Love and Hate

Read Psalms 96:1–98:9

1. The Lord is king! Let the earth rejoice! Let the farthest coastlands be glad.
2. Dark clouds surround him. Righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne.
3. Fire spreads ahead of him and burns up all his foes.
4. His lightning flashes out across the world. The earth sees and trembles.
5. The mountains melt like wax before the Lord, . . .
6. The heavens proclaim his righteousness; every nation sees his glory.
7. Those who worship idols are disgraced—all who brag about their worthless gods—for every god must bow to him.
8. Jerusalem has heard and rejoiced, and all the towns of Judah are glad because of your justice, O Lord!
9. For you, O Lord, are supreme over all the earth; you are exalted far above all gods.
10. You who love the Lord, hate evil! He protects the lives of his godly people and rescues them from the power of the wicked. Psalm 97:1-10

What do you strongly dislike? If you included all the categories that question could cover—foods, locations, television shows, ideas, organizations, people—you would have a nearly endless list. So could anybody; much of what we do from day to day involves a feeling of love or hate.

Psalm 97 provides the criterion for selecting things not only to dislike but to really hate. That’s right, hate. What God’s people should hate should not surprise you, however. In fact, hatred toward this, as you will learn, is good.

Other psalms in this section focus on more positive themes: how to praise God (Psalm 96) and celebrating God’s victories over evil (Psalm 98).

“You who love the Lord, hate evil!” (Psalm 97:10). This means that those who sincerely desire to please God should realign their desires with God’s desires. Their affections will begin to change; that is, they will begin to love what God loves and hate what God hates. As they grow in their love for the Lord, they will grow in their hatred for evil.

If you do not despise the actions of people who take advantage of others, if you admire people who only look out for themselves, or if you envy those who get ahead through cruelty, your desires are not God’s desires. Learn to love God’s ways and to hate evil in every form—not just the obvious sins, but also the ones that are easy to consider acceptable or to overlook.