate all speech that tears another down. So you're only as good a lover of righteousness as you are a hater of unrighteousness.

So there's the double motivation. Behind the righteous life of our Lord, behind all he did, there was this twin love for righteousness and its twin hatred of wickedness.

And that's what kept him going for those 40 days and 40 nights in the wilderness when he's being tempted by the devil. It's not just at the end of the 40 days that he was tempted. That's what the temptations we read.

But for 40 days and 40 nights, the devil's having at him in the wilderness all alone. And what motivates Jesus to reject temptation? 40 days and 40 nights.

And to go through 33 years without sinning is this twin motivation. He loves righteousness. And he hates wickedness. This suggestion, Satan, is as hateful to me as righteousness is beautiful to me.

And that's why he says to Peter at one occasion, get behind me, Satan. He hates wickedness. And even when wickedness comes in the guise of a friend suggesting something to him, he sees to the bottom of it and he calls it out for the hateful thing it is.

And it was his hatred of wickedness that was seen when he cleansed the temple. Again, false worship. Is Jesus indifferent to it? Oh my, they're not worshiping like they ought to. No, he takes a whip and he drives them out of his father's temple.

His hatred of wickedness. It was seen in preaching against the Pharisees. Woe to you, Pharisees. Curses on you, Pharisees. Judgment on you, Pharisees.

Why? Why such harshness? Why such indignation against the Pharisees? Because they took the lies of the devil and they dressed them up in religious garb and they preached a gospel that wouldn't save a cat.

And they told people, this is the way to God. And Jesus was angry and full of hatred for false doctrine that led thousands of people to hell.

And so even in his preaching of the truth, we see his hatred of the lies that deceive men. And it was seen in his miraculous healings of the sick.

The disease, the demon possessed. It was seen in his raising of the dead. Consider Jesus at Lazarus' tomb. We all know that at the tomb or on the way to the tomb of Lazarus, Jesus wept.

What we might not be so careful to notice is that twice in that story, Jesus groaned with indignation. Verse 33 of John 11 says, When Jesus saw her weeping, Mary, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and was troubled.

That's the NIV. A more literal rendering of the word is not just deeply moved, but he groaned in his spirit.

What causes a man to groan? What kind of a groan was this? It's a word that means to snort with rage like a war horse going into battle.

Jesus snorts with rage as he comes in contact with sorrow and suffering. It's a word that expresses violent hatred and displeasure in the Septuagint in Daniel 1130.

It's translated, He vented his fury. Lenski, the commentator, says, It's a deep emotion of indignation. It's hatred. It's strong hatred such that made the Son of God groan.

What was it that stirred up this hatred in his heart? Well, it's seeing what death has done to his friend Mary and all these who had gathered.

It had caused such suffering and misery to them and he groans with hatred against it. Hatred for the cause of their grief which was death and hatred for the cause of death which was sin and hatred for the cause of sin which was the devil who first tempted Adam and Eve to sin.

And so he groans, Father, this is not the world that we made. It was not like this. It was meant to be a place of blessing and it's become a place of misery.

And as Jesus, the man, the perfect man walks among men and he sees what death has brought into the family of humanity, he groans with hatred and he proceeds to the tomb and he groans again at the tomb.

Then he forces death to give up its prey. Lazarus, come forth. It was not only out of compassion that he raised Lazarus from the dead. It was out of anger, hatred for what death had done to humanity and what sin had done and what Satan had done.

We see the same thing in his healing of diseases. Luke's account in chapter 4 and verse 39. You remember they came into Peter's home and his mother-in-law suffering with a fever.

So what did Jesus do? Dr. Luke doesn't say he healed her. He says he rebuked the spirit. I wonder if Dr. Luke was saying, you know, I've treated a lot of fevers but I've never rebuked a fever but I just saw a man give a rebuke to a fever and it was gone.

It's the same word used of what he does two verses later to the demons who harassed people. He rebuked the demons. It's the same word that's used of what he did to the wind and waves when they threatened to destroy the lives of his own disciples.

He rebuked them and it's as if he is speaking to the supernatural forces behind destructive diseases behind demon possession behind destructive storms and hence it's with hatred that he casts out the demons that he heals the diseases that he calms the destructive storms.

You see John doesn't doesn't Jesus believe in the overarching providence of God that can include storms that arise that God was the one who ordered that storm and diseases that show up in people's bodies and yes he believes all that he himself has it all under his control but he treats destructive storms destructive elements of nature diseases demon possessions all these things he treats them as the work of Satan since it's through the agency of Satan that sin entered the world and death entered through sin and all the curse of disease and pain and suffering it came in with the devil and so he regards all of these as the expressions of what the devil has brought into this created universe that I and you father made so wondrously that was so good he regards

Satan as the murderer and liar from the beginning who's brought misery into the world and so he comes he came from heaven why John says in 1st John 3 8 the reason the son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil kids you learn the ABCs in your Sunday school class what is D for God is the destroyer of evil that's why he's come that's why Jesus came to destroy evil and he doesn't do it with an indifference toward evil he does it with hatred in his heart you have loved righteousness and hated wickedness it's a wonderful thing to think that he saved us with a heart burning with love for us and burning with hatred for our enemies this is our savior and he comes to save us and this hostility it was placed there by God himself remember Genesis 3 the first salvation promise in the Bible in human history they've just sinned Adam and

Eve and God comes to the serpent and says this in Genesis 3 15 I will put enmity between you you the serpent and the woman you know what enmity is it's hatred it's hostility and I'm going to put hatred between the two of you now as I created Eve she was over here with me God and Eve on the same side and over here's Satan and Satan by temptation came and watch and he tempted Eve and then he brought her over to his side now there's God and there's Satan and Eve and in this holy war there's hatred between these two sides God hates Satan Satan hates God Satan has won Eve over to her side and God is saying I'm going to save her and I'm going to put enmity between you

Satan and the woman I'm going to put that enmity right between which is to say I'm going to go back and bring her to my side and now she will hate you I'll put hatred in her heart and I'll put hatred into the seed of the woman the godly seed of the woman and the devil's seed and particularly in that one masculine singular seed of the woman Jesus I will put enmity between him and you and your seed something that God has done in his world it's a godlike virtue it's a christ like virtue and our lord Jesus cannot stand in the presence of evil and of evil's effects upon the world and its sin and its misery and its woe and feel indifferent and unmoved he stirred to his depths to do something about it of course it was at the cross that we see most clearly how much he loves righteousness and hates wickedness so hateful was he of wickedness that he bears our griefs and he carries our sorrows the result of sin those sorrows and griefs and he says here let me take those for you

I want to get rid of all wickedness he's so in love with righteousness that he's willing to suffer damnation in order to buy it for us a righteous standing with God a righteous heart in our breast he hates wickedness so much that he's willing to die to remove it from God's new creation and so that's what's behind the cross not only love for sinners but hatred for evil that has ruined what God has created it's why he didn't call 10,000 angels to rescue him on the cross it's why he endured to the end that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death that is the devil and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death it was with hatred for evil that Jesus mounted Calvary's cross and stayed there and bore the wrath the hatred of God in the place of his people and by doing that he set them free from

Satan's grip and put Satan to an open! and of course he's not done he's not done he's coming back again to finish the job and when he comes he's going to put Satan and all his servants and all who have not obeyed the gospel into the lake of burning sulfur he hates wickedness and he's going to gather the righteous into his barn and into his arms and he's going to create a new heaven and a new earth where only righteousness dwells he loves righteousness and he will have a universe where there's no wickedness at all it can't enter the new Jerusalem only the righteous those made righteous by Jesus blood and by Jesus spirit can enter there we see this hatred of wickedness so mark it down if you are growing in

Christ likeness you will be growing in hatred of evil God's hatred Christ's hatred what about your hatred believer what about the believer's hatred is does it just follow or have we said that that should be so has God really said that I believe it's been implied all along that we're to hate what God hates we're to love what God loves but not only is it implied it's explicit in the scriptures consider in the third place hatred commended and commanded of believers Jesus sends some letters to his churches and he he's got some problems to sort out in his churches doesn't he and he doesn't withhold rebuke but neither does he withhold praise and so he rebukes them and he praises so he's writing to the church at Ephesus and he finds praise for them revelation 2 6 but you have this in your favor you hate the practices of the

Nicolaitans which I also hate good for you keep it up now the Nicolaitans were a gnostic heresy that it taught that you can indulge your sinful flesh and not harm your spiritual life you can be a!

Christian and keep on living like the world in your sin and the Ephesians had sniffed it out and sought for what it was and they hated it they hated the practice of the Nicolaitans which I also hate Jesus says you're showing that you and I have that in common good for you he commends their hatred but then he also commands their hatred in Psalm 97 in verse 10 let those who love the Lord what do you think the next two words are hate evil you love the Lord do you love him then then hate evil hate evil here's the command to hate Amos 5 15 hate evil love good maintain justice in the courts both the negative and positive side of holiness are commanded!

to love righteousness to hate wickedness love love love love must be sincere hate what is evil cling to what is good you see you show your true colors by what you hate and what you love and cling to your bosom the author of the psalms several authors, most often David, and the godly man portrayed there as a man who is full of hatred for wickedness.

Let me just read a few samples. Psalm 101.3, I will set before my eyes no vile thing. The deeds of faithless men I hate.

They will not cling to me. Now that godly man writing those words is not just saying, you know, I'm not going to go along with evil men when they do their evil deeds. They want to do it, that's fine.

It's good for them, it's good for them. I'm just not into it. No, no. He's not indifferent to what they're doing. He's not just keeping himself away from it. He says, I hate the deeds of faithless men.

Psalm 119.128, Because I consider all your precepts right, I hate every wrong path.

It's not that all paths are leading to heaven. No, I love your path, and because I love your path, I hate every wrong path. Psalm 119.163, I hate and abhor falsehood, but I love your law.

I love your law. I love the truth, so I hate falsehood. The wise man in Proverbs does the same. Proverbs 8.13, To fear the Lord is to hate evil.

You know what the fear of the Lord is. To so esteem God, to lift Him so high in your thoughts, and to so value Him, that His smile is your greatest delight.

You can't think of anything better in heaven and earth than the smile of God. And His frown is your greatest dread.

You can't think of anything worse than His frown. The fear of God, living before God, with this high view of God. And the wise man says, To fear the Lord is to hate evil.

No fear of the Lord, no hating evil. No hating evil, no fear of the Lord. Didn't we memorize that? Psalm 36.1 and 2. If you can say it with me, do.

An oracle is within my heart concerning the sinfulness of the wicked. There's no fear of God before their eyes. For in their own eyes... Thank you for your help.

I lost it there. For in their own eyes, He flatters Himself too much to detect or hate His own sin. He doesn't hate His sin.

And what does that show? It shows there's no fear of God before His eyes. Because to fear God is to hate evil. Put an equal sign is what the wise man does between the fear of the Lord and hating evil.

The righteous hate what is false, but the wicked bring shame and disgrace. Proverbs 13.5. And many other Proverbs. Again, they hate, the righteous hates bribes, they hate ill-gotten gain, again, this isn't just saying they don't do these things.

It's saying there is in their hearts, if you could peel back the layers of their skin, you would find that they are upset about all that is wrong in the sight of God.

Now, one of the Lord's charges against the wicked is that they don't hate sin. And so we see hatred of sin is not just permissible.

It's not just that you're permitted to hate sin if you want to. No, you're commanded to hate sin. And not to hate sin is to sin against God, is to take the devil's side in this holy war of hatred and hostility between God and the devil.

This battle of the ages is raging. You can't straddle this fence, my friend. You're on one side or the other. And the natural man is enmity against God.

He hates God. And how do we know that his mind is hatred toward God? Because he will not submit to God's laws. He won't put himself under and bow his will to God's law.

And it shows that hatred. But what happens when a person is converted? God comes and changes his heart and brings him from Satan's side over to his side. And now he hates what he once loved and he loves what he once hated.

That's the new birth. You met somebody recently born again? They love what they used to hate and they hate what they used to love. It becomes so apparent and refreshing to us.

It's the work of God in salvation. Now our age is all about tolerance, isn't it? We're not supposed to hate anything, are we? We're supposed to be accepting of everyone.

And every activity and every belief as if they're all on equal par. There's none better than the others. There's no absolute truth. And if we're not careful, we as Christians, that's the air we're breathing.

And pretty soon, well, we've seen it so often, it's becoming so acceptable, and we just kind of turn up. We're no longer up in arms about evil. We're no longer hating evil.

No room for indifference. Nowhere does Jesus Christ take a neutral position toward evil.

So I have to ask you, do you hate evil? And not just the evil in Washington, the evil in your heart. Because anytime we hate evil outside of us more than evil inside us, it makes our hatred suspect.

What are we really hating? Is it the other people or is it the fact that it's evil? If it's evil, then we'll hate it here as much, if not more, than out there.

So hatred in the believer, commanded, commended.

Fourth, the motivational power of hatred. You know, the world's on to this, that hatred is a good motivator. In 2011, the Miami Heat superstars lost in the National Championship basketball game to the Dallas Mavericks.

And I heard an interview with one of the three superstars, I won't tell you which one, but he said that before every practice during that next year, he would remind himself and his teammates who were on that team what it felt like to lose the National Championship.

You remember that feeling he'd say to them? He'd start stirring them up. You remember how we felt after that game? You remember after that game? And he said our hatred of losing motivated us to work harder and push ourselves further in practice.

It's the motivation of hating losing that made them run that extra lap, jump higher, work harder, not quit sooner. And indeed, they came back and won back-to-back national championships, harnessing something of the motivational power of hatred, hating losing.

Weightlifters will harness hatred to get one more rep in their set just to get that one extra. Hatred can cause a man to do things they otherwise wouldn't do.

There is an association called MAD, Mothers Against Drunk Drivers, and they're mad because they've lost a child to a drunk driver.

And so what do they do? They're motivated to lobby and get involved to pass harsher laws and see them enforced to get drunk drivers off the road. It's just common knowledge that most militaries teach their soldiers to hate the enemy.

Why is that? Why is that a part of their training? Because it motivates them to kill them on the battlefield. Murders are often motivated by hatred.

Premeditated murder. Preconceived. They plot it out. They calculate every step. It's hatred. Which Jesus says is murder in the heart.

Now, whatever you think about all those forms of motivation by hatred, we as Christians do have some killing to do, don't we?

Killing sin. It's nothing easy, is it? It's hard and painful work. And it's unlikely that we will get far in the work of killing our prevailing sin if we do not hate it.

So one of the things that Jesus does for his disciples is teaches us to hate our sin, that we might put it to death.

You see, it involves cutting off occasions for sin. if you find that every time you run with this group of guys or gals, you find yourself falling, you've got to cut off running with those people.

Things as dear as your right hand, your right foot, your right eye, must be plucked out lest they cause you to stumble. That's hard work.

Denying yourself, starving those sinful pleasures that crave for satisfaction, here's a motivation to help you do what is otherwise so difficult to do and you might not do.

It's called hatred. We found it in Jesus' heart behind his holy resistance to temptation and sin. So we've seen God's hatred, Christ's hatred, believer's hatred, powerful motivation.

Lastly, then how do I come to hate sin more? I began this evening by asking you, have you been convinced recently that you need more hatred in your heart?

And if you're with me tonight, it's definitely on my prayer list. Lord Jesus, teach me to hate wickedness like you hate it, and teach me to love righteousness like you love it.

well, how do we come to hate sin more? Well, we see it for what it is. We just look at it, see what it does, study it a bit, just stare down.

Why should I hate evil, number one, because it's against the God that I love? What does evil do? What does sin do? It would pull God right off of his throne.

sin? It would do worse than that. What did evil men do when they could get their hands on God? When God became a man and they could get him, they drove nails through his hands and feet and crucified him.

Oh, is sin that anti-God? Then let me make no truces with it. Secondly, how do I hate evil sin more? Well, it's what put my Savior to such pain and misery on the cross.

He was bearing my sin and the punishment of it. It's what caused him to sweat great drops of blood and agony and to cry out from the cross, my God, why have you abandoned me? He was dying for sin, sin that is so horrendous that nothing less than his damnation in our place could undo it.

Why should I hate evil? Number three, it's what grieves the Holy Spirit. And who is he? He's that divine house guest, shall we say, that's come and taken up residence in our hearts to live with us forever, to help us on to God, to read the scriptures, to help us see our Savior and his wonder more clearly, to strengthen us against him.

Oh, how we need the Holy Spirit. And does sin make him sad and does sin grieve him away? How could I do anything but hate my sin?

Fourthly, it's sin that brought all the suffering and misery and oppression that we see in this world. Walk through some hospitals, visit some nursing homes, go into the places of suffering and misery, and say, is this what sin has brought into this world?

Have I begun to hate it like I ought? Go on to the battlefield. Oh, it's so glorified in the movies. War is a horrible thing.

Is that what has caused nation to rise up against nation? Sin? Then let me hate it with all my guts.

Number five, it works to destroy everything good. You seen some ruined lives lately? Maybe you live next door to one. Maybe you live with one. Maybe you work with one.

A home shattered. A marriage ruined. Look it down. Stare it down. This is what sin does. And am I toying with it?

Am I making compromises with sin that does this? And then lastly, it's sin that sends people to hell forever.

It sends people to hell forever. As much misery and woe as we see in this world, it's nothing compared to hell. It were better for those there that they had never been born, Jesus said.

Never been born. then, Lord Jesus, teach me to hate sin like you hate it.

Teach me to look it down this week, to see it, to see what it does, to see what it does to you, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, to see what it does to your perfect creation, what you made so good.

Sin is what ruins everything. Sin is what accounts for everything bad in the world, everything bad in your heart, everything bad in your home. Then may the Lord help us and teach us all together to not be indifferent, unmoved, before sin in ourselves and before sin in others.

And with Jesus to reach out and pity and to seek to save and to bring the truth that will set them free, to do so with love for the sinner and hatred for the captor.

We sing of that in number nine in our grace hymns, O Church, Arise. And it speaks of our call to war in verse two. To love the captive soul, but to rage against the captor.

To love the captive soul, the one ensnared by sin, but to rage with hatred, with indignation against the captor.

Let's stand as we sing, O Church, Arise. Number nine in our grace hymns. O Father, we bow in your presence and confess as a church that we have not hated sin as we ought.

We have not seen how much you hate it as we ought. We've not learned from our Savior and his school to hate sin as he hates it, but how we thank you that that is true, how we thank you that you're not indifferent to these very enemies of ours that would have ruined us forever and that out of that hatred of evil and that love in your heart you sent your son to save us.

We thank you that nothing can stand before you and that the devil and death and sin have had their heads smashed and one day you're coming again to crush Satan beneath our feet.

Come and do that work increasingly in our hearts. Teach us what it is to love what is good and to hate all that is evil. To hate it first in our hearts and to hate it in our nation, to hate it in others, to hate seeing sinners being lied to and believing the lie and being blinded by the lies of this world.

To see Satan leading them by the nose to hell. Give us enough hatred to speak the truth in love to them and to see them rescued by your mighty grace. Give us hatred enough to resist sin the next time it comes calling and the next time.

Give us that persistent rejection of sin even by the grace that's found in our Savior. So thank you for the Lord's day.

Thank you for the blessing of fellowship with your people, of gathering with those that love the same Savior and hate the same enemies and make our fellowship to be conducive to that very end until we look upon you face to face in a new and a better place where sin cannot enter and where only righteousness dwells and where your will will be done on earth even as it is being done in heaven.

Have mercy on us. Bless your word. Send us home rejoicing in our Savior who bore the hatred of God that stood against us.

We ask in his name. Amen.