Then, the part of the chapter that I'd like to focus on is verse number 9 there where the Bible reads "Let love be without dissimulation, abhor that which is evil, cleave to that which is good." Now the word dissimulation there is referring to that which is fake. Simulation reminds you of, for example, a simulator that is a fake experience that makes you feel like you are somewhere doing something that you're not really doing. When the Bible says "Let love be without dissimulation", he's saying let your love not be fake. Not a facade. Not something that you are simulating for other people. Let your love be real, and he explains that further by saying "Let love be without dissimulation. Abhor that which is evil. Cleave to that which is good.
Now the word abhor, is the opposite of love. Abhor means to hate. So the Bible is saying that those who do not abhor that which is evil, their love is fake. It's not real. In order for our love to be without dissimulation we must abhor that which is evil, and we much cleave to that which is good.
You see, it's impossible for any person to be considered tall unless another person is considered short. It's impossible for one person to be rich without another person being poor. It's impossible for one person to be fat without another person being thin. It's impossible for someone to be fast and another person not be slow. You see, without hate, it's impossible for love to even exist, and if you love everyone, you love no one. If you love everything, you love nothing.
I mean, if I ask someone "What is your favorite food?", and they say "Well, I just love all foods equally." That's not really true, is it? What if I said to my wife, "Honey, do you love me?", and she said "Well, I love all men." Or what if my wife said "Steve, do you love me?", and I said "Well, I love all women. I love all beautiful blondes." I mean, what would she feel if I said something like that? Would that really make her feel loved if I said "Well, sure I love you because I love everybody." Absolutely not.
Today there is a major propaganda campaign and a brainwashing campaign that's been going on for decades in the media to make hate some kind of a bad word that we should not ever hate, and hate is not a family value, and blah blah. The sad thing is that many of God's people today are brainwashed by the media, and they're learning more from TV and Hollywood than they are learning from the word of God. So I'm going to preach for you this morning a sermon on what the Bible has to say about hate.
The Bible does not say that all hatred is wrong or that all hatred is out of place, but we live in a day where we're told "Love everything. Love everybody. Love, love, love, and don't you dare mention hatred for anyone or anything." This is brainwashing. This has nothing to do with real love. It's love that is filled with dissimulation. It's a fake love that pretends to be loving, but it actually hates the Lord and the things of God. "You mean to tell me that the love rally or the love whatever protesters outside of Verity Baptist Church actually have any real love in their heart, when love is the fruit of the Holy Spirit?" They're out there breathing hatred and vile toward God's man. In Sacramento Roger Humanist, that's a fake kind of love.
The title of the sermon this morning, if you would please turn to Psalm 97, the title of this sermon this morning is "The Christian's Hate Life". You say "You're teaching about my love life?" No, no. Your hate life. The Christian's hate life. You see, the first point that I want to make this morning is that real love abhors that which is evil. Real love hates evil, and a love that doesn't hate evil is a dissimulated love. It's a fake kind of love. You see, it's impossible to love the flowers without hating the weeds. It's impossible to love the child without hating the child molester that defiles the child. You can't love God if you don't hate the devil. You can't love God and the things of God and also say "I also love the world and the things of this world."
The Bible says "Love not the world, neither the things that are in this world. If any man loved the world, the love of the Father is not in it." So number one, real love abhors that which is evil. Now before I get into the scripture, and I have pages and pages and pages of scripture this morning. I want to just start out by just defining what the word hate even means because we hear so much propagandas. "Don't hate. Don't hate. Don't hate." People just repeating something like a parrot, where a talking bird, it doesn't really understand what it's saying. "Polly want a cracker". It doesn't really know what that means. Right? It's just saying words.
We've gone frequently to the deer farm up by Williams, Arizona. Who's ever been to that deer farm by Williams? Yeah. That deer farm, I love that place. All kinds of cool animals and the they walk right up to you, and you can feed the deer. It's really a nice place. They have these talking birds, and the first time I went there I thought it was a person talking to me. This is what it said "Hey, come here.", and I was like "What?" I looked over. I thought it was a human being. Those talking birds are really convincing up at that deer farm. It blew me away.
It doesn't really understand what it is saying, and that's the way a lot of people are. They just repeat things that they hear without actually going to the Bible and getting an understanding of the doctrine, but not only that, they don't often understand what the word hate even means, but they're just condemning it across the board.
So here I've got a couple of tools here to help us understand what the word hate means. I've got a dictionary ad a thesaurus. A dictionary tells you what words mean, and a thesaurus gives you synonyms, words that mean the same thing. They also give you antonyms, words that mean the opposite of the word you're looking at. Now, words like love and hate, these are very broad words. They actually have multiple meanings. The word hate doesn't just have one meaning, or the word love just having one meaning. They actually have multiple meanings because these are very complex words. They're very key words. Let me just help you understand what these words mean as we go to the Bible.
First of all, I'm just opening the dictionary to hate, and it says this "Intense dislike; to dislike intensely." All right. That's what hate means according to the dictionary. Now let me give you some synonyms for the word hate because sometimes synonyms can even be more helpful than a definition. "To hate means to abhor, to despise, to detest, to loath, to scorn, to shun, to abominate, to anathematize, to contemn, to curse, to deprecate, to deride, to disapprove, to disdain, to disfavor, to disparage, to execrate, to nauseate, or to spurn".
So what does it mean to hate someone or something? It means that that thing is an abomination to you. It means that it makes you nauseous or sick. It means that it's something that you would avoid or stay away from from. It means it's something that you don't condone, something that you disapprove or deride, something that you don't have respect for, disdain, disparage. All these different synonyms help us understand it.
Now let me give you some antonyms of the word hate. Some opposites of the word hate. "To admire, to adore, to approve, to cherish, to like, to love, to command, to compliment, to endorse, to flatter, to love, to praise, or to sanction. Let me ask you something. Does God want us to sanction everything? Does God want us to approve everything and everyone? Does God want us to compliment and adore and admire everything and everyone, and God forbid that we would ever abominate anything or disapprove anything or execrate anything or disfavor or disparage anything.
Look, this is nonsense. It's ridiculous to say "Christians should have nothing to do with hate. It's just all love." Yeah, of course the devil wants us to just approve of everything, and to just embrace everything, and never to avoid anything, never to stay away from anything or anyone. Never to curse anything or anyone. Look, this is not what the Bible teaches. Let's see what the Bible teaches, my friend.
Look at Psalm 97. The Bible reads in Psalm 97 verse 10, "Ye that love the Lord hate evil. He preserveth the souls of the saints. He delivereth them out of the hand of the wicked." Go to Psalm 119. Psalm 119, while you're turning there, I'll read to you from Amos chapter 5 verse 15. The Bible reads, "Hate the evil and love the good, and establish judgement in the gate. It may be that the Lord God of hosts will be gracious unto the remnant of Joseph." Psalm 119 verse 104, "Through thy precepts I get understanding therefore I hate every false way."
Now, the Bible says Jesus is the way, the truth, and the light. No man cometh unto the Father but by him." So there's only one right way to get to Heaven, and that's through Jesus. Jesus said I hate every false way. That means that he would hate Islam, right? He would hate Hinduism. He would hate Catholicism. He would hate the Watch Tower Society. He would hate Mormonism. He would hate Buddhism. He would hate Sikhism. He hates every false way. If there's a way to Heaven going through works he would hate that because the Bible says salvation's by faith, not of works.[inaudible 00:10:53], and working our way to Heaven is a false way. He said "I hate every false way."
Look at verse 113, "I hate vain thoughts, but thy law do I love." Look at 128, verse 28, "Therefore I esteem all thy presets concerning all things to be right, and I hate every false way." Look at verse 163. The Bible says in verse 163, "I hate and abhor lying, but thy law do I love." You see, people who really love God's word, they love the truth. They actually hate lies. People who love Jesus, they love the true way, truth, and life. They hate every false way. They hate false religion. They love the Lord Jesus Christ.
Turn, if you would, to Proverbs chapter 6. You see there's an appropriate time and place in a situation to love, and there's an appropriate time, place, and situation to hate. In Ecclesiastes chapter 3 verse 1, the Bible reads "To everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under Heaven, a time to love, and a time to hate, a time of war, and a time of peace." You see, our church has even been labelled as a hate group which is nonsense because every church in America, every pastor on this planet has certain things that he loves and certain things that he hates, and every church has love and every church has hate.
Now let me tell you something. The pastor who gets up and says "I love everyone and everybody." Okay, well let's see if he wants to hang around with me for a while. Let's see if he want to take me out to lunch. Let's see if he wants to admire me for a while, and condone of me for a while, and sanction me for a while. He doesn't.
You see, I talked to a reporter one time. He was from Germany. We had a lot in common because my wife's German, and I speak German. So we went out to lunch with him and spent time with him, and he was doing some articles about our church for the biggest magazine in Germany. I think it was called [Schpeegal 00:13:15] it's called, and we were talking to him, and he said "I don't hate anybody. We're not supposed to hate anybody." I said to him "Okay. Do you hate Adolf Hitler?" He said, "Well that's the only person." I said "Then you don't love everybody, do you?"
Every person on this planet, there's certain things that they love, and there's certain things that they hate. There's certain people that they love, and there's other people that they hate. Many people hate me, for example. "How dare you be so hateful, you blankety-blank-blank?" You know, I get those kind of voicemails. It's a little bit ironic, right? "How dare you wish that anyone would ever die? I hope you die." Define irony, right? I get these kind of voice mails all day. The bottom line is that these are just normal human emotions of joy, gladness, other times for sadness, and mourning. There's a time to mourn. There's a time to rejoice. There's a time to love, a time to hate. These are all parts of the normal human experience.
What they really mean when they tell you "don't hate", what they're saying is "Don't hate that which is not politically correct, and only love that which is politically correct to love." It's not that they're for love and against hate, it's that they're brainwashing you to only love what they tell you to love and to only hate what they tell you to hate. That's what it's all about. It's about one opinion. It's about everybody believing the same thing and having one opinion, where only one opinion's allowed, and anybody who expresses a different opinion is hateful. That's what it really comes down to, but in reality the only one opinion that ought to be allowed in our hearts is the opinion found in the word of God.
Obviously we're not going to try to impose that opinion on other people because everybody has to choose to believe the word of God for themselves, and if people want to believe the word of God, great, and "he that is unjust", the Bible says "let him be unjust still. He that is filthy, let him be filthy still." The bottom line is that as Christians, we have chosen to make the word of God our final authority. This is the rock of our salvation. This is the anchor of our soul, so I'm going to love what the Bible tells me to love, and I'm going to hate what the Bible tells me to hate. I'm not going to let Hollywood or Madison Avenue or the TV tell me what I'm going to love and hate.
If they want to label us a hate group, well go ahead. In fact, we have a plaque back there on the wall commemorating that. That's how offended we are. We don't care if the southern poverty law center thinks we're too hateful because, you know what?, the southern poverty law center is a wicked pervert organization that honestly nobody has any respect for that has a brain in their head, in America. You know that's right. You think anybody in America who has a shred of decency has any respect for the southern poverty law center? It's only a bunch of commies and perverts and weirdos who have any respect for that organization. The media builds it up. Some of us aren't that brainwashed.
Let's go ahead and look at the scripture I had you turn to, Proverbs chapter 6 verse 16. The Bible says.. because we should get our beliefs from the Bible, not just from our own heart or from the TV. It says in verse 16 "These six things does the Lord hate. Yay seven are an abomination unto him." Now let me stop and point out here that hatred and something being an abomination are the same thing. Does everybody see that? When he says "Yay, seven are an abomination unto him", he's reiterating what he just said. He's restrengthening it, saying "Hey there's six things that the Lord hate, Yay, seven that are an abomination unto him." Why? Because hating something and that thing being an abomination unto you are the same thing. Now remember we got that from the thesaurus. That one of the definitions of hate, one of the synonyms was abominate. The Bible backs that up.
These are things that are an abomination of the Lord, and by the way, anything that's an abomination of the Lord, that means he hates it. Those are interchangeable. Verse 17, "A proud look. A lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood." Let's stop and look at these three things here. "A proud look", what is this? This is when people pose for pictures like this... Right? You know what I'm talking about. You know all the Hollywood stars, the rock stars. They're very full of themselves. So they have this proud look, like "yeah, I'm awesome. I'm bad." Right? God hates that. God wants us to be humble. God hates pride and arrogance. So the Bible says here "A proud look, a lying tongue".
Notice, if you look at this list, most of these are body parts. Several of these are body parts because first he says "a proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood", okay? So God hates to see innocent blood shed. He hates the hands that would shed innocent blood. He hates a lying tongue. He hates a proud look. Look at verse 18. "A heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief", I mean, people who are just looking to get into sin, just looking to cause trouble, just looking to hurt people, harm people, shed blood, lie, deceive, steal, rape, pillage, murder... God says he hates feet that are swift in running to mischief.
Verse 19, "A false witness that speaketh lies and he that soweth discord among brother". Someone who goes in with an intent just to ruin people's relationships and ruin people's friendships, and people who are false witnesses that speak lies. That means that they get up in court and they would testify "I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God", and then they lie and condemn the innocent, or justify the wicked. The Bible says "These are things that the Lord hates."
Look if you would at chapter 8. Proverbs chapter 8 verse 13. This is not an obscured subject in the Bile. We're not taking one verse and twisting it. We're looking at verse after verse after verse after verse that are emphasizing the fact that God is not all love. God does not just only love, but there are things and those who the Lord hates. That's what the Bible says.
Look at Proverbs 8:13, "The fear of the Lord is to hate evil." Now that tells me right there that if someone says that they fear the Lord and they don't hate evil, that can't be true because it's impossible to fear the Lord without hating evil because the fear of the Lord equals hating evil. The fear of the Lord is to hate evil. Pride and arrogance and the evil way and the froward mouth do I hate.
Look at Revelation chapter 2. Revelation, last book in the New Testament. Revelation chapter 2. This is not an obscure doctrine. We have pages and pages of scriptures to look at this morning on this subject. In order to renew our mind, the Bible says "Be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is that good and acceptable in perfect will of God." We need mind renewal today. We need to renew our mind according to scripture and figure out what God's opinion is, and get on board with his program. Some people will say, "Hey, you twisted the scripture in order to just condone your hate." No, actually what I'm going to do is, I'm going to change myself to conform to scripture. Change my mind, change my belief, to conform to scripture because God's the final authority.
Look at Revelation chapter 2 verse 6. "With this thou hast." Now he's praising a church here for what they've done right. This is the message to the church at Ephesus. He gives a message to each of the seven churches. He tells them "these are the things I like about you, and these are the things I don't like about you." I believe that God could do the same thing to any church today where he looks down at us, and even though it's not written in scripture, he has in his mind things that he likes about churches and things that he doesn't like about them, and some churches in this equation he didn't say anything negative about, thank God.
They were in the ballpark, they were doing pretty good. Obviously nobody's perfect, but God has an opinion today, just as much as he had back then, and he looked at this church at Ephesus and he says "This thou hast," he's saying "You know what? You're right about one thing. That thou hatest the deeds of the Nicolaitans", which I also hate. So he's saying "that's one thing you're doing right. At least you hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. Look at verse 15. He then gives the same compliment to a different church. Actually, this is the opposite. These people had it wrong. These people were tolerating, sanctioning, admiring, putting up with, right? All the antonyms of hate?
Verse 15, "so hast thou also them that hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans which thing I hate." So he's condemning them for having these people around. He's saying "You know what's wrong with your church? You've got people in your church that hold to the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, and I hate that doctrine." That's what God's saying. "Why do you have these people in your church that believe in that?" He's condemning them for having these people in their church that hold to a doctrine that God hates. He's praising the church at Ephesus that they hate that doctrine as much as God hates it, right?
Let's go back, if you would, to the book of Psalms chapter 5, book of Psalms chapter 5. These are the type of things that we'll hear today as Christians from those who don't read the Bible from cover to cover, and let's face it, 99% of Christians don't read the Bible cover to cover. They read portions of scripture, they hear portions of scripture in church, they go through devotional books, they give them a couple verses a day, but as far as actually reading the entire book cover to cover, I would guess that 99% of believers have never done so, sadly... but these are the kind of things that you'll hear from people that haven't read all these scriptures. They'll say things like this, "Well, God doesn't hate anyone. God doesn't hate anyone." They'll say. God is love and therefore that means to them that God doesn't hate anyone. Who's heard that before that God doesn't hate anyone? Of course, we've all heard it. Or what about this, "Well who would Jesus hate?" I've heard that a lot, too.
Let's see what the Bible says. Go to Psalm 5. If you disagree with my sermon this morning, that's okay, but just be sure and walk out and say "You know what? I disagree with the Bible. The Bible's wrong." Don't walk out of there and say "Steven Anderson's wrong" because if you do, you're a liar. If you walk out that door and say "I'm not coming back to that church because Steven Anderson's wrong." You know what? You're a liar. You need to walk out there and say "The Bible's wrong.", and why don't you go and join some other religion then, because you know what? Everything I'm preaching is proof from the Bible. Show me one thing I haven't proven from the Bible.
Look at Psalm 5 verse 5. The Bible reads "The foolish shall not stand in thy sight. Thou hatest all workers of iniquity. Thou shall destroy them that speak leasing. The Lord will abhor the bloody and deceitful man." Look the Bible tells us very clearly in this passage that bloody and deceitful workers of iniquity are hated of the Lord. Bible's real clear. Look at chapter 11. We don't even have time to go through all the verses this morning, but I'm showing you enough to make it clear to you that I'm not just taking one verse out of context or just building a whole doctrine on one misinterpretation. This is not an obscure doctrine. This is not a vague doctrine. This is not a grey area. This is something that the Bible mentions scores of times, over and over.
Psalm 11 verse 5. "the Lord trieth the righteous but the wicked and him that loveth violence his soul hateth." Right there. The one who loves violence is hated of the Lord. That's what the Bible tells us. Go to Psalm 26. I'm sorry, look at Psalm 10. I accidentally skipped one. Psalm 10 verse 3. The Bible says in Psalm 10:3 "for the wicked boasted of his heart's desire and blessed the covetous whom the Lord abhorreth." The reason why the Lord abhorreth wicked people boasting of their heart's desire and being overly covetous is because the Bible says that everyone who is proud at heart is an abomination to the Lord.
So this kind of prideful arrogant covetous boasting of wealth and riches... the Bible says "Whom" and look... Look at Psalm 10 verse 3. I just want to make sure that my Bible's not different than everybody else's Bible. Doesn't that say "Whom the Lord abhorreth?" Am I right? Is whom a person place or thing? Oh, but God doesn't hate anyone. It's not who would Jesus hate, it's whom would Jesus hate, and I'll tell you exactly whom Jesus would hate. The bloody and deceitful man. Those who love violence. That's who he would hate. Look at Psalm chapter 26 verse 5 reads "I have hated the congregation of evildoers and will not sit with the wicked." Did you hear that? I've hated the congregations of evildoers, and I will not sit with the wicked."
Look at Psalm 31 verse 6. Here's the thing, we need some songs. We need more songs based on these scriptures. God gave them the book of Psalms as a song book. These Psalms are actually poetic and they were actually sung in ancient Israel. We don't know the tune. Obviously we don't speak Hebrew as our mother tongue. So even if we knew the tune and we sang the songs, we wouldn't really understand, but God's people in the days that this was written and in the following days, they sang these songs, and I guarantee you that they didn't have this stupid doctrine of love everyone and everything and hate is a four letter word, and hate's not a family value, and oh, how dare you, oh, hate speech, oh, a hate group, oh. I guarantee you they didn't believe that for five seconds because they all sang this song.
Which one did I have you turn to? 31, look at verse 6. "I've hated them that regard lying vanities, but I trust in the Lord." Look at Psalm 53. While you're turning to Psalm 53, I'll read for you from Leviticus chapter 20 verse 23, "and you shall not walk in the manners of the nation which I cast out before you for they committed all these things, and therefore I abhorred them." Leviticus 26:30, "and I will destroy your high places and cut down your images and cast your carcasses upon the carcasses of your idols, ad my soul shall abhor you." Psalm 53 verse 5, "then were they in great fear where no fear was, for God has scattered the bones of him that encampeth against thee. Thou hast put them to shame because God hath despised them."
Look if you would at Psalm 139. While you're turning there I'll read for you Deuteronomy 32:19 because there's just not enough time for you to turn to each of these. I have to quote on while you're turning there because there's just so much scripture on this. Deuteronomy 32:19, "and when the Lord saw it, he abhorred them because of the provoking of his sons, and of his daughters." We have a lot of people who speak spanish. Who speaks spanish here? Put up your hand if you speak spanish. What are some words for hate in spanish? How about this one, "aborrecer", what does that sound like? "Aborrecer"... abhor. So when God talks about abhorring them, that's the exact word of aborrece, it's the same thing.
Psalm 139. Now some words in other languages, they sound the same and they're not the same, but this is an example where the english word and the spanish word are derived from the exact Latin word. They're north the same. Look at Psalm 139 verse 21, "Do not I hate them O Lord, that hate thee? And not I grieve with those that rise up against thee. I hate them with perfect hatred. I count them mine enemies." Now look. Somebody label the book of Psalms a hate book, would you? Somebody label King David a hate preacher. Lock him up for hate speech. Why don't we label him under the southern poverty law center? Kind David, ancient Israel, the book of Leviticus, Moses, right? No, no, no because they're not even really the author because God's the author. All scriptures give the inspiration of God. It's profitable for doctrine.
Look at Hosea chapter 9. This is a key one. Turn to Hosea, don't skip this one if you're only turning to every other one. Turn to this one. If you're only going to turn to one this morning, you better find Hosea, use the table of contents if needed, and I'm going to give you enough time to get there, just to make sure. While you're turning there I'll read for you from Zachariah chapter 11 verse 8. "Three shepherds, also I cut off in one month, and my soul loathed them and their soul also abhorred me." So that tells us that loath and abhor mean the same thing. They're both hatred.
Malachi chapter 1 verse 2, "I've loved you sayeth the Lord, yet ye say we're inneth thou loved us. Was not Esau Jacob's brother sayeth the Lord, yet I loved Jacob and I hated Esau, and laid his mounds in his heritage ways for the dragons of the wilderness." Romans chapter 9 verse 13, as it is written, "Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated." Go to Hosea chapter 9 verse 15, "all their wickedness is in gilgal for there I hated them, for the wickedness of their doings I will drive them out of mine house. I will love them no more. All their princes are revolters."
The reason I point this verse out is that some people will say this. They'll say "Well, okay. God hates people, but he still loves them." God hates people but he still loves them, too. You're still supposed to love them and hate them. Talk about a love-hate relationship. That's not what that means. What does the Bible say here? God makes everything real clear in the Bibles so that it's so simple that even a theologian could understand. It says "all their wickedness and gilgal for there I hated them, for their wickedness of their doings I will drive them out of my house."
Watch this, this is the key, underline it, "I will love them no more." The reason why this statement is so interesting, "I will love them no more." Let's just park it on that statement for a minute. In order to love someone no more, doesn't that mean you have to love them in the past, because I can't say "Well I'm not going to love them anymore if I never loved them in the first place" right? So when God hates somebody, it's not that he always hated them. He says "I'm not going to love them anymore."
God has loved every single person in this world, every... Truly it can be said that Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world, right? Everybody knows that, "Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world. Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight. Jesus loves the little children of the world." Amen. It's true. Of course God loves the little children of the world. Red, yellow, black, white, God loves them all.
The Bible says "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him shall not parish, but have everlasting life." There's not a person on this planet whom God didn't love, but here's what people mix up. It gets to a point where God can get to a point with somebody where this person pushed it too far with God, where God says "I will love them no more." It's not that God just loves certain people and hates certain people. It's that there can be people who push it to a point where they get to a point where they're no longer in the love of God. Now, he loved them in the past. He loved everybody. Everybody has a chance to be safe. Everybody.
Jesus died for everybody. Jesus died for everybody in this whole world. "He so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in his shall not parish, but have everlasting life." But he doesn't say this "I'm going to love everybody no matter what they do." No, that's not biblical, otherwise you're going to have to say that Hosea is a false prophet. If God didn't really say this in Hosea 9:15, then that makes Hosea a liar. That makes Hosea a false prophet. Then we're going to have to condemn David as a false prophet because he claimed that God hates people, too. Then we'd have to call Moses a false prophet because he claimed that God hates people, and even more specifically to say "Well I'll love them no more. I hated them and I'm not going to love them anymore."
This is biblical and we have to come to terms with what the Bible says. I'm sure that there's going to be at least one person who walks out of here, "I just still think... I just still think that God loves everybody." Okay. What are you basing that on? I guess you're smarter than Moses, David, Hosea, and God. Proverbs 29:27 says this, "An unjust man is an abomination to the just, and he that is upright in the way is an abomination to the wicked." That's just the way life is. That's just the world that we live in.
Let me go over some objections to this because we've preached some clear scripture this morning. We've read some clear scripture this morning. We just did two pages of Bible verses in Times New Roman 12 point font that made it crystal clear over and over again, in fact, specifically I showed you 22 verses that specifically talked about God hating people, and then tons of other verses about God's hatred. We went through approximately 40 verses just now. To have 40 crystal clear times that... If God told us something once, we should pay attention. If he tells us twice or three times, we better really sit up and take notice. When God tells us something forty times, you're just going to ignore that? Just blow that off? No, it's important.
These are the objections that people will raise. I'm going to go over some common objections. Here's what people will say. This I believe is the most silly objection. They'll say this, "That's Old Testament.", as if God somehow just became a completely different person in the New Testament. Like in the Old Testament he's got all this wrath and vengeance and anger and hatred, but in the New Testament he just really calmed down. You know, some people just calm down in their old age. They kind of chill out as they get older. Here's the thing about that is that God was already perfect in the beginning. He was perfect from day one. He doesn't improve. He doesn't get better over time. He's perfect. He started out perfect, he ends up perfect, he's the same Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today, and forever. God said "I'm the Lord, I change not." So to sit there and say in the Old Testament that's how God was, but in the New Testament Jesus changed all that. That's what they say.
Let's go over that objection. Look at Matthew chapter 5 verse 43, and this was the scripture they'll point to to try to say this is a change from the Old Testament to New Testament. Matthew 5:43 says "You have heard that it has been said thou shalt love thy neighbor and hate thine enemy." Now right there, there's where people get this wrong. They claim that that's a reference to the Old Testament. Can somebody show me where the Old Testament says to love your neighbor and hate your enemy? Can somebody show me that? Oh, I know why you can't show me because it's not there. This is not what- Did he say that it's written in the Bible? He said "You've heard people say that." It wasn't God that ever said that because the Old Testament clearly teaches you to love your enemy.
The Old Testament, everybody listening? The Old Testament clearly teaches to love your enemy. For example in the book of Leviticus, the dreaded book of Leviticus, the Bible says that if you see your enemies ass fall in the ditch, you go down in the ditch, and you pull it out. That's what it says in Leviticus. He says "If you see your neighbor's ox going astray, or it says even if it's your enemy's, you tell your enemy and you help him, right?
So the Bible teaches us to love our enemies, even in the Old Testament. So to sit there and say that somehow Jesus is negating the Old Testament, no, no, no. Jesus said in verse 17 of this exact chapter, before he even got to this verse, in verse 17 he said "Think not that I've come to destroy the law of the prophets. I'm not here to contradict Hosea." Isn't that one of the prophets? "I'm not here to contradict Moses. I'm not here to contradict the law. I'm not here to contradict Psalms. I came not to destroy, but to fulfill, for I stand you until Heaven and earth pass one jot or one tittle shall nowise pass from the law, until all be fulfilled, who so ever they're spoke for shall break one of these least commandments and shall teach men so. The saints will be called the least, thinking about Heaven, but he shall do and teach them. Saints became great in the kingdom of Heaven.
Get the context friend, before he gives these examples he says "I'm not changing anything about the Old Testament." In this sermon, that's not what the sermon's about. The Old Testament never told you to hate your enemy. That's just something that you've heard that people said. That's how some people taught that's wrong. Jesus said in verse 44, "But I stand you love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despite-fully use you and persecute you." Let me tell you something. That was true in the Old Testament, and it's true today. That's always been true. "That you may be the children of your father which is in Heaven for he maketh the sun to rise on the eve and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust."
So what's the Bible telling us as a reason why we should love our enemies? Why? So that we can be like God, right? He said if you love your enemies you'll be like your father which is in Heaven. Does that mean that God doesn't love his enemies, or that he does love his enemies? The Bible says he does love his enemies because if we love our enemies, then we're being like him.
What does that mean? The Bible says for example that when we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. We were at enmity with God before we got saved, and yet God loved us anyway, right? So is this contradicting the Bible? Is the Bible just filled with contradictions? No it's not. Here's what the Bible's teaching. Let me finish reading, then I'll explain it to you. Verse 46, it says "for if you love them which love you, what reward have you? Do not even the public is the same? If you solute your bretheran only, what do you more than others? Do not even the public in so be there for perfect even as your father was perfect." Here's the the Bible's saying. We're not to hate our personal enemies. You see, there is a lot of hatred that's unGodly. There's a lot of wicked hatred in this world.
Now look, what I showed you was a positive view of hatred, where God's telling us all the things we should hate, for example, bloody deceitful lovers of violence and predators, you know. Okay, we get that. The lying tongue, the proud look. That makes sense, but let's think of some unrighteous hatred. What's the wrong kind of hatred that Jesus is condemning here, what we should not have? How about this? Hating our enemy. Let me give you some examples. Let's say you're at work and somebody lies about you or somebody steals the credit on something that you did right, and they say it was their idea, or somebody lies and blames something on you, and they're your enemy at work because they're stabbing you in the back. Are we supposed to hate someone because they burned us at work? No.
What about this? What about hating people of a different nationality? That's a wicked hatred. There are people in this world, there are white people who hate black people. That's wicked. There are black people who hate while people, and that's just as wicked. There are Chinese people who hate Japanese people just because they're Japanese, and they hate each other. That's wicked. That's a wrong hatred. That's an ungodly hatred.
We should love our enemy even nations that are enemies of the United States, other countries that are an enemy of the U.S. They're not our allies. They're our enemies. You know what we should do? Love those people. Shouldn't we still want them to be saved? What countries today are considered enemies of the United States? North Korea, Syria, Iran... Okay, well let me ask you this. Do you love people in North Korea and want them to be saved? I do. Do you love people in Iran and want them to be saved, or do you want to just nuke them back into the stone age? I don't want to see Iran bombed. I'd rather see Tehran bombed with the gospel bomb. You know with preachers and with the Bible and with... Look we should love our enemies.
You know what? If somebody is hateful and mean to us, and rude to us, or cuts us off in traffic, and flips us off, or points a gun at us, or whatever, should we just hate that person because they did us wrong? Should we hate our enemies or should we love our enemies? If somebody despite-fully uses us, if somebody cusses us out, if somebody lies about us and does us dirty, we're supposed to overcome evil with good, and we're supposed to love our enemies, and forgive them as Christ has forgiven us. That's always been true. That was true in the Old Testament, that's true in the New Testament. Here's who we're not told to love in this verse, child molesters. Here's what happens. You'll get up and preach, "well, I hate child molesters" and here's what they'll say, "no no no, love your enemies." Okay, can somebody explain to me how child molesters are my enemy? I was never molested. My children were never molested. So how are child molesters my enemy? Can somebody explain that to me?
The bottom line is that the reason I hate child molesters is not because they're my enemy. It's not because they did me wrong. It's because they're evil, wicked, perverts who are destroying the lives of children. Because I love children, I hate pedophiles. I believe that every pedophile should be put to death. Sadly, the United States Supreme Court decided several years ago that no pedophile will ever be executed again in the United States of America. They made that decision about five, six years ago. No pedophile will ever be executed again. That's wicked. I believe that pedophiles should be executed according to God's law, according to God's word.
To sit there and say, "The Bible says love your enemies." Here's what they twist this into. Love everybody. It doesn't say love everybody. It says love your enemies. It says solute people or say hi to people that you don't know that are not your best buddy, that have not done you good, maybe even they've done you wrong. Maybe somebody's even done you wrong in this church. You should be friendly and say hi to them, and treat them well. When I walk down the street I say hi to everybody. I say hi, I don't just solute my bretheran only. I solute everybody.
We should love our enemies and why? Because our enemy today might be our friend tomorrow, but the pedophile's never going to be our friend. We're not going to overcome evil with good with that guy. He needs to be overcome with a bullet in his head from a firing squad. So that's an objection people will... and look, you've got to understand, if the whole Bible's God's word, and we have two scriptures that seem to be saying two different things, we need to reconcile them. If we got a verse over here saying that we're supposed to hate those that hate the Lord, and we're supposed to hate those who [inaudible 00:49:02], and then over here we have a scripture that says love your enemy. It's not that complicated folks. He's saying love your personal enemies, people who do you wrong. He's not saying to just love every sick twisted predator on this planet. Doesn't make any sense, folks.
Go to Galatians 5, I'll show you another objection. I'm just giving you both sides because these are the objections that people will raise, but here's the thing, if you buy into one of these objections, you're going to have to throw out 40 to 50 scriptures that I showed you at the beginning of the sermon. You're just going to have to cut them out of your Bible and throw them out. I'm not comfortable doing that. So I'm going to reconcile the truth here. Here's another scripture that people will pull out, and they'll pull out this scripture in order to condemn both hatred and anger in any situation. They'll not only tell you that it's wrong to ever hate, they'll also tell you it's wrong to have any anger ever, that all anger is wrong. Now again, let me say this. Most hatred is sinful, and most anger is sinful. If we took all the hatred in this world, most of it's sinful. If we took all the anger in this world, most of it is sinful, but there is a righteous anger and there is a righteous hatred.
Look what the Bible says. Here's another objection. People will bring this out. Galatians 5:19, "Now the works of the flesh are manifest which are these, adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, saditions, heresy, envying, murder, drunkenness, rebellings and such like as the which I tell you before as I told you also in time past that they would do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God, but the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, neatness, temperateness, against such there is no law.
People will point to this and say "Strife is always wrong." Strife. What does strife mean? Any kind of a contention, any kind of an argument. They'll say strife is always wrong. Wrath, which is exact synonym of anger, is always wrong. Wrath is always wrong, and hatred is always wrong, and we should just only have love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, neatness, temperest. Now this is an extremely simplistic view of the Bible, and let me tell you something. Galatians 5 is not the only chapter in the Bible. We need to read the whole Bible and get the complete picture.
If hatred is always a work of the flesh, everybody pay attention... If all types of hatred are always a work of the flesh, then why did God praise the church at Ephesus for hating the deeds of the Nicolaitans? Can you explain that to me? And why did God give us 30 to 40 different verses giving us good examples of hatred if hatred is always the work of the flesh. If wrath is always a work of the flesh, then why did God say "Be ye angry and sin not, let not the sun go down upon your wrath."?
So he told us there's a righteous anger, but don't let the sun go down on your wrath. Right? If strife is always a work of the flesh, then what about where he says that we should strife together for the faith of the gospel or to earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints. What about when Paul is filled with the spirit, he's striving with all these false teachers in the book of Acts. So the bottom line is that when the Bible here is talking about the works of the flesh, lumped in with adultery, fornication, witchcraft, etc. obviously the type of hatred and wrath he's talking about there is the wrong type of hatred.
He's talking about hating people of other nationalities, hating your personal enemies, hating people because they are whatever of a different ideology, different politics... there are people who hate Trump supporters and hate Hillary supporters. I don't hate either one. I don't hate half of our nation. Right? Half of our nation supported Trump, half of our nation supported Hillary. I don't hate either group. That's a work of the flesh if you just hate all Hillary supporters or hate all of Trump supporters, or if you just hate black people or hate Indians or hate Asians... that's a work of the flesh. I hate that guy who treated me poorly at work. No, that's the flesh right there, but if we hate exactly what God told us to hate, that's not a work of the flesh.
How can it be work of the flesh to obey the word of God? Here's the thing, the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace... What about this? Are we supposed to have joy all the time? Just joy all the time, right? No, wrong, because the Bible says "Let your joy be turned into mourning." There's a time to weep, a time to rejoice, and a time to weep. It's not all love all the time. There's a time for hate. It's not all joy all the time. There's a time for weeping and mourning. It's not all peace all the time, there's a time for fighting and warfare. It's not just all this all the time. No, we need to get the balance of what the word of God teaches.
Then the last objection, go to First John chapter 2. I'm just showing you both sides. I'm showing you what the people who want to ignore giant chunks of the Bible. How do they justify ignoring 50 verses? Here's what they'll turn to to try to debunk this, but all they end up doing is just negating the teachings of the Bible instead of reconciling the teachings of the Bible.
Look at First John chapter 2 verse 9, "He that sayeth he's in the light and hateth his brothers in darkness, even until now. He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there's not occasion of stumbling in it, but he that hateth his brothers in darkness and walk in the darkness and knoweth not whether he goeth because that darkness hath blinded his eyes." So they'll take you to scriptures like this, and there are other ones like this where it tells you to love your brother, and they'll say that means love everybody. Let me explain something to you. Everybody's not my brother. When the Bible says to love one another, and when the Bible says to love thy brother, and hating your brother, that's talking about people that are saved. Specifically what we're talking about here... so what the Bible teaches is that we should never for any reason hate our brother in Christ. That's all this teaches. This isn't saying... Where does this say "Don't hate the blood and deceitful man. Don't hate him that loveth violence. Don't hate him that hates the Lord." Is that what it says? No, it says love your brother.
Now go to Second Chronicles chapter 19 verse 2 because here's what some people would say, they've seen the 50 verses that clearly gave place for a righteous hatred, a righteous anger. Then they'll hear a couple of objections which are just people taking things out of context and twisting them, easily answered objections, and here's what they'll say... I've heard this many times... "I'm just going to be safe. I'm just going to play it safe by loving everybody." Have you heard this? Just to be safe. "I'd rather just err on the side of love, just to play it safe, I'm just going to love everything and everybody. I'm just going to play it safe."
Let's see if that's what the Bible tells us to do, to just kind of play it safe. Look at Second Chronicles chapter 19 verse 2. "and Jejune the son of Hernani the seer went out to meet him and said to King Jochebed, 'shouldest thou help the ungodly and love them that hate the Lord, therefore is wrath upon thee from before the Lord?'" Now what did Jochebed do to encurve God's wrath upon him? Now look, Jochebed did that which is right in the sight of the Lord. The Bible's real clear about that. Jochebed did that which is right in the sight of the Lord. So why is God mad? Why would God be mad at a guy who's a good guy, who's a godly man, who did what was right in the sight of the Lord? You want to know why God's wrath was upon Jochebed? Because he wanted to love everybody and get along with everybody. That was his downfall. "Shouldest thou help the ungodly and love them that hate the Lord, therefore is wrath upon thee from before the Lord."
You can just play it safe by just trying to get along with everybody and... even to love those that even hate the Lord. But that will actually get God mad at you. That's what the Bible says. Or is this another verse that we want to just ignore? Not only that, but Jochebed wanted to get along with the northern kingdom of Israel. He was the king of the southern kingdom of Judah. He wanted to get along with the northern king of Israel. He's just too nice of a guy. He just loves everybody. He just wants to get along with everybody. God got mad, why? Because the Bible says the adulterers "Know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God, who so ever therefore will be the friend of the world, is the enemy of God." Is the enemy of God.
The enemy of God, that's James chapter 4. To sit there and say "Well just to be safe I'm just going to be friends with everybody." Because remember, what does it mean to love versus to hate? What is hate mean? Do you remember what it means? To abhor, to despise, to detest, to loath, to scorn... How about this one... to shun. One of the definitions of hate is to shun. To shun. What does it mean to shun? What does that mean? You stay away from somebody. You stay away from them. That's one of the definitions from the thesaurus. The thesaurus is not a prehistoric animal, children, the thesaurus is a book where you look up synonyms and antonyms. So the Bible says here, in this scripture, that God's wrath was on Jochebed because he helped the ungodly and loved those who hated the Lord, and the Bible said in the book of James, chapter 4 in the New Testament that the friendship of the world's enmity with God and who so ever therefore will be the friend of the world is the enemy of God.
So if I was to say "I'm just going to be real friendly and nice and have these God-hating [inaudible 00:59:50] come over to my house for a barbecue just to show them the love of Christ. No, actually, people who hate the Lord should be shunned. I'm not talking about unsaved people because 90% of unsaved people don't hate the Lord. Look, you go out door to door, we go door to door, we talk to thousands of people. 95% of them don't hate the Lord. Even if they're not saved. Even if they don't believe the gospel. They don't hate the Lord though. They're just not save, they just don't believe in him, or they just are mixed up in a false religion. They're not horrible God-hating reprobates, but there are some people that we should shun and stay away from.
Do you think we should just approve and endorse and sanction everybody? Just buddy buddy with everybody. Friend of the world. You know what you just did by being a friend to the world just to play it safe? You just made enemies with God. James 4:4, you say what gives you the right, James 4:4? Go to Psalm 15. Almost done, Psalm 15. If you wanted a little sermonette, you could've gone to the church down the street. This church is actually for... This is big boy church. Junior church is across the street where you can sing somewhere in outer space, and get an animal cracker and koolaid. Welcome to big boy church. Psalm 15 verse 1, the Bible reads "Lord who shall abide in my tabernacle, who shall dwell in my holy hill, ye thy walketh uprightly and work or righteousness and speaketh the truth in his heart. He debackbideth not with his tongue, nor do evil to his neighbor, nor taketh the approach against his neighbor in whose eyes a vile person is contemned."
Now if you remember, contemn, one of the synonyms of hate is to contemn. We don't use this word contemn in 2016, but there's a noun that we do use. What is it? Contempt. Right? So we don't really use the verb contemn, but we do use the noun contempt. What does it mean to have contempt for something? It means that you have total disrespect, total disdain, you hate it. That's what it means to have contempt. If someone has contempt, it means that they hate whatever it is. Contempt, or total disrespect, total disdain, total... and remember, this is all from the dictionary and thesaurus... total disparaging, total deprecating, total deridal, total disapproval, total disfavor. That's what it means to have contempt. The Bible says "In whose eyes a vile person is love" because they just love every vile disgusting person because they're just playing it safe. No. It says "in whose eyes a vile person is contemned, but he honoreth them that fear the Lord. He that sweareth to his own heard and changeth not, he hath puteth not out his money to usering or taketh reward against the innocent. He that doeth these things shall never be moved."
Then the last place we'll turn Hebrews chapter 1. We're going to read about our Lord Jesus himself. Hebrews chapter 1, here's a great scripture on Jesus, Hebrews chapter 1. You see when the Bible tells us that there are those that we should love and those that we should hate. There are things that we should love and things that we should hate. The Bible is telling us that for a reason. It actually wants us to live a clean and Godly and peaceful life. If we do like Lot did, remember what Lot did? What did he do? He pitched his tent toward Sodom, he went and lived in Sodom, he just loved Sodom, and you know what ended up happening? His wife died. Some of his children died, and his other two children that lived became pregnant by incest.
Look, I don't want my wife to die, I don't want my children to die, and I don't want my remaining children to be involved in incest. No one wants their life to end up that way, but here's how you get a life that ends up that way. You just be friends with everybody. You just get along with everybody. You don't shun anyone. You don't disapprove anyone. You don't have contempt for anyone. You just treat everyone well, and get along with everybody. Listen to me. There are those in our church that attend public school. Put up your hand if you attend public school. It's okay, I attended public school. Put up your hand if you attend public school.
Okay, let me ask you this. Do you think that you should go to public school and just be friends with everyone? What about parents of those whose children are in public school? Do you teach your kids "Be sure to be friends with everybody"? Is that what you teach them? "Be sure to love everybody. Be sure to embrace everybody. Be sure to approve and spend time with everybody." Is that what you teach your kids? You know what you tell them? "Hey, stay away from those people. Shun those people. Don't touch those people with a ten foot pole." Is that not what you... I mean good night. I hope you do. I know when I was in public school, there were certain people that I stayed as far away from as I could. When I was a kid I thought, "oh, drama would be cool", until I saw the drama department. Then I shunned it. Then I had contempt for it. Then I deprecated it. I said "forget this". Some queer little sissies down there, but anyway, you know.
So Hebrews chapter 1 verse 8, the Bible reads, "but unto the son he sayeth, thy throne O God is forever and ever." By the way, underline this verse in your Bible. This is a great verse on the deity of Jesus Christ because it says "unto the son he sayeth thy throne O God is forever and ever. A scepter of righteousness is the scepter of thy kingdom though hast loved righteousness and hated iniquity, therefore God even thy God hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows." Look, Jesus Christ had the ultimate anointing of the Holy Spirit. The ultimate anointing.
The Bible says "For he whom God hath sent," speaking of Jesus in John chapter 3, "for he whom God hath sent speaketh the words of God for God giveth not the spirit by measure unto him." The Bible teaches that Jesus Christ was filled with the spirit beyond measure. He had the ultimate anointing of the Holy Spirit, he was human, he was God in the flesh, God in the form of human man, and he had the ultimate anointing of the Holy Spirit upon him while he was on this earth. Now, I don't know about you, but I would like to have just a fraction of the anointing that Jesus had, right? I mean look, if I had a quarter of the anointing that Jesus had, or half of the anointing, I'd be able to do some amazing things for God.
Any man of God should strive to be anointed with the Holy Spirit, to be not drunk with wine where is excess but be filled with the spirit. To speak the word of God with boldness. Let me ask you this though. Why did Jesus have the ultimate anointing? Why was he more anointed than John the Baptist? Why was he more anointed than Peter James and John? Why did he have the ultimate Holy Spirit anointing? Well the Bible tells us right here in this verse.
Verse 9, this is speaking to Jesus, the son of God, "Thou hast love righteousness and hated iniquity, therefore God even thy God hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness," which that oil is the Holy Spirit, all throughout the Bible the oil of anointing represents the Holy Spirit, "Therefore God even thy God hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows." If you're a preacher and you want to be anointed with the oil of gladness above thy fellows, it's not enough to just love righteousness. You gotta hate iniquity.
Let me ask you this. If all hatred is a work of the flesh, according to a twisting and misunderstanding of the Galatians 5, then why was Jesus so spirit filled for hating? Jesus had a greater spiritual anointing because he hated iniquity. Oh, but hatred's just a work of the flesh, or wrath is a work of the flesh. Really? Then why was Jesus filled with wrath when he was in the synagogue, and a man had a withered hand. Jesus wanted to heal that man, and they said "You can't do that on the Sabbath day", and Jesus looked on them filled with anger. It made Jesus mad that they don't even care about this guy's hand at all. They have no compassion when Jesus wanted to heal him. Jesus had the ultimate spiritual anointing, and Jesus hated iniquity. We ought to hate iniquity.
If you walk away today saying "the media was right about this place. This is a hate place.", then you ought never set foot in any christian church again. Because every christian church claims that the Bible, that they believe the whole Bible, right? Every christian church in Phoenix, Arizona, every Baptist church in Phoenix, Arizona has in their statement of faith that they believe the whole Bible. Right? Who's ever been to a Baptist church where they say "We don't believe the whole Bible? It doesn't exist. Every Baptist church and every christian church says we believe the entire Bible. So if you just want no hate at all, you're going to have to leave Christianity completely because there's hate there. There's hate in this religion friend. "Well there's just no room for hate", no, there's no room for you in a religion that teaches both sides, love and hate. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much Lord for your word, and Lord help us to be like you, Lord. Help us not to hate our enemies or people of other nations. Help us not to hate people because of their skin color. Help us not to hate people because of their economic... Lord there are people that hate the rich. People who hate the poor. Help us to hate neither, Lord. Help us to only hate that in which you hate and love what you love, Lord. Help us to get a view of this world and a view of life that comes from your holy word, because you're right about everything Lord. Help us to acknowledge that. Lord I pray if there's anybody here who's offended or angry by the sermon Lord, I just pray that they would go home and search the scriptures to see whether these things be so. In Jesus' name I pray these things. Amen.
