Hate, the Acid Test of Love

This is Psalm 119, and I'll begin reading at verse 97.! Oh, how I love Your law, I meditate on it all day long.

Your commands make me wiser than my enemies, for they are ever with me. I have more insight than all my teachers, for I meditate on Your statutes.

I have more understanding than the elders, for I obey Your precepts. I have kept my feet from every evil path, so that I might obey Your word.

I have not departed from Your laws, for You, Yourself, had taught me. How sweet are Your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth. I gain understanding from Your precepts.

Therefore, I hate every wrong path. Amen. Many books have been written on what's wrong with the church today.

And if we take Psalm 119 as our cue, well, we can see several things. We surely do not meditate on God's word. We don't slow down and really think through the word of God like we ought.

We don't hide God's word and memorize it and keep it in our hearts so that we might not sin against Him. And this morning, I must add that a serious weakness in Christians today is that we don't have enough hate in our hearts.

That's right. We need to be better haters if we would be more like David and more like David's greater son, Jesus Christ.

So, as we return to our study on themes from Psalm 119, today we're considering this Christlike virtue of hate that we find well and alive in David.

So, the title of this message is, Hate the Acid Test of Love. Now, we just saw it in the passage read for us in verses 97 to 104.

I trust you have your Bibles open. You need to see this from God's word. And notice how David begins and ends this section with two directly related statements.

The first statement is found in verse 97 and the last statement is found at the end of 104. They stand as bookends, you see, to this whole section.

So, oh, how I love your law. Therefore, I hate every wrong path. You see it?

Oh, how I love your law. It's followed by seven verses explaining why the benefits of God's law. And now the conclusion comes at the end at verse 104.

Therefore, I hate every wrong path. So, the relationship between love and hate is a close one. They're connected like Siamese twins.

Twins that are, their bodies actually grow together in their mother's womb so that wherever you see one, you always find the other. That's true of a lot of things. It's true of faith and repentance.

Wherever you find one, you always find the other. And it's true of love and hate. They're always together. Furthermore, the more you love, the more you'll hate.

In fact, the strength of your love actually proves the strength of your, or the strength of your hate proves the strength of your love. It's the acid test proving the genuineness of any professed love.

If you love a tree, you'll love, you'll hate the worm that destroys it. If you love zucchini, you'll hate that worm that destroys that plant.

If you hate zucchini, you'll love that worm. You see the relationship. If you love your nation, you'll hate the sin that is destroying it. If you love marriage, you'll hate selfishness and divorce and all the perversions of marriage.

If you love your children, you'll hate the things that Satan is seeking to do to destroy them. If you love life, you'll hate abortion and murder and war.

If you love law and order, you'll hate disorder and confusion. If you love the gospel, you'll hate every perversion of it. If you love God, you'll hate Satan, his archenemy.

If you love Christ, you'll hate everything anti-Christ. If you love righteousness, you'll hate sin and none more than your own. And if you love God's law as David did, then you'll hate every violation of it as David did.

Since God's law is a reflection of God's own moral character, and it's an expression of his will for us.

So whatever you love, you'll hate whatever stands opposed to it. So now you see why I would say that hatred is the real test of love.

It's how you prove your love and prove the strength of your love. Whatever you profess your love to be, it's no greater than your hatred of what opposes it. Now, Jonathan Edwards wrote a treatise in which he showed that true religion is a matter of the affections, the affections of the heart.

It's not just a matter of outward behavior and keeping a list of rules. The real heart of true religion has to do with the affections of the heart.

It's two greatest commands. The two greatest commands of the Christian religion are commands of love, to love God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself.

And that love summarizes all the rest of the commandments. You can hang them on those two commands. Love, affection of love, is right at the heart of what biblical religion is.

But true religion also involves the affection of hate. Proverbs 8, 13 goes to the very heart of the matter.

The fear of the Lord is to hate evil. That's the essence of true religion. Stated both positively, loving God, negatively, hating evil.

So true religion is a matter of the affections, and none stronger than love and hate. And if these are rightly directed, all the rest will follow into line.

Now, before the fall, Adam and Eve loved God, and they loved what God loved, and they hated what God hated. They loved God's moral law as it was written upon their heart, their mind, their affections, their will.

They loved God's law. But their fall into sin has disordered our affections. You heard me right, our affections.

Their fall into sin not only disordered their affections, but they disordered all the affections of everyone born after Adam and Eve, for they were born in sin.

We are now born hating what God loves and loving what God hates. Jesus said it, John 3, 19.

Men love darkness. That's sin. Men love darkness because their deeds were evil. He said in John 7, 7, the reason the world hates me is because I tell them that what they're doing is evil.

We love evil, and we hate Jesus for telling us we are evil. Romans 8, 7 says that the sinful mind is hostile toward God.

It's enmity against God. It will not submit to the law of God. Neither, indeed, can it do so. So by birth, we love what we ought to hate and hate what we ought to love.

You see how our affections have been confused and disordered. Therefore, the aim of God's grace in the whole process of salvation, beginning in regeneration, continuing in sanctification, and finishing in glorification, the whole aim of God's plan of salvation is to restore our affections to their proper place, to reorder them.

So he takes out the heart of stone that resists God's will, and he puts in a heart of flesh that's pliable to God's will. He works in us both to will and to do what pleases him instead of what pleases us, Philippians 2, 13.

He's out to restore our love for God, our love for his commands, and our hatred for all violations of his will. And then one day, he will perfect that work, and no small part of the joy of heaven is that we will love nothing but what God loves.

So what does that tell us about David, the author of our psalm? Well, he's come under the supernatural operations of God's saving grace because we see in verses 97 and 104, oh, how I love your law, therefore I hate every wrong path.

His affections of love and hate have been put right, haven't they? They've been realigned with God's. Not yet perfectly, but really and radically changed from what he was, as he confesses in chapter 51, 5, sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.

So these two statements of love and hate, they're found together here, and they're brought even closer together in verses 127 and 128.

Notice them there with me. 127 and 128. David here writes, because I love your commands more than gold, more than pure gold, and because I consider all your precepts right, I hate every wrong path.

Because I love your commands, I hate every wrong path. I want you to notice three points from these verses. First, the degree, the degree of his love.

Verse 127, I love your commands more than gold, more than pure gold. Now, we've looked at this before when we studied this chapter much earlier about David's love for the word of God, but here it is again.

So let's just remember it. He loves God's commands more than pure gold. That's worldly wealth. That's the stuff that most men today are living for, sacrificing their marriages, their families, their health, and even selling their souls for.

The gold of this earth. As if they'd forgotten that they came into the world with nothing and they're going out with the same amount. As if this life is to be packed with all the pleasures that money can buy.

That's the goal of life. As if there's no eternity for which to lay up treasures in heaven. As if there's no need to be rich toward God.

But David, who knew what it was to possess great riches, for he lived in a palace as the king, can nevertheless say to God honestly, I love your law, your commands more than pure gold.

Think of a miser with his gold. What does he do with it? Well, he regularly gets it out, doesn't he? And he fingers it. He loves to count it. He loves to play with it.

And then he hides it again. Only to repeat the cycle over and over every day. The miser with his gold. Well, that's kind of like David.

And God's commands. He regularly goes over God's commands. He recounts them. He recites them. He meditates on them. He hides them in his heart. Because they are his treasure.

And he loves them more than pure gold. My father used to ask me, ask us as he preached to us, would you do for gold what you wouldn't do for God?

Would you do for gold what you won't do for God? Maybe you can make more money working on Sunday. But God's command is, remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.

Six days you shall do all your work. The seventh is a day of rest. A day of worship. A day to delight ourselves in God. Would you do for gold what you won't do for God?

Would you work hard and long hours in the service of the almighty dollar, but only a few minutes in the service of almighty God? Would you make great sacrifices to get more of money?

But sacrifice is too much to ask to obey God's commands. Not David. I love your commands more than gold, than more than pure gold.

That's the degree of his love. Notice secondly, the extent, the reach of his love. His love for God's commands. Notice the little word all in verse 128.

Because I consider all your precepts to be right. He loves God's commands and considers all of them to be right. It's a little word, A-L-L.

But it has a long reach. It gathers in its loving arms all that God has commanded. Now, the reason they're all loved is not because they all suit our fancy or align with our flesh.

No, they're all loved because they're God's commands. They're the reflection of who he is, his holy nature, and the expression of his holy will.

So they're loved for his sake. Never divorce the law of God from the God of the law, or you'll be confused.

You'll just start living for a little list of rules, even if they are the ten rules of God. No, no, you must never forget, this is what God wants me to do.

And that's what caused David to love them so much, all of them, because that's what God wants, that's what God is like, and what he expects and wants from me. And that's why I love them all and consider them all to be right, their love for his sake.

There's no picking and choosing here. I love this command, but not that one. If you do that, you show that your obedience to the law is not because you love God.

Because if you did, you'd love and obey all of them for his sake. The extent, the reach of David's love for all his commands.

And then thirdly, and this is where we're camping, especially this morning, the proof of his love. The proof of his love, his hatred of every wrong path. The reason David hates every wrong path is because he loves God's commands.

Because love causes hate. Love creates hate. Love produces hate. Hate for all that opposes the object of love.

So if you don't have hate for wrong paths, you really don't have love for the right paths. Notice the causal statements in verses 127 and 128.

Because I love your commands. And because I consider all your precepts right. Therefore, I hate every wrong path. You see the cause and effect?

Which causes which? It's the love for God and his commands that causes David to hate everything that violates them. So that's why we can say that hatred is the litmus test of your love.

No one loves the right paths any more than he hates the wrong paths. Your hatred of the wrong proves your love for the right. And notice, it's not merely avoiding the wrong paths that's the proof of love.

A man may have no love for God and his commands and yet avoid wrong paths out of fear of being caught. Out of fear of punishment.

Fear of being put to shame. A man may avoid wrong paths even while he loves long paths in his heart and secretly finds pleasure in thinking about wrong paths.

In reading novels about sinful paths. Or lusting in his heart for wrong paths.

No, it's not merely avoiding wrong paths that are the proof of love for God and his commands. Not indifference toward wrong paths.

A positive hatred. An abhorrence for every wrong path. That's what proves your love for God and his commands.

And the strength of that love. So however pleasing to the flesh sinful paths may continue to be, and they do, they're hated for God's sake.

Hated because they're against the God I love. That's the way to test your love for God. And notice that just as the extent of David's love is for all his commands, all his precepts, so the extent of his hate is for every wrong path.

Every path of sin. Including my own. Especially my own. You know, it's easier for me to hate your sins than it is to hate mine.

It takes no grace at all to hate other people's sins. The Pharisees were champions at that. And that's why Jesus had to call them out. You hypocrites. Get the log out of your own eye first.

No, it's not hard to hate other people's sins. Oh, but it's another thing to hate our own. Paul said the same in Romans 2.1. At whatever point you judge the other, you're condemning yourself because you who pass judgment do the same things.

So love for God's right ways creates hatred for all the wrong ways. So look down at verse 163.

We see the same proof of love here. 163. This theme is, again, as I said, found throughout this psalm. And verse 163 says, I hate and abhor falsehood, but I love your law.

Proverbs 13.5 says, The righteous hate what is false. They hate it because God hates it.

There's six things, seven things that God hates that are an abomination to Him. And on that list, you find twice falsehood. So the love for the truth causes hatred for the false.

False doctrine. False impressions. Hypocrisy. Pretending to be more holy than we really are. False speech.

Telling lies. Deception. Deceptive speech. Exaggerated speech. Twisting of the truth.

Children, listen to me. Do you love to lie if it gets you out of trouble? Do you love to lie if it gets you out of trouble? Do you ever say, Wasn't me when it was you?

That's a lie. God hates it. And He wants you to hate it. That's part of what He's doing in salvation is reordering our hatred along the lines of God's hatred.

When you lie, you're acting like the devil. There's no truth in Him, Jesus says. He's a liar and the father of lies.

And His children are liars. Psalm 58.3, Even from birth, the wicked go astray. From the womb, they are wayward speaking lies.

Lies. You see, parents of young children should be the greatest defenders of the doctrine of total depravity.

That we come into this world, not neutral, but bent towards sin. Because you know, you never had to teach your child to lie.

It came natural. They were born in sin. And that's why everyone, children, adults, we need a Savior. We need a Savior from our sins.

And there's only one God sent Savior for sin. He is Jesus Christ. There's no other name under heaven by which we must be saved than Jesus Christ.

Children, you'll either be saved by this Jesus that God sent, or you'll be lost forever. Oh, what a wonderful Savior. He perfectly meets our needs.

Trust in Him, and He is willing to save you. Now let me apply this principle. Here's a question for us all. How good of a hater are you?

We've seen that's a Christ-like virtue. We'll see that even further. But it is a virtue. It's the essence of what it means to fear God.

To love God is to hate evil. Well, if you would prove the sincerity and the strength of your hatred of sin, answer these four x-ray questions.

And they penetrate deeper with each one. The first, does your hatred extend to all sins? including your sins, especially your sins.

That's where we start. If so, that's a good sign that you really do love God and love His commandments. Question number two.

Do you pray with David in Psalm 139? Search me, O God, and know my heart. not just look at my outward behavior.

I want you to go inside and show me my heart sins. I want you to ransack my heart. I want you to go down every aisle, look in every closet, every nook and cranny with the searching spotlight of your word and your spirit.

Search me, O God, and know my heart. Test me and know my thoughts. my lustful thoughts, my greedy, covetous thoughts, my revengeful thoughts, my envious thoughts, my proud thoughts, my selfish thoughts, my anxious thoughts, my unbelieving thoughts, my small thoughts of you, God.

Test me and know my thoughts. and see if there is any offensive way in me and lead me in the way everlasting.

If you truly hate sin, you'll want to know all of it, outward and inward. Why? That you might confess it and be done with it.

Do you pray with David? Search me, O God. Third question. Do you welcome the reproof of others?

Do you welcome the reproof of others? Of a parent? Of a spouse? Of a brother or sister in the body of Christ?

Of a pastor? Anyone who points out a sin that you may be blind to or you may even know about it but they come and they're showing their love and concern for you and they point out your sin.

Do you welcome it? Or do you bristle and stiffen up and your defense lawyer immediately shows up and you get all defensive and you deny it, you rationalize it, you justify it, you dismiss it.

Your response to reproof reveals whether or not you really hate sin. If your professed hatred is sincere, you'll welcome all the help you can get to get rid of it wherever it comes from.

And then question number four, to test the sincerity and seriousness of your hatred for sin. What are you doing to murder it?

What are you doing to murder your sin? Do you hate your sin enough to plot its murder? Or are you coddling and cherishing sin in your heart?

Which is it? Are you like Augustine when he was still in his wayward, unconverted years and he was convicted of sin?

And he says, I really do want to stop this sin in my life. But not just now. Still coddling.

Still cherishing. Now, hatred is a powerful affection. It's a stabbing affection. It will move a man to kill when nothing else will.

And are there not sins in our lives to be killed? Ah, then we have an ally in our hatred. Don't we? According to 1 John 3.15, hatred is a murdering affection.

It's murder in the heart. Cain hated his brother Abel and so he plotted his murder. And he carried it out.

He lured him out into the field where they were alone and he struck him and killed him and then covered up his sin. Oh, it was an elaborate plan. You've all seen programs, no doubt, of someone that wanted to murder someone else.

They hated them so bad. They drew up this elaborate scheme and covered their tracks at every step and then carried it out. Hatred is a murdering affection.

Even so, if you truly hate your sin, you will be plotting and planning its murder.

Romans 8.13, if you live according to the flesh, you will die. But, if through the Spirit you put to death, you kill, you mortify, you murder sin, you will live.

If you, through the Spirit, do put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live. So, don't pretend that you hate your sin if you're not plotting its murder and not praying for sin-killing grace from above.

In the 17th century, John Owen used to preach to older teenagers, older teenage boys at Oxford with testosterone raging in their bodies.

And he preached on the mortification of sin from Romans 8.13 that I just quoted to you. And he told them, be killing sin or it will be killing you, boys.

He told them, bring your sin to Christ for the killing of it. Now, what did he mean by that? Well, follow the logic of Scripture.

If hatred for sin grows out of love for Christ and His commands, then my lack of hatred for my sin is exposing a lack of love for my Christ.

The love for Christ is an expulsive affection. It pushes out all other loves, you see. And if I love Christ more, would I not hate my sins more?

Yes, I would. Well, then, I ought to be pursuing greater love for Christ that I might see my hatred of sin grow. Precisely.

So then, how does love for Christ grow? 1 John 4.19, We love Him because He first loved us.

My love for Him is a response to His prior love for me. So if I want to grow in my love for Him, then I need to drink in His love for me.

So we must bask in His love. We must meditate on His love. We must memorize His love. We must receive His love and rest in it. Jesus, I am resting, resting in the joy of what Thou art.

I am finding out the greatness of Thy loving heart. That's where there's rest and rejoicing as we receive His love and learn of the greatness of His love for me.

So write out some memory verses on Christ's love for you. Chew on them, swallow them, digest them, pray them in, recite them often, think about it often.

The love of Christ for you. And do you know what will happen? You will find that that exercise becomes the first of many things that will happen with a domino effect.

As you think about Christ's love for you, listen to the dominoes that will then fall. The more you drink in His love for you, the more you will love Him in return.

And the more you love Him, the more you'll love His commands for His sake. For whoever loves me keeps my commands. And the more you love Him and His commands, the more you'll hate your sins.

You see the domino effect? Where does it start? Feeding on Christ's love for you. The expulsive power of a new affection ruling your heart.

Jesus loves me. This I know. For the Bible tells me so. And all of that will bleed the strength out of your sin.

Bring your sin to Jesus for the killing of it. Marinate your heart in Christ's love for you.

You see, because love causes and creates hate, we have the key to hating and killing our sins. So in sending you to find verses on Christ's love for you, I'm not sending you to try to find a needle in a haystack, am I?

The Bible oozes with Jesus' love for you. Samuel Rutherford, we sang his song, the king is all the glory of Emmanuel and.

He said the Bible, what is it? It's the love letters of Jesus to his bride, to the church. So read about his love for you. Soak in his love for you.

We see his love in eternity past. Brothers and sisters, he loved you before time began. It's a wonderful reality. Jeremiah 31, 3, I've loved you with an everlasting love.

From everlasting to everlasting, the Lord's love is with those who fear him. That means it never had a beginning. It's what caused one Puritan to say to a man, you know how to be sure that Christ will never stop loving you?

He never started. He never started. Because the moment you say he started love, and that means that before that he didn't love you. But there's never been a time he did not love you from everlasting to everlasting.

He loved you before time. And then the love of Christ broke into history and into time in his incarnation. Love caused thine incarnation.

Love brought thee down to me. Thy thirst for my salvation procured my liberty. It was love that brought him down to us. He who was in very nature God, who did not consider it robbery to be equal with God.

He's God, fully God. And yet, he became nothing, a nobody, taking the form of a servant being made in the likeness of a man, a creature.

What a stoop. And it was all for love. Yes, love to his father who sent him, but love for us who needed him. He came for love out of the ivory palaces into a world of woe.

Only his great, eternal love made my savior go. And then the love of Christ is seen in his lifetime war with sin and temptation. Follow him into the wilderness where for forty days and forty nights he's tempted by the devil.

And though he's not eaten for forty days, the devil tempts him, turn these stones into bread if you are the son of God. What do we learn about Jesus?

He'd rather starve than sin. He hates sin that much. And he did it all for us. For their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also may be sanctified.

You know, if he'd have sinned once, we'd have no savior. And so he kept himself pure. All thirty three years of his life. Not a sinful thought, motive, word, act, response.

Why? For us. That he might have a righteousness, a perfect righteousness to give to us who had none to make us right with God. And then this love of Christ is seen further in Gethsemane.

Follow him into the garden where we hear him say, my soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Do you know what that means? I don't.

I don't know if we'll ever know. Not just my body. He's not come to Calvary. My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow, with grief to the point of death.

And then see him face planted on the earth face on the ground, crying out to his father, three times father, if it's possible, let this cup of your wrath pass from me.

But not my will. If that's not your will, I don't want it. Your will be done. I would rather drink the cup of your wrath than to leave that cup for my people to drink forever and ever.

It was love for us in Gethsemane. Amazing love. How can it be that thou, my God, should die for me?

Yes, that's where Christ's love is principally and most greatly demonstrated on Golgotha's cross.

And that's what's won our heart of love for him. It was there that he bore our sins in his body to the tree. It was there that he died for our sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring us to God.

It was for us, for us. He was wounded for our transgressions.

He was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that was on him bought us peace and by his wounds we are healed. Healed from what? Healed from my waywardness, healed from my sin, healed from its consequences, healed from all that sin has done to disorder my life and destroy me for eternity.

This is how we know what love is. Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. in love he chose on the cross. When they said, come down from the cross, save yourself, he chose to save us instead of saving himself.

It was for love. And then on the third day he rose again and later ascended into heaven where he now sits as the king of kings as we sang and he powerfully rules over all the universe for what?

For his church, for his bride, his loved ones. he's ruling there and he's praying for us. He's sending mercy and grace from his throne of grace to help us in our time of need.

He's able to save us completely, to save anyone completely who comes to God through him because he always intercedes us. He was praying for you this morning before you woke up.

He was praying for you on the way to church. He was praying for you as you're now sitting and listening. He will be praying for you. He's going to pray you all the way home. It's his love for you.

His love. And then one day he's coming back for you. He said to his father in the night of his betrayal, father I want those you've given me to be with me where I am that they might see my glory.

Because when they see me they'll be made like me. And forever bride and bridegroom will be together. No separation.

Forever with the Lord. It's preeminently in Christ that we drink in the love of God for us. Which inflames our heart for him and for his commands.

God and makes us hate our sin the more. There is sin killing power in the love of Christ. So take your sins to Jesus for the killing of them.

Murder it with hatred born out of your love for Christ. Hebrews 12 1-4 takes our fight with sin and temptation straight to the cross doesn't it? Therefore since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses that have lived before us starting way back with Abel and Adam and Eve right up to the present day that cloud of witnesses therefore let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles us and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.

Looking unto Jesus the author and perfecter of our faith and what aspect are we to hone in on this special? Who endured the cross for the joy set before endured the cross.

That's where you see his love. Endured the cross and scorned its shame and now has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men so that you will not grow weary and lose heart in your struggle against sin.

You've not yet come to the point of shedding your blood. Oh but he did. He loved you that much. He hated your sins that much.

What will make us hate our sin enough if it's not the sight of Christ and him crucified to hate it enough to throw off not only the sin that so easily entangles but anything that entangles us.

Get to Jesus. See what your sins did for him there on the cross. Hear his groans as he bears wave after wave of the wrath of God for your sins.

Hear his cry of dereliction my God my God why have you abandoned me? Hear those other cries of Psalm 23 don't be far from me for trouble is near me and there's none to help me and you will be stepping into the love of Christ for you.

A boy may have a favorite knife that he loves more than any other in his collection of knives but if a robber comes in one night and takes that knife and kills his mother with it he will never again be able to love that knife he will not want to see it again ever what he once loved will now be hated because of what it did for his beloved and will not a sight of what your beloved has suffered because of your sins cause you to hate those sins that you once loved and coddled and cherished stricken smitten and afflicted see him dying on the tree tis the Christ by man rejected yes my soul tis he tis he many hands were raised to wound him none would interpose to save but the deepest stroke that pierced him was the stroke that justice gave for it pleased the

Lord to crush him and to make his soul an offering for sin he was wounded for our transgressions so you who think of sin but lightly nor suppose the evil grave here may view its nature rightly here its guilt may estimate mark the sacrifice appointed see who bears the awful load tis the word the Lord's anointed son of God son of man look to Jesus enduring the cross if you would hate your sin enough to murder them because until sin be hated it cannot be murdered and none can truly hate sin but those who love the Savior and this hatred comes from loving him so let's double down on God's love for us and Jesus drag your sins to Jesus for the killing of them you know there's only two places where God's holy hatred for sin is seen in its clearest light eternal hell where there's weeping and gnashing of teeth or the middle cross on Golgotha where God's hatred for your sin was poured out on your substitute my lost friend you need to get into this Christ at once outside of

Jesus God is a consuming fire but inside of Christ the judgment has already fallen for your sins there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus so true religion makes us lovers of the good and haters of the bad we've seen the example of David's love and his hate in several places in Psalm 119 we even have a command not just an example of we have a command in Psalm 9710 it's this you who love the Lord is that you you who love the Lord hate evil there's your command and then we have the example of Jesus himself David's greater son in whose steps we are to walk in whose likeness we are to be transformed in our fight against sin listen to what the father God the father says to his son back in Psalm 45 quoted in Hebrews 1 8 and 9 but about the son he the father says your throne oh

God will last forever and ever and righteousness will be the scepter of your throne you have loved righteousness and hated wickedness therefore God your God has anointed you with gladness above your fellows here's the one who has perfectly loved righteousness perfectly hated wickedness that's what we're seeing as you read your Bible as you follow Jesus through the four gospels you're seeing you're seeing this man loving God and hating sin loving righteousness hating wickedness it's the summary written over the whole of his life his hatred as strong as his love this is the one we're to become like it was love for what his father loved and hatred for what his father hated the perfect lover the perfect hater and the father said yours is the oil of gladness above anyone the happiest person in the universe is the ascended Lord

Jesus Christ today and he's happy because he hated wickedness and loved righteousness and the father just heaped his pleasure and his reward upon him you who love the Lord hate evil learn to hate like Jesus it's as important as learning to love like Jesus and since we only come to hate like Jesus if we drink in his love for us let's pray father we thank you for your love for us seen so clearly in Christ thank you for speaking to us from your word would you now add the power of your Holy Spirit to enable us to love you more and to hate our sins more we ask in Jesus name amen