THE REFORMED WITNESS HOUR"Our Hatred of His Enemies"Rev. Doug Kuiper(e-mail: Rev. Carl
Haak) |
Dear
radio friends,
Please read in the Word of God
Psalm 139:19-22.
This passage requires us to
face some hard questions. Is David sinning as
he writes these words, or is he setting forth some truth which the child of God must
follow in his own life?
Not surprisingly, many say today
that David is sinning. He expressly says he
hates men, whereas Scripture makes clear, we are told, that hatred is wrong, that we must
tolerate others, that we must forgive others, and that we must follow Jesus’ example
of love.
The problem with that is, in the
first place, that David writes by inspiration. God,
by His Spirit, governs David as he writes these words.
In the second place, David writes as though he knows that God will be pleased with
him for manifesting this hatred. He goes on
to say, “Search me, O God, and know my heart: try
me, and know my thoughts: and see if there be
any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” He knows, as he speaks to God of his hatred of
Jehovah’s enemies, that God is pleased with him in this. Thirdly, Scripture tells us that even Jehovah does
hate. Though He is a God of love, that does
not mean that He does not hate. “I loved Jacob,” He says in
Malachi 1:2.
Then, in
verse 3, “I hated Esau.” Any who
might say that hatred of Esau was merely a lesser love than He had for Jacob must reckon
with the words that follow: “And laid
his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness.” Such was the hatred of Jehovah that He destroyed
Esau.
The child of God must,
therefore, understand that there is expressed in these words of David regarding his hatred
of the enemies of Jehovah, a tuth that we must emulate.
Of course, we must understand clearly just what this hatred is and what it is not. We must understand very clearly in what way we may
or do show a hatred that pleases Jehovah and in what way we may not. Our basic explanation of the text is going to be
this: David, in expressing his hatred of
Jehovah’s enemies, shows his love for Jehovah Himself.
Love for Jehovah: this is the keeping
of the law. One must hate not his
enemies, but Jehovah’s enemies. He
shows his hatred not by killing them but by not associating with them. And in stating his hatred of Jehovah’s
enemies, David shows how devoted he is to the cause of God.
As we go through the message
today, we will notice four key points that, when understood properly, will help us know
what it is to hate the enemies of Jehovah.
First, we must ask what was this
hatred? David makes clear that he hated the
enemies of Jehovah. Here is key-point number
one. David is clear on this. He refers in verses 19-21 to “the
wicked,” “ye bloody men,” “them … that hate thee,”
“those that rise up against thee.” David
is not speaking of his hatred of his own personal enemies.
There is the command of Jesus: Love
your enemies. David did that. He loved king Saul who was his enemy and tried to
kill him. He loved a man named Shimei who
cursed him. In both of these David showed his
love by not killing them, or even harming them. David
does not say that he hates his own enemies. He
hates, rather, the enemies of Jehovah. And,
while sometimes these might be one and the same person, we hate such a one not because he
is our enemy, but rather because he is Jehovah’s enemy.
That hatred of David for the
enemies of Jehovah was a genuine, heartfelt hatred. Do
not I hate them, am not I grieved with those that rise up against thee? David expresses in these words his continual
activity of hatred. This is not a one-time
act from which he turns later, but it is a continual activity in his life. That this hatred is genuine and heartfelt is also
clear from the word “perfect.” “I
hate them with perfect hatred.” This
hatred involves the whole man and reaches a certain goal:
the goal of manifesting that hatred by separation.
That leads us to ask, then, how
is this hatred manifested? Key-point number
two today is that this hatred is not manifested by killing or harming these enemies. David’s words here give no justification for
what are called today hate crimes or an attitude of heart that desires the destruction of
any other human being. Whatever is the idea
of hating the enemies of Jehovah, it does not include killing, torturing, or harming those
whom we do not like. The Christian must be
aware of this also. In the news from time to
time, we hear of Christians killing abortionists, or killing homosexuals, as though that
is the way to show their love for God. There
is no justification of that idea in this text, for David does not speak of hating them by
killing or harming them.
It is true that David does speak
of the day of their destruction. “Surely
thou wilt slay the wicked, O God.” David
does believe that the day will come when God will destroy them — not just the earthly
destruction of earthly death, but David has in mind also the eternal, everlasting
destruction of hell. Not everybody likes to
hear that God destroys men in hell. How can a
loving God destroy? The question forgets that
God requires love and faith from men, and He hates those who do not love Him and believe
in Him. So much does He hate the failure to
love and believe in Him that He sent Jesus Christ to bear our punishment, the punishment
of the sins of all the people of God; for if our punishment was not borne, we also would
be destroyed in hell. But those who do not
believe in God and in Jesus Christ, and who will not obey, must be punished. David speaks of that day of their destruction as
something they justly deserve. But in
speaking of that day he makes no mention of hastening that day, that is, he does nothing
to indicate that he will try to bring that day to pass more quickly. He simply looks for the day when God destroys them
Himself. And he speaks of that day as a
certainty.
How then is the hatred of David
manifested? Key-point number three today is
that this hatred is manifested by living the antithesis.
“Depart from me therefore, ye bloody men,” he says in verse 19. What is the antithesis? It is the separation that God has created between
men and men — that is, between those men, on the one hand, who are saved in Jesus
Christ, chosen to salvation from all eternity, given the grace of the Holy Spirit, and one
day brought to heaven, and, on the other hand, those men who do not love Christ, who will
not obey God, who go about life flagrantly defying Him, and who will be brought to hell as
their just destruction. The antithesis is the
separation between those two. And David says
now that he will live that antithesis. “Depart
from me therefore, ye bloody men. I will
have nothing to do with you.”
To say of one person, “I
will not be your friend,” is an aspect of hatred — not the kind of hatred that
is wrong, not the kind of hatred that is going to lead us to kill or to harm. It is simply a fact, and it is often forgotten
today, that one way in which we show hatred is by refusing to be another person’s
friend.
Jesus commands us to love our
enemies. And by that, He means seek their
good. If you see them lying alongside the
road and in need of help, help them. If you
see that harm has come upon them, show mercy to them.
But does Jesus’ command to love our enemies mean that we must be friends with
them, that we must have fellowship with them? That
is not what Jesus means. That becomes clear
from the Word of God in our text. The hatred
of which David speaks is the kind of hatred that separates us from these wicked people. Not that we will live separate geographically. We are in the same world as the ungodly. We work alongside of them. We go to the stores alongside of them. But we are not their friends. We might speak to the ungodly, calling them to
repentance. But we do not join with them in
recreation and fellowship with them. Such is
the antithetical life of the child of God. It
is that that David has in mind when he says, “I hate them, I will have no friendships
with them.”
Understanding then what that
hatred of David for the enemies of Jehovah is, and seeing that it is not the kind of
hatred so many would speak of immediately today, we can ask the question next: Is David justified for this hatred of the enemies
of Jehovah? David does make an attempt to
justify his hatred. He justifies it on the
basis of their wickedness. He says in verse
19 that they are wicked: “Surely thou
wilt slay the wicked, O God.” They are
corrupt. They have committed crimes worthy of
death. Having said that generally, David goes
on to give specific instances of wickedness. He
calls them “bloody men.” Bloody
men, of course, are murderers. This does not
necessarily mean that these men have committed the outward act of murder. Perhaps David has in mind the hatred that they
show in desiring the removal or the murder of another human being. We read in
I John 3:15,
“Whosoever hateth his
brother (and that hatred is not merely the form of separating from one’s fellowship
but desiring one’s destruction) is a murderer; and ye know that no murderer hath
eternal life abiding in him.”
The
hatred of which David speaks
is
the kind of hatred that separates us
from
these wicked people.
Not only are these men bloody,
but they are also blasphemers. They
“speak against thee wickedly, and thine enemies take thy name in vain.” David refers to the kind of men who show their
hatred of God and of Jesus Christ and of Scripture as the revelation of God and of the
church as the people of God by rising up against God Himself. “Am not I grieved with those that rise up
against thee?” These are the kind of
people who spread the lie, who hate the truth of Jesus Christ, and who do everything in
their power to destroy the faith of God’s people.
Because they show their utter
contempt of Jehovah, David says that he is justified in hating them. We can understand that justification when we
realize that David was at war with these enemies of Jehovah because they were at war with
God. They are the enemies, the warriors
against Jehovah. In war there is no
tolerance. In war there is no trying to be
nice to the enemy. You may not do that in war
because it will mean your death. Anyone who
has been in a war must surely understand this. In
war, hatred of one’s enemy is justified. So
David justifies his hatred of the enemies of Jehovah.
This is a matter of his devotion to his God and a matter of his life.
There we have, in the first
place then, the justification of this hatred of the enemies of God. It must be on the basis of this justification that
a child of God who truly loves God is ready to say that, with anyone who is at war with
Jehovah, he will have no fellowship lest, in the process, he be cast out of Jehovah’s
fellowship and friendship. That is how David
also justifies his hatred of the enemies of God. He
justifies it on the basis of the covenant of God. What
is the covenant? It is that bond of
friendship and fellowship which God unconditionally and sovereignly makes with His people. David does not use the word “covenant”
in our text, but he does use the covenantal name of God, the name Jehovah. “Do not I hate them, O Jehovah, that hate
thee?”
The covenant implies love and
fellowship and a desire to be pleasing to God. One
who is in that covenant necessarily hates those who are not. And here we come to key-point number four: Hatred is not always the opposite of love, but
can be a manifestation of love. Let me
explain that. It is certainly true that I
cannot love and hate the same person. That is
not possible. But I can hate one person in my
love for another person. A married man loves
his wife. Because he loves his wife and
delights in covenant fellowship with her, he will have nothing to do with other women. That does not mean that he is going to go out and
kill other women. But there is a sense in
which he hates other women. If another woman
comes to him seeking his love, he tells her, “Depart from me, get away from me,”
just as David says to the ungodly people in our text.
And that kind of attitude toward another woman shows love for the man’s wife. That is David’s justification now for hating
the enemies of God. David is part of the
bride of Jehovah and of Jesus Christ, part of the church.
All who hate his God, he has no fellowship with.
Notice that, having explained
the justification for this hatred, David tells Jehovah of it. “Do not I hate them, O Lord, that hate thee? And am not I grieved with
those that rise up against thee?” The
questions are rhetorical — that is, David does not expect an answer. He is not asking because he does not know the
answer. Rather, he asks them to make a
point. The point is, “Indeed, I hate
them, O Lord. Indeed, I am grieved with those
that rise up against Thee.” He expresses
that point in verse 22, “I hate them with perfect hatred: I count them mine enemies.”
Why does David take the trouble
to tell Jehovah this? The answer is, to show
how great his love for God is. He does not
speak hypocritically when he speaks to God of the enemies of Jehovah, for he knows this truth about Him, namely, that Jehovah knows all things, as
Psalm 139
has taught us
repeatedly. Because Jehovah knows all things,
He knows David’s heart. “Do not I
hate them, O Lord, that hate thee? And am
not I grieved with those that rise up against thee? Thou
Lord knowest. And Thou dost know that this
is the evidence of my love for Thee.”
Hatred
is not always the opposite of love,
but
can be a manifestation of love.
It is important, then, that the
child of God follow David’s example. In
our love for Jehovah God, we must have no fellowship, no friendship, with those who hate
Jehovah. We may desire their repentance and
their salvation. But we may not act as though
they and we are alike. There is something
fundamentally different about us — so different that it must of necessity affect our
outlook on life, the things we do, the people with whom we associate. That difference is:
one hates Jehovah the only true God; the other loves Him.
Do you tell Jehovah in prayer that you love Him? Then do you ever try to demonstrate to Him in prayer how great and how sincere your love for Him is? The way that David demonstrates that love and that sincerity we are to follow — by keeping ourselves from those who hate and oppose Jehovah God and His cause. Amen.
Last modified: 10-Sep-2003