What Does the Bible Say About Hating the Wicked?

Jesus calls us to hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans — but should we hate the Nicolaitans themselves? God claims to hate and abhor sinners in some places, and He gives us imprecatory psalms which invoke curses upon them. Should we not be singing Psalm 137 as Christians — or is there a way to do so while also obeying the command to “love your enemies and bless them that curse you”?

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:06

And welcome, friends, to Generations Kevin Swanson with you today, Joshua Suiso in studio. As we come to another segment of What Does the Bible Say About That? And the question before us comes from one of our listeners. What does the Bible say about them precatory psalms? But more specifically, what does the Bible say about hating? Not just loving, but hating. Are we to be good haters as well as good lovers? So what does the Bible say about hate? It's a good question. Are we to love everybody and everything? Are we to love child molestation and child molesters in even the generic sense? Or are we to hate certain things? Are we to hate abortion? Are we to hate abortionists? Are we to hate certain specific abortionists, etc.? So these are important questions. The Bible has much to say about love and hate, both.

SPEAKER_00 1:02

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 1:03

Both.

SPEAKER_00 1:03

We're to love yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:06

You know, and the the liberal who says you you've got to start by loving your neighbor and end by loving his wife.

unknown 1:13

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:13

There's a distinction in the loves that are described there. Exactly. Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:18

Let's be careful because the left is always telling us stuff. But don't trust them. That's right. Let's go to the word of God on this one. Now, it turns out we're to hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans. That's Revelation chapter 2. Yeah. The church of the Ephesus was good at hating, but not good at loving.

SPEAKER_00 1:37

And Jesus didn't have that against them.

SPEAKER_01 1:39

No, no, no. He says, I hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans.

SPEAKER_00 1:42

Like you got the right hate going.

SPEAKER_01 1:43

Yeah. Jesus is a good hater. He hates. He's a good hater. And we're to be good haters too. But more fundamentally, and this is more fundamental, we ought to be good lovers. That is to love God with heart, soul, mind, and strength, love our enemies, love our neighbor as ourselves, love our brother as Christ loved the church and gave himself for him. We are to be good at loving. And you know, conservatives can be good haters. I mean, they're really good at hating a lot of things. Sure. We're really good at hating stuff. And this is one of my big complaints with uh a fair amount of conservative religions, conservative denominations, conservative politicians. They're really, really, really good at hating abor abortion, but much, much tougher at loving their own wives and loving their children and uh loving the brothers and sisters in the church to the point where they actually hang out in the church for more than three years at a time before church hopping. Okay, so so love is is key. Love is the absolute basic, but love involves hating. Loving God involves hating the things that God hates. Is that fair to say?

SPEAKER_00 2:46

Yeah, absolutely. And then just to draw out that whole definition of how love also requires a hate. So for example, um you you have a love for your wife and an intruder comes in and tries to hurt her. Now do we hate the man? You know, we hate what he's doing, too. We hate what he's doing. We're gonna stop him, but it might involve self-defense. Uh it's gonna involve you know taking action uh and upholding God's law in that situation, right? So it's gonna involve though a distinction of how you how you love it.

SPEAKER_01 3:15

But Josh, I I I I don't let's say, you know, devil's advocate. I don't love God's hatred. I don't love God's wrath. I don't love God's justice. I love his love. I'll take his love, but I won't take his justice. I in fact, I've got an issue with his justice. Yeah. And in fact, I've got a fact, I've got an issue with the fact that God loves Jacob but hates Esau. I I got a problem with that.

SPEAKER_00 3:42

To which you would say you can't love part of God. We are called to love the God that is, not the God of our own imagination, and we must submit ourselves to him and love and reverence and fear him.

SPEAKER_01 3:54

So would you say it's equal commitment to God's mercy and God's justice? Um we have to be committed to both.

SPEAKER_00 4:00

Yeah, insofar as God is committed to them. Meaning, God might um might show mercy over showing justice in a particular situation, as he does for us as we receive the cross of Christ. And we love that. Uh, but we are we are committed to all of God's character and upholding it and honoring it and loving him in that way. So is it accurate to say that God hates? Yeah, very clearly so. I mean, Psalm 139 says, Do not I hate those who hate you. And we also have passages where it specifically says that God hates this or that, right? As you you mentioned.

SPEAKER_01 4:34

I think Psalm 7 and Psalm 5. Psalm 5 says he's angry with the wicked every day. And Psalm 7, I think, also refers to his hatred. So so God has a hatred, an animosity, or a uh a sense of this uh uh that that this is uh an an an issue of enmity. This is an issue of hatred, of uh he finds certain things and certain people abominable.

SPEAKER_00 5:01

Yeah. Yeah, like in Proverbs it speaks about the um the un the foolish and unwise man who will fall into the pit of the woman, the the harlot, and it says the abhorred of the Lord will fall there. Those that are hated by the Lord is effectively what that's indicating.

SPEAKER_01 5:19

Okay, so but now we're getting down to the question of whether or not we can use these imprecatory psalms.

SPEAKER_00 5:26

And the imprecatory psalms, as defined, are Yeah, the Psalms that have that call for curses, divine curses upon some, uh judgment upon some, right? So when we say, Lord, destroy evildoers, we are praying an imprecation or a call for judgment upon that group.

SPEAKER_01 5:45

Psalm 5, verse 10 declare them guilty, O God. Let them fall by their own counsels, cast them out in the multitude of their transgressions. Uh Psalm 7, arise, O Lord, in thine anger, awake for me to the judgment that thou hast commanded. Psalm 10, 15, break the arm of the wicked and the evil man, seek out his wickedness till you find nothing. Psalm 55, 15, let death seize upon them, let them go down quick into hell. Psalm 69, which has been applied to Judas. Yes. Um So, how how do you reconcile the love for our enemies to these imprecatory Psalms? Now, I would draw the distinction between the command in the New Testament to love our enemies. By the way, the the Old Testament has a reference to this too. I I don't have it right in front of me, but the Bible actually, Old Testament, New Testament is somewhat consistent on this issue. Um, there is a there is something to be said that we're to um you know be kind to those who are not kind to us. We find that in the Old Testament as well as the New Testament. That's right. And uh we are to pray for those that despitefully use us, we are to good be good to them, we are to um treat them with mercy, we are to put uh coals of fire upon their heads, etc. Um and God, it's interesting that that the contrast is made in towards the end of Matthew 5 that God is merciful and kind and loving to the just and to the unjust. Even though he brings judgment upon the earth, even though at the same time that he brings judgment upon them, he brings the rain upon them. So he brings the rain of water to water the crops and to uh give them plenty of food to eat for the next season, right? Uh at the same time that he will bring his judgment to them. So God uh treats them actually both ways. He treats them with mercy, uh in what we would call common grace, and he treats them with judgment. So we have both of these converging in uh God's treatment of these folks. But for us, we are not, we are not, we are not to uh to to bring judgment and condemnation upon our enemies. In fact, it's interesting in Matthew chapter, excuse me, Romans 12 and 13, uh that we are not to avenge ourselves, but the civil magistrate is allowed to avenge uh evildoers on the basis of God's wrath, God's justice, God's vengeance, but not their own.

SPEAKER_00 8:06

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 8:07

So, in other words, that judge whose son was murdered by some ruffian out there, he has no right to exercise his own vengeance upon the man who killed his son, but he certainly has a responsibility before God to exercise God's wrath and God's justice against the evildoer.

SPEAKER_00 8:27

That's right. Yeah, and I think it's good to go back to the Sermon on the Mount and what is Jesus uh dealing with there. You find Jesus is correcting misinterpretations and misapplications of the law on all these different occasions. In verse uh 43 of Matthew 5, it says, You have heard that it was said, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. Well, only part of that was found in the Old Testament, the love your neighbor part. I don't think the phrase hate your enemy is not in the Old Testament as such. It's not as a command.

SPEAKER_01 8:55

In fact, in fact, what I was thinking was, if your enemy's donkey has gone astray, you bring it back to me. That's loving your enemy. That's loving the enemy. So yes. That was the reference I was thinking of. So, yes, the Old Testament, New Testament, by the way, the revelation of God has a unity to it. General consistency. There is a consistency. There's a fundamental consistency. It is a unit. There is a unity to the revelation of God in Old Testament, New Testament. I granted, the the modern cults of the Mormons, the Muslims, others have uh found ways in which to, you know, say, hey, there's uh Rev2 in and see there to be fundamental contradictions between the testaments. Not us. Not us. That's a cultic view of the Bible. So um so there's a unity here. Is it possible for us to love our enemies while at the same time, in a generic sense, say, you know what, God's enemies, uh I oppose them. I'm in opposition to God's enemies. Uh Psalm 139 is probably one of the most difficult texts uh for folks that are are tripping over this. And by the way, C.S. Lewis did not agree with impregatory psalms. He thought there was something of a of a sinful response.

SPEAKER_00 10:06

He did, yeah. And his clearly his view of the inspiration of scripture is revealed in that, where he he truly said that the psalmists were giving way to sinful emotions and we ought to condemn that which they're doing here and not follow the footstep.

SPEAKER_01 10:19

I I disagree with that because there's a unity here. And I think there's a distinction between loving our enemies and treating them with, you know, prayer and heaping causal fire, et cetera, et cetera, versus hating God's enemies, as Psalm 139 says. I hate those who hate the O God.

SPEAKER_02 10:37

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 10:37

Now, David is a great example of this. I find David actually an excellent example of this. He forgives his enemies, he forgives Saul, he weeps, weeps, he cries over Saul's death. And in fact, uh Saul had a contract out of his life, but he's forgiving.

SPEAKER_00 10:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:52

He he even feels a tinge of conscience when he takes the man's spear.

SPEAKER_00 10:58

He had two occasions where he could have killed, taken personal vengeance. And he didn't. And he realized he was he felt his conscience struck just by even barely almost touching the anointing.

SPEAKER_01 11:08

Yeah, not hardly touching the anointed, but getting ever so close to it. But so he he he he kills the guy who said he killed Saul. Yeah. So he's he's acting as a proper civil magistrate. Right. He says you shouldn't have done that.

SPEAKER_00 11:20

Yeah, the Samaritan wrong lied, probably right about it.

SPEAKER_01 11:23

So he's most certainly forgiving Saul. He's tolerating and really merciful to Shemai, Absalom as well. So David is excellent. I think he's one of the best examples in scripture. Maybe not perfect, but as to the treatment of his enemies. Yeah. But then secondly, David writes the imprecatory psalms. So I think it's possible for us to hate the generic enemies of God, and we don't really have their names. We don't know who they are. We don't know, for example, that um that Putin is going to be repentant and in heaven when we get there. Now, maybe Putin or Obama or Trump or put it the the the name in the blank, wherever you know you're you're you're suggesting, you're thinking to yourself, this person is not is really in the category of the wicked, of the unbelievers. And they're unrepentant, etc. etc. But how do I know that he didn't repent ten minutes ago?

SPEAKER_00 13:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:05

I don't know. I don't know for certain. Yeah. I don't know that he won't repent, you know, ten minutes before he dies. Right. I don't know these things. I do know there's a category of persons, much like what you find in Psalm 69, where this is referred to Judas. And Judas is definitively reprobate as prophesied by Jesus Christ himself. So there's no debate whatsoever as to where Judas wound up. And Psalm 69, which is one of the most impregatory Psalms, is applied directly to a certifiable reprobate, Judas himself. So, but the the difficulty for us is that outside of Judas, yeah, we don't have the I'm not sure I have the list.

SPEAKER_00 13:49

We don't know God's divine predestination list.

SPEAKER_01 13:51

I mean, is there anybody else in scripture? I'm I'm guessing there's a a few others, but I don't have the list of the people that are in the category of the reprobate who will burn in hell forever because they were never repentant. I I don't have that list.

SPEAKER_00 14:06

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 14:07

So therefore, all I can do is recite the imprecatory psalms in a generic sense.

SPEAKER_00 14:12

You can say Lord judge the wicked, whoever they happen to be.

SPEAKER_01 14:21

And I'm completely 100% on board with God's judgment. I mean, I have to be. Am I gonna say, hey, God, you know, I disagree with you on this, that you are sending Hitler to hell, or that you sent Judas to hell. I'll take you to task for that one.

SPEAKER_00 14:37

Right.

SPEAKER_01 14:38

No, no, I think it'd be much better for me to say, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven, and by the way, also in hell. God's will will be done, and I'm all in favor of God's will being done in the judgment of the wicked. By the way, I'm very much in favor of his will being done in the salvation and the mercy that he shows to those who are humble and cry out for his mercy. So I'm on board with that too. 100% on this side, 100% on that side.

SPEAKER_00 15:04

That's right. We're committed to both. And the Psalms are often rejoicing about the judge judgment of God to come. You think of the end of Psalm 98, uh, verse 8. Let the rivers clap their hands, let the hills sing for joy together before the Lord, for he comes to judge the earth, he will judge the world with righteousness and the peoples with equity. And there's this sense of anticipation of all the goodness of justice that God will bring.

SPEAKER_01 15:26

And when the word of God tells us to love your enemies, you know who they are.

unknown 15:30

Right.

SPEAKER_01 15:31

I mean, this is your next door neighbor, the KKK guy who lives next door. He's just kind of a despicable kind of person. You know what I'm talking about. The guy who backs over the guy who backs over your mailbox and and you know, throws poison meat over the fence to your dog. You know, the enemy. And we all have somebody out to get us. Yeah. And that's the context of you tend to get somebody at the workplace or you know, your neighbors or whatever. There's usually somebody out there, and you they've got a face and they've got a name. And and what does God say concerning that guy? You need to say, Father, forgive him, for he knows not what he does. Father, I pray for him. I want him to be saved. I want his your mercy upon him. I'm praying for this, I'm pleading with you that you would have mercy upon this enemy that has really set himself against me. Yes. Um, so I think we understand what it is to love our own enemies. I think that's obvious.

SPEAKER_00 16:21

And I think that was what Jesus was dealing with was the uh desire we have for personal vengeance. Because right before the you shall love your enemies passage, he's dealing with the retaliation, right? If somebody strikes you, you strike back. He's dealing with issues of personal relationship where we would want to take vengeance. And notably, the impregatory psalms are not about personal vengeance, they're about God's justice. The focus throughout them is upon God's justice being dealt out, not our personal desire for vengeance. It's not saying, Lord, judge my enemy because he's hurt me. It's ultimately the matter of God's law being broken. That's really the focus.

SPEAKER_01 16:57

And as we consider the enemy spoken of in the Psalms, Josh, I think it has to include Satan and the demonic realm.

SPEAKER_00 17:05

Yes, because that's what the scriptures as a whole widen for us, the picture of what the enemy enemies are.

SPEAKER_01 17:10

I mean, we would use the term the enemy, the definitive article, right?

SPEAKER_00 17:14

The evil one.

SPEAKER_01 17:15

The evil one, right? Because there are some psalms that do draw this in. Psalm 74, you break the heads of the dragons in the waters, you break the head of Leviathan. Uh also, Psalm 58, the wicked are estranged from the womb, their poison is like the poison of a serpent. So there is, I think, some reference to the reprobate demonic realm. And I think it's appropriate to say the demonic realm is reprobate. Because they're not going to be in heaven when we get there.

SPEAKER_00 17:40

They irredeemable.

SPEAKER_01 17:41

They're irredeemable. So it's appropriate for us to hate and to to resist and to pray God's judgments upon the evildoers among the demonic realm. That's appropriate as well. I think probably every Christian would agree with me on that one.

SPEAKER_00 18:02

I think so.

SPEAKER_01 18:03

Um now here's one more category of those whom I should hate. Okay, I'm gonna throw one more thing out here. Oh wretched man that I am. Yeah, who shall deliver me from this body of flesh? Yes. There's the old man. So as I say, I hate those who hate you, O God, I'm going after the old man in me, which is in opposition to God. Yeah. And there's something healthy about that, Josh, because if I'm running around pointing at everybody else and saying, you know what, I wish all these people go to hell. That's a problem.

SPEAKER_00 18:35

Yeah, and it's it's noteworthy that. You can't be saying stuff like that. You find like in Psalm 25, David is confessing his sins while he's dealing with outside enemies. I always thought that was interesting. He's confessing his own faults and saying, Lord, I have these people that are against me, help me. Uh and he was not focused on just one or the other. That I think is an important thing to know.

SPEAKER_01 18:54

So it's appropriate, I believe, to hate the old man. The old flesh, the flesh that is to die. You think about these serial killers that have come to know Jesus, uh son of Sam, David Berkowitz comes to my mind, others. Um, you read uh David Berkowitz's testimonies, they're very, very powerful. And they're available online, by the way. Uh a serial killer from the 1970s terrorized New York City. And as you read these stories, this confession, you find, you know what, there's an old man about the son of Sam that I don't like. But you've got a new man in Christ.

SPEAKER_00 19:32

Right. And we love it.

SPEAKER_01 19:32

You got a born-again new creature in Christ, old things passing away, all things becoming new. There's there's two entities effectively going on here. Yeah. The first of which was influenced heavily by the satanic realm, and he admitted admitted to that. Uh, but that old man is dying and dead. And and that's the way it is with the rest of us as believers. And it's appropriate for us to, I think, throw out some imprecatory curses upon these this old man. If you're out there killing the old flesh, you're mortifying your sinful flesh, and you're saying good riddance to the old man, he's dying the wretched death, that sounds like you're hating the old man.

SPEAKER_00 20:12

Yeah. I've seen some writers that have said it's not it's not possible for you to hate sin too much. Yeah. Like you're not gonna overdo it in your hatred of sin as such. It is that which is utterly hostile and opposed to God.

SPEAKER_01 20:26

So, Josh, let's summarize it. We love our enemies, we love our neighbor, including the Samaritan and the lousy KKK guy who lives next door. We're to love the rich young ruler. That's what Jesus does.

SPEAKER_00 20:38

Jesus agape loved him. He agape and gave him some strong words. He did exhortation.

SPEAKER_01 20:44

But he loved him. He did. And it could be that guy wasn't elect.

SPEAKER_00 20:48

Right, it's possible he possible the scriptures don't tell us that he repented. He may or may not have.

SPEAKER_01 20:54

And so we're not running around looking for the elect here. We're we're loving the guy in front of us. We're loving the neighbor. We're loving the guy we're witnessing to.

SPEAKER_00 21:01

Because we don't know what God's will for them is. No, no, no. We don't know any desire.

SPEAKER_01 21:05

We we are to love our neighbor. We are to wish forgiveness upon our enemies. We are to love the brother in Christ as Christ loved the church. But are we to love Putin, Obama, or Trump?

SPEAKER_00 21:18

Such that we would pray for them.

SPEAKER_01 21:20

Absolutely. We should pray for them. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 21:22

We don't know what God's will is for them. What will it be their uh conversion for those that those leaders that are not Christians, or will it be the judgment of God? We don't know.

SPEAKER_01 21:31

And and if the Ayatollah is out there doing nasty things, and we we have a name for this person. They're doing terrible things to our brothers and sisters in Christ. And we say, Lord, stop the persecutors. We say stop the persecutor. But would you pray the imprecatory prayer specifically using the name of the Ayatollah?

SPEAKER_00 21:49

Yeah, the scriptures don't give us that. They don't need they don't name names. They do not name names. They don't name names. And one one interesting example, Psalm 83, where there's these different enemies of God. And it's interesting how this imprecatory psalm prays that the judgments of God would drive to conversion. I think this one's really interesting. Yeah, read that one for us. As the flame sets the mountains ablaze, so may you pursue them with your tempest and terrify them with your hurricane, fill their faces with shame, that they may seek your name, O Lord. It's really interesting. Wow, so together, right?

SPEAKER_01 22:27

Yeah, they're there.

SPEAKER_00 22:28

He's actually at that point seeking uh judgment unto mercy. Judgment to mercy, right? The Romans two thing, right? God does it, you know, so you can it almost breaks. Brings it together for us where we can say, Lord, you know, stop the persecutors, destroy them if they won't repent. But we would love to see them seek your face that would bring you even more glory.

SPEAKER_01 22:50

And do remember, as God saves the persecutors, as God saves the son of Sam's, he does it at the expense of the sacrifice of his own son, who took the brunt of that justice and wrath upon himself. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely, absolutely. So, friends, we're to love our enemies, love our neighbor, including the lousy KKK guy next door, the rich young ruler, whoever happens to be in front of us, the brother in Christ. And yes, we are to pray for the civil magistrate and even Nero.

SPEAKER_00 23:19

You gotta pray for Nero. The Nero's out there. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:22

In what it what it was, 80, 65, whenever Paul was writing his letters. Um, so can we can we love these guys, still hate sin, hate the old man, and hate those who hate God in the reprobate sense as a generic category of persons. To which you would say we can do all that?

SPEAKER_00 23:40

Yeah, I think that's what God has called us to, is we bring all these scriptures together. And in God's character, he can be loving, merciful, and kind as well as hating the wicked and being angry with the children. At the same time. At the same time. No, we're not we're not sinless here, but I think the scriptures are calling us to that same kind of character.

SPEAKER_01 23:55

Well, my friends, uh, that's it. And uh what does the Bible say? It turns out not a contradiction. Not a contradiction, but simply to receive all of this and live this out a commitment to God's love and mercy, and a commitment to his justice, his righteousness, his standards. Is it possible? Can a Christian live out his life in this way? I believe so. I believe we can love our enemies and at the same time hate that which is an abomination to God, which is hateful to God Himself. I think we can do both at the same time. Jude has something similar that says, you know, we we we we're we're being merciful at some points, but at some point we're yanking people out of the fire, hating the garments stained by the flesh. So there is this sort of hate and love that comes together in the Christian experience. And it should make perfect sense because this is the nature of God, and as you said, this is the life that we're to live out before him. Well, friends, that wraps up this edition of What Does the Bible Say About That? You've got a question about what the Bible says about this or that, please email us at mail at generations.org. And this is Kevin Swanson as well, Josh Weeso. And we invite you back again next time as we continue to lay down a vision for the next generation. This has been a production of the Generations Media Network. For more information, go to generations.org/slash media.