Yes, There’s a Place for Hatred

by Carl McMurray

 

The song that David wrote for the 139th Psalm is a study in contrasts. The honesty and integrity of the Psalmist is revealed as David admits that the Lord knows every aspect of his life and being. When he sits down and when he rises up. before he says a word, wherever he goes, even before he was born. David says the Lord knew him and that he deserves thanks for his wonderful works.

 

While confessing such an intimate knowledge of oneself to God however, David shows no hesitancy in declaring his loathing and hatred. V. 20-22 is where David declares his “utmost hatred” for those who hate his God. He declares God’s enemies to be his enemies. And then he closes by asking the Lord to search him and know his heart. Wow, talk about transparency.

 

In David however we see the one that God called. “a man after mine own heart” David appreciated God and all that He did and does in the lives of His creation. He appreciated righteousness in every form and seems to have hated anything that stood against his God. Obviously, David was not a sinless man, but he seemed to try to be that way and the Lord appears to have honored him for that.

 

We live in a day when it is considered impolite to “hate’ anything. Even criminals driven by covetousness, greed, lust, or pride are not to be considered “hateful.” Why “hate crimes” are a completely different category deserving special consequences: as if there is no “hatred” in killing someone for what’s in his wallet. There’s no hatred in hanging or burning a political candidate in effigy. There’s no hatred in burning churches or planting “bigot’ signs in the yards of those who vote for homosexual marriages to be rejected. If you believe the foregoing then please check yourself into the same group home for morons that believe because they call it a “holy war,” (Jihad), that it’s ok to blow up women and children. It’s a “hate war” people!

 

What David illustrates for us is who and what really deserves our hatred. The New Testament teaches that it is not our fellow man who should be hated, not even the one who takes advantage of us. Righteous hatred should be saved for Satan and those who consistently take his side against our God. Those who hate the Father and the Son and rouse themselves against Him are worthy of loathing. As they set themselves as enemies of God, they become my enemies too. And I hope they are yours also. We are in a war that political correctness will not win. You’re going to have to take a side and it is going to demand the conviction that brings one to love, and to hatred.