HATE!! Wow, that is a loaded word, isn’t it? When was the last time you heard anyone at church preach or teach on Biblical, godly hate? When was the last time you ever heard anyone talk about hate as one of the great attributes of God? We love to talk about God’s love. I certainly do and have many times, but did you know that without God’s righteous hate, there can be no real true love?
LOVE THAT DOES NOT HATE EVIL, IS NOT LOVE! A GOD THAT DOES NOT HATE EVIL, IS NOT A LOVING GOD.
What exactly does hate mean? Over and over again, society and culture tell us not to hate. Are they right? Is what they say true? Or is it a perversion of the truth?
The truth is our modern culture hates what is good and loves what is evil. They hate the truth and they love lies and deceit. They give lip service to the good, but they love and practice evil. Their emotions dictate their truth instead of truth dictating their emotions!
Have you ever driven down the road and seen the bumper sticker “hate is not a family value?” I have, and every time I see it I say to myself, “That is a lie.” In fact, it is essential that we teach our children to hate as God hates, to hate what God hates, and to abhor, despise, detest, feel hostile to, sickened and disgusted by the evil, vile, wretched, wicked things, wicked practices, and the wicked ideologies of this world and the wickedness in our flesh.
Did you know that God commands us to hate?
Psalms 97:10, You who love the Lord hate evil!
Romans 12:9, Hate what is evil! Love what is good!
Have you ever observed this description of Jesus Christ?
Hebrews 1:9 You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness; therefore God, your God, has set you above your companions by anointing you with the oil of joy.
Our love for what is good, in reality, is only equal to our hatred for what is evil. They cannot be out of balance. In fact, there can be no real godly love if there is not also real godly hate. Hate is a strong, powerful emotion, an essential attribute. When unrighteous, unbiblical hatred is channeled for evil purposes, it does great harm. When righteous, biblical hatred is channeled towards a hatred for evil and intolerance for what is biblically evil and wicked, it brings about great, great good.
It was William Wilberforce’s great hatred for slavery and what it did to human beings who suffered from it, that energized and fueled his lifelong crusade to abolish slavery in Great Britain and to boldly speak out against it, at great cost to himself.
The founders of AA hated what they saw alcohol doing to others and what it had done to them. It led them to found AA and to help others break free from their addiction to alcohol.
When Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) was founded, it was because of the great hatred and anger these mothers felt at the tremendous injustice, pain, death, and heartache that loved ones suffered because of the stupid, evil fools who were driving drunk. As well as the foolish laws that allowed them to continue their insane, evil behavior and continue to maim, kill, and destroy the lives of innocent kids and families!
Today, thousands of men and women stand up for the precious lives of babies because they loathe, detest, abhor, and hate abortion and the savage brutality of slaughtering precious babies in their mother’s womb! It fills them with righteous indignation! Righteous people do all they can to overturn the wicked ruling that made it possible and righteous people faithfully show up to the voting booth to vote against those who favor killing babies!
All of us as Christian men will find ourselves struggling at times to hate what is evil in our lives. All of us as Christians will at times struggle against the temptations of our flesh and our desire for evil things.
I saw this in myself as a young man beginning my journey to follow Jesus Christ. Man, some desires just seemed to instantly disappear in my life and others clung on, digging their wretched claws into my flesh trying to undermine what God was doing in my life and trying to trap and enslave me in their wretched evil clutches.
One of the great secrets I discovered was the power of hate.
Let me illustrate. One day, as I was in prayer as a young man crying out to God to help me with what all men struggle with when God gave me an extremely important insight. I hate hard-boiled eggs! Even the smell of them cooking sickens me. I am never tempted to eat them. I hate liver. I mean the smell of it and the texture of it in my mouth, yuck! I have no trouble saying no to the liver. I hate bats! Never been tempted to have a pet bat!! I hate spelunking (look it up) and have never been tempted to do it!
I hate large crowds, barely moving traffic, and waiting, and waiting, and waiting in long, stupid lines. I mean, I am never tempted to go to pro football games, concerts, state fairs, etc. For me, a total waste of time, nothing but stress and an exercise in futility. I hate the TSA and what it has done to airports. I only fly for one reason alone – to go serve God and others. I would never, ever, ever just fly halfway around the world, spend money I hate to spend, to sit, sipping a pina colada, watching clouds come and go, waves roll in and out, just to get sunburned, or be around inappropriately dressed people, or to get caught in one more tourist trap in the world clamoring to take my money!!!
I hate the thought of being a broken-down old man, wearing my white velcro athletic shoes, unable to bend down and tie my laces, shuffling along, wearing my elastic waist pants, with my beer belly hanging over my belt, as I wait to die. Therefore, I have done everything I possibly can to not end up being that guy!! My hatred of the impact of laziness has helped fuel my self-discipline! My hatred motivates me!!!
When I was young, in my early teens, I loved junk food. I loved Twinkies, BBQ potato chips, pop, pop, and more pop, etc., etc.! As I grew older and wiser, I began to understand the terrible things junk food does to people’s bodies, organs, and health, to my health, and I deliberately developed and nurtured a hatred for those things. It has been quite powerful and effective at helping me with my fitness, weight, diet, health, and my money! I hated being the Pillsbury Dough Dad!!
I hate, I hate, I hate…I could go on and on, but I think you are getting the picture! The things I hate, sincerely, genuinely hate, have very little power over me, nor do they often even tempt me!
This brings me to a powerful truth God revealed to me. “Mark, feed your hatred for evil, for sin, for lust, for greed, for lies, for selfishness, for anything evil, hate it.” I learned to develop and nurture my godly hatred of bad, wicked, evil things!
Here is the truth. As men, there are certain things that we aren’t willing to go all-in on our hatred of. We hold on to certain pleasures in some things. We are unwilling to ferociously hate them, to attack them in our lives. To put them to death. To nurture and feed our hatred of them.
One of these that many men struggle with is lust. The reality is we are bombarded with sexual images everywhere. Commercials, TV, the fitness club, your smartphone, at work, running errands, etc. It is difficult to get completely away from it, including our thoughts. I found there was tremendous power in nurturing and developing my hate of it. I mean genuinely go all in and hate it. I found that in truly obeying God’s command to hate what is evil, to put it in with all the other things I hate, despise, detest, and am sickened by, I unleashed the power of hatred for evil in my life that brought about tremendous freedom, power, strength, and consistent victory over evil. When I decided to get righteously angry about certain things, it helped me grow a righteous, zealous fire, a godly hatred towards wicked things that most people just passively accept.
I found that when I nurtured and unleashed godly hatred for evil, I attacked and exterminated and got rid of the things in my life that enticed me or could have caused me to stumble. There are just places I won’t go, things I won’t own, things I won’t watch, things I won’t listen to, people I refuse to be around! It is powerful!
I hate lies and injustice. I hate the suffering that they bring and I allow it to make me angry and fill me righteous hate and passionate, burning zeal! Therefore, I passionately and boldly preached the truth and spoke out fervently against lies and injustice, preaching the truth, risking the wrath, the displeasure, the ridicule, the persecution, and hatred of others because of my hatred for lies and injustice and the devastation it brings to human beings.
I hate Darwinism, communism, socialism, progressive liberal leftism! I hate false religions that claim any other way to God except through faith in Jesus Christ! Why? Because each of them is a massive, destructive lie that destroys human beings, that have brought about the ruin, torture, murder, and enslavement of untold millions of adults, children, and unborn babies!!
I hate the ravenous, unbridled materialism and consumerism that defines our age and has redefined our needs to whatever it is we want! It makes me sick.
I hate racism, but I also hate the false accusation of racism against people who are not racist! I hate prejudice! I live in a twin home. The lady who lives on the other side of me is from Vietnam. I pay to have her lawn and my lawn sprayed for weeds every year. I bought and changed her dead car battery. The neighbor on the south side of my house is from Thailand. When he asked me if I would get a rain spout extension to direct rainwater away from his house, I went out and bought it that day! My neighbors on the other side are a large family from Somalia. When the mother, in her Hajib, approached me at the voting station to ask for my help, I did not hesitate. A few weeks later my wife and I took over some Christmas gifts to their family and wished them a happy holiday.
Because of things God hates, that God defines as evil in His word to us, the Bible, there are ideas, people, and policies I vigorously oppose and will till I am dead!
I challenge you, men, to nurture, develop and grow your godly hatred for evil! You will find it to be life-changing and extremely powerful.
Please listen to these very important messages that will give you deeper insight and inspiration to make powerful changes in your life.
https://strongdisciple.com/christian-living/deadly-associations-and-the-termination-project
https://strongdisciple.com/christian-living/no-compromise
https://strongdisciple.com/wake-up-call/keep-unpolluted
